Grepolis Combat Guide

Grepolis Combat Guide by TafkanX

Preface:

These topics have been covered extensively before and in greater depth, but I wrote this for my original alliance and thought I would share them everybody. This guide is not intended to be comprehensive, but instead offer a new player a “crash course” on combat in here in Grepolis.

The bulk of this discussion will be spent examining the Rock/Paper/Scissors relationship that defines the combat mechanics in Grepolis and should help new players to understand the fundamentals of how to defend and attack.

I drew a lot of inspiration from Grepolis Units Comparison and Misc. Guide by cobblemix and if you want a deeper look into many of the topics covered here I highly recommend reading it. In fact, just read it anyway. There’s a lot of great info in there. Without further adieu, let the fun begin:

 

Land Defense:

When planning the defense of your cities, you want to look at the units that are most likely to show up during an attack. The primary offensive units are Slingers (Ranged Attack), Hoplites (Sharp Attack), and Horsemen/Chariots (Blunt Attack). So, in essence, we will be discussing Blunt Defense, Sharp Defense, and Ranged Defense against Farm Space.

You want to be able to defend against all three of these attack types.

Note: BD = Blunt Defense, SD = Sharp Defense, RD = Distance Defense, FS = Farm Space

  • Blunt: Chariots come in first, with 19 BD/FS (76/4) with Hoplites coming in a close second with 18 BD/FS (18/1).
  • Sharp: Archers are unrivaled here with 25 SD/FS (25/1).
  • Ranged: Swordsmen are the kings here with 30 RD/FS (30/1).

As you can see, Swordsmen, Archers, Hoplites and Chariots are the best defensive units. Swordsmen and Archers are pure defenders and will form the backbone of your defense. Hoplites and Chariots have the capability to competently attack and defend. While Chariots are slightly better at defense, Hoplites are slightly better at offense. Chariots are considerably faster, though.

A well balanced defensive force should consist primarily of Swordsmen and Archers and some mix of Hoplites and/or Chariots. I personally prefer to stock up on Hoplites and gain Chariots through Divine Sign, but this is largely a matter of preference.

Land Offense:

This will follow a similar pattern. As identified above, an opponent’s defense will consist of Swordsmen (Ranged Defense), Archers (Sharp Defense) and Hoplites/Chariots (Blunt Defense). So here we will cover Blunt Attack, Sharp Attack and Ranged Attack versus Farm Space.

This time BA = Blunt Attack, SA = Sharp Attack, RA = Ranged Attack and FS = Farm Space

  • Blunt: Horsemen are unrivaled here with ~18.3 BA/FS (55/3).
  • Sharp: Hoplites come in first here with 16 SA/FS (16/1) and Chariots are a close second at 14 SA/FS (56/4).
  • Ranged: Slingers are the kings here with 23 RA/FS (23/1).

Thus, the offensive units available to you are Slingers, Horsemen, and Hoplites/Chariots.

In a defense-specialized city, you are afforded some offensive capability by stocking Hoplites and/or Chariots, but as you grow and gain more cities you will want to start developing offense-specialized cities. These cities will want to focus on Slingers, Horsemen, or Hoplites in large quantities for use as nukes (which will not be discussed in length in this guide).

Note that Catapults are not very good attackers by themselves but can be very useful for taking down an enemy’s walls which can be very devastating to your offensive units. They have ~6.66 RA/FS which is really terrible, so only use them when you need to knock down walls. These should only be built in offensive cities.

Naval Combat:

Naval combat is much simpler, having pure offensive and defensive stats, but I pay much more attention to speed when fighting on the high seas. So here we will compare Attack and Defense against Farm Space while paying close attention to Speed.

Please note that only combat ships (ships that actively participate in naval battles) will be covered here. Transports and Colony Ships are mentioned in passing alongside the combat vessels but will not be directly addressed here.

Please consult the Naval Combat Guide by Malevolent for a more extensive coverage of these topics.

So Atk = Attack, Def = Defense, Spd = Speed and FS = Farm Space

  • Attack: Light Ships are the kings here, with an impressive 20 Atk/FS (200/10) while Triremes come in at a distant second with a less impressive 11.25 Atk/FS (180/16). Light Ships are also quite fast (13 Spd) compared to the slower Trireme (9 Spd).
  • Defense: Biremes are the kings here with 20 Def/FS (160/8) while Triremes come in second with 15.625 Def/FS (250/16). Biremes are also the fastest combat ships available (15 Spd) with the Trireme again being much slower (9 Spd).
  • Special: Fire ships can be devastating defensively with a 1:1 kill ratio; That is, every fire ship you field will kill one ship and self destruct. That said, they are very slow (5 Spd), act last in battle (e.g. Light Ships and Biremes will kill each other first, if there are Light Ships left over afterward the Fire Ships will move in and start killing them), and cannot intercept transports or colony ships.

Some comments on each unit:

  • Biremes: Best defenders (20 Def/FS), very fast (15 Spd). These should be used to protect the harbor and can be sent very rapidly as support. Not very good offensively (3 Atk/FS).
  • Light Ships: Best attackers (20 Atk/FS), fast (13 Spd). These are your primary offensive naval units and also make excellent escorts for Fast Transports (Light Ship 13 Spd, Fast Transport 15 Spd so Light Ships will not slow them down much).
  • Triremes: Can attack (11.25 Atk/FS) or defend (15.625 Def/FS) but doesn’t do either particularly well. They are also slow (9 Spd). I don’t really recommend them but they might make decent Colony Ship escorts, being able to attack during the landing and defend the city once they have landed and their speed doesn’t really matter because the Colony Ship is REALLY slow (3 Spd!). I’m still not convinced they are worth it.
  • Fire Ships: As stated above they are devastating to attackers but are very slow, act last in battle and cannot intercept transports or colony ships. I should also note that they cannot attack. These can be used to supplement Biremes when under heavy attack but should be a secondary line of defense. Also because of their very slow speed (5 Spd!) they are not very good at supporting other cities.

In summary: Use Biremes for Defense and Light Ships for Offense. The more the better.

Conclusion:

Thank you for reading this guide. I hope it has helped you to gain a basic understanding of the Rock/Paper/Scissors relationships between the combat units here in Grepolis and that the fundamentals you learn here will help you to plan your offenses and defenses in-game. I would like to thank cobblemix for the Big Grepolis Guide which was invaluable to me early on and without which I would not have had the knowledge to compile this guide.

 

Recommended Reading:

  • Grepolis Units Comparison and Misc. Guide by cobblemix – Very comprehensive guide which covers a wide array of topics; Of particular interest are the unit comparisons by stats vs. farm space, time and resource costs.
  • Naval Combat Guide by Malevolent – Goes into further detail about naval units

If you have comments, suggestions, or criticisms please address them in the discussion thread or PM me. Thanks again for reading.

-TafkanX

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