Newbish question

[Endoperez]

Yes, you're starting to get the idea. However, if you're talking about MA Ulm, there are some things you have to remember.

1) You have no counter to Air. Air evocation deal armor-negating (AN) damage, which kills your troops. Your troops also have low magic resistance which makes them vulnerable to Thaumaturgy/Astral spells.

2) Your troops can't handle high-defense troops, like mounted units. They can't hit them, get fatigued, and after fatigue starts causing critical hits they start going down.

3) Your troops can't evade tramplers, and their armor only helps against small tramplers. Size 6 tramplers deal 20 points of armor-piercing (AP) damage.


Ulm got boosted in a recent patch because it has a hard time surviving once magic steps in, or some say even before that. It's still regarded as a weaker nation. For pretender design, Ulm really wants nice magic versatility, but it also benefits from someone size 6 to stop approaching elephants.


To drop troops, put them in the garrison, the topmost line in army view. It's the line where unassigned recruited units are.

[Agrajag]

And yes, a commander with flying shoes and no units (or with units that all fly) will be able to fly back.
But of course won't be able to fly to the front once you supply him with troops.

[GrudgeBringer]

I have been wondering about 'Scripting' troops in a battle.

At first I kind of chuckled at the lack of choices you had for your army and Commanders.

But as I looked at it more I realised that within the game rules there are some very subtle and important factors involved (and I am not chuckling now).

I have one question but any hints anyone would care to give would be very much appreciated.

The question I have is:

1.When you set your Infantry or Cav on Hold and attack....

Can you pick the NONE option instead of closest enemy ect and have them hold the line so to speak while your archers rip the heck out of you opponents?

I can see you putting your archers a couple of squares behind Infantry (depending on range of course) and having the enemy have to come to you (or at least try) thru a rain of arrows (Fire or otherwise) because YOUR infantry stays put.

Am I on track here or is this something that is beyound the capibility of the limited orders we have to work with?

Thanks!!!

[MaxWilson]

Hold And Attack (None) simply means they have no preferred target. They pick a random unit out of all the enemy units and attack its squad, which often means they'll attack the biggest squad. If you want to hold for more than 2 turns you have to put them as Guard Commander on a commander who holds for several turns (up to 5). This can be useful if you want more turns to buff your troops, and is a pretty decent use for otherwise-useless indy commanders. (Don't be surprised if the commander dies. He doesn't matter.)

-Max

[GrudgeBringer]

(SIGH) Ok...so much for that idea.

I have figured out the tactic of putting small groups of 5 or so in front to get archers and Inf to attack chaff units.

Is there any limit to the number of seperate units you can have in one army?

I also keep seeing references to army setup but I look at it and just don't see that many options.

I fancy myself as a fair tactition but without terrain, Wind, weather, ect there just doesn't seem to be much you can do except use Cav to attack rear areas and use skirmishers to draw fire from enemy units.

Am I REALLY making this too simple?

I would HAVE to think there is more to the battle sequence than meets the eye or this game would not have 3 editions working on a fourth.

So, if anyone would like to take pity on an old man and kind of point me in the right direction I would be much VERY thankful!!

[MaxWilson]

Army setup mostly refers to spell scripting. There are some things to know about distributing your mages around so arrow fire doesn't take them all out, putting hot/cold/poisonous creatures where they won't kill anyone else, positioning units to maximize your chances that a "Hold And Attack Rear" will actually get all the way to the rear, etc., etc., but Dominions tries to be more strategic than tactical and most of the tricks you can play center on researching/casting the right spells and equipping the right magic items on the right commanders and sending them to the right places to do things your opponent isn't expecting.

A couple of links that may or may not be useful:

Art of Placement

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominio...ctical_Battles

-Max

Edit: fixed pathological link which was messing up page formatting.

[PvK]

I've been playing Dominions since the first edition, mostly against the AI which isn't a brilliant tactician, and I still get lots of fun out of micromanaging my army deployment and watching the battles. But that's my personal taste, mostly.

Anyway, yes there are many creative things you can do with non-magical army orders, though many players don't explore that to the degree I have, since the high-powered magics in the later stages of multi-player games can make such subtleties not so relevant.

The archer/blocker tactic you describe though is do-able, more or less. They won't stand in a block as you imagined, but the general effect you have in mind can be accomplished. Generally, use Hold & Attack Closest on the blocking forces in front of the archers, and use slower troops for them, and play with the position on the battlefield and observe what happens.

PvK

[GrudgeBringer]

Thanks...

I just looked at a save game because of the remark of "using slower units to block".

Unless I am overlooking something I don't see speed on any attributes.

Where would speed of unit be and would it maybe be called by something else?

[PvK]

Oh, and actually, you can increase the time a blocking force waits by giving them a commander all their own and scripting him to Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Attack... and his force to Guard Commander.

[PvK]

Tactical speed would be AP's (action points). Lower-right of the stats, under Map Move/APs, something like 2/12 for a human light infantryman, or maybe 1/7 for a heavy footman.