Now we're getting into the deeply theoretical side of the game. If you've got this far and followed diligently throughout - well done! You'll also have noticed that as we've gone through, the lectures have been shifting in skill level - from rock-paper-scissors (which EVERYONE should know), through politics (useful for the better players and now this section, which is highly expert material and apply more to general situations than Waronline in particular. So here goes....

First, we assume you've yet to pick up any knowledge. What can we do at this point?

The general human approach is to bull through trial-and-error style. Which is useful, but - if you're looking for the best possible ascent to greatness, there are better methods. The single and crucial pro to trial-and-error is it's inherent ease - EVERYONE can (and usually does) do it.
However, there are a couple of cons - first, it's highly unlikely you'll ever reach the best possible set-up/troop pick/tactics set. Second, it's rather limited by your state as a human being. If you're in a state, practically fighting life itself, you'll find you make very little progress. If you seem to have boundless amounts of energy and a healthy outlook on life, the odds are you'll make more progress. And we must also rule in other factors such as prior similar skills/experiences, latent talent, etc.

In a world where we seek one ideal solution for each problem or a set of solutions, this method is far from ideal.

So...we must get from total ignorance to omnipotence. Or something like it

The first step is to lay out your actual objectives. What is it that you actually want to have done by the end of the process? "I want to kill" is insufficient for this - rather, you need some discrete, tangible goal you can define and reach for - e.g. "I wish to achieve the highest number of kills in 10 turns".
Then, you need to assess any factors that play even a small part in this. In our example, you need to rule in all the troops, all their stats, the exact time scale involved, and the position of all the potential targets.

Once you have your means and end, you can start filling in what goes between. How? Piece it together as you would a jigsaw. Create plans. When you find one section that isn't right, modify it.

As a case study, I shall explain our example:

(cont :- )

(This section is case study only - skip it if it confuses you too much! )
Goal: Max kills in 10 turns.

Ok. We can split this up.
First, we'll take troop production - good a place as any to start.
We concentrate our efforts upon finding out how to train the most 'damage' (i.e. the combined damage ability of all available troops). We take note of this.
On the other end of the scale, we also take the data/knowledge of how fast we can destroy all the available targets.

(This bit sort-of explains how to use this data to find the best possible combination - skip it if it makes no sense to you! I believe this is what is know in maths as 'Solving simultaneous equations by the graphical method' or something like that )
--------------
If you have an x-axis and a y-axis on a graph, and drew two lines (equations) on it, you could then, for example, find out the point on the graph when the number on the horizontal (x) axis multiplied by the vertical (y) axis gave the largest possible number. Obviously you'd have to set zones for this to happen - e.g. always on the side of each line nearest to the origin (0, 0 - the point on the graph where the two axes meet (or axises, if you prefer or are wondering where where an axe comes into it ))
(Get a bit of paper and try it if you're confused.)
If this makes little sense to you, don't worry about it. Just ignore it and move on.
If it does, then consider you could similarly use your two sets of data (max speed of troop production and best time to destroy targets) on your two axes and determine from that what the best combination of producing troops and launching attacks is.
In reality, you wouldn't draw up graphs and tables - you'd use your judgement. But it does help to know what exactly it is you're looking FOR, and to know when you have a pretty close to perfect combination.
------------------

Back to the subject. You determine the best possible kill speed, the best troop production rates and successfully combine both to best effect.
There are still wrinkles in the plan though. You also have to work out the best possible route between the targets.

Again, you know what you're aiming for. You're trying to get your troops to as many targets as possible in a set time. So, for example, you have 3 stacks behind you and 1 in front. The 3 are clumped together, the 1 is far away. So if you can only reach some of the targets, you of course go after the three close together stacks, and get 3 out of 4 kills. It's better than going for the lone stack (1 out of 4), so if you run out of time the '3 out of 4' option is the best possible plan. One more bit solved
It tends to be a bit more complex than this, but it can usually be worked through logically, and once you know that area is as efficient and perfect as possible, any flaws in your plans must be in the other areas you haven't covered as much. Yet

For example, you might find you get kills faster if you split your army up. Well, that not a problem with route-finding. It's already as good as it gets
Maybe you find you have to consider change from using melee troops to using ranged troops. So you'd probably have to re-work route-finding (your attack range is different, so the exact path you'll take to get the most shots in is also different). And perhaps it means you have to re-work your troop production too. What is important is that you don't abandon everything you've worked out so far, you just keep it for later use and modify your current plans. And in theory, you'll eventually end up with the perfect plan to carry out your task!

(cont. )

I suppose, this is not unlike meditation. Meditation is simply focussing on one thing at a time - and that's what you should do here - one thing at a time. Again, for example, assuming me to be a total newbie, I look to see how I can achieve the most I possibly can. Well, first, don't quit or turn inactive - this gives me the single greatest step-up of rank. A nice start
Then, using this, I work on everything else. For example, I enter a game and need to conquer my neighbour. He has 200 scouts, so what should I use? Well, once again - take in the goal, and the factors involved. Which troops are most effective, and how long would they take to train? How long have I got before conflict to prepare? (This is where politics becomes a useful tool! For providing extra time or spotting a dangerous situation coming up...! )
Once I've logically laid out all the options (or at least, the rough basis of all the options - I mean, EVERY option would involve exact figures of each possible training set-up e.g. 28 ballsita in 2 turns, or 14 ballista and 14 pikemen, or whatever. Rough would be effect of pikes vs same for archers vs same for whatever othe troop types or hybrid )

There's a very real and obvious case where you can utilise this - the battle game. The gist of winning a battle game is to kill all of your opponent's troops while sustaining the fewest losses. So far, so good.
You can't/shouldn't know what your opponent can deploy, so whatever you pick must be able to face ANYTHING.
Simplification, next.
Anything = ranged only, melee only, mixed. (types)
Kills = your damage to his health.

So you can next deduce that you need as many 'free shots' (see ranged troops and r-p-s lectures).
A 'free shot can only work so far. In melee, there are only 6 squares you can attack a unit from - so having 50 small stacks in your army is next to useless.
It'd also help to be able to transfer all the possible damage you can do to your opponent, every single possible turn. Again, 50 small stacks does not accomplish this - only a few get to fight, the rest lose the opportunity to inflict damage on the enemy.

Once you're actually fighting, you can take this further. For example, you would wish to deprive your opponent of chances to inflict damage/get free shots on you - so you wouldn't charge in, lest you take more damage and give your opponent more opportunity than is necessary.
Demigods are a classic case of this. Although they do huge amounts of damage, enemy units typically do not go around on their own. So when your demigod goes in, it ends up giving away too many 'free shots'. Worse yet, because it does so much damage, there is the chance of wastage in units it utterly destroys (the rest of the potential attack goes un-used).

Again, another actual example of tactics evolution. You need to see enemy troops, but don't want to show your whole army and get attacked first?

How to do it?

Get the fastest possible unit (Scout). Send it on it's own.
Refining it further. If you only scout half-distance, you can get it back home in the same turn and probably out of danger as well...!

'Suicide troops' are another good case, but of the earlier items about damage potential.
Say you can get 1 spearmen and 5 heavy cavalry to attack a demigod.

The demigod is going to get 1 retal attack, for sure.
If it hits cavalry, it'll probably do it's full load of damage, and cripple your unit/fighting ability.
If it hits spearmen, it'll barely do anything and do very little to your fighting ability.
Even though all the spearmen will die, in reality ten of them are probably worth less than 1/2 cavalry, so you'd still rather lose them than the cavalry.
Once you've 'paid' your spearmen, your cavalry can move in without further danger. The demigod unit has been countered in the best possible way - the process cannot be refined further.

(cont.)

We're now at a point in the battle game arena where I can safely field a certain 22-stack pick in a 5000 point game and be fairly sure that so long as I get the first real attack, I'll win it. And I'm not the only one - most of the best battle game players now have similar picks. The tactics have evolved, largely by trial and error - but with future changes, by using the cold, logical methods above you can change such a troop pick to the future 'best possible pick' in a much shorter time, and reap the success before everyone else catches up. After all, you now know precisely what you're looking for, and can aim straight for it. You don't, like so many others, have to rely on just tripping over the best tactic or be taught it any more...!

There's a similar story in campaign games. At my higer end of the champions table, we play games such that I can now predict with reasonable accuracy what will have happened in the game maybe a few dozen turns later (obviously the very start of the game is the exception here...! ).
When I do decide on what I must do in a game, I have refined strategies good enough to win battles and put me in good positions. And they can be executed because I saw the need for them soon enough
And once again, I'm almost sure that most of the other top players are also capable of the same (or similar) depth of thought. And they, too, have just as many pre-prepared strategies that they use and modify as necessary...!

Of course, like all other living things, I make mistakes, so everything I do still isn't perfect, despite what you've seen here
Sometimes circumstances conspire against me - a war could start on the day I just happened to be unable to get online, or maybe I get a starting spot poor in resources and surrounded by enemies.
Even then, what I've come up with still isn't perfect. I'm convince that if I could play just that little more efficiently, I should (in theory) be able to leave the rest of the top ten behind. They're not perfect, either

If you've made it to the end of what must be the longest concatenated post ever, congratulations
It's incredibly difficult to describe the nature of thought itself, but if just one guy learns even one tiny thing from all of this, this thread/lecture is a success.

Very Good CTD.. And Raptor too...

A few side notes on your subject here if I may.

One of my best strategies I call management of retalitory strikes.

----A stack of 10 spears will not take the entire retal of a unit except in battle games. In the campaign games, it may take 2 or even 3 attacks to dissolve a units ability to retaliate depending on the amount of retaliation damage the unit can take.

---- Concentrate your attacks on the same unit as much as possible. First there are fewer retal attacks and they can not attack with 2 units id you kill one.

---- Use your ranged units first, except vs other ranged units if your within it's range. By decreasing the size of the defending unit you decrease it's ability to do retal damage.

---- Use you meelee units against ranged units first so they cant retal against YOUR ranged units.

---- Layered attacks if possible. If you have the ability to sign on often, you can layer your attacks as such as the defending unit will only get 1 retalitory attack ever. Attack it every 4 hours or less (12 hour game) and it will never develop enough retal BP to perform a retal attack.

---- By making good decisions on what units and in what order to attack you can minimize your enemies ability to do retal damage and thus make all kill ratios in your favor.

Well, from what I've heard and seen, a retal attack can be launched so long as the other guy has ANY BP at all...but generally, your list of factors is sound

(Repeating of earlier stuff: Define goal, list factors/means and examine all the possibilities carefully and logically )

Should have known this is WAY TOO DEEP for most people...does anyone understand any of this lot AT ALL?

I am sorry, I was dazed.... you had me at... total ignorance

I think it's good stuff for the newer players so that is always a good thing.

Never second guess yourself.

i actualy understand it wow it can be done

Must be good, it's ages since I put it up and I'd have to re-read it to work out what I meant to say again

The acid test is though, if you actually are better at forming new strategies as a result

wow thast a lot of writing, id read it but u see um ... i dont want to

Basically, it's an attempt at trying to put into words a way of thinking to develop strategies. But capturing thought is never that easy, and no-one seems to to even remotely think like me anyway

CTD says> and no-one seems to to even remotely think like me anyway

This, of course, is a good thing.

i dono what this is cuz i havnt really read it, but i think the best way to come up with startegies is to enter a game and see how ur opponsnts play then make ur own and try em if u get creamed well make some new ones and if u do well perfect the ones u have

and u can never perfect anythign so it makes u keep going

Not strictly true GTK
It can be perfected, or very close to it - it just SEEMS impossible from way back here
Hopefully, using the way of thinking I tried (rather ham-handedly) to put out above, you'll eventually get to a point where you'll have the most efficient set-up you can manage, short of going random

Or so goes the plan

(Grumpy - no kidding )

CTDXXX - alot of the things you write about here i use in battle games ... i just wasnt able to describe them as clearly as you have. good lesson bro, i hope the newer players here understand and can apply what you teach.

BigAmigo - excellent summary of managing retaliation attacks ... they are also vital in battle games, certainly a part of my strategy is in this domain.

Keep up the good work guys.

Bigamigo,

You said that in campaign games it is possible for units to have more than one retal attack, how do you calculate that?

ahh, well it is hard to calculate. But if the retal attack destroys the target unit then there is a chance that some retal can be left over. Basically you have to figure the amount of attack it took to destroy the unit and if they retain 40% of their retal or better then there could be another retal vs another unit. It is also possible that even if the first unit does NOT die that they can, but it is unusual.

Retal BP works just like attack bp. If I attack you and have 100% BP and I kill you with 30% of it then I can attack another unit with the remaining 70%.

SO if you atack me and my retal only needs 30% to kill you then I still have another 70% of my retal left.

Now the weird stuff is what happens when you get above 100% in BP.?? And I am not really sure, but I HAVE had a unit attack an enemy that had been setting there for a while (it was a marksman in a tower attacked by a large scout unit), the attacking unit did NOT get destroyed, and then a second unit attacked (Ballistas in towers) and it got a retal from the Marks. All was done in the same turn.

Hope that helps.

If I'm allowed to paraphrase, summarize, change and add to the top posts:


1 Set a long term goal for your self other than winning the game, i.e. HOW you maneuver yourself into the position of being able to win. For example, get a resource advantage and thus a troop advantage; or as another example you could go for crushing all your enemies efficiently one by one.

2 Set a short term goal that helps get you the first step towards your long-term goal. Like: Crush Thy Neighbour, or take all his resources first.

3a Consider your options for achieving your short-term goal, like sending out fast scouts to oversee his territory, and steal his resource-piles, or a sneak attack with (protected) comms.

3b Consider possible strategies/tactics to aid in 3a, like troop choice for beating your opponent, or getting market wares to be able to sell the resources you stole and upgrade to better troops faster.

4 Consider your opponents options for countering your plans, and his possible plans to win himself.

5 THEN you pick an option to pursue.

6 Change your strategy when the situation changes.

Last Edited : Friday, 5 September 2003 - 08:01