Forge of Empires City Defense

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In this Forge of Empires City Defense article, we provide you with our most effective tips and tactics when defending your city.

Its important to consider you’re defense because city attackers often disturb your game-play

Old city walls from the industrial age are not of much help.

To understand the topic, it makes sense to have a look from the attackers perspective; many do not plunder – they just want points in the PVP tower to recieve the weekly reward medals.

Unfortunately, there are exceptions.

First of all you have to assign units to your city defense; otherwise it will consist of only 2 spear-fighters. This is independent of your cities age.

Usually you use 8 unattached units from the highest available era.

Attack Bonus

The attacker receives bonuses for attack and defense for his attacking units from the statue of Zeus, cathedral of Aachen and the Caste Del Monte.

More bonuses can result from other special buildings but these only apply to the attack value (not the defense value) of the attacking units.  

Therefore, it is very common that attacker do not have much more than 90% defense bonus, although some players are known to have as much as 200% attack bonus.

The Attack Bonus is nearly unlimited, and it can be increased by 30% in the Tavern and boosts from the Inventory.

The defender receives bonuses from the Saint Basil Cathedral and the Deal Castle. The value from both buildings increase both attack and defense values of units in the city defense.

Additionally, the defender can receive bonuses from event buildings and additionally from the Tigers den and the Monastery.

There are also boosts from the Tavern and the Inventory. (It is important to mention the City Defense Shield – but this is overpriced that it cannot be used very often).

Reviewing the Attack Bonuses for both the attack and defending army looks relatively fair and balanced; but we have to consider the Artificial Intelligence (AI)!

The AI of the defending units is always on, as opposed to the attacking units which use AI only when automatic mode is on.

You have to be particularly careful of the way Rogues are used by the AI:

Rogues are powerful for an Attacking army

Rogues are weak for a Defending army.

If you are defending, you can be quite easily defeated if the attacking army mainly consists of Rogues; even if your defending army has as much as a 300% defending bonus.

In this situation, as a defender, you could add more bonuses. Those of you are who are successful in the Guild Expeditions will benefit from a lot of Ritual Flames.

Each one adds 8% bonus to your city defense. Watchfires on the other hand offer 4%. By using these, a defender has nearly unlimited defending bonuses.

If you are able to surpass the 300% defending bonus, you can make it increasingly more difficult for an attacking army. If you are far above this percentage it will be almost impossible to be defeated.

However, this solution requires a lot of space. 

300% means you build more than 37 Ritual Flames; these consume 75 fields or 5 expansions!

This space would be more beneficial for other buildings.

The intelligent decision is therefore to ignore occasional plunderers and their lucky bounty, and realise that with 5 expansions you can produce much more than they can ever steal!

However, when the lucky plunderers steal the output of your Maharaja temple, the above will not suffice!

A city defense must be installed, but a Tigers Den and Monastery will not provide enough support.

Instead, the Saint Basil Cathedral and Deal Castle Great Buildings are far more effective; providing a combined 60% bonus (30% each) to your defending units – attack and defense values.

To win a fight, your units do not only need to withstand your enemy’s attacks, but they need to destroy your attacker’s units which are likely to have a defense bonus of their own of at least 90%.

Having the 60% attack bonus of your defending units makes a considerable difference and will help you to overcome the attacking army as this defensive setup is a real pain for attackers.

Another trick for your defense is to use units from a higher age already before you reach that age. A way to obtain these units is to complete related quests.

Those who cannot build such a great defense sometimes use exotic methods, such as disconnecting roads so the city stops all production!

But in the long run, this is much worse for the defender and their city.

Even if you know you have no chance to beat the attackers, there are some possibilities to hurt the attackers.

A Rogue, whilst weak in a defensive army, can inflict damage – but only if you choose to fight manually (which can be exhausting and time-consuming after some time)

Missile Artillery of the Contemporary era can also be a pain for attackers. They hit up to 4 units.

You will definitely not win with them but your defending results will be better whilst the attacker has many wounded units.

This will not help you in this fight although the attacker may run out of units and will have to wait for more before he can attack once again.

The Best Defense

The best defense requires zero space and zero forge points and has an excellent effect on plunderers:

Have all productions collected immediately, adjust your production times accordingly.

Or you redesign your city so that no attacker can even plunder it; you can achieve this by using Great Building and Multiple event buildings only.

Forge of Empires City Defense

Other guides you may want to check out while you’re here:

3 thoughts on “Forge of Empires City Defense”

  1. Thanks for a very helpful article. In your last sentence you mention about the use of GB’s & multiple event buildings in the redesign of a city to restrict attacks. Could you please explain this further?

    • GBs and most event buildings just can’t be plundered at all ~ Maharaja’s Palace can, but the Black Tower can’t. Though, some buildings can be plundered only if not polished. eg: shrines can be plundered if not polished, but that only means the plunderer gets the gold produced, but can’t get the medal/fp/print.

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