"Attacking low lvl NPC cities are mainly for resource and gold, this is done with ballistas to achieve 0 loses, max lvl without loses is lvl 5, 6 or more have trebuchets so it dont worth.but there are ARCHER TOWERS... so you have to had specific tech level of archery and hbr:
- Archery 08 / HBR 03 (Massive losses due to being in tower range)
- Archery 08 / HBR 04 (Smalls losses from units but @ tower safe range)
- Archery 08 / HBR 05 (0 Losses )
- Archery 08 / HBR 06 (0 Losses )
- Archery 08 / HBR 07 ( Small losses )
- Archery 08 / HBR 08 (Massive losses due to being in tower range)
- Archery 08 / HBR 09 (Massive losses due to being in tower range.)
- Archery 09 / HBR 01 (Small losses from units but @ tower safe range)
- Archery 09 / HBR 02 (0 Losses when using over 575 ballistas )
- Archery 09 / HBR 03 (0 Losses )
- Archery 09 / HBR 05 (Small losses from units but @ tower safe range)
- Archery 09 / HBR 06 (Small losses from units but @ tower safe range)
- Archery 09 / HBR 07 (Small losses from units @ tower safe range)
- Archery 09 / HBR 08 (0 Losses )
- Archery 09 / HBR 09 (0 Losses )
- Archery 10 / HBR 05+ (0 Losses)
Number of Ballista to send: this number depends on your hero ATTACK attribute, the safe numbers for heroes with no ATT with 0 loses are:
- 20 Ballistas vs Lvl1 NPC
- 50 Ballistas vs Lvl2 NPC
- 170 Ballistas vs Lvl3 NPC
- 250 Ballistas vs Lvl4 NPC
- 550 Ballistas vs Lvl5 NPC"
(End of lifted material)
These number are from before the recent wall buff. I use 100/150/300/600/1000, but I usually overdo this sort of thing, and I do not quite get the combat mechanics even now. Your mileage may vary. You probably want to use something between his numbers and my numbers. Darkangels(Archery 7, Horseback 6) reports 600 as enough for a lvl 5, with 550 resulting in a wipeout.
Additional observations and notes:
You can (and should) plant your own NPC cities. The lvl of NPC city = the lvl of flat the city is built on....and....every time server maintenance is done (5:30 in the morning, every day, at present) each unclaimed valley increases one lvl and lvl 10 valleys roll over to level 1. So, if you want to build a lvl 4 NPC city on a lvl 1 flat, wait three days.
You need to have an open city slot. If you do not have one either: abandon a city (I did, and do not regret it), bump up your rank, or get a buddy who does have an open slot to help you..he doesn't even have to be in your alliance. You will also need an open valley slot in one of your town halls, preferably the one closest to the flat you are building on.
- Conquer a flat of the desired NPC city lvl
- Build city
- Build rally point in city
- Send workers from newly build city back to one of your other cities.
- Once workers have arrived, abandon the city you just built.
- Voila, new NPC city to pillage
- Rinse and repeat
One overlooked advantage to doing this (the food, gold, and to a lesser extent other materials goes without saying) is the experience you can wrack up with your heros. A lvl 4 city gives 40,000 or so XP. A lvl 5 city gives 90,000 or so. Since the # of ballista you need to send is based on a 0 attack hero, you can safely send even your low-attack intel and political heros out to jump them up quickly.
Anecdotal observation: None of this is proven, but it appears to be what is happening in my case. As we all know by now, there is a 1% medal drop rate on this server. This is not what I am seeing with these NPC cities. I have picked up two courage and two honor medals over the last few days, and I may have made 100 total attacks over that period. It could just be happenstance and I will trend towards the norm of 1% going forward, but I am getting a handful of medals, and attacks on NPC cities are much more rewarding than spamming valleys in other ways.
