This guide describes the most common attacks new players may face and describes steps all new players should take to defend against them.  I will focus on steps players should take in their first week of play, while still under beginner protection, in order to be prepared to defend against attacks when the rainbow wears off.  I will conclude with some remarks about dealing with the aftermath of an attack.

This is the most important building needed for initial defense.  New players should study Arcana and build a mage tower in their first day in game.   Runes is strongly recommended as the first school of magic to study.  Slaying Runes are probably the most useful type of protection for a new player; they can be studied and cast at the following levels of Mage Tower:

Mark of Slaying Level 3 5

Death Rune Level 7 20

Killing Glyph Level 11 75

Ward of Destruction Level 15 250

Note: Casting Slaying or Seeking runes requires books and cattle as well as mana and basic resources.

An alternative for new players is to cast Seeking Runes targeted specifically at thieves.  This option may be better for players in alliances who are less likely to be attacked militarily.  Unlike Slaying Runes, which offer some defense against military attacks, Seeking Runes can only protect against one type of diplomatic attack -- most new players would likely choose to target thieves, since risks from assassins and saboteurs is lower while you are new.  You may only cast one spell from the Rune school on your city, so you must choose EITHER a Slaying OR a Seeking rune.

Seeking Runes can be studied and cast at the following levels of Mage Tower:

Mark of Seeking Level 2 12

Seeking Rune Level 6 40

Seeking Glyph Level 10 130

Ward of Intentions Level 14 400

Practical tip:  If you upgrade your Mage Tower once each day during your 7 days of new player protection, you will emerge from protection being able to cast a Death Rune or a Seeking Rune.  Go forth and scorch the bad guys!

Slaying/Seeking runes stay in effect until they have killed the specified number of enemy units.  After they have been exhausted or if you are replacing a weaker rune with a stronger one, there is a minimum 6-hour cooldown before they can be cast again.  Make sure you replace the rune promptly upon completion of the cooldown period.  You receive a mail when the rune is activated or taken down, so you can use the timestamp on the mail to calculate when you can re-cast the rune.

Mark of Fear and other runes in the Fear line are NOT recommended for self-defense for new players.  While Seeking and Slaying runes kill a specified number of units even if more units than that are sent, Fear runes simply fail if more than the specified units are sent -- they will then do absolutely nothing.  It is better to kill some, even if not all, of the attackers.

The consulate is the second building needed for new player defense.  Building and upgrading your consulate allows you to produce diplomatic units to protect your town.  Your army will NOT defend against diplomatic attacks.  The only defense against diplomatic units is other diplomatic units of the same type.

It is usually impractical for a very new player to produce enough thieves to withstand a theft attack from a larger players who may have many more thieves.  The most sensible course for a new player to take is therefore 1) to make being thieved as painful as possible for the thief and 2) to prevent the thief from obtaining anything of significant value from a theft attempt.  If a thief loses units in a theft attempt and gains little from it, he is less likely to revisit later.

Consulate Lev 1 CounterIntelligence allows your diplos to defend against enemies

Consulate Lev 5 Interrogation your diplos may discover who sent diplos

Consulate Lev 5 Finesse opens way for studies for spies, thieves

Consulate Lev 9 Diplomacy allows you to study Theft

Consulate Lev 9 Theft allows you to build thief units

Thief units have different names depending on race: Burglar (human), Rogue (elf), Footpad (dwarf), Goblin Cutpurse (orc).  Note that t1 thieves have better defense for the money (gold upkeep) than t2 thieves; therefore players looking mainly to defend should focus on t1 (basic thief) units.

To make thieves you need gold, horses and books.  T1 thief units have an upkeep of 2 gold per hour.  It is a good idea to make at least a few thief units to give your citizens a chance at catching the miscreant.  Because of the building and research required, this is often something you will do in your second or third week of play.  Focus on the first week of play should be on building a Mage Tower and researching the highest possible seeking and/or slaying rune, and on researching Safeguard and constructing a Vault.

II. Defense Against Military Attack

New players are not likely to be attacked militarily by larger players.  If you are attacked by a much larger player during the first month or so of play, please send a mail to the attacking player letting them know you are active and go to global chat as soon as possible.  Be prepared to give details about the attack, such as who the attacker is and when it will arrive.  If the attack already occurred, other players may request a report of the attack be forwarded.  The Illy community takes military attacks by larger players on smaller ones very seriously; for this reason alone, these attacks are rare.

Unfortunately, you are more likely to be targeted by a fellow new player than you are by a veteran.  The community is less likely to intervene directly in this sort of attack.  However, if you use a rune from the Slaying series to protect against diplomatic attacks, the rune will also fry any incoming military units -- probably as many as a fellow new player can send at you.  This is one of the main benefits to using a Slaying rune if you are a new player.

In general, players in their first two weeks of play cannot build an army big enough to make a large difference in defense.  Therefore this guide will not cover building a barracks or wall, except to note that if you complete a lev 9 consulate and a mage tower at least level 10, building a wall and upgrading barracks is a logical next step.

Even though armies are not necessary for self defense for the very new player, they can be fun to play with.  For information on building military capability, check out this http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/basic-military-development-for-new-players_topic5440.html" rel="nofollow -  VAULT

The vault is a passive form of defense that is recommended for new players who are experiencing problems with thieves.  It protects some of your goods from theft OR military attacks.  The amount of resources protected increases with each level of upgrade.  Protection amounts at each level can be found on the wiki:   http://illyriad.honoredsoft.com/wiki/Vault" rel="nofollow - http://illyriad.honoredsoft.com/wiki/Vault

The vault also adds to the amount stored by the storehouse and warehouse; it protects a portion of the goods that are stored.  Vault protection is automatic; there is no need to designate resources to be protected by the vault -- it automatically protects any resources you have up to the vault's protection limit.

A level 3 vault is relatively fast to build (one hour 10 minutes for levels 1 through 3) and does not require many resources (300 of each resource for the first three levels).  It protects 7500 of each basic resource (food, wood, clay, stone and iron) and gold and 30 of each advanced resource (such as books, saddles and spears).  This level of protection is enough for a new player to continue a building program as well as to protect books to re-cast a rune.  Building a vault beyond level 3 significantly increases the amount of resources required to build and is probably unnecessary for most new players.

The best time to build a vault is at the end of the first week, just prior to emerging from beginner's protection.  A vault is not needed before that time.  Building a vault requires researching Timekeeping >> Bureaucracy >> Safeguard in the City portion of the research tree.

After a player develops advanced runes and is able hire substantial numbers of protective diplos (mostly thieves) and has military defense, a vault is no longer needed.  It can be demolished to make room for more specialized buildings.

Although war is not the only path in Illy, most players will probably find themselves attacked at some point or other.  It's best to be mentally prepared for the possibility and to know how to respond.

The most important point to remember about any attack is, "It's not the end of the world."  Being attacked, especially without provocation, can be infuriating.  In fact, diplo attacks in particular can be used as much as an instrument of psychological warfare as to create real damage to a player's cities.  As The_Dude says, a diplomatic attack is "an affront to the dignity of the defender."

However, there's really very little an attacker can do to damage the long-term growth prospects of a new player.  Let's take a look at the effects of various types of attack:

1)  Military attacks

Sieges will not be addressed in this guide.  In the highly unlikely event that you're a player just out of protection and you're being sieged, seek advice in global chat immediately.

The effect of military attacks other that sieges is simple:  They can kill your army (if you have one) and make off with some of your basic resources.  Since it's vastly more likely that a military attack came from another new player, they probably won't have taken much with their small army.  If you have built a vault, it will protect some amount of your resources, and if your resource levels were below what a vault protects you will not lose any resources at all.

2)  Theft

Thieves can take basic or advanced resources.  However, they cannot take cattle or horses.  (Apparently "Cattle Rustling" and "Horse Thieving" technologies have not yet been introduced to Illy.)  Theft attacks may occur by players of any size, but the most important thing to remember is:  They can't steal anything you don't have.  Thieves also cannot take siege blocks or any item harvested by cotters or other advanced harvesters (such as hides, grapes, rare herbs, rare minerals or animal parts).  They also cannot take any crafted equipment.

Every new player has a responsibility to themselves, to their fellow newbs, and to the Illy community to undertake appropriate precautions against attack.  By limiting the potential rewards to attackers (such as by not keeping advanced resources lying around) and by ensuring that stealing from new players is painful (by maintaining killing runes and possibly protective thieves) and by making it more likely that they will be found out (through Diplomacy research and maintaining thieves), every new player can contribute to the defense of all new players.

Some players feel ashamed or embarrassed after being attacked, particularly by thieves or other diplos.  Resist this feeling! There is no shame in being new and not yet strong.  Everyone starts somewhere.  The shame is on the cowards who try to take advantage of new players.  Hold your head up high, ask for help, and be proud to be part of a community that stands against this sort of attack.

The worst thing you can do in response to any attack is to leave Illy.  Don't let the bastards get you down!   Ask for help from veterans and rebuild.  Stay strong, keep building and you will succeed!

And sorry about explaining it every 22.3 minutes, Kilo ... I'll try to limit myself to every 2-4 hours in the future  Glad you like the guide

so I guess Im not a vet yet...NEWBS4LIFE

Seems to me that vets would be wise not to count out any specific tool or comment on their likely actions in advance.

I would hope it suffices to say that Illy vets react powerfully and flexibly in response to attacks on new players, depending on the situation.

I would say that both pop and time played are weak measures of "vet status".  I suggest that the more relevant measure is what a player has done.  A loner that has been here a long time and built big cities might be poorly equipped to handle many facets of Illy.

It's the swing that matters, not the size of the bat.

In your first couple of weeks:

1) try and make contacts with your neighbors and try and be friendly with them. This means, don't start bumping caravans all around you.

2) build your VAULT up to level 10.

Up to the recent change, vault seems useful to new players at the very start of your account on your first city, but after a few weeks it became obsolete.

Now, with it holding 10 I believe adv resources per level, that's not too bad. That is, until you start getting buildings to the point where you can queue up lots and lots of resources behind your army of thief defenses at which point a set number isn't as good.

The way that seems best to me if the devs are reading would be to have it be both a set number and a percentage of the stock to be protected; or a different vault building that has that function; and to use the higher of the two. It would be useful later on in case someone designs a Thiefmaster city and sends out 8k thieves at a time to random large cities.

So I guess a few levels would not hurt if you don't have something else to build, but I don't think I would take it to 10 as a new player now if I had the same game knowledge. Maybe up to 5 until I started getting hit with thieves, as buildings below level 5 are pretty quick to build.

Please be avised that both you and William Shatner are my heroes and everything I had hoped to be.  I will have to read your advice a few times to fully comprehend it but I am grateful for the time and effort you expended on my behalf.

Well, not me specifically, but new peoples.  

It is perfectly possible to go through Illy without building a mage tower or employing any magic whatsoever.  It is, however, decidedly less efficient in the opening stages of the game.

Even besides their usefulness in killing enemy units, Runes serve as a useful intelligence tool, since an activated Rune tells you the race of the attacker.

If you prefer you can interpret magickal interventions as deriving their effectiveness from a superstitious populace.  That is, I suspect that the mere sight of the glowing sigil above my gate causes ne'erdowells to experience a drastic increase in blood pressure, resulting in a heart attack or stroke.  The glow of the morning sun through the magnifying lens mounted above the sigil may account for the charring effect.  It is all rationally explicable, as anyone from the Temple of Reason can assure you.

Ryelle, who as an elf is full of soft-headed superstition, would probably differ with me on this.

Obviously this isn't helpful to someone with one town or who has spread his towns all over the map but as soon as you have two towns and if you aren't spreading them all over, pick one to protect from thieves.  This will leave basic resources open in the other towns but those are easier to replace, (just ask).

Another thought to protect gold is to turn it into something that can't be stolen (like cows, horses or siege blocks).  You can buy cows with excess gold and then sell them to get the gold back.

Finally, if your towns are not too spread out you can use a foreign embassy in one with your most advanced consulate to see quite a distance from all the towns (max range is ~50 squares).  Again, you're spending once on a capability used by several towns.

I would say that it is decidedly less efficient no matter what. i am assuming that the above quote already accounts for the 8% food production. and as you said the rune magic is essentially "free" troops of 250-400 units without taking auxiliary buildings into account. but since the building has one of the highest population rates, then the tax income (and population) also make this an ideal defensive structure.

i would like to ask if there ever is a reason to defend against spies or scouts? and if this defense is needed when to add it. 

My second Question is whether the Diplomatic units also receive a bonus from the city wall. 

Thanks!

Other players would probably happily help a new player who has been thieved with such resources, but for a player who prefers to be independent, a vault makes a lot of sense.

Plus, there's nothing like the satisfaction of frying some thieves on your rune AND realizing that the remaining thieves got away with absolutely nothing.  All pain, no gain for the thief -- that's a win in my book.