This guide is not designed to tell you how to build your force, but how to use it in the most profitable way.
Pillaging is a lot different from war. In war you want to crush your enemy in one quick attack, but in pillaging you are limited to 6 CR’s a day so you have to know what you’re doing.
First, if you use firefox, download
http://blankcanvasweb.com/pages/detail/i…_ikariam_tools/ immediately. It will make it so you can see an opponent’s military score, gold score, and total score just by clicking their town. It makes life much easier.
Inactives
You’ll want to start off pillaging anyone that’s inactive. Check their general score, and if it’s 0 only send like 3 swordsmen for each attack. You’ll be able to loot them 6 times with 6 waves, and that’s it. The higher the level of the town of the inactive, the higher the percentage of gold and there’s a chance they didn’t destroy their port.
Actives
This can get dicey. First off, if you’re going to attack someone in a large alliance, don’t attack anyone else in that alliance for a little. If you find 5 easy targets from the same alliance, they may send someone to stop you.
So you have a target, what next? First thing lookup their general score. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and if they have a low military score but a much larger total score than you, you may be in trouble if they want revenge (although if you have an awesome defense, go for it).
The next step is sending in a few spies. I’ll generally send 3 or 4 to the town. Once they arrive, double click the town and check out the level of their port. If they have a low level port and you aren’t going to get much gold, move on. There’s no reason to attack an active player that won’t give you much. Also, not the level of the walls and don’t underestimate their strength.
Next, scout out his garrison. It is time to see if you need to send a blockade or not. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have a fleet, but sometimes you’ll want to send a blockade anyway. There are two ways to set up a blockade. If you can’t afford the upkeep of your force for 8 hours, send a large force for 1 and a follow up fleet to arrive 5 minutes after that will stay for 8 hours. If you’re lucky this will generate only 1 CR.
Waves
The key to getting a ton of loot is the wave attack. Let’s say the defender has 100 swordsmen, you don’t want to send 300 swordsmen and call it a day. You’d want to send as many action points at possible, timed to arrive in 5 minutes of each other. Personally, I like to send all 5 action points from each time, and make the different towns arrive within 5 minutes of each other. In this way, I send 75 troops to fight the 100, but the battle doesn’t end after the first round. So in the 20 minutes inbetween rounds, I send 19 other attacks join the battle. You now get at least the gold for 20 attacks while using only one CR. Sometimes the loot will be for all 20 attacks, sometimes it will be for a number between 3 and 8, it’s kind of buggy. Regardless, you want to do 2 rounds so you lose few troops and can get in all 6 CR’s in 8 hours.
Example
Target: x(Active)
General Score: 2000
Gold Score: 1,000,000
Total score: 40,000
Alliance: None
Send in spy, level 4 port, level 10 walls, level 20 capital.
Gold for first wave would be = 1,000,000(20*19)/10000 = 38,000
15 waves would bring 418,632 gold (That’s right, 40% in one CR)
Defense – 25 phalanx, 40 swordsmen, 5 gunsmen
Ships – 10 Ballista
Let’s say the time from my 3 towns are 40 min, 1 hr, 1hr 20 min
So I send in 20 flame ships to set up an 8 hour blockade
They arrive and win. 1 CR
I send 50 swordsmen from town 3, then quickly send 4 more waves of 25 swordsmen.
25 minutes later I send 5 waves of 25 swordsmen.
25 minutes later I send 4 waves (1 is blockading already) of 10 gunsmen each.
30 minutes the first wave arrives, looking like it will lose but triggering a 2nd a round.
5 minutes later 125 swordsmen join the battle.
5 minutes later 125 swordsmen join the battle.
5 minutes later 40 gunsmen join the battle.
5 minutes later the next round is triggered, and it is now 275+ swordsmen and 40 gunsmen vs the defense, and the battle ends, leaving 15 phalanx, 20 swordsmen, 4 gunsmen. You walk away with 40% of their gold, who knows how much materials, and you only generated 1 CR.
Now you repeat with a smaller force until you use up all 6 CR’s. You can step down the number of waves to move on to another target also.
This works on inactives with a defense too.
Warning – If you mess up and wipe out their army, all your waves will generate CR’s and you could be banned for bashing, so make sure you’re watching your enemy throughout the battles. Check their online status and their garrison a few time. 
Quoted
Originally posted by Gakki
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