Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Playing around with the demo while waiting on the post office to deliver. Not sure how much micromanaging of my armies and commanders is necessary or desirable?

First, commanders. Without specific orders they seem to cast spells until their fatigue is maxed out. That appears to cause troops under their command to rout but I may have that wrong. So I've been assigning most troops to a guy who gets an attack order and then letting other commanders cast what they will.

Second, armies. I try to group like units and give them appropriate orders and postions. Fighters in front, indirect fire behind that line, fast units on the flanks with orders to hit the rear. I'm sure there is a lot more subtlety here than I have grasped.

Anybody have some tricks they can reveal without giving away all their MP secrets? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Any help for a guy just learning the game would be appreciated. Thanks.

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Useful tips;

The larger a squad (Men grouped together) the more morale it has.

Also it is the average morale of a group that is taken. So a unit that has naturally low morale (5) is put in a squad with 9 with high morale (15). The "Squad" morale would be 14. Use this on low morale but good units (Elephants, mammoths, etc) and those that have a high attrition rate (anything else). (This is why Standard Bearers are so good).

In general the AI is stupid about it's attack on certain positions and individuals. This is different for Independants and AI's then totally thrown for a loop vs other players.

Common AI tactics:

AI missle Users aim for "Closest"
AI fliers are usually set for "Attack Rear" or "Attack Archers", almost never "Hold and Attack".
AI Cavalry are set to "Closest" or "Large Monsters"

Those are just some of the more common that you can exploit.

Unless you script your mages; they are fairly inept and will cast spells they do not need to for any given situation. More often than not you have an initial casting string you'd prefer; though it's does not always happen that way as the computer does what it wants from time to time, especially if your casters are drawn close to an enemy.

Your commander will not rout if he is fatigued; but he or his squads will if he is hurt or killed.

So it's up to you to decide if you want to put all your eggs in one basket or give different commanders different squads.

Something you may want to start in the practice of is using units to 'guard commander' and place a reserve (A squad of units) Over your commander stack, wherever it is positioned. This will allow you to guard your otherwise fragile commanders. For melee commanders you want to try to keep out of combat but have no spells try "Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Stay behind troops"

That's all I can think of off the top of my befuddled mind. Need to sleep.

Edit: I also forgot if you use CTRL and a # it will reserve that command string for you to place by just hitting the number. (Example: Hover over a string you created that says; "Summon Earthpower, Blade Wind, Blade Wind, Blade Wind, Cast spells" press CTRL+1, then all you have to do is go down your mage line that you want to have that command string and press 1 over their command fields. Works for all units and commander scripts

[ November 29, 2003, 11:57: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Blue line represents fatigue, green line represents poison and red line hits.

Commanders do go unconscious upon hitting 100+ fatigue and won't do anything until fatigue goes back to below 100. At 200+ they take damage and will soon die.

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Thanks Treebeard. You don't see any morale indicator then?

I know some of the answers are in the manual and mine is on the way so feel free to reply with RTFM. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Hopefully I'll have one to read on Monday.

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Thanks Zen Didn't know about the morale averaging but I'll certainly watch that from now on.

Is the blue line that appears under a unit morale loss and red is hits taken?

I did use a couple of better units to guard my commander.

Scripting spells does seem like a must to get the most out of magic Users. Otherwise, as you say, they don't always make sensible choices.

I did see fatigue up over 100 for some commanders but I thought they would go unconcious at 100?

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

I've tried several times in the demo to get my cavalry to flank my opponent and attack his rear units. Inevitably they turn too early and attack the closest units instead. Anyone know if this works correctly in the full game (which I hope to have tomorrow)?

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

The game has a hard time differentiating what is rear, and it attacks the 'front' of the rear squad/units. Something I have found that works is putting my flankers further on the grid to the south or north (Example shown below where I'd put something I wanted to flank and attack rear, of course this doesn't work if he has something on his flank attacking)

________
X


________


I think that units or squads have a "if something gets within XYZ amount of squares, attack it" type of behavior. So if you keep them as far away from other units as possible they will get a better shot at going what you are hoping for (Archers, Rearmost).

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Thanks Zen. I did have my flankers about as far out as they could go althoug not toward the back as your pic implies (if I follow you). If they do end up attacking the "rear" of the closest group is there a morale hit to the defenders or bonus to the attakcers? IOW does facing make any difference in the game?

[ November 30, 2003, 22:56: Message edited by: Elmo ]

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

Attack rearmost does not automatrically attack the rearmost, intentionally so. There is a chance that a unit with "attack rearmost" will try to attack the very rearmost, if that chance 'fails' it will try for the second rearmost and so on. This means that if the opponent only has a single unit in the rear and all the rest in the front there is a very real possibility that he will be ignored. On the other hand if they do choose the single unit hiding in the rear he will be without bodyguard or other units helping him out. This means that it might also be a good idea to put a few units on hold behind important commanders as a sort of rearguard.

[ November 30, 2003, 23:00: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: Micromanaging armies and commanders
 

The board doesn't put in spaces. It was supposed to be near the front http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif The diagram is slightly askew. But as Johan said it's good that you can't always have something attack the rearmost. And a common tactic is to put a reserve slightly behind, atop or in front of your Commander pile to distract any squads/fliers from killing your commanders and causing an automatic rout.

I consider it being akin to an actual General. You can tell your soliders where you want them and what they are to do; but how they react is based on the men (Or in this case the AI). You just have to learn the ins and outs.

I don't know if having a unit rear or flank a squad causes a morale check; but I know it does allow more attacks vs a squad thus more attrition thus more morale failure. It also doesn't allow a larger squad to sweep around the ends and engulf a smaller squad, as the computer will have extra units that are not allowed an attack to go around the edges to try to get in the mix.