Enhetsguide

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Oversikt

Formålet med denne guiden er å klargjøre både de sterke og svake sidene ved alle enhetene som er tilgjengelig på spillet. Selv om emnet er ganske så populært, så er all relatert informasjon delt mellom forskjellige guider og diskusjoner. Her er et forsøk på å lage en dypgående guide som burde være klar nok for en helt ny person på spillet.

Skulle det være sånn at du ikke vet noe som helst om Grepolis enda, vil det være lurt at du leser grunnleggende ting om Grepolis først, samt hvordan krigssystemet fungerer.

Generell informasjon

Hver enhet på Grepolis har et nummer med parameter som reflekterer deres oppførsel og effektiviteten i en kamp. Disse parameterne inkludert prisen på enheten i form av ressurser du er nødt til å bruke på produksjon, gårdsplass (eller befolkning) enheten tar, og dersom det er mytologiske enheter velvilje (sjekk ut guder for mer informasjon om det).

Det er også en ”kamp” parameter for en enhet. Dette inkluderer angrepsverdier som blir vist i en av tre former: stump, skarp og avstand. F.eks en steinslyngemann har et avstandsangrep på 23. For marineenheter har ikke angrepsparameter noen type, kun en enkelt numerisk verdi (f.eks 180 for Tireme). Hver landenhet has også tre defensive verdier, en per angrepstype: sverdmenn f.eks har 14 forsvarspoeng mot stump våpen, 8 mot skapt og 30 mot avstandsvåpen. Når en kamp starter mellom landenheten vil angrepsverdien på de offensive enhetene måles mot forsvarsverdien på de defensive enhetene. For marineenheter derimot er det enklere: kun en type defensiv prosent.

Andre aspekter av enheter inkluderer hastighet og bærekapasitet. Hastighet forteller deg noe om hvor raskt enheten kommer fram til sitt mål, og bærekapasiteten sier noe om hvor mange ressurser den klarer å bære med seg etter en kamp.

I tillegg, noen enheter har spesielle aspekter med seg. Det er transportbåter som kan transportere landenheter på kryss av havet; det er også noen mytologiske enheter som kan fly og vil derfor ha muligheten til å komme seg til andre øyer raskt og uten å bli transportert. Det er spesifikke marineenheter som blir kalt brannskip som dreper motstanderens båter i en 1:1 ratio uavhengig av det offensive eller defensive parametere. Alle sånne spesielle enheter vil bli tatt individuelt i en egen seksjon i denne guiden.

Enhetseffektivitet

For å være i stand til og diskutere effektiviteten til enhetene, er vi først nødt til å definere noen klare og enkle kriterier. Det grunnleggende enhetsparameteret som ble nevnt ovenfor gir oss de grunnleggende kriteriene:

• Angrepsstyrke per brukte ressurs
• Angrepsstyrke per brukte gårdplass
• Angrepsstyrke per velvilje brukt (for mytologiske enheter)
• Forsvar (hver av typene) per brukte ressurs
• Forsvar per brukte gårdplass
• Forsvar per brukte velvilje
• Angrepseffektivitet i forhold til allerede eksisterende defensive enheter og omvendt

En detaljert definisjon om vær av kriteriene vil bli listet under. Vi vil også vurdere andre kvaliteter som hastighet, flyge muligheter, bærekapasitet. En av hovedhensikten med denne guiden er å hjelpe deg bestemme deg for hvilke enheter du burde bruke i en spesifikk situasjon, og dette kan normalt sett bli brukt ut ifra disse verdiene.

Byggingen av din hær

Som en ny spiller vil du uten tvil komme til å stå foran dette spørsmålet: hvordan skal jeg bygge opp troppene mine? Hvilke enheter og hvilke sammensetninger er de mest effektive? Det er dessverre ingen enkle svar på det spørsmålet, men det er noen ganske viktige faktorer som du alltid må vurdere og som kan hjelpe deg med å eliminere enkelte valg, og kanskje også hjelpe deg å forstå konsekvensene av dine valg.

Enhetskategorier

Aller først skal vi se på de eksakte definisjonene av kriteriene fra listen over. Vi starter med det to som er mest essensielt:

• AA/G: Angrep per gårdsplass
• AF/G: Gjennomsnittlig forsvar per gårdsplass

AA/G er ganske åpenlyst – det er enhets angrepsstyrke (spiller ingen rolle hvilken type det er) som er delt på befolkningskostnaden. F.eks en bueskytter sin AA/G er 8/1 = 8 og for en rytter er AA/G = 55/3 ~ 18,3.

AF/G er litt mer komplisert. For landenheter er dette summen av alle typer forsvar delt på 3 og deretter på befolkningskostnad. For marineenheter er det kort forsvar delt på befolkningskostnad. F.eks en hestestridsvogn har AF/G = 76 + 16 + 56 / (3 * 4) ~ 12,3 og Bireme AF/G = 160/8 = 20.

Det kan virke veldig forvirrende på hvorfor akkurat disse parameterne ble valgt som ’nødvendige’, men det kan lett forklares. Befolkningsgrensning er en av hovedfaktorene for en hær, spesielt på seinere tidspunkter i spillet. Normalt sett er spillerne interessert i å få maksimalt ut av verdiene for angrep og forsvar per befolkning av sin hær. En høy AA/G verdi betyr veldig kort at en enhet har et bra forsvar, mens en høy AF/G betyr at det er en god forsvarsenhet. Under er en liste over alle enhetene med påfølgende AA/G og AF/G verdier. Den siste raden, A/F representerer angrep/forsvars ratio.

Enhet		Angrep	Forsvar	Forsvar Stump	Forsvar Skarp	Forsvar Avstand	AA/G	AF/G	A/F
Sverdmenn	1	5 (Stump)	-	14	8	30	5	17,3	0,3
Steinslyngemenn	1	23 (Avstand)	-	7	8	2	23	5,7	4
Bueskytter	1	8 (Avstand)	-	6	25	12	8	14,3	0,6
Hoplitt	1	16 (Skarp)	-	18	12	7	16	12,3	1,3
Rytter	3	55 (Stump)	-	18	1	24	18,3	4,8	3,8
Hestestridsvogn	4	56 (Skarp)	-	76	16	56	14	12,3	0,9
Katapult	15	100 (Avstand)	-	30	30	30	6,7	2	3,4
Minotauros	30	420 (Stump)	-	675	300	560	14	17,1	0,8
Manticora	45	945 (Skarp)	-	170	225	505	21	6,7	3,1
Kyklop	40	756 (Avstand)	-	945	10	1310	18,9	18,9	1
Harpy	14	266 (Stump)	-	105	70	1	19	4,2	4,5
Medusa	18	425 (Skarp)	-	625	435	375	23,6	26,6	0,9
Kentaur	12	156 (Avstand)	-	150	450	60	13	18,3	0,7
Pegasus	20	100 (Skarp)	-	900	250	300	5	24	0,2

Vi kan nå veldig lett se hvordan alle landenhetene passer inn i disse tre kategoriene definert over.

• Defensive enheter (A/F << 1): Sverdmenn, Bueskyttere, Bireme, Pegasus
• Offensive enheter (A/F >> 1): Steinslyngemenn, Rytter, Katapult, Flammeskip, Manticora, Harpy
• Balanserte enheter: (A/F ~ 1): Hoplitt, Hestestridsvogn, Trirem, Minotauros, Kyklop, Hydra, Medusa, Kentaur

Defensive enheter burde aldri bli brukt som angrep, og offensive enheter burde aldri bli brukt som forsvar. Balanserte enheter derimot er de eneste enhetene som fungerer som både angrep og forsvar. Basert på disse kategoriene skal vi analysere mulig oppsett for defensive og offensive hærer.

Landenheter

Defensiv hær

Vi vil begynne med å anta at en defensiv hær må ha alle de tre forskjellige forsvarsverdiene grovt regna likt. Grunnen bak denne antagelsen er ganske enkel. La oss se på et eksempel: en defensiv hær som består av 100 hoplitter og 100 bueskyttere. Det vil dermed ha følgende verdier:

• Stump:19*100+5*100=2400
• Skarp:12*100+25*100=3700
• Avstand:7*100+12*100=1900

For å holde dette enkelt skal vi anta at det ikke er noe bymur eller annen bonus for angrep eller forsvar. I en gitt situasjon der denne hæren blir angrepet av 100 steinslyngemenn som har angrepsavstand på 23*100 = 2300 vil dem mest sannsynlig bli utslettet. Så vi har en situasjon der din hær, verdt 200 gårdsplasser kan bli utslettet av en hær som kun er verdt 100 gårdsplasser. Dette er akkurat den type situasjon vi ønsker å unngå!

La oss nå se på et annet eksempel, hvor den defensive hærer består av 50 bueskyttere, 50 sverdmenn og 100 hoplitter. Forsvarsverdiene vil da være følgende:

• Stump: 19*100+5*50+7*50 = 2500
• Skarp: 12*100+25*50+8*50=2850
• Avstand: 7*100+12*50+30*50=2800

This would require about 130 slingers to defeat – or about 50 horses. Clearly this defense is more effective even though it amount to the same 200 farm spaces. And if it seems to you that 200 farms spaces for defense against 130 or 150 for offense is still unfair, you should remember that in actual combat the defender is likely to have a wall bonus; and there are other factor in this game which make the defense easier - some of them will be mentioned later in this guide.

However, you should not assume that a perfectly balanced defense is always a perfect defense. There are some other important factors to be considered.

In the table above you can see that some defensive units have AD/F value higher than the others. The highest one goes to Medusae, but they are mythical units and therefore their production is limited. The army composition given above is an example of a balanced defensive army with nearly highest possible ratio of total defense to farm spaces used without mythical units – 13,6. The composition can be made just a little better by slightly modifying the numbers: 97 hoplites, 51 archers and 52 swordsmen. It will have following defensive stats:

• Blunt: 2780
• Sharp: 2855
• Ranged: 2851
• AD/F: 14,4

Further we will refer to this composition as 'equal composition'. Can we consider it as ideal? Not really. There are a number of things that do not fit into the 'balanced' defense concept. All of them are related to the probability of being attacked by one or another type of unit.

Let us assume now that the probablity is equal that you will be attacked by any of the three attack types. Let us further assume that for each of the attack types, the attacking force will contain the best (with regard to AA/F) unit for that type of attack. As this may seem a little confusing, let us regard a 600 FS attacking army which illustrates the same principal.

• Blunt attackers (~200 FS total)
  • Horses, 66
• Sharp attackers (200 FS total)
  • Hoplites, 100
• Ranged attackers (200 FS total)
  • Slingers, 200

Now let us calculate the attacking values of this army:

• Blunt: 66*55=3630
• Sharp: 200*16=3200
• Ranged: 23*200=4600

We can see that these values are different for each attack type. Accordingly, if we base on the assumption of equal probability of any attack type, we may want to adjust our defense in respect to these values. This would make our 200 FS army consist of 104 hoplites, 17 archers and 79 swordsmen and the defense values would be 3080 vs blunt, 2305 vs sharp and 3302 vs ranged. Further we will refer to this as 'probability composition'.

Of course, the equal probability assumption is rather bold. However, the probability composition has another advantage. Let us suppose that an opponent managed to scout our army before attack and has a chance to tailor his own force accordingly. Now, in case he finds that we use equal composition, he will be able to attack with slingers and he will need to send 124 of them to have a 50% chance of beating our troops. However, in case he finds that we use a probability composition, he will need either 144 slingers or 144 hoplites or 48 horsemen to have the same chance. That means he will have to use at least a 144 FS army – against 123 in the case of equal composition. So whenever you don't feel secure from scouting, you may want to consider this army composition for defense.

Finally, let us adjust the compositions above to include mythic units in them. In fact, we will only include two mythic units: medusa and pegasus. The first is number one as far as AD/F is concerned, while Pegasus, although slightly behind in that regard, is cheaper in favor: it has about 20% higher defence/favor cost ratio.

Since mythic units are so population heavy, we will increase our FS limit to 1000. Also we will introduce a favor limit: the favor price of mythic units in our army must not exceed 3000.

Equal composition with medusae

Unit composition:

• Medusae: 14
• Swordsmen: 259
• Archer: 289
• Hoplite: 200

Parameters:

• Blunt defense: 17710
• Sharp defense: 17787
• Ranged defense: 17888
• AD/F: 17,8

You can see that AD/F value is significantly higher now thanks to the usage of Medusae.

Probability composition with medusae

Unit composition:

• Medusae: 14
• Swordsmen: 488
• Archer: 219
• Hoplite: 41

Parameters:

• Blunt defense: 17634
• Sharp defense: 15961
• Ranged defense: 22805
• AD/F: 18,8

This defense is so good in fact, that an attacking force that does not contain mythic units will need to be not much less than 1000 FS. If a 2000 FS army built according to this composition is fortified by a maxed out wall and tower, beating this force will be extremely costly for an attacking army and will require cooperation of armies from many cities.

There are also other bonuses to using medusae in defense which will be discussed later in the balanced army section.

Equal composition with pegasi

Unit composition:

• Pegasi: 12
• Swordsmen: 265
• Archer: 495

Parameters:

• Blunt defense: 17480
• Sharp defense: 17495
• Ranged defense: 17490
• AD/F: 17,5

This army is very good as far as resources spent per defense point are concerned. Average defense per resource ratio AD/R = 9,55 compared to equal composition with medusae AD/R=7,03. It also requires only 2160 favor compared to 2940 in case of medusae.

Probability composition with pegasi

Offensive army

Building an offensive army is actually easier than building a defensive one. While a defense has to be balanced against all types of attack, offense is most effective when it pure. So we will need to consider three types of attacking armies: blunt, sharp and ranged.

The choice between them in most cases is based either on scouting data – or simply on the fact that you already have some units and it's easier to build more of those than to start working in a different direction. There are some other factors which will be mentioned in corresponding section. It must be noted, however, that in case your opponet uses a probability composition for defense, and you attack with non-mythical units only, you will need to spend the same amout of FS regardless of attack type you choose.

Blunt attackers

There is only one non-mythical blunt attacker – horseman. It is also arguably the most popular attacking unit in Grepolis: not only does it have good AA/F value, but it has good speed and carries a lot of loot which makes it ideal for farming villages. And since you will want to farm villages in all your cities whenever possible, it is just as well if your attacking army can do this in its 'off-duty' time.

There is a more subtle reason to using horsemen for attack: non-mythical units specializing in blunt defense have lowest AD/F among all defensive units. Even if your opponent choses to build a defense of 300 hoplites, you will be able to counter it with 100 horsemen (that is the same 300 FS). If you were building slingers you would find it much more difficult to deal with a defense of pure swordsmen, and hoplites as attackers do even worse against archers.

If you have a chance to complement your blunt army with mythic your units it will become even more formidable and versatile. Harpies have AA/F even a little higher than horses, they are also fast and carry lots of loot and they also fly. If the last bit seems insignificant to you, consider this: most of your attack will have to go overseas, which means that you'll need transport ship to carry your horses. Transport ship also take FS: 3 regular boats without bunk research will carry 20 horses. This adds 21 FS to the original 60 of the horses, and lowers their AA/F to 13,6. If you have bunks research, it will 14,5 – but still so much lower than the initial 18,3 value. Harpies do not suffer from this setback, which makes them so much more effective.

Sharp attackers

If you decide to focus on sharp attack, you have a choice between hoplites and chariots. Hoplites have a slightly higher AA/F, they are cheaper resource wise, the associated research requires less points and is accessible earlier in the academy. Chariots have the bonus of speed and better loot, which makes so much more effective at farming, though still much worse than horses.

All non-mythical sharp attackers are balanced units, so your sharp attacking army will contribute a lot to your defense as well. This will be covered in more detail in balanced army section.

On the other hand, archers are very popular defensive units and they are very effective for sharp defense. For this reason, you can often encounter defensive armies which are best defended against sharp. So if you are going for a chariot/hoplite offense, make sure your opponent is not stockpiling archers: this will make your attack extremely ineffective, even if you win your losses both in resource and in farm space will be a lot higher.

There are two mythical units with sharp attack, and both are excellent attackers. Medusa has the highest AA/F (and AD/F also as already mentioned) and Manticore has the 2nd best, only a little lower. Also Manticores can fly, so the same bonus as for harpies applies to them.

Ranged attackers

Slingers have the highest AA/F value among all non-mythical units (and the only mythical unit to just barely beat them is medusa). They are also accessible very early in the game. The only problem with them is that they won’t be able to do much farming, unless you have an army of at least 500 of them.

Slingers are countered very effectively by swordsmen, but since in the mid to later game swordsmen are arguably the least popular defensive unit, slingers are likely to find a breach in opponent’s defense. It is really important to note: even if a player builds swordsmen, he most likely does only to maintain a balanced defense. What it means is that attacking with slingers will at least be as effective as with any other unit. It is different with horses, for example, since your opponent may happen to have a lot of hoplites or chariots, and be heavily defended against blunt while being weak to other attack types.

Based on this, it may be a good idea to go for slinger attack, if you know nothing about your opponent’s defense. Unfortunately, there are no flying mythic units to complement ranged offensive army, unlike the blunt and sharp cases. Cyclop and centaur are mythical ranged attacker but since they are actually worse than slingers both in terms of AA/F and in terms of resource cost – and they also consume favor – there is not much point in building them

Balanced army

Coming soon.

Summary: army compositions overview

Naval army

In this section we will cover the question of naval army composition and strong/weak sides of different naval units.

There is a lot less diversity in naval units compared to land. Also, naval units have only one type of attack/defense. Below is the list of naval units and their basic characteristics - same as for land units above.

Unit		Attack	Defense	Speed	AA/F	AD/F	A/D
Bireme	8	24	160	15	3	20	0,2
Light Ship	10	200	60	13	20	6	3,3
Trireme	16	180	250	9	11,3	15,6	0,7
Hydra	50	1000	715	8	20	14,3	1,4

We can see that there is only one offensive unit - Light Ship, and only one defensive, bireme. Two naval units can be considered balanced, Trireme and Hydra.

An army of 13 biremes and 7 Light ships will have approximately the same defense and offense as an army of 10 triremes. The population cost will be 161 for bireme/light ship combination and 160 for triremes. This means that triremes are not more effective than bireme/light ship combination if you go for balanced naval army, and they are way less effective if you go for either pure offense or defense. Also, they are a lot slower. For these reasons, triremes are almost never used in Grepolis.

As for Hydra, an army of 27 biremes and 47 light ships is equivalent to 10 hydras in offense and defense, but it will cost 659 population against 500 for the hydras. This means that a balanced army may benefit from Hydras, but the drawback is the fact that they are very slow, slower even than triremes. There can be a place for them in a conquest world, but this will be covered in 'Using your army' section.

In general, however, the standard approach when building a naval army is to have some cities dedicated to light ships only, and some to biremes only. Hydras have no place in such layout. And for your first city, hydras are not an option anyway.

Using your army

Coming soon.