How would you beat my missle troops?

[En Forcer]

Okay, IXNAY on the rain and storm since it hurts my side as well.

Then I think my next solution is to divide up into more squads. (Is there a limit under a single commander? I don't recall...) so maybe 8-10 squads of 10 missle units as opposed to 100 guys in one group. And place them all over the backfield with layered protection on the flanks, Pikers & Halberdiers.

Archers and xbows work well because they build fast and can rout weaker forces, but just consider what would happen if you were attacked by 95+ good quality infantry with shields. I'd probably favor the infantry if they had units in front to draw fire, as they could probably go through your flagellants pretty quick.

hmmm....that might work. But you might run into morale issues on your way in. So at some point both sides will have to rely on spells to sway things in their favor.

Here's a thought. What about Haste or Quickness? Can I haste an entire troop of crossbowmen? (Geez what a thought...) or is the spell for each little guy at a time...?

You can only have 5 squads per commander, if that is a limiting factor.

There is an Alteration 8 spell called Quickening that will haste your entire army. Though if you are that far in research you probably don't need to worry about the trivialities of if your Bowmen get fired on (Since Arrow Fend is only Ench 6).

A good way to break up arrowfire is to place squads in different positionings. Most of the time enemies (inlcuding humans) place Fire Archers on their Archer block and it will only fire on the closest archers. So if you set 1 archer nearer than your main block on a flank, then the archers on the opposing side will try to fire on him and your main block of archers will be protected until he dies.

[ February 13, 2004, 17:27: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Master Shake]

Massed missile troops are standard fair for multiplayer games. They are exceedlingly effective against the AI, and very good against human opponents as well. So if you are up against a human, they will likely also have massed missile armies.

So then the question is how to effectively win in a such a massed archer fight. Wind Guide and Flame Arrows are extremely effective spells to increase the effectiveness of your archers/crossbowmen. As mentioned, Storm and Arrow Fend are common spell counters. There are also Deth Magic and Water Magic spells (I think on the water - it's not my favorite line) that limit range. Then, there are the really cool spells like Mistform and Massflight (Air spells) that would also wipe out a Crossbow amry. Massflight allows all troops to fly - imagine 50 Heavy infantry immediately flying adjacent to your 50 Crossbowmen.

In addition to these spells, there are battle orders you can give that help. One that is sometimes overlooked is Fire Enemy Archers. A large group of indy archers or longbowmen set to Fire Archers could devestate your massed Crossbowmen. Also, a group of flanking heavy cavlary can also wipe out massed missile troops if there are no heavy infantry or spells to stop them.

[Taqwus]

Howl, Swarms, Mind Duel, Seeking Arrow, Manifestation, scattered chaff, Storm, Darkness, Heat from Hell, stealthy units with Bane Venom Charms, Miasma, etc. It depends.

[Xavier]

How about some 20-odd disintegrating spectators and 300+ undead fodder? Place the cavalry rearmost and the rest to attack up front. The spectators can manage nearly 100 troops in the first 5 rounds, then they start summoning more fodder and casting whatever the AI feels like they should (which, thankfully, includes some more disintegration).

Ermor can easily manage that by turn 25-ish with a decent gem income.

Suddenly occurs to me to ask, do spectators/dusk elders and so on get two attacks/turn with power of the sepulchre?

Which also leads to me ask, does power of the spheres increase unholy level too (as does communion)? If so, suddenly empowered arch bishops sound like a great idea....

[PvK]

How about a handful of leaders with Bows of War ordered to fire at enemy archers, spaced out so most of your bolts will miss them, possibly with anti-missile cloaks. And whatever infantry & cannon fodder, and a few small arrow fodder teams to attract AI archer attention.

With only 5 cheap men with Bows of War (perhaps scouts, or cheap commanders), they with fire 130 arrows in the time your 95 crossbowmen will fire 95. Many more of our shots will land on your Groups of crossbowmen and hit someone, than your bolts will hit our single archers standing in the open, and 80% less if we use anti-missile cloaks.

PvK