What’s a Ghost?
In Evony, Ghosting is a strategic action where you temporarily "hide" the troops in your city. This is primarily done to prevent the loss of your valuable troops when your city comes under enemy attack.
What is Ghosting For?
When an enemy attacks your city in Evony and breaches your city wall, any troops remaining inside your city will suffer significant injuries or even death. High-tier troops, in particular, are costly and time-consuming to train, making their loss a major setback. Ghosting is a method to safely evacuate these precious troops to a secure location.
How Ghosting Works
Ghosting involves getting your troops "out of your city" using one of the following methods, protecting them from direct enemy attacks:
1. Rallying Against a Monster
Select a monster on the map and initiate a Rally Attack.
Set the rally duration to a long period, such as 60 minutes.
Commit all the troops you wish to hide into this rally.
While participating in the rally, these troops are not present in your city. Therefore, even if an enemy attacks your city, the troops out on the rally remain safe.
Once the enemy attack concludes, you can cancel the rally, and your troops will return to your city.
2. Rallying Against an City
Similarly, set up a rally attack against an enemy city
Set this rally to a long duration, such as 60 minutes, and send your troops.
Once the enemy attack on your city is over, cancel the rally to bring your troops back.
Why Ghost Your Troops?
Troop Protection: This is the most crucial reason. It safeguards your valuable high-tier troops, which are expensive and time-consuming to train, from enemy assaults.
Minimize Losses: By ghosting, you can limit the losses to troops remaining in your city (typically low-tier T1 units that are less impactful to lose, or intentional "trap" troops).
Evade Surprise Attacks: If an opponent launches a surprise attack, ghosting quickly provides you with enough time to protect your forces.
Key Points for Effective Ghosting
Quick Execution: When enemies are approaching, you need to perform the ghosting operation quickly. Practicing this is essential to become proficient.
Utilize Bookmarks: Bookmark frequently used monsters or empty cities so you can set up a rally quickly when needed.
Stamina Consumption: Be aware that rallying against monsters may consume stamina, even if you cancel the rally.
Troop Composition: The troops you ghost are typically your most valuable high-tier units or your main combat forces.
Beware of Auto-Return: If your city is force-ported, your troops might automatically return. In such cases, you need to re-ghost them immediately.
Connection to Trap Cities: Ghosting can also be combined with a "Trap City" strategy, where you lure enemies into attacking, incurring significant losses on them with minimal sacrifice on your part. In a trap city, you intentionally leave a small number of T1 troops to absorb attacks, while your main forces are hidden via ghosting.
Ghosting is a fundamental yet vital technique in Evony's PvP (Player versus Player) combat, and it's an essential skill for intermediate and advanced players alike.