Final Newbie Question (or compilation of questions!)

[happygeek]

Thank you. Here are some more, including followups:

AoE: Ohboy, thank you, that is weaker than I thought. So how do you get Banners, for example from commanders with items or innate abilities, to actually help? Even a +10 banner will have to be adjacent to troops to help then, he must literally be mixed in with the troops to give the morale bonus, how do you get him to stick around, the "stay behind troops" command seems to have him in the rear...?

Prophets: According to the manual, assigning a prophet increases holy power by 1 or gives it 3, whichever is highter. So it almost seems like a "waste" to assign a H1 or H2 priest to be prophet, unless there is some good reason for it -- so it makes sense to make some tough guy or sneaky guy or mage a prophet too -- right?
I havent yet played a nation with H3 priests, which could then become H4 if prophets -- but I don't really see the point. It could cast that battlefield-wide version of Sermon of Courage (forget name) and the weaker version of Smite -- but is that worth it? I often see my current H3 prophets casting Sermon of Courage over and over again, often on what looks like to be the same troops, despite the fact that the manual says it can only work one time -- because the prophet doesnt have much else to do, after blessing, besides casting Smite. Is there anything inherently good about H4 that I do not understand?

Thank you all!

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by happygeek

Thank you. Here are some more, including followups:

AoE: Ohboy, thank you, that is weaker than I thought. So how do you get Banners, for example from commanders with items or innate abilities, to actually help? Even a +10 banner will have to be adjacent to troops to help then, he must literally be mixed in with the troops to give the morale bonus, how do you get him to stick around, the "stay behind troops" command seems to have him in the rear...?

Prophets: According to the manual, assigning a prophet increases holy power by 1 or gives it 3, whichever is highter. So it almost seems like a "waste" to assign a H1 or H2 priest to be prophet, unless there is some good reason for it -- so it makes sense to make some tough guy or sneaky guy or mage a prophet too -- right?
I havent yet played a nation with H3 priests, which could then become H4 if prophets -- but I don't really see the point. It could cast that battlefield-wide version of Sermon of Courage (forget name) and the weaker version of Smite -- but is that worth it? I often see my current H3 prophets casting Sermon of Courage over and over again, often on what looks like to be the same troops, despite the fact that the manual says it can only work one time -- because the prophet doesnt have much else to do, after blessing, besides casting Smite. Is there anything inherently good about H4 that I do not understand?

Thank you all!

H4 is not a lot to write home about, unless you are fighting undead, blood sacrificing etc.

Tough guys will often benefit from a bless: Additional strength, mr, hits etc. Be aware it *also* means your tough guy will take penalties fighting in enemy dominion.

And, the occassional anti-sacred spell will now work against you- like ermor's heresy, or ulm's halt sacred.

If you search the threads, you will find templates for the for spell effects.

As for standards, yeah it helps to have them stuck in the middleish - and standards are slightly better than fear in that standards raise the morale +1 without a save required.

Of course.. fail the save and your whole army could run away with fear...

[happygeek]

Thank you!
How do you keep your standards in the middle of things? My commanders either have to hold and attack or stay behind everyone, how do you keep yours in the middle of the frightened troops?

[Sombre]

Put them behind a block of troops and set them to hold one turn longer than the troops, then attack (the same target as the troops).

So if your troops are hold then attack closest, you'd set the commander behind them to hold,hold,hold,attack closest

[Fate]

About the repeated Sermon of Courage castings. The spell hits random squares (well, the first square is 100 precision and will always hit the target, but all subsequent sqares are randomly placed around it). So there is most likely 1 or more squares of troops missed. You can veryify this by looking through your troops and seeing that while many (maybe most) have the better morale, not all do.

This applies to all AoE spells with an AoE > 1 (the Mass xxxx spells), so don't expect them to hit all of whatever your force is in one casting, even though it should be large enough to cover them.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Fate

About the repeated Sermon of Courage castings. The spell hits random squares (well, the first square is 100 precision and will always hit the target, but all subsequent sqares are randomly placed around it). So there is most likely 1 or more squares of troops missed. You can veryify this by looking through your troops and seeing that while many (maybe most) have the better morale, not all do.

This applies to all AoE spells with an AoE > 1 (the Mass xxxx spells), so don't expect them to hit all of whatever your force is in one casting, even though it should be large enough to cover them.

Thats not exactly true. At least its not my understanding of true.

They don't hit random squares. They hit a predetermined pattern.

Additionally, it is my belief that the the AI casts to maximize results. It may miss, but it still attempts.


So what I am saying is suppose you were casting Mass X.


The template is


7 1
6 02 4
3
5 9

Edit: Ruined by ascii graphics, but I was making it up anyway).
(I'm making that up). If you were to position single individual troops in that exact pattern you would get a hit every time precision wasn't missed.

Seems like way too much work tho

[Black Sun Empire]

When taking over independents, what is the best method?

Last night I attempted to play a game, with Nief (Sorry not sure about their full names yet). Sent my scout running outwards just to get a feel for what was around me.

Then I sent 3 armies out and about knocking off independents.

Normally with 6 (guys that turn into big werewolfs?)
Just an aside, how do I make them into werewolfs from the start? It normally requires them to get pissed off before they change.

So I am expanding lovely, then C'tis and some Caelum (sp?) are coming at me from both the top and bottom. I send my troops into the C'tis fortress and seige the thing, my god that takes forever, even longer when you don't know how to enter the gates.

My main problem is, I keep losing my other provinces, I will take one and lose one. My troops keep having problems with starvation as well, how can I fix that? Is there a trick to taking over independents?

Is it best to take the ones closest to your home first, then slowly work your way out?

Normally playing games very aggressively, I just rushed out and started attacking. I killed the C'tis god and they said they would do everything to stop me, does this mean I killed his pretender? How can I completely destroy the C'tis?

[Edi]

Originally Posted by happygeek

Thank you!
One more question, and some follow-up questions, thanks in advance.

AI: This better AI mod, where can I find it? I would be happy to install it if people think it is koscher.

Better Independents v2.1 thread

Read the thread to get an idea of what the mod does. If you read the mod files in a text editor, they are extensively commented and the logic is laid out. I guarantee you the AI armies will be tougher when you use that mod. It was born out of my own frustration with generic AI hordes and does force them to use more national units.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Black Sun Empire

When taking over independents, what is the best method?

Last night I attempted to play a game, with Nief (Sorry not sure about their full names yet). Sent my scout running outwards just to get a feel for what was around me.

Then I sent 3 armies out and about knocking off independents.

Normally with 6 (guys that turn into big werewolfs?)
Just an aside, how do I make them into werewolfs from the start? It normally requires them to get pissed off before they change.

So I am expanding lovely, then C'tis and some Caelum (sp?) are coming at me from both the top and bottom. I send my troops into the C'tis fortress and seige the thing, my god that takes forever, even longer when you don't know how to enter the gates.

My main problem is, I keep losing my other provinces, I will take one and lose one. My troops keep having problems with starvation as well, how can I fix that? Is there a trick to taking over independents?

Is it best to take the ones closest to your home first, then slowly work your way out?

Normally playing games very aggressively, I just rushed out and started attacking. I killed the C'tis god and they said they would do everything to stop me, does this mean I killed his pretender? How can I completely destroy the C'tis?

There is no one best method that works for taking out independents for all nations, each nation has its own methods that work best for it. Niefelheim, using your example, is a classic bless nation and is usually played using blessed units to expand. That doesn't mean they can't be played effectively in other ways however.

Commanders that turn into werewolves have an ability to shape change in their action menu on the strategic screen (the same menu you tell commanders to do research from). I hope you understand what I mean by that because it might be hard for me to explain. Anyway, if you tell them to shape change there they will be in werewolf form before the battle. HOWEVER if you were talking about the skinshifters rather than skratti, then you can't start them in werewolf form - they must be "killed" first.

When you're sieging castles, you must first break down the walls. You'll get a message to that effect at the start of the turn. Then you open the action window thing for the commanders sieging the fort and change their orders to "storm castle".

I have found that when playing against the ai, it is really in your best interests to try to hold the smallest line of provinces bordering them possible and slowly grind their armies down through attrition while you build up enough armies to strike out at them while maintaining a solid defensive line. Unfortunately, since armies can pass through each other without fighting, in order to ensure that the AI does not get an army through you it's necessary to have another army behind your front line armies following them up. That said, what qualifies as an army can vary significantly. It may be that you can kill an AI army with one man, which makes the whole process much simpler. Also if you have more mobile armies it is less necessary to hold such a rigid line as you can quickly backpedal or move up fresh units to surround and destroy the ai army. There are also some tricks you can use to make yourself a less attractive target for the ai to attack, such as having decent pd on your borders with them, and having a high army count. However for general purposes both of those things are somewhat counterproductive.

There are a few ways to deal with starvation. First, make smaller armies :P You could also take growth scales, and your temperature scales affect provincial supply levels as well. You could build magic items that increase supplies in the province (all nature items, the sword requires earth too though). After that, your only options are units that don't need to eat or increasing the game's supply levels on game creation. It's usually a good idea to do this anyway when playing sp since the computer is highly skilled at causing its armies to starve under normal settings.

The way that usually gets the most provinces is to expand into the weakest indies first while taking provinces adjacent to your capitol when possible. Taking the ones adjacent to your capitol is helpful because it gives you extra resources to recruit troops with.

Yes you killd C'tis' pretender, but he can come back and probably will sooner than you'd think. You can kill C'tis by taking all his provinces and forts or by preaching away all of his dominion. Being super-aggressive can be hard to pull off against the ai because it's so good at swarming you with units and will cause issues in your backfield. Against players it's more possible, but risky.

[Black Sun Empire]

Cheers for your help, I find that when I go all out against the AI, then I get two or three of them coming to attack me from all fronts. I may have to rethink my SP rushing.

I think the main things I need to learn at the moment is a proper scripting for my armies. Then how to equip my units with magical items and how to properly search for magic.

There is just so much information to know.