Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps

[PDF]

Re Tramplers
I agree with Etaoin, don't put them on the flanks but rather in the center, because they often move towards the center when attacking, and then rout in your center squads.
Unless they're undead (Behemoth) or you Berserk them, obviously

[Manuk]

or you Berserk them, obviously

duh... i never did this. good idea.

[Taqwus]

Know thy enemy -- be familiar with a nation's likely abilities, read their Pretender's titles, check the mercenary listings, perhaps use stealth to observe their battles.

Storms, darkness, fliers, unexpected mercenary heavy cavalry, tramplers, mages with area-effect spells, and so forth can really ruin your day if you're not prepared. Storms in particular shuts down most fliers and hampers missiles and fire magic, while darkness hampers most of the living in both melee and ranged combat. Of course, if you're casting the storms and you have fliers that will be grounded, you can have the fliers strike first while your storms caster waits.

Use misdirection. Some effects tend to target units with high HP, and there's also a 'target large monsters' option, so if your Pretender is on the scene, you may want to present other high-HP targets (elephants, some constructs, et al) to attract curses and horror marks. There's a 'target archers' command, as well as 'target fliers', so one can place sacrificial groups...

...and never, ever lead a horde of mindless units (ex. low-end undead) with just a handful of commanders with minds, against an illithid army, because the mindblasts will all target the commanders -- and if all commanders are dead, the mindless units will vaporize.

Be aware of how friendly mages might hurt you -- casting 'Touch of Madness' on your missile troops, casting 'Protection' on your Abysians, and so forth. Position and script accordingly. In some cases, it may be safest not to bring along a mage with an particularly dangerous path.

Be wary of relying too much on awe, fear, tramplers, and etherealness. While these can be powerful... awe and fear are morale effects, and there are many mindless units that will ignore them; tramplers have a hard time trampling ethereal units; and ethereals should recall that there are even national troops with magical weapons.

With Communion, self-effects also affect the communion slaves; this includes such things as Summon Earthpower's reinvigoration, Invulnerability, and Body Ethereal. The first makes your communion even more efficient in dealing with fatigue (reinvig 4 x number of communicants, rather than just reinvig 4), while others make them harder to kill. Even Phoenix Pyre carries over, but this is... dangerous, unless your army is fire-immune.

Ritual magic, including remote summons and any resulting battles, take place before all non-magical movements and attack; this allows one to catch enemy forces and disrupt them, while riddling their commanders with Seeking Arrows. There's a reason why Ghost Riders is Conj-9.

[Gandalf Parker]

xx. Flying Armies:
Take the provinces that directly connect to your castle for the added resources. Then use scouts to find weak provinces within flight range. Also drop-in armies (Call of the Wild, Call of the Winds, etc) can help. By "polka-dotting" a large map you can move fast and extend your reach. But anyone coming at you must plow thru 2 indept provinces for each one of yours that they get.

yy. Stealth Armies:
Teach the other guy that local defense is a good idea. Sneak past his army, take the provinces behind him. Crank them to maximum gold and sneak out. Possibly buy local defense and local militia units to hold it longer. If you have time then blood search or pillage. If you get it over 100 unrest then even if they take it back they get little from it.

zz. Stealth Armies:
Keep a sizeable army standing at the conflict border between two other players. Wait until they weaken each other then kill who is left and grab as much as possible very quickly.

[Gandalf Parker]

Bursting Dam:
in a game with many people who tend to play barbarian horde armies sweeping across the map..
Take only the provinces that connect to your castle. Build up and build up and build up. Everyone will stretch thin coming your direction. When they finally reach you then burst forth like a dam breaking.

[RamsHead]

Peek-a-boo:
Have your scouts attack large incoming armies to see their exact troop compositions, formations, and attack orders. The sacrifice of 30 gold can easily be worth the knowledge.

[Corwin]

Gandalf Parker said:
Bursting Dam:
in a game with many people who tend to play barbarian horde armies sweeping across the map..
Take only the provinces that connect to your castle. Build up and build up and build up. Everyone will stretch thin coming your direction. When they finally reach you then burst forth like a dam breaking.

IMHO this is a bit dangerious tactic Gandalf. It may work, or it may fail big time, costing you the game. It higly depends on when excactly some other nation would bust your "bubble" around your capital. If it'll be early in the game, and the incoming army is on its last breath, than you can steamroll through it and took bunch of enemy provinces before they are able to orginize effecticce resistance.

But if it happens a bit later in the game, by that time nations that expand quickly may have much more resources than you, which they can use to raise armies quickly. You will still likely to defeat the arpochanig army, and may even take few provinces if you are lucky. But once your oppoent would use the whole might of its large empire against you, you are likely to be squeshed, since you only have frw provincces and one castle to build reinforcements.


Basicaly this tactic, while certainly interesting, depends a bit too much on your opponents and has too high random factor for my tastes.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I'll try to collate these into a coherent document, including some additional notes I've since made. I'll include some of the proposed alternatives (disagreements? exceptions?)as well. I will not attrib, as that gets too complicated after a short time. Besides, anybody who cares can do a search to see who said what first....

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
zz. Stealth Armies:
Keep a sizeable army standing at the conflict border between two other players. Wait until they weaken each other then kill who is left and grab as much as possible very quickly.

I imagine you must like playing Helheim.