Add Time or Minus Time?

[TywinLannister]

Let's say it's 2pm. You usually go to bed around midnight. Your attack time is 12 hours. Do you -2 hours so you can attack again right before bed, or +4 hours for more gains and attack when you wake up?

[Bishop]

-2 hours, having army out for a long time isnt beneficial.

[noobium]

If I am playing a race with turtle ability, like elf, halfer, or human, then I would just use normal attack time and stay turtled until I wake up.

If I were playing an army-in-army-out race then I would do everything possible to never have 12 hour attack times, and I would schedule my life around my hitting schedule. Failing that would depend on factors like the return time of other hitters in my kingdom, the risk of my province being chained, whether extending hit times would lead to repeated hits, whether I need a lot of incoming acres to preserve offense, whether I could inflict heavy damage with extended attack times at a crucial moment.

The optimal situation for any attacker with huge offense is to hit at the moment that is most useful, not necessarily to get armies out as soon as possible. If I can risk holding armies for 3, 4 hours in order to wait for a better spot to hit, that would be the most preferable course of action. Reduced attack times should be avoided as much as possible, but there are situations where it is useful to return before your intended target.

If I must make a decision at that moment, then I am most likely taking reduced attack time rather than extended attack time.

Another possibility in that spot would be to use a non-land attack, which would shave 1.5 hours off a 12h normal hit time. That is also contingent on whether I can risk having no incoming acres or few incoming acres from reduced-time sidetaps, or if I even care about overpopulation.

[Elanesse]

Your army home and it being 2 PM and having 12 hour hits is your first mistake. Of course, you can't help when a war starts, but I would seek to adjust your attack times as soon as possible. I prefer a 9 AM and 9 PM attack schedule (I'm not a hardcore player who sets alarms). My barracks make my army home earlier, so every now and again I extend hours by 1 or 2 to get me back on schedule so my army doesn't arrive home before I wake up. But I like to check my stats, look at my options, see who's hit out and who has lowest defense with greatest gains before I attack, and that requires I be awake for AT LEAST a half hour before my attack.

If I can help it, I never use negative hours, but +4 is just as bad. You want as many attacks as possible.

[TywinLannister]

Wow! Great answers guys, thank you. I've never even thought about timing my attacks like a clock and keeping them around the same time each day. That makes total sense though.