Rams and walls

Rams are the only units that damage a wall. Every tribe has one, built in the Workshop once it has been researched in an Academy of level 10. They work only in a normal attack - a raid leaves the wall standing, whatever it brings.

A wall multiplies the defence of every unit in its village, so breaking it is usually the first job of any serious attack.

Every tribe's ram

Unit	Attack	Attack, Smithy 20	Def inf	Def cav	Speed	Cost	Crop	Training
Battering ramRomans	60	88.2	30	75	4	1,830	3	1:16:40
RamTeutons	65	94.0	30	80	4	1,720	3	1:10:00
RamGauls	50	76.7	30	105	4	1,910	3	1:23:20
RamEgyptians	55	82.5	30	95	4	1,990	3	1:20:00
RamHuns	65	94.0	30	90	4	1,820	3	1:13:20
RamSpartans	65	94.0	30	80	4	1,705	3	1:17:00
RamVikings	65	94.0	30	80	4	1,720	3	1:10:00

"Attack, Smithy 20" is each ram's attack once fully upgraded. Each ram's own page ranks it against the others - the strongest, the cheapest, the quickest to build.

How a ram's strength is worked out

In the battle a ram adds its attack to the army like any other unit. What it does to the wall comes after, and depends on how many rams are left, how strong they are, and the wall itself:

• More rams, stronger rams. Every surviving ram counts, and the Smithy raises each one's attack.
• The wall's level. A higher wall needs more rams to bring down.
• The wall's durability. Each tribe's wall has its own, from 1 to 5 - see the table below. The higher it is, the more rams a given level needs.
• The stronger-buildings artefact makes walls tougher, just as it does buildings.

With no defenders left, rams take a wall down about as quickly as catapults take down a building.

The Smithy formula

Each Smithy level adds a share of the base stat plus a flat amount tied to upkeep:

upgraded = base + (base + 300 × crop ÷ 7) × (1.007^level − 1)

At level 20, 1.007^20 − 1 is about 0.1497. A ram with 65 attack that eats 3 crop an hour reaches 65 + (65 + 128.6) × 0.1497, about 94 attack - a 45% gain. A 150-attack unit on the same upkeep gains only about 28%, because the upkeep part is the same for both. That is why upgrading rams pays off so well.

The walls side by side

A wall does two things for the defenders: it adds a flat amount of defence per level, and it multiplies everyone's defence by a percentage. The percentage is what matters. On anything more than a handful of defenders, the flat points disappear into rounding.

The bonus compounds

The percentage is applied level on level, not added up. A City Wall at level 10 is not +30% but 1.03¹⁰ − 1, about +34.4%. At level 20 the difference is bigger still:

The pattern is a trade. The Romans get the biggest multiplier and the most fragile wall; the Teutons get a modest multiplier behind the wall rams struggle most with; the Egyptians pair the Gauls' bonus with a wall twice as tough. The Spartans match the Teuton bonus with the Gauls' durability, the Vikings match the Hun bonus with a wall between the Gauls' and the Egyptians', and the Huns' Makeshift Wall is the weakest on both counts.

Using rams

• In the clearing wave. Rams usually travel in the first wave, with the infantry, cavalry and catapults, so the waves behind it face no wall bonus - see Catapults: targets, durability and how many to send and Administrators: loyalty and conquering villages.
• In proportion. A common plan for an army's siege is about 55 rams to 45 catapults. A mid-sized offensive army carries somewhere around 1,500 to 2,000 of each.
• Slow on purpose. Rams are among the slowest units, which is why a real conquest arrives in slow waves. A defender keeps a few in a defence village for the same reason: a slow unit gives a second travel time to retry a missed snipe - see Event order: what happens first in the same second.
• Not always needed. Natar artefact villages start with no wall and cannot build one past level 1, and a Wonder of the World village starts without one.

Worth knowing

• Siege engines are never wounded, so a Hospital brings none back - see The Hospital and wounded troops.
• A conquered village loses its wall, so the new owner has to rebuild it straight away.
• A higher wall also makes a village harder to scout, since it strengthens the defending scouts - see Scouting.