Rainbow

A descriptive term for layering tactics, taking advantage of various movement rates in closing on the enemy and covering units of other ranges and speeds.

Used by many with insufficient understanding as more of a 'magic charm' to successful battle.

(more to come, analysis of unit movement and positioning, from base stats to optimized)

Kinds of Rainbows
There are several different kinds of rainbows for different purposes. However, the Archer Rainbow is by far the most common and used one, as it is the cheapest to make and to lose.

Archer Rainbow
A simple archer rainbow is designed to give the archers a meat shield out of cheap troops, in order to give the archers another round of firing at the enemy before they are killed.

Archer Rainbow troops
A basic archer Rainbow consist of
 * 1,000 warriors
 * 1,000 scouts
 * 1,000 swordsmen
 * 1,000 pikemen
 * 96,000 archers
 * optionally either 1,000 workers or cavs - not recommended because workers are slow and cavalry is expensive

This means that archers are the most common and required troops for archer rainbows.

Mech Rainbow
Mech Rainbows are designed for cities with millions of troops where an archer rainbow would hardly do anything. As Mechs (ballistae, rams, catapults) have higher range than enemy archers and archer towers (rams do not, but they have an incredible amount of life with a good hero). This makes them useful for taking down troops in a well-defended city.

Ballista Rainbow
A ballista rainbow consists of:
 * 500 Workers
 * 500 Warriors
 * 500 Scouts
 * 500 Pikemen
 * 500 Swordsmen
 * 500 Archers
 * 500 Cavalry
 * 500 Cataphracts
 * 94,000 Ballista
 * 2,000 Battering Rams

As you can see, this is a lot more powerful than an Archer rainbow (a.k.a. Archbow). It is useful to add a war ensign and fill the extra space with more ballistae if necessary.

Catapult Wave
A catapult wave consists of This is a very expensive wave, as it requires a lot of resources and time to produce, but it extremely powerful, as the catapults have a very long range. However, they move very slowly, so adding rams lets the rams move just in front of the catapults, which gives the catapults a few more rounds of shooting at the enemy before they are attacked. It is recommended to have low honor for attacks like this, as you take large and expensive losses otherwise.
 * 2,000 Workers
 * 2,000 Warriors
 * 26,000 Ballista
 * 20,000 Battering Rams
 * 50,000 Catapults