Game report: Nomads without heroes, mixed Life Warlord

[Catwalk]

Leaving the walls can be warranted, but ranged units leaving walls almost never is. And sprites leaving walls is even worse. When do you want ranged magical units (like sprites) to leave the walls if the enemy has ranged units? A simple rule saying that ranged units never leave walls might be the best option, unless you can make some exceptionally precise rules.

As for melee units, keep in mind that you need to be fast enough to catch the attacker if you want to leave the walls. Berserkers leaving walls against horsebowmen is terribad strategy.

[Catwalk]

good work on Raven!  And continued success!  I noticed AI moving shooting troops out of city walls right away, aiming at wrong target, as when you beat the first wizard in your recent Just Cause game, maybe Seravy knows about this.  6 shots for horsebows wouldn't have mattered this time I take it.  Onward!

Thanks! This game is a lot of fun, but it feels like easy mode. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Seravy's excellent work, but I'm hoping to show that Impossible can still quite easily be broken if you abuse the strongest options. Keep in mind that I'm ignoring all hero offers, I've already had 6 come by that would have been excellent additions to my army. The latest one was Aureus, sporting both agility and guiding beacon. And he's a caster. That's just about the best combo for my horsebowmen possible, and I have Endurance + Holy Armour + Bless + Specialist + Heroism to make him invincible. Had I hired him I would have loaded a boat with 8 horsebowmen and taken out the other Arcanus wizards right away (just found them).

[Catwalk]

April 1405

Not much time has passed in this game, but a lot has happened. Raven has returned but is crippled, and I have control of a large continent. Many small lairs have been defeated, boosting my coffers massively. I've switched away from my initial rush build and have been spamming settlers, hoping to make a huge land grab before the other wizards wake up. I'm also gearing up to take on two large nodes, if I get those soon I'll be off to a start so good that I'm willing to declare victory.

Overland map

Cities

Magic and graphs

Plan:

1. Capture the nature node to the SW. It has 2x Great Wyrm and 1x Cockatrice. Already I have 6 Sprites summoned in the area, I think that's enough to take out the Cockatrice. More Sprites are en route, I think I have more than a 50% chance of taking out a Great Wyrm with a full stack of 9 Sprites. This will be huge!
   
2. Keep exploring. I've been neglecting this a little, content to play builder for now. Tlaloc looks like he might be more than a speed bump, I need to chart his possessions pretty soon.
   
3. Take out Raven below me. This isn't where his new fortress is at, so I should have just wiped him out there when I had the chance. I can still take him easily, but I'll need a large stack of horsebowmen and a trireme to do it. Earlier I could have done it with a unit of sprites I had lurking down there, stupid.
   
4. Keep expanding. I'm slowing down a little on this as well, I need to keep up the steam. New cities are massively profitable with Inquisitor, I need to plant the entire continent as fast as possible. I've been buying settlers in my smallest cities, doing Housing while they're at size 1.
   
5. Branch out to the continent above me. It seems to be there for the taking, and with cheap horsebowmen as garrison there's nothing to stop me from doing it.
   

That is a lot of priorities, and I need to find out how to achieve as many of them as possible simultaneously.

[Seravy]

Leaving the walls can be warranted, but ranged units leaving walls almost never is. And sprites leaving walls is even worse. When do you want ranged magical units (like sprites) to leave the walls if the enemy has ranged units? A simple rule saying that ranged units never leave walls might be the best option, unless you can make some exceptionally precise rules.

As for melee units, keep in mind that you need to be fast enough to catch the attacker if you want to leave the walls. Berserkers leaving walls against horsebowmen is terribad strategy.

Let's see...I can think of one case. If the enemy ranged power comes from bows, without "Long Range", in which case every 4 step taken backwards is -1 To Hit to the enemy army...or they have to come closer and in range of my melee units. But this only applies if my unit is magical ranged.

However if the enemy has strong melee, and my ranged units are durable and enemy ranged units are not then definitely. "Superior ranged power" only checks attack strength (and remaining ammo, to hit), so if the enemy has twice as much firepower but only a quarter of hit points in their ranged army (magicians vs nightmares?) then probably yes.
But again, this only if my ranged can be attacked by melee - if they fly and the enemy doesn't, then not. And only flying units can go through walls in the first place so...they are.


So I guess the best rule is : ranged units do the exact opposite of the default and we don't need any additional exceptions? (stay if enemy ranged higher, move if not.)
And we should probably define "ranged" based on the movement direction rules - units that would charge towards the enemy before shooting should not be counted as ranged (I think the rule for this is having 2x higher melee than ranged attack strength)

I feel the other cases are too rare and hard to evaluate to care.

btw two ranged units are in the "always leave" list - Djinn for teleporting - they are likely going to turn invisible if the enemy has ranged threats, and moving freely is a huge advantage on a teleporting unit (especially if it cannot shoot and has to engage in melee), and Colossus to take advantage of melee first strike after the ammo runs out and because it's very likely the enemy will bring powerful melee units to fight those. (also because they can't go through the back walls anyway unless they were given flight.)

but I'm hoping to show that Impossible can still quite easily be broken if you abuse the strongest options.

Please do, that's the best way to find out if something needs changes. (what do you think about Lizardmen btw? I'm still the most worried about them.)

Berserkers leaving walls against horsebowmen is terribad strategy.

I'm not sure what would be a good rule for that, especially as this tactic can work out if the number of berserkers is high enough - I've lost horsebowmen before because the field was so crowded with enemies that there was no safe tile in a range of 5.
btw Berserkers have pathfinding - if there are enough hills or trees in the terrain, they can keep up with horsebowmen who need to spend 2 moves per step.

[coldsteel]

PS : not sure what you mean by "shooting at the wrong target", the AI should attack the lowest armor, highest ranged attack, most damaged unit. Did it fail to do that, or is there something else it should consider that it currently does not?

Was thinking of the first capital battle in catwalk recent just cause nomad game against 9 sprites:

I lose no less than 4 horsebowmen right away, and I'm unable to destroy a whole unit of sprites with either horsebowmen or Jaer each shot. My heart sinks, and I prepare myself for discarding this game. If I run out of shots I'll have to retreat with Jaer and Brax, I can't count on suffering through 25 lightning bolts. However, luck shines on me. After the first round the sprites no longer target my horsebowmen, they target Jaer instead. They can't put a dent in his armour, and the remaining 2 horsebowmen are effective against the sprites. What's worse, the sprites go outside the walls! I'm able to pluck them down easily, losing no more units. I don't recall which spells Oberic casts, but they're of little consequence. I don't even have to cast a single Healing spell myself, the sprites go down with 2 horsebowmen surviving.

[Catwalk]

The puppy strikes back! Raven has boldly sent a single Javelineer (very unimpressive racial unit IMO) at the one outpost where I only have a unit of swordsmen for defense, everywhere else I have a unit of horsebowmen. I was able to cast Resist Elements on it before the attack, which is a good thing since the javelineer has Focus Magic for whatever reason.

I'm considering Aether Sparks or Heroism. I think I'll go with Heroism, as I already have a massive 10 defense (3 + Large Shield + Resist Elements) against his ranged attack. He will most likely use Crack's Call against me, I think that's the only spell that will let him win. Or did I trade him Web? If so, that could be painful. Going with Heroism.

He casts Call Centaurs. They do zero damage to me, neither do the javelineers. I've got this.

He then casts Call Centaurs again. And again. In 4 rounds he's managed to do 1 point of damage to me, while I've decimated two units of centaurs. I'm out of ammo, but he's out of mana and I still have enough for Healing. Also put Holy Weapon on my swordsmen, they're beasts.

He eventually runs out of ammo as well and closes in. I survive all enemies with 2 figures standing. Victory!

[Catwalk]

Meanwhile, Raven is able to take my node down by his cities which was guarded by a single sprite. No worries, I have a trireme with horsebowmen coming to wipe out his presence there. And then this happens:

Wow, that's terrible. Half-decent in a normal game (Yramrag is nice), absolutely terrible in this one. I sold my Plate Mail for another 225 mana crystals, totalling 900 gold. That'll come in handy, and more importantly I'll be getting a ton of power from it. Still, I'm underwhelmed.

[Catwalk]

For the first time in this game I suffer a bitter defeat. I've sent 7 regular and veteran horsebowmen to take out Raven's city which is defended by 2 sprites, 2 giant spiders, 3 war bears and a few lizard units. The sprites + Fairy Dust take out a unit, and 2 horsebowmen are webbed. Suddenly my battle odds look a lot less impressive, as I now only have 4 effective units. I take out the sprites and damage a giant spider, and make a run for it. All 5 horsebowmen are lost in the retreat I still have my stack of 8 sprites, they'll be able to get the job done. I'm also rebuilding my horsebowmen rapidly, can't let this happen again.

[Seravy]

. After the first round the sprites no longer target my horsebowmen, they target Jaer instead.

I suspect Jaer got damaged by a fortress lightning? I don't see any other reason why they would swap targets...unless the stats of the killed horsebowmen were superior to those remaining and Jaer's priority was in between.
Hitting the highest ranged attack power and the lowest defense are conflicting goals in this case, but I'm pretty sure the weights are about 3 ranged attack = 1 armor so it's usually picking the right target.

(honestly it would be nice if the AI did the same thing as with spells, simulate 10 attacks to each possible target and pick the one with most damage, or whatever dies/is more hurt already, but unfortunately the AI never did that so this would be a very drastic change - I'm not even sure if executing an attack for "simulation" purposes is safe or not. Doing it that way ensures everything is factored in, even minor details like resist elements or ranged penalties)

All 5 horsebowmen are lost in the retreat

Webbed units have a 100% chance to get lost when fleeing, but losing the other 3 is really bad luck - at 5 movement against the 5 of the spiders, they should have had a 50% chance to survive.

[coldsteel]

(honestly it would be nice if the AI did the same thing as with spells, simulate 10 attacks to each possible target and pick the one with most damage, or whatever dies/is more hurt already, but unfortunately the AI never did that so this would be a very drastic change - I'm not even sure if executing an attack for "simulation" purposes is safe or not. Doing it that way ensures everything is factored in, even minor details like resist elements or ranged penalties)

Sounds like that might be really something.  Like playing against Deep Blue.