Golden Era Discussion

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by Zen:
That is what I spend 90% of my gold on in my tests. They do fairly well against things without tower shields. What kills me is the Chariots (which have good enough morale that you can put 10 of them in a squad and not have them rout, which is very nice) running into the middle of the fight, then getting mowed down by a wave of javalins. Since they don't have any sort of shield (...) they have no defense against them and get torn up.

Well, I've been using Chariots with bows and gave them orders hold and attack (to test recent tweaks on it among other things). They would shoot 2 volleys at enemy and then in and trample away. Javelins and archers would, by that time be targeting other units (most likely HI) and my losses to Chariots were ALWAYS minimal.
Chariots without bows are also useful, and you can use them to charge at melee troops to break down their front lines.

Originally posted by Daynarr:
Well, I've been using Chariots with bows and gave them orders hold and attack (to test recent tweaks on it among other things). They would shoot 2 volleys at enemy and then in and trample away. Javelins and archers would, by that time be targeting other units (most likely HI) and my losses to Chariots were ALWAYS minimal.
Chariots without bows are also useful, and you can use them to charge at melee troops to break down their front lines.

My Chariots behave exactly the opposite. They fire 2 volleys, then they rush in and start crunching on little people, the first charge usually nets no deaths (as the chariots are still near the front of the lines). It's the 2nd and 3rd turn of Trampling that usually gets them in trouble as well as if some portion of the main host routs the Chariots in their eagerness to kill usually spread out further ahead and get a javalin in the back.

I've tried modifying orders and positions in order to try to minimize their combat but got variations of the same results. I think this comes from the way the chariots trample, the first trample they tend to trample out to an edge of enemy troops (north or south), then next turn they trample in and forward and their movement stops them in the middle of the enemy because they run out of movement points.

The Chariots don't get fired on when using masses of Cardeces, but Cardeces have a very high attrition rate.

Edit:
This may be my fault. I might be using too many Peltasts so the ones in the rear of my column always have ammo to fire. I may have better results with having less when utilizing Chariots in order to minimize having a 'backlog' of PetLasts in the back who have ammo.

[ February 17, 2004, 09:03: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by Zen:
You must have had more luck with your Wind Riders than I did. They get chopped up very easily by archers/spells.

Though of course maybe you have to build 10+ in order for them to not have a terrible attrition (making an initial charge rout the enemy)

I agree that the movement factor of the Wind Rider is a significant detail; but they are fragile if you are going up against a human opponent. You almost have to take a 9 Fire/9 Air Blessing to counteract it. As Spring Hawks eat them for dinner as well as any missile fire.

Edit: Also it's very easy to make them waste their lances on Harpies or Black Hawks. And target them with missilefire because they are fliers.

I was usually using stacks of 8-15 riders accompanied by 1 commander (filled with items).
You can target archers with them as well. Basically I would usually give them hold and attack enemy archers or hold and attack rearmost units order. That way most of heavy infantry troops would move forward and away from shooters which would get killed or routed as soon as my riders move in. If you can't kill or rout those archers fast they you are probably attacking too large force.

They aren’t a force to single handedly take out enemy main armies, but to harass enemy territories while your main armies push forward. The thing is that enemy must catch them with significant force if he hopes to take them out which is very difficult in both MP and SP games.

Of course there can be other tactics for them as well. You can use Water 9 pretender and boost their already impressive defense (+ give them 2 strikes every other turn) and use them as support troops for main armies that would fight enemy HI.

Or use Cyclopes with earth 9 to give them +4 protection and make flying tanks out of them.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Did anyone try mixing chariots with bows and peltasts?

Originally posted by Daynarr:
I was usually using stacks of 8-15 riders accompanied by 1 commander (filled with items).
You can target archers with them as well. Basically I would usually give them hold and attack enemy archers or hold and attack rearmost units order. That way most of heavy infantry troops would move forward and away from shooters which would get killed or routed as soon as my riders move in. If you can't kill or rout those archers fast they you are probably attacking too large force.

So you use them for the equivilant of a Caelum Drop Squad (3 Mages and some Guards).

Unfortunately in my experiments even if you only pick up 10, (1250g) and a decently equipped commander they don't stack up very well.

Though you may be right, usually a core of ~30 archers will kill them.

They aren’t a force to single handedly take out enemy main armies, but to harass enemy territories while your main armies push forward. The thing is that enemy must catch them with significant force if he hopes to take them out which is very difficult in both MP and SP games.

Of course not, but a good comparison for them would be Valkyries, or would you disagree?

Valk
60 Gold 12 Resources
Hp 13
Prot 13
Morale 12
MR 14
Enc 5
Str 11
Att 13
Def 15
Prec 13
Mv 3/11
Stealth +25, Flying, Glamour, Sacred
Spear, Chain Mail Curiass, Helmet, Round Shield

Wind Rider
125 Gold 35 Resources
Hp 13
Prot 17
Morale 14
MR 12
Enc 5
Str 11
Att 12
Def 16
Prec 10
Mv 3/22
Flying, Sacred
Lance, Spear, Hoof, Bronze Hauberk, Full Helmet, Round Shield

Did I miss something or were the positive changes (In Bold) worth double the resources and gold cost of the unit? The ones in italic are the ones that are negative from the Valkyrie.

I agree it should be more expensive, but I don't know if quite to that extreme.

Edit:

And Wind Guide and Archers works on "Fire Fliers" like a charm. Even while they are waiting to charge. More significant with Flaming Arrows (common) or xbows (common).

[ February 17, 2004, 09:31: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Daynarr]

So you use them for the equivilant of a Caelum Drop Squad (3 Mages and some Guards).

That is exactly it! Same tactic I would use as Caelum. Only with Arco I get much more ground troop choices/power.

Of course not, but a good comparison for them would be Valkyries, or would you disagree?

Valk
60 Gold 12 Resources
Hp 13
Prot 13
Morale 12
MR 14
Enc 5
Str 11
Att 13
Def 15
Prec 13
Mv 3/11
Stealth +25, Flying, Glamour, Sacred
Spear, Chain Mail Curiass, Helmet, Round Shield

Wind Rider
125 Gold 35 Resources
Hp 13
Prot 17
Morale 14
MR 12
Enc 5
Str 11
Att 12
Def 16
Prec 10
Mv 3/22
Flying, Sacred
Lance, Spear, Hoof, Bronze Hauberk, Full Helmet, Round Shield

Did I miss something or were the positive changes (In Bold) worth double the resources and gold cost of the unit? The ones in italic are the ones that are negative from the Valkyrie.

I agree it should be more expensive, but I don't know if quite to that extreme.

Well, the difference in protection is not so small (difference between light and medium infantry) so it justifies resource difference. They do get initial powerfull strike with lances which makes them much more devastating on their first attack comparing to Valkyries although Valkyries have glamour that gives them sort of 'mirror image' protection.
It's quite valid question and I'm not sure if they really should cost so much if you compare these units alone, but I think developers took into account overall unit strength for both nations. If you compare what Arco and Vanheim have at their disposal you will see that Arco has significant advantage in choices/power comparing to Vanheim in both magic and 'might' (most of them I already mentioned in initial post). It’s probably a global picture where Vanheim is given advantage of making more cheaper sacred units to make up for other disadvantages. I do believe that giving Wind Riders cost less then 100 gold would make it unbalancing - that protection and powerful first strike is significant factor and if Arco is allowed to build Riders in great numbers they could simply overwhelm large armies.

Edit:

And Wind Guide and Archers works on "Fire Fliers" like a charm. Even while they are waiting to charge. More significant with Flaming Arrows (common) or xbows (common).

You will not use Riders to attack that force so I assume your Riders will get attacked.
That requires that enemy gets both fire and air mages to attack them and bring a significant force of archers/crossbows with them. Like I said, not easy to do since they will rarely stay still in same province and as flyers they have lots of optional destinations.
Additionally, you can bring a wind mage of your own with them to cast Arrow Fend on your archers and solve the problem (if Riders are defending they get to do it first!).

[ February 17, 2004, 10:07: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

[Peter Ebbesen]

Hmm. 17 over 14 protection, not enough to really mean anything in the face of crossbows, certainly not magically boosted ones, though nice in extended melee combat.

On the other hand, the lance attack is a significant advantage, when using massed wind lords, as it is an almost guaranteed kill in the first combat round for each wind lord against most opposition. Good for clearing some space.

If I were a 1-1 comparison with the Valkyrie, I would probably still come down on the "too expensive for the benefits" side. However, since I ought to be comparing entire themes rather than individual units, I will not do so.

With their relatively high cost, they look to me to be more to fit a role as support units used in conjunction with, e.g., massed Icarii, for a rapid reaction force with extra punch, or as a heavy flyer component with hold-hold-hold-attack rear in an infantry/chariot heavy army.