Basic Battle Tactics?

[Akela]

I've searched through the forums, looked in the Strategy Index thread, been to the Strategy Wiki and I can't find a good article or thread on basic battle tactics. Is it really a mythical beast, or am I just a lousy "site searcher"? (hahaha)

As a new player, playing solely against the AI (I'm currently playing my 2nd and 4th games) I am still mystified by art of troop allocation, squad positioning, orders, buffing, blessing, etc.

Of course, each battle is going to have special strategies and counter-strategies depending on what you expect to be facing, but there must be some kind of common or base strategies that make these the exceptions that they are.

So let me start with something simple, troop allocation.

Clearly units get separated into squads based on purpose. So you probably have your ranged units separate from your armored units and furthermore with cav. But do you have a few large squads, or many small ones? Do you try to gather lots of troops under few commanders, or few troops under many commanders?

Squad Placement?

Front of the field? Back of the field? Everyone in one clump in the center? I have no idea. What I started out doing was to put my heaviest infrantry (Carnute Nobles) all the way forward in the center, plop a bunch of ranged units directly behind them, and split the horse on the far left and right flanks with orders to attack the rear. This resulted in the infrantry engaging the enemy, with the horses joining in on the brawl as soon as they got there. Despite how much room there is to get around an enemy squad they will never pass one by to actually attack the rear units, they pretty much just charge diagonally to the middle and engage.

For the most part I'm having trouble seeing the point of cavalry at all, except for the fact that their defence is higher which seems to make them actually better at being front-line troops than anything else. What I've been doing lately is massing a bunch of cavalry in the center to block an advance, then putting my ranged units behind that. Seems to work better.

What do you guys think?

[Omnirizon]

A. missile units will target a unit (typically the closest) and always fire at those units until dead. This makes 'decoying' straightforword. stick your decoys to ensure they are targeted first. it doesn't matter if they just sit there and everyone else rushes forward, the archers will still be targeting their first chosen target. players may try to compensate for this by placing groups of archers at the top and bottom of the screen, meaning they might actually be closer to a unit other than what you have at front and center.

you can see decoying works best with smaller armies. big squads spill all over the screen and are hard to decoy for.

B. flying units set to attack rear will attack the rearmost unit of a certain size. if you set all your squads at front, and all your commanders at rear, they will not attack your commanders because they will try for rearmost units of the largest size. however, it can be tricky to place mages where they are effective if there is the threat of flying units. setting them close enough to be effective may lead to flying units going for an area where they can reach your mages. You can actually set decoys for flying units. Set your army at the very front, your mages behind them at the center, and a large-ish squad behind them and off to the side. If your opponent has mostly flying units, then you don't need to bother with this, because the flyers will go straight into your area of the field, and even commanders at the back will be able to reach them with spells.

[Tolkien]

It really depends on the army you're facing.

Cavalry have good shock effect (through lances) and are heavily armored. They can be set on the flanks and scripted to Attack Rearmost so that they hit rear archers/commanders/mages, which isn't equipped to fight cavalry in melee.

You can use cavalry can be used as frontline troops, but they aren't that effective in that role: they can get swarmed by infantry. Infantry are 3 to a square, whereas cavalry are 2. They're too expensive as a meatshield, and cavalry are hideously vulnerable to crossbow or arbalest fire. Use shield infantry instead.

[llamabeast]

I don't think what Omni said about attack rear was right, although I could be wrong.

My understanding is that they aim for the back, but have some chance to be distracted by each unit they pass. So sometimes they will definitely run past everything and kill the enemy commanders (if they're unprotected), but quite often they'll turn in and attack the main block of enemy troops.

[JimMorrison]

Anything scripted to "Attack Rear" has a very high chance of not making it to the back. However, unless your opponent has a full line, they will still wrap around the flank of the line, adding to your damage potential.

Personally, in most armies to try to divide my squads to ~20 men apiece. Of course, higher power summons, or heavy cavalry may be smaller squads, and when the armies get large, some squads may range to 30-40 men.

In all though, you just need to experiment a lot, see what layouts end up with all of your men clumped up on one spot, inefficiently blocking eachother, and which layouts get the most men into the fight. Remember, if you aren't wrapping around your foe, he may well be wrapping around you. Also, don't be afraid to let your men clump up more, if you have a lot of mage support, so you want more targets of opportunity to fire on, or if you are planning to use a lot of battlefield summons, and you want them to be your flankers.

[Omnirizon]

I think if you have armies as follows:

c      AAA
c      AAA
c      AAA
c      AAA

where commadners are as far back as possible, and armies as far foraward, they will never attack commanders. at least as long as I've been playing they've never attacked commanders like that. I think there is some sort of algorithm where they attack the closest group to them, unless there is another group within a given distance behind them, then they'll target them, unless there is a group within a give distance behind them too.

as follows

c
c        AA
c  A  A  AA
c        AA
c

so here they would see the front army. then the next army is close enough to them they would jump to them, but then the next check shows there is another army close behind them so they would go for them instead. then another check says "hey, there's another set of units behind them!" so they go for them now. That set of units happens to be the commander.

that seems to me to be how it works. I've never seem them jump to attack units or commanders in the rear seperated by a large distance. If it works the way llama said then distance would be irrelevant, and only the number of units between front and back would matter, but I've never experienced flyers jumping straight to the very back like that.

[analytic_kernel]

There was another "attack rearmost" thread a while back ago, in case anyone wants to add to that:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41915

My experience, including controlled tests, is that individual squad members get distracted when attacking rearmost, as llama indicates. But, what you say about attacking rearmost commanders is nearly correct, omni. If used properly, fliers can actually get to their targets, but ground flankers are more likely to get distracted. Relevant factors seem to include number of attacking squads with "attack rear" orders, number of defending squads, and defending squads with "guard commander" orders.

[vfb]

You want at least 5 units in each squad to prevent automatic morale checks that happen for squads of 4 units or less.

If you expect to come under large area-of-effect attacks, including arrow fire, and your units have good survivability, then you might want to create squads of just six units. I don't like squads bigger then 12 units usually. Maybe if there was a formation other than "Big Square" ... but that's all we've got for now.

Splitting your army into large amounts of small squads also helps prevent clumping on a single target, where you've got a bunch of melee guys who are just dancing around not hitting anything.

I try to spread my army out over the field, with nearly all melee units except bodyguards on "Attack Rear" or "Hold and Attack Rear". It's not that I'm actually trying to attack rear, I just want them to march forward and get into battle. If your army is one big blob, enemy ranged attacks will have an easier time hitting the blob, because even when they miss their target, they'll hit something.

If you are just playing SP then a small group of shieldmen is an excellent archer decoy. You can even place their commander alone in the backfield on holdx5, and have the decoy "Guard Commander." The enemy archers will run forward so they can shoot at these decoys since they have locked onto them as a target. They'll spend a couple turns without shotting anything sometimes, and run right into your melee units. In MP you probably want some wounded archers to place on your frontline since other players will give "Fire Archer" orders.

[AreaOfEffect]

Like most things in this game, there are advantages and draw backs to everything you do. For example, building up a larger squad has the advantage of being more difficult to route because it takes more damage to bring it's moral down. However, large squads don't get a good distribution of surface area against enemy squads, which translates to less overall damage output.

Smaller squads can be arranged to span the length of the field and will hug the enemy formations better. However, smaller squads can more easily route from a solitary AoE attack, such as the fireball. This might cause a portion of your army to break away and retreat while everyone else fights, which can cause enemy units to penetrate your front line or just flat out outnumber you for the majority of the battle.

I tend to make my squads a minimum of 20 units for this very reason.

Don't ignore commands like attack archers or fire largest monster. Such commands can by themselves achieve victory when given the proper circumstance. Attack archers is a great way to get cavalry to bypass the froward squads in most situations.

[Lingchih]

Well, I've been playing with Elephants recently, and and I don't seem to have any problem getting them to attack rear. They do occasionally break off and attack the front army, but if I get their morale up, they do seem to usually go all the way to the commanders. A couple of sermon of courages will get their morale up to 12.

Granted, this means you need a strong force up front, so the elephants don't see any need to attack the frontmost army.