Pillaging by xnostalgia

Hi everyone, I would like to share my pillaging tactics to everyone so that we can learn more from each other.

For many ikariam players, pillaging is a normal part of the game, which allows you to gain resources from other players. Aside from gaining resources, you might as well gain an almost "life-long" opponent. Looks easy eh? But not as simple as it sounds. To be able to pillage effectively needs a lot of preparation.

This is the list that I follow most of the time:

1. Know if he has an Alliance.
I have seen many defensive/trade alliances in Ikariam. Most of them rely on number, If not, the strength of their strongest member. If your target has an alliance, might as well check on the alliance page where some vital information about the guild is present. These are among the information that you can get:

-How strong is the alliance? - You can evaluate this by seeing the total points of the alliance.
-How many members are there? - This is pretty obvious. Some players even create an alliance so that they can hide from pillagers. They create an alliance but chances are, he is either alone or their number don't even pass half a dozen.
-What is the average points per member? - This is how you're gonna know how strong their members are. You see, some alliances have REALLY large numbers of members but if the average points is low, they are just a bunch of preys.

2. Know the points.
Go to the highscore page and search his player name. If not, you can use a score searcher that uses greasemonkey (for firefox users only). This tool also displays the military score and gold score of a player. Whether his military score is greater or lesser than yours, proceed to number 3.

3. Spies, spies and even more SPIES.
Spies. yes. with spies you can know how many resources he has, how large is his army, and best of all, the lay-out of his town. Personally, I send 2 per town so that 1 can look at the garrison, and the other one look at the warehouse. Also, the other one serves as a back up in case the other one had been caught. (ps. you're really unlucky if both of them are caught when entering the town).

1. With the spy, check on the lay-out of the town. If trading port is level 1, recall the spies. level 4-?? trading port is good enough. Because if the trading port is low, you cannot maximize your loot.

2.Check the garrison.
A heavily defended town will never be a good target for pillaging. Remember that when you attack, you will need certain amount of gold for upkeep. Sending in more troops will cost more from you, and I say it's never worth it. Remember that good defenses are those with many phalanxes, steam giants, diving boats or ballista ships. And with good defense, many of your troops will get killed (add it up to the cost) unless you send a thousand troops to the town (which costs a lot of gold for upkeep). Always remember to check the total costs and total gains of the pillage.

3. Check the warehouse.
More resources, more pillage. Always remember that even if the trading port of the town is level 10+, he can level it down to 0. Don't forget to do #4.

4. Check if he is online.
Some players miss on this, thinking that a defenseless town can never be aware of an attack. A smart player can level down his port, re-station his troops from another town to defend, among others. So do not miss on this.

5. Send in the blockade.
Some players refuse to send blockade the harbor of the town just because no ships are present. Do not fall for this unless you are absolutely sure that he has no other towns. Blockading the harbor enables you to get the resources that are supposed to be sent to the town, thus gaining more loot. I always max the time for blockading, so that when the player sends in resources from his towns, It will be transferred to my town. It costs more on the upkeep, but I say it's worth it. Even if you send in just 5 ram ships so that he cannot break the blockade easily.

6. Send in the Assault team.
As the world implies, Assault, in Ikariam, Units that gain additional 30% damage if they are attacking. Those units are Swordsmen, Bombardiers, Flamethrower ships, and Paddlewheel engine ships.

7. Send a minor Assault team after 20 mins.
This counts as another attack. It does not necessarily contain the same number of your troops in #7, even 10-20 swordsmen will do. Do this to pillage again.

8,9,10,11. Refer to #7

Things to remember.
-The closer the target to your village, the better. This minimizes the upkeep of your soldiers because of reduced time away from town. Remember not to attack players that you share the island with, because they are also the ones who will donate to your resource "mine".
-Pillage the inactives. Inactive players are most likely not to return to the game. Because if they plan not to play for a couple of days, the vacation mode is always there. also, they cannot keep an eye on their towns, and they cannot defend it. Always remember though, inactives gain only 50% of the resource that they mine.
-You can only attack a player for 6 times in a 24 hour period. Doing such is called bashing. you can be banned for this, if and only if the victim reports it (as said in the ikariam forums). But because it's better to be safe, limit it to 6.

Missed something? Version 0.1

Good info. Didnt know about the BASHING. I only pillage inactives for now. I pillage them early and often.