Newb Strat Q. - Dealing with incursions ?

[Kel]

I have a general strategy question (not about generals...maybe I should say generic ? I have seen the 'language wars' some people have had =P).

Assuming you are at war with an approximately equal force (even slightly weaker), what is the 'best' way to prevent them from just rampaging through your territories ?

I realize there will be large variations based on nation, spells available, MP/SP, etc...but I am hoping for some more generic advice, assuming it's mid/early game and *not* one of the 'specialty' races involved (Ermor, for example), how would you usually handle it ?

Splitting forces and trying to guard everything will cause nasty attrition losses against an undivided army. I have read people talking about their front lines...but unless you have a single territory chokepoint, isn't your 1/2, 1/3 or even 1/4 strength army going to cause minimal losses to a decently built full strength army ?

Trying to corner them is a guessing game that seems to take forever and, in addition to destroying PD's with no losses, rampaging armies seem to cause unrest (not surprisingly, I suppose).

PD's clearly aren't meant for dealing with main forces (nor should they be).

In some situations, assassins have worked ok for me but it's pretty situational (need to have assassins first off, need to have some ok items for them, need the enemy commander to not be too nasty).

Atm, I usually just rampage back...which works 'ok' but I end up not expanding and with a lot of 20ish level unrest. Nothing terrible but wondering if there is a better way

I haven't really tried a lot of guerilla/attrition tactics yet so that's still a possibility I am playing with.

Ah well, any advice ? Post ended up a little longer than I planned...

- Kel

[ceremony]

With the solo game it is simply: crank up province defense adjacent to the large enemy force, but leave it with a low province defense outlet. The AI will almost invariably attack the province with the low defense. You can channel the AI like this through several provinces while you gather your army. The Last step is to have your army meet the enemy army in one of these low-defense provinces you have led it to. Assuming your army is capable of dealing with the enemy, problem is solved. It's almost like leaving a trail of cheese or breadcrumbs.

Multiplay is a whole different story.

[st.patrik]

If you are already at war to my mind the best thing to do (in SP) is to drive straight to their capital and siege it. This is basically the theory of blitzkrieg. Often they will bring everything back to try to liberate their capital, thus meaning your provinces aren't getting rampaged. The other thing with the AI is that often it's pretty predictable where they're going to attack - pretty much if you leave a hole in your defenses they'll attack there. This means that you can bring about a confrontation by offering up an inviting 'hole' and then moving all your forces into it the turn they attack.

In MP of course it's different. People will still tend to rush to protect their capital, but might be smart enough to keep an aggressive edge too. I guess my main advice is that if you're at war you need to stop thinking about preserving your borders and start thinking about winning the war - which are very different things. This also depends on whether they have an objective - like taking your capital, or if they are just raiding your borders to cause trouble, or whatever. In general if I think I can take their main army I try to bring about a large battle, and at the same time have a couple of guerrilla forces picking away at their provinces/supply lines to ensure that I keep something of a gold income. If I think I can't take their army I just do the latter, while building a force which I think might be able to face them.

hope that's helpful

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Kel:
Trying to corner them is a guessing game that seems to take forever and, in addition to destroying PD's with no losses, rampaging armies seem to cause unrest (not surprisingly, I suppose).

PD's clearly aren't meant for dealing with main forces (nor should they be).

As I demonstrated in my AAR several turns ago, you can use PD to deal with an enemy main army. If you have, say, two provinces the enemy can attack, both are defended by the same amount of PD (20 is a good number), and one of the provinces has in addition your mobile army, the AI will almost invariably attack the province without your army. (The AI does a simple total of current combat value of all troops in a province, mobile and PD combined.) So you use this against the AI by moving your mobile army into the other province, the one you expect the AI to attack. Your army will meet theirs, you'll be on the defense (and thus act first) and you'll have the PD to bolster your side. After you win the battle, assuming there is still an enemy army left to worry about, move your army back into the province you left the previous turn and engage the enemy again. Repeat moving to the "weaker province" until the AI has no troops left.

[Kel]

Alright, thanks for all the replies! I didn't realize the AI's plan used PD as a high priority. That should definitely help in SP games.

MP games, my goal, are probably much more unpredictable, strategy wise but is there any other generic MP advice for the newb (concerning the rampaging army topic) ?

- Kel

[ceremony]

(1) Threaten something of his that is more valuable to him than the damage he is doing to you by rampaging through your provinces, and hope he needs to use his rampaging army to counter that threat.

(2) Make sure to recapture as many provinces as you can without confronting his main army. If an enemy army gets loose in your backfield, there comes a point where he can't replace his losses (unless he is reinforcing himself with flying units and/or summons, in which case you're in trouble) and you can make a loss in battle catastrophic if he has nowhere to retreat.

I had a situation where an opponent built a lot of temples and my response was to build a large army and break through his lines on a temple-razing mission. It worked for a while, but he kept building enough province defense and scratch recruits that I'd lose a few units each battle that I couldn't replace. Eventually, he assembled a large enough army to defeat my force which had been reduced by this attrition, and I had nowhere to retreat when I lost.

I think I plowed halfway across the Orania map on that run, though, so it cost him a lot of money in province defense and recruits to slow me down to the point where he could defeat me. In the end, the result was trading a large army and my pretender for about 10 razed temples (2000 gold) plus the cost of his PD and recruits. I think I came out on the short end.

[BkWyrm]

Sometimes it can also be useful to hire some mercenaries (if the right type are available) and send them rampaging through poorly defended provinces as a form of disposable troops. This can allow you time to repair any damage to your infrastructure and amass an army for the follow-up/mop-up to your mercenaries swathe of destruction.

[Taqwus]

Magic also helps. Remember that magic takes place before movement, so a sudden barrage of Seeking Arrows or Earth Attacks might halt or bisect an enemy army when the surviving leaders blissfully continue their move orders while now-leaderless troops remain.

[PDF]

About PD usefulness (except to tick AI ), it mainly depends on *what* you get as PD : Ulm PD is strong for example, and Vanheim or Marignon ones are good also. But Arco, Pythium or Machaka get crap that won't stand against anything..