Distance matters - why I attack countries near me

A quick beginner lesson from a mistake I made when the fighting update dropped. I found a juicy rich town to attack, sent my army, and then waited, and waited. It took almost a full day for my soldiers to arrive, and by then things had changed. The problem was distance. Let me explain how travel works so you do not do the same. When you attack, your soldiers do not teleport, they march. And the time they take depends on the real distance between your country and the enemy country. Countries that are near you are a short march, countries on the other side of the world are a very long march. The game literally uses the real distance between the two countries. So a far away target can take many hours or even more than a day for your army to reach. During all that time your soldiers are just walking, doing nothing, and you cannot use them to defend your own town either. Worse, you cannot call them back. Once they leave, they are committed, there is no recall button. If you change your mind, too bad. There is another catch about speed. Your whole army travels at the speed of the SLOWEST soldier in it. So if you mix fast soldiers with slow ones, the fast ones wait for the slow ones and the whole group crawls. The rapid intervention troops are very fast, but only if you send them alone or with other fast units. Mix them with slow elite troops and you lose all the speed advantage. Because of all this, I now prefer to attack countries near me. There is even a handy list on the attack page called closest to you, which shows targets in the nearest countries. Short march means my army arrives fast, I get the result quickly, and my soldiers are not away from home for long. A fast strike on a near neighbour is usually better than a slow crawl to a far away prize. When does a far target make sense? Only if it is REALLY worth it, like a very rich town with weak defense that nobody near you offers. Even then, remember your army is gone from home the whole time, so your own town is more exposed while they travel. For a beginner I would say keep it close and simple. The arrival time is shown to you before you send, in the attack window. So always look at it. If it says the army arrives in a few minutes, great. If it says a day, think twice. I check that number every time now. One more practical thing, because the march takes real time, you can watch it in your My army section under attacks, it shows your soldiers on the move and when they will arrive. It is kind of exciting to watch actually. So the lesson, distance equals time, the whole army moves at the slowest unit, and you cannot recall them. Attack near when you can, keep your armies home for shorter, and only march far for a truly special target. The war stuff is new so we are all learning the map, but this one saved me a lot of wasted marches. Close and fast beats far and slow for a beginner.