Jaq attack
The Jaq Attack is the single most powerful attack possible within the limitations of the game. I have used it to crush entire enemy alliances and to farm items from well defended towns. Until now, it has been a closely guarded secret known only to myself and a few trusted proteges.
Warning: This attack is NOT for new players. You must have a solid understanding of the game mechanics in order to make this attack work.
Summary:
The Jaq Attack allows 99,000 of your cavalry to attack enemy archers in the first round, ignore swordsmen, pikes, etc, that may be guarding them, while simultaneously causing the enemy archers to not retaliate for multiple rounds. In practice, this can allow a player to kill several hundred thousand archers with an average attack hero – with almost no losses, or a particularly skilled player to wipe over one million archers with hardly a scratch. This is achieved by manipulating two key elements of the battle mechanics in the favor of the attacker.
First Element: Hit In Round One
With level 10 walls and level 10 archery, enemy archers have a range of 2,400. With max hbr, your cavalry only have a speed of 1,500. So, how do they close the gap in the first round? Simple, in the absence of traps, abatis and defensive trebuchets, your cavalry get a starting bonus equal to their unupgraded base speed of 1,000. Since this occurs in the first round, your cavalry effectively move 2,500 fully upgraded. (1,000 starting bonus plus actual movement of 1,500 with level 10 hbr) That’s more than enough to close the gap on archers in the first round. Any layers the defending the town will also be at range zero, not having moved yet, and therefore cannot block for the archers.
(I should note that the starting bonus is a special rule which only applies to certain conditions. I will explain this special rule and other fundamental elements of the battle mechanics in a later post.)
Second Element: Eliminate Retaliation
Let’s say you’ve attacked someone with 800,000 archers with miniscule layers. Your 99,000 cavalry attacked in the first round and killed 200,000 archers. So now what? Wouldn’t the remaining 600,000 archers be able to attack your cavalry and wipe them out? Not with the Jaq attack. The defending player’s units follow different, more rigid rules than attackers. One rigid rule: Defending archers ALWAYS attack ranged units in range before anything else, and in a specific order: First catapults, then ballistas, then archers. In practice, this means that if you attack 800,000 archer with 99,000 cavalry, 1 catapult, 1 ballista, and 1 archer, the battle may look like such:
Round 1:
Cavalry moves.
Cavalry attacks; kills 200,000 archers.
Archers attack; kill 1 catapult.
Round 2:
Cavalry attacks; kills 200,000 archers.
Archers attack; kill 1 ballista.
Round 3:
Cavalry attacks; kills 200,000 archers.
Archers attack; kill 1 archer.
Round 4:
Cavalry attacks; kills 200,000 archers.
Round 5:
Cavalry attacks; defeats wall.
Victory for attacker.
In this way, you’ve completely nullified the defending archers’ ability to retaliate by forcing them to waste rounds – killing 800,000 of their troops and losing only 3 of yours.
(200,000 archers per round is a pretty conservative goal – should only require an attack hero around the 250 range which is not hard to get. More advanced players will of course be able to achieve much higher.)
Pure/Impure Jaq Attacks:
A pure Jaq attack is like the above example: Cavalry with round-stealing-layers attack lone archers of a large quantity. Impure Jaq attacks involve archers with a minimal set of other units accompanying them in defense. Sometimes called a dirty Jaq attack. The impure attack is one you’ll probably be using more often and is still remarkably effective – though lacking the stunning lopsidedness of a pure Jaq attack.
The Two Obstacles In An Impure Jaq Attack:
Range Variants:
Abatis, traps, catapults, ballistas and archer towers all have a longer range than archers. This means that any one of them can alter the starting range of the battle. Ultimately, whether or not your cavalry will reach in round 1 will depend on the hbr of the cavalry, and the archery level/wall level of the defenders. If you cannot reach in round 1, your cavalry will run into layers FIRST.
Layers:
Two potential dangers lurk in layers: Large layers, such as 100,000 pikeman that can do serious damage, and large numbers of small layers that can steal rounds from your cavalry.
How To Deal With Them:
Step 1: Thin layers as much as possible. At the very least, you should try to eliminate all cavalry, cataphracts, pikemen, and swordsmen. Warriors may be too difficult to remove to be worth it in some cases – but if they are a threat to your cavalry, you should at least try. The only time you would not bother to thin layers is when you can reach archers already in the first round, and all layers are quite small (under 1,000). In such a scenario, your cavalry will crush the archers first, then wipe out the small layers one by one.
The most effective way to eliminate layers is with layered suicide archer and/or warriors waves. If the range is less than 5,000, do not use archers to remove layers.
Step 2: Drop the maximum range as low as possible. In order to gain the round advantage, your layers must be within range of defending ranged units at the same time as your cavalry. To do this, you must kill off all enemy traps and abatis. To kill traps, send suicide warriors. To kill abatis, send suicide cavalry. In each instance, send about 10% the number of your suicide unit as your enemy has for a corresponding defense, and always focus on killing traps first. For example, if your enemy had 1,000 traps and 1,000 abatis, you’d send waves of 100 warriors until he had no more traps, then send waves of 100 cavalry until you’ve taken care of his abatis.
To remove archer towers, attack with suicide archers AFTER you’ve removed his traps and abatis. When the battle starts at 5,000, attacking archers will prioritize defending archers. However, when attacking at a lower range, attacking archers will prioritize archer towers instead. This is another special rule which can be exploited for this attack. Sometimes removing the archer towers is worth it if the target town has no ballistas or catapults – because doing so can drop you into range of hitting their archers in the first round.
(Again, removing layers and controlling range should warrant a more in-depth post. I will certainly write one in the future on this important subject.)
Step 3: Test your target by attacking with 200 cavalry, then scout after the attack hits to see what was killed. That’s how you know what your cavalry will hit in the first round. If it happens to be archers, then let your attack go – your preparations are complete. If you’re hitting someone thing else, then you can’t quite reach. If you’re running into layers strong enough to wipe your cavalry, you may want to rethink your approach and start again at step 1. If you’re hitting a small layer of warriors with your cavalry, and there are no other melee-layers, then let your Jaq attack go and watch the fireworks.
Things To Watch Out For:
• Online players. It’s just common sense to attack someone when you know they’re offline. This is doubly true for the Jaq Attack. Because it’s based on manipulating the enemy’s defensive setup to your advantage, and takes some time to do, so, it’d be easy for most online players to screw it up.
• Ranged layers. Catapults and ballistas are a real pain when using this attack because they steal your layers and reduce effectiveness. If there are few enough of either, then use large layers to compensate.
• Hyper-reinforcing alliances. After you’ve wiped a town once, the alliance it belongs to may attempt to reinforce it. Just keep using the attack over and over. It’s much easier to use on a freshly wiped town anyways. I’ve cleared millions of archers just in reinforcements from a single town before. In this way, you can turn just one town into a death trap for a good portion of an alliance’s armies.
Addional Notes:
This move will almost certainly not work for you if you don’t know what you’re doing. This site is called “Pro Moves” for a reason. Familiarize yourself with the workings of the game and conventional warfare before attempting.
If you should suffer a massive failure or be ambushed – do not be discouraged and do not blame the attack. The attack works perfectly if used correctly. I have never had a failed Jaq Attack ever, and I have used it hundreds of times. If you are being ambushed, you need to focus on your intelligence gathering skills so you can start hitting offline players instead.
The Jaq Attack is SLOW because of the catapults. I generally send it off first, especially against distant targets, then send the suicide waves to clear the target up while I’m waiting for it to get there.
The Jaq Attack is very effective for item farming due to its power and cost-effectiveness.
There are some that claim that scouts will layer for cavalry. This is true in some cases, but not for the reasons they expect. Scouts are actually treated as a non-combatant when grouped with certain units – and you’ll be using at least 1 of everything for maximum layering. I’d recommend sending 1 scout with the main attack just in case, but don’t rely on it.
Your enemies will almost certainly attempt to retaliate with the same attack. You should welcome it. Because of its complexity, they won’t be able to figure it out on their own.
Cataphracts can substitute for cavalry in some situations but are not recommended.
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