Guide to Using Catapults

[JD70]

Everyone loves catapults, but there really is a right way and a wrong way to use them. There are really only four reasons to use them. To Crop, Chief, or Zero a village and also for fake attacks. I am sure some will disagree with this, but that is why this is only a guide and not an instruction manual.

Rally Point and Blacksmith (Making your Cats more effective.)
Before you launch, make sure they will do some damage. First Upgrade your Cats in your Blacksmith. The higher the level the more damage they will do. Second, when your Rally Point is at level 10 it is possible to target every building, except for the cranny, trapper and stonemason. With Rally Point level 20 and sending at least 20 catapults it is possible to target two buildings in one attack giving you a double shot. (Edited for clarification - Double shot means that half the catapults will strike the first selected target and the other half will strike the second selected target.)

Cropping a Village (How to create a Perma-Farm)
It is extremely fun to to set your cats to random, but it is NOT efficient. The ultimate goal is to make a village useless to its owner and profitable for you. The way to accomplish this is as follows: Target the following buildings in order and MAKE CERTAIN they go down the first time. Also, make sure you send enough Rams to take down the wall. This lowers overall village defense for your remaining cat waves.

Palace/Residence (Lowers overall village defense)
Main Building (Can't build anything without it.)
Granary (Wheat kill them.)
Wheat Fields (ALL of them)
Marketplace (Can't ship resources somewhere else.)

That's it. Once you get all of that down, you've won. Unless of course they have built crannies. Than you may have to send a few random waves and hope you hit the crannies before you hit the Warehouse. Once you hit the Warehouse, it pretty much becomes useless as a farm. Targets you should NEVER hit when making a farm: WAREHOUSE, non-wheat fields, Production buildings (brickworks, iron foundry, sawmill.)

Zeroing a Village (The village has been completely destroyed)
Start with the buildings above and then send any following waves set to random (The fun way). To Zero a village in one run it should be noted that there are 39 targets on a fully built village. So you will need to send at least 20 waves of 35-40 cats with the Level 20 Rally Point Double Shot. Remember to upgrade your catapults in the Blacksmith as noted above. (If the village you are zeroing is a capital, you may need to double or triple the amount of catapults due to the strength of the stonemason.)

You can be even more efficient by continuing to target buildings instead of sending at random. This allows you to send a smaller number of cats at Level 10 buildings and a larger number for Level 20 buildings. (Example: 30 cats at Resource fields and 60 cats at Palace/Residence)

Chiefing a Village (Your Land is my Land)
To get a chief or senator you need to research one in a Level 20 Academy and have a slot open in your Palace/Residence. (Palace slots are available at Level 10/15/20, Residence slots at Level 10/20.) In addition, the Rally Point needs to be Level 5 for Teutons and Level 10 for Gaul/Romans.

Typically you should try to chief the village in one run. So you should send 5-6 chiefs from several villages to get it all at once. You don't want to have to come back a second time when they have gotten defenses built back up.
When you set up your chiefing run, it is VERY Important to have a clearing wave to hit one second before your chiefs hit. The clearing wave is used to clear out any defending troops. Always scout first to make sure you are sending enough of a clearing force. This is also the wave you will send your cats with to knock down the Palace/Residence (Only target Palace/Residence, nothing else). Send enough cats to knock it down the first time. Timing is everything. The worst thing that can happen on a chiefing run is getting Sniped. (Sniping is when the defender dodges your clearing run and pulls their defenses back just in time to take out your chiefs.) You may also want to send a secondary cat wave with your Chiefs to make sure the Palace/Residence stays down.

Additional Key points to chiefing, pop size plays a factor in your chiefing attempts. The smaller village gets an advantage. Throwing Large Parties in your Town Hall during the chiefing attempts helps decrease loyalty faster. (Helpful when defending chiefing attempts as well.)

Timing and Tabs (It was there a second ago.)
More experienced players have made a village disappear in under 5 seconds. As mentioned above, you would need to send 20 waves of at least 35-40 catapults with Double Shot to do this. So how do you launch 20 waves in under 5 seconds? Practice, Practice, Practice. There are actually several ways of doing this. The most common way is to open up several Tabs (Windows if you have older browsers) and set up your targets. Put your clearing wave in the first tab and than the remainder of your cats waves in your other open tabs. Make sure the OK button is highlighted in each of your windows. Then start at the First Tab click/hit ENTER, CTRL+Tab, ENTER, CTRL+Tab, ENTER until you reach the last window. 3-6 waves per second can easily be accomplished this way. A good way to get practice at launching attacks is by sending reinforcements to one of your other villages or oases.

Another way if you are sending attacks on Random is to use two windows. The first with the clear and the second with an even amount of Escort/Cats (50Imps/50Cats). Than just hit the OK button, CTRL+Tab and than just keeping hitting ENTER until they all have launched. Make sure you don't over launch and send Cats without escorts. Double check your Rally Point to make sure you have launched correctly with your clear hitting first. If you mess up, you have 90 seconds to pull back all your waves or wait 2 hours to see them crash. You may also want to send several solo cat waves before your clearing run to combat against a sniping defense.

Cat Fakes (Real or No Real)
Fakes are the most important part of a cat attack, especially if you are targeting a very experienced player. The same number of Cat waves should be sent to the Fake villages as the Real village you are attacking, otherwise you will telegraph your target. Also, you should make them look like an actual Cat Run hitting as close to each other as the Real Attack.

This is crucial, If you send 10 waves of attacks at 1 village, it's clear what you're doing. If you send 10 waves of attacks at 5 cities, it's no longer very clear. Fakes are small, disposable attacks that force a defender to either spread their defenses or pick and choose which village to defend. In most cases they will choose to defend their capital and/or military villages. They should arrive EXACTLY at the same time as the other strikes and they should move at the same speed. For fakes to work you must have disposable catapults. It's just a fact of life in war.

However, if you have a village population larger than 600 the defender might think you have a Tournament Square which would allow you to fake with other slower troops (praetorians, phalanx, etc...). You just have to have enough chaos going on that maybe a player doesn't notice the wave hitting isn't taking as long as previous waves did. It's important to pay attention to that sort of thing. If you're attentive, you can actually tell fakes from real hits.

Finally (Assume the Worst)
To be safe assume the village you are attacking is being played by an experienced player. Even if they act like an idiot, they could be doing that on purpose. You should send mid-clears on very long attack waves and as always, Scout, Scout, Scout.