If there’s any feature that’s noteworthy in Ikariam 0.3.1, it has to be Occupation / Garrison Right.
If you are a member of an alliance, you automatically have Garrison Rights with all allied member towns. This means that you can send your entire army to that town and it will stay there as long as you want it to.
There are a couple of drawbacks to using this newly functioning (yet long awaited) feature.
1. Your army will consume twice the amount of gold for upkeep while in an allied town.
2. Trade ships used to transport the army will always be used, meaning you can’t use these for transporting goods (pillaged or your own) since they are being used by the occupying army as transport. This isn’t too bad though since if your occupying army needs to leave immediately due to an impending attack, it can. (But for Garrison Right with alliance member-towns, the trade ships are not “locked with the troops” – a draw back if you have to move your army out of harms way. This is one of the significant differences of Occupation and Garrison Right)
3. Ships carrying pillaged goods will pass by the occupied town first, depositing 10% of the pillaged goods before going to the original town your army was from. If the original town was 10 hours away, you can expect the trade ships carrying the pillaged goods to be gone for 10 hours before you can use these again. So even if the army in the occupied town can attack and pillage a same-island town every 30 minutes, the usefulness of this strategy will still be limited by the number of available trade ships. You can of course keep on attacking a town from an occupied town if you want to destroy a huge army located in it, being careful to avoid bashing (unless in an alliance war).
4. An occupied town with a low level hideout can easily divulge your occupying army’s strength. Remedy this by keeping your army hopping from one town to another or by occupying a town with a high level hideout.
5. The trading port of the occupied town determines the army’s loading / speed. If an army wants to leave immediately due to an impending attack, it might not be able to do so if the trading port level is very low. (Players with occupied towns can use this to their advantage and downgrade their Trading port to very low levels. Occupying players can compensate by maximizing the action points (AP) available of the occupied town and splitting their army in batches.)
An occupied town has a “Show Military” button. Unit information for your own units will show a drop down button where you can change the Origin Town for your occupying army. So if you want the trade ships carrying pillaged goods to go to a nearer town you own, simply set that town as the Origin Town for your army. Be advised though, since if you decide to have your army return home, they will return to this new Origin Town instead of the original town.
An occupying army can also hop from one allied town to another. The occupied town’s action points will limit the number of times you can utilize your army so if you need more action points, just move your army to a larger allied town.
Now for the benefits of Occupation / Garrison Right
1. Army pooling – there is strength in numbers. Right now, most military scores are in the 20,000 to 30,000 range. Small players with military scores of 2000 can now band together and pool their armies in a single town to come up with Goliath like scores of most top military players. Even top military players can band together and probably come up with military strengths equivalent to a 100,000 military score.
2. Timing Attacks – prior to 3.1, players had to time their attacks so that their armies would combine forces when hitting a target town. But that would usually result in more casualties for the first player who lands in that town. Sometimes, the enemies army would already scatter before the next wave of allies hit. Now, if all allied-player armies leave the occupied town at the right time, chances are, the group will land on the target town within seconds, killing more enemy troops and preserving more allied ones.
3. Quicker Deployment – Any ally can now help another player without the need to build a mobile colony. There is now less need for setup times of an MC since you can send your army right away. And you don’t even have to station your troops in the allied town under seige, simply look for a town to occupy on the same island or a few islands away and slowly try to hop to a strategic town in the war zone.
4. Source town ambiguity – Combat reports will always show that the army came from the originating town, not the occupied town. So if your army came from a town several hours away, the enemy will have a hard time figuring where that army was launched from. Better yet, name all your towns Polis so that the enemy will have a hard time finding where your army is currently stationed.
So if gold is not an issue, and you can live with giving away 10% of the pillaged resources and time-locked trade ships, then go for occupation rather than a mobile colony. Turn that mobile colony into a permanent colony that generates gold instead.
i hear of it too! are you in alpha
By: this is sparta on May 19, 2009
at 11:01 pm
Thanks, the difference between the trade ships useage for Occupation and Garrison Right is just the information I was looking for!
By: Suburban Survivalist on June 14, 2009
at 4:47 pm
Timing Attacks – prior to 3.1, players had to time their attacks so that their armies would combine forces when hitting a target town. But that would usually result in more casualties for the first player who lands in that town. Sometimes, the enemies army would already scatter before the next wave of allies hit. Now, if all allied-player armies leave the occupied town at the right time, chances are, the group will land on the target town within seconds, killing more enemy troops and preserving more allied ones.
This is wrong. Someone still goes 1 round alone vs the enemy no matter how well you time it.
By: pseudanonymous on August 17, 2009
at 6:50 pm
I agree, but at least all the allies from a single source town enter in by round 2.
Contrast this to having armies coming 5 islands away, 10 islands away, and even 40 islands away… and in the end, these armies have to return to their individual towns of origin.
By: nathanweisz on August 24, 2009
at 2:36 am