Assorted newbie questions...

[olaf73]

OK been playing for a few days now and finally got my full Version in the mail yesterday. So, I have some questions saved up that I hope you guys can help me with (I also hope I dont forget too many, I should have been writing them down).

1) What are the advantages among weapon types? I know that the longer a weapon is, the better. And, one of the descriptions for a magic morningstar in the manual mentions that all morningstars get a bonus vs troops that use a shield? How much and what kind of bonus though?

2) When you watch a replay, what are the things you are looking for? I have watched them, but I dont get much out of them except that my guys never seem to have enough morale. When you right click on a troop in the replay, you see the unit description panel, but also icons of troop(s) in the lower left, with horizontal bars across the bottom. What determines how many icons/troops are shown, and what do the bars mean? I

3) What kinds of orders do you give your troops? I know this is vague, but I am looking for some pointers. How many of you set specific spells to be cast? Do you have 'default' orders for certain troop types/armies? Etc.

4) Culling the wounded from squads...do you guys do this often? I read somewhere that its often a good idea because a guy thats gonna route early can bring down the squad. I can select a troop in a squad and then hit 'w' to highlight all the wounded men, but when I do this it always keeps the first troop I clicked on highlighted even if he isnt wounded. Is there a better way? Also, the game mentions that the 'e' key will select all experienced troops...that doesnt seem to be the case for me. 'a' and 'w' work, but not 'e'.

5) How can you disband troops?

6) Water mages and water breathing...how does it work? The manual mentions that water mages can take some troops along with them underwater, but how many? How do you know if your guys are adequately protected with water breathing before entering a water province?

7) Forts/defense level. Similar to my question about battle orders above, I am looking for some general tips on how to use fortresses and provincial defense effectively. Relating to defense, the manual lists some charts showing what kind of troops you get at defense levels 1+ and then 20+...but what does that mean? Do you get extra troops at just those break points? Some of them dont make any sense to me, like .5 Slinger for Jotunheim 20+.

8) Magic...is kind of overwhelming to me. There are just so many directions to go in. Dont get me wrong, that depth and detail is a good thing but its just got me swamped. For example, I'd like to make some magic items but I have no intelligent idea on what to make, when or even for which commanders. Same with spell research, what to do get first? I mean, I am sure it depends on your pretender/nation mix but christ there is a lot to familiarize yourself with. Finally, how do you handle site searching? Are the various spells that you can cast to search provinces worth it? What about a dedicated unit(s) to go around after your armies and search?

I think that is enough for now, and its all I could remember off the top of my head.

TIA
olaf

[Taqwus]

(1) Weapons differ in attack, defense, length, damage, number of attacks, special abilities (vs. shield bonus, for instance, armor piercing (ignores 50% PROT), etc). Some benefits are found only on magic weapons, such as being armor-negating (ignores PROT). Crossbows pierce armor. Electrical attacks negate it.
(2) Composition of enemy force esp. surviving mages, fliers, unusually tough units, magic items. Interaction between units. Tactical problems such as friendly fire, not having enough gems, etc. Bars indicate hp/fatigue damage. Icons shown are all units in square; 6 points of size fit in one square (hoburg=1, man=2, cavalry=3, jotun=4, titan=6).
(3) Orders used frequently include hold/attack if I want the enemy to have to come to me, fire/archers or fire/rear at times, attack rear for flankers esp. cav, fliers... Assassins, powerful mages tend to get scripted by me, as well as spells that I decide I definitely want.
(4) I don't, but it would make some sense to do so if you've the spare leaders.
(5) You can't.
(6) 1 man-sized unit per water point, IIRC. It won't let you take troops that'll drown immediately.
(7) Every defense point gets you more troops. At 20+, the troops you get per point change.
(8) Depends on overall strategy, pretender, nation, enemies, magical resources available, size of map, strength of indies... no right answer. Site searching again depends, e.g. Ermorian Ashen Empire Lich Queen, which can have absolutely insane amounts of magic, frequently makes a good searcher. Divination spells can be very nice -- they're cheap, too, and can help a lot if you have poor access to level 3/4 mages of the appropriate types. Some require level 3, but such a mage might be more useful at home summoning, forging, and casting rather than searching.

[Gandalf Parker]

1) What are the advantages among weapon types? I know that the longer a weapon is, the better.

In this game definetly beware of thinking of things as "better" or trying to list them in preferences. Such as "longer is better". Its better if you are coming up against things where the reach would be handy. But short weapons get bonuses in speed and ambidextrous use. I believe they may be harder to block also.

2) When you watch a replay, what are the things you are looking for?

Whether my flanking worked. Did my mage cast his spells or should I look into his fatigue or need for gems. Did certain troops rout too fast.

If my scouts are watching someone elses battle I looke for how he positions his troops. Does he make alot of use of bows, mages, flyers, tramplers. Do his troops/summons have auras (heat, cold, poison, awe, fear) and do they use them well. What kindof magic items and protections do his leaders have? (if they lack poison protect maybe I will send him "gifts" of bladder sticks)

3) What kinds of orders do you give your troops?

This varies alot. Some swear by using certain troops in certain ways but the game makes it a useful tatic to do other things. In fact, sometimes the use is in the fact that its NOT what others do.

Hmmmm hvy infantry I like to have hold so they dont fatigue before they fight.

Cavalry (especially light cavalry) I set at the far top and bottoms of the positionings so they will flank. Usually I set them for attacking rearmost.

SHort range shooters (small bow, crossbow, slingers, javelins) I like to set just behind the main line and tell them to shoot closest. If friendly fire is an issue I set them to the sides of the front line.

flyers are usually attack archers or attack rear.

tramplers depend on the size of the opposing army. If its large I like to have them flank with attack to rear. That way if they rout early they rout by running back THRU the enemy. If its small I may put them in the middle but I move all my troops so that no one normal sized stands behind them.

4) Culling the wounded from squads...do you guys do this often?

I tend to "retire" mine to patrol duty. Just leaving them behind as your army moves isnt a bad option.

5) How can you disband troops?

Only by sending them to their deaths. I wouldnt mind a "disband" option. I think it should go to "defence". You can use them to give you a battle to watch if you are debating whether or not to attack some independent province.

6) Water mages and water breathing...how does it work?

One unit for each water magic usually. Remember that if they arent aquatic the first one is for themself. So they arent going to lead an army underwater until you get the ability to create the magic equip for that.

7) Forts/defense level.
Usually 1 troop for 1 point defence. Some are .5 meaning 1 troop every 2 points defence. The break points are for things like another commander or the ability to spot stealth in your province.

8) Magic...is kind of overwhelming to me. There are just so many directions to go in.

Thats the great thing about this game. But if you want something to start with....

I would try and quickly get 1 or 2 in alteration, evocation, and enchantment. Then 2 levels in both contruction and conjuration.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Olaf,

I am far from a vetaran, but I will share some of my tactics also.

I like to cull those with bad afflictions, including diseases from my main army. You will laugh...but I just put them a decent distance in front of my main force and let them advance while my main army often holds and attacks.

You don't have to allocate too many units for your screen to draw archer fire. So I do get some use out of them. I've been playing a lot of Ulm, so it's rare that fire from anything short of crossbows or maybe Man's longbows bothers this group.

I've been using archers to one flank with good success except when someone puts cavalry on the flank... My little shortbow archers don't tend to do very well against shielded, well-protected cavalry. And they will often all fire at even one cavalry unit, more often than not hardly damaging it.

I find that it is easy to distract archers without specific orders.

What I truly love about this game is that there are no right answers. There are things that don't work well in combination...like Caelum and a heat scale...but there isn't really anything that can't be countered with good planning. I bet if you came up with a pretender and nation setup, including scales, and told Gandalf Parker or Zen what you'd come up with...each one of them could design something that would counter that pretty well. And I also bet they wouldn't come up with exactly the same thing.

You are right about the magic. There is a lot to familiarize yourself with, and some of the spell descriptions leave things for you to discover. If you would like more detailed descriptions, Sunraybe has an excellent site that I would highly recommend for beginners like the two of us.

-SM

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by olaf73:
4) Culling the wounded from squads...do you guys do this often? Also, the game mentions that the 'e' key will select all experienced troops...that doesnt seem to be the case for me. 'a' and 'w' work, but not 'e'.

Culled wounded: I call them "Archer Bait" and put them in the front=) 'e': Only works for units with 2 or more stars.

5) How can you disband troops?

See "culled wounded" above=) There is no disband command.

As for weapon advantages... the BEST way to tell is by running my combat sim, and pitting troops with different weapons against each other to see who wins. However, I have not yet modeled the "Morningstar bonus versus shields" because I don't know how it works, either. I'm guessing it either adds a fixed value (like 2) to attack, or adds the defender's shield defense to attack, thus ignoring shield defense.

Edit: I update the simulator so that morningstars ignore defense from shields, though I'm not entirely certain that is correct.

[ December 18, 2003, 19:05: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Johan K]

Morningstars do ignore shield defence.

[aldin]

olaf,

1) I like longer weapons a lot because it's an advantage I don't have to think about much. Really though, you want whatever matches up well against the kind of army you're fighting.

2) Gives me a good feel for whether I've positioned things right. If I've got a hold on my cav to try to hit the line at the same time as my infantry for example, I watch to make sure that's the effect I'm getting.

3) I love setting trampling troops in the center with 'attack rear' as an option. They don't call light infantry 'squishies' for nothing!

4) Not something I do. The wounded have earned the right to fight in my army.

8) When you pick your nation, start a quick game just to look at your mages. Write down what they do (Caelum = 3A 2W 1? & 2A 1W for example), then peruse the first couple of levels of each spell school looking for fun spells they can cast.

Personally, I'm addicted to two quick levels of Thaumaturgy to get my gem finder spell (Auspex, etc). Though Water's in Conjuration iirc.

I'm a n00b too, so take these for what they're worth.

~Aldin

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Johan K:
Morningstars do ignore shield defence.

Oh, good. Thanks!

Originally posted by olaf73:

1) What are the advantages among weapon types? I know that the longer a weapon is, the better. And, one of the descriptions for a magic morningstar in the manual mentions that all morningstars get a bonus vs troops that use a shield? How much and what kind of bonus though?

As posted by others below, the advantage of longer weapons is their ability to repel (which is explained in the manual). Most units with more suvivability (higher protection etc) are armed with long weapons.

3) What kinds of orders do you give your troops? I know this is vague, but I am looking for some pointers. How many of you set specific spells to be cast? Do you have 'default' orders for certain troop types/armies? Etc.

This is usually determined by what I am fighting or a general 'what I think best' or 'what I think will hurt the opponent most' thought process. Things that work well are those stated below. Also any way you can get to engage units into commanders is good. This is often tricky, but if you know how and where people place their commanders and can gun for them a little more. As for spells, I always set specific spells. If you let the computer do it, more often than not they will be too 'defensive' and engage when they have too much fatigue or when the battle is half over.

7) Forts/defense level. Similar to my question about battle orders above, I am looking for some general tips on how to use fortresses and provincial defense effectively. Relating to defense, the manual lists some charts showing what kind of troops you get at defense levels 1+ and then 20+...but what does that mean? Do you get extra troops at just those break points? Some of them dont make any sense to me, like .5 Slinger for Jotunheim 20+.

Each nation has it's own way of using provencial defense. But I personally always put at least 3 points into every province as soon as I get them, then scale upwards depending on what nation/need and passive patrolling I need.