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Updated on October 24th 2003 by LordClide.
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Combat Tactics
Battleground
A battle is composed of the succession of several assault in the same place,
it being in front of a city wall or on a road. The battleground is created when
you first use the attack command against a single player. Providing your units
still have Action Points, you can launch another assault on the same
battleground after a 30 seconds delay. A battleground dissolves 15 minutes
after the last assault, units of both sides regaining their lines. Each assault
consists of 5 rounds that last 10 seconds, where each unit in turn react to
orders, moves, fires missiles, and/or fights units on the same zone.
The battleground is divided into 5 zones: your Rear Guard (RG), your Defence
Zone (DZ), the Battle Field (BF), the Enemy Defences (ED), and the Enemy Field
(EF). At the beginning of the battle, your missile units are stationed on your
RG, and hand to hand units on your DZ. If you have walls of any kind, they are
positioned on your DZ. Note that this description is perfectly symmetric, so
that your DZ is the enemy's ED.
Unit Combat Abilities
- Hand-to-hand attack skill(*): Hand to hand
fight occurs between units in the same battlezone. This describes the ability of
the unit to inflict damage to opponents.
- Hand-to-hand defense skill(*): This describes
the ability of the unit to avoid hand-to-hand damage.
- Range attack skill(*): According to the unit's
profile and experience, the presence of walls or use of some spells, a unit can
shoot at a range of up to 3 battle zones. This describes how well the unit use
missile weapons. Logically, it's used only by units having a missile
attack.
- Range attack defense(*): This describes how well
the unit avoids range damage.
- Initiative describes the highest speed at which
a unit can carry out orders, on a scale of 1 to 10, the higher the better.
- Morale(*) describes the strength of mind of a
unit, on a scale of 20. A unit with a high moral will fight to the death while
low morale units may flee a hard fight.
- Discipline(*) tells how well the unit will
conform to battle orders, even if against the natural behavior of the
unit.
- Battle Move(*) corresponds to the maximum
number of battle zone a unit can cross at the beginning of a round. Value is 1
for foot, 2 for cavalery and 3 for some nomads units.
- Default battle orders (see below)
(*) marked characteristics values are not available to players (/me
sometimes wonders why)
Battle Orders
Your character is no field commander, but rather a strategical general.
Thus, you can carefully forge battle plans and assign orders to each unit or
group of units for the duration of the battle, but once the battle is engaged,
dices are cast and you cannot influence the issue anymore.
The battle orders assign the behaviors of the units during combat, providing
they don't break orders (remember I mentionned discipline). Units are not very
bright, so they can remember at most 4 battle plans, each one corresponding to
a specific combat order. When it gets trained, a unit knows 4 standard battle
plans. The first one is the most basic, the things the unit does best. The
second one is usually more aggressive, and the third more defensive. The last
order is the default reaction order, the one that is used when another player
attacks you, usually a defensive order. However you can assign new battle plans
using the setorders command. Note that you can also delay the moment at
which an order should take place, by adding the wished initiative value to the
order code. For instance Ma2 will be a missile ambush taking effect at
initiative 2. Default (and maximum effective value) is the initiative of the
unit.
| Battle Order |
Intended behavior |
| E: Engage |
Basic tactic to confront the enemy. The unit slowly advance
towards the enemy until contact is made then the fight begins. |
| C: Charge |
A charging unit rushes itself against the nearest enemy, using
all movement capacity to deal additional damage, neglecting defense a bit. |
| D: Defend |
A defending unit will wait until the enemy advance, but will
engage missile units firing at it if no hand-to-hand units are detected. |
| H: Hold |
The unit will hold ground whatever happen until the enemy
reaches its zone |
| A: Ambush |
Ambushing units will try to lure the enemy into a trap and
then make a surprise attack, dealing a lot more damage. However, if the enemy
uncovers the ambush, he will retaliate savagedly. Unit take first plan battle
order after ambush is completed or has failed. |
| S: Storm |
The unit will try to reach the enemy field at every cost,
without fighting back on the way. Storming units may crush enemy missile units
but will suffer a great attrition rate doing so, especially if ambushed on the
way. |
| W: Withdraw |
The unit will defend its zone until sustaining damage, then
flee. |
| Mb: Missile Basic |
Missile unit will follow the advance of the front line and fire
preferencially where no frendly fire may occur. |
| Md: Missile Defense |
Missile unit won't fire if friendly fire may occur, unless the
enemy has infiltrated to front line. They will try to move back to rear guard
if possible. |
| Mo: Missile Offensive |
Missile unit will try to reach point blank range to deal
maximum damage. Friendly fire risk is heightened |
| Ma: Missile Ambush |
Like ambush but for missile units. |
Just one last thing: experience enhance the units' characteristics. Not to
the point of enabling them to beat units of the next level, but significantly
nonetheless.
Calcoran's Tips, from the War Master's memoirs
Lesson one: the Ambush Order
How it works:
Easy . Your troops hide, either behind your walls, in the nearby woods,
behind rocks, whatever. When the enemy come by, they drop on him and double the
damages they inflict (roughly). There is one catch. If the enemy detects your
troops, they can act accordingly and be prepared when your troops actually jump
on them. In this case, the enemy doubles its damages. Units good at laying in
ambush are high initiative, disciplined units. Units good at detecting ambushes
are high initiative units. Mostly, Nomads and Elves (Dwarves are very
disciplined ... well, most of them, not the Beserkers of course ... but they
are usually not extremely fast). Usually, the higher the unit's level, the
better. Also, if your units have already attacked another army during the
battle, there is little point in tying to ambush it, since it'll be a lot more
cautious.
When to use the Ambush order
- When defending. It is a valid option, but if
your ambush fails, you could end up in trouble as it might enable the enemy to
gain a foothold into your defenses. It might be a good idea to lay your missile
units in ambush though ... might give the enemy a nasty surprise.
- When attacking. Some players have a very
offensive way of defending : when they detect an attack, they charge. It is a
good way of getting rid of pesky pre-attack spellcasters or missile throwers
that might be used to weaken the defenses. One way to use this to your
advantage is to attack with just a few missile units, and lay the rest in
ambush. The enemy will come to you, and get ambushed. If the ambush succeeds,
this is very good for you as the enemy isn't behind its protective walls
anymore ... on top of the additionnal damages from the ambush. Oh, and if it is
indeed charging, there is little chance it'll detect the ambush anyway.
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