Q: New to game, need advice - getting wrecked

[Teraswaerto]

jutetrea said:
Thanks guys!
Other than the greeks (ascepolis?) siege guys, are there specific strategies for breaking into forts? I can have an overwhelming # of troops, and still get stuck on the door forever.

When storming a castle you should have some kind of elite troops charging the gate. A few elite defenders can hold the gate against huge hordes of inferior troops, at least until they collapse from fatigue, since the attackers come at them only a few at a time.

[thejeff]

Other alternative is to hold back and let the defenders come out.

Since there's no way to order defenders to hold the gate, they'll charge out where you can surround them.

That and fliers to attack the rear.

Fliers also help with breaking down the gate in the first place.

[jutetrea]

If you hold back, do you generally get pummeled with ranged?

How many holds do you generally script?

Fatigue... yet another thing I need to get a handle on

My bud took too long to check it out, I ordered it today

[Baalz]

Well, the answers to your questions is, of course, it depends! Troops with shields fare a lot better against arrows, some fortresses have no arrow towers, some have a bunch. Is your enemy using archers or mages, if so how many, how powerful? Do you have stronger ranged troops than your enemy? Do you have any resistances you can throw down, like for instance fire resistance if you're expecting fire mages pummeling you? Do you have a small number of tough guys who you can buff, or a huge army of chaff? Do you expect them to send a never ending wave of undead out the front gate? Do you/they have cavalry or flyers? Etc, etc, etc. This game has very deep strategy, you can't really give a one size fits all answer to questions like that.

As far as fatigue goes, you'll start getting a handle on that when you get more powerful in magic and start summoning big bad dudes who are basically invincible...until they pass out from exhaustion. It's not usually a big deal with your swarms of regular units. Just one more dimension you have to ballance.

[thejeff]

Just pull the troops back to the rear of the field and put them on hold and attack.

It depends on what troops you have and what you expect them to have.

I've been playing Man lately, so I'm likely to have serious missile superiority. I'm fighting Jotuns so I'm not likely to break through the gate easily. Solution: let them come out, swarm them with smaller troops and pound them with arrows. If you've got better artillery mages, the same strategy can work.

If you've got better troops who can break through the gate defenders and get inside, do that.

[Shovah32]

Im not sure if this has been mentioned(not enough time to read everything) but the reason your being crushes by abysian troops is their heat aura, above average stats and great prot(they are even better in EA incase your playing there)

[KissBlade]

Should probably not cast flame arrows against Abysia...

[Manuk]

You shouldnt cast flame anything with them. I had that problem in a death match. My witch hunter was to cast flame elementals to aid himself but those creatures have not any physical attack but flames so some abysian dude couldnt be harmed, darn.

About getting the defenders in the open i think it will work ok.
getting lots of archers works ok.
flyers work ok.
You can put some fast cavalry ahead in the center so they get through before they reach the gate and they will distract their troops long enough to get some more men behind them and that's all you need.

[danm]

KissBlade said:
Should probably not cast flame arrows against Abysia...

yeah, that's the part that interests me -- what should he do against Abyssia??

I'm a hopeless Agartha/Jotun fan at this point, so monkey strats are utterly beyond me -- i tried them once in the demo and failed HORRIBLY -- markatas somehow just don't handle melee quite like my triple-blessed Ancient Ones do...

Antpile's strat looked really good in general, but it's primary weakness is the specific nation that the OP was having trouble with.

For Abyssia specifically, you'll probably want to look to your mages -- Yakshas Earth paths should be good for spamming some nice anti-armor spells (is Destruction available in demo? mmmm destruction ) which will make all your arrows MUCH more effective against the heavily armored abyssians. Yakshinis should be able to deal out some frosty hurtness with all their water power. Rain and Frostfall come to mind, but again i dunno if they are available in the demo. Chill effects will also slow down advancing troops a bit, which is good for you.

Position your guys way at the back, to keep the baddies at range as long as possible. I don't have any idea at all what your best strat to delay the incoming infantry would be... if noone with a clue chimes in, I'd try experimenting with various levels of province defense, and/or defensively equipped thugs. Check out some of the supercombatant threads for ideas here -- you will want staying power over offence, as your prime goal is just to keep the infantry off your archers as long as possible. Fire resist+etherial+shield(does it help to equip 2 shields??)+luck+reinvig+??? equipped commander types might be just the thing...

I imagine there's a bit of a balancing act on provice defense -- too much and you'll rout your "real" army when the chaff routs -- too little and the poor lil buggers won't even be a speed bump to the incoming baddies.

anyhoo, hopefully there's something in there you'll find useful. I'm pretty much a complete noob as well, so don't be too suprised if my advice turns out to be worth exactly what you paid for it

g/l with them wee monkie kritters!
danm