These cities provide you with control over a small draft area, 18 x 18 square miles and allow you 4 drafts per day. They are good starting points from which to launch waves at the bigger Historic Cities.
They allow you to launch 125,000 waves (156,250 with war ensign).
Draft Range
19 x 19 Miles
9 miles in any direction
12.7 miles at the furthest point
Defences
Troops
The easiest combination is Warrior / Pikemen / Archer / Cavalry / Rams.
But you can also attack the
Warrior / Swordsmen / Archer / Cavalry / Rams Configuration
Every day there is a random troop combination in the Historic City. The warriors and archers will always be in there. But pikemen and swordsmen alternate. But it can be done fairly easily with swordsmen in it. Because you go for the battering ram combination there will only be the archers as a range unit firing on you. Stay away from trying to take it with any other combo, the losses will be very high.
Warrior 1,120,000
Pikemen / Swordsman 162,666
Archer 42,807
Cavalry / Cataphracts 108,444
Rams / Ballista / Catapult 14,640
Walls
Its best to try to spam out as much walls as possible
Traps 22,000
Abatis 11,000
Archer Towers 6,666
Rolling Logs 6,000
Defensive Trebuchet 5,000
If you camp all your loyalty waves, make sure to send at least 40, or more if you can. After the city is broken and its troops wiped out it varies how many loyalty waves it takes to capture it. Sometimes only 30, but some times over 40. Also make sure you have a city ready to teleport to the historic city if you need extra loyalty waves.
Method 1
Warrior / Pikemen / Archer / Cavalry / Rams Configuration
The easiest method I have come across to take a LV 12 doesn't require high hero attack but only a good number of ballista. You will only lose about 4,000 ballista on the breaker. The Span waves before will eliminate the traps causing them to miss your important troops.
Hero level and attack does not matter for loyalty and spam waves.
Wave 1 to 30 - 2,000 warriors / 2,000 scouts (spam waves)
Wave 31 - 2,000 workers / 3,000 warriors / 120,000 ballista and hero attack of 285 (breaker wave)
Waves 32 and on - 10,000 archers / 20,000 warriors (loyalty waves)
Method 2
Warrior / Pikemen or Swordsmen / Archer / Cavalry / Rams Configuration
If you don't have the ballista and need to use other troops, your losses will depend on your hero attack. Your going to use a mix of archer rainbows and pikemen.
With Hero Attack 200
Launching from a Lv10 city without war ensign
Wave 1 to 30 - 2,000 warriors / 2,000 scouts
Wave 31 - 33 - 100,000 pikemen
Waves 34 - 35 - 100,000 archers
Wave 36 - 42 (7 waves) - 1,000 workers / 1,000 warriors / 1,000 scouts / 1,000 swordsmen / 95,000 archers / 500 cataphracts / 500 cavalry
Waves 43 and on (loyalty waves) - 10,000 archers / 20,000 warriors
With Hero Attack 400
Launching from a Lv12 Historic city without war ensign.
Wave 1 to 30 - 2,000 warriors / 2,000 scouts
Wave 31 - 125,000 pikemen
Waves 32 - 125,000 archers
Wave 33 - 36 (4 waves) - 1,000 workers / 1,000 warriors / 1,000 scouts / 1,000 swordsmen / 95,000 archers / 500 cataphracts / 500 cavalry
Waves 37 and on (loyalty waves) - 10,000 archers / 20,000 warriors
From 400 attack and up, you can decrease you losses by sending 156,000 waves from a Lv 12 if you have war ensign. Also you can send 150k waves from a lv14 historic city or 187,500 with war ensign. The bigger the first pike and archer waves are the less archer rainbows after it will take to finish off the city.
With Hero Attack 800+
Launching from a Lv14 Historic city with war ensign.
This is a two hit break using only archers and pikemen. The waves are sent from a Lv 14 Historic city with war ensign. You will wipe most of the troops in the city with the first two waves leaving only a tiny amount for the 3rd wave to clean up.
You need two historic heroes, around 500 attack + Excalibur 125 + Uprise 207.
You have the option to send the 30 spam waves if you want, but if you need to capture a few different level 12s quickly, this is the quickest method.
You can actually Capture a few in a day.
Wave 1 - 187,500 Pikemen
Wave 2 - 187,500 archers
Wave 3 - 1,000 workers / 1,000 warriors / 1,000 scouts / 1,000 swordsmen / 95,000 archers / 500 cataphracts / 500 cavalry
Waves 4 and on (loyalty waves) - 10,000 archers / 20,000 warriors
With Hero Attack 800+
Launching from a Lv16 Historic city with war ensign.
Wave 1 - 250,000 Pikemen
Wave 2 - 250,000 Archers
Waves 3 and on (loyalty waves) - 10,000 archers / 20,000 warriors
If you launch from a level 16 city you can pretty much break the city losing only the pikemen. You will lose about 7,000 archers in the second wave. This is with level 9 stars minimum.