For the new guys, I am going to send a couple of messages I saved from the leader of my

alliance on the Kappa server...these are good info to use as a basis...I will send over a series of 2
or 3 messages so forgive the "spamming"...I save good adise onto a Microsoft Word doc for
future reference and would recommend the same to you guys that are new to the game...I have
700k total score on my Kappa account so I "kinda" know what I'm talking about...the numbers
below are not as important as the ratio, so if you are a smaller player, try to keep the ratio the
same, just smaller in numbers....
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remember build your armies in the proper ratio

140 SG's or 420 hoplites

147 SC's
120 gyros
60 bombs
800 swords
25-30 cooks to a max of 100
10-20 docs double if your building hoplites instead of SG's
18 rams to distract the bombs

Now if you look at it the SG's , SC"s and gyros are always close to the same number bombs are
about 1/2 to 2/3 of the same and Swords are 3 to 5 times more than the rest.

Without sword to cover your flanks your dead

Without SG's or Hoplites to cover the front line your dead
these two go hand in hand

You lose 60 swords per round and 7-13 Sg's per round or 60-100 Hoplites per round

So you can see why you need 5-6 x more swords as you will lose that many more than SG's. 200-
300 SG's can last a long time if they have swords to cover their flanks and gyros to protect them
from bombs

Gyros and bombs are nice to have, but the lack of them will not turn the tide of war as fast as the
above two will.

Rams are cheap to build and a way to keep the bombs busy and away from attacking your front
line if you have no gyros
Here's version two of "how to build your armies"
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First to go should be any Hoplites, archers, slingers and any spearmen that are not being sent out
as UN Observers (Units Stationed in a Allies town)

If you have a lot of hoplites start by building 20-30 Steam Giants once you start the Que you can
then dismiss 40-60 hoplites as it eats up 2 pop per SG and you get back 1 pop per hop. (hehe I
like how that sounds.) this way your gold doesn't drop until the units are all built. (repeat until all
the hops are gone)

Archers actually cost more than Sulphur carabeineers in gold and takes more than 4 times them
to fill the back line. With SC's you get way more bang for the buck. They both cost 1 pop so
build 20-40 Sc's and dismiss the same amount in archers.

Slingers well there is nothing good to say about them.

As for cooks 60 - 100 cooks is all you need 100 cooks will keep any armies morale at 100% 60
cooks will keep any army at 2000 units or less at 100% so there is no need for 200 - 500 cooks
they are just eating up gold that can be used more wisely for the lean and mean units. Plus cooks
don't die in battle any more so once you have your 100 cooks no need to replace them.

Doctors not sure about them so I personally keep around 50% of them compared to my cooks so
100 cooks I have 50 docs.

This should be your army in each town

70 SG's
49 SC's
120 swords
30 gyros
15 bombs

Now this is just the min.

Now for you Offensive/Defencive army

you are going to want to have reserves

SC's will last the longest if you have the swords to protect them. They will not lose anything per
round but will run out of ammo so fresh units will be needed to replace them every 3 rounds.

SG's will lose around 14 units per round

Gyros will lose 10-15 per round

Bombs will lose 7-10 per round

Mortars will lose around 6 per round

and swords will lose 60 per round

So if we take that over 9 rounds this is probably what you will need to last.

147 SC's
126 SG's
90-135 gyros
63 bombs
42 mortars
540 swords

Now this is just a rough estimate and should only be used as a guide on what units to build and
how many. Also if for any reason you do not have the above numbers. ex you have no bombs
then you will lose more gyros per round and if you run out of swords your SC's will drop like
flies. So this info is only accurate if you have all of the units mentioned and close to the numbers
mentioned.

As you can see the swords should be the biggest part of your army by at least 4 to 5 times any
other unit

Sc's and SG's should be around the same amount along with Gyros and bombs following just
behind. while mortars should be around 1/2 to 1/3 third the avg of the other units.

Here is some more info pertaining to war...especially for the small players. Again, I recommend
you save this to a Word document and read at your leisure. If you have any questions about
building your military please PM me and we can discuss. If you are a real small player, I highly
recommend you build your economy first, then focus on military once you can afford to sustain
it. Remember, when you have troops deployed they cost 2x gold so you need to build up your
gold...
Starting Sunday I will be offline for about three weeks for work commitments but look forward
to assisting the alliance in anyway possible upon my return...(this is a game, have fun.)
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Noobs guide to defence during war.

Okay your a small player and new to Ikariam and you

find yourself in a war.

Here are your options:

Go on vacation until war is over or Turtle into one

colony and shut down production in the others.

You can go into Vacation mode any time you want by going to options and then selecting
Vacation mode. Just remember you account goes to sleep nothing happens while in Vacation
mode. Plus once selected you have to wait 48 hrs before you can come out of it. Only use as a
last resort.

Now the fun way is turtle mode. What this entails is moving all your army to one island. Your
wine island is a good choice or your sulfur island is another. Shut down production in all other
islands. Now if your not planning on doing much fighting and just want to survive the war then
turtling into your wine island is a good spot. Because from here you can protect your wine and
ship out just enough to the other colonies to keep them happy. Try to keep shipments just under
your warehouse protection level or as close as possible. This all depends on how often you can
log in. A tavern at 150 wine per hour needs 3600 wine a day. So twice a day you can send 1800
to each colony. that would be avg wine use for a person with a level 20 townhall and a level 20
warehouse with protection at 1700 also no wine cellar to lower the wine use and with Museums.
(Not everyone has the same levels of Museums and wine cellars so numbers are just approx)

Also remember shut down your other colonies production and you can use the gold you make to
buy more trade ships. This way you are still growing and actually benefit from the war.

Now if you want to be aggressive and can spend more time online then you can turtle into your
sulphur colony. This way you can build up your army and also protect your resources. You still
want to shut down all other production except for wine which should be set to what you need to
keep all colonies happy with a little bit extra. And you will need to be shipping your wine
frequently to the sulfur colony and the other colonies to keep it safe. The same rule as above only
ship enough wine to keep the town happy until you can get online to ship again. So know your
warehouse protection levels.

So with all your marble and crystal islands shut down and wine islands wood and wine lowered
to bare minimum you are going to have lots of extra money. So this means you can now build a
bigger army.

Okay now you are turtled into your sulfur or even wine island what kind of military do you need.

Well first you want to make sure you have Sulphur Carabineers (SC's) these units sit in the
second row and fire over your wall at the attacking force. They do way more damage than
archers. Plus you only need 49 of them to fill the back row compared to 210 archers. Also having
30 gyros to protect you against Bombardier's and also 15 Bombardiers (Bombs) to take out there
Mortars. And some cooks and doc are nice too, basically a 2:1 mix 2 cooks for every doc. (60
cooks 30 docs)

The above will give you at least 3 to 4 rounds before your walls fall and your front-line and
flanks become involved.

Now if you can build Steam Giants (SG's) then build them and skip over Hoplites (Phalanx's) as
SG's will slaughter Hop's. And remember always have at least 70 SG's to keep the front line full.
each of the 7 spots will hold 10 SG's so having a few extra is needed to keep the front-line full. If
your front-line is not full other units will fill in the spots and become cannon fodder. The only
units that do not fill the front-line are Air and artillery units.

Now after SG's come Swordsmen (spearmen are the cheaper flank unit), probably the most
important units in a battle. These units take up your flank and if you can take out the enemies
flanks you will do some serious damage to to your enemies units.

Basically how all of this works is for the first 3 rounds your SC's, gyros, bombs and artillery
units (Mortars, Cats, Rams) hide behind the wall firing at the attacking enemy. Now once the
wall falls your SG's will take over the walls place in the front-line, and this is when your
swordsmen take up their position on your flanks. 120 is needed to fill up the flank spots, but you
want to make sure you have way more. If they are fighting other swordsmen both sides will lose
50% per round. So the more the better, because if you can take out all of his flanking units, your
swordsmen will start attacking his SC's and artillery doing some serious damage to them. The
same if his take out your flanks. So having over 360 swordsmen will guarantee your flanks will
last long enough for help to get there or for his army to run away. Most battles don't seem to last
more than 8 rounds before morale kicks in and units start running away.

So a decent army to protect your turtling town would be:

79 SC's (30 extra for the full 8 rounds of replacements)
60 gyros (to take out other gyros and bombs)
30 bombs (you will lose half per round against gyros, but at the same time kill half of the
attackers mortars which could make your walls last 4 rounds)
36 mortars just to do splash damage to SC's
100 SG's 30 extra to last 5 rounds (3 rounds handled by the wall)
360 swordsmen you lose 50% per round so 120+(4x60) will last 8 rounds.

Now unless the attacker has sent in a large army in many waves they will run around the 8th
round or hopefully your allies will have had time to send you help. 20 min per round x 8 plus
initial sending 15 min = 2hrs and 55 min in which others have time to send you help.