I am focusing on battles to learn strategies. I typically alter scenarios as often as possible to improve tactics instead of just one terrain type.

I put the Macemen in front. Calvary on the right or left, mainly to blitz and take marksmen if the oppurtunity arises. I put the knights 2 spaces behind the Macemen, in order to give the macemen room to move back and the knights move in. The commandeer and Markmen then sit at 7 spaces away from the space in front of the macemen.

That is the overall set-up.

I then move forward to find the opponent, who is ussually in the same formation. I put my macemen line against their macemen line, put them on defense, move marksmen in to hit.

He pulls his macemen back and moves his knights forward, hits my macemen, and I move in my calvary. In the long run my calvary become the focus and are painfully hit in this tactic, and later in the game the opponents calvary are hitting me hard and I lose.

OR

He pulls his knights back, hits my macemen. I move in with Knights to counter. He moves in with calvary. I cremate his calvary, but I lose almost all my knights and have used up all my free shots on this objective. In the mean time my lines become broken, due to being out numbered, and my marksmen become ducks.

QUESTION: What am I doing wrong?

Last Edited : Saturday, 12 August 2006 - 04:30

I think the problem is that you are losing more troops than you are killing. This is NOT good and try to stop immediately.

I hope that was helpful .

But, wait a sec, in the first one you say you use HC v Mace? Not a good idea. Did it ever occur that the correct strategy might lay with your marksmen?

Try a battle where you DON'T charge the line. Keep aiming at the marksmen. If you can get their ranged out of the way, it will go much smoother, obviously.

No, the HC counter the Knight front, which is positioned by the opponent. I never use HC against Mace. I did write my first events wrong though, I will fix it.

I already know not to lose more troops then the opponent, my question was not pertaining to what I need to win but how, i.e. strategy, different line ups, different counters, whatever.

My Marksmen are positioned to hit the front line, but far enough away not to interfere with maneuvering.

I do not understand how you expect to go about hitting their marksmen without losing your own, maybe you can explain that strategy to me. From what I've seen, the closer your marksmen are to the front line, the more likely they are to take damage. They will keep their marksmen back to allow maneuvering, while you will have to crowd yours on your second rank to possible reach theirs. This makes a break through easier for your opponent and your marksmen vulnerable soon as a break through happens. Soon as a break happens, and the marksmen are in melee battle, your strategy would be counterproductive. In attempt to take out their Marksmen, you would lose your own.

Maybe that isn't what strategy you're talking about, if you have a way to kill your opponents range without putting your own in risk of melee attack, I'm very interested to hear.

I generally take out Macemen with the marks at first. That way I'm not getting multiple retals from Mace.

Macemen are more or less expendable in that game. Let him knock out a couple with knights and ranged, you get the knights with HC. If he moves ranged up, all the better, you shoot it out.

Mainly, adjust to the situation and use the most, and strongest attacks you can figure out. Multiple attacks are best. Don't leave anything unused if possble.

HC are usually left to last, and are ganged up on and shot, one by one. However, if an opportunity comes early to get a massive attack on one you'd be crazy not to take it.

Retal rules basically. The first shot of marks v marks will get retal, none of the others will. Applies to all troops but knights and mace. Mace always have a spare retal, knights never take a retal.

That's probably what you're after when you ask how you shoot marks with minimal losses yourself. The idea then is that your opponent will have slightly less to shoot back with, so they do less back. You now have slightly more than them to shoot back with, and the gulf widens.

The alternative approach is to try and puncture the melee first so you can melee attack the marks, but I never could work out whether it's better to take the melee or ranged out first!

But as Mog says, main priority is to get as many troops used as you can.

I go for Marksmen if the situation is presented to me but I've learned that having one more than the other guy is fine, I have concentrated on ranged too much before and lost due to being overwhelmed by melee troops.

Gotta use balancce in all things!

Last Edited : Saturday, 12 August 2006 - 21:28

i heard u mog

in master class, i've found that starting a range war doesn't make much sense because it's almost impossible (only likely if it is troop of the day) for 4 mark stacks to kill an enemy's stack completly and if it's not completly dead it can just be used for return fire fodder. so it basically will just even up your marks to 3 instead of the original 4, but at the same time your opponent could have also hit you hard melee wise leaving you at a disadvantage. having all your mark together also helps in a return fire situation because they most likely wont need to move to hit their mark and therefore have full bp.

like mog said mace in master class can basically be just fodder to stop and hold the enemy for a little while. i personally use a little tactic with my knights to kill the mace then move them back to safety afterwards which is rather effective in killing the enemy, but at the same time it protects your knights against their hc attacks.

You know, a Heavy Cavalry will kill as many Macemen as a Knight does, of course, they lose 1 pop hitting a 10 stack. In some cases, that may be the difference between winning and losing, so don't think RPS, think total kills. If the Mace is in your way and the HC can't hit anything else, why not go for it?

Because you leave a small pop mace that will act as perfect fodder for hitting your HC the next turn. So, if you hit that mace with HC, you better make sure it dies.