depense......

On having ranged troops. Yes .

I think they are still useful, but not the weaker ones. Marksmen if left behind the action can take one or two out of an army before your heavies attack.
Not the power they once had, but still not a total waste.
The change has really brought the BATTLE back though!

I have to agree with Zorg mostly, melee troops can now be used as they were back in ye old medevil time.

Though I think the troop stats or ranged units are a little screwy.

Archers were alot faster, but very hard to train on mass, mostly due to the skill of using abow over swinging a sword is large.

Besides that I dare say ranged troops are down to a fine detail on WarOnline.

- Luca

Saying that though - more emphasis on battle.

Does anyone tend to find areas some what cramped?particulrly on the 12 player map?

this is the thing. any field of battle that bogs you down is going to be governed by ranged troops imo. if you can't move fast, then you are likely to get picked off before you can break through and attack the ranged troops.

the only real effect that changing the damage of ranged troops has done is to require larger armies to achieve the same damage. thus there are effectively less ranged troops available. so if a player were to sacrifice some melee troop production for more ranged troops, then the changes have not had much impact (ie battles still governed by ranged troops). this may be possibe to do in the cramped 12 player maps. Also, if Req implements his desire to put castles closer together, then it is likely that things will be even more cramped.

not a good thing i think.

open it out a bit and suddenly ranged troops are harder to protect. slow the ranged troops down and they can't get in position and can't run away quickly either. you don't have to make the maps bigger to do this, just get rid of some of those trees and such.

cheers
street gang

I agree with the space issue but I don't really agree with your idea of making more Ranged troops to compensate for thier weakness. You could say it's too much of a bad thing.

Stoping making melee troops to transfer production to range would mean you don't have enough melee to compete with other players and the extra range troops would get crushed because of the alck of melee troops to gaurd them.

Does anyone have any idea of a good ratio between melee and ranged troops? Perhaps in cost or EXP values?

- Luca

I have a question:

What has defintely changed by lessening the strength of ranged units in campaign-mode?

Do they make less damage (online manual marksmen 11-18)?
Does anyone know the exact values?

The values given for ranged damage now are the accurate ones. Not sure if the manual is up-to-date yet...but for example archers are now 2-3 damage (I think)

I have'nt depended on them enough to suffer, I think they have a similar advantage that mounted troops do in that you don't have to cover the whole distance to the enemy(like scout having a 13 movement range), and at the beginning of the game they suprise and defeat static strategies.

I agree with not switching over to 'ranged without melee'. I should probably have more spearman/militia because of non-active fronts, 'equal opportunity' contact, reserve and support, and the fact that just about any troop is good right up next to a 'shooter'. Ranged add 'flair' to my strategy, though.

Last Edited : Friday, 25 April 2003 - 00:27

I'm building melee:ranged as 2:1 yet.
Balistae suffered much. They are no more effective enough in field. But in a castle, i don't know better unit for defence. Naturally the gates should be sealed first

Well...my 2 cents

71 archers in my castle tower at very edge of range killed 45 out of 150 spearmen in a single strike. Yes, the archers were backed by 180 commanders and it was archer day. Game 26 turn 10 facing 400 known troops from 2 enemies.

I was impressed.

thats spearmen though! those guys kill themselves if left alone for to long! They trip alot when marching and fall on there spears too!

I still rely almost entirely on ranged troops! who needs melee? hit and run works great with them, send archers to attack a enemy, then turn and run, the enemy gives chase, right into marksmen! then they run with the archers only to be covered by ballistas! by then you can turn and fight, and move in with whatever melee units and clean up the mess

Have you seen HC in action yet?

Actually that is a very good tactic on Plato's part especially for a new person. I used an almost similar tactic (similar in concept not in units involved) most of the time and it works even on the most experienced players. HC or not would still be wiped irregardless if your hidden ranged are well placed.

However no matter what you would still need melee especially to protect them against flanking movement. Moving a whole armies of ranged units across maps without melee and commandeer's protection is suicide.

y thank u!
i would like to formulate some other strategys but if i aint broke, dont fix it!

Corection 74 archers. Still did 589 points this round for another 30 spear(all in the stack).

I love the beginging game. I keep loosing it later on. When I get aggressive it falls apart. Cant get on at night so my plans fall apart in the heat of battle.

What are the range penalties? I am wondering what I would be doing if I was not at max range.

Any troops in a tower get enormous attack and defence bonus. Any troops supported by 180 commandeer will again get enormous attack bonus. Now you faced an archer unit that is both in a tower and supported by 180 commandeer so of course your spearmen (weakest melee unit) will get slaughtered unless you get out of its range.

Don't attack someone if you are not even outnumbering him in the first place at the point/field of battle.

I faced an opponent using archers two units were at about 220 and the other three (seperate battle front) were at 182 each.
He did not provide any protection for his units and while I lost around 80 troops. When his first two units attacked my knights I pulled back letting him chase me. Right into my marksman and archer units (one of each). I used my commandeers to build a couple of towers to keep my units out of his range, he did try to retreat but then I boxed him in with my knights and a unit of scouts. The other thre units died even easier.

IMO you can't control a battle field with out ranged units.