Sending Fake Attacks

Fakes are an integral part of Travian, whether attacking alone or in a group. Please see also the section on Fake Attacks, under Alliance Strategies.

This section adds to what has already been said, but it further expands on the individual techniques of faking.

There are four main reasons for faking:

• to warn a player to back off. You can ask your alliance members to fake all his villages.
• to demoralize a player so that he quits. Some players are easily frightened, but at other times it accelerates a demoralized player’s decision to quit the game.
• to force a player to spread his defenses, effectively reducing your losses. Fake five villages, and attack only one. You will face significantly less defenses than without faking. When you fake all twenty villages and attack only one, the defender won’t even bother to ask for defenses except for his capital and perhaps only one or two of his most important villages.
• to disguise the true location of your attack. This is the most useful reason for faking, and remember the rule of faking – attack where they do not expect.

Attack where they do not expect means faking the targets where they expect you to attack, and attacking where they do not expect. This is such a simple statement but how do you know where they are expecting an attack?

Here are some strategies you can use :-

• Fake the capital, and hit the support village. Players usually defend the capital, only to have you attack their support village.
• During endgame, when WW support villages mushroom up next to the WW, the enemy expects you to attack their WW support villages. Fake them there, but attack their core villages instead. Later, once their core villages have been attacked, you can reverse this to attack the WW support villages instead. This will keep the defender at wits end trying to figure out where you will attack next.
• Fake the top player’s capitals, and also alliance leaders’ capitals but attack a normal player’s capital instead. Top player’s and alliance leader’s capitals are very good locations to fake. They are generally poor targets for real attacks because they are usually well defended.
• Just send fakes. Send fakes to all the villages without any real attacks. Do this a few times, and they will get used to your bluff. Then send the real attacks.
• Constantly fake and change your attack pattern to make your attacks unpredictable. Attacking and faking gives you the initiative. Its easier to send fakes than it is for the defender to guess where you are attacking.

When you send fakes, there are a few techniques you can use to maximize your results:

• Use a slow unit, preferably catas, or rams. The attack speed is the first thing that is noticed. If its too fast, then its not catas, then you know it’s a fake. High quality fakes is always with the cata.
• Send fakes from your capital. This is the second thing players look at. If its from your capital, it raises their alert level.
• Send one cavalry fake to a player’s oases. Then send infantry fakes to all the remaining oases. These fakes can be sent from non-capitals. Some foolish players defend oases, and will defend the one under cavalry attack because of the high speed it is traveling. This will spread out their defenses.
• Send multiple waves of same second fakes (no more than 5 waves). Having multiple waves landing on the same second on their capital raises the threat level and priority for defense requests.

  Sending same second fakes is easier to do than same second attacks. You usually can accomplish it in just one attempt.

  Just send ten waves using the Ctrl-Tab technique. Then go to your rally point and you’ll probably find your attacks spread across 2 or 3 seconds. Cancel all those that do not land on the same second, and you’re left with multiple waves of same second attacks.

• Fake as many villages as you can. The more villages that are faked, the more effective it is. The setback is this needs time to execute.

Tip:-

• Use catas as much as possible. The faster the unit, the easier it is to spot a fake attack.
• The longer the travel time, the easier it is to spot a fake. Use catas for long travel times.