Cheesasaurus' Guide to Using Rams

A brief look at rams

Training time = (4800 seconds)/(world speed) * 2/3 * 1.06^(-(workshop level))

Rams attack the general defense, with a whopping 2 points. As exciting as it may be to impale someone with a giant log, it’s a rather difficult feat to pull off. Ever tried it? …Definitely not easy, especially when the other guy’s prancing about. Rams are built to fight walls, not troops.

Rams do two things when attacking; they negate some of the bonus a wall provides for the fight, and then downgrade it.

Ram’s Special Abilities

Special effect 1: negate some of the wall bonus
The rams treat the wall as if it were a lower level when calculating the defensive power (with a maximum lowering capability of one half the wall’s actual level).

Formulas:

# of rams needed to treat the wall as if it were a lower level

Code:

Rams needed to lower the level for calculating defense = (2*1.09^(wall lvl) + 4*1.09^(wall lvl)*((levels lowered) - 1) + 0.5) * ((strength of level 1 ram)/(strength of a ram, at the level of the sending village))

Note: this number is rounded to the nearest whole number.

# of levels lowered

Code:

Levels lowered = (((number of rams)*((strength of a ram, at the level of the sending village)/(strength of level 1 ram))( –0.5 -  2*1.09^(wall lvl))/(4*1.09^(wall lvl)) + 1

Note: this number is rounded to the nearest whole number.

Wall bonus

Code:

Total defense = (defending troops’ general defense + defending troops’ cavalry defense + defending troops’ defense archer + (20+50*(wall level))*((attacker’s general strength)/(total offensive strength)*[general defense] +(attacker’s cavalry strength)/(total offensive strength)*[cavalry defense] + (attacker’s archer strength)/(total offensive strength)*[archer defense])) * (1.037^(wall level))

Special effect 2: demolition

The demolition of the wall has no bearing on the outcome of the current battle.

The number of rams you have are compared to the number of rams you need for the closest downgrade amount. If there are enough rams present to do the closest downgrade amount, they will do it. Otherwise, they will downgrade the wall by 1 level less than the closest downgrade amount.

If you win the battle
Formulas for a battle won:

Code:

Levels downgraded = (((rams remaining after losses)+ 1 - (rams lost/ 2)) * ((strength of a ram, at the level of the sending village)/(strength of level 1 ram)) - 1*1.09^(wall lvl))/(2*1.09^(wall lvl)) + 1

-.-. .... . . ... . | -.. .. ...- .. -. .

If you lose the battle, the number of rams used = the amount of rams you started with * (defender’s defense lost)/(defender’s original defense)
Formulas for a battle lost:

How many rams you need:

Code:

number of rams = (2*(1.09)^(wall lvl) + 4*1.09^(wall lvl)*(levels downgraded – 1)) * ((strength of level 1 ram)/(strength of a ram, at the level of the sending village))

Closest downgrade amount:

Code:

Levels downgraded = ((number of rams)*((strength of a ram, at the level of the sending village)/(strength of level 1 ram)) - 2*1.09^(wall lvl))/(4*1.09^(wall lvl)) + 1

Note: this value is rounded to the nearest whole number

How many rams to use

The purpose of attacking with rams is to decrease the amount of defense remaining in the village by as much as possible.

* If you’re attacking an undefended village, you don’t need to send more than the bare minimum to downgrade it all the way. Rams do work similarly to catapults, in that you can send a series of attacks with small numbers of rams to downgrade the wall more, with less. (lvl 20 -> 0 with 66 rams in series, instead of 219 at once, for example)

*If you’re attacking a village that doesn’t have enough defense to kill your entire army, and you don’t expect it to be supported soon, just send the minimum number of rams to lower the wall bonus as much as possible. You can remove the rest of the wall later. Sending extra rams will just get them broken.

*If you’re attacking a reinforced village and can’t kill all the defenders in one shot, remember, the goal is to decrease the amount of defense remaining in the village by as much as possible. Try and get a good balance between offensive strength; bonus negation; and demolition. It all depends on what’s defending. 


unit stats
more unit stats
how tech levels work
time factor for training units = 2/3*1.06^(-(building level))

battle system basics
more battle system basics


There it is. Everything you need to know to optimize your attacks. Do the math.

many thanks to 4leaf, for sharing the "battle won" ram damage formula!

Source: Tribalwars Forum