Many players throw everything they've got into the fight. Whilst there is a time to do this, many times you should consider keeping some troops in reserve, as a contingency against the unexpected (specifically, what you opponent does).

For a reserve to be useful, it needs to be selected and positioned carefully:

1) You must position it out of harm's way - troops in the front line are not a reserve, because you cannot guarantee they will still be there after your opponent has attacked. In a campaign, if you are moving just before your opponent each turn, you should bear in mind the possibilty that your opponent might get a "flip-flop" or double turn - that is move some or all of his units twice before you get a chance to move yours. Learn how to "move-count", that is, figure out exactly how far each your opponent's units can move and attack. You may well find that carefully positioning one or more units in the way, as a defensive screen, or building a pallisade or two useful to ensure your reserve's safety. I find 1pop scouts and spearmen very useful for this - they are only worth 200 gold or less, yet add a whole extra movement point to a key route to your units, even after being destroyed. Macemen make good, more resilient barriers, unless you're facing Knights. Squires are useful against missile opponents.

2) Whilst keeping the reserve alive until it is needed is necessary, a reserve is also useless if it is not close enough to get to the battle at crunch time. Because you don't know where your opponent will strike, a central location is best. This applies equally to tactical reserves (units held back to counter attacks against part of you battle line) and to strategic reserves (units positioned centrally because you don't know where on your frontier an attack will fall, or even which player in a campaign will attack you).

If you have a lot of units in a battle, avoid making your front line too long, or your opponent may craftily attack only part of your front line, leaving units at the other end of the line (or a badly-positioned reserve) unable to reach the combat in one move. Your reserve should be positioned so that it can reach any part of the battle. Obviously, ranged units make excellent units to keep in reserve. Archers have a total potential range of 15 (move 9 + range 6), all other missile total range 13, so they should be able to target the enemy wherever the blow falls. Do try to keep balistas within 8 of the likely attack point, though, to avoid the 50% penalty when they move).
When keeping melee units in reserve, put the slowest units (mace, knights) in the exact centre, faster units still fairly central, but further out.

3) It needs to be strong enough to make a difference where it is needed. For example, if your opponent has a mix of ballis, knights and mace, your heavy Cavalry will be extremely effective when you attack (knights or ballis), but very vulnerable to your opponent's mace and ballis, so keep them in reserve. Similarly, if you have catapults, they are now very effective against ballis, but extremely vulnerable to your opponent's melee units. So, keep them back out of harm's way.

There's lot to be said for keeping cheaper "cannon fodder" up front. That said, remember that small units are easily destroyed, espcially by ballis, potentially allowing powerful melee units to clamber over the bodies and attack your second row, or worse, run amok in your valuable reserve. It doesn't take many bodies to slow them down, though, and attaking from a blod spot reduces your attack by 10.

Squires would make useful barriers against the enemy described in this example - resistant to the ballis/mace attack and not too shabby against the feared Knights.

Anyway, I must go to bed. Lesson two next week.

Last Edited : Sunday, 7 February 2010 - 17:59

Is anyone interested in reserves?

hey hammy wanna duel?

I prefer the full on attack without reserves ...just not against you Hambone

Reserves are traditionally used to sure up a position where a breakthrough is about to occur. Usually if you have all your men crammed into an area it makes it hard to move in the troops you need and keep the wounded moving out (severely limiting the fighting and reaction potential of an army).

In this game troops glide past each other with no determent and there is no system of healing so moving the wounded out does little other than saving it for later fodder.

This system is designed more with the idea of surviving a double turn but as i stated in another post this is a very flawed in the way that:
1. To be able to hold troops in reserve you would need to have a considerable margin of military force over your opponent to be able to sustain any action without having to call your reserves in immediately (especially in a high fatality game like this.

2. Your fist wave could easily be killed by ranged while your reserves would be too far away to effectively counter this.

_________
Harassing or baiting is another thing all together which while similar can be very effective. Keep a small force (usually cavalry or some melee supplemented with ranged units) to pick off and harass your enemy or just leave them in the open to prompt your combatant to move forward to attack.
Keep your main force back a few spaces from this (expect to lose most if not all of your baiting force, basic troops are good as bait due to their low cost) out of sight range if it can be done effectively. When your opponent moves in to attack you can then counter with a considerably larger amount of damage dealt than taken.

You can also keep small contingents of scouts or cavalry to the side or run them behind your enemy to cut off escapes or to hit their ranged units. A small reserve of units might be a good counter to this but this particular tactic is risky if both persons have similar military strength.

Crimson - it sounds like it would be interesting to play a duel with you.

The main problem with your "draw them in" technique is the extremely long range of outposts. Outposts are cheap enough that it's often worth throwing one out to detect rues like this.

How about we play a "no outposts", "no scouting, awareness or eagle eye" duel?

Let's ask Req for a "fog of war" option for duels and battles, where these techs cannot be researched.
Long term, how about this: In Fog of War games, Change the viewing system so that you can only see what the unit or outpost you click on can see. Units cannot see anything behind a forest or mountain. Outposts can see over forests, but can't see the hex immediately beyond the forest. Nothing can see over mountains. Commandeers can see anything within sight of any unit they can see (possibly with a range limit initially, increasing as the commandeer gains levels. When you switch view, what you could see from the old viewpoint fades out as the new fades in. Fog of war is made visible by masking "fogging".

Real interesting ideas hammy, I like the selective sight especially.... but there is one flaw with your postulations! this is the strategy not the suggestion forum! aha!

I think this has been discussed before but don't quote me on it. Req I beleive didn't like the troubles in programing it. Make a post on it though I'd be willing to get behind it.