Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I've seen a lot of good information on strategies and overall planning, but little on winning a battle. Here are some general principles, tips, tricks, and pitfalls. Feel free to comment or add your own to the thread.

1. Huge groups. Spread huge groups into smaller groups, and spread them out a bit in starting location. Having a larger frontal area means more of them can attack at once.
2. Small groups. If a group is too small, it's morale can easily shatter. Make your groups large enough to matter, but not so large that they interfere with eachother when positioning. This varies according to the power and morale of the unit, but anywhere from 8--30 should be about right.
2. Place your strongest defense/armor/resistance units in the middle. This is where the majority of arrows and spells hit.
3. Radiators. Niefl Jarls radiate cold, other units radiate heat or poison. Place all units like this away from units without resistances!! E.g. if you have 5 poison units that fly, put them way off on the flank and tell them to attack rear enemy.
4. Missileers. You can put these forward on the flanks and tell them to fire 3 times then retreat. Or you can have them in the rear and tell them to keep fireing, while you tell your core units to hold position. Regardless, use them wisely.
5. Commanders. Place commanders near troops that will benefit from them. E.g. Put lightly armored troops near a mage that can cast Barkskin or Iron Warriors; put sacred troops near a Priest who can bless them.
6. Mages. In general put these in the middle of packs instead of to the rear. They can augment nearby troops, send out lightning bolts and fire darts, and not get as targetted. You might also consider giving them small bodyguards of 3-4 warriors each in case they are targetted somehow (they will end up in the rear so they might get hit that way, plus bodyguards help in assassination attempts....)
7. Cheap extra Commander. A cheap extra commander with no troops is a good idea. If one of your true commanders bites it in the battle, you can still field the leftover troops insetad of leaving them in that province to rot--or in the case of magical beings, to disappear for good!
8. Mages. Giving field mages personal gems can make them far more powerful. I do this selectively with already powerful battlemages, or to all battlemages if a big battle is shaping up. Some battle spells are extremely powerful, and you are unable to use them unless you have gems.
9. Mages. Script their spells appropos to the situation. If you have an enemy that uses longbowmen, have all your mages invoke air shields first thing. If you have an enemy that is resistant to fire, make sure your first spells are not fire based. If one of your heroes has the sword that brings a torrential downpour (tempest?) to the battlefield making archers and fire spell useless, make sure your mages don't bother with air shields or fire spells.
10. Cavalry. Any unit that is fast and relatively powerful, put on the flanks and have them attack rear. If your core is heavy cavalry, put them in the center and have them charge nearest enemy. If you have fast light units, be careful that they don't attract archers. Have them on the flanks and wait twice then charge rearmost enemy.
11. Fliers. It is easy to misuse fliers. Most fliers are lightly armored and easily killed. I use fliers for one thing: attack rearmost enemy. This shields them from archers, and baffles the enemy's commanders.
12. Flak. Cheap crud units can be of use to draw out archers while your big guys flank, or if they are fast enough you can use them to flank while the heavily defended guys attract the arrows.
13. Elephants. Elephants and other big units that are powerful, but lightly armored should be protected appropriately. Medium sized groups for max effectiveness and minimum morale drain from losses. Shield them from archers. Keep them charging. I like to put them on the flanks and attacking rearmost enemy, as they will just trample anything that gets in their way so they effectively attack everything heading for the enemy commanders.

[Shovah32]

Very nice, thanks for this. One thing i would like to say is use the fire and flee command lightly, if you have multiple provinces bordering where-ever the fight is taking place gathering the troops can take a few turns.

[Manuk]

Something I always tought but never do. follow your army with scouts sneaking carrying lots of gems. After every battle transfer some gems from your scouts to your mages. That way you control how many gems you spend each battle.
if you give them boots of flying you can use them to come and go for resupply.

Obvious: if you have too few priests and/or too many sacred units make those units hold and attack to give time to your priests to bless them all. (you can overcome this with divine blessing if you have a powerful priest).

I thought you were cainehill. you are not.

[JaydedOne]

*grin* The icon is pretty emblematic of Cainehill. Will have to get used to someone else using it.

Hi there, btw, neighbor. Always cool to see another Georgian playing Dom3.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

14. Material. Use what you have. If you have fire mages, give them fire magic heighteners (fire helm, fire gems). If you have air mages give them air magic amps (air helm, air gems, spirit helm....) If you have sacred troops you MUST have a priest or you are wasting material. If you have archers, have an air mage and/or astral mage cast precision spells. If you have heavy cavalry, do NOT place them in the rear.
15. Environment. If the dominion/province is hot, use your fire mages. If cold, use your air/water mages. If it is low magic, use your heavy infantry/archers/cavalry. If it is high magic, use your mages. If it is your dominion, use your prophet/pretender juggernaut. If it is forest, use your werewolves and nature mages.

[Teraswaerto]

Break enemy cavalry charges with militia in the front line (or something like that), so that they can't use their lances against your real soldiers.

When moving around big army late in the game, don't keep them all in one province, since that makes them an easy target for Flames From the Sky, etc. Of course, this can be risky, if the army is split up when a battle happens.

Always give commanders bodyguards, always have spare commanders with your army if some die.

Keep extra gems, Wine Bags, Cauldrons of Broth, etc. on scouts or other stealhy troops and move them with your armies.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Howdy. I mostly lurk. Been on the Dominions forums since 1/19/04 with this same icon. I've seen Cainehill around....

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Lots of good tips. I'm going to start a logistics thread and a strategy thread after we start slowing down on tactics.

[PDF]

14. Put Gem-carrying scouts travelling with armies so that mages have what they need for the next battle, and not more, because the tac AI waste gems more than movie stars waste money . When the scout nearly runs out of gems head him back to the nearest castle and send another.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

When using tramplers, I put the trample squad in the center and everything else on the wings. Reason: That way when the trample squad routs, your other force isn't in the way to get trampled itself. It really sucks to watch your elephants retreat through the middle of your own formation.
Thanks to Blitz for that idea.