P.s. Also check out: Pillage guide and Pillage tips

% Def = (10 * WallLvl^2) / TownHallLvl

Where:

Def is the defense bonus in % over the defending troops.
TownHallLvl is the Town Hall’s level.
WallLvles is the Town Wall’s level.
From this formula you can easily see how it will do you no good to keep over upgrading your Town Hall while forgetting about the Town Wall, since the defense bonus % will shrink with each upgrade. On the other hand, if we make the extra effort of upgrading them together, we will enjoy a nice defense bonus equal to the shared level *10 in % over the defendig troops. In other words, if both the Town Wall and the Town Hall are in level 1 your troops get a 10% bonus while defending, if both are at level 2, the bonus would be 20%

We can see all combinations in this table graphically:

CityWall / TownHall Level Defense Bonus Relationship
# 1T 2T 3T 4T 5T 6T 7T 8T 9T 10T
1Wall 10% 5% 3% 2% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%
2Wall 40% 20% 13% 10% 8% 6% 5% 5% 4% 4%
3Wall 90% 45% 30% 22% %18 15% 12% 11% 10% 9%
4Wall 160% 80% 53% 40% 32% 26% 22% 29% 17% 16%
5Wall 250% 125% 83% 62% 50% 41% 35% 31% 27% 25%
6Wall 360% 180% 120% 90% 72% 60% 51% 45% 40% 36%
7Wall 490% 245% 163% 122% 98% 81% 70% 61% 54% 49%
8Wall 640% 320% 213% 160% 128% 106% 91% 80% 71% 64%
9Wall 810% 405% 270% 202% 162% 135% 115% 101% 90% 81%
10Wall 1000% 500% 333% 250% 200% 166% 142% 125% 111% 100%

Holes in the wall - Ikariam
In Ikariam a Town Wall has as many holes as its level. So a level 5 Town Wall could possibly have a total of 5 holes in it. In order to make a hole though your Town Wall, the attacking forces need to count with “Battering-Ram” units. That special units with that ability. The units that can break though walls are:

Rams
Catapults
Mortars
Each hole in your wall gives the attacking forces an extra 10% attacking bonus. From this one can deduce that if your Town Wall is not upgraded at least to your Town Hall level; your enemy could use your own Town Wall agains you!

Example:

Your Town Hall is at level 6 and your Town Wall is only level 2, by looking at the above table we can see how we only enjoy a 6% defending bonus for our troops. Because the wall is at level 2, it can host up to two holes, that is a 20% attacking bonus for your enemy. 20% - 6% yields a final 14% bonus for your enemy.

Source

So how could you make you win chances almost 100%? Well, the tool I?m loving at the moment and I use constantly is the Ikariam Score Search Tool. This tool displays the total score, military score, gold score and it also tells you whether the selected town has any allies.

It doesn?t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a town with a military score of 0 has no army whatsoever, so you can send everything you like and they will pillage it without any problems.

So what pick an island with the resource you want and preferably one that has the wonder that increases the resource gained because usually the towns will have a lot of the resource stored. Then check each town between level 3 and 7 to see its army and total score. A town with a total score of 300+ and military score of 0 is what you should aim for. The total score may mean that the port level is higher than 1 (most people new to the game just upgrade their port thinking it will help them and only later realize their mistake), therefore the higher the score the better the target. This means you can just send in 2 or 3 slingers and return with a full shipment of goods!

Sometimes you will only get 200 wood and maybe 10-20 of the Ikariam luxury resource but other times you might get 1k+ wood and 300-400 of the resource depending on how many trade ships you have available at home which is another important part. A little investment into 10+ ships will pay off very soon. The problem is, sending 2-3 slingers will cost 400 gold at most. Therefore, even if you only get 40 wood back which is very unlikely you still won?t loose money. On the other hand, if you would have to blockade the port first then launch your own army you could very well be into thousands of gold spent which is risky unless you?ve used a spy beforehand.

Okay so those are the steps to getting your first pillages if you are new to the game and don?t have huge amounts of resources. Nonetheless after you?ve raised 3 colonies, got a town level of 12+ and a larger army you may want to move and attack larger cities so you get more resources per pillage if this method begins to bore you. But by that time you will have the combat experience in Ikariam!

Having defense in your town is the one thing stopping other players marching in and emptying your warehouse while your away. It may seem rather simple to some people but there are a lot active players with no defense.

The Best Defense

Ikariam contains eight unique troops. Although I could complain about the variations and specialty of them there is of course one clear winner when it comes to defense. This troop should be a well know type beyond that of Ikariam and its defensive powerless should also be as well know.

The Phalanx is the key to defense!

It is easily the best value for money, in terms of resources needed to train one and the upkeep to keep one. They are of course out done by the attack value of higher up troops but the answer is simply to have.

Why The Phalanx

The Phalanx and the defensive powers that it has is one reason I like Ikariam so much. It may not be realistic on many fronts, but the Phalanx being the key to defense is one area that it is true to reality.

The Phalanx has a base defense of 40. Along with a specialty bonus of Resistance, giving a further 30%. That is a minimum of 52. (That is higher the the maximum defense of any troop lower, Slinger, Swordsman and the Phalanx itself)

The upgrades for a Phalanx increase its defense by 10; assuming the 30% bonus adds on top of that, the maximum defense value of a Phalanx is an impressive - 91!!!

That is, again more then everything below and now includes the Archer.

What About Better Defense

Those of you that have looked into the defense values of units will know that the Gunman has a higher maximum defense, along with any unit above it. While this is true, take into account the upkeep cost and resource cost of a Gunman compared to a Phalanx and you will see the Phalanx is still better.

One fully upgraded Gunman provides 106 Defense, costing 58 Gold per hour and 691 Resources.

Two fully upgraded Phalanx provides 182 Defense, costing 48 Gold per hour and 496 Resources.

The only negative difference is the extra citizen that is used, even taking that as a further 4 Gold for 2 hours (at a really low population growth rate) still means the two Phalanx are better value.

So How Many

It’s not easy to define a total amount of Phalanx you should use in defense of your towns. However I can recommend some numbers based on what I have at this time.

• Have a minimum of 5; no matter the size of the town.
• Have 1 Phalanx per Town Level
• Have 50% more in your capital

Remember, if someone is attacking the chances of them attacking your capital is significantly more then that of any other of your towns. Always have more defense there.

Town Wall

Remember, a 100% or more defense bonus should not be overlooked!

Beyond The Phalanx

It is true that the Phalanx although very good for defense does become obsolete eventually. The Steamgients do provide better value for money in defensive values. That said, even with high level Academies the time it would take to get from Phalanx to Steamgients is near on two months of research. Waiting would take forever!

Resource cost are calculated as 1 * wood value plus 2 * luxury value. This is the same way as the Generals score is calculated.

• For each citizen you’ll get 4 gold per hour

This means that you will need more citizens if you want to earn more (You get more citizens through more satisfaction. You can get more satisfaction through a tavern or a museum)

What will cost you money?

• Every scientist costs 12 per hour - if you have researched “Letter Chute” the upkeep for every scientist will be reduced by 1 per hour (Strictly speaking every scientist costs 8 gold, but you loose a citizen who’s paying taxes and because of that you earn 4 gold less -> results in effective expenses of 12, with the research only 11)
• Every worker costs 4 per hour (The actual reason is that you loose a citizen who’s paying taxes and so you’ll earn 4 gold less for every worker)
• Every military unit costs hourly - how much depends on the type of the unit. You can find more information in your barrack or in the FAQ - Units / Ships.

The upkeep of your units will be divided among all of your cities - proportionally to the population-size. Relevant to you is only the entire finance result -> it will be shown if you click on the gold icon in the top left of the game.

How calculate for your own city?

Income per hour: ( free citizens (Important! Free citizens not all inhabitants) * 4 ) - ( scientists * 8 )

Example:
entire population: 1616 / 1617 (irrelevant)
free citizens: 960
wood workers: 265 (irrelevant)
luxury workers: 302 (irrelevant)
scientists: 89

(960 * 4) - (89 * 8 ) = 3840 - 712 = 3128 income (The result can differ 1-2 gold)

Expenses per hour: Here you can see the total upkeep of this city (don’t forget: The upkeep is divided among all of your cities)

Result: “income per hour” minus “expenses per hour” results in how much gold you get or loose from this city every hour.