Mod Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail - Page 5

Radio_Star · #41 August 30th, 2009, 03:12 PM

You might look at changing up the battle auto-summons, especially on the Marquis. I was able to consistently get almost 30 provinces by the end of year one without an awake pretender in addition to making at least 3+ additional forts. Standard tactic was a small number of supporting units (10-15 or so cheap chaff) slightly back from 2 Marquis who were pushed all the way forward set to hold a turn, attack. It's a cheap enough force to facilitate early castle spam (and thus even more Marquis) while still expanding at breakneck speeds. I'd suggest switching the battle summon to something more along the lines of 1 knight and 3-5 chaff troopers, though even this may allow the same tactic.

Note: Tests run on milkshake, misfortune-3 order-3 pretender. Poorest result was 23 provinces and 3 forts(inc. start) with 1 building by the end of year one. Best result was 32 provinces and 4 forts with 3 building. Average was 27 provinces and 3 forts with 3 building. All builds did 0 research in year one.

Trumanator · #42 August 30th, 2009, 11:19 PM

Far easier to simply recruit a duke every turn. He'll solo most provinces easily. However, I prefer to recruit 2 grail knights and a maiden every turn except the first, which is a duke. Every other turn I send out 4 knights and a maiden. That way, my expansion is good, but I still get a little research done. Crazy expansion w/no research is just asking for a ganking.

Radio_Star · #43 August 30th, 2009, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Far easier to simply recruit a duke every turn. He'll solo most provinces easily. However, I prefer to recruit 2 grail knights and a maiden every turn except the first, which is a duke. Every other turn I send out 4 knights and a maiden. That way, my expansion is good, but I still get a little research done. Crazy expansion w/no research is just asking for a ganking.

I ran some tests with Dukes to similar results, but preferred the chaff generation on Marquis for utility. It's a trade either way, but in both cases the battle summons should be toned down. You can take your foot off of the gas in your initial expansion to recruit some mages and ramp up the research, but Bretonnia's in a great position to rapidly make up an early research deficit.

Trumanator · #44 August 30th, 2009, 11:44 PM

Dukes have chaff generation too, and the chaff is better in any case. Re: the battle summons though, at least in the Duke's case i'm not sure how much of a difference it makes. Plus, even if Bretonnia is going to kick *** in the early game, they have a definite lack of late game power.

Burnsaber · #45 August 31st, 2009, 05:46 AM

Alrighty, quick balance update due to the very scary and unintented Hinnom (pre-fix) level expansion! Many thanks for the Radio Star for the report. Now the Lord, Marquis and Duke all have a honour guard of 1 mounted KoTR. I dropped gold costs slightly to compensate.

In my testing with the v0.81, Radio Star's expansion strat still works, but the expansion parties have to stop to summon more chaff after 2-3 provinces or put the Marquis at an considerable risk (basically you either have to put the Marquis or the chaff in the harm's way). Also, sometimes the expansion party is utterly humiliated when the honour guard KoTR's fall to lucky hits. Ichtyids and their nets suck, by the way.

As for the late game, you should remember that this nation is no MA man. You have solid shot an magic access of A4W4N4E2S2 which allows for a lot of nasty stuff. The problem is just how to capitalize strong magic with sucky research.

rdonj · #46 September 1st, 2009, 08:21 PM

Haha, I've been immortalized in the mod. Awesome

Burnsaber · #47 September 1st, 2009, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rdonj

Haha, I've been immortalized in the mod. Awesome

Yeah, I wanted to honour my supporters in some other way than mentioning name in the .readme file. I take it that you don't mind? Hopefully Sir Rond of R'donj didn't die a horrible death on the battlefield

.

rdonj · #48 September 2nd, 2009, 08:43 AM

Nope, I don't mind

. I will have to start thugging out all the ronds I find. So far I haven't lost any... I'll have to make sure their deaths are all glorious.

Radio_Star · #49 September 4th, 2009, 11:12 PM

After mulling over the nation a bit, the lack of astral (or, more precisely, astral counters) would probably be the death of Bretonnia.

Even though you get a neat little MR booster for your sacreds, the arcane bolts, oppositions, arcane dominations and, more to the point, mind hunts and magic duels would be absolutely brutal.

Burnsaber · #50 September 5th, 2009, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radio_Star

After mulling over the nation a bit, the lack of astral (or, more precisely, astral counters) would probably be the death of Bretonnia.

Even though you get a neat little MR booster for your sacreds, the arcane bolts, oppositions, arcane dominations and, more to the point, mind hunts and magic duels would be absolutely brutal.

Yeah, your astral access is pretty minor (not counting heroes, both mage heroes have S3), but enough to feeblemind Mind Hunters with some S1 Grail Maidens.

Arcane Bolts and oppositions are painful, but are not impossible to counter, you just need decoys with high size and hp to make the enemy mages target them over your Grail Knights. Elementals are good (Bottle of Living Water is good for this purpose), as are Crushers, Wooden Constructs, Fall Bears and Summer Lions. All have high size(over 3) and have more hp that Grail Knights, Dukes, Grail Heroes or Damsels.

As for the battlefield wide "screw magic units" counters, things are a bit more difficult. Astral bless helps, as does casting antimagic or the Virtue of Purity. What I'd suggest is to just bench the magical units if the opponent shows astral mages able to casts those high S spells. You can thug out Marquis instead of Dukes and just use hordes of Errants instead of Grail Knights. Just remember to accomapnay the army with some Damsels equipped with mr boost items. With their high mr, they will be nearly immune to the "negates-easily" BF spells, but their presence will make the opponent cast those scripted BF spells, essentially wasting him mage turns, fatigue and gems.

But you are right, one of the main weaknessess of Bretonnia is its predictability. You can't just focus on Dukes or Grail Knights and expect the opponent to roll over, mix it up a little. This is just one reason why astral pretender is good for Breton.