Defense basics

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While playing MyLands you will face other players that can send attacks to your domains. This is normal situation because MyLands is a war game and there are many benefits to those who attack other players.
This guide tells how to make such attacks uncomfortable or prevent it at all.

Attack prevention
You can make impossible launching an attack to your city with this methods:

Gate
No one can send an attack to your City or your Outer Domain if you close the Gate or Tunnel respectively. And even if such attack already have been sent - there will not any battle if the Gate of your city was closed before it arrives.
On other hand you also can not send any mission except trading from or to the domain with closed Gates or Tunnel. You are also have to be careful using this method in your cities because the buildings in Villages stops their functions and if Gate remain closed for 3 days - buildings in the Villages will be damaged or even destroyed.
One of the methods of your army protection is based on the ability of the Gate to let your troops enter the City if they are returning from the mission, but disallow enemy troops to fight with yours if the Gate is closed.
Note that this ability don't work if your army is not returning from the mission. For example:
You has sent your troops from one city to another while closing the gates of both cities. If your army arrive in the target city when Gate in it is already closed - your troops will return to the source city with "fail" status. But if the Gate in source city will be closed when army will arrive - they will enter the city normally.
You also can find information about Gate in the Encyclopaedia.

Temple
Also you can use the Temple to prevent launching someone's attack to your cities. Just ask Protection of Gods from this player and he will not disturb you while the Prayer is active. You also can not attack that player for that time.
Also you can not ask Protection of Gods from the player who already sent an attack to your city or the one who has been attacked by you less than 24 hours before.
Information about the Temple also can be found in the Encyclopaedia.

So if you want someone to stop bothering you - you can combine this methods: keep the Gate of your city closed when you offline, and place this player in the Temple while your Gate is opened.

Rank
This is not exactly the protection method. But on the Mining server - no one with rank higher then yours can attack your cities. Note that this rule don't work in the Outer Domains case. So if you are not ready to be Suzerain - better to stay on the Marshal Rank.

Maximize enemy loss
There are methods to make an enemy to think twice before attack your City.

Magic Tower
This tower deals damage based on the strength of your army. On high levels of Magic Towers such damage can be quite huge. For example with 2 Magic Towers of 7-th level 1 mercenary of 3-th level can destroy 35 enemy mercenaries even if defending one will deal minimal damage. So if you will have a Magic Tower in your city and many Mercenaries in your Sanctuary (which you can place in the garrison at any moment) - the enemies will have to plan their attacks wisely to prevent loss.
But such type of Towers have restrictions based on their functionality. If you will have no troops in the Garrison - such tower's damage will be equal to zero. So if enemy will send in the first wave of attack enough Mercenaries to destroy all yours - this towers will not harm his forces that will come after that.

Fighting Tower
This tower deals some damage based on it's level. This damage is lower than Magic Tower's one (if you are Suzerain), but it is not depends on the Army strength, and it can be increased with the Defender Specialization. On 7-th level this tower can destroy up to 20 000 enemy Mercenaries even if it will deal minimal damage.
Note that enemy Mages can decrease such tower's Attack rate and even totally remove any damage from it.
Parameters of Towers can be found in the Encyclopaedia

Fortifications
Also you can use the Fortifications to protect your cities on the Ranks from Esquire to Marshall. This type of buildings destroys some quantity of enemy units before the battle itself. Note that Mercenaries are unaffected to this type of damage. So, for example, you can destroy enemy Mages with the Fortifications and Mercenaries with the Towers.
The loss of units on the Fortifications at the Suzerain Rank is not critical. But if you use some spells or Artefacts (Helmet of Divine Wisdom for example) this loss can be good reason to stay away from your city.
Also Fortifications increases the Defense level. And this level is the main reason to construct this type of buildings on the Suzerain Rank.
Parameters of Fortifications also can be found in the Encyclopaedia

Minimize your loss
So, the enemy decides to attack you anyway. This is how you can save your troops:
Sanctuary
The big part of attacks (if you are not in the active war) is launched for Fraction Rating Points and calculated having in mind objective to destroy as many of your troops as possible with minimal lost at attacker's side. Usually you (or your Substitute) can hide your troops to the Sanctuary before attack, but this is impossible when you are not online.
So it will be good idea to hide your troops to the Sanctuary for the time when you are not online. This can cost some gold, but can save your time and resources spent to the re-building your army.
Also if you online and know that your army is not enough to protect your city - it will be better if you hide it instead of loosing it.

Defense rate
This is quite simple: the higher current defense rate you have - the less troops you will loose in the battle (or the more troops your enemy will have to use in the battle in order to destroy yours).
You have to distinguish between the maximum level of defense and the current level of defense. The current level can not be more than maximum one. But in the battle actual is current.
Basically maximum defense level is 50 points, but you can increase it up to 75 with the spells. Don't forget to increase current level too.

Fortifications
As i says before - Fortifications increases the current Defense level of your cities and Outer Domains. You even can increase it almost to maximum if you construct enough Fortifications: 3 7-th level (or 4 5-th level) buildings of this type will give you 24 points of defense. On the Native Land with the +25 defense bonus it gives you 49 defense points.
This means that enemy troops will deal only half of their damage to yours.

Maximum Defense local service
If you don't have Fortifications - you can increase your Current Defense level to Maximum using the Maximum Defense service from the Chest. It lasts one week and gives you as much defense as you can handle. This service can be useful in the Salt lakes for example.

Other issues
Quests
There some quests in the game that can make your cities protected. Such as Ancients that comes to your Capital after opening the Gate, or spell that removes 90% of enemy army from the battle that appears it your Capital after you become the Suzerain. This is not the panacea, but it can help you to protect your cities from enemies for some time.

Spells
You also can use some spells to increase defense or health of your troops. Or increase their attack level.
Note the most oh such are casts on your Hero, so if hero is out or stunned or stay in the Sanctuary - they will not affect the battle. And almost all of this spells have a time restrictions - it can not be cast on the Hero for some time before the battle.

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Pit and Salt Lake defense
There some differences between defending a city and defending Outer Domain like Pit or Salt Lake.
First of all - unlike the City - Pits, Mines and Salt Lakes can be attacked by any player from Esquire to Suzerain, even if you are Esquire.
Second is - you can not use the "Close the gate within 30 minutes" local service. So you will have to wait 6 hours while Tunnel of Pit or Mine will closing. Salt Lakes do not have neither Gate nor Tunnel at all.
And third - other players can seize your Outer Domain.
But Domain Seizure attack can be successful only if there is no one Defensive Buildings like Towers, Magic Towers or Fortifications in it. So - the more types of defensive buildings you have - the more attacks is needed to destroy them.
The point is - in one attack you can order your troops to destroy only one type of buildings. So if you will have in your Pit (or Lake) 3 types of defensive buildings (Fortification + Tower + Magic Tower) - your enemies will have to launch at least 4 attacks to seize your Domain: 3 attacks to destroy defensive buildings + 1 domain seizure. So one man will simply unable to take your domain because one player can attack one domain no more than 2 times a day. And even more - the higher level have your defensive buildings - the more attacks your enemies will have to launch to completely destroy it.
This means - the more types of defensive buildings you have and the higher level have this buildings - the more protected (from Domain Seizure) your Domain.