Now that ranged damage falls away at extreme range, Ballis have become siege-style weapons and siege-style weapons do 50% damage after moving, what are the best tactics?

Is it worth buying arbs and battering rams now they've improved?
Are ballis or marks better value now?

Has the increased chance of max damage just made the game more random, or are there some strategy ramifications?

Has the increased rival damage made getting the first strike more important?

Last Edited : Monday, 5 October 2009 - 16:34

I've found the Arbs to be MUCH more useful especially in the early game. The ballistas are much more difficult to kill now so they have become alot more valuable. The marks are so weak against ballistas now, I'm not sure what to say about them. They are definitely not worth spending all of your income on. A more balanced set of troops work much better now.

What's really fun now is that cats actually do decent damage against ballista.

thanks for the info coop, mog is going to love our cats

Glad I got the all-destroying Requiem troops. They morph into whatever they need to be to defeat my enemies!

Seems like best tactic is:
1. before you move, check the notice board
2. check the bug reports
3. look carefully at the board before moving in case something has changed but Req hasn't announced it yet
4. count your blessing that most of your siege weaponry moved into towers just before this was prevented - I think this is a bad idea - siege weapons are ideal in towers - you just have to dismantle them to move them up the stairs. (Just like a king size bed)

Well you wouldn't be just moving one seige weapon into the tower but 10 for a pop ten unit. I doubt that has ever happened in the history of the world

I don't care if it has worked anymore, i am sick of using real scenarios to support my arguments and am sorry i even started. Archers should be main units and melee support units(not really) and i want my freaking siege machines in my towers, NOW!!! I am not wishing anymore as I freakin got what i wished for and regret it. Give me back my towers!! now!! I am never going to have a reason to use them... EVER!!! Tower=balli/cat. Take away the balli and cat and all you have is an overpriced wall that all units but seige units can use as a draw bridge and get an advantage that i don't care about for one unit when it costs 2000 gold!!! that 2000 gold was worth the cost when i was using it to destroy a 10000 gold barracks, even a 2000 gold barracks, but doing a little more damage to a single unit and losing a little more health from a single unit is ridiculous.

lol klyph... the game has certainly changed... for better or worse is yet to be seen... i'm waiting for the changes to stop and when the dust clears...i'll try figuring things out and start building strategies... too many changes too quickly in my opinion... now a 1o stack of marks in a tower only kills 2 bali (in a castle) and loses 1 mark as well.... thats absolutely foolish and so unrealistic... ten marks attacking from the protection of a tower should kick some arse... seige only taking 50% damage from ranged just don't seem right...

Everyone has their opinion so there will never be changes that satisfy everyone. That's the problem there. In my opinion, all these changes still doesn't make the marksmen less powerful. It only increases the attack power of a ballista. True that marksmen is easier to kill with a melee now, but can the melee even get to it in the first place? I'm fighting someone in a campaign now and all my melees were dead even before i reach the front line - just as it used to be. All i can do is fight off from the tower to tower using marksmen. So, what was all the changes for? I thought we were trying to make range less effective so that we can use melees? Apparently not.

And klyph, it happened when i was moving my army to attack. Building a useless tower where my marksmen don't get any range from, moving my marksmen into that tower and just sit there and ended up losing a few master melees because at that time there was still not a single post about this. It might cost my game in that campaign. Lets see how it goes. It sucks, but it's beta....so it's meant to be like that...in fact, it's in beta ever since i first came here.

You can certainly get to it if you attack with scouts.
For every mark, 10 scouts. Mark kills 1/turn with attack and poss 1/turn retal. You attack with 6 scouts/turn, doing 480-720 damage. Mark damage is limited to 140 by the size of the scout.

If you could split marks into smaller units, this wouldn't be the case

Lol, hambone - that's if they don't have any melees or walls blocking your way to the marksmen at all. Employing mass macemen and setting them on defense totally block your way to the marksmen and you just couldn't pass through even if you put out 100 scouts...and with that, if you employ 6 scouts while i have 4 marksmen, i have more than enough to stop your petty scouts. This method don't work on experience player who knows how to defend their range army.

What i'm saying is that, the changes only further emphasize how useful range armies are instead of in the first place trying to reduce it. After all, those that are able to inflict any damage are moving too slow to get to them in the first place. Secondly, i'm not telling now just in case my opponent now is reading this and use that "advantage". Go figure.

Last Edited : Friday, 9 October 2009 - 01:19

LOL, come on Yang, where's your "comunity spirit"

I think the best tactic atm is "run away and hide" lol

Haha...secret is meant to be kept.

Disturbedyang:
Your comparison is invalid.

I was comparing 20,000 gold worth of units (1 marksman) with 20,000 gold worth of units (10 scouts) to illustrate that marksmen aren't the all-powerful units some people think they are.

You are comparing 68,000 gold worth of units (1 mark & 4 mace) with my 10 scouts. Having spent 48,000 more, I would expect your army to trounce mine.

The point is that you need mixed armies to succeed now, no one unit strategy will work.

PS don't assume that macemen will always be quite as good as they are now. Req has been considering tweaking the way retal works so that every unit gets unlimited retal. Mace's ability might be changed to something like first strike (i.e. damage to enemy unit calculated and applied before damage to mace is calculated and applied)

If anyone has any comments about that, please post them in suggestion box, not here, because it is only an idea (and may only make into WoK, not here)

True to that, but i'm comparing it in a way that the game is played. Say, in a junction, i build two palisades and a macemen that block the path way, with one marksmen. That's if you wanna compare, 32300 gold if i'm not wrong. So, say you deploy 16 stack of scouts. I still doubt that the 16 stack of scouts will be able to do any significant damage at all...

Of course, the downside of the master units strategy is that you can't just storm out in the open cause you might risk being zoc out. The same goes for in the battle. As long as you are able to reduce the chance that the opponent can use their ridiculously lots of basic armies, then that will be enough.

And to give credit to you, true that a good combination wins the battle. But in that combination, range is still very very important.

Last Edited : Saturday, 10 October 2009 - 05:32

True, range is important, especially when players position their blocking melee units carefully with the terrain. I often use concentrate fire from ranged units to eliminate a crucial blocking unit, so my melee can pour through and strike the weaker (e.g. rival/missile units) behind.

Yes, it may surprise you, but my army isn't composed completely of scouts.

Last Edited : Saturday, 10 October 2009 - 06:19

... and besides, if you're too scared to venture out into the open with your maceman and marksman (as you will have to do if you want to take the enemy's gold mines and castles), why don't you save yourself 11,700 gold and block that extra space with another pallisade?

Last Edited : Saturday, 10 October 2009 - 07:04

Lol, as a matter of fact. I do, sometimes. Depending on whether i outnumber the opponents or he does. If he does, i will use the "palisades" technique and win the battle.

Ah, so that's what i'm trying to say. Range is important in this game and req's changes made it even stronger(read back my first "arguement). I'm not arguing with you whether mass scouts win the game or not.