Native sniping and compensating for lag, with examples

Why should you care what sniping is in Grepolis?

Have you ever been in a smaller or weaker alliance fighting against a stronger, more powerful one in Grepolis? Have you ever been the only or nearly only blue on an otherwise all red or nearly all red island? Have you ever had your nearby allies go into vacation mode, turn off their alarms, or refuse to even turn on alarms to begin with, leaving you to fight off your attackers alone? Have you ever noticed that you were losing on the battlepoint ratios one fight after another because your opponent had a doubler on and you didn't, or because their siege against you was simply heavily stacked?

There are many circumstances where stacking enough defense to kill all the attacks your enemies send on you simply isn't possible, or even if it is possible, may be costly and undesirable. Additionally, on Conquest worlds, if you give your enemies time to stack a lot of defense in their sieges against you, you may find their sieges difficult, impossible, or perhaps costly and undesirable, to break.

What if there was a way to stop your enemies from taking your city by only defeating a very small portion of their troops and simply avoiding fights with the rest? If this sounds like something you might wish to do, then sniping might be for you!

A simple example

We'll go over some more exciting examples later, but for now, let's start with a fairly simple, straightforward one with a large snipe window. A snipe window is the time between the final clearing wave and the colony ship, or, more broadly speaking, the time between the final attack we wish to dodge and the one we wish to actually fight against.

My opponent in this case launched the Colony Ship (CS) first. I saw this by 17:15:00. Probably a little sooner, but 17:15:00 is the approximate time I posted this command overview to Discord.

By the time they were done, this is what the timing of the attacks and supports looked like. Note that normally these players time things much closer together. These are very skilled players who are able to take cities from me, and I do not wish to imply otherwise; however, due to various circumstances, even very skilled players will not always be on top of their game, so sometimes, you can still win battles against players who are more skilled than you. It's always good to at least try, so you can develop your skills. In this case, I gather they did not have many cities in the area to get more tries on timing in. 17:34:44 was indeed the Colony Ship, and 17:34:33 was the final clearing wave beforehand, so I had 12 seconds in which to land a snipe. Same second commands are processed in the order they are issued, so if, for example, I had landed biremes in my city at 17:34:33, then as long as the command was issued after OzyHendrix already launched his attack, the biremes would still land after his attack, and thus within the snipe window.

 

 

Here's what the attacks and supports looked like. You can see I messed up and forgot to dodge my troop transports, giving OzyHendrix over 238 battlepoints from his first clearing wave. (The bloodlust buff he used would have slightly increased the number of battlepoints he received.)

 

Also note that there is one hoplite I failed to dodge along with the rest of my land units. Oftentimes, people will accidentally or deliberately fail to kick trips out when dodging, or if you are building units, then the units you see in your city might be slightly out of sync with how many units are in your city according to the server, causing you to miss one or more when dodging. In this case, I don't remember if it was a trip, or if I was simply out of sync with the server and thus missed that hoplite. (For those not aware, a trip is a unit sent to a city by another player so that the trip will send a report when the city is attacked.)

 

 

 

 Landed biremes after the final clearing wave and before the colony ship, and successfully killed the colony ship with them.

 

 Note that the reason LegacyCemil shows as being in "The Interview" alliance on this screenshot, and in "The Office" on the other screenshots is because of when the screenshots were taken. LegacyCemil was in the Interview alliance on the day of these attacks, and I screenshotted the Colony Ship attack the same day. He later joined The Office alliance, and screenshots of battle reports show the alliance the player is in as of the time the screenshot is taken, not necessarily the alliance they were in when the battle occurred. You can also see that I was in "The Florentines" at the time the time the battle occurred, but was in "Olympians" at the time I took screenshots of the other attacks and supports.

Since his colony ship was dead and there was no siege to support, LegacyCemil withdrew his supports. 

Here you can see the timing of my native snipes. I wasn't having significant issues with lag the evening this happened, so I went ahead and timed the bireme frontsnipe a perfect one second ahead of the Colony Ship. (The only way to get a frontsnipe even more perfect, and have it land the same second as the colony ship but still before it, would be to launch the frontsnipe before the colony ship is launched. Good luck predicting when the CS landing time will be before it is even launched.) You can also see I had a 16 light ship backsnipe landing the same second as the CS, just in case the biremes failed to kill it, as well as a number of land units prepared to backsnipe the CS 1 second after it landed. Since the frontsnipe was sufficient to kill the CS, the backsnipes basically did nothing, but it is good to have a backup plan in case your opponent sends a CS with an unusually large naval escort. Note that backsniping is only possible on Conquest worlds. It does not work on Revolt worlds.

This is what my Discord postings looked like. I try to call things out for my team even when I'm self-sniping. That way, if I fail, at least they cannot say that I lost the city when without communication. Also see my "How to Call Incoming" guide.

 

 

What is sniping and what specifically is native sniping?

In Grepolis, there are two kinds of sniping, frontsniping and backsniping. Backsniping only happens in Conquest worlds. In Revolt worlds, all sniping is frontsniping. Both types of sniping involve trying to kill a colony ship (or other strategically important attack) using a minimal number of troops by avoiding other attack or support waves using good timing. 

Landing a support (such as biremes or defensive land units) after the last clearing wave but before the colony ship is called "frontsniping" in Conquest worlds or simply "sniping" in Revolt worlds.  You can also snipe other attacks of strategic significance. For example, if you have a city with many defensive land units and high walls (most common in revolt worlds), your opponents may try to knock down the walls with catapults. Sometimes catapults may be sent by land, other times, by sea. If they are sent by sea, they are often preceded by a light ship clearing wave. If you land biremes after the light ship clearing wave but before the catapults on troop transports, this is also a type of sniping.

Landing an attack after the colony ship but before the first support is called "backsniping" and only works in Conquest worlds, since in Conquest worlds, a siege begins when the enemy lands a colony ship, and the city owner and their allies have until the siege ends (typically around 12 hours from when the colony ship lands) to kill either all the naval or all the land units guarding the siege in order to prevent the city from being taken. In Revolt worlds, the city is taken the moment the enemy colony ship lands, however, enemy colony ships can only land when a city is in red revolt, which happens some number of hours (usually 12, though it can be less if Helena is used) after a revolt attack is landed.

Native sniping is when this is done using armies and/or navies that were built in the city being defended.  Native sniping is also sometimes called self-sniping. This is typically done by sending out the armies or navies as support to another city and then recalling them. If this is timed correctly, and you don't lag, then it is possible to achieve perfect times, since there is no anti-timer. The anti-timer is the random plus or minus 10 or 11 seconds added on to each time when you send attacks or supports from other cities. However, if you send support out and then recall it, there is no anti-timer. If you send support out, let it travel for exactly 1 minute, and then recall it, it will take exactly 1 minute traveling back. People who don't have lag issues therefore consider native sniping to be more reliable than non-native sniping. However, even though there is no anti-timer, there is still lag for some of us, and once you hit the recall button, you can't cancel your recall to try again to get a better time, even if you do lag. 

For frontsniping, the snipe window is the amount of time between the final clearing wave and the colony ship (or other strategically important attack) that you have to land support to stop the colony ship (or catapults on troop transports, or whatever). For backsniping, the snipe window is the amount of time between the colony ship and the first support afterwards that you have to land an attack.

If you know what the clearing waves are -- that is, if you know which ones are light ships or other offensive naval units and which ones are fliers or offensive land units -- then you might have one snipe window for naval defenses and another snipe window for land defenses. Basically, naval defenses should land after the last naval clearing wave but before the colony ship (or other important attack), and land defenses should land after the last flier or offensive land unit clearing wave but before the colony ship. However, if you don't know which clearing waves are naval and which are fliers or offensive land units, or don't want to take any chances that your attacker may have rebuilt their city from your last intelligence update, then simply use the time between the final clearing wave and the colony ship (or other important attack) as your snipe window.

How to native snipe, with and without lag

Considering the earlier example with Fireneze:

One way I might have achieved a target time of 17:34:43 for the bireme frontsnipe would be to send out the biremes as support to another city -- preferably one of my cities -- at exactly 17:32:43 (2 minutes 1 second before the CS), and then recall it at exactly 17:33:43 (1 minute 1 second before the CS). Assuming no lag, the biremes then return to Fireneze at exactly 17:34:43, as they did above. Since I can only click on one thing at a time, I might have send the light ships out as support at exactly 17:26:44 (8 minutes before the CS) and recalled them at exactly 17:30:44 (4 minutes before the CS), and, assuming no lag, they would return at exactly 17:34:44, as they did above. 

The land units landing 1 second after the Colony Ship may have been the result of lag. Suppose I tried to send the land units out at exactly 17:28:44, 6 minutes before the colony ship, but lagged by 1 second, and, so far as the server was concerned, sent them out at 17:28:45 instead. Then it would no longer be possible to achieve a recall landing time of exactly 17:34:44. (That is, not unless I recalled them way in advance and made an entirely new attempt to send them out as support and then recall them again.) Remember that the units will spend the exact same amount of time travelling away from the city as they do coming back. Supposing I did not notice they that I had lagged, and still tried recalling them at exactly 17:31:44, 3 minutes before the colony ship. They would actually have only spent 179 seconds, rather than 3 whole minutes (180 seconds) travelling away from Fireneze at that point, and thus would only spend 179 seconds travelling back. 179 seconds times 2 is 358 seconds. 17:28:45 plus 358 seconds would mean that they would land at 17:28:43, frontsniping the colony ship instead of backsniping it. If my goal is to use the land units to backsnipe the colony ship, and I noticed that I lagged while sending out the support, but do not expect to lag when recalling it, then it is actually better to wait until 17:31:45 to recall (3 minutes after when I sent the units out, account for lag), so that the land units will would still make a full 6 minute (360 second) round trip, and return back at 17:34:45, as they did above.

If you need help with this sort of map, use this time calculator.  

One way to notice if you lag while sending out support is to look the support you are sending out on the command overview. If I don't lag, and successfully send the support out at 17:28:44, then the command overview will say the command is Cancellable until 17:38:44. However, if I lag by 1 second, it will say Cancellable until 17:38:45. If I lag by 2 seconds, it will say Cancellable until 17:38:46. And so on. Basically, commands are always cancellable for 10 minutes after they are sent, so by looking at the cancellable until time, you know what time you sent out the support, so far as the server is concerned. If you lag by an even number of seconds, it is still theoretically possible, with some math, to achieve your target landing time, without making a whole new attempt. If you lag by an odd number of seconds, then you will be at least 1 second off from your target landing time no matter what, unless you make a whole new attempt. Unfortunately, I do not know of any way to find the cancellable until time without the command overview, which requires the administrator advisor. If playing without the administor advisor, you can also check to see if the game clock jumps while you are sending out support. I find the latter method less reliable as a way of checking for lag, but some people prefer it, since the command overview can be one of the things that increases your lag, especially if you don't filter it.

Aside from the math being more complicated, one problem here is that you may not know if you will also lag when hitting recall. You might or you might not. One trick to reduce lag when hitting recall is to send the units as support to one of your own cities. You should be able to do this with naval units, but obviously, can't always do it with land units. Then, switch to the other city. If that city doesn't have a bunch of incoming commands to it, you may experience far less lag while in that city, then while in the one with a bunch of incoming commands. Use the recall button from the city you sent support to, rather than the one you sent support from. This may or may not work, but it's something to try, at least for naval units.

Some more exciting examples

In the following examples, two players, BEAZTMODE and write1red, sent a total of 5 Colony Ships at my city Seattle over the course of one evening. Seattle was actually a handoff from another player in my alliance, Olympians, who wished for me to defend Seattle against them and their team, the Staplers. ("The Staplers" is how we referred to The Office and their sister alliance, The Desk, along with their affiliates. The Staplers were a merger made up of the previous two top alliances on the server, The Interview and the Company, who were at war with each other prior to merging.) Seattle was on Island 64895, where BEAZTMODE had 5 cities and write1red had two cities. Between the two of them, they had 15 cities on Island 64894, which was right next door, and 4 more cities on 64893, which was also nearby. The rest of islands 64895 (Seattle's island) and 64894 (the one where they had 15 cities) were either members of their team, or browns in vacation mode. There was one member of my team with one city on island 64893, but not in sniping range, given BEAZTMODE's and write1red's travel times. However, the rest of their team did not participate in these siege attempts, and I was later told that they hadn't mentioned them on the Stapler discord. Perhaps they would have asked for support for their siege if they had actually been successful. In any case, it was exactly the sort of outnumbered situation where sniping tends to shine, if you are able to be online and/or respond to alarms when the colony ships are launched.

In their first lineup against Seattle, BEAZTMODE sent two Colony Ships. The attacks landing at 15:29:42 and 15:29:54 were the  Colony Ships. As you will see from the screenshots, the first Colony Ship was actually escorted by 50 sirens, meaning it traveled twice as fast as a normal Colony Ship. This was almost certainly done to confuse me on timing so that I would not realize it was a Colony Ship, and would only try to snipe the second one. However, I have seen such things done before, so I suspected and was able to snipe both. One time, I even saw a player use 51 sirens and a level 20 Atalanta to make a CS look like mere light ships in terms of travel time.

You can see here that the frontsnipe window for the first colony ship was 5 seconds, and the snipe window for the second colony ship was 11 seconds. Since I was concerned about lag, and because the snipe windows were that large, I aimed for a couple seconds before each CS, rather than for perfect times.

The clearing waves of this initial lineup and the first two Colony Ships were both sent by BEAZTMODE, but if you  look through the supports, many were sent by write1red. Note that the first support landed the same second as the Colony Ship, meaning the backsnipe window was 0 seconds. Since the first support turned out to be defensive land units (DLUs), specifically hoplites, this would not have been an issue for a naval backsnipe, but a flier or offensive land unit backsnipe would have needed enough firepower to kill both the DLUs escorting the colony ship as well as the DLUs landing the same second as the colony ship. A large enough slinger nuke still would have worked, since hoplites are weak against slingers. 

However, since I was frontsniping, I didn't have to worry about that.

And here are the attack reports.

 

You can see this Colony Ship was escorted by 50 sirens, meaning it traveled at least twice as fast as a normal Colony Ship.

  

Light ship clearing wave exactly one second after the first Colony Ship, so unfortunately for me, the biremes and sirens I used to snipe the first CS died.

 

 

 

After they saw I had killed their first two colony ships, they timed a third Colony Ship and several more clearing waves into their existing support lineup, and pulled their existing supports out shortly before the new clearing waves and Colony Ship were about to land. This time, 15:52:30 was the Colony Ship, and the final clearing wave landed at 15:52:29, so the frontsnipe window was just 1 second long.

As you can see from the battle reports, I was able to snipe the third colony ship as well. What I did here, since I was still concerned about lag, was split my biremes into two groups. I made a separate snipe attempt with each set of biremes. One of of them was successful.

 

A few hours later, they decided to send a 4th and 5th Colony Ship for the evening. Things got messy this time. Both the 18:59:58 and the 19:00:09 attacks were colony ships.

Sniping the fourth colony ship was easy as far as timing was concerned, but since BEAZTMODE went over the sea storm limit, my 75 bireme frontsnipe was insufficient to kill the colony ship. (Note: There are actually two sea storm limits, a lower limit and an upper limit. Sea ships with naval escorts above the lower limit but below the upper limit are vulnerable to being killed with Poseidon's Sea Storm. However, when people speak of the Sea Storm limit, they are usually referring to the lower limit, which is approximately 39 light ships or equivalent naval population, that is, 390 naval population. You can read about the math behind it on MoonB's blog.)

 

Since the fourth Colony Ship was still alive, my attempts at frontsniping the fifth Colony Ship came back and backsniped the fourth Colony Ship instead. What's interesting was that all 3 of my frontsniping attempts for the fifth colony ship were mistimed, but that was possibly for the best, since things may have ended up working out better for me than they would have if they were all correctly timed. Two were scheduled to land before a clearing wave. Since it is possible to dodge with even a 1 second dodge window as long as you the attack planner (which requires the captain advisor) to pre-load the units into the support window and spam click, I was planning to salvage at least one of these and make an attempt to re-dodge it into the snipe window. The third was scheduled to land the same second as the fifth CS and would have backsniped it instead of frontsniping it. What actually happened was that both the clearing wave and the fifth colony ship visited during peacetime -- essentially, failed to land, because the game will not allow BEAZTMODE to attack his own siege -- while my biremes were still backsniping the fourth Colony Ship. If BEAZTMODE went over the sea storm limit with the fifth Colony Ship as well as the fourth Colony Ship, which is speculative since I never saw what his escort for the fifth Colony Ship looked like, then it may have been just as well that I never had to fight it.

 

 

 

It occurs to me that, at least on Conquest servers, this is one weakness of multi Colony Ship attacks, which are commonly used as a tactic to either confuse a player who is online and responding to incoming attacks, or else, to simply drain their firepower by forcing them to use their firepower to kill multiple colony ship escorts instead of just one. Since the supports do not typically land until after the final colony ship in a particular lineup, the backsnipe window for the first colony ship is quite long, and if you wait until the final colony ship visits during peacetime to finish backsniping the first colony ship, you don't actually need to fight the final colony ship.

Overview of tactics for compensating for lag while native sniping

Since I do have lag issues, these are some of the strategies I use to try to mitigate the issue when native sniping, already discussed above.

1.  If your attackers leave you a large snipe window, like 5 seconds or 11 seconds, you don't have to shoot for a perfect one second before the colony ship (if front sniping) or a perfect exact same second as the colony ship (if back sniping). By aiming for a less perfect time, closer to the middle of the snipe window, you give yourself space to miss your target time but still be in the snipe window.

2. Use math and possibly a time calculator to adjust your recall time if you lag while sending out support.

3. Split your biremes (or other units) so you can make multiple tries. (Requires that you have more biremes or other units than needed for the snipe.)

4. Cancel and try again. (This is only an option if you lagged while sending out the support, not if you lagged when hitting the recall button.)

5.  Salvage bad times by quickly dodging a recall landing before a clearing wave instead of after it. By using the attack planner and spam clicking, even a 1 second dodge window is doable. Then cancel the support again to try to get it into the snipe window, if possible.

 6. Let your frontsnipe turn into a backsnipe. (Only possible on Conquest servers, not revolt ones, and works better with hybrid units such as triremes.)

7. Take steps to mitigate lag, like filtering the command overview, or switching to a city with less incoming commands when recalling support.

Helpful timing guides by other authors

These guides on timing by other authors may also be of interest.

Shuri2060's Timing Guide

Fluv's Timing Guide

Fluv's Snipe Guide