Anvil Building 101
Professor: jesus_saves
Semester: Fall 08

Lecture 1: The Anvil and Me

Having myriad well-developed anvils is an essential part of any alliance. The more active our defensive players are, the stronger our alliance will be. We have gotten to the point where balance, or being a “mixed bag” is not really the most efficient way to play. Those of us who do not have 15c capitols (or 9c capitols with great wheat bonuses) should be developing their anvil.

Most of you who have anvils do not draw much attention from enemy alliances because, well you just haven’t been attacking them as much. That is ok. We will change that too. You must embrace your anvil and let it wander too and fro to help neighbours under attack. The purpose of defensive troops is to kill offensive troops obviously. There should be little sim-city playing while defensive, constant building of troops is essential as long as any alliance mates are under attack.


Lecture 2: Constructing the Anvil

There are numerous things to consider when building your anvil: defense per wheat, speed, and balance. I will address each race in turn to help you find your ideal defensive balance.

*I will assume and use numbers that reflect lvl 20 armoury upgrades to defensive troops

Romans:

You only have one true defender, the mighty praetorian. The praetorian’s defense per wheat is an outstanding 87 infantry / 47 cavalry. He is the true champion of champions. All roman anvils should be training praetorians 24/7 out of at least one level 20 barracks.

Most hammers are infantry heavy for several reasons: infantry is often cheaper and faster to produce; most people who grow hammers outside their capitols only use the Great Barracks and not the Great Stable; assuming there is a wheat balance between infantry and cavalry, infantry are stronger per wheat; and finally, rams add to the infantry attack of a hammer.

That said, most well-balanced hammers are 57-64% infantry by attack, and 36-43% cavalry. Notice that praetorians defend at 65% infantry 35% cavalry, almost a perfect balance already by just having praetorians. Most Roman anvils make up for this small percentage by asking a Teuton friend to make some spearmen for them . . . or you could just make a few legionnaires, from another city, it’s up to you, there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Praetorians are slow (5 fields per hour) so if you want them to get anywhere to help, make sure you have a decent Tournament Square in that village.

Do not use Equites Caesaris to defend! Even when fully upgraded in the armoury, they only defend (per wheat) with 27 infantry / 35 cavalry. Legionnaires are over 75% stronger when defending.

FINAL ROMAN THOUGHTS: upgrade praetorians and make as many as possible.


Gauls:

You have two real defenders and one quasi defender. The two real defenders are the phalanx and the druidrider. The quasi-defender is the haeduan.

Phalanx defend: 54 infantry / 67 cavalry.
Druidriders defend: 77 infantry / 37 cavalry.

Building 1:1 wheat (2 Phalanx : 1 Druidrider) yields a 55% infantry / 45% cavalry defense.

Haeduans defend: 22 infantry / 74 cavalry. That cavalry defense may seem good, but when you look at how awful the infantry defense is (less than half that of Phalanx) it is easy to write these guys off. They are heavy cavalry attackers, and unless you know that somebody is only attacking with cavalry, I would not defend with them.

FINAL GAUL THOUGHTS: a 1:1 wheat balance is great for personal defense, though due to the speed of Druidriders, you might want to build a higher percentage of them, as they would be seeing more combat / taking casualties.


Teutons:

You have the best cavalry defenders in the game . . . too bad most hammers are infantry heavy . . . no worries, Paladins can pick up the Spearmen’s slack.

Spearmen defend: 47 infantry / 80 cavalry.
Paladins defend: 67 infantry / 27 cavalry.

If you build a 1:1 wheat of these two you will end up with 51.5% infantry defense. This is not ideal. So, you must train more Paladins (per wheat) than you do Spearmen. Another reason to build more Paladins vs. Spearmen is that Paladins will be deployed more often as reinforcements. They will obviously take higher casualties because they are in more conflicts.

Let us not forget about the Teuton Scout. This is quite possibly one of the best units in the entire game. ALL Teuton anvils should make sure they upgrade their Scouts in the armoury too, even if they are not mass-producing them. I would make them while you are letting your Paladin ratio catch up to your Spearman ratio.

FINAL TEUTON THOUGHTS: ok, straightforward, build Paladins and Spearmen. When your wheat is 1:1, stop building Spearmen and build Scouts for a while until Paladins are greater than the 1:1 wheat, then after a while just resume building Spearmen out of your Barracks.


Lecture 3: Would you like some Hero with your Anvil?

Defensive Heroes are quite amazing. EVERYBODY will have a defensive Hero by End-game. If you are making your anvil, it would be helpful to have a nice Defense% bonus on that guy/gal. That is one of the most important things to think about with your Hero. I like to put 5 points of raw defense, 15 points of regeneration (75% per day) and the rest on Defense% bonus. That is what really matters.

For each point (X) you put on your Hero’s raw defense, it is more or less like having 2X of those units. Ex. a Druidrider Hero with 5 points of raw defense = 735/395 ~ 10 Lvl 20 Druidriders.

Assuming you applied those same 5 points on Defense% bonus, you would only have 1.0%, but if you have over 1,000 Druidriders, the bonus is the same or better (not to mention that the bonus acts on other troops like Phalanx).

A good way to level up your Defensive Hero is to use your raiding / escort force to kill nature troops in oases. Along with gaining experience when you reinforce, the gradual kills from nature will keep your hero growing even when you do not see much action.


Lecture 4: End-game Anvil Preparation

There are a few things to think about when it comes to developing your anvil for end-game. Everybody will be sending their defensive units off to the Wonder(s) so the real question is: What unit(s) should I be training, from what villages, and which Wonder should I send them?

You should have at least one village set up that has a Hero’s Mansion, a Barracks, and a Great Barracks (and of course Armoury with completely upgraded defensive troop). By End-game you all should have a dozen or two feeder villages and enough resources to easily build defensive troops out of both a Barracks and Great Barracks 24/7 until the end of the server.

Romans: Build Praetorians in B/GB
Gauls: Build Phalanx in B/GB
Teutons: Build Spears in B/GB*

Each race’s best defenders are the single wheat units. Just pump those out 2x as fast in the village with all the above mentioned buildings. Any other villages you are able to produce Armoury upgraded troops in, you should be doing that also. The reasoning behind the 2x production from one village is that you should reinforce with your hero from that village. The troops made in the village where you deployed your hero from will receive the Defense% bonus. So, if you can produce troops out of that village 2x as fast as other villages, that will help out a lot with the overall defensive effort because all those troops will receive the 20% Hero bonus.

*Teutons should try to 24/7 train Scouts in one village also, to replace the ones lost during Natar attacks.


Lecture 5: You mean this isn’t over yet?

In my opinion, every anvil should also have a small support army. 3,600 wheat is a minimum as far as a support army goes. I would break it down:

300 catapults
900 infantry
300 cavalry (225 if ECs)

That way you can still help out with coordinated attacks even if you are an anvil.