FAQ/Troops

Revision as of 11:58, 12 May 2010

Troops. Robberies and wars. Attack and defense.

How to attack and rob neighbours?

You already have an army and you are ready to fight? Then look at the map, which neighbour towns we can rob, pay your attention on the city size (the bigger is the icon of the city on the map, the more developed the city is, the more resources it can hold), also see whether this town is not protected from attacks. The best is, if you are sure of your power, not to fight with your neighbours and first attack abandoned cities or cities trhat are under control of NPC noCommander. Abandoned cities look like castle image translucent icons, the roof of which is damaged.
Press on the city chosen, a window of the owner appears. In that window you will see the list of all cities of this owner, but your chosen will be marked by a title "chosen", near to the cities there is a link "Attack", press on it...
Attack screen appears, where you chose what armies or single units will participate in campaign from your town. On the right you can chose single units that did not join any army and also armies that were formed before (they also are in the list on the right). After choosing, on the left top part of the attack screen you will see which units exactly will be in campaign and its count. A bit lower them there are additional setting for armies and aggression. Attention, these settings are applied only for fast and convenient forming of an army of not settled units, they do not influence armies that were formed earlier.
On the left bottom there is a field that shows time, that will be spent on the way of your army to the chosen town. Time depends on distance betwen cities, map landscape and also special hero skill - "logistics". If there is a leader in your army that owns such skill, then time of campaign will be much less. Also you can accelerate moving by hiring a guide (it costs some gold) - in the left bottom corner, near clock, in the dropping menu.
So, pressing big button "Attack", if decided to rob or kill neighbours, and "Aid", if you want to send a helping campaign to a friendly city.
Now about robbing. Suppose you already in the enemy city, killed all of the units there, found storehouse of the city. It is time to remember why we came here and start robbery process.
There is one important moment, when army is robbing the storehouse and it is the only army in this cell, in case if this only army will be attacked by the enemy, robbing process will stop and army will start fighting. After the fight is finished, army will get back to robbing automatically.
If in the same cell where army is robbing, there are more armies of yours, then in case of attack, the first army will continue robbing and not participate in the fight. Sometimes a bug is met, when a player is robbing with a big army and in the same cell there is a scout (in 4th row in formation). The enemy is attacking the scout, but since he is in the 4th row, then robbing army is getting damage and is not answering with attack, because an ally scout is in the same cell. This way all army can be lost from little amount of marauders, till they meet the 4 row of the army and kill the mentioned scout and then rest of the army will start attacking back...
Usually robbing is best with units that have bigger capacity for resources, those are carts, knights. Sometimes carts are better to get rid of, since they are requiring a lot of population that might be needed to form better armies of other units, then robbery can be achieved by using many knights or a bunch of other units.

How to return armies home? Why can't i return part of armies and part - leave in the city?

To return armies home you need to put all your armies on exit point of the city and give command "Leave the city". When returning all of the armies must be returned together, you can't leave part of them in the city.

What happens if i get attacked? Will all buildings be demolished? Or just walls and storehouse? Can enemies find the cache? Can enemy capture my town? Can I create troops during the siege (attack process)?

Without declaring a war only walls can be demolished now. During war all kind of buildings can be demolished, except for the castle. Rally point and cache are not shown to the enemy on the tactical screen, so they cant be demolished either.
To capture a town of an active player, he first must be declared war. Siege of the castle lasts 24 hours. You can build troops during the siege of your town, but preferably to this moment build rally point at such place where your enemy cant see it, so that troops wouldn't die immediately as they are built. If your town is captured, all armies of the city will automatically be killed. As an option, if you see that town cant be saved, register your armies to the other town of yours, of course if you have it and there is free population there.
If your last (or only) town gets captured, you will receive a new empty town, your rating will be saved, city control points and main hero will be saved as well.

What is the purpose of the rally point? How do i get to my city if walls are around?

Rally point (flag) main purpose is to convene all units that are built in different buildings of the city in one place. It is convenient, when you are forming an army.
Second purpose of the rally point - it is a place where your armies will return to after campaigns. It is convenient and tactically profitable to get right to the center of the city on rally point.
If there is no rally point in the city, your units will use gates to get into the city. This can be inconvenient, if the city is surrounded by walls, i.e. way to the center will be closed. Also it is dangerous, since your armies can appear on the entrance right with the enemy and be attacked right away.

What is army formation and how to work with it?

Go to settings, Army Formation.
There is a screen with units icons and 4 rows. Top row - is the first row, which starts the fight, last is accordingly last. In the "default" formation with help of amber arrows (corners) move units icons to the necessary row. For example, scouts, rangers and leaders put in the last row - the 4 one, if scouts get killed in the beginning of the fight if they were put in the first row, your army will have a risk to stay blind, since scouts can see in the range of 3 cells. It is dangerous because all army can be killed from far away by Archers for example. Pikemen, swordsmen, mercenaries go to the first row. Second row - carts, cavalry, knights. Third - archers, marksmen, and so on.
Then chose name for the new formation and press "Save". Now this formation can be used by its name for any army in tactical mode.
Important moments, if you want to fight effectively you should know how to switch to needed formations in the right time. For example, in the beginning of the fight use formation where in the first row there are swordsmen, pikemen, mercenaries. See that almost everyone is killed, switch to another formation where in the first row are cavalry. When cavalry has much loss switch to a different formation, where knights are in the first row. This way the strongest units go in fight the later they can and always cover the weaker ones, such as archers, marksmen and leaders of course.

Army parameteres

In tactical screen you can change parameters of selected army.

• 1. [x] Complete the army – that means, that selected army is complete and new / built units won't be automatically added to the given army, as well as units from complete army won't be taken for resources transportation when trading. Complete army is shown and can be easily selected in the attack screen.
• 2. Fighting formation – for each complete army you can chose formation, that will influence in what order units will be set in the army during the fights.
• 3. Aggression – this is a parameter on which depends how this army will move from its place in order to follow the enemies. Low aggression - the army will be standing on its place, not following the enemy, but attacking within the radius distance, if an aggression appears from the enemy's army. Range agression - army is attacking the enemy in radius of 5-6 cells, after destroying the enemy or its disappear from the view, army goes to it starting point. High agression - army attacks the enemy that it sees moving by all of the city map cells untill the fight is finished.
• 4. Attack range. «melee» – army goes to the infighting, archers do not shoot on the way, but participate in the fight when the army reached the cell where enemy is standing. «adaptive» - АI is trying to determine the more effective radius of attack depending on army units. On the current moment it is not finalized, so consider, if the are units in the army which attack radius is 0, all of the army will go infighting, if the archers are near, then the distance will keep at 3. «Ranged» - army will go on shooting distance and will attack enemy only with units that have maximal range, the rest of the units will be standing outside untill enemy reaches their range. There is a possibility to set distant radius for the army, then manually set attack of the chosen enemy, then give command to move to the cell, where the enemy is standing and on the way your army will shoot, and when reaches enemy's army will use all its power.

What happens if army is busy with some action?

When army is capturing a castle, breaking the wall, it wont respond to the enemy's attacks, will continue on its action until finishes or will be totally destroyed. Such army should be protected (covered). If the army is robbing storehouse and on the cell of storehouse there are no other allied armies, such army will stop robbery and will respond the attack, and in the end of the fight will get back to robbery (of course if this army won't be destroyed by that time.)

How to send an Aid to an ally?

Make sure that your ally is in your ally list, and you are in his ally list. After that, chose city of the ally and send your armies just like when attacking but pressing button "Aid".

I have captured a new town, how can i return my army to my first city? How to send an aid to my other city?

Press on your name on the top of the screen, your profile will open, there list of all owned cities, from there chose the necessary city, press button "Send campaign". After that the standard interface of attack/aid will open, chose armies and send.

What is the purpose of the walls?

Walls are blocking moving to the cells where they are built for all cavalry and machines as well as armies that include such units.
Pay your attention, that all of the other units very slowly but can climb over the walls. This means, that enemy can collect army without cavalry/carts and get into your town by climbing over the wall, so take care of your city protection by guarding your walls.
There are bonuses for units that are guarding the walls. 1 level wall gives +15% to units life, 2nd level +55%, 3d level 100%. Bonuses can get any units that are at the wall not only city owners.
Enemy can break the walls with catapults and rams. You can repair walls manually or build a repair squad, which with speed depending on its level repairs walls periodically.
If you block your city entrances with the walls you still can freely leave the city or trade without breaking the walls. Your units will return to the city to the place of Rally Point, and leave your city you can from any point (cell).
From tactical view walls are better to put not on the entrance but two cells away and ahead of them mountains. Then, if enemy will come with rams, it will first have to overcome the mountains. Teoretically, while he will be doing this, he can be attacked from the walls, if your army has more shooters.
Walls can be broken by catapults or rams, the more catapults and rams army has, the faster the wall will be broken.

What is the purpose of the gates?

For ally armies gates are a way to get into the city and is a protection, for enemies gates are just like a wall.

What limitation does an army have?

You can create armies of not limited count of different units, but during fight there is a limit for simultaneously participating one type units of one army count. (i.e causing damage). This means that in a fight simultaneously cant participate all units from an army (which is quite logically, if to count real army formations, on limited territory firstly first rows get engaged in the fight, then when first rows fall second get engaged in the fight and so on). Now the part, that is in the first rows always get counted dinamically depending on the conditions on the both (its and enemy's) armies. So it is better to combine units for best results (comment by Vjaka).
This way, there is a point to combine different types of units in one army, so that more damage causing participants would be in the fight, or divide armies into smaller ones. But then a problem occurs to provide all of them with leaders for bonuses, and if there is no leader then experience for leaders will be lost, which is supposed to be gained when such army kills some other, and also from such bunch of armies the single army of enemy will have bonus (i.e more units of one type will participate in the fight simultaneously).
Limitation is active only on the count of one type units, that are causing damage but not getting.
For example, in the first rows of formation you can put even 5000 of swordsmen, they will effectively cover others and whole squads of them will be dying, but damage will be caused only by the very first row.
So, wise strategist will have to decide on how to form his armies for different situations in the fights against single enemy or against a few, considering that united army, containing many units of one type will have bonuses from leaders and bonuses against a few enemy's army, but will cause simultaneously less damage on single army, than few armies containing the same units, simultaneously fighting against a single army.

Will try to explain on example how damage is caused:

• 1. Two armies have met, simultaneously in the fight from each army, each type participate units only partly, i.e only those units that are counted to be in fight with enemy, the rest that are in the rear, are waiting for the part of units to die, then (when they die) from the rear they are replaced by new powers and so on.
• 2. Three red armies met, with the same 1 green army. Green army is reconfiguring for simultaneous fighting with 3 red armies.

Specific numeric values of units is a confidential information, the author of this code is not opening it to anyone, so you can experiment, look for your optimal army version.

Shooting radius and range or is are you supposed to see where you shoot?

Most units are limited in range by 1 cell, (archers - 2), but nevertheless can attack targets in bigger radius if other units of your army can see them. To provide this, in your army there must be scouts or rangers - units with range of 3, or a leader having a scouting skill (on masters level range of such leader is 4).
Very often beginners have a mistake, when they are creating armies only consisting of fighting units and forget about scouting. This creates a situation where army without scouting units meets archers of the enemy that shoot it and the army does not even see who and where from kills them. As a result you can lose a big army without causing any damage to the enemy.

How to unite armies in one or devide one into many?

Go to the section tactis, to unite armies select them by cliking on the flags, press on the button Join Selected armies.
To split army into a few, chose an army, select it, press "Split army into two armies" enter new army name, then values for units count for new army and press create army.

What army can die from?

This exceptional case appears when there is no enough food in the town. For example, this can happen if you have built an army, then demolished a farm, that were feeding 360 population. As a result you get - 360 population in the town and now random part of army will die from hunger till the population count (number) becomes positive.

Some army units have unexpectedly disappeared? What happened?

Most likely units have left the army and went as trading caravan, if the army option "complete" wasn't turned on, and in settings it was set - to use units as a transport.

I have noticed squads of marauders and footpads, who are they and can they be hired?

Those are NPC, monsters, mobs, that can appear in your town if it wont have any protection. They are attacking everybody they meet in the city, not robbing yet. You can hire marauders and footpads in the castle, if you have built Obelisk of Glory and have free mercenary points left.

Bonuses of walls, gates, towers

Bonus to army life on the walls:

• 1 lvl: +15%
• 2 lvl: +55%
• 3 lvl: +100%

Bonus ro army life on the gates:

• 1 lvl: +50%
• 2 lvl: +100%
• 3 lvl: +150%

Bonus to army life on the tower:

• 1 lvl: +20%, +1 to range
• 2 lvl: +40%, +2 to range
• 3 lvl: +60%, +3 to range
• 4 lvl: +80%, +4 to range
• 5 lvl: +100%, +5 to range

Towers and gates let city owners and its allies armies in, enemy can climb on them only with marines.