Living the Trap Life Part One

So you’ve decided to live the Trap life? If you think you have what it takes to drive attackers crazy trying to get your Hero, read on to learn how to determine what makes a good trap. Since the game is ever-changing, I will teach you how to flex your muscles no matter what gets thrown at you. Even if it means living in a bubble until you can get your bearings.

Trapping Part One

This is only the first part of Trapping. This article will introduce you to the different types of Traps and the ways to form a Trap empire. Also included is a little bit on how combat works with boosts, troop types, and battle mechanics.

Definition of a Trap

To clear things up, when talking about a Trap Empire, I will capitalize “Trap”. But when I’m talking about the traps in your walls, it will be lower case “trap”. Ironically, Traps rarely use traps!

There are different types of Traps, so it’s up to you to decide which one you will be. Each one requires a different level of participation and a different setup. You might even find yourself switching from one to another depending on how your stats relate to the rest of the game.

Types of Traps:

Burn Trap: This is the most budget-friendly Trap since you don’t have to have the best stats. You will be less likely to capture a Hero, but there is still a lot of strategies involved.
Health Trap: This can still be a Burn Trap, but any troops lost just go to your hospital and can be immediately healed for minimum cost.
Solo Trap: A Trap account that can handle just about any solo march from an attacker.
Rally Trap: The most costly type of Trap, set to be able to handle huge rallies from another guild.
Hybrid Trap: This Trap not can not only defend while looking small but can even attack other players and win. Even win against HIGHER level players. This takes the most work and probably the most expensive Trap.

Burn Trap

These types of accounts will burn when attacked, but win by how much power is lost from the attacker. The higher tier troops that your attacker send are more costly than the lower tier troops you have in your Empire. This is nice when newer troop tiers come out and the currency and resources needed to train them are rare.

While you heal and/or train your troops with Gold and older currency, they are using what they receive from actual pack purchases to burn you. Offensive attackers might also look at the fact that you are burning and not even pay attention to their battle report and see that they are losing a lot of troops or a lot of power.

Good for RvR if you are getting more points due to power lost or troop types. All you need to do is be quick to calculate how much you are giving away compared to your points gained.
This type of Trapping will change your win/loss ratio for the better. If you lose more defenses, you’re more likely to get hit!
Great to start off with to get the hang of how a Trap works. So feel free to tweak your stats to see what works best for you.
Low to no cost to set up!

Health Trap

Whether you burn or not, all your troops go into your hospital and get immediately healed. While your attacker’s troops die instantly. All you need to do is stay on your hospital screen and hit the heal button after every attack. But you might want to look at your battle reports every once in a while to make sure you’re not coming close to overflowing your hospital or losing valuable troops.

Make sure you have plenty of Gold and resources needed to heal your troops at all times. Keep track of how much healing troops costs when testing your setup with a friendly player.
Low cost to set up. Hospital capacity and Guardians will be your priority. Oracle Temple boosts will help a lot.

Solo Trap

This type of Trap will be able to handle just about any solo attack that comes your way. You will need to have a lot more strategy than a lower budget build, but if you’re not opposed to spending, then this is for you.

You will have to learn how to adapt to the ever-changing attack strategies and customize your Empire to suit. When march sizes increase, your attack will have to increase to compensate. Furthermore, you might need to get more Guardians to protect against the larger march.

Always check your Watchtower for what your attacker is sending. If they are sending a Cavalry heavy troop load, you may want to train some more Warriors to counter. This requires a little more attention than a Burn or Health Trap. You will still need to heal, all while paying attention to your battle reports, troop types, and Gear.

Fun if you are willing to spend sometimes.
You will need to gather as many boosts as you can and save them for when you really need them.
Learn how to determine which stats you need to boost by testing. Or what you need to change due to attacking debuffs.

Rally Trap

If you’re really willing to go all the way and can buy packs when needed, this is one of the most fun ways to Trap. This type of Trap most certainly can win and even capture a Hero on a solo march. But it’s when you start getting rallied that the fun comes in. Rally march sizes can get enormous and reinforcements might not help that much at all. So, killing a whole rally with your little Empire is an accomplishment to brag about.

You will need to strategize on how to increase your stats while maintaining a lower power level than most big spenders. This might mean that you can’t level up your Citadel as much, or get every Hero leveled up to the max.

You will need to be able to train enough troops to kill off a large rally, so training queue is important. Meanwhile, your hospital capacity is still important to protect your troops and Guardians.

You might be able to get away with having a bit more power than a smaller type of Trap. This will make your opponents more willing to Rally instead of sending Solos.
Guardians are vital to this type of Trap to protect your troops from the sheer number of opponents you face at one time.
Costly since you will want to have more of the newer releases as soon as they come out.
You will need lots of Guardians to protect troops and other Mercenaries to increase your attack potential.

Hybrid Trap

This is the rarest form of Trap set up. You have to be willing to get the best stats like an attacker, all while maintaining your small stature so people are still willing to hit you. At first glance, a Hybrid will look like a small empire that can be easily defeated. But surprise, this “baby” empire is marching on YOU and wins!

Probably requires the most amount of spending and time.
You will have to find ways to increase your stats without raising your power too much.
Attack is the best stat for this Trap since you will want to be able to attack as well as the biggest offensive players.
You will have to get used to using Gear Presets or quickly changing heroes if needed. One type for attacking and another for defending.
You might have to switch to a Hybrid Trap if you become too good at Trapping. If you’re too well known, you have to have fun somehow! Attacking people is fun, and might entice others to try and get you, too.

Troops

With all the troop types available to us, it might seem like having it all is the most important. But, depending on your Trap type, you only need what will protect you and at the same time kill incoming troops.

Each troop has a “tier”. For core troops, it’s pretty straightforward. T1 is killed before T2 and so on. But when we look at other types of troops, you need to pay attention to the blogs and TEST. Certain Mercenary troops are killed after most other troop types, while Guardians are usually the first in line to get hit. Looking at their stats on the description page will tell you what their attack/hp/armor stats are and also what they are stronger and weaker against. Use this to your advantage when you’re building.

You will want to build as many troops as it takes to kill off as much of the incoming marches as you can. The best part about Trapping is that you don’t have to have the latest and greatest. However, there are exceptions, like if the newer troops have a huge stats increase that the previous tier cannot handle adequately or if your stats aren’t up to where they should be.

Battle Mechanics

While the actual mechanics are a closely guarded secret, there is some game knowledge that you can use.

1 HP = 3 armor.
Troops get hit in order of their “tier”. But all troops attack at the same time.
- So, if you have enough HP/armor in your lower-tier troops to handle the incoming troops’ attack, they won’t wound or kill anything else but that lower tier. This is where Guardians come in handy.
- But, if you don’t have enough attack stats or troops, then you won’t be able to kill off a whole march. You can fix this by training more troops or better yet, increasing your attack percentage.
There is a Rock/Paper/Scissors (RPS) approach to most troop types.
- Warrior < Mage < Cavalry < Warrior
- Lightning < Earth < Ice < Fire < Lightning
- Guardian < Airships < Juggernaut < Guardian
  - Mercenary RPS applies to Dark World only.

What Stats Do You Need?

This is where testing comes in handy. Whether you have a friendly heavy hitter that you can work with, or it’s trial by fire, you need to know how to read a battle report. If you are not able to kill off an entire march, you need more attack. If you’re getting way too many of your troops killed/wounded, you need more defense.

Attack

Anything that boosts Troop Attack. Gems, Gear, Hero, etc. Even if it is a troop type-specific attack like Warrior, Mage, Cavalry, Elemental, Mercenaries (if you have plenty).
Boosts that DEBUFF your opponent’s HP/armor. If their troops can’t defend against you properly, they will crumble against your attacking forces.
Using the RPS system against incoming troops. If they send Cavalry, dismiss your Mage and train Warrior. Same for Elemental troops and Mercenaries. Knowledge of the RPS system for all your troops will come in handy when you need to counter.
Astrals not only boost your troops but also have their own attack that demolishes your foes. You might want to look at your Astrals’ abilities and reset their skills if you need to. Remember that Skill Resets for Astrals are unlimited and FREE.
Reinforcements from Guild Mates means more troops and Astrals. The more you have, the more will attack enemy marches.
Training more troops. Since troops all attack at the same time, the more troops you have, the more troops you can kill.
Enchanting will boost your Gear temporarily, which might give enough oomph to kill the march.
Any type of temporary boost that gives enough of an attack boost to help out. Look for these in your inventory.

Trap boosts — Temporary boosts in Inventory

Defense

Anything that boosts Troop HP or Troop Armor. Gear, Gems, Astral abilities, etc. Look for troop specific boosts as well.
Boosts that DEBUFF your enemy’s attack. Like Attack Resistance or Attack Shredding. If they can’t attack you as hard, your troops will stand firm.
The RPS system is also handy here. Since your troops will be strong in defense against their weaker type of troop.
Some Astrals have defense specific boosts that you might have neglected to increase for some other type of skill. Use a Skill Reset to fix this.
Guardians will make a good set up into a great defending Empire.
If you have traps, they almost certainly will cause you to burn if they get hit. Get rid of them if you don’t have a strong Guardian wall before them.
There are some Enchantments that boost defense stats, too.

Other types of stats are also helpful when defending. Increasing your troop capacity will help if you ever need to spam troops to keep up with an attack. Stats multipliers will increase your base stats. For example a 50% attack multiplier will turn a 1,000,000% attack into 1,500,000%.

Shredding removes a percentage of your opponent’s stats. So 50% shredding against 1,000,000% armor will leave them with only 500,000% armor left. Cripple HP, Armor Piercing, and Attack Resistance removes only that much of your opponent’s stats. For this, 400,000% cripple HP against 1,000,000% will leave them with 600,000% HP. Clear as mud?

Staying Undercover

The ultimate Trap sneaks around unknown and fools many an attacker into losing their precious troops and maybe even their Hero! You can use a Player Name Change to become someone new! An Empire Name Change is important too if you have an obvious Empire name. Those can be purchased in the Guild Store with Loyalty if you haven’t been able to gather any from Guild Gifts.

Another way to stay obscure is Tabula Rasa. This will completely reset your stats and your Hero Memorial, so you won’t look like an obvious Trap. Although other players’ Memorials will still state that you’ve banished their Hero, so it’s not an absolute way to conceal your identity. Also, titles will still remain, so if you’re known as the Messages Corrected leader of your realm, you might not be able to hide in this way <sad trombone>.

Stay Tuned

There is a Trapping Part Two where I will show you the different places to get the stats that you need to Trap. It will cover basics from Hero Skills and Buildings to some more advanced ways to build your set up without gaining too much power.

What are your best tips for Trapping? Let me know on Facebook or Line 🙂