New, trying to get into game-but i am failing

[Gandalf Parker]

Also, be sure to notice if you have units that put out auras of heat, cold, or poison. Put them off to the sides.

Flyers can be positioned way to the rear since they will reach their targets in one round anyway. If you have a flyer leader have it fire/cast a round or two then attack rear, have the other flyers guard commander. That way the melee troops around the enemy commander will already have run forward and selected targets before you fly in.

Dont leave your leaders standing together unless you leave a bunch of cheap troops back there with "guard commander" orders.

If a leader dies his troops will rout so melee leaders should be sure to stay out of combat with order of "stay behind troops". Or you can have them fire/cast a couple of rounds, then attack. That Last is one I like for merc commanders.

Some units like elephants can rout easily. Set them off to the side so that if they charge back in rout they wont trample your troops.

There are many units which are weak, cheap, maybe rout easily, but are fast (lots of AP). These can be used to create crowds off to the sides with orders to attack rear. Them rushing enemy archers and mages can save you alot of grief even if they just keep them busy long enough for the real troops to get there. They can also take out routing enemy which will increase your chance of picking up magic items from the battle.

Mixing weapon types can keep you from losing a large squad to the wrong enemy. Instead of clicking on one type of troop a bunch of times I like to click across grabbing one of each of many type. I mix units such as sword, spear, axe, hammer, mace. But it can be bad to mix different morals since low ones routing can take your heavy troops with them.

Crossbows should be set JUST behind your forward squad with orders to shoot at closest enemy. They do great damage to armored troops.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by tkobo:
How do i place units in specific formation locations on the field,this must be my problem.

Click on Army Setup. The green box for each unit has a white square showing where they start on the field. Click on that then move the white square. The "enemy" is to right for placement purposes.

To spread out a large batch select a bunch and click on that commander again. This will create two units. You can create up to 5 for each commander which will let you place them in a line. This has other advantages also since a volley of arrows causing one group to route wont cause you to lose your whole front line. If you give them their instructions, then spit them up they will all have the same orders.

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Daynarr:

quote:

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Originally posted by tkobo:
Okay, how about giving me an example of an army you would field and the orders the units are under in it ?

Ok here are some general advices.

1) Place heavy infantry to the center right of the field (closest to enemy) and give them attack closest order. They are your front line and they have to engage and hold enemy units.

2) Place cavalry at either top or bottom (or both) right side of battlefield (they will be at the flanks of your heavy infantry) and order them to attack rearmost units. They will try to outflank the enemy and strike at their archers or commanders.

3) Place archers behind those front troops and order the to fire NONE. That will allow hem to choose their target for themselves. This is important if your opponent is fielding units with high protection. If you order them to fire at closest enemy, that enemy can be heavy cavalry and their arrows will be completely ineffective against them. They will often choose targets they can damage and sometimes they even target commanders.

This is just basic design and there are, as you will surely discover, more effective ways for dealing with various opponents. A big fun in the game is discovering new tactics and seeing their effects on battlefield.

Hope this helps.

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Just a few additions:

1. The most important point: there is no best army composition or script. It depends A LOT on what you are facing.

2. Sometimes it's better to have heavy infantry hold and attack, and/or start further back. Their role is often to stop the enemy advance and pin them in place so the archers can shoot them.

3. Going along with this point - archers work best with heavy infantry. Light infantry will take too much friendly fire casualties, and cavalry will engage the enemy too far away where it's harder for the archers to fire effectively.

4. Fire NONE is usually a pointless order for archers: it's what they will almost always do anyway (if given no orders). Also it can be dangerous to allow them to choose their own target: sometimes they will choose to shoot at enemies that are in melee with your troops, which can cause as much damage to you as to the enemy.

IMO, if you're going to use archers, you should either use an archer-heavy infantry setup so your archers can shoot the enemy as they close in, use an all-archer army and try to rout them before they reach you (risky but can win without casualties if you have enough archers), or set your archers on "fire archers" and hope they don't do too much friendly fire damage because they are firing at the rear. (Annoyingly, "fire rear" is not allowed, even though it would reduce friendly fire more often than any other target choice.)

5. In my opinion, one special ability deserves special notice: trample. Trampling units can run through any units smaller than they are, pushing those units aside and damaging them. Size 3 tramplers (minotaurs, fey boars, shambler thralls) can trample infantry, size 4 tramplers (chariots, war lobsters) can trample cavalry, and size 6 tramplers (elephants, mammoths, Great Mother and Dagon) can trample almost anything. In order to counter trample effectively, you should try hard to get some units that are big enough to resist being trampled. Against minotaurs, cavalry are fine, but against chariots or elephants you may have to rely on summons or constructs to stop the tramplers. Most trampling units have poor combat abilities aside from trample, and are expensive, so if you can make them pick on someone their own size (literally), they aren't much of a threat. (Trampling Gods are an exception - even if you counter the trampling, they're still Gods and usually pretty dangerous.)

[tkobo]

Hmm, okay.Now im winning some battles on even odds.
You guys are helping me alot so far,thank you very much.

Still getting slaughtered if outnumbered though, and im usaully outnumbered

Are there any tricks to increase my resource production so that i can field more troops ?

Also, what are the green drops in the battle view ? Poison ?
And if so,are they affecting the units they appear over ?

Is there some way to know what the other effects are in the battle view ?
Like the flash of white light that appears on units ?

[tkobo]

Thanks, that helps some.
Can someone explain dominion (those scale things)to me ?
Also,how do i raise those huge armies of undead my foes always seem to have ?
Oh and some explanation on tax settings and their effects, as well as how to counter them would be nice also

[ October 28, 2003, 12:20: Message edited by: tkobo ]

[Psitticine]

Originally posted by tkobo:
Are there any tricks to increase my resource production so that i can field more troops ?

A province can only use half of its full resource level without a fort, so the first thing I'd say is to make sure you have a fort in any province you wish to use as a production center. I usually only do so in special provinces, such as those that'll make an excellent "hardened point" for a border or that feature special troops I'd like to recruit in large numbers.

The main way to increase the resources available to forts is to make sure you've conquered all the provinces around your forts. Fortresses bring in a percentage (equal to their admin value) of the resources in friendly surrounding provinces, which is taken first from the unusable portion of those provinces' resources.

There's also a spell (one unfortunately not available in the demo) that can boost your resources. It's called Riches From Beneath, is a level 6 Enchantment spell, requires power 5+ Earth magic, and has a base cost of 70 Earth gems. It's a global ritual spell that boosts your resource level in each of your provinces based upon the strength of your Dominion in that provicnes.

Originally posted by tkobo:
Also, what are the green drops in the battle view ? Poison ?
And if so,are they affecting the units they appear over ?

Yep, poison, and they appear over the units as they take poison damage.

Originally posted by tkobo:
Is there some way to know what the other effects are in the battle view ?
Like the flash of white light that appears on units ?

There's no list, but most will tell you what they are if you keep an eye on the upper lefthand corner of the screen. That's where the announcements of who is casting what appear. The corrosponding graphics plays as the announcement of the spell casting appears.

As for the specific white light flahes you mentioned, do you mean the columns of light coming down from above? Like divine spotlights? That's the Banishment spell. I can't think offhand of another spell that uses a white flash, but there are probably several. My brain's a bit tuckered out right now.

After the spell-casting, you can right click on a unit (try hitting space to freeze the action if things are moving too fast to grab the unit) to see a statistics page for it. Lingering spell effects, poisoning, and so forth are shown on this page. (On a side note, you can also right-click on the stats shown on this page to see a breakdown of what is affecting them. Those breakdowns are available outside of combat as well, and are a handy way of finding the hard numbers on how your units are being affected by blessings, a friendly dominion, and so forth.)

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by tkobo:
Are there any tricks to increase my resource production so that i can field more troops ?

Also, what are the green drops in the battle view ? Poison ?
And if so,are they affecting the units they appear over ?

Is there some way to know what the other effects are in the battle view ?
Like the flash of white light that appears on units ?

One at a time:
1st Q.: resource production can be increased three ways that I can think of: 1. random events that boost resource production; 2. conquering the adjacent provinces to a high administration castle (the castle will 'suck' whatever percentage of resources from all adjacent friendly provinces - click on your castle to find out what this number is); 3. taking 'productivity' scales when you design your pretender.

Additionally of course you could just build more castles...

2nd Q.:Yes green drops are poison, yes they are affecting the units you see them on

3rd Q.: What spell is cast (spells are responsible for all the flashs I know about in the battle scenes) is listed at the top left hand corner. You can go look up a spell if you don't know what it does.

-

In addition, I can't help but add my 2 cents worth when it comes to tactical combat:
The main question you have to answer is whether you will defeat your particular enemy most likely by missile troops or by infantry. Clear examples would be on the one hand tribal cavalry, and on the other barbarians. With the former you'll want to start right up at the line and charge straight in, because they won't do you much damage in melee. With the former you'll want to stay well back and pour missile fire into them, since they have little armour and will be hurt quite badly by it.

The same principle goes for nations too, to an extent. some nations (Abysia comes to mind) don't have missile troops, so that will change your strategy when facing them. Other nations have very strong missile troops, which you'll want to be exposed to for as little time as possible.

So generally I go with the 'hold-and-attack infantry while firing with missile troops' OR the 'plow right in' approach.

[tkobo]

Okay, i have now been able to expand without any real problem pretty freely in the 40 turn demo.

Archers ,formations and castles made all the diffence.

thanks all.
Now i have some thinking do to.

A few Last questions.
The game does not have a time limit right ?
IE no turn limit preset in the victory conditions right ?

How is the balance ? In the demo those udead guys seem to powerful.
Is this better balanced in the full game ?

[Nerfix]

No time limits i am aware of.

Yes, it is better balanced. For example, you get a spell called Solar Briliance that kills all undead units in the batlefield.

[ October 30, 2003, 05:27: Message edited by: Nerfix ]