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Dodging is a defensive tactic. It consists in moving troops out of a village in order to protect them from an enemy attack.

Basic dodging

In order for dodging to work properly, it is important for the defender to estimate what units the enemy is attacking with; this is done by examining records of past attacks or by using TW Stats. The two important factors are point count and distance.

First, if the attacker has far more points than the defender, then it is likely that the attacking force will be larger than the defender can handle (this is of course a shaky assumption, and whether a player makes it will depend on her degree of risk aversion). Secondly, the distance between the attacking and the defending city, together with the marching time of the attack, it is possible to calculate whether the attacking army includes rams, catapults, or nobles. An attack that lacks any of these is only intent on plunder; by dodging and using resources on guilding, research, and troop-training, the defender will make the attacker's efforts go to waste, making another attack less likely. If, on the other hand, the attack is large and contains rams, catapults, and a noble, then it is more likely that the attacker intends to take the village, and it is preferable to keep the troops in defence.

Note that the hiding place, while useful in the early stages of the game, is too limited to help much once resources outstrip its capacity; using up resources is a better way of denying them to an enemy. As a last resort, resources that can't be used up in this way can be sent to a tribe-mate via the market.

Dodging noble trains

Another form of dodging is used to stop noble trains from taking a village. A noble train usually consist of five attacks: the first is a nuke (see Tactics), and the next four to five attacks will have a noble in them. The typical way for people to set up the noble train is to have the most offence in the first attack, which will drastically weaken the target's defence, and then come with a smaller offence in the remaining attacks. Troops should dodge the initial nuke and then be recalled directly afterwards, in order to defend against and (with luck) kill the nobles that come after it; this is called sniping.

It should be borne in mind that a clever opponent might alter this strategy, for example by sending a very small force in the first attack and making the nuke the second attack. It is important to adapt the defensive strategy to the situation and what is know of the attacker.

Similarly, an attacker might send catapults in the first attack to destroy the target's rally point. This removes the ability to recall troops to stop the last few nobles. To avoid this, troops should be recalled before the first attack hits, but timed to arrive back after it has hit.