Colony Ship Sniping Guide

Credit to JamboCaz on SomeServerSomewhere

Advanced Guide to Defending Yourself from Colony Ship Attacks
This guide will help you keep your cities safe from enemy capture. It assumes you are familiar with the basics of attack, support, dodge etc.

REMEMBER

1	Don’t Panic – Stay Calm – You will work better
2	Never underestimate your enemy, always send everything you can to defend your city – never think it’s easy.
3	Use this guide but also post in the forums, people are always there to offer great advice – there is always more to learn.
4	Even if you can’t save yourself someone else probably can. Make your posts in forum informative and clear. This way even if you can’t save yourself, someone with more experience CAN save you if they have all the information they need. Post BBcodes for your city under attack, post the date and time stating timezone, tell them what you have done and are planning to do about it. Sometimes trying to defend 3 different ways increases the chances you will save your city. There are normally posting templates for you in the forums to follow.

Methods of Defending
There are 3 ways to defeat a Colony Ship we only want to use numbers 1 and 2 as 3 is a last resort.

1 Support	Land defensive troops (GDU Ground Defensive Units) as close to the Colony Ship landing time as possible, (Cancelling all defence that lands after that time) killing the troops, ships, the CS or all. Remember to activate Militia at the last second to help the snipe.
2 Attack	Land attacks on or as close to the Colony Ship landing time as possible, killing the troops, the ships, the Colony Ship or all.
3 Attack	1 and 2 have failed, you and the rest of the alliance who are in range send Light Ships or Manticores to kill troops, ships or all. Sometime you have to decide if the units lost breaking the siege is worth the cost for the city.

Always try 1 and 2 incase one of them fails.

Methods 1 and 2 – Sending From Other Cities
sniping a Colony Ship from a city that is not under Colony Ship attack, is just like sending a normal support and attacks. The same as you would when taking a city.
Plan to send as much defence and attacks as you can so you have more chance of getting a good time – 1 second before the Colony Ship is perfect for defence – 1 second after for attack.

Methods 1 and 2 – Sending From The City Under Colony ship Attack
It is vital that you learn this method – IT WORKS!
We all know how frustrating the Anti-Timer in the game can be. The Anti-timer is what gives the your attacks a random element – it means your attacks can land either a few seconds before or after the time you aim for.
This method of sniping from the same city, avoids the Anti-Timer, making this VITAL to learn.
When on the front line, never take all 8 farms on your island, only take 5 or 6 or 7 based on the size of your troops. See the table below to plan the number of Farms to take.

Farm Village	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Farm Space	0	6	10	40	100	300	600	1000

To use this method you must have defence or attack troops in the city. Keep these troops safe while the clearing attacks come in, dodge with them or store in a nearby safe city. Just keep them safe while the clearing attacks happen before the Colony Ship arrives.

To do the snipe you will send an attack to a farm village on your island, attacking these avoids the anti-timer, which means you can get your timings perfect. With practise you will always land your troops 1 second before or after.

Do the maths needed (see notes below) and cancel the attack through the Command Overview at the right second. Your troops will land back in the city and snipe the Colony Ship. You must cancel by changing cities and using the Command Overview, errors can happen when cancelling elsewhere. This is a game bug. (I think this has been fixed, I will edit once I have checked this out)

Examples
Example 1 – Attack Snipe using troops from the same city Colony Ship is attacking

I have a Colony Ship landing in my city.

I have a slinger nuke in this city, this will be an attack snipe.

I have all the clearing attack(s) hitting my city, starting 2 mins before the Colony ship arrival.

My slinger nuke must land 1 second after the Colony Ship lands.

My slingers must be out of the city 2 mins before and back 1 second after.

I do the maths (see notes) – I decide roughly 4mins is safe to attack farm.

From now, I will look at the countdown to attack (found at the top)

To land back in 1 second before the Colony Ship attack, I line up my attack on the farm and hover over the countdown at the top of the screen . When the Colony ship is exactly 4mins 1 second away I hit attack.

Because the Colony Ship is 4mins 1 second out, I want my slingers total journey to be 4mins 2 seconds – this means I can cancel my journey after 2mins 1 second.

When Doing an attack snipe, remember and crush your Wall as much as possible to make it easier for your troops.

Example 2 – Support Snipe using troops from the same city Colony Ship is attacking

I have a Colony Ship landing in my city.

I have a defence troops in this city, this will be a support snipe.

I have all the clearing attack(s) hitting my city, starting 4 mins before the Colony ship arrival.

My defence troops must must land 1 second before the Colony Ship lands.

My Defence troops must be out of the city 4 mins before and back 1 second before that.

I do the maths (see notes) – I decide roughly 6mins is safe to attack farm.

From now, I will look at the countdown to attack (see below)

To land back in 1 second before or after the Colony Ship attackI have to launch on an odd number so I decide 6 mins 1 second, I line up my attack on the farm and hover over the countdown at the top of the screen . When the Colony ship is exactly 6mins 1 second away I hit attack.

Because the Colony Ship is 6mins 1 second out, I want my slingers total journey to be 6mins exactly – this means I can cancel my journey after 3mins.

Depending on how you have been attacked you may have minutes between your clearing, colony Ship and enemy additional support arrival times. This gives you the chance to practise 10 second before or after to give yourself some breathing space to push buttons and not get distracted by a cat or gurgling radiator.

Sample	Times
Attack Farm 9.01 till CS	Attack Farm 8.01 till CS
Defence Snipe – Cancel 4:30	Defence Snipe – Cancel 4:00
Attack Snipe – Cancel 4:31	Attack Snipe – Cancel 4:01
– – –	– – –
Attack Farm 7.01 till CS	Attack Farm 6.01 till CS
Defence Snipe – Cancel 3:30	Defence Snipe – Cancel 3:00
Attack Snipe – Cancel 3:31	Attack Snipe – Cancel 3:01
– – –	– – –
Attack Farm 5.01 till CS	Attack Farm 4.01 till CS
Defence Snipe – Cancel 2:30	Defence Snipe – Cancel 2:00
Attack Snipe – Cancel 2:31	Attack Snipe – Cancel 2:01
– – –	– – –
Attack Farm 3.01 till CS	Attack Farm 2.01 till CS
Defence Snipe – Cancel 1:30	Defence Snipe – Cancel 1:00
Attack Snipe – Cancel 1:31	Attack Snipe – Cancel 1:01

Recalling troops from nearby cities 

While your enemy is clearing your citiy, you can arrange another snipe.

Store Biremes or Light Ships at a nearby safe city.

Note the travel times to that city.

When the Colony Ship si the correct distance away, recall biremes to land 1 second before or Light Ships 1 second after.

Tip to deter attackers Chase Light Ships home 

My biggest piece of advice, which is easy BP and makes you a horrible target for the enemy, is to chase Light ships home.

If a player attacks youand your have Light Ships in that city or a city of roughly equal distance away (if you clusteer cities correctly you will have lots) then chasing Light Ship home is a great trick. if they nuke you with 250 Light Ships then you only have to chase home with 50 Light Ships to kill them all! Loverly BP.

Just before you are attacked, send your Light ship out of the City. Cancel he attack so the Light Ship returns a a few seconds after you have been hit (practise this). The moment your Light Ships return, send them to attack the city that just hit you. Your Light Ships will follow the enemy home, just a few seconds behind, this is very hard for the enemy to doge.

If you have no Light Ships in that city, try and judge the times from another city.

This shows great skill, gets you great BP and makes you a bad target.

An example of a chase home attack below