Defending a City

Defending is not attacking in a mirror.

A different game

A defender does the preparing before the war: the wall's level, the Arsenal's level, what the garrison is made of, and the reserve standing in the city.

Once the battle has started, the one move left to you is to keep the Barracks working — and that move is a strong one.

You see it while it is still coming

An army walking towards you appears on the Army screen while it is still walking — not when it arrives. It says who sent it, which city it left, when it arrives, whether it comes by land or sea, and roughly how many soldiers are in it. The same warning stands over the map of the city it is aimed at too, on the card in the top-left corner the way a pirate raid does, with the time left to its arrival. Once the battle begins, the card holds a line for the siege: it says which round it is in, and tapping it opens the battle's screen. If your army is fighting before another city, the same line stands over the map of the city that raised it.

The number is rounded and says so: “≈ 620 soldiers”. It is an estimate from a wall, not a count — you cannot read it twice and subtract to get an exact roster. A spy cannot look at an army on the road either; but you can send your spies to the city it marched from and look at what stayed behind and what is still training.

The warning is worth having because it gives you something to do: call an army home, raise the wall a level, ask an ally for reinforcements, or accept it and cut your losses.

What the warning says, and what it does not

You see	You do not
Who sent it, and from which city	What units are in it
When it arrives	Whether rams or ships are coming
Roughly how many soldiers	What it came for
By land or by sea	Its morale, supply and preferences

Step by step

Step	What happens
1	The enemy army arrives and takes position. Nothing is resolved on the spot.
2	The ground is chosen from YOUR Town Hall level, and frozen.
3	While the wall stands the city is shut: infantry cannot enter, and the garrison's infantry does not come out. Only archers and shooting engines fire.
4	Your garrison forms the line; whoever does not fit waits in reserve.
5	The city turns out ammunition and rations every round.
6	The Barracks keeps working; new soldiers join the garrison.
7	A round is fought every 10 minutes.
8	The wall may be breached: the gate counts as shut to the end of that round, then the battle turns into an open-field fight.
9	Morale may break; a broken garrison stops fighting a round later.
10	Hold and the besieger breaks; fail and the garrison withdraws or dies.

Five practical points

The wall's level matters more than anything: on its own it stops an attack that brought no engines.

Do not neglect the Arsenal — it decides how many hours your archers can shoot for.

Keep training under siege; they join every round.

Fill the battlements: only the archers up there fire at the engines at the foot of the wall. And do not leave the front line thin: once the wall falls, a thin front line means your archers and engines are hit directly.

Do not forget the support units: the priest slows morale's collapse and the physician dresses the wounded — but none of them holds a garrison together on its own.

The figures come from the game's own content. Balance updates can move some numbers; the rules themselves are as written here.