We get asked all the time what troops to fight with - short answer is for a lot of fights 1 troop plus 7 rogues is how you attack; in later ages you need 2 troops and 6 rogues to be able to auto battle (in GvG especially) and one of the combos I used a lot is 4 artillery 4 rogues to attack - the higher your attack boost, the better artillery works (artillery sits back and kills them all before they can reach you - usually).

Until you have higher attack boost (by high I mean over 200%-300% at least) you will fare much better with Heavy plus rogues or Fast plus rogues in most ages, those are the combinations I used often until my attack/defense while attacking was well over 200%, then artillery starts to work better than those; especially if you need to auto-battle or there are a lot of rogues in the enemy army like in GvG, then artillery is key to kill at a distance instead of letting enemy rogues get in reach of your units and cause massive damage before they've all been turned into other units.

Fighting tactics vary for each age and the abilities of units from each age change too; Iron through Industrial Ages operate all on the same basic unit principles and are similar for fighting tactics. From Progressive Era onward, it changes as to what unit types work best against other types, for example in iron thru industrial light units are good against fast/horses and weak to heavy units, in Progressive onward (conscripts) are the best to use against heavies (tanks) which is completely opposite of the iron-indy troop schema.

Iron through Indy troop bonuses on terrain:

• light units good against horses, get bonus on trees or bushes

• heavy are good against light, get a bonus on the plains.

• fast are good against artillery and ranged (archers) (no terrain bonus... on a horse.)

• artillery are good against heavy, get bonus on hills

• ranged (archers) are good against heavy, get bonus on rocks

IRON AGE (IA)

• 1 horse 7 rogues (move horse to top left on first turn, advance rogues, then hit auto): good against most armies especially 8 ballista, does ok against even 8 soldiers but will not work well against an army with a lot of rogues.

• 1 legion 7 rogues:  safe to auto but if it's against a lot of ballistas, you will be sorry.

• 2-4 artillery plus 4-6 rogues - this auto battles almost anything but will take loses against 8 ballista and 8 archers.

EMA
in EMA, the ranged units/archers are mounted archers, this puts a little twist on EMA fighting as sometimes those can reach all the way across the field in one turn.

• 1 horse 7 rogues (move horse to top left on first turn, advance rogues, then hit auto): good against most armies.

• 2 horse 6 rogue: you can auto with this when you have to fight fast, but will take some losses.

• 1 heavy 7 rogues: safe to auto but if it's against a lot of artillery, you will be sorry or have to retreat and attack again with different units or against a different DA.

• 2-4 artillery plus 4-6 rogues: this auto battles almost anything but will take loses against 8 ballista and 8 archers.

HMA: Same as EMA/IRON
LMA: Same as EMA/IRON
COLONIAL (CA): Same as EMA/IRON but rangers (light unit) can hide in trees and can't be hit from distance when hidden.

INDUSTRIAL (INDY): Same as EMA/IRON but 2 howitzer 6 rogue will auto most mixed armies, or also use artillery a lot in Indy as long as not many jaegers in the enemy armies. 8 artillery does quite well against 8 howitzer DAs or anything with a lot of rogues in it. Jaegers hide in trees, just like rangers, but unlike grenadiers, howitzers can shoot through them ignoring their hidden ability.

PROGRESSIVE (PE)

• 4 artillery 4 rogues: autos most things with minimal loss

• 2 conscript 6 rogues: also autos most enemy armies well, unless lot of snipers

• 1 tank 1 conscript 6 rogues: good for attacking against lot of mixed troops

• 1 sniper 7 rogues: on the rare occasion you find a lot of conscripts in the enemy, this works.

MODERN (ME)

• 2-4 artillery and 4-6 rogues: auto kills almost everything with minimal loss unless there are paratroopers in the enemy armies

• 1 heavy 7 rogues: good against everything except artillery/bazookas

• 1 fast 7 rogues: good against 8 artillery

POSTMODERN (PME)

• 1-2 MG Team and rogues: kills everything except 8 artillery

• 2 or 3 artillery and 5 or 6 rogues: autos most things but with some loss

• 1 champs 7 rogues (keep champ back on first turn or use 2 champs and hit auto): good against almost all enemies

• 1 fast 7 rogues: good against 8 artillery

CONTEMPORARY (CE)

• 1 anti air, 7 rogues (move anti air to top left then hit auto, kills anything, but you can't auto fight, first move is manual)

• 2 anti air, 6 rogues (you can auto fight with this but will take losses)

• 2 champs, 6 rogues (you can auto fight with this combo)

• 8 helicopters: good against 8 artillery, this is the first age with flying and artillery can not hit flying units. also useful to auto battle against 8 rogues.

• 1 tank 7 rogues: you can fight with this but will take loses and tanks are better for defense armies in CE.

THIS IS ONE AGE WHERE THE ARTILLERY UNIT IS almost COMPLETELY USELESS. the CE missile leaves the battlefield after firing once, and if you lose the battle you lose the missile too.

TOMORROW (TE)

• 1 or 2 champ and 6 or 7 rogues: takes out anything, keep champ back on first turn.

• 1 stealth tank 7 rogue: you can auto battle with this but will take injury or loss every time

Microwaves are good against stealth tanks, but they get killed a lot (because they have blast ability and try to run forward instead of shooting from the back of the field) and you can't auto with them. This is another era like CE where the Artillery unit is not so great - and microwave artillery can not hit flying drones.

FUTURE (FE)

By far the most commonly used army overall for FE should be:

• 2 hover, 6 rogues: safe for auto battle, will win against almost anything, even enemy units from Arctic, Oceanic, and Virtual Future.

You can experiment with some other combos, I also used these when I was in FE:

• 1 rail gun, 1 hover, 6 rogues: good compromise attack army in a mixed sector

• 2 rail gun, 6 rogues: hit auto, kills almost anything (but drone swarms will hurt it)

• 1 hover, 7 rogues: kills about anything but takes some injury/loss especially against 8 hovers

• 1 satellite spotter 7 rogues: ideal only for killing 8 rail gun army.

• 4 hover, 4 rogues: ideal only against 8 champs (You may find this in your Hood battles.)

ARCTIC (AF)

• 1 battle fortress, 1 plasma, 6 rogue kills just about anything in arctic.

• 2 battle fortress, 6 rogues: safe for auto battle

• 1 dragon drone 7 rogues - can win almost any fight also but you HAVE to play manually to optimize the dragon breath hitting multiple units in a row.

OCEANIC (OF)

• 2 subcruiser 6 rogue - good version for autobattle, but will take some losses on auto.

• 1 subcruiser 7 rogue is a good all around attack army. Make sure the subcruiser stays back on the first turn.

• If facing mixed turtles, I also used a lot 2 turtle, 2 subcruiser, 4 rogue to attack.

• 8 turtles: good against almost anything as long as no flying units present

VIRTUAL (VF)

• 1 ronin 7 rogue is a good all around attack army, safe to auto.

• 2 ronin 6 rogue, even safer to autobattle.

• If facing mixed rockets, I often used 2 rocket, 2 ronin, 4 rogue to attack.

• 8 VF rocket: good against almost anything as long as no flying units present

Mars (SAM)

• 2 warden 6 rogue: kills most enemy armies, safe to auto.

• 1 sentinel 1 warden 6 rogue: good against mixed units

• 1 or 2 sentinel, 6 or 7 rogues: good against a lot of artillery, can auto 2 sentinel 6 rogue but with some losses.

• 4 sentinel 4 rogue can auto against anything with 4 enemy artillery with no loss.

• 8 sentinel works very well with minimal loss at high attrition against certain armies.

• 8 VF rocket: good against 8 space marine, or most anything as long as no flying units present

Space Age Asteroid Belt (SAAB)

• 2 nail guns, plus rogues, is what I use most to attack

• 4 artillery 4 rogue works well as long as no fast/flying units in the enemy army

• 8 artillery is good against the all heavy/all light armies, or all heavy/artillery mixed armies. (Again, make sure no flying units present.)

But honestly the SAAB units are so bad, Mars is far superior. I still used 1 or 2 mars heavies plus rogue a lot - kills most SAAB armies.
Sentinels (fast unit) from Mars are much better than almost all the SAAB units as well.

Space Age Venus (SAV)

• 2 or 3 power dragon (artillery,) plus rogues, will kill almost anything, even flying units.  The artillery units in this age CAN hit flying units.

• 2-4 fast plus rogue or 8 fast units  will also kill almost anything.  Weirdly, the fast unit for Venus is named energy cannon, which makes it sound like an artillery unit.

The artillery and fast units are the strongest of the Venus units; power dragon is likely overpowered, it ignores stealth, flying, and other special abilities.  Observer drones (light unit) could be interesting in some manual fights since they can hide on broken ground, but they can still be hit by power dragons (which ignore stealth.)

Space Age Jupiter Moon (SAJM)

• 2 harpoon grenadier (ranged unit) plus rogues, the ranged unit with Contact skill is the best overall attack strategy.

• 2-4 fast plus rogue or 8 fast units  will also kill almost anything. 

• 8 cavitation tanks (artillery) but make sure no flying units present, artillery in this age can't hit flying  (fast) units.

But honestly the SAJM units are mediocre compared to Venus. I still used power dragons which kills most everything in SAJM, and fast units are king now that the Jupiter artillery can't hit flying units.

Space Age Titan (SAT)

• 2-4 fast plus rogue or 8 fast units  will kill almost anything.  Probably the best overall strategy because of the artillery having mortar ability but can't hit flying.

• If facing mixed artillery enemies, I also used a lot 2 artillery, 2 light units, 4 rogue to attack.

• 8 artillery but make sure no flying units present, artillery in this age can't hit flying  (fast) units, but it has mortar and hits multiple enemies with each shot.

Titan is very reminiscent of Oceanic for troops - meaning it's difficult to find a combo that works well on everything, and you always take some damage if facing any artillery.

Space Age Space Hub (SASH)

• 2 ranged unit plus rogues, the ranged unit with Contact skill is the best overall attack strategy and works well until very high attrition.

• 2-4 fast plus rogue or 8 fast units  will kill almost anything, like the rest of the space ages, you can play everything on fast units if you wanted.

• 2-3 artillery plus rogue will kill almost anything, the artillery in this age is like rail guns from FE (ignores all special abilities) and can hit flying.  These are more powerful than rail guns ever were because they move every turn instead of every other turn, and are more or less like Venus power dragons were.

We get asked all the time what troops are best for city defense, siege armies in GvG, or to place into GvG sectors as Defensive armies (DAs) - short answer is for most ages 8 artillery is one of the best to use as a siege or DA - no one likes to see a field full of cannons facing them. 

Understand that when we talk about diversity in the DA's of a GvG sector, we don't mean WITHIN the 8 unit armies themselves, we mean do not put the same thing in all the slots of a sector. If it's all the same, one attack army can easily kill them all.

For example: 

1 army of 8 artillery and 1 army of 8 light units is stronger than
2 armies of 4 artillery and 4 light units each mixed in each slot

• in scenario 1, I'm either going to have to switch between artillery and fast units to kill the 8 artillery, and attack with heavies to kill the 8 light units, or take big losses if I auto fight and take my chances with 1 attack army optimized for one of the DA but not the other.

• in scenario 2, I can probably just load up heavy or champs and power through all of it without switching my attacking army.

Fighting tactics vary for each age and the abilities of units from each age change too; Iron through Industrial Ages operate all on the same basic unit principles and are similar for fighting tactics. From Progressive Era onward, it changes as to what unit types work best against other types and higher ages have some peculiarities for each one.

While it can be a viable strategy to use some rogues (not all rogues!) in defenses in gvg (iron thru indy ages only, after PE and battlefield scale changes rogues take 3 turns just to cross the field and die long before they get there) but it is NEVER a good idea to put rogues in your city defense! In GvG people hurry and rogues can sneak up and take out units before they have been transformed, in city defenses your hood is not usually rushing to fight and it's easy to kill off other troops and leave rogues for last; rogues make really bad city defenders.

Iron Age (IA) 

• 8 ballista is still the king of DAs and sieges.

• You can also do 6 or 7 ballista and a drummer or two, makes it tougher to auto battle against.

• 8 archers can be quite annoying also and makes a good siege army as it's not easy to auto battle that even with horses.

• 5 drummer 3 rogue is a good one also, drummers are pretty mean in iron age and work well.

• If you're going to mix rogues in for DA's in a sector, that works fine iron-indy ages, but not at all from PE onward.

But don't fill a sector all with DA that are mostly rogues in all the armies, or someone can just kill the whole sector with 4 ballista 4 rogue on auto. This is true for every age. Too many rogues is just a waste of rogues and too easy to be killed.

EMA 

• Same as Iron really, 8 catapults are king. 

• 8 mounted archers can be quite annoying defense also in a sector, but it's easy to defeat as a single army siege (just use 1 heavy 7 rogues and hit auto, very simple to defeat as a siege but annoying when in a sector with other types of armies.)

• Drummers still work ok in EMA for siege or DA, mixed with rogues or catapults, but they really don't hurt much in any later ages and are just used as filler or 'junk' sieges after EMA.

HMA

• 8 trebuchets is the toughest DA or siege.

• 6 trebuchet and 2 crossbows is also a tough DA or siege army.

LMA

• 8 cannons is a tough DA

• 8 longbow archers also tough.

• for sieges 8 cannons or 1 cannon 7 rogue can be surprisingly tough because of the LMA range of cannons being less than most artillery in other ages, means on auto 1 cannon 7 rogue can hurt as much as fighting 8 cannons, sometimes more because it's also hard to fight all those rogues with horses or champs on auto.

COLONIAL (CA)

• 8 field guns is probably the toughest DA or siege army. Are we seeing a pattern?

• 1 or 2 rangers plus rogues is also a tough one for sieges, because the rangers hide.

• 8 muskets also a tough one, sometimes tougher to defeat than 8 artillery on auto.

• 3 heavy 5 rogue seems to throw some people off if they don't happen to have artillery, otherwise it's an easy one to kill. There are some other variations of this that can make for tough DA's or sieges, like 1 heavy 2 ranger 5 rogue, and so on.

Armies that can be easy to kill when facing just 1 army in a siege are not so simple if there is variety of armies placed in a sector, as discussed at the beginning.

INDUSTRIAL (INDY)

• 1 or 2 jaeger and rogues may be the toughest thing in indy to fight in GvG, especially on auto.

• 1 jaeger, 1 rifle, 6 rogues is a particularly tough DA to fight.

• 8 breech loaders is a really tough DA also, following the pattern of other ages.

• 8 rifles works for DAs too especially when it's not the only DA (for same reason not a great siege army, pretty easy to kill rifles with jaegers and rogues on auto)

Some combination of above would be a good city defense, breech loaders plus jaegers or rifles.

PROGRESSIVE (PE)

• 8 artillery is a great DA, or siege army, almost every age!

• 4 conscript 4 sniper is a good DA - tough on both tanks and conscripts

• 4 artillery 4 sniper also good for the same reason - tough on tanks and conscripts.

Even better if you're filling a couple of slots, 8 artillery in one and 8 sniper in the other, can not kill both of those without taking losses or switching attack armies.

MODERN (ME)

• 8 artillery is a great DA, or siege army, almost every age!

• 8 bazooka is also quite tough can really only be beaten by 4 artillery 4 rogues or even 8 artillery as an attack army.

• 8 paratrooper must be killed by tanks, mix that and bazookas in a sector to give enemies a headache.

POSTMODERN (PME)

• 8 artillery is a great DA, or siege army, almost every age!

• 8 commandos (paired with 8 artillery) makes it tough and no one-size-fits-all army can attack both of those without taking losses.

CONTEMPORARY (CE)

• 8 assault tanks is the best and really only DA worth placing in CE. ditto for sieges. Everything else is too easy to kill.

• 7 assault tank and 1 missile is also decent, sometimes if the missile makes a lucky shot it can cause more damage than the 8 assault tanks army.

• 8 missiles, only if paired with something else as a second DA, can really be annoying to fight next to 8 tanks because you must fight manually due to the tanks and wait for all the missiles to fire when you face the missiles. It's annoying and slows down attacks, which is the point of defense armies.

THIS IS ONE AGE WHERE THE ARTILLERY UNIT IS almost COMPLETELY USELESS. The missile leaves the battlefield after firing once, but 8 missiles is highly annoying when mixed within a sector - just don't use it for a siege, it can be auto killed with 8 helicopter very easily.

CE Champs are useless in GvG DAs and siege army, but quite formidable as City Army when you have high City Defense boost. Their attack is the same as Assault Tanks but their defense is significantly higher. Assault Tanks base defense is 90 while CE Champs is 125. With a High Boost 8 CE Champs is sturdier than 8 Assault Tanks in your City Defense!

TOMORROW (TE)

• 8 stealth tanks - no one likes to fight this.

• 1 or 2 stealth mixed with rogues is also highly annoying in TE and causes almost as much damage as 8 stealth tanks, sometimes more.

This is another age where 8 artillery is not a good DA really. it's easy to defeat with drones (flying can not be hit by artillery) and champs, and does not hurt stealth tanks as much as you might wish they did.

FUTURE (FE)

• 8 hover tank

• 3 rail gun, 5 hover tank

• 8 drone swarm good one to mix in a sector along with the hovers.

• 8 exoskeleton can also be quite tough as long as not by themselves in a siege.

ARCTIC (AF)

• Always include something flying, like 1 dragon drone, so that artillery is stumped since it can't hit flying units. Otherwise Plasma artillery and battle fortress rule the day for fighting and defense both.

OCEANIC (OF)

• Always include something flying, like 1 glider, so that artillery is stumped since it can't hit flying units.

• Turtles and hover tanks make a nasty defense army combo to fight on the AA map.

• For city defense I always threw in some eels since they hide, along with turtles, scimitar, subcruisers (good in defense because it returns fire).

VIRTUAL (VF)

• There are no flying units in VF, but the ninjas are annoying like eels were in Oceanic, because they move first, and hide. A few ninjas included in a DA, or 8 in a gvg sector, can be annoying as long as it's not the only army (otherwise easy to kill with ronin/heavies)

• VF really comes down to rockets or ronins, the other units are next to useless, but ninjas can be annoying if used properly in defenses.

Mars (SAM)

• Always include something flying, like 1 sentinel, so that artillery is stumped since it can't hit flying units.

• Mars is all about the heavy (wardens) and the fast (sentinel) units, for attack and defense. The spacemarines and tesla walkers can be a little annoying in DA's, but 8 warden or 7 warden 1 sentinel was generally the toughest city defense, and DAs in GvG just require mixing in enough sentinels so that 8 VF rockets can't auto kill everything in a sector.

Space Age Asteroid Belt (SAAB)

• The only unit worth anything in SAAB is the nail guns (ranged unit). 7 or 8 nail guns is the toughest thing to kill (used as a defense plus maybe a SAAB champ or Mars warden.)

• The fast unit in SAAB is a flying unit, so it's good to include one in a siege army or DA, just so that rockets can't be used for attacking it since they can't hit flying units, but otherwise the range on them is so bad that Mars sentinels are way more effective.

Space Age Venus (SAV)

• 8 energy cannon (fast units) is the toughest defense.

Space Age Jupiter Moon (SAJM)

• 8 abyssal gliders (fast units) is a tough defense.

• 8 harpoon grenadier (ranged unit) would also be no fun to fight because of their Contact skill.

• Maybe include one SAJM champ or fast unit (flying) in any defense army since the champ gives a boost to the other troops, and artillery in SAJM can't hit flying units.

Space Age Titan (SAT)

• 8 fast units is the toughest defense.

Space Age Titan (SASH)

• 8 ranged units (they have contact skill to retaliate) make for a tough defense.

• 8 fast units is also a good defense

• 8 artillery can be a brutal defense army to defeat