Basic Multiplayer tips wanted

[quantum_mechani]

jutetrea said:

High prot units worth the resource cost in early expansion to have more leftover troops?

Depends if you have an expander pretender to pick up the slack in early expanding (it will be slower with high rec units).

Secure a small/medium border, bulk up and hit with an unbeatable army? Or Keep poking/raiding and then overtax/pillage?

You always want to maintain raiding if at all possible.

Send mages out early for xp and reduced losses or keep everyone at home for research early?

Keep anything that will keep mages away from research to a minimum.

Mercenaries? worth it with the chance of a wasted bid? Obviously they're worth it short term but is the wasted bid worrisome?

It's usually very worthwhile to big on mercs, but keep in mind your bid must be higher on average if there are a lot of players.

sit tight and bulk or expand quickly and paint yourself as a target?

As long as you don't get a long ways ahead of _everyone_ else in provinces you should generally expand at max speed.

research site searching spells asap or wait till after either evoc 2-3 or const 2-4?

It's generally pretty safe to go for the site search spells right away. Of course, if you see signs of an early war brewing be sure and take note.

Play nice early or pick an early target?

Play nice - it's very hard for an early rush to pay off unless you are much more skilled than your opponent.

Try to form a survivor type alliance or go for the largest alliance you can? Based on geographic or strength? Kill the strongest first or ally with em?

Ally with whoever you can unless you plan to attack them soon or doing so will more or less gauarantee their eventual victory.

Some misc tips:

*Use indy scouts and troop leaders wherever possible, saves fort slots for mages.

*Don't use most low level summons unless you are already in a desperate war.

*Don't try a recruitable assassin strategy, a couple is a great distraction, many is a waste of money.

*Don't use a human rainbow mage, they are quite weak base and difficult to make good use of besides.

*Use decoys - 1 unit far in front and to the side of your main force, to draw arrows and enemies.

*Don't put all your mages in a big clump on the battlefield, spread them around so something unexpected can't kill them all at once.

*Don't try to equip recruitable commanders with stuff to fight in melee unless you are playing a couple very specific nations.

*Pretenders are mostly for fighting in melee, there are very few cases where having them cast spells from the back is useful enough to warrant bringing them.

*Generally, don't use cavalry or low armor (prot 1-10) infantry.

[TwoBits]

quantum_mechani said:

*Use decoys - 1 unit far in front and to the side of your main force, to draw arrows and enemies.

Does this generally work? I like using decoy units myself, by I often find the battle AI ignores groups of less than five (meaning, they don't seem to shoot at that lone infantryman out in front, but at the big group further back).

Any opinions on the optimum use of decoys?

[Sir_Dr_D]

Qm, about your comments on rainbow pretenders, I disagree.Isn't the following tru about rainbow pretenders

1) It will give you a big gem income at the beginng of the game, in all paths of magic, not just the ones your nation specializes in. Even if you have no use for gems in some of the paths, you can likely trade them for the ones that you need.
2) Even if you just had one of every path, that would still be enough to cast some battle changing spells such as wind guide, and fire arrows. These can be handy if your nation can not normally cast them.
3) Two of every path will allow you to build a number of path boosting items, to raise your pretender to 3 or 4 in the paths. And since you are also likely collecting gems that your nation can not noramlly use, it is easy to empower. Now you are at 5 or 6 in a number of path and your pretender has a lot of options in what it can do.
4) Isn't bringing a size 6 pretender into battle, painting a big target on it that says 'zap me with spells'. With a human size pretender you don't have to worry about being cursed, horror marked, soul slayed, or decayed, as long as you have some troops in front of you.


I find both rainbow's and large pretenders have their uses.For variety I try to have a different type of pretender each game.

[MaxWilson]

TwoBits said:

Does this generally work? I like using decoy units myself, by I often find the battle AI ignores groups of less than five (meaning, they don't seem to shoot at that lone infantryman out in front, but at the big group further back).

Any opinions on the optimum use of decoys?

Well, it's worth knowing that according to the manual pg. 61, target orders (Fire Archers, Attack Cavalry, etc.) except for Closest pick a random enemy and its squad. This means that a large squad will be picked most of the time, so one little archer decoy is almost never going to be selected by a "Target Archers" order. This has two implications:

1.) You can, if you wish, split a targetted group up instead of decoying. 1 decoy and 39 archers won't work, but 5 groups of 8 mean that if there's just one huge squad of enemy archers they'll keep firing at their chosen group until all 8 are dead, thus keeping your casualties down to 20% at most. I haven't tried this and I don't have time to test it right now, but it follows from the mechanics.

2.) Decoys work against "Attack/Fire Closest" because it is the closest squad which is attacked, not some random close unit and its squad. They might potentially work against Attack Rearmost except that the rearmost unit isn't reliably detected anyway (by design) so your decoy can get overlooked.

Against indies I have found that a single decoy five squares ahead of my main force often diverts fire. Seems like it's always worth at least trying a decoy if you know there will be missile troops, in case they *are* set to "Fire Closest."

-Max

[vfb]

If you're looking for multiplayer tips, then you might find Sheap's tips a useful read, if you haven't seen it already.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...r=&postmarker=

[jutetrea]

Thanks vfb, appreciated although I had read that.

Looking for tips along the lines of "don't use cav or low prot infantry" and why or "its a really bad idea to get in a war and back off - push to the end" etc

One game I'm playing its still early and there have already been 2 or 3 war "starts" and then "stops". Interested on how it affects position.

[LoloMo]

Assuming neighbors that have the same skill level as you have, it is better to have wars as late as possible and have the other nations duke it out first while you build your research and gem income. Unless you can take out your opponent with relatively few losses I would avoid early wars as it decreases strength and may leave you open to other nations, and early in the game with similarly skilled players it is quite a long process to take an enemy capital down even with superior forces.

The exception to this is if you are relying on a heavy bless strategy (like F9/W9 bless), or if you have an awake SC pretender, then its better to have early wars. Grab as much land as you can while you still have the military advantage, but I would still fight one nation at a time only, and never another heavy bless nation.

In wars, I always enter it with a view to fighting to the end. Whose quote was it that goes something like "You can start a war anytime you like but don't expect it to end when you will" or something like that. So I don't attack any other player unless I am committed to see it to the end. If you are winning a war there is no reason not to push to the end, and if you are losing a war, there is no reason for your enemy to back off. If you are both losing in terms of troops lost, then it is a strategic error by the provoker and if I am the provoker, this would be the only time I would sue for peace. If I was the one provoked, I would definitely fight to the end unless I am compensated for my losses. All or nothing. =)

[LoloMo]

Oh and I'm an even newer player than you, and I think I know the players in that "start and stop" war you are talking about hehe.

[vfb]

LoloMo said:
If you are winning a war there is no reason not to push to the end

Well, it depends on why you are playing. I play to have fun. I have fun when the story of the nations in the game is interesting. It is not exactly the same story as the other players have created in their minds, though it is based on the events occurring in the game, so it may be similar.

If a neighboring nation is peacefully minding their own business, going about their research and gathering gems, it would be wise for a strong bless nation to invade them and disrupt that research. Especially if the strong bless nation has made peace with its other neighbors. But is it a good story if the magic nation is destroyed? What if you have accomplished your goal, at least temporarily? If you agree to a ceasefire, the magic nation may come up with a brilliant strategy and destroy you in revenge, when you least expect it. Now, there's a good story! And you even get to learn a new tactic as an added bonus.

If you are both losing in terms of troops lost, then it is a strategic error by the provoker and if I am the provoker, this would be the only time I would sue for peace. If I was the one provoked, I would definitely fight to the end unless I am compensated for my losses. All or nothing. =)

Great, so you do enjoy a good story then! Strategically this can be an error. A third nation may exist that is stronger than either of the nations at war, and it may be a huge mistake to allow that war to continue. But: "That province belongs to our nation!" "You killed our pretender!" "We will not tolerate filthy your undead polluting this continent!" Irrationally pursuing a vendetta can make a very entertaining story too.

I don't expect to win many games. But I do expect to have fun playing them.

This doesn't mean I will neglect to develop the best nation I can. It is less fun if my nation is a totally inconsequential part of the story. So, I read the forums, run battle simulations, and yes, even sometimes slog through the drudgery of SP to discover what can be effective.