for speed 3 its triple those numbers and spells cost the same, but either way by the time my towns have only 60 free pop im sure to be firing them off so that extra pop isnt all its cracked up to be either....apart from def towns i suppose but i change up so often it doesnt matter either
but cats are really great in land offensive cities... put them on some ships and sail into a clear harbor and they can really soften up the city for the other land troops.... just never send them overland... oye vey
Well this will seem to be an incredibly slow reply, but I noticed this when doing a browse through the externals for land defence builds, decided to add my two cents by necroing a not-so-old thread.
Pyth, mah boi, you couldn't be more wrong.
990 Swordsmen + 310 Archers + 700 Hoplites = 2k land defence, with the following values:
Blunt: 28,320
Sharp: 24,070
Ranged: 38,320 Total: 90,710
Defence per farm space: 45.355
This is more balanced, and will stop nearly as many numbers in blunt and sharp as it will ranged.... well slightly more the latter, but not by a wide margin.
the best defence ratio i've come across was aurave's mix of 70 / 27 / 63
swords/archers/hops (and 10 fast trans with bunks to carry them), which comes in at about 44.6 def per capita. also not perfect, but a bit better
Not really, using simultaneous equations to figure out this is like opening a can of soft drink with an anti-tank rifle, sometimes you're using more than what is necessary, but your ratio is good and I have much respect for Aurave, he was a very impressive Epsilon player back in the day, but I digress.
I have easily stuffed around in excel and come up with defensive ratios better than what is listed here, I don't care to divvy out much information, but I can get past 46 D/FS without losing 'balance', although even I have hit some walls on this above a certain point, that is unless you want to bring in myth units, but that is an entirely different ballpark.
464 population so will need 26 fast trans to carry them all (the 60 pop worth of pegusi can fly) and works out to around 53.9 defence per capita. there are 12 empty spaces on the last transport, so you can add a few other units, or leave off 4 swords and use 25 fast trans.
but, as saska says, i wouldn't go for that myself.
Good ol' Pyth, doing everything the hard way and not the smart way.
Without turning this into a urinating contest, that is a decent ratio, but as you would say yourself, it is not a great ratio. I have a 'balanced' wall using Pegasi and Centaurs that is over 55 D/FS, but to your credit, it is on a similar mind-track to your ratio of swords and myth units only, I don't bother adding in Chariots, Hoplites, or Archers. For the ratio used and being reproduced on a grand scale, especially considering the amount of favor you will chug through, efficiency is king in these arguments.
1/1/2 is balanced, however 2/1/1 is distance heavy Pyth not sharp heavy
Also it should not be noted that to support another city they have to be same god, another reason I would avoid using myth units as defence where possible.
1 sword, 1 archer, and 2 hoplites is numerically very symmetrical, but not balanced when it actually comes to fighting in game, unless you're maybe facing a sharp nuke. The defensive ratio of this would be 56 blunt, 57 sharp, and 56 ranged for the four units, multiplied by 500, you would get 84,500 total defense, which is very low considering the context, and if you divide by 2,000, you get 42.25 defence per farm space. Hmm....
A slinger nuke would plough through this like a hot knife through butter, even with militia popped, which would add even more to sharp defense but less to ranged defense, which would be incredibly unbalanced.
As for using myth units, this wouldn't be difficult if your team mates are active, are willing to change the god of the city they worship, and if you stack other forms of land defence in to lower the chance of losing your myth units, but still having them there to up your statistical average for defence. As you get bigger, building myth walls starts to become immensely easier, and I tend to believe that if a player is patient enough to build a manticore nuke, they can build a myth wall as well.
it's easy to raise the total defence per capita by adding more swords, but you can't raise it without losing some balance (unless you're david blaine, maybe). if you take your ratio which gives you over 46 and check out the ratios of the totals i'm pretty confident they'll be departing somewhat more from the ~100:79.71:69.57 balance than a mix like auraves one would. if not then TELL ME WHAT IT IS!
i think at the end of it all we just have different opinions on what this magical word 'balance' actually is.
it's easy to raise the total defence per capita by adding more swords, but you can't raise it without losing some balance (unless you're david blaine, maybe). if you take your ratio which gives you over 46 and check out the ratios of the totals i'm pretty confident they'll be departing somewhat more from the ~100:79.71:69.57 balance than a mix like auraves one would. if not then TELL ME WHAT IT IS!
i think at the end of it all we just have different opinions on what this magical word 'balance' actually is.
Agreed on there being a difference of definition. I base mine on a basic or minimum number of offensive units per attack type to breach said wall, which is really where the efficiency argument starts off for me, and I find that having completely even levels of what can breach, which still would yield a differing result each time, tends to veer towards the impossible without having to sacrifice defence per farm space.
No matter what build you use, I find having a slight bias towards ranged is always necessary even for a balanced build, namely since you will be trying to lower the probability of losing city wall levels against catapults, and most 'mixed attacks' usually having a higher number of slingers, and keeping your kill ratio as high as possible. Without the wall, your land defence will get crunched far too easily.
That and I find if you have less sharp and more ranged, you can balance this out by popping militia, which balances out the missing parts.
i think something we'll agree on is that in conquest worlds (which are WAY better, btw), land defence is overrated anyway, it's just for killing flying nukes and whatever troops a guy's alliance has on the island you're conquering onto
