problems with provincial defence

[clhannah]

Rank newbie here, frustrated enough. I played the demo off and on for several months until I took the plunge, thinking my main complaint had been addressed with the concept of provincial defense. Alas.

I cannot build a line of secure provinces, with or without fortresses, nor can I adequately defend a circle, and I get extremely frustrated chasing an enemy behind my incipient lines with my main force split in three hoping to pin him. Usually stuck too far behind my lines to deflect the inevitable attack from another opponent.

My current strategy has been to use a fortified city, clear the area around it (for the resource bonus), reach out to a second fortress, and build a line with provincial defense and strong recruiting. While this has worked to a limited extent, the larget I grow the more problems I have a) chasing someone who breaks through, and b) bringing forces to the front.

Do y'all leave a substantial defensive force in *every* province?

-- clh

[Arryn]

clhannah said:
Do y'all leave a substantial defensive force in *every* province?

No.

BTW, it would help if you told us what nation you are playing, and what your pretender design and scales are. Different nations have different strategies.

[Cainehill]

As Arryn said - it'd help if you mentioned the nation, etc; also the map you've been playing (some maps cause different strategies than others, ie Cradle of Dominion & the MiddleEarth map among others have chokepoints on the map), who got behind your lines - Caelum, Pangaea, Vanheim especially can be frustrating that way.

Nations: Jotunheim and to a slightly lesser extent Abysia (possibly others such as Ulm) are well served by putting 10 PD or so in every province, as it'll stop many small invading armies. Even better, 10 giants or Abysians are great when beefing up your responding force of mages/missile troops/whatever.

Build castles strategically; also, you can build PD strategically, as your opponent is much less likely to run into the province that his reports show as heavily defended. Then, move your response forces into the provinces where you've channeled him, trying to anticipate his movement with a force large enough to destroy him - or at least to kill some commanders.

Assassinating his commanders also helps - nail a commander that was leading troops, those troops get left behind when he moves. Likewise certain spells - Fires from Afar is a relatively easy one to research / use - will kill some of his troops, and possibly some of his commanders, again leaving some troops stranded behind.

But really, the best thing to do is keep them from getting behind your lines. Difficult against Caelum and the others I've mentioned, but.... Or, ignore his raiding army, and ransack _his_ provinces instead, while trying to attrit his raiders.

And throw up PD, armies, or fortifactions in key provinces - ones with a good independent to be recruited (sages, jade amazons, longbows, etc), or with great gem or gold income or resources. You don't care too much if someone takes a province that gave 2 Gold a turn and 3 resources; not like when you lose one that gives 75 gold, or 6 gems a turn.

If you have crap PD - try putting up a screen of crap PD, but also leave recruited, or better, summoned, troops there that are half decent. (If the summoned troops are magic, you need to leave a mage as well, unless you get a mage as a PD commander, or the magic troops start going poof. But many summoned, magic, troops, aren't considered 'magic', which is surprising for some of them. Wolves okay, but vine men aren't magic either, which is odd.)

HTH

[quantum_mechani]

One good strat is to have a combat pretender with Air/Astral, and have them teleport/cloud trapeze onto an enemy army. Since magicaly triggered battles happen before movement, you will always catch them.

[clhannah]

> it would help if you told us what nation you are playing, and what your pretender design and scales are . . .

sorry -- I've played litterally dozens of combinations of pretenders, scales, magic, races. I have probably started over 50 games with the same basic results. Ulm mostly, aran map (the first one), between 4 and 8 opponents, normal AI.

>are well served by putting 10 PD . . .
I have been using 20 PD with constant recruiting in outlying provinces -- doesn't even slow them down. I'm talking less than 20 turns and they have multiple stacks of forces that dwarf my defences.

It seems to me either the game is terribly overbalanced to the attacker, or I am missing something critical.

>Build castles strategically;
I have built the highest deffence castle (dark citidell?) in a string of 4 provinces, recruited balanced forces and shuttled them to the front, and lost in an eyeblink.

>or at least to kill some commanders . . .
>Assassinating his commanders also helps . . .

this is interesting -- have a flying attack or fast force target rearmost troops -- suicide squad specifically for the invading commander. Hmmm. bLast the army when it can no longer move.

>teleport/cloud trapeze onto an enemy army . . .

Man, I really needed to know this one.

I should have been more clear that I am desparately behind in 10 to 15 turns, unable to build a minimal defense and facing multiple stacks from multiple opponents. Maybe I will look for that map with less open space until I have a better handle on how to win a land war in central Europe.

Thanx!

[condors]

for ulm single player you can try this:

you could try a cyclops(search function was a couple debates on them) with 6 earth magic

for scales 3 production 3 order 3 growth 3 drain

recruit a smith every turn and get at least 1 attack force (prohet + infantry to start)

Use the smiths for research get 7 enchancment then cast earth blood deep well, then you can cast enliven statues every turn. Get conjuration 7 and you can get 2 king earth elementals who can summon free allies. Get 5 alteration 3 evocation and have all your smiths scripted to summon earth power, invulnerabilty and fire shield

This is not the only way to play ulm and is not the best way but it gives you something of a starting ground and this alone can win some games for you.

In single player 21 is common PD for me but it will not hold off any real army. Choke point take 6 smiths build a lab and have them research there that is usually enough to hold off a foe until you can gather a real attack force to deal with him. If you build a temple and its not well defended the ai will attack.

hopefully this helps you some good luck

[Cainehill]

clhannah said:
sorry -- I've played litterally dozens of combinations of pretenders, scales, magic, races. I have probably started over 50 games with the same basic results. Ulm mostly, aran map (the first one), between 4 and 8 opponents, normal AI.

>are well served by putting 10 PD . . .
I have been using 20 PD with constant recruiting in outlying provinces -- doesn't even slow them down. I'm talking less than 20 turns and they have multiple stacks of forces that dwarf my defences.

It seems to me either the game is terribly overbalanced to the attacker, or I am missing something critical.

Oh! Let me guess - you're taking the 'default' independent strength of 3? If so, you'll find the game easier if indies are set to about 5 or 6 (6 seems to be the default in most MP games). The problem is that 3 allows the AI nations to really conquer a lot fast, which allows them to have huge armies, which allows them to ... Well, you've seen what it lets them do.

The game balance _is_ somewhat in favor of the attacker, I think - this helps avoid stagnant wars of attrition where nothing changes hands much. The trick is to use this to your advantage.

One thing you're doing wrong, especially in the first 10 - 20 turns. _Don't_ build 20 PD! If you're building that much PD, you're not building mages and armies. PD has an inverse ratio of cost effectiveness - the first PD troop costs 1 gold, the 19th costs 19; it just isn't cost effective to build 20 PD everywhere. For that matter, it's rarely cost effective to do that anywhere, but there are exceptions.

20 PD costs you about ... 200 gold. Try building something more along the lines of 1-5, until you have enemy neighbors. Once you have neighbors, 10 or 11 can serve as a deterent to the AI, and that's about all that you generally want to build, unless possibly you're Jotunheim. (Again, exceptions, but good rule of thumb.)

Build armies instead. Take more provinces more quickly. You aren't expanding quickly enough, so the AI gets provinces, gets more gold income, can afford more troops more quickly, expands even quicker, builds _more_ troops, and rolls right over you. Vicious circle, and the way to break it is to go more on the offense.

As you yourself noted - the attacker has some advantages in this game.

>Build castles strategically;
I have built the highest deffence castle (dark citidell?) in a string of 4 provinces, recruited balanced forces and shuttled them to the front, and lost in an eyeblink.

Ouch! Again, you're spending _way_ too much gold on defense, and crippling your offense and army (which is also your defense).

First - 4 castles in the first 10-15 turns is usually too many, until you've got a lot more experience. Second - the dark citadel is _not_ a good castle to use. It's too expensive, too slow to build, and did I mention, _way_ too expensive?

You're much better off with a watchtower, a castle, or a fortress. (Other decent ones that take more thought are the mausoleum and wizard tower.) The Last four on the list are almost never used by experienced players; a shame, but too many good players have simply found that they don't work - not cost effective, plus you spend 600-750 on a castle, and the enemy has 4 or 5 turns to attack you and waste all your gold.

Try building maybe _one_ fortification in the first 10 turns, two tops. Lower PD, but a lot more troops, and try to expand faster. Large nations field bigger armies and crush small nations, generally speaking.

And do try setting the independent strength to 5 or 6 - it makes it a little harder for you to expand, but it really sets back the AI more.

>or at least to kill some commanders . . .
>Assassinating his commanders also helps . . .

this is interesting -- have a flying attack or fast force target rearmost troops -- suicide squad specifically for the invading commander. Hmmm. bLast the army when it can no longer move.

Several nations also actually have assassin commanders. In an assassination, only the assassin, a randomly selected enemy commander in that province, and his bodyguards are in the fight. (And the AI often doesn't use bodyguards, and even humans forget them until they lose a mage or two.)

Good luck!

[Aku]

Something that may help you against the AI is to put at least indy strength 6. The AI attacks everybody and you are always fighting a multi front war against them. Try out a game with indy 6 and see if that helps because it makes the AI advance slower. I never really played Ulm much so I will let others give advice on what to do with them. I have been playing multiplayer games for I think a month now and it is nowhere near like playing against the AI.

[FarAway Pretender]

You can also get a sense for where the AI is going to attack, which makes it easier to guard 2 provinces with 1 army. Doesn't work every time, especially when there's more than 1 AI adjacent to a given province, but it does help.

Depending on the map, one of the major challenges of the game is figuring how to expand without opening up "too many fronts".

[clhannah]

Very cool -- thanx guys ('n gals)
the high PD and multiple castles were (unsuccessful) attempts at warding off the inevitable multi-stack attack.

You hit it right on the head with the indy rating being too low. I suspected it was a basic element like this that was skewing the balance. between raising the indie strength and playing a smaller map I think I can make some progress towards actually beginning to learn how to play.

>Choke point take 6 smiths build a lab and have them research there that is usually enough to hold off a foe . . .

please explain this a little -- how can 6 smiths hold off an army?

-- clh