How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Okay, I admit I am a whore for missle troops. So far I haven't even desired to play the countries who don't have 'em.

For the moment I'm using 4-5 leaders each with several squads.

But I have my main guy, (A Grand Inquisitor who is also my Prophet) loaded with 95 crossbowmen. This body of missle troops is flanked by pikemen and Halberdiers.

Out front I have Flagelates (sp?) to soak up enemy missles and melee unit charges.

Now in my solo game this has performed very well so far.

My question to this forum and the more experienced players is, how would you oppose my force?

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Like a red headed stepchild...


But seriously...
Lots of ways I suppose... staff of storms, the spell storm, fliers set to attack archers...

Sure the indies don't do this (well sometimes if they are lucky they might), but a real player (even the AIs sometimes) will do it. Also army targeting overland spells will work, or just another batch of archers...

Hopefully you're using flaming arrows too, that really makes those xbows mow down the enemy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 13, 2004, 16:02: Message edited by: licker ]

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Well it is pretty early in the game (turn 40ish) so I still have some spells to obtain but I'll be on the lookout for those fire arrows. Also, what do you think of that Air spell that improves Aim? Worth it?

I'm alchemy-ing like mad to get 50 air gems so I can empower my guy with Air Magic so he can use that spell...

Any other good spells for a squad of archers?

Some other thoughts I had was smaller Groups of missle troops (rather than all in one big batch) so they might focus on different targets and not be so vulnerable to area affect spells.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Flame arrows is enchantment 3 or 4, costs 1 fire gem and requires a F3 mage to cast. Its a turn 10 spell if you go for it from the start. Staves of Storms are easilly turn 15 items for nations that rush to them...

I've not tinkered much with aim or eagle eyes on archers, I'm sure it helps, but with that many archers it may be less effective as you are counting on saturation fire anyway. There are other air spells (wind guide for one) that help all your units precision stats, though if you don't have air mages I'd not worry about those too much.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Well I will probably confront you with my Man army of 150 longbow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

XBow are better against armored target but a bit too slow on the fire.

Flyers could help, and any spell like rain and storm will hit you, especially as your mages are also fire dependant.

I guess my own flagellant with an Air 6 blessing would be helping too.

But massive archer tactics are good on my book.

Also battlefield spells with an army of mages with cloack of missile could do the trick.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You've found one killing strategy in the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

I can have "Arrow Fend", "Storm" (just decrease precision by 6 in Dom 2). But the best way is to have more missle troops than you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif . I can decimate your crossbow with cheap indie archers by setting them aim for enemy archers.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

hmmm....okay so you could have cheaper longbowmen or slingers (?) target my archers specifically and quickly decimate them....

So I therefor need some kind of shielding spells to improve my defense against arrows? Or I guess counter with rain or storm to reduce YOUR accurancy....

I think I would check my intel and if I see your mass of archers I would change my archers to target archers (as opposed to attack closest which they are at most of the time).

You guys are giving me good ideas and advice here...I'm digging it!

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would affect you just as badly.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Cavalry flanking work well as a counter, so it's good your flanks are guarded. Also single units standing in front of an army can draw fire.
Archers and xbows work well because they build fast and can rout weaker forces, but just consider what would happen if you were attacked by 95+ good quality infantry with shields. I'd probably favor the infantry if they had units in front to draw fire, as they could probably go through your flagellants pretty quick.

It sounds like you have a pretty well thought out setup though, so flying units, storms, or archers safest. But keep in mind you probably aren't fighting similarly sized armies of good infantry.

This is what makes scouting so important in MP. If I saw that beforehand and had time to counter I probably could come up with something, but if I didn't scout I'd be hopeless trying to come up with a fast response. This is probably the most famous marignon tatic though, so people will be expecting it if you play a multiplayer game.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would affect you just as badly. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That won'y only affect him just as badly if he had missile troops as well. If he's a melee-only army, he wouldn't be affected at all. Alternatively, if he's R'lyeh, his squiddlies will be able to bLast with perfect accuracy, rain, snow, sleet, or shine.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Okay, IXNAY on the rain and storm since it hurts my side as well.

Then I think my next solution is to divide up into more squads. (Is there a limit under a single commander? I don't recall...) so maybe 8-10 squads of 10 missle units as opposed to 100 guys in one group. And place them all over the backfield with layered protection on the flanks, Pikers & Halberdiers.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">hmmm....that might work. But you might run into morale issues on your way in. So at some point both sides will have to rely on spells to sway things in their favor.

Here's a thought. What about Haste or Quickness? Can I haste an entire troop of crossbowmen? (Geez what a thought...) or is the spell for each little guy at a time...?

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

You can only have 5 squads per commander, if that is a limiting factor.

There is an Alteration 8 spell called Quickening that will haste your entire army. Though if you are that far in research you probably don't need to worry about the trivialities of if your Bowmen get fired on (Since Arrow Fend is only Ench 6).

A good way to break up arrowfire is to place squads in different positionings. Most of the time enemies (inlcuding humans) place Fire Archers on their Archer block and it will only fire on the closest archers. So if you set 1 archer nearer than your main block on a flank, then the archers on the opposing side will try to fire on him and your main block of archers will be protected until he dies.

[ February 13, 2004, 17:27: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Massed missile troops are standard fair for multiplayer games. They are exceedlingly effective against the AI, and very good against human opponents as well. So if you are up against a human, they will likely also have massed missile armies.

So then the question is how to effectively win in a such a massed archer fight. Wind Guide and Flame Arrows are extremely effective spells to increase the effectiveness of your archers/crossbowmen. As mentioned, Storm and Arrow Fend are common spell counters. There are also Deth Magic and Water Magic spells (I think on the water - it's not my favorite line) that limit range. Then, there are the really cool spells like Mistform and Massflight (Air spells) that would also wipe out a Crossbow amry. Massflight allows all troops to fly - imagine 50 Heavy infantry immediately flying adjacent to your 50 Crossbowmen.

In addition to these spells, there are battle orders you can give that help. One that is sometimes overlooked is Fire Enemy Archers. A large group of indy archers or longbowmen set to Fire Archers could devestate your massed Crossbowmen. Also, a group of flanking heavy cavlary can also wipe out massed missile troops if there are no heavy infantry or spells to stop them.

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

Howl, Swarms, Mind Duel, Seeking Arrow, Manifestation, scattered chaff, Storm, Darkness, Heat from Hell, stealthy units with Bane Venom Charms, Miasma, etc. It depends. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

How about some 20-odd disintegrating spectators and 300+ undead fodder? Place the cavalry rearmost and the rest to attack up front. The spectators can manage nearly 100 troops in the first 5 rounds, then they start summoning more fodder and casting whatever the AI feels like they should (which, thankfully, includes some more disintegration).

Ermor can easily manage that by turn 25-ish with a decent gem income.

Suddenly occurs to me to ask, do spectators/dusk elders and so on get two attacks/turn with power of the sepulchre?

Which also leads to me ask, does power of the spheres increase unholy level too (as does communion)? If so, suddenly empowered arch bishops sound like a great idea....

Re: How would you beat my missle troops?
 

How about a handful of leaders with Bows of War ordered to fire at enemy archers, spaced out so most of your bolts will miss them, possibly with anti-missile cloaks. And whatever infantry & cannon fodder, and a few small arrow fodder teams to attract AI archer attention.

With only 5 cheap men with Bows of War (perhaps scouts, or cheap commanders), they with fire 130 arrows in the time your 95 crossbowmen will fire 95. Many more of our shots will land on your Groups of crossbowmen and hit someone, than your bolts will hit our single archers standing in the open, and 80% less if we use anti-missile cloaks.

PvK