Basic Battle Tactics?

[chrispedersen]

If your opponent has troops of disparate type, and no missile troops.
Sit as far back in the corner ... with hold and attack. Let him move to you (at his disparate rates). it will string him out.

[Ironhawk]

Well, perhaps I worded my commander comments too extremely. I dont mean that you should ruin your chosen squad size or army layout in order to pack them all under one commander. Just that you should pack as many men into the commanders available instead of trying to have a broad commander base with only a squad or a few men under each. Its not worthwhile (in gold) to pay for a commander layout which is resistant to assassination if you know your opponent cant assassinate. And thats very easy to determine from thier nation and the time period of the game.

[Wrana]

Also, let's not forget that unless assassin is something like succubus or a mage he can often be stopped by guards - and items he carries get lost. Also, some items on commander would help in it - and be useful in other cases, too... So I'd say that assassins are more useful against mages/priests than against army leaders.

[vfb]

If I see an army with just one or two commanders and I want to prevent it from attacking one of my provinces or force it to retreat (especially in the case of a sieging army where there is no PD commander to prevent a commander-less rout), then I will be very likely to target it with Earth Attacks or Seeking Arrows or whatever I have available.

Actual vanilla assassin units are not very useful for the reasons you state, and also they are usually not where you need them.

[Wrana]

Agree, Seeking Arrow works. It even works in case of many commanders - it just needs to be numerous enough. But I prefer to use it before big battle to soften up the enemy - not against army with 1-2 commanders which then doesn't arrive (unless my forces are inferior to this army, of course). Still, opportunity cost between having a commander with anti-missile protection or many commanders with no protection may vary depending on your situation...

[Gregstrom]

Zapping an army with 1-2 commanders is a pretty good use of Seeking Arrow though. You can attack the province the army was due to leave with confidence that you'll be facing a big disorganised blob of troopers in the center of their deployment area.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

Zapping an army with 1-2 commanders is a pretty good use of Seeking Arrow though. You can attack the province the army was due to leave with confidence that you'll be facing a big disorganised blob of troopers in the center of their deployment area.

Well, personally I'd be stoked if the enemy had 2-3 commanders. Let a large portion of the army arrive to be slaughtered (perhaps entirely without their shock troops, or their front line), then counter attack the rest from a position of strong advantage.

If you kill all the commanders, yeah you can certainly milk some strong advantage from that, but I prefer to divide and conquer.