Dealing with aggression

[covert oak]

Hi everyone! How do you guys deal with aggressive neighbours? I often lose because some random guy all-ins me and get all my land

[warped sentinel]

get them before they get u

just dont let them get more land then u are getting, then they are bound to get ya

[narrow knot]

Preemptive alliance before it is a problem

[night dock]

If they're lots stronger, you already lost by letting them get that big.

Against an aggressive, weaker to slightly stronger player, delaying is often better than direct retaliation. Put up defense posts (works best if it's a small border) and let them burn their troops. Against an all-in, only retaliate with enough to slow them down, don't cancel their attack completely. You'll have more troops when their attack burns itself out, and regen faster than them. Once you have the troop advantage, you can retaliate and retake whatever you lost, suppressing their troop count at the same time.