Tactics for Newbies

[earwicker7]

Hey, all. I'm starting to really get interested in this game, so I thought it might be a good idea to get a little more education on tactics. I know some of the basics (archers in front row=bad idea), but does anyone know of a good guide showing some of the benefits of different unit placements and orders?

[WingedDog]

Here: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Placement

[earwicker7]

AWESOME link! Wow, it's shocking to think of how little of this I would have guessed on my own. I was basically doing armored people front and center, mounted units front and sides, and missile units back and center. This really is a great combat system.

[earwicker7]

Does anyone ever use hit and run tactics? For example, you get an army of archers, set them to attack a couple of times, and then the whole army splits. Basically, the point being not to wipe out the enemy, but to hit them with attrition. Or are you risking the entire army being wiped out if there is nowhere to retreat to?

[thejeff]

Rarely used, partly because it's pretty ineffective and partly because they'll scatter to the surrounding provinces, making it hard to round them up effectively.

Occasionally, you can pull of a similar attack with mages. Drop in, fire off a few heavy damage spells and retreat or cast returning. Also works with some of the independent battle summons: Horrors, lamashatas, maybe some others.

[LDiCesare]

I've used hit and run tactics a lot with an oracle against well targetted Ashdod armies:
Oracle in the back. Magic duel * 3 + returning.
Kill 3 adonim every turn. Very effective. I still lost the game, but was I a pain.

Hit and run strategies are feasible with some armies, namely stealthy armies like Helheim's. Taken out all the provinces of an opponent where there wasn't an army. Then run and hide after pumping taxes to 200. If you don't need to run for lack of neighbour, you may even pillage for a change.

[Redeyes]

Whenever I am on the defensive I send a bunch of mages scripted to slay thugs to my frontline provinces. That's usually swarm, summon lesser air elemental, soul slay, frozen heart, and similar. You don't need a lot of mages for a successful deterrent.

I guess that mostly applies to multiplayer. In singleplayer you should send mages to act as artillery or ones to improve your provincial defense forces with defensive spells.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hit-n-Run can be used in some cases. I like to use fire-and-flee if I have lots of indept nations with those horsebowmen in the same area. Small groups of them can harass an army slowing it up and breaking it up. Also if you use some PD they can be set to the flanks providing some good support with the fire-n-flee moving them back to do the same for the next province. The fire-n-flee setting is the one that scatters the units

Another hit-n-run would be stealth armies which can also be effective at slowing armies and also force your opponent to alter his strategies.

Both of these I would consider to be "tactics" and not "strategies". A strategy is something you build your battle plans around in hopes of winning the game. A tactic is something you keep in the tool box to use in small occasional cases to make a temporary dent in the other guys strategy.

[LDiCesare]

Stealth as Helheim can be a strong strategy. I'm using it in a game, until a point where I can no longer use it for lack of target provinces since all what my opponent has left is the provinces with his big armies.