Page 5: Self Defense

ANTI FARMING

Getting farmed constantly?  Make yourself less accessible.  Don't let your warehouses sit full overnight beyond the capacity of your cranny.  Make it not worth their while.  If it's too late and an attack is underway, train some troops to use up your resources fast. 

WAR TACTICS

A good strategy is not to go into World Chat and talk about where you live. This tips off enemies as to when you sleep, so they know when you're vulnerable.  Sometimes you can learn some good knowledge just from listening. Turn on WC and watch and listen if you're not doing anything else. But don't sit around staring at chat and forget about an attack you have pending!  (Which you won't if you use that timer as advised in previous lesson! ;-)

UNDER ATTACK?If you're getting attacked, your alliance can sometimes help you but they need to know right away. If you keep getting farmed repeatedly by a certain person, for example.  Look under Actions to find the location they're attacking from.  Look at how much army they're bringing. And come to Alliance Chat to tell what is going on!

TRAINING TROOPS

It is of utmost importance that you get the troops out of your city ASAP whenever they are finished being created in your barracks, or when you call them back from taking an oasis, or attacking a person or a fort.

Tip: Set the timer in your clock app on your iPhone/iPad for when they're done so you can go hunt them promptly. NEVER train troops or start an attack without setting the timer. Don't assume you will just remember, because we all know it happens, you get busy with things and miss it sometimes, and the action ends in disaster because you didn't command your army -- or someone finds your army out and kills the freshly made troops. If you do it's ok, we've all done it, but this is a great way you can try to prevent it! :)

TRAPS OR TURRETS?

Lvl 1-8 turrets will be wiped out by cats, but lvl 9-10 will kill cats. 
It's best to spend your time and money on upgrading turrets but if you have upgraded both tech and trap techs at least a few times, you could make traps on your wall at least until you get big enough turrets skill to use those. 
Users that primarily focus on traps would benefit most from using Convince skill but most people wouldn't want to waste their skill points for this. It's useful for PVP defenders or alt accounts.

SUBS

Suggestion - Don't store your main army at your main town.  When people scout you by name, they are first going to see and scout your main.  So troops brought out of hunt are too easy to spot when they're at your main.  Or if your subs are very close to the main.

The most important thing with subs is to place them away from your main. Second most important, max your scout tech. If people can’t see your crop level, it is harder for them to starve you. And they will be less likely to farm you.

If you move your towns, place them in the middle of a cluster where there aren't any empty squares around them. This makes it harder for someone to warp you, giving you extra time against surprise attacks.

Your other cities might then all be at least a few minutes away from each other, and preferably beside some nice high level forts you can farm. Use 5 cities for building troops. Placing those cities beside forts will save you much time in getting full resources for all cities. That way you can keep the cities constantly building cats and cavs.  Use another town for attacking. That town can be warped around if needed. 

WAR REFUSE

It can save your army if you'll be on vacation and are worried about attacks. It costs 20 coins for 12 hours of peacetime, and 50 coins for 5 days. You can neither attack nor be attacked.

It can also save you if you're under attack, such as subs being stolen, and you need to regroup.