Game report: Nomads without heroes, mixed Life Warlord

[Catwalk]

. 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.

What does the target priority formula look like? Does it completely ignore the offensive capabilities of the shooter and only look at the target? I'm thinking it's doable to make a very crude estimation of damage done, based solely on a formula rather than a simulation.

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.

Good call on webbed units always dying, but yeah I was expecting to survive with 1 or 2.

[Catwalk]

I need to regroup a bit, the loss against Raven has me shaken. I was expecting an easy win, instead I got my ass handed to me. While I was unlucky to lose a unit to Crack's Call on the first shot once again (he's one lucky bastard this game), the big problem was the spiders. They're a very potent counter to my horsebowmen, and I'll need to come up with something. Given that I'm only playing nomads, my options are limited.
1) Pikemen. Massively underwhelming. I'm not sure why they were nerfed so badly, I'd never bother with them at these stats. Actually, I just realized that nomad pikemen are 6 figures by mistake, they should be 8 figures like high men are. Sending Seravy a PM about it.
2) Rangers. Don't help me any, they'll be disabled just the same as horsebowmen and will probably be priority targets in a mixed stack. Actually, Poison Immunity and improved resistance does help a bit. But they're too expensive at present.
3) Swordsmen. They only cost 10 hammers less than horsebowmen and are the same upkeep, and they're strictly inferior in melee.
4) Sprites. Not going there.
5) Nagas. Interesting, but they are too weak against spiders.

I think Horsebowmen are my best bet going forward. I should be able to afford spamming them along with protective spells, so what should I cast on them?
a. Heroism. Costs 13/64. Gives +1 attack, +2 defense, +1 health and +1 resistance over Veteran.
b. Holy Armor. Costs 6/30. Gives +2 defense.
c. Holy Weapon. Costs 9/43. Gives +1 to hit.
d. Resist Elements. Costs 5/25. Gives excellent protection against sprites and poison.
e. Star Fires. Costs 11. Strength 23 attack against fantastic creatures.
f. Web. Costs 10. Delays an enemy unit.
g. Mass Healing. Costs 30. 5 healed on all units.
h. Healing. Costs 13. 5 healed on target unit.
i. Earth to Mud. Costs 20. Slows movement for all units, including my own.

I think Heroism is top priority. It gives the biggest boost by far, even if it's just two levels (Veteran => Ultra Elite).
Question then becomes if I should buff heroic units further or put Heroism on all units first. Horsebowmen with full buffs will have the following stats: 7 melee/ranged, 7 defense, +2 to hit, 4 hearts, 9 resistance. Giant Spiders have 6 melee, 5 defense, 5 hearts, +1 to hit, 4 poison. The poison will do an average of 0.4 points of damage per spider figure, so I'm going to count that as another sword. My horsebowmen will be pretty much evenly matched with them. So assuming a nightmare scenario of 9 spiders vs 9 enchanted horsebowmen, it'll at least be somewhat even. My costs for fielding that army will be way higher than his costs for fielding 9 spiders, though. I think I need to rely on only seeing modest spider counts, and trying to avoid initiating combat against more than 2 spiders. If I get the initiative I should be okay. Web will also be a life saver, letting me take out an additional spider unit easily. Ironically, Giant Spiders would actually make a decent addition to my army right now

Summary: I need size 9 enchanted stacks from now on when I want to attack. He still isn't attacking me with very many units at a time, so I'm hoping to get by with 1-2 horsebowmen per city.

[GermanJoey]

Earth to Mud is very potent against Spiders, unless they're land-linked. (It's very potent against Horsebows too, FWIW, but the AI obviously doesn't know how to use it well like a human could)

Earth to Mud + Rangers should do great against Spiders, as their base stats are strong enough to break outta the web in one turn (probably) and that's all you need to kite the mud-drenched spiders. You'll probably need to cast it at least twice per battle.

Pikemen aren't bad against them either, as they're cheap, have high resistance, and are armor-piercing. Btw, I'm pretty sure that the High Men pikes are supposed to have +2 figures, similar to how High Men magicians have +2 figures as well.

[Catwalk]

Ah, I forgot about Pathfinding and Earth to Mud. That would indeed make Rangers a potent option, thanks for the tip. But won't my Rangers break Web in 2 turns? I thought it was 12/swords, no matter how many figures.

Pikemen are a unique unit, in the original both High Men and Nomads had 8 figures. They're useless at 6 figures, I doubt this was intentional. They're not that cheap either, 75 hammers vs 40 for horsebowmen.

[Nelphine]

In the original nomad pikemen had four figures while high men had 8. As far as we can tell high men were just meant to have super overpowered units.. If you could survive that long.

[Catwalk]

I'm quite sure nomads had 8 figures in the original pikemen as well. That's what I recall playing with, and that's what the MoM wiki says too.

[Nelphine]

Hum. I'd have to go looking. I know they had four figures at some point and I hated it.

[Catwalk]

Victory! GermanJoey's tip about Earth to Mud was effective, even with Horsebowmen. Even though the spiders come within close range of me on the first turn I still get enough time to take them out. Web is also invaluable, giving me even more time. I'm extra pleased that I took a Nature book in this game, it's a life saver right now.


Only a single unit was lost, although two others were reduced to 1 figure. I can now take a breather, settle this island and clear out some big lairs.

[Catwalk]

Aureus offered to join my army for a third time (this time as a prisoner), and I'm extremely tempted to declare the game a loss and proceed with heroes enabled. I'm going to resist temptation one more time, as I really want to prove how overpowered horsebowmen are. I did start researching Incarnation a while back, I'll be using that as an emergency option if I decide I can no longer win the game.

[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.

What does the target priority formula look like? Does it completely ignore the offensive capabilities of the shooter and only look at the target? I'm thinking it's doable to make a very crude estimation of damage done, based solely on a formula rather than a simulation.

It's -1 priority for each armor the target has and a 3+(ranged/4) bonus for ranged enemies.
Hitting the same target as last turn is +2 but that cannot apply if the "same target" is already killed.
Regenerating targets are -3, flying targets are +2, breath/thrown targets are +2, First strikers are +2, Heroes are +4, combat summons are -3.
Being damaged does not doesn't seem to apply to the priority except at melee attacks, but it's the deciding factor if there is a tie, and can even override the priority if the difference in priority is 2 or less.

Meanwhile I realized it's already using "effective defense" instead of raw defense, so abilities and spells are included. If the only surviving horsebowmen had Resist Elements for +4 armor and Jaer did not, that could also explain changing targets.

Chances are the "heroes are +4" is to blame here. I think a damage output check to reduce priority if the expected damage is zero or close to it should be done, if possible - selecting the best target works as intended, but the best target might not take damage if the ranged unit is too weak.

Actually, I just realized that nomad pikemen are 6 figures by mistake, they should be 8 figures like high men are.

They were reduced because "more figures" is a High Men advantage indeed. Nomad pikemen have much higher resistance instead. (which is actually highly relevant against spiders)
(yes, the original game had 8 figures for nomad pikemen as well)

A unit of pikemen buffed with holy armor, endurance, heroism, bless and whatever else and backed by healing is near unstoppable in the early game - the only reason I can't recommend this tactic is the presence of Crack's Call which can kill it anyway (and web to stop it from moving).

d. Resist Elements. Costs 5/25. Gives excellent protection against sprites and poison.

Not against poison. Poison is a neutral attack, it doesn't belong to the Nature realm (and is the only nonmagical resistance effect in the game btw)
(not even resist magic works on it, as it's not magical)