Militia Vs. Militia
 

What type of militia, excluding giant militia, what type is best? I wonder because I sent 42 one star militia against 42 hoburg militia backed up by two hooburg horticulturists, one with water one. The hoburgs won.
:banana:

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

What's your definition of 'Militia'? Max goldcost 6? Do they have to be indy recruitable?

I'd nominate Voi Spearmen for their javelins and 7 prot. They could maybe take an equivalent number of lobo guards.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

The hoburgs won beacause they have good defence and stick closer due to size 1. This leads in practice that fewer of your militia is fighting in any given battle turn, giving the hoburgs more attacks which lowers your defence even more in comparison.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

Why are giant militias excluded? They are pretty much considered to be the absolute worst, except as arrow catchers/very poor meatshields. I think I would nominate Pythium's milites as the best. Tower shields (I think), javelins, semi-decent prot and defense, a spear for a bit of repel, whats not to like.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

I'm rather partial to T'ien Ch'i militia. Tower Shields to soak arrows, Pikeneers to deal the pain when you have joined melee.

Velites are very effective against independents and other situations where javelins work well, though they have a tendency to fail hard against high protection troops.

Huskarls for the norse nations are rather good, with their axes, javelins giving plenty of well-rounded offense, and shields + ring mail a better than usual defense.

Axe Fir Bolgs are highly effective offensively, but are lacking in protection and therefore die to archer fire. Excellent defense is adequate protection against most melee.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

I'm somewhat confused. Are we talking about PD or militia units? Granted, they're usually the same, but not always.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

A "basic" (i.e. all stats 10) human warrior costs 10gp. Pretty much anything cheaper tends to have stats deficiencies and could be thought of as militia. Velites, Fir Bolg and Huskarls are surely not militia.

It's a bit tougher to define in terms of nonhumans, but most army lists have a range of middling units with different equipment but the same stats who could be considered the "base" for that race (eg. Jotun javelinists/spearmen/axemen), and those that rate below are militia. You could otherwise identify militia by name, including terms like levy, thrall, slave and so on which also clearly imply inferior quality.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

The "Firbolg Militia" and Velite cost 9 gold under CBM rules at least, though they might be more expensive outside it. Huskarls cost 10.

These units are all the cheapest for their respective cultures.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

For one possible definition of "militia", see my thread regarding which unit appear in the "militia event" for nations that get special units.

But I agree - name_thief - please define "militia" for the purposes of your question.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

If we're talking about the independent militia units (the worst of which is the default for the militia event and is also included in some national rosters, e.g. MA Arco), the hoburgs will kill them every time.

The reason is that the hoburgs have high defense and pack six into a square, meaning that any given square of size 2 militia is going to be outnumbered two to one when going head to head and the indie militia's low defense means they get hit a lot. And as they take damage, morale checks will spell doom for you because militia has really crappy morale.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

Are you thinking of Acroscephale's Peltast?
It has nearly the same sprite, but it's an unique unit separate from the independent/event militia.
The Peltast has higher attack and defense stats and a javelin, it is identical otherwise.

I think Man is the only nation with the regular Militia as a part of its rooster.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

Actually the giant militias can make great chaff (since only one fits into a square aoe effects deal only 1/3 of the damage).

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

I think the OP is meaning as combat units.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

I could not accses the internet for several days, I apologize. For this discussion since I am not really sure about how it should be defined we will go with the militia definition suggested by Agema. The reason giant militia was excluded was because I was thinking of unit ratios instead of gold ratios, also I did not comprehend the inferiority of giant militia, I am not a very good player.
I would say that for the norse nations the militia unit would be the serfs.

:banana:

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

In fact, militias are gorgeous units : what a pleasure and honor to see them running in front of my army, indifferent to arrows and fireballs, to finally make contact bravely with the so called ennemy 'elites' (usually low born swamp dwellers, camping themselves as knights), inflicting many of a grievous moral wound to the ennemy. If they then seem to flee, it is only a feint, before they came back to finish the job.


Seriously, what need is there to compare militias ? Anyway they'll run after having soaked some damages, so the cost should be their only relevant caracteristic.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

As far as I see it, it would be more beneficial to discuss how better to utilize and harness all those militia, rather than comparing one batch of bad eggs to another.

Does anyone have any advanced militia tactics they'd like to propose?

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

Besides stuff like darkness (brings the stats closer together) or battlefield enchantments like army of gold, will of the fates, etc?

Hmm. Mass spear throwing (if your militia has javelins), boosted with wind guide (would flaming arrows work on javelins?), perhaps?

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

I'm thinking low level magic stuff, along with troop placement and tactics. Things that most any Nation should be able to mostly just take advantage of, rather than needing to carefully construct an entire strategy around.

Here's an (untested) example of a possible early game strategy. Please keep in mind that it hasn't been tested.

Consider Early C'Tis, since it's the first Nation that comes to mind: They've got excellent access to Nature, Astral, Water, and Death magic. They've also got the Runner, a cheap, fast, poison resistant, double attack unit with higher than average Hp, and a little Prot.

Their militia unit is better than average in a lot of ways, having 11 hp and poison resistance, and a respectable 12 magic resistance, but suffering from low morale and low protection, like most any other militia. If you happen to get "gifted" by a horde of regular human militia, the story is pretty much the same--low protection, low morale. Those penalties can, and should, be overcome by spells. Flagellants are better, but not much, and can still benefit from the tactics addressed here-perhaps even more so, depending on your Bless situation.

So what spells are C'Tis likely to go for?

C'Tis is pretty likely to research Alteration fairly early in the game. It gives them a lot of goodies both early, and late. So they have a decent chance of learning Protection, Berserkers, and Mossbody, sooner or later.

To be honest, I'm not 100% certain Mossbody actually does poison damage. It may just do 1 AN damage, period, but the description says poison cloud, so we'll go with that. If it turns out I'm wrong about that, no worries, just pay more attention to the section on ghoul summoning, atleast for C'tis.

If you're not playing C'tis, and you still have access to Nature and Water, 1 AN damage over Area 4 is great by itself, and it's usually not that hard to add poison damage for many Nations, via one method or another. Plus, it has a chance of offering amazing Prot (from 10-20) to any unit it's cast on.

Mossbody has great synergy with Runners, who have less to worry from the poison damage than other units, and the 1 AN damage won't kill them by itself. Spam Mossbody on a group of Runners, and suddenly you've got a bunch of durable, expendable poison (?) bombs just waiting to go off in the middle of the enemy. You can also cast Mossbody on the hordes of militia chaff you'll get naturally with high Luck.

So what you can do is send large groups of free chaff militia directly at the enemy to buy yourself some time, while your Runners in two groups at the far right and far left of the militia are set to Hold, Attack Rear. In the meantime, your N, W mages can cast Mossbody, and any mages that only have Nature can spam Berserkers and Protection at everything (but mages ofcourse) that moves.

The great thing here is that both groups can benefit from all three spells. The Runners get the most out of the Protection and Mossbody, which means you'll tend to lose less of them in combat than you will the militia--which, by the way, is great, because the more militia that die, the less you have to pay the survivors. The Militia, however, get the most benefit (atleast to you) from the Berserkers spell, since their pitiful morale is now no longer a concern.

The Militia should be able to hold the enemy in place, atleast for a while, while your Runners flank them, and possibly even get past them, and on to the enemy archers/casters/leadership, who should have a harder than average time of things, due to the 2 attacks (one of which is a longer reach spear).

Once you hit Alt 4, you get access to Dragonflies via the Swarm spell. This is an expensive spell (1 Nature gem), but the nice thing about it is that you can, once again, cast all three spells on the Dragonflies, and they'll all work together for your benefit. Mossbody does a good job of killing the enemy, but the Berserkers spell will make the dragonflies strong enough to hurt the enemy with their bite attack, and the Protection is really nice, because not only does it raise their Prot from 0 to 10, it can also be cast long-distance, helping to assure that every single dragonfly is benefited.

You'll also get access to Ghouls, via Arouse Hunger. Ghouls are expensive at 5 Death gems, but that gives you atleast 9 high morale units with poison claw attacks. It probably isn't worth it to buy too many of these, but occasionally you'll get them for free, and they give you direct poison damage at the infantry level.

Naturally, all that extra havoc you're causing is only improved by the Curse spam your shamans can lay down.

While your militia, runners, and possibly dragonflies/ghouls are out there duking it out with the enemy, and while your mages are casting all these wonderful spells, your archers are free to rain down death on both friend (expendable militia) and foe. Your real troops get a break, being set to Hold, and then Attack.

A smallish group of Elite warriors and Lizard Chariots should be able to roll up the weakened enemy fairly easily. For that matter, you could choose to salt a few Elite warriors in with your militia, since they'll have a better chance of surviving archer fire, while giving the militia stronger staying power, and a bigger punch.

All of this, or just parts of it, can be done by pretty much any C'tis player, pretty much every game, with a minimum of additional expenditure of gold, gems, research time, or resources.

It's not meant to get you through the Late Game, but it is meant to make you more of a threat in the Early Game. The best benefit is against Independents, but with some tweaking or just good fortune, could do some damage against a human opponent as well.

Cheap militia is a key element here, and rather than burdening you with a bunch of units you don't need, should actually make your Nation more of a threat.

There's a lot you could do to improve on it, though (keeping in mind that this is all untested), if you wanted to further incorporate your militia into an overall strategy, but the idea here is to keep things simple and flexible. It probably won't remain effective against a human player for very long, but should easily roll over most independents, and work well enough against most rushes. It may not kill elephants though, but it should atleast cause them damage that can be furthered by Curse spam.


Now let's consider a Nation that at first glance would seem to have little use for chaff militia, namely Niefelheim. Niefelheim militia is big and dumb and fairly useless, but they do have a powerful attack, and a shield, which is important. They're also immune to cold, meaning that you can allow them to interact not only with Niefels and Breath of Winter mages, but also with Banes and other undead, and they're almost as fast as Runners.

So what to do with them? The most obvious tactic is to spam Quickness on large groups of them. It gives them double attacks, as well as a bonus to Att and Def. It's going to be a while until you get it, though, at Alt 4, and it still doesn't really improve them that much.

A better tactic might be to combine them with undead chaff, and use them as a reserve. A single skull talisman (5 death gems, but no research requirements) turns any commander into a skelly spammer. Keeping those militia and skeletons in the back of your army allows you to send them in when your Niefels need them, after they're starting to become fatigued. Against weakened, tired, and frozen units, the Jotun militia and cold/fatigue immune skeletons suddenly become considerably more dangerous, and have less to worry about being surrounded, since they're on the offense, instead of the defense.

One spell that will really help here is Slime. On top of the problems your enemies are already suffering, it halves Att, Def, and action points in a 1 Area effect, it's easy for Niefelheim to cast at Evo 1 (important, because you don't want to distract Niefel too much from buff spells), and it doesn't cost any gems.

By setting your militia and your single skelly-spammer at the very back of the battlefield, you can cause them to arrive in the thick of things (if all goes well) towards end of the battle, and just in the nick of time, with a constant reinforcing of skeletons.

An advanced tactic would be to send your militia in waves. By placing a group of Jotun militia back with your mages, and a second group at the rear of the battlefield, you better your chances of reinforcements arriving when they're needed, while reducing the exposure of your reserves to harm and fatigue by half.

Ofcourse, Niefelheim also has decent access to Nature, Astral, and Water, so they can follow the same practice of casting Mossbody, Protection, Berserkers, but with much greater focus on Slime than Curse.

The simplest way to increase the effectiveness of this kind of setup would be to add skelly spammers, which, as free and synergetic troops, should retain their effectiveness well into the mid-game. The high value of Death gems for Niefel has to be considered, however, but an additional purpose for the Jotun militia would be to simply hold off incoming attackers long enough for your skelly spammers to create a large enough force of skeletons to replace them, which could then be bolstered by fully buffed Niefels and Jarls.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

The idea here is that you're stuck with militia, you can't get rid of them except by killing them off in inefficient ways, so the hope is that we can come up with ways to harness them, rather than ignoring/throwing away a Luck event.

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

"Sunk costs". If there were a "disband" command I would use it on militia every time I get them, unless there were a castle right next door that I needed to knock down or I were already throwing around Darkness/Army of Gold/etc. Shuttling chaff to the front so it can rout and be scattered to surrounding provinces is just not worth it.

-Max

Re: Militia Vs. Militia
 

It's too bad you can't get some kind of "Peasant Hero/Recruitment Officer/Press Ganger/Blatant Kidnapper" unit that would simply produce (recruit) a given type of militia over time, when you got that event. Then again, I suppose someone could possibly replace every type of "militia" in the game, with a commander who produced that type of militia. That way, you could either keep the guy around, when you got the event, or just send him off to his death, without the interum of finding a cheap commander to lead the scum.

Such a unit might work out better for some Nations, too, since many very thematic units tend to never be hired. Making the cost of them a time-price, rather than a gold-price, might up their appeal, and get them in the game.

I also suspect that part of their percieved ugliness is the monotony of clicking on them a few hundred times, just to get up a decent force. Replacing them with a recruitment unit would also remove that unfortunate necessity.

For balance reasons, the commander could be limited by very poor leadership, since he's just your shanghai specialist, rabble rouser, and menacingly patriotic bully-boy, with only enough noble wit and drive to get the job done, while keeping his nose (relatively) clean. He's tough and loyal, even clever in his own ways, and he's good at herding the sheep, much like a dog, but nobody's going to put a dog in charge of an army.

MaxWilson: Other than for fodder, that's really the only appeal the Militia event has. Namely, that you can't dismiss them.

It really should be a 0 Luck event, one that might "bleed" into Luck 1 to -1, rather than a positive or negative event, in my opinion.

And, it's only because we can't immediately dismiss them, do we ask the question: "Ok, so we can't get rid of these filthy armed foreign refugees camping out on our borders, we're stuck with them until they're dead, or we are, so how can we best put them on the road to getting dead?"

That being the case, in what ways can that end best be accomplished, all-round?