Assorted newbie questions...

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by olaf73:
4) Culling the wounded from squads...do you guys do this often? Also, the game mentions that the 'e' key will select all experienced troops...that doesnt seem to be the case for me. 'a' and 'w' work, but not 'e'.

Culled wounded: I call them "Archer Bait" and put them in the front=) 'e': Only works for units with 2 or more stars.

5) How can you disband troops?

See "culled wounded" above=) There is no disband command.

As for weapon advantages... the BEST way to tell is by running my combat sim, and pitting troops with different weapons against each other to see who wins. However, I have not yet modeled the "Morningstar bonus versus shields" because I don't know how it works, either. I'm guessing it either adds a fixed value (like 2) to attack, or adds the defender's shield defense to attack, thus ignoring shield defense.

Edit: I update the simulator so that morningstars ignore defense from shields, though I'm not entirely certain that is correct.

[ December 18, 2003, 19:05: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Johan K]

Morningstars do ignore shield defence.

[aldin]

olaf,

1) I like longer weapons a lot because it's an advantage I don't have to think about much. Really though, you want whatever matches up well against the kind of army you're fighting.

2) Gives me a good feel for whether I've positioned things right. If I've got a hold on my cav to try to hit the line at the same time as my infantry for example, I watch to make sure that's the effect I'm getting.

3) I love setting trampling troops in the center with 'attack rear' as an option. They don't call light infantry 'squishies' for nothing!

4) Not something I do. The wounded have earned the right to fight in my army.

8) When you pick your nation, start a quick game just to look at your mages. Write down what they do (Caelum = 3A 2W 1? & 2A 1W for example), then peruse the first couple of levels of each spell school looking for fun spells they can cast.

Personally, I'm addicted to two quick levels of Thaumaturgy to get my gem finder spell (Auspex, etc). Though Water's in Conjuration iirc.

I'm a n00b too, so take these for what they're worth.

~Aldin

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Johan K:
Morningstars do ignore shield defence.

Oh, good. Thanks!

Originally posted by olaf73:

1) What are the advantages among weapon types? I know that the longer a weapon is, the better. And, one of the descriptions for a magic morningstar in the manual mentions that all morningstars get a bonus vs troops that use a shield? How much and what kind of bonus though?

As posted by others below, the advantage of longer weapons is their ability to repel (which is explained in the manual). Most units with more suvivability (higher protection etc) are armed with long weapons.

3) What kinds of orders do you give your troops? I know this is vague, but I am looking for some pointers. How many of you set specific spells to be cast? Do you have 'default' orders for certain troop types/armies? Etc.

This is usually determined by what I am fighting or a general 'what I think best' or 'what I think will hurt the opponent most' thought process. Things that work well are those stated below. Also any way you can get to engage units into commanders is good. This is often tricky, but if you know how and where people place their commanders and can gun for them a little more. As for spells, I always set specific spells. If you let the computer do it, more often than not they will be too 'defensive' and engage when they have too much fatigue or when the battle is half over.

7) Forts/defense level. Similar to my question about battle orders above, I am looking for some general tips on how to use fortresses and provincial defense effectively. Relating to defense, the manual lists some charts showing what kind of troops you get at defense levels 1+ and then 20+...but what does that mean? Do you get extra troops at just those break points? Some of them dont make any sense to me, like .5 Slinger for Jotunheim 20+.

Each nation has it's own way of using provencial defense. But I personally always put at least 3 points into every province as soon as I get them, then scale upwards depending on what nation/need and passive patrolling I need.