Defence: What is it good for?

[siggurdson]

Given that I can rob people quite reliably with def stats double my att, what is the point in investing in def?
i take the hit and bank my money. Is there any other reason to invest in defence? Should I care about losing PvP attacks on my hood?
first post on the forum, so be gentle.
siggurdson

[Xira]

There is not a lot of point in explicitly investing in defense IMO. If you are farming and buying the right items defense should raise naturaly. Because upgraded defense buildings are garbage from what I have seen others say, I really would not waste a lot of time and money on them, but I would keep a healthy amount of explosives on hand assuming you collect well. Focusing on your economy and collection is the way to go.

That being said, i personally do not want every noob able to attack me so my defense is decent, and I deploy mainly the 12/24/48 strategy which lets me keep the bulk of my explosives on hand since I rarely get attacked.

The best setup for beginners or people trying to get better:
Economy focus (lofts/theatres) - sync and collect
Less than 500 mafia (avoid being farmed for thug life)
Explosives to pad stats a bit
All energy towards farming decent items
Stop going for any mission building mission rewards, they are all garbage.

[white frog]

Defense buildings aren't all bad.. just the upper level upgrades. A strategy for you really depends on what level you're at. Please give me a little more information as to your stats!

[dudeman]

I don't understand why defense buildings have such a bad rap. They don't do nothing, and if you want a non-consumable way to "pad your stats" then defense buildings are the way to go. "n00bs" and people who don't regularly visit the forum may not be aware that the defense buildings behave in their own special way, and when they see some of those hugely padded scores they may not realize just how padded they might be. The savvy forum-goer can take a look at quantity/quality (level) of defense buildings in a hood and take a pretty quick educated guess as to how padded a defense score is.

That being said, defense buildings and level upgrades are not a priority for most people because the time and cost involved is better put to use for building a good economy. Once all those money buildings are built and have some upgrades, the only thing left to build will be defense buildings.

Something I have found extremely useful about the defense buildings is that the build and upgrade times are slightly different than the upgrade times of money buildings. As can be expected, real life can get in the way of CC life, so I don't always get to start a build or upgrade immediately after the last one is completed. This is usually not a big deal, but it does cause completion times to float around a little. Sometimes all the available money buildings and upgrades will finish at times when I know I will be unable to start another one right away, such as when I am sleeping, or when I just know life will interfere. I have often been able to sneak in defense buildings and upgrades when this happens because of the different completion times.

[white frog]

I was on a rampage, building a bunch of defense buildings and upgrading, before we were enlightened to the truth of their stats. I have 2 lvl 5 Guard dogs, 8 lvl 3-5 Muay Thais, something like 30 lvl 3 machine guns, and 4 lvl 6 safehouses. I considered getting rid of them after a while, but I can't even tell you how many posts have hit my wall with people saying "Dude, I was gonna hit your loft, but then I saw your defense.. Wow!"

If nothing else, they are still acting as a deterrent to a lot of people checking out my hood!

[AppleMacGuy]

I was on a rampage, building a bunch of defense buildings and upgrading, before we were enlightened to the truth of their stats. I have 2 lvl 5 Guard dogs, 8 lvl 3-5 Muay Thais, something like 30 lvl 3 machine guns, and 4 lvl 6 safehouses. I considered getting rid of them after a while, but I can't even tell you how many posts have hit my wall with people saying "Dude, I was gonna hit your loft, but then I saw your defense.. Wow!"

If nothing else, they are still acting as a deterrent to a lot of people checking out my hood!

Ah that's good to know...at least the 50 Guard Towers, 50 Gatling Turrets, 25 Muay Thais, 30 Bodyguard Agencies and 8 Missile Turrents that I have will perhaps have some purpose after all lmao! ;)

[Klax]

I don't understand why defense buildings have such a bad rap. They don't do nothing, and if you want a non-consumable way to "pad your stats" then defense buildings are the way to go. "n00bs" and people who don't regularly visit the forum may not be aware that the defense buildings behave in their own special way, and when they see some of those hugely padded scores they may not realize just how padded they might be. The savvy forum-goer can take a look at quantity/quality (level) of defense buildings in a hood and take a pretty quick educated guess as to how padded a defense score is.

That being said, defense buildings and level upgrades are not a priority for most people because the time and cost involved is better put to use for building a good economy. Once all those money buildings are built and have some upgrades, the only thing left to build will be defense buildings.

Something I have found extremely useful about the defense buildings is that the build and upgrade times are slightly different than the upgrade times of money buildings. As can be expected, real life can get in the way of CC life, so I don't always get to start a build or upgrade immediately after the last one is completed. This is usually not a big deal, but it does cause completion times to float around a little. Sometimes all the available money buildings and upgrades will finish at times when I know I will be unable to start another one right away, such as when I am sleeping, or when I just know life will interfere. I have often been able to sneak in defense buildings and upgrades when this happens because of the different completion times.

I completely agree with your building defense statement. The buildings are best used to be a deterrent for unexperienced players. Against the more experienced players they won't be as effective against them. They are just there to make people think "If I attack this person, will I win?"

[Swifty]

As pointed out above, they may act as a deterrent.

And they will help defeat some % of attacks. Not every attack succeeds against me, and the small (relative) defense numbers contributed by buildings probably has a small effect on the numbers.

[white frog]

And they will help defeat some % of attacks. Not every attack succeeds against me, and the small (relative) defense numbers contributed by buildings probably has a small effect on the numbers.

Too true... my buildings currently add 895 points to my defense against getting robbed. I know that's not a whole lot, but I bet the % of players who attempt and succeed would be a little greater if I deleted all of them!

[G Wiz]

When i see all those towers and abandoned buildings i immediately attack and see fluffed defense scores on the order of thousands.

I have basically been retrained with regards to d-buildings.

They do make you sleep better at night though...

[Swifty]

And let me re-state the obvious.

The best defense against getting robbed is to collect on time.

Of course, for me and many others, real life intrudes and it is not always possible. If I am even 4 minutes late on a Loft, it gets robbed.

[xclusiv]

you cant prevent robbing, no matter how strong you get you will get robbed.

[Swifty]

@exclusiv

I agree that you cannot prevent all robberies, but you can defend some.

You edited your post before I could reply. Your point about space was valid. For many people, the space used by big-footprint defense buildings is probably better used by income buildings.

But you can fit gatling turrets into odd little spaces where no income building will fit.

[dudeman]

you cant prevent robbing, no matter how strong you get you will get robbed.

Prevention is not my main concern. One of the few things in this game I still get a kick out of is seeing in my news that I was robbed but the rival had to try at least twice to be successful. A positive side effect of this is that rivals who are not 100% successful when robbing me for the first time often don't try again. Not really prevention since they did rob me, but it discourages some people from coming back. Given the choice between commiting robberies at 1 stamina per success or 2 stamina per success, a majority of rivals chooses the 1 stamina per success option.

There are still exceptions though, obviously. Strategies and play style aren't written in stone.

[whocareswhatmynameis]

good defense gives you those extra minutes to hours whenever you forget to collect on time. i can't tell you the number of times i login to see green on my newsfeed from failed robbery attempts. :)

[Xira]

I find it funny that still at level 118, 99% of everyone I see has GARBAGE economy, and in that mix are a bunch of guys with defense buildings all over there hood, and still less than 20k defense.... If they had only focused on collectible economy early, they might have a chance against me. IF I was playing this game from scratch, I would not build a single defense building unless there was absolutely no money buildings I wanted to build or upgrade in the near future and I had the extra cash.... I would also try and expand my hood as little as possible. Also, IMO it is even more important for non gold players to pretty much do absolutely nothing but focus on economy early to be competitive.