Have you ever wondered why there is such a gap between experienced alliances and newer ones when it comes to defending a coordinated operation? One of the answers to this question is the usage of scouts – mainly the roman Equites Legati.
Advantages of the Equites Legati compared to scouts from other tribes
| Tribe and Unit | Speed | Crop Consumption |
| Egyptian “Sopdu Explorer” | 16 Fields per hour | 2 Crop per hour |
| Huns “Spotter” | 19 Fields per hour | 2 Crop per hour |
| Teutons “Scout” | 9 Fields per hour | 1 Crop per hour |
| Gauls “Pathfinder” | 17 Fields per hour | 2 Crop per hour |
| Romans “Equites Legati” | 16 Fields per hour | 2 without Horse Drinking Trough (HDT) 1 with HDT |
In the table above, the main advantage of the Equites Legati (EL) is already visible. The combination of speed and low crop consumption makes them incomparable to others.
Counter-Spying
When it comes to counter-spying against a coordinated operation, it’s essential to have a large amount of EL in your alliance. When scouting without enough EL, you might get walled from defending scouts, and the EL die without providing any information.
There are three primary purposes for your scouts against operations.
- Double scouts to calculate the crop consumption from unknown hammers
- Double scouts at specific times to know what the attacker is sending to a specific village
- Single scout to try and be lucky and scout a hammer
Calculate the crop consumption
To calculate the crop consumption of an unknown hammer, two scouts in a time interval of 10 to 15 seconds are needed. Suppose the attacking village has an oasis connected. In that case, it is possible to calculate the crop consumption by scouting the oasis twice – but this is inaccurate since you have no information about the troops in the village.
An example: The outcome of the calculation is ~100000, but there are 30000 troops inside the village (Static defense). The hammer has ~70000 troops, but you are calculating with 100000 troops for this hammer. This imprecision scales up if made in several villages.
The formula for the crop consumption in a village is shown below:
CC = Crop consumption
GS1 = Granary status in the first scouting report
GS2 = Granary status in the second scouting report
T = Time interval between both scouts in seconds -> should be around 15 seconds
OF = Oasis factor -> If scouting via an oasis, the factor is 10; otherwise, it is 1 (10% of the resources stored in a granary/warehouse are displayed in an oasis)
TAH = Troops at home -> When scouting the village itself, you can see how many troops are at home
POP = Population -> Essential in the early phase of a server
CC = (GS2 – GS1) * (3600/T) * OF – TAH – POP
There are two scouting reports above.
GS1 = 10608
GS2 = 10508
T = 10 seconds
OF = 1
TAH = 0
POP = 400
CC = (10608 – 10508) * (3600/10) * 1 – 400 = 35600
The hammer which can be expected from this village will have ~ 35600 troops
Why is it important to know the army size of enemies?
Simply to know how much defense is needed to defend this army. Knowing how many defensive units are required per defended village allows the leaders to decide how many villages can be defended.
Attack specific scouting
Scouting for specific attacks is performed by many experts. But I will describe below how this works.
To scout for a specific attack, this information is needed.
- The level of the tournament square of the attacker
- The coordinates of an important village for the defending side
- The coordinates of a village that is likely to send an attack (fake or the entire army) to this important village
- The expected arrival time
- The troop speed of the attacker
With that information and the use of a run-time-calculation (such as kirilloid or getter), it is possible to determine how many troops were sent by the attacker by spying 10 seconds before the calculated dispatch and 10 seconds after this calculated time. By comparing the two reports, it is easy to find out how many troops are missing (and were sent within this timeframe)
A simple example of a run-time-calculation by using kirilloid:
- The level of the tournament square of the attacker – 10
- The coordinates of an important village for the defending side – 100/100
- The coordinates of a village that is likely to send an attack (fake or the entire army) to this important village – 100/0
- The expected arrival time – 6:00:00
- The troop speed of the attacker – 3 (Catapults)
With that information, the estimated dispatch time is 14:26:40. The scouts should arrive at 14:26:30 and 14:26:50 to get a result (20 seconds time frame, if the attacker is not an expert in timing).
As clearly visible in those two reports, the entire hammer is missing – only some troops for fake attacks are still there. So it is very likely that the hammer is on its way to the village the calculation was for.
Single scouting
Single scouting is used if not enough scouts are available for the other two scouting options. Anyway, it is still better than no scouting – with lucky guesses, it’s possible to find some hammers at home.
Resume
Always ensure having enough scouts in your alliance – good premade alliances usually have one or two accounts only focussing on scouts.
Some experience is needed when it comes to defending operations. Still, with time everyone can learn how many scouts are required in order to get the information. Usually, better alliances have defending scouts in hammer villages, so 100 Equites Legati will definitely not be enough.
Quick introduction of myself
Hey, I am Alex, an Austrian content creator for Travian Legends, and I will mainly publish guides since I play with many experienced players.
I have been playing Travian Legends since 2008 – with some pauses in between. My latest achievement is the victory in EU-4 with my ally mates from SRSLY.
Usually, all of my posts are suitable for x1-gameworlds since I only play those. I have played accounts focused on defense, offense and scouting and had some Top 10 placements in .de-Servers (and EU4).
If you have any questions regarding one of the posts, feel free to ask me in the Travian Legends discord or in a private message in discord – my tag is AlexO#1234.
