Just wanted to share with you all an interesting scenario that took/takes place in Game 7.

Both lordants and me were leading the ranking when the time came for us to engage. We met between the two Snow castles and the conflict stalled for some 10 turns. I felt I didn’t have enough power to attack, which gave lordants the opportunity to build many Stone Towers and place his defences around them.

The whole conflict takes place between 21,51 to 26,63 as lordants is protecting from the East and I am attacking from the West.

Lordants has 7 Stone Towers with many defensive troops using the old Soviet technique of ‘cover an area with fire power (ballistas) and then advance slowly (Mace)’, while my force is highly Mobile (Scouts, Falchs, HC) with smattering of all other type of units. During the stall phase when I was building up, lordants managed to destroy some 100 Marksmen of mine plus some 100 scouts who ventured too close to his Ballista + Towers range.

Here is the list of troops at the beginning:

Troop………...Lordants…………..Sanshiro
Comms……….90………………….90
Spears………..256…………………72
Militia………..18………………….131
Scouts………...95………………….200
Archers……….59………………….59
Pikes…………531…………………0
Squires……….150…………………235
Arbs………….0……………………230
Falchs………..0……………………118
Mace…………267…………………160
Ballista………329………………….0
Knights………0……………………0
Marks………...0……………………123
HCav…………0……………………84

During the fight many reinforcements arrived on both sides. Since I saw his huge amount of Mace I started building knights like crazy, but they were being built far away on the farthest corner castle of the Swamp, and took absolutely eons to arrive in a small trickle. Lordants had the south-eastern Snow castle which kept pumping Mace and Ballista to the rather near battlefield. At some point lordants had 535 Ballistas bunched up nicely in 100+ groups.

The battle is now 6 turns old and lordants defences are collapsing. I also got two castles 1 turn away from the battlefield producing a Master rate of knights and Squires.

The current troops on the battlefield (plus what lordants has in his nearby castle and I have at 2 turns march away) is:

Troop………...Lordants…………..Sanshiro
Comms………..0………………….206
Spears………..158…………………0
Militia………..0………………….51
Scouts………...183………………….0
Archers……….0………………….59
Pikes…………78…………………0
Squires……….36…………………93
Arbs………….0……………………103
Falchs………..0……………………22
Mace…………38…………………97
Ballista………401………………….0
Knights………0……………………112
Marks………...0……………………82
HCav…………0……………………30


We both have more troops streaming in but I almost got hold of his 7 Towers.



I think this is a nice case of different strategies colliding and while it is not over yet and a fierce struggle awaits us both, I invite people to voice their opinion.

As far as I see it, you wrecked his force, leaving him into a defensive position, with low level troops protecting his Ballistas, who try to blast anything that u send at them.

You've taken some heavy losses 2, but that was expected.
Lordants will probably go for a WW1 Trench Warfare, while he Rebuilds.

Are you willing to sacrifice ur Cav trying to take out as much as u can in his Ballistas?

It appears to be a great game nevertheless... sad that u don't have pictures of it

i would have been a match for ultima bahumit but i attacked sunbeam with my defensive forces. then i lost a later batle to bahumit. right now i am attacking mpg89 i am wearing out his ground forces and his ranged are soon to come. he pushed me back to a point with hc but i was still winning and now almost all of his ground forces are gone and the castle will soon be mine.

Wow, nice thread, Sanshiro.

It would be great if you had time to post a "declassified" screenshot of the immediate area. If not, maybe you could save one each day and post them here later.

From the line you describe I'm picturing that lordants is having to operate on the ice quite a bit more than you. Is that the case? Is either of you 100% on snow.

401 Ballista looks nasty but 82 Marks with 206 Comms...

Screenshots, man!

Well...

I wish I could take screenshots but I have no way of posting them and besides, the early stages of the battle are behind us now.

I know that I'm not 100% on Ice and I'm not sure about lordants. The castle he has there which already has many more towers in it, seems to be there a long time, so he might have been a Snow original.

It's funny how now he sends forth many Scouts to counter my knights but he is reduced to producing base level troops, while I keep pumping Master level troops into the mκlιe. Also the battlefield has shrunk to the gap between 23,60 to 27,62. Only 3 of the 7 Stone towers are now occupied by lordants forces and the major question I believe is whether he'll be able to save the major part of his Ballista force (343 of them) before they are surrounded by my troops. There are only a handful of Scouts (175), Mace (18) and Squires (12) that protect them facing my Knights(71), Mace (83), HC (29), Marks (82), Squires (93) and some Arbs and Archers.

As I said these are the forces in the immediate battle vicinity and it would be interesting to see what reinforcements come in for both of us.

In my opinion this proves that the Mace/Ballista setup is too restricted and while it gives a good show in defence, it lacks the manoeuvrability required for a proper fighting army.

As you said it is good for defence. But he should have kept his forces mobile and driving at yours.

or

He should have split his forces into three groups, a primary front line that was there to protect the towers and balista, and two smaller secondary groups kept back out of view where they could flank your invasion forces. This would have allowed him to get past your front lines and at your ranged units.

Well,... here's a new development in this game.

There are only 4 players left in this game, by order of rank Sanshiro, lordants, KaiserFriedrich II and mgordon trailing in 5th place. (Dinkers is an eliminated 4th.)

Now that lordants has decided to give up on his struggle he allowed KFII and mgordon to take over his mines everywhere on the map. So while he is still fighting me around that castle, he uses that as a revenge tactic from preventing me getting his mines by allowing others to take over. I guess sort of thinking 'he beat me, but I'll deprive him of the spoils'.

My Comms reach a Stone quarry in the Snow area and discover a Falchs unit of mgordon standing guard over it, preventing my Comms from taking over. Not only hindering my fight against lordants but also taking over a mine he (mgordon) wouldn't dare take before. BTW, mgordon also delined to fight me earlier, though he must feel braver now when I'm fighting lordants.

What a bunch of scavenging cowards.

Opinions anyone?

Strategy to help you in an active game should not be sought in my opinion. After the game we can comment, but why should we aid one side over another with advice on what to do? I decline further comment and wish the thread closed.

@Corflu - If you got nothing to say then shut up. If you don't want to say anything, then shut up further still. Mostly, think before you speak and in public most of all.

This is the strategy forum where people can discuss strategy. Before a game, during a game and after a game. If we knew the situation in other games, we could and at a request even should give advice. It's up to the seeker of advice to decide what forum they use. YOU (Corflu) have personally given advice on specific moves more than once and even made moves for players when they asked you to.

You should also improve your reading comprehension and see that I didn't ask opinion about strategy but about behaviour or diplomacy. It would really be good if you declined further comment since you have so little to say.



Regarding the game itself; it seems as if my request of mgordon to withdraw at least from one of the mines have worked and he saw the sensibility of not interfering between two combatants. The reminder of the game remains to be seen. If anyone has any questions regarding the development of the game I'd be pleased to answer here or in private.

It's hard to draw any kind of conclusions about the game from what little we know. We don't know how the game evolved into what it is now, diplomacy wise, or combat wise, so it is really impossible to draw any solid conclusions about it. Also, how many castles does everyone have? If you own 7 and they have 1 a piece, then I wouldn't consider them "scavenging cowards"

I think lordants made some huge mistakes, and you probably wouldn't have fared as well against a higher level player in the same position. The strategy of troop selection may play into it, defensive vs. mobile, but the person controlling the troops has a great deal to do with the outcome as well. I don't think you can draw a conclusion based on one games outcome. If you can pull the same thing off over and over with similar opposing forces in other games, against other players, then maybe your claim of one troop strategy vs. another would carry more validity.

Last Edited : Monday, 12 December 2005 - 09:07

Sanshiro: What I have to say is that you should play your game and stop asking for advice.

You are not talking strategy. You are trying to brag. Put that somewhere else as in chit chat. You should not be asking for strategy help DURING a game publically.

As for troops and stuff, the terrain and positions matter a lot and those are not covered here. Your caustic and childish comments notwithstanding.

If anyone needs to be in chit-chat its you Corflu, or better still, nowhere at all- since all you do is criticise rather than say anything constructive. I guess all those compliments about you being such a great general have gone straight to your head!

This is the Strategy Forum and in my opinion this is strategy. I have asked people to comment on the issue of defensive (Mace & Ballista) Vs a more balanced approach of a mix of troops. Some people seem to think it's a viable topic. If you don't, well... bugger off.

Regarding whether to ask for advice before, during or after a game... I'll do as I'm pleased and certainly not ask permission or advice from you. You have done far more than give advice during games. You actually made moves for other people when they gave you their password.

...and mostly, if we compare my style to your own words "I decline further comment and wish the thread closed." please tell me who is more sad? A thread about strategy or someone who's got nothing to say but thinks he can hush people down... Begone and go 'terrorise' your lackeys.




BTW, pictures of the battlefield will be posted soon.

Last Edited : Monday, 12 December 2005 - 10:05

by the way good war sanshiro, u came in ready and waiting for war. u sat there preparing for battle with now one around to bother u. i struggled to get back into a defensive position since i had just finished attacking and taking over dinkers castle. i only had 1 choice in strategy and that was to be defensive. as for mgordon and kaiser i have no control over them, i formed a nap with mgordon some time ago and i have kept him informed of what is happening to me since he may be your next target. he has since decided to gain extra resources since your army would slaughter his much weaker army and he would need any advantage he can gain.

He didnt earn them though did he....scavenging is scavenging. its not cool and borders on g'banging.

If someone else has done all the work 2 free up those mines then they should b left alone.

Just adding an opinion with what little info is presented here. Based on the two time slices you provided, it looks like you had far greater production capability than lordants did. If this is true, then attrition takes a fairly even toll on both sides against your inital starting forces, but the reinforcement advantage is clearly with you. You could afford to build a lot of master troops, while he could not. So this seems not to be a fair test of different strategies. So the "debate" appears moot.

One of the things that influenced the balance is the fact that my barracks are all over the board. The marching time alone meant that my reinforcements took over 10 turns to arrive while lordants reinforcements were a turn and a half away. That is why the battle was stalled in the beginning. If lordants had any mobile troops he could have done more damage while I was waiting for my knights to arrive from the Swamp area to the fight in the Snow.

Another issue was the fact that the towers were situated in front of the narrow openings/gaps in the mountains, i.e. closer to my troops. If the towers were inside the passage or behind the mountains with a smaller area to protect with the Mace and Spikes, it would have required a long and exposed flanking manoeuvre. Or maybe the attrition power would have been sufficient.

One more issue was the fact that basic level troops are useless in defence even if they are at 200+ size units. Unless one has several stacks like that who are just slowing Master troops down, these 200+ units of Spears or Militia can serve little purpose once knights and HC arrive on the scene.

home.earthlink.net/~johnoco/SvsL.jpg

A screenshot of the fight...

what you do for faster production build one baraks for knights and another for hc and another for marksmen and stuff that is how i am winning my batle i am mass producing things.

Based off of the screen shot I would say those tower were not properly placed for defence.

Had he positioned properly, he could have held off your melee troops with a good combination off melee and ranged. The place he was at would have allowed for a 3v2 in his favor. Along with those five ranged units he could have held that from you for a very long time.

For the ranged units he had mobile units aren't that good. For the simple fact that they either have to limit their movement, or leave the ranged support behind.

I completely agree. The Towers could have been stationed behind the mountains with a 3-2 hex defence which could have slowed me down for longer.

Anyhow, a new development has now arisen in this regarding the ungentlemanly behaviour of one other player. I will close this thread and hope NOT to start another one which is not about strategy in chit-chat.