The Aylidarian Empire
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Part 1 : General Rules

Don't be a point whore

• Having a massive amount of points vs troops makes you a prime target and shows improper military development
• Try to maintain a 3-1 troop-point ratio per villa
• Troops win wars, not points

Don't mix your troops

• Having both defense and offense in one village is a recipe for disaster other than one first starting
• Troops can be transfered between villas so long as you have enough available population
• Offense troops are useless in defense, especially against enemy nukes. A full defense + wall is best

Early Priorities

• Get villa walls to a minimum of level 15+, especially in contested regions
• You are less likely to recieve support from competitive players if you have a lower level wall unless you have been attacked by rams
• Prepare for war accordingly. It is on you to be ready to both be attacked and to be the attacker.
• Target wall level should be level 18. Level 20 is best if time is available, but level 18 will still help massively

Villa Organization

• Organize villas into categories
• Offense - Front lines, covered heavily by defense
• Defense - Farther back from fighting if possible, supplies the front. Build max barracks to provide heavy cavalry for mobile defense
• Farming - Kept as far from conflict as possible, fuels your economy. Spread out so they do not interfere with gathering from your other farms. Build max markets here
• Church - One per province, use for farm or defense but never offense

Part 2 : Resources

Farming

• Best way to keep resources flowing is to keep 50 small raiding parties all at once and keep them going constantly. This is known as micro-farming
• Spears are the best unit to use for micro-farming in the early game as they are cheap and can carry a nice amount.

Rally Points massively will boost your attack speed against barbarians. Each level grants a 50% increase that caps at 250%.

Part 3 : Defense

Use Discord to quickly alert people to attacks who are not online ingame. This can provide a major edge against less organized tribes.

Best all around defense setup early game is 2-3k swords, 1k spears, 1k archers OR max heavy cavalry.

Incoming attack reports, post in game the following

• Attacker profile link
• Attacking villa link
• Attacking army speed (Lets people know what the attack might have)
• Tactics being employed in response (sniping, dodging, defending, etc)
• Wall level of your villa
• If attacked before, link to attack reports

Heavy cavalry are a great late game all-around unit that can even be used for offense, however they are very expensive. In regional defense other defense units may be a better choice for their cost, with the main advantage of heavy cavalry being its superior mobility allowing for quick support at farther distances.

Part 4 : Offense

Offensive villas tend to vary based on player preference. A generic build should look like 1500 axes, 500 light cavalry, 250 mounted archers, and 200 rams.

A generic nuke build consists of 4k axes, 1k light cavalry, 500 mounted cavalry, and 200 rams. Nuke builds are again player preference. For more advanced builds reference the TW2 Wiki.

While highly expensive, beserkers are the best offensive unit in the game. They offer a strong counter to heavy cavalry and are best used in the mid to late game. They should never be used for defense, however, and they are very expensive.

Tactics

• Simple Faking - Send consistant multiple attacks out at different enemy villas to hide your main target, reducing the odds that they can properly defend.
• Noble Train - Use a chain of 4-5 nobles timed to hit one after the other to quickly subdue target villa without giving them extra time to rebuild and call for reinforcements. Have Each noble accompanied by a small escort, and the last one with a heavy defense force if a counter-attack is expected. Time carefully to avoid enemy sniping
• Trebuchet Train - Use a series of coordinated attacks at enemy villas with trebuchets to confuse them as to both the target and army contents. Hide your noble train within one of these routes to attempt to take a villa without deceivers.
• Sniping - This tactic is used to avoid the primary attack from a player and time your defense to kill a majority of their nobles, thus preventing yor villa from being lost and giving time for reinforcements. Troops need to be timed to arrive within a very small time frame in order to work (seconds).
• Pride Attack - If an enemy will defend a villa no matter what to prevent its capture destroy the wall at a weaker villa and bait them into sending reinforcements. Use nukes aimed here to quickly wipe out large amounts of both their troops and their tribe members as well.
• Death Star - Noble a barbarian in an enemy province and then immediately build church and max walls. Stack heavily with defense as fast as possible. Use this to trick enemy tribes into nuking the villa, thus killing off all offense in the region. Great tactic if the maker of the Death Star is a coiner.

Spying

• Heavily based on luck. Having 5 spies at your villa will greatly protect against enemy spies, however there is still a chance of them succeeding
• Spies 2 and 3 are reported to be the best for spying on enemy buildings and killing enemy spies. Spy 1 is best for spying on troops
• Always send spies separately as it is more effective overall
• Never send spies 4 and 5. They are very expensive compared to 1-3 and don't offer any advantage
• Skull - Failed spy attempt if outbound, enemy succeeded if inbound
• Red - Was successful however the spy died and enemy counter-measures might have triggered if outbound. Killed enemy spy but they got a report if inbound
• Green - Was 100% successful if outbound or inbound

Part 5 : Credits

This guide is based off of #nebs-training-grounds from the Discord server. Nebs / @Praetorian started playing TW2 when the first US server came out and was a top player on several realms.