Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

Generally, archers are the bane of lightly armored troops, cavalry the bane of archers, Heavy infantry do well against both archers and heavy infantry and heavy cavalry is expensive but works against most things. On the other hand, mass of crossbows can kill small Groups of heavily armored units quite easily, but because they are slower to fire they won't be versus masses of light infantry.

As you see, the unit type does affect the outcome of battle a lot. You just have to be sure that the troops are able to do what they are good at without distractions. As an example:

Put your archers or crossbows on the upper and lower sides of the formation box, about mid-way horizontally. Now they don't have to shoot over your own troops, and friendly fire is lessened. Put them to fire, depending on who you want to take care of. Put your heavy troops in front with orders of Hold and Attack, as this wil give your archers time to fire. If you ahve no heavy troops, you can use any infantry which has shields, but they will take more losses from friendly fire. Light troops without shield are not useful in this if not protected by magic because they will die, and then rout, and your archers will get slaughtered.

If you want to take care of enemy archers, put some fast units like cavalry to the sides (up/down) of the battlefield and order them to either Attack Rear if you want them to go straight on or Hold&Attack Rear if you want to wait till the frontline of the enemy has advanced and the archers (and commanders/mages) have less infantry guarding them. Generally, Attack Rear does just fine, although you might want to try it out yourself.

For commanders, without any magical items they are propably too weak to put to the frontline. Exceptions, like Niefel Lord, exist, but even they benefit greatly from magical abilities like Luck or just the better attack and defence and damage of the magical weapons. Generally, no commander should melee if you don't know what you are doing. Try normal troops first.

For mages, they are of no use before you have researched some spells. Depending on nation, you have many different choices. If you want to try out something rather simple, choose Abysia as their national troops are immune to the fire magic their mages use. Research Evocation. Even though some lesser spells like Fireball and Holy Pyre (versus undead) are good, Falling Fires at level 5 is just beautiful. And it gets better... You might want to risk sometimes by putting your mage in the front just behind your units, and order him to cast Falme Eruption. It affects a large area, and can be cast over your own troops without damaging them as they are immune to fire...
Abysians are not very accurate, though, but I have heard this has been a lesser problem since the Last patch.

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

Some spesifications:


In both cases, None is used if you have no idea about what you want to do, or don't care for the orders. Giving atleast a general command is needed very often, though. Targetting can be left to the AI if winning the battle is not too important.

Commanders have two sets of orders: the upper ones give them order for one turn and they can't be targeted spesifically (that means: they can attack for one turn, but cannot attack archers for one turn). The ones below these ones work as the commands given for the normal units: they affect through the rest of the battle. You can give one turn commands before the whole-battle commands, but not other way round. You can set commanders targets with these lower commands.

You can also let the AI decide spells cast or choose what you want your amges to cast by choosing "Cast a spesific spells". You will be given a list of all spells you have researched that your mage currently has paths to cast. Those spells greyed out are ones he is not able to cast at the moment, but might be when the battle occurs. If you haven't given them any item or magical gems to let them cast those spells when the battle is fought, they will choose something else.

Commanders have their own "long" orders Lasting throught the battle:
Stay behind troops and Cast spells.
Stay behind troops orders the commander to not melee, but he will shoot any weapons he has and /or cast spells if he is able to. If he would become unconscious (= fatique over 100), he might understand to stop. Mages ordered to Cast spells will do so, even if this renders them unconcious. They won't stop casting spells for any other reasons, though.


About general orders:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attack - use on melee troops. You propably quessed this, though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Fire - on archers and on units that have javelins and/or throwing axes. If their ammo gets used up, even troops with Fire will attack. Archers and crossbows generally have enough ammo to not get killed when attacking though.

Hold&Attack - good for units that are meant to hold their place in, as an example, castle gate or guarding archers. They will attack after three turns, and will shoot any missiles they have while waiting.

Guard Commander - The best protection versus assasinations. Only five of the guards will be present if the assasination appen occurs, so quality is better than numbers. Numbers work too, if the assasin has no magical help or is not an Earth Elemental (Earth Attack, Conjuration 8)or anything like that. Also useful if you want to be sure your units will not advance. They won't be shooting anything, though, so not usable on archers. If your commander will go attacking, guarding troops will follow. You might find the extra control the commander provides to his units (like when you only wait for one turn before attacking) useful, but make sure that they move at the same speed!

Fire and Flee - Not really usable. Troops will fire for three turns, and then retreat from the battle. As this is considered rout, they will go to a different province altogether. It can be used if you want to make sure your archers will not fire after your infantry has closed to the melee, but causes more work.

Retreat - For those battles that you have no hopes of winning, and to use when you WANT your enemy to get that province. Those are exceptional cases, though.

About targetting orders
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


- closest
Use if your soldiers are stronger than the enemy. Also useful if they don't have to do anything special. On archers if your front troops can withstand the shots.

- archers
Use on fast units, and try to kill their archers before they make too many holes on your bright new soldiers. If your enemy protects them in some way you should put the cavalry or whatever you are using to the sides of the battlefield.

-rearmost
Same as for archers, but now your units might find some defensless mages and other commanders too! On the other hand, they just as often turn back and attack the enemies' front line from behind. Archers cannot target rearmost, because that would give you easy way to get rid of enemy commanders. That was one of the most exploitable combat tricks not involving magic in Dominions 1, together with fliers flying straight to the commanders.

- cavalry
Do you have some units that are exceptionally good at giving out damage? Maybe simple Barbarians, maybe Minotaurs recruited from a random Maze? If you want to be sure that they go for those knights, use this command. Crossbowmen will kill most cavalry they shoot at if they get enough shots in, but as knights and like often have heavy armors normal bows are not as good.

- large monsters
Often same as above, but can also be used to frighten the elephants and/or mammoths. If you get them running, they will escape straight through the enemy armies! Some people like equipping their pretenders with good gear and use them to kill whole armies. With this order you can be sure that everybody tries their luck, but they surely need it against these beasts! Crossbowmen could still work, and they also good at killing big mosters. Routing elephants is easier with short bows as they will take damage multiple times, but if they don't die you still have to fight them on the next round...

- fliers
I'm not sure if there is a special use for grond forces attacking fliers. But when defending (= your side ges first), you could try to catch them before they are able to fly to your rear. Wroks exceptionally well with archers, as long as they understand to stop firing after the fliers have attacked your troops!


Whew! Too long post, I would say, but he never asked for a short answer...

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This order is also useful for hit-and-run attacks like a drive-by priesting: Attack an undead army composed entirely of priests, and then cast Banish a few times and run like hell.

Also great for tricks like Wrathful Skies combined with spells that summon unfriendly allies like Call Horror and Summon Lammashtas. Cast them, run.

Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif somebody can explain the difference and importance of orders of pretender, troops.. in recruit before a battle army: attack, retreat flee ,attack on archers.. ?there is many orders very differents and i don't know which is the best to use if i don't know the organisation of the ennemy troops?
thinksfor the answers.
phil

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

Thinks for all your answers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
a Last question,when i begin a new god and nation etc, how many ennemy nations i hav to put? is it better only 1, 2 , or moany more like 7?
is it more easy to play with few ennemy nations or the opposite?
thinks to your answer.phil

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

I think more enemies is easier. They can fight each other. Just try not to be at war with more than one at a time.
And be sure to turn up the independents. Strong independents are harder for the AI than it is for you. Maybe 4 or 5 AI's, but not Ermor Atlantis or Ryleh. And indepts set at 5 or 6

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

Thinks to all . for gandalf:i don't understand 1)"be sure to turn up the independents".turn up ,what do you mean?
2)"Maybe 4 or 5 AI's, but not Ermor Atlantis or Ryleh. And indepts set at 5 or 6 ".what is indepts? you prefer many ennemies than 1 or 2 exact,
thinks
phil

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

What Gandalf meant is that set "Strength of Independents" to 5 or 6 in the menu when you create a new game, after selecting map. By default it's at 3, and can be set to anything from 0 (no opposition in neutral provinces) to 9 (quite heavy opposition).

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes thank you. Thats what I meant. (too much going on lately, Im neglecting my duties)

Too many new people think they are making the game easier if they turn that number down. But if you have low independents then the AI will expand fast and attack you sooner.

Re: Questions about orders on "recruit army" for pretenders
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Thinks to you i have understand what you mean, poor french i am!!!i 'll try and i say to you if i am a life!!
phil