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Defender

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The Defender is a strong defensive unit that is unlocked by the Strategy technology. As their name implies, defenders have good defence while lacking in attack and movement. The Quetzali tribe starts the game with a Defender. Its replacements in Aquarion and Cymanti are the Mermaid Defender and the Kiton, respectively.

Strategy[]

  • A very effective strategy used to be to build a wall of Warriors (or Swordsmen if you have them) and block the defenders but not to attack. Bots with Defenders would attack, sustaining heavy damage (even on Crazy difficulty). The next turn, warriors could kill defenders with 5 or lower health. As of the Feb 2021 update, this is no longer effective against bot players, who have learned to use Defenders passively.
  • Defenders can also be dealt with using ranged attacks, as their high defence means nothing if they cannot retaliate.
  • Mind Benders are very effective against Defenders, who cannot kill them unless in large swarms.

Strengths and Weaknesses[]

Strengths:

  • Defending cities. Full-health defenders cannot be one-hit by anything, so that naturally makes them good for holding a certain point.
  • Holding choke points. Barring a sea invasion, if you put defenders across a point you don't want someone to reach, the enemy can't get through it, and even if they do, their army can't flood through it easily.
  • Countering attacks. Unlike other units, defenders have very high counter damage. Since most enemies can't resist attacking a defender, one of these units can thin out overly ambitious neighbors in the early rounds.
  • Defending against weak swarms. In a city wall, a defender has so much defence that damaged Warriors and Riders will actually deal 0 damage to it, and the defender's retaliation will instantly kill the assailants.
  • Ship swarm. On a naval unit, all the original unit's stats are ignored except for the health of that unit. And since the Defender is the cheapest unit with 15 health besides Polytaurs, you can just swarm the sea with them, quickly and cheaply securing naval dominance.

Weaknesses:

  • Defending against mobs of strong units. A mob of swordsmen or knights can take down a defender, although they will suffer some damage.
  • Fighting ranged units. Archers can continually move back and snipe it, scouts and bombers can shoot them from off the coast, and catapults deal too much damage for defenders to even be able to scratch it.

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Mermaid Defender[]

This article is about the mermaid version of the Defender. For mermaid units in general, see Mermaid Units.

The Aquarion tribe has the Mermaid Defender unit instead of the Defender. Like other mermaid units, the Mermaid Defender differs from the Defender only in being amphibious, allowing the Mermaid Defender to move through both water and land, with a movement penalty on the latter.

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Trivia[]

  • The old Imperius Defender

    The old Imperius Defender

    Previously, Defenders had a black line on the shield, and a sword at their side.
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