Common Mistakes you should not make

Below is an article from someone who is not an Alliance AOE member. The article summarizes errors and approaches that you find in other Alliance AOE articles. Since it is well written and brings errors we see frequently made by Alliance AOE members as well as opponents who attacks us, we are posting it here. You will find additional remarks in brackets [...].

Mistakes people make during attacks

Over the last year, I have been observing players' attacks and see people make the same mistake again and again. So I'm compiling a list of such common mistakes, in the hopes that it will help other players who are levelling up.

1.   Moving up in ages without having fully upgraded your offenses - I routinely see people using IA [Industrial Age] level heavy tanks in AA [Atomic Age] or CWA [Cold War Age]. They just don't work, you've got to have your offenses fully upgraded to have a real chance at competing.

''[when the discrepancies between your age and your offensive capabilities is too great, you do not qualify to participate in war until you have levelled up your attack capabilities. Attack capabilities include: armory, castle, embassy (coalition troops), factory, air strip, offensive University skills, Library, and Museum. In addition, it includes to read an opponent's base, creating an attack strategy, appropriate troop composition, and deployment locations and deployment speed]''

2.   Using barrack troops post IA - Once you cross IA, it's best to switch completely to factory troops. I made the switch towards the end of IA itself and never went back. With all factory troops, you can attack up and get a lot of oil bonus.

3.   Using demolition war tactic- Unfortunately in my alliance, 3 out of top 4 players (fourth being me) rely on demolition to start their attack. As a result, I hardly even see them get 5 stars on their numerical opponent [refers to an opponent that is similar in age and xp level]. Demolition is fun, but it's useless. I personally use 5 sabotage and 2 betrayals, but I've seen people use decoy to good effect as well. Other than these 3, all other war tactics are useless. Please stop using them.

4.   Overestimating the damaging effect of missile silo and mortar towers - yes, they are loud, but they are not as damaging as you think they are. If you have all factory troops, they will take silo and mortar attacks in their stride.

5.   Underestimating the damaging effect of ATG [Anti-Tank Gun] and garrisons/tank depot - ATGs are dangerous, get rid of them as quickly as possible. As for garrisons and tank depot, their primary role is not to kill your troops directly, they keep your troops occupied, wasting their time, while simultaneously giving time to the towers/mortar towers/and missile silo to weaken them. Get rid of garrisons and tank depots first. You can take care of bunkers by using betrayal as soon as the HT [Heavy Tank; do not confuse HT, Factory Troop, with MBT (Main Battle Tank), Barracks Troop] spawns, they will then destroy the bunker. [For your own base design, we strongly suggest that you have an ATG placed close to your bunker in case the HT is betrayed and moves against you.]

6.   Dropping all your troops in the same place - This doesn't work. Your troops just become fodder for the defensive troops. They also end up targeting the same buildings, wasting more time. Spread them out, they destroy the target base far more quickly that way.

[The spreading approach is quicker when executed well. If not executed well, your troops will be quickly destroyed by overwhelming defenses. One way for a well-deployed spread is to use decoy first to trigger the first wave of defenders, then place HTs and high Hitpoints mercenaries far away from the decoy. That will make the defenders travel "far" and allows you to destroy them with fighters as you place the rest of your troops, possibly commandos and bazookas, clockwise or counterclockwise around the opponent base.]

7.   Sending your bomber in the thick of things unprotected - If you want to derive any benefit out of your bombers, use them in combination with sabotage. Otherwise they will never make more than 2 trips. Deploy the bomber, see where it is coming from, sabotage any tower/air defense on the way.

8.   Not planning your attack - In war attacks, you should always scout and plan out where you are going to drop your troops. For MP attacks, you should quickly scan the area most densely populated with towers/garrisons/tank depots and target that are first. Don't just randomly drop your troops anywhere.

9.   Dropping your troops too late - Once you've started an attack, don't wait to deploy all your troops. Deploy them as quickly as possible. I've seen people drop troops up to 1 minute after their attack has started. No way you're getting a quick victory that way. The only exception to this is when you are waiting for your commandos to take out towers/ATGs. But that wait shouldn't be more than ~20 seconds.

[If you still use demolition after IA, don't make the mistake we see often in attack replays; don't deploy your demolition and then wait and watch it explode before you deploy your other troops. This wait time will likely cost you the quick victory star. You can always watch the demolition in the replay and assess whether it did what you wanted it to do, learn and adjust. The same accounts for other troop tactics and for "rally". Deploy them and move on. If you wait and watch, you will lose critical time.]

10.  Not using fighters correctly - Fighters are meant to destroy defenders, don't use them exclusively for buildings. Use them to prevent your troops getting mauled by defenders. [The exception to this statement is, if defenders are close to air defense or towers, then target the tower or air defense building directly. The defender troops around the building will be destroyed by the fighter spread. However, the building's defensive power will be suppressed and your fighters will incur less damage.]