The Watchfire Controversy

[DeletedUser27023]

I've been playing FoE for only about a year now and I've always kept Watchfires a priority in my city. I honestly don't know if they are much of a deterrent or not. I'm also no longer convinced that they are worth the space they take up. For the sake of argument, I want to also include the Ritual Flame since they are so similar.

So here is my thing. I have 21 Watchfires and a Ritual Flame in my city but also have more Watchfires and Ritual Flames in my storage. Even though PE allows more space than previous ages, I'm seriously questioning if these really prevent that much loss. In the year I've been playing, I've been attacked probably less than 10 times. I really don't know how much I attribute this to Watchfires. I feel as though if people are PVP inclined, they will likely attack regardless of defense. I don't normally attack in my city unless I have a quest or something so I may not be the best judge here. I would really like to here from players whether these are worth the space. I can also no longer accept the argument that without Watchfires, there would be empty spaces all over my city. With some practice using the city planner available online, I can keep single squares to a minimum. What eats at me is when adding all of these together, what else could I be producing with that space instead? Lastly, I noticed that over the past couple of months when I have been attacked, due to timely collecting, I left nothing for them to plunder anyway.

I haven't even discussed Dresden, SBC and Deal Castle. I ended up removing Dresden and SBC because I felt the space was better served elsewhere. Fortunately I never put up Deal Castle. I suppose there could be some nightmare scenario where you landed in a neighborhood of all PVP players but I just haven't experienced this. FoE seems much more like a building game than a PVP game. I have read that Inno encourages PVP but I just don't see it. Opinions?

 

[DeletedUser26154]

I honestly don't know if they are much of a deterrent or not.

Opinions?

Get Watchfires.



They work.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

I've been playing FoE for only about a year now and I've always kept Watchfires a priority in my city. I honestly don't know if they are much of a deterrent or not. I'm also no longer convinced that they are worth the space they take up. For the sake of argument, I want to also include the Ritual Flame since they are so similar.

So here is my thing. I have 21 Watchfires and a Ritual Flame in my city but also have more Watchfires and Ritual Flames in my storage. Even though PE allows more space than previous ages, I'm seriously questioning if these really prevent that much loss. In the year I've been playing, I've been attacked probably less than 10 times. I really don't know how much I attribute this to Watchfires. I feel as though if people are PVP inclined, they will likely attack regardless of defense. I don't normally attack in my city unless I have a quest or something so I may not be the best judge here. I would really like to here from players whether these are worth the space. I can also no longer accept the argument that without Watchfires, there would be empty spaces all over my city. With some practice using the city planner available online, I can keep single squares to a minimum. What eats at me is when adding all of these together, what else could I be producing with that space instead? Lastly, I noticed that over the past couple of months when I have been attacked, due to timely collecting, I left nothing for them to plunder anyway.

I haven't even discussed Dresden, SBC and Deal Castle. I ended up removing Dresden and SBC because I felt the space was better served elsewhere. Fortunately I never put up Deal Castle. I suppose there could be some nightmare scenario where you landed in a neighborhood of all PVP players but I just haven't experienced this. FoE seems much more like a building game than a PVP game. I have read that Inno encourages PVP but I just don't see it. Opinions?

Generally speaking as you move up in ages it takes more and more watchfires to be any kind of deterrent. Good attackers can break defense boosts of 200% or more (sometimes a lot more) in some of the advanced ages. It will depend on quite a few factors but mostly that defense alone doesn't do enough with the horrible defense that the A.I. gives your city. So if you go with watchfires you generally have to go big or not bother. From most of the people I've spoken with that do the watchfires route they usually go with the defense GBs as well since it will give you a bit more attack when you are defending your City.

Ultimately whether they are worth it depends on how you've designed your city and how often you can collect on time and of course what hood you end up in. If you aren't being attacked that much then adding watchfires probably isn't worth it. But like most things in foe it's going to depend on your outlook and your actual circumstances.

 

[DeletedUser24787]

i do agree with ardak however defense can be whittled down by a opponent as wolf stated with a good attack bonus if your defense troops have no bite to them all they are doing is taking extra hits before they fold over


i am in Progressive and my defense is still being improved every chance i get although i do defend with PME troops
plan is to level basil and deal high enough so that the defense troops pose a greater threat with attack bonus

some players do not bother with any sort of city defense buildings since they either collect on time with alerts or they have city shields running you have options on how to run and build your city there is no one way not every player in a hood is a aggressive "outlaw" but if you are targeted and get taken you have no one to blame but yourself.
Sloppyjoe has a very good thread he made the other day i would suggest you review what he put if plunder becomes a issue in the future
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...-and-plundered-and-what-to-do-about-it.17132/

in the end you choose if you want to dedicate space for defense or to build other stuff every city is different

#NotLeavingProgressive

 

[DeletedUser26154]

i am in Progressive and my defense is still being improved every chance i get although i do defend with PME troops

I was able to score PME troops while I was in Progressive Era too.
G.E. was so easy.
I wish I never left Progressive Era.

The Decos were great.

 

[DeletedUser27023]

I completely get that defense is a personal choice. There are obviously variables at play that will prevent us from foretelling any particular player's future circumstances based on their decision to opt in/out of a city defense. Are there any players still around from the game's beginning in 2011? I ask because it seems to me that people that have been playing a long time could really provide some insight into whether mounting a meaningful defense was worth the space they gave up. Likewise it would be great to hear from players that chose to use little to no defense and how that turned out for them long term. Does anyone in retrospect wish they had done it differently or maybe you had to change your decision later? I'm just wondering if a 4-5 year window of time could provide a broad enough sampling that one could arrive at a consensus one way or the other. Possible? I do no know.

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't regret using the watch fires at the time. The game changed, I can easily buy a city shield every 3 days now. It free'd up a lot of space as I had over 100 watch fires. So I spend my new space on more meaningful buildings.

 

[DeletedUser27023]

I don't regret using the watch fires at the time. The game changed, I can easily buy a city shield every 3 days now. It free'd up a lot of space as I had over 100 watch fires. So I spend my new space on more meaningful buildings.

Are you using other defensive buildings in addition to the city shield? I'm going to guess yes because I would think that the city shield alone probably wouldn't be worth the effort but I was just curious.

 

[DeletedUser25166]

I have watchfires, I think it is more psychological at this point. Deleted Dresden? Happy and Goods?
Most higher age players have GB's giving everything so nothing really to plunder, but still see a lot of watchfires

 

[DeletedUser26965]

what else could I be producing with that space instead?

That's the question everyone asks themselves when building anything really, not just watchfires etc. No one can really give you an answer because it all depends on your playstyle, what you want out of the game and such and so at the end of the day do want you want with your city because what one guy may consider worth doing may not be considered by the other guy to be worth doing. I think it's worth mentioning but a good thing about this game is the ability to play on multiple worlds where you can mess around and see what you like.

 

[DeletedUser]

Are you using other defensive buildings in addition to the city shield? I'm going to guess yes because I would think that the city shield alone probably wouldn't be worth the effort but I was just curious.

I don't use anything now but the shield. Anything else would be a waste of space. What's the effort? Collect Tavern silver...is there a better use for it?

 

[DeletedUser26154]

I would think that the city shield alone probably wouldn't be worth the effort but I was just curious.

City Shield protects your city from all attacks.
If your city gets plundered a lot and can afford to use the City Shield, use it.

 

[Mustapha00]

In my opinion, I think that many players, when looking at a city with a whole bunch of Watchfires, will decide that they would prefer to attack other cities without them first (and probably exclusively). Maybe you can beat the Watchfire defense city, but the effort (and the potential loss) might make them decide to look elsewhere for easier targets.

Another factor to consider is that, if Inno truly has fixed the issue wherein players of wildly disparate Ages shared the same neighborhoods (and, on four of the five servers on which I play, this seems to be the case), then you're probably going to be more often going up against players of your Age perhaps plus one or minus one Age, meaning that a defense that was meaningless when the other player was five Ages ahead of you might actually mean something now. I've got to think that, given their size and maybe their newfound import, there are probably things other than Watchfires which you should consider deleting first.

 

[DeletedUser26154]

In my opinion, I think that many players, when looking at a city with a whole bunch of Watchfires, will decide that they would prefer to attack other cities without them first (and probably exclusively).

10,000% right.

the issue wherein players of wildly disparate Ages

In theory, everyone in your neighborhood can attack your city now.

I've got to think that, given their size and maybe their newfound import, there are probably things other than Watchfires which you should consider deleting first.

He's right again.
Never listen to anyone who tells you to delete your defenses.

 

[DeletedUser13838]

I don't agree. At some point defense boost doesn't matter much if your defenders have no attack boost.

 

[DeletedUser]

The whole point is deterrence. As Mustapha00 said, and ardak agreed with, given a bunch of easy targets and one with lots of defense boost, most players are going to skip the one with the defense boost. And since the neighborhoods look to be relatively equal in era now, the losses inflicted by a highly defense-boosted city are rarely worth what little you might plunder from them. I know on the one world where I attack/plunder my hood, I generally surrender immediately if I see that the defense boost is over 200%. And on the worlds where I have a high defense boost, I am rarely successfully attacked.

 

[DeletedUser26120]

I actually agree with this guy. I have been thinking the same thing - with the infrequency of attacks and the fact I rarely leave anything for plunder, they are just not worth it.

Will redesign my city soon and put that 20x20 space to better use instead of doubling it for a reasonable amount of def. That's what you really need, about 40x40 to even begin to deter people.

 

[Lucifer1904]

City Shield protects your city from all attacks.
If your city gets plundered a lot and can afford to use the City Shield, use it.

I have over 30,000 in tavern silver so i could afford it but i am well defended, have hood allies, ranked in top 10. So not many people attack me.

 

[DeletedUser26120]

I just beat someone with 244% defense without losing a single man (cos of hide in forest ability mostly).

How useful were his watchfires/flames then? : )

Massive waste of space I say.

 

[Lucifer1904]

Watchfires are only good for defense. You need defense and offense to better defend.