Lt. Pain wrote the following that will change the way I run campaigns.


unleashed my lvl 58 swords and others on him (they now at lvl 80 99att/109def), and proceeded to clean his clocks

the usual 200xlevel, they are very old and wise troopers, some higher level troops with low experience are not even scratching them, just checked and they are at 15806 exp. I keep sending troops to resupply them

...and if ranged troops find them?
No offence, but if I even had an inkling that you had a unit like that, I would be training the ballista right away
(large stack bonus, remember )

Might be hard to take down tho at 109 def!
Nice.

Hard, but not firing back
If they did, they really WOULD be unbeatable
I hear wonderful things about troop levels, but the reality of it is I rarely see anything above 15, either for me OR the opposition...guess it's the hitch of the higher games

I have some of my ballista at level 20+ and in towers with outposts spreading out in my skirmish game.

Skirmish lacks max damage though, that's why
And considering how little I've been in skirmishes, no wonder I haven't seen high power stacks

they are still running quite well and up to lvl 84, if you guys want I can post a screen shot or two of them, talk to the afformentioned SteveAbbott, he has tossed numerous ballista and marksmen units at them to no real avail

How much does it cost to re-supply them?

I daren't think
Come on - how many thousand per troop?

Here is one question for you CTD, its there in your ballpark.

If we get the number of moola that it takes to buy one of this troops and add it to the high level stack, is it worth it?.

Compare it to what you can buy with the simmilar amount, of level one troops, and now factor in the attack/defend numbers which are impressive.

What do you think?

Biiiig bucks, added 90 lvl 1's ran about 14k

The men are currently at Lvl 89, thing that I do not usnsderstand is that the attack is stuck at 99 - defense is now up to 115, is this a bug of some sort???

Gueritol - it's a bit of a gamble, unless it's a ranged unit. You're basically relying on being able to make full use of the unit - against the correct attack type - without being intercepted by ranged troops. If you don't get this, it was a waste

Pain - I thought all skill was limited to 99 anyway...looks like it's just attack
If anything, defence getting higher might be a bug

Yes...I know CTD, but let's discuss best case scenario, is it worth it or not. On sheer raw power that att/def numbers give you.

The difference between your attack points and your defenders defend points gives you a bonus, if this bonus its > 0 then the bonus its doubled, if not then it is left as so (clearly being a negative bonus).

So with that given, you think spending x gold for attack points of y, is it worth?

a bunch of dead swordsmen, all in all, I am not sure what the value of them were, but I did have a hell of a time using them while they shined... My only regret is that they did not go out fighting, was pulling em back to a defensive position, and they got whacked by a few heavy stacks of marks/bals and polished off by a crew of knights

You miss the point.

They accomplished their purpose or they would not have had such bonuses. Say what you will. Only lots of kills gets you those kinds of bonuses.

O yeah, I would say that they had polished off at least 600 - 900 enemy troops, and not just NPC troops

Well Lt. Pain...not much people get to kill 600-900 troops in a game, let alone with a single stack!.
congrats. to the now defunct brave ones

Best case use, they're almost certainly worth it, ESPECIALLY so in the case of ballista and marksmen. The extra max damage of course means that you can then do even more damage, and push that bonus up quicker. The skill is higher, so that's easier too
In a time (post-mass ranged) where spare resources are now apparent after 2 castle areas, this gives you something to spend on

Since I was the one who took out those swords I should probably say something.
I was only able to take them out because they were alone in open terrain- all I had to do was give chase and pick away at them, because even with large stacks I wasn't doing that much damage.
But its like Tserrof said, the served their purpose- Lt has an over 40k point lead on second with about 20 turns left, so he has essentially won the game. As CTD pointed out to me you only get 50 % points on ranged kills- so using high level mele stacks like that effectively in the early stages can build enough of a point lead to negate a ranged advantage someone has over you in the endgame. Of course if your the last one in an LMS points don't matter (everyone else is either eliminated, quit or inactive)- but for regular games it can be quite an effective strat.
Lt neglected to mention the lev 40+ HC, 30+ Squires, 20+ Pikes and other vets he had. I was able to take them all out, but the damage on the score board was already done (in addition to the damage they did to my troops earlier).
I would say it is definantly worth putting troops into those vet stacks as long as you don't rely on them exclusively, because no matter what lev troops you have they can always be surrounded by mele and pelted by range if they don't have sufficient back-up. And if ranged units do wind up killing them in the endgame its usually too little too late point wise.