Micromanaging armies and commanders

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

For javelins/slingers/crossbows I think I had interesting results when I put a commander near the front for the moral boost. I had him on hold-and-fire or hold-and-attack, one of those. The low-range shooting units were set on guard-commander. The result was amazingly effective in that particular fight.

I often use guard commander for more control on units so that I can use the commanders instructions to decide at what point in the battle to do certain things. Such as holding cavalry or flyers around long enough to get blessed before attacking.

-- WARNING: Flu symptoms have been detected. My Posts will begin to ramble and may result in garbage. Or feverish genius. Let me know which after I fully recover.
- Gandalf Parker

OK Gandalf, this flu seems to be rather effective. I seemed to remember Pocus complaining about missile troops on "Guard Commander" not using their missile weapons, so your suggestion surprised me. I tried setting up such a fight, and indeed, "Guard Commanders" prevents them from firing; I tried with light missile troops (Peltats) to see if it made a difference, and no, it doesn't.

So, when you recover, I'd still be interested in hearing about your missile tactics...

(Me, I'm happy with archers and heavily armored shock troops on Hold and Attack when against non-missile happy AIs; but then, this probably won't work too well against human opponents)

[Argitoth]

ARCHERS ARCHERS------------MELEE MELEE
ARCHERS ARCHERS------------MELEE MELEE
ARCHERS ARCHERS--LIGHT LIGHT
ARCHERS ARCHERS--LIGHT LIGHT


That's my setup. I put the archers behind the light infantry, and the melee units infront and to the side of the light infantry.

Enemy archers (especially in neutral provinces) fire at the closest thing to them. The archers will fire at the melee (more protected) units.

I set the archers to fire at none so they don't fire at retreating units.

Enemy melee moves in, light infantry fire javelins from the side, melee units take the hits, VUALA!!! You have yourself an army setup which takes the least casualties from friendly and foe.

Not only that, the light infantry don't usually get in melee contact so the friendly-fire arrows will usually not hit your light units.

[ December 01, 2003, 18:38: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Sorry about guard thing. Must be a memory of how I WISH it worked.

What about the fire-and-flee? Something about using fast light archers set up front to draw enemy hvy units back thru a gauntlet of your own hvy troops. Force his to run and pile up fatigue instead of yours. That might be where I remember having flanking archers being really effective.

Battle Simulation map available at...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...ions2/Mini.map
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...ions2/Mini.tga

[ December 01, 2003, 19:11: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Elmo]

Now that my copy of D2 has arrived I'll definitely be checking out your simulator. Thanks Gandalf.

[Taqwus]

And if I were getting basically free troops (Son of Niefel winter wolves, Ermor undead masses, Mictlan slaves, "random event" militia) I might stick them way upfront to soak up the early missiles, spells, and lance attacks.
"Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant!", shout those stuck in front.

[Argitoth]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Battle Simulation map available at...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...ions2/Mini.map
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...ions2/Mini.tga

Can you explain how that works? i try to edit the .map file but since computers are extremely un-cool, it downloads and opens as a text file except it adds a bunch of: (weird square things which don't seem to appear when pasted here)

and also makes it one long line of text. There is no spacing whatsoever when I download it. Could you change that extension to maybe .txt? maybe my computer wont download and do some ecrypting crap.

[ December 02, 2003, 03:16: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually all the map files are that way. Its a unix text file instead of a dos one. The best thing is to open it using WordPad instead of Notepad if you have windows. Resave it as a dos text file if you want to.

As to editing it... You need to get the AllView game from the SunRay site to get the numbers for the units. I just added a couple of armies to 2 provinces but you can add as many armies as you want.