Raid proofing 101

This is to help people for the 1st few weeks of gameplay. However, I find lots of people that haven't done this and are easy raid targets. This is to help minimize the likelyhood that you will be raided.

1. Think economy not battle, a weak economy = a weak army. You want to think like the game Civilization. Build your city before you go to war. The more resources you have coming in, the more powerful you can become.

2. Think defense for the 1st several weeks. People have armies of over 100k, don't be a target by having lots of resources and minimal defenses. Make it expensive to attack your city. I.E. If they loose $$ and massive troops attacking you they will go to someone that is going to give them more resources for the expense of their lost troops. Never build your 2nd city till you are maxed on the defenses of your 1st city, or you will loose it one night after you log off! I do not build my "keeper" cities. I capture other people's cities who expanded without adequate defenses, as it saves lots of time for me. People frequently loose their best city because it was not adequately defended when they expanded.

3. ALWAYS be POLITE. Diplomacy works! However, if you run your mouth ... the guy your being an idiot to may have friends, or may refuse to stop chain attacking you.

4. Low lvl resources produce more than high lvl as far as cost of building. Build 5 lvl 3 mills not 1 lvl 9.

5a. Fill all available city lots, maximize the free build time before you start upgrading beyond lvl 3-4. Have all lvl 3 before you start going up to 4, then all lvl 4. Also build about 15 lvl 2 then lvl 3 then lvl 4 cottages, this will greatly aid your research efforts with massive gold income. As you need the space you can deconstruct some of them 1 lvl at a time and get your resources back. I recommend building only 1 of each city resource, then as your town hall increases add only lumber. Yes thats right! only 1 resource per city. If you specialize each city's production you can easily get over a million in resources per hour per city. Yes thats right. If you build all 4 resources in each city its tough to get 500k/hour. A good politics hero with only 1 type of valley will cause you to have a massive income for that city. I have been knocked to almost 0 troops many times ...mainly cause of Evony bugs...Only to bounce back in a few days because of massive production of troops being backlogged for over a week in my barracks.

5b.The market is also a way to boost your resources in time of need, well 30 min later when they arrive. Specialization takes work and you will need to play more often when you have larger armies. The work is to shuttle the resources between cities. However, if you are rich enough just buy what you need. I produce only lumber and iron as they are far more expensive than stone and food. But the markets change. Learn your market norms! Notice what each price is normally. Weekends the price normally drops because people that cant play during the week sell their excess on friday and saturday. Do your homework and you can even get rich off the market. Buy on the weekends ...sell during the week. hmmm buy low sell high ....


5c. Maximize your valleys. Stay on top of the valley situation as they may change lvls on you. Capture as high of a lvl of valley as you can, and keep up grading til you have all lvl 10s. It is easy to cap someone else's valley, with a cheesy or disposable hero and 2 scouts - if they are not guarding it. Team with a stronger player that is annihilating an enemy player. Steal his hard earned valleys while he is distracted with the other attacks. Even better if your friend caps the enemy city. Use a disposable hero as he may see your attacks coming and reinforce his valley with a better troops, which will almost certainly capture your hero.Ihave capped many an enemy hero when they were not paying attention to the whole battle.

5d. Caution! Do not use speed up scripts for your starting city! This is a massive blunder by most people! Save these scripts for an emergency situation! Like when your being attacked by someone several hours away and you really need to upgrade that embassy! There are 100s of minor emergency situations where the shortened time can really assist you. Play the game and learn what these areas are and don't just waste on convenience. I used it to gain a lvl on my archery just before an attack hit. I also used a script (penicillin) to reduce the damage before a major battle. The teleport script may also save you if someone is daily chain attacking you and no friends are near, and you have not followed the helps listed here.

6. When logging off. Find an upgrade that takes the most time and upgrade that one. Even though you are not online you are still playing.

7. When Logging off ...NEVER NEVER NEVER leave resources on hand. Spend everything you have so there is nothing to raid! The more resources on your city = the more likely you will be raided! No resources, max wall def, and archers and ballistas = minimal chance to be raided!!!

8. Heros massively aid production and building when use as a mayor. Hero stats, when the hero is a MAYOR, are as follows ... 1. politics is for building time reduction and wall defense build time reduction. 2. Attack is for city defense and troop building time is lessened. 3. Intelligence shortens research time. I have one hero that I leave as mayor when I'm not on. This hero has a HIGH attack and a high politics. When I'm on, I use a mayor that has a very high politics value. You will need a good politics hero for every city, but make sure they also have a good attack. I lvl my politics hero on low lvl npc cities, even though they get exp from being a mayor. Dont forget when you 1st log on to check the lvl of your heros to see if they need lvling.

9. Once resources are in place, you need to get your inn to lvl 3-4 so you can find better low lvl heros. The inn is auto refreshed every hour or so. So keep checking it till you find the hero you need. I find a hero with a main stat of 70+ when its at lvl 10. With a little patience these heros can be found. You only need 1 hero with very high intelligence. Shuttle him from city to city as you need to research things. Your feasting hall will soon need to be lvl 3-4 also, but do this in your new cities as well, because its cheaper than 1 lv 8 hall.

10.Now start on wall defense, DO NOT EXCEED lvl 4 town hall till after your beginner protection wears off. Then you need a MINIMUM of 1000 traps per lvl of city hall! More is better! Upgrade to defending trebuchet as soon as you can. Wall defenses are a great way to consume resources before you log off.

11a. Raiding low lvl npcs is a great economy booster. You will need ballistas to do this. Evony feels free to change game dynamics without telling anyone, so I cant tell you how many are needed to raid a lvl 1 with no loss. Ask your allies and they will help you on this. Daily raiding can be fun and keep you off peoples hit list, as an npc wont retaliate when your off line. When you get stronger, you can even build and abandon cities, and they will become nearby npc farms.

11b.Raiding for hero experience and prestige. Find low lvl npc cities to start with and work your way up. This not only gives you great resources income, but it also gives your hero experience. Npcs do not retaliate and can be attacked during the protection week. Resources take 8 hours to get back to full on these cities. However, I hit them about once every 4 hours if I have the time. I hit them when I 1st get on and then before I log off. Make sure the income does not exceed your warehouse space if they return after you leave. Troops regen in minutes so this is an awesome way to lvl your heros, especially your intelligence hero, that doesnt get much other experience. I also use this to boost my main politics hero, as a politics of 150 greatly reduces these massive build times.

12. Warehouses should be built as you end your week of protection, as the likelihood of your being attacked increases. I recommend 2 in every city to lvl 9, eventually. The 1st building needs to go to lvl 9 before you build your 2nd warehouse. This is because each upgrade greatly increases the amount of resources hidden. This building is also a great build when you log off, as upper lvls take massive time. In some situations you may need 1 or 2 more, but that is rare.

13. Watch towers are almost worthless at low lvls. As your economy becomes solid and it becomes more likely that you may be attacked you need to get to a lvl 9 watch tower. Lvl 9 gives you much more detailed information about what is coming at you. Don't be afraid to ask for help when your being attacked! Many an attack has been aborted when friends send a note to the attacker, or even start an attack on the offender. Remember BE POLITE when stressed. Diplomacy works most of the time. If that fails, then learn to shuttle your resources away from the city being attacked. This way the attacker gets nothing for his effort.

14. Believe it or not the quest is actually helpful. Play at least once a day just to get the daily quest, as it may give you massively valuable items.

15. Play at least once or twice a day to consume all your resources and build your defenses, this can be done in 10 to 15 min.

16. City expansion should not come by building. NEVER EXPAND till your defenses are maxed on your 1st city! Then and only then team with a more powerful player to capture a "better than you currently have" enemy city. You can usually get better cities than what you currently have if you work with the powerful players of your alliance. Let them know that you are interested in capping a city. I like to help people that have been chain attacked by someone to take the offending city. Now thats cool revenge. BTW as a low lvl player you can scout cap the valleys while your friend reduces the defenses of the enemy city. When the city is near 0 loyalty only you need to be attacking. You will need as many resources as you can available to rebuild this new city. I like to have a mil of each resource readily available for wall defenses, and etc., as the friends of the previous owner may retaliate. If you dont have the resources maybe your friend can lend them to you. Capping enemy cities is a great way to reduce the strength of your enemies.

17. Be organized! I have an egg timer with 3 separate alarms. As you build in multiple cities the game can get rather complicated. Notepads are a must for getting what you need done quickly. I have a scratch pad for notes that pertain to the moment. Like the coords of who we are about to hit, etc. I also have a note pad for each of the major alliances we are at war with. I put the names and coords in an organized fashion on each pad. I have 1 pad for battle info. Like how many ballista are needed to cap a certain lvl city with no damage, how many transports to take, and how many resources are available. I also have an npc pad that lists the coords of all nearby npcs by their lvl. It is set up so I can efficiently go down the list and attack each one when it is fully regenerated, starting with those closest to each city.


18. This is a game! You will be hit and you will take losses. Its a war game! Get over yourself and have fun even when someone is pounding on you. I had an entire alliance send 100's of attacks against a lvl 3 city and i only lost a few 100k in resources. My city is still there .... the whole alliance for the most part teleported to a new province. You can build to withstand hits. Learn from your mistakes and learn to be social, with friends and enemies alike. Ask your friends for help. You can also conquer by getting people to join your alliance, try diplomacy, it may even be good practice for the real world. REMEMBER >>> HAVE FUN!!! ENJOY YOURSELF and help others have fun too!

Really good info. Thanks for the effort.

good advice thanks Soc nice to have a good guy on top