Quick Guide to Sniping a Colony Ship

Deutsch: Bireme aus Baumeister: Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums. 1888. Band. III., Seite 1635. Teilabbildung auf Relief (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Below, i will quickly explain how to Snipe, please read this and start doing it, it WILL save cities and resources spent on support that clearing attacks wipe out for no reason.

Basic Sniping

When you are trying to Snipe you will need to do the following, Click on the city or BB code for the city you are supporting/sniping. Select the support icon, NOT the attack icon. There you will see what you have in your city to choose from, select how many biremes, and or troops you want to send. Once you have done this, 2 different times will pop up below your choices. The time on the right is arrival time, (it will be ticking away until you hit send). The time on the left is Travel Time, (this is how long it takes you to get there). OK now that you have done all this, you have to determine when is the best time to hit send, in order to best snipe the CS. For example, if the CS lands at 15:00, and the last clearing attack from the enemy lands at 14:59, then you want to get your support Snipe in between the CS and the last clearing attack. *Note* The game has a +10 to 11 second or -10 to 11 second delay built in to give everyone an equal chance of sniping or landing a CS successfully, and just to make the game harder. So if the CS lands at 15:00, and the last clearing attack lands 1 minute before it, then you will try and land your Snipe in that 1 minute window. Fill in what your sending, sit there, and wait until the arrival time of the Snipe matches what you want it to be, then hit send.

Keep in mind the delay, so as a rule of thumb, I always hit send about 10 seconds before the actual time i want it to land, this way I'm looking at either being a few seconds short, or at the very worst 20 secs before. So in this case i hit send at 14:59:50, (arrival time) to snipe the CS at 15:00. Once you've sent it, click on the support in the movement icon, and it will tell you exactly what time it's landing, then you will know exactly the time to post arrival, and determine if you nailed it or not.

 Anchors

There are 2 kinds of Snipes, a Bireme Snipe and a Troop/Bireme Snipe. A Bireme Snipe is just biremes. In order to give yourself multiple chances at a successful snipe, you can add one ship that is slower than a bireme in case you miss the mark, you can just recall, and try again with out slower ship (anchor). Example, slow transports, and LS are slower than biremes, put 1 slow transport, and 1 LS in with you Bireme Snipe, this way if you miss the mark, you recall, and remove slow transport. Now you have another shot still because the LS is still slower than Biremes. If alas you miss the mark the second time, just recall and remove the LS, now you have given yourself a third, and final try at a successful snipe. A Troop Snipe is exactly what it sounds like. Its the same as a Bireme Snipe but if your low on biremes, defensive troops will save a city also. It my not kill the CS, but if the CS attack doesn't clear all the troops in the city, then the CS will turn back, and due to travel time versus revolt ending time, in most cases that is enough to save the city for a revolt world, in conquest mode they will simply still have to try again which is usually a whole 1/2 day or so.

If you use fast transports, you can add the LS, and slow transport with this snipe as well to gain multiple chances, if you miss the mark the first time. I'm sure I've missed some stuff, but for all the people who have never sniped before, this will help you allot i hope.

 Spotting a CS

If you start sniping those CS, you will NOT lose cities to a CS attack that has 13 LS with it, you will sink that bad boy in the harbor, and have some Ale to celebrate. Also: If you have incoming ls/land unit attacks, before the CS, you can dodge them by attacking a city then cancelling the attack each time, (within ten mins.) so that your birs are not in the harbour/land units not in the city. This way you can save up your own birs/land units for a snipe. Furthermore, calculate which attack is the CS attack by: As soon as an attack upon yourself leaves the enemy harbour, quickly click on their city, then see how long it would take yourself to attack the city with a cs. You can do this even if you don't have a cs. If it takes you the same time as the them to reach with a cs, it probably is a cs attacking you and you should time your 'snipe' accordingly (More detailed step by step guide here)..