How difficult is this game?

llamabeast · #1 December 20th, 2007, 11:48 AM

If someone attacks your province, the troops you will have in the battle will be any actual troops you have there, plus an extra force of a size determined by how much PD you have there. They will fight in the battle for you, but you can't see them apart from that. You can't move them around. If another enemy attacks, they will be there again, fully replenished. They are meant to represent local militias and defensive forces.

There is at least some explanation of PD in the manual. Also in the nation descriptions for each nation, it tells you what defenders you get for each point of PD (e.g. you might get an archer and a light infantry for every point). For PD values above 20 you start getting stronger, more elite troops present - but mostly PD above 20 is a waste of money anyway.

Fenris99 · #2 December 20th, 2007, 12:08 PM

I see. Thank you.

Will the AI attack my provinces a soon as it comes in contact with me?

VedalkenBear · #3 December 20th, 2007, 12:15 PM

AFAIK, the AI picks on players and territories that it sees as weak. For the player aspect, this is generally comparing the Army Size graph scores. For the territory aspect, this is generally a place with no troops and little/no PD. So, as should be pretty commonsensical, having a large army, and having it at your borders with an enemy, should deter that opponent from attacking you.

llamabeast · #4 December 20th, 2007, 12:34 PM

The AI is always either at war or at peace with you. It tells you when it goes from peace to war (it sends you a message declaring war), but unhelpfully it doesn't tell you if it decides to stop attacking you.

If you attack an AI it will become at war with you without telling you. If you fight it by both moving on the same turn into an independent province though, it won't take offence.

Fenris99 · #5 December 20th, 2007, 12:48 PM

Quote:

llamabeast said:
The AI is always either at war or at peace with you. It tells you when it goes from peace to war (it sends you a message declaring war), but unhelpfully it doesn't tell you if it decides to stop attacking you.

Heh. I must have missed the message when it declared war on me, then. I'll have to pay more attention to all those between turn messages I guess.

rdonj · #6 December 20th, 2007, 02:03 PM

Just for the record, if you really, really want to turtle, using lots of PD (40 is probably sufficient for just about any nation) along with small armies (40-80 units large) along all your borders with the AI will make it so that even if the AI does attack you, you won't really lose any troops. Just note that 40 PD costs upwards of 700 gold and is not necessarily the most efficient use of your money... on the other hand, if the AI does keep attacking you in a province where you've invested that much PD, they'll undoubtedly waste far more than 700 gold trying to invade it. Just don't try that in mp.

Nikolai · #7 December 20th, 2007, 02:48 PM

Note that province defense is VERY VERY different from nation to nation. Some have excellent PD that will stop, with 11 strength a barbarian invasion and with 21 strength a barbarian horde (very common random events) Other have such crappy PD that is not worth anything at all.

It is good to get a taste of PD strength. One easy way is to start test game with turmoil and misfortune, and wait for indy attack. See how your capital defenders do.

Right now I am playing game with very crappy PD. My capital lost to 34(!) barbarians. Now I am keeping reaction force to clear barbarians from my inner provinces.

In MP you seldom buy more than 1 PD in peace, or 11 PD in war. Yes, sometimes you want to create quick and cheap cannon fodder to shield real troops, and sometimes you do make trap for enemy... but PD against a player is worthless without real troops (and mages).