tough indy provinces

[parone]

just lost an expansion army to a province early on in a game. my group was strong melee units backed by a few longbows.

it was as a province held by tanglevines/blood druids.

what's the best way to deal with this early game? avoid?

is this one of the tougher indy defenses?

as always, thanks for contributing to the education of this pathetic newby...

[Kobal2]

Avoid.
It's not the toughest indy defence there is but among the really tough ones it's the most common, and it's annoying to deal with without forces tailored to kill them (even more so in CBM, where the woodsmen blowpipes also paralyze) : decoys to make the bowmen and blowpipes run forward ; some hard-hitting troops (or lots of archers set to fire large monster) to kill the bloodvines quick ; and if possible something with high HP to soak the blood spells harmlessly. If you can afford it, you could also consider sending small groups of disposable troops first so that the druids use up all of their slaves before the real assault.

[Knai]

Avoid these things. Tanglevines, particularly with Dark Vine backup are surprisingly resilient, and fully capable of wrecking most armies. Once you have a bit more magic, you can probably take this one out fairly easily, so there's little advantage in just getting it as early as possible.

[sansanjuan]

Had the same prov a couple games ago. The vines are pretty slow but not a year 1 army play. Worse yet are unscoutable surprises like hidden air mages. They can really hamstring an early expansion army with spammed AN lightening.
ssj

[mattyburn7]

Likewise on Turn 4 of a game I had a misfortune event where a Vampire and 70 of his minions grabbed 1 of my provinces. I"m guessing its wise to leave that alone for awhile??

[Knai]

Likewise on Turn 4 of a game I had a misfortune event where a Vampire and 70 of his minions grabbed 1 of my provinces. I"m guessing its wise to leave that alone for awhile??

Yes. Yes it is. With that said, if Terminus shows up under the mercenary list, snag him, and see about assassinating the Vampire. If it dies, you can sweep the rest of the province easily as they don't have a commander.

[Torgon]

The vampires and his minions really aren't that difficult to take out. They're mostly thralls, with a few vamps thrown in. And even the vamps aren't that tough. They're great when a player uses them since they can be loads of somewhat decent immortal troops, but in an indi province immortality is wasted. The vampire lord will usually just skelli spam with an occasional blood spell thrown in. Go in with some halfway decent forces and you shouldn't have a problem.

Likewise on Turn 4 of a game I had a misfortune event where a Vampire and 70 of his minions grabbed 1 of my provinces. I"m guessing its wise to leave that alone for awhile??

[Corinthian]

The vampire will just skelly spam terminus to death so thats not an option.

As for the Blood vine guys, try sending tough guys with high MR and morale. Have them hold and attack in the back. The mages will waste their fatigue and gems and the few spells that can reach all the way back there are either imps or not very accurate. And if you can kill the vines where the enemy mages cant hit you then thats so much better. Once you have killed the melee enemies then the enemy might have lost enough HP from dead vines and dead bloodslaves that they rout. If not then there is a good chance that the mages are unconscious by then.

[parone]

an odd thing...

we nearly won the battle. took down a blood vine, and almost killed the second. killed almost all of the blow gunners. archers killed a bunch of the blood slaves and more blow gunners. i would say they lost about 15 out of 20 troops, but my troops' morale just couldn't hold up to agony/bleed for 5 rounds, and broke.

but after the battle, it shows enemy casualties as -5 on regular units? is this because i lost 30+ units and they are somehow reanimated?

i ask because this is an out of the way province, and i have reinforcements headed that way. my army will be stronger(sending a mage to help, will have additional archers) but will the indis be stronger as well? or did i weaken them by inflicting casualties?

wish i had some cav to flank them and try to get to the mages. but it's early, and we are all racing to conquer the indis.

[legowarrior]

yeah, a -5 means that the opponent gained units. Welcome Sign from the Jomon is a weak spell, but when my monks go off script, I usually end up with a -1 or more.

[Corinthian]

The -5 probably means that 5+ bloodslaves turned in to units for some reason. It happens some times. Possibly because they took damage or because they ended the battle without the/a commander next to them to pick them up.

[parone]

hmm. so maybe they are weaker...i need to take this province, but can't afford to lose. i think ill try some of the suggestions here, try to get them to punch themselves out, then try to bury them in black steel.

i know i sound like a fan boi, but it is stuff like this that makes the early game really fun. taking chances to try and get the jump.

this is really a great game. even tho i think i will never win a MP game. who cares?

[TigerBlood]

I typically have more trouble with the druids casting 'Bleed' while the vines block advancement.

My usual tactic is to send a decent sized force of melee units to engage with the vines (starting army usually, so long as they have shields) while a couple of small squads of cavalry (3 or 4 units each) are to the sides, scripted to attack archers. Sometimes the blowpipes are engaged, but usually the majority ride to the rear and start killing the woodsman archers and blood slaves.

I have had some small success with archer nations scripted to fire archers, but it requires a lot of archers to force the woodsmen to rout quickly and leave the vines without leadership.