How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Vanheim is wreacking havoc in my lands with a powerful stealth army. If I could catch the stealth army with my main army I'd be fine, but that's practically impossible.

How do you deal with this kind of thing? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Cut off the head of the chicken... thus the leader(s) of the stealthy troops. Use spells like seeking arrow, earth attack, disease demon or mind hunt to kill the sneaking leaders before their next move.

Kill one leader and whatever troops under his command will be left behind for killing.

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

How big an army? Spending one turns gold to totally crank the PD in one province can catch them off guard.

Also along with the spells that NT Jedi listed, this is where I love to have a conversion lab running. Steal his commanders causing his units to rout, then use the same tactics back against him.

Stealth armies with guerilla tactics is one of my favorite strategies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

You can also try to outguess where he's gonna attack and have your army there waiting for him, or teleport in a very tough guy.

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

I like casting wrath of god when this starts happening.. it is really fun to have a message pop up declaring hidden troops being discovered and watching them auto-rout because their commander was killed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

50+ Vanherses (Sacred, Stealth, Glamour). Only my main army will be able to defeat it (playing Ulm myself).
He walked right over 40 PD and I can't afford paying for much above that.
No wonder, it's wicked http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

Is it true that using the Move and Patrol order will not enable my army to move a province and catch him? I read somewhere that only the normal Patrol order would actually search for hidden units.

Looks like I'll have to look for spells and/or depend on luck catching him.

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

I believe so. I know Move and Patrol does not reduce unrest, so I suppose it does not help to catch him. Of course you can always just Patrol and hope he walks right into you (he won't know where your armies are unless you're on his border because he's stealthed).

Stealthy armies are much less of a pain IMHO than flying armies, because they can only attack every couple of turns (or else they might as well not be stealth).

-Max

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Which era of Ulm are you?

(PD 10+ can catch an army though, especially because there is a modifier for the size of the sneaking army.)

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Not likely since that only counts units that have less than 10 stealth, which the vans don't. So the vans should be plenty difficult to catch with patrollers.

And PD below 25 (what he's likely to have in most provinces) is highly unlikely to catch the vans since it would require getting a high roll on the patrol (2d25), with at least one reroll, while the stealth roll was a total bust.

If you can't catch the raiders without just a lucky positioning of your army, and you're not yet ready to throw artillery magic at it, I'd recommend ignoring the raiders, and fight fire with fire, if he's focusing so much of his fighting resources on raiding, go send your army into his lands, and take provinces faster than he does. Invading Van is usually unpleasant because you never know when you'll bump into a large army defending one of his provinces due to the glamour, and not being properly scripted to deal with it, but since you know exactly where his army is, you also know where it isn't.

Meanwhile, focus on building more forts where you don't expect an attack during the construction.

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

This is MA (Forges of Ulm). Not worth much against those Vanherses unless in very superiour numbers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

You might have to change your thinking from what will win the battle, to what will wittle down the enemy army. Batches of archers on fire and flee, assassins, arial attacks on attack rearmost, gas bladders, disease causers, starvation, etc.

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Also, when being raided by powerful squads like that it's a good idea to spread mages around to supplement your PD. He might waltz through 40 PD, but how about 40 PD and 2 smiths casting magma eruption? MA Ulm has great cheap combat mages, script them appropriately and sprinkle them around where you think he'll attack. You might not be able to kill them on the firs try, but you'll definitely inflict casualties and hopefully wear them down pretty quickly to a managable size. Bonus is your mages will often be able to retreat while the raiders finish off your PD.

PS take one of your smiths with a fire random phoenix power, flaming arrows, retreat. 40 flaming arbalests are going to definitely make him pay for the victory and your mage is now just moving to the next province. Other useful spells to supplement your PD against vans are are bonds of fire, destruction, earth meld, blade wind (knocks out their glamour), gifts from heaven (with an astral random), legions of steel. You can also sprinkle indy commanders with some nice cheap ulmsih forged items like lightning bows, etc.

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Yes, what Gandalf and Baalz said. 50+ Vanherses I want to be raiding and thinking they are winning when actually they are losing more expensively than I am, and I am retaking provinces behind them (though not so quickly that they change tactics).

PvK

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

You're right (all of you) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Instead of wasting my army trying to catch an elusive army, I should wear it down gradually with the help of a few mages as you suggest [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Peace.gif[/img]

Re: How to deal with powerful stealth army?
 

Eyes of God could give you some help