These are just some general thoughts I hade on ranged warefare:

In order of importance the most important factors in ranged warfare are as follows:
(Assumes both players are positioned such that neither side can bring melee into the ranged war without suffering staggering casulties in the process.)

1) Skill of the players invovled (note that in high level games skill of the players leaves little to no room for error. While some minor advantage can be gained if one player is more skilled than another, this point almost becomes insignificant in the high level games).

2) Proper vision/scouting.

3) Numbers of ranged troops (quality of troops should be considered). Obviously massively overwhelming numbers will crush any opponent regardless of all other factors.

4) Damage output of the ranged troops (marksmen rule here). This factors both the damage output of your ranged troops and the health of your ranged troops (e.g. archers at health 20 die very very fast. Note that ballista effectively have 60 health for this due to taking half damage from ranged attacks). Factor in attack rating and defense rating as well. e.g. certain structures increase these values, nearby comms increase attack rating, etc.

5) Manueverability of the ranged troops (this takes into account both movement speed and the surrounding terrain that may hinder movement).

6) Range of the troops (ballista rule the day here). Obviously towers play a huge role here. If one player has towers and the other doesn't this easily overrides #5 and is closely matched with #4 in all but the worst setups (in which case #1 is already in effect anyway). Note that archers range is so low that if archers are fighting against ballista or marksmen #6 overrules 3, 4 and 5 for the more advanced troop player.

Things never to do in a ranged war:
Build a tower you are not prepared to immediately use.
Be in a position such that only 1 of your ranged units can hit your designated target at a time (due to walls, mountains, forests, etc).
Hang out and wait for return fire.
Recruit archers.*
Arbelestiers? What are those?

* In clan games there are certain conditions where I believe archers are justified. This is definately not the norm though. By the time a player has accrued enough archers to be anything more than an annoying fly an opposing player can have enough marks/ballis to flatten half of their archers in one turn and take no retail in the process.

I believe I'm qualified to post here, having just had an enormous ranged battle with Milos, who showed himself to be an excellent player (though I won in the end!). Basically we had huge amounts of marks and some ballista. Because of the terrain (man made and natural) there was not enough room for either of us to attack with melee without being slaughtered, so it became an exclusively ranged battle. The factors which I found most important in final victory were:
- having large stacks of comms. Not only to increase damage, but as I was trying to advance slowly a hex or 2 at a time (to put all my troops within range), I used them to jump forward, build a tower and jump back out of range again. (A small stack would not have enough movement points.)
- Ballista. I built a barracks nearby to produce these. Ultimately I ended up having many more than my enemy, and over 5-10 turns, the damage they inflicted was just enough to weaken the enemy lines.
- Manoeuverability. Although I had almost nowhere to move, you need to be willing to destroy towers as well as build them. I was constantly erecting new buildings and destroying my old ones which were in the way, to try to get a shot in.
- small stack of comms which can be sacrificed to build an outpost overlooking the enemy. Without vision, you're are doomed.

Finally, it also helps to log in regularly to get as many free shots as possible.

Last Edited : Wednesday, 24 March 2004 - 22:07

Those are not exactly 'free shots' though. If you attack twice within a 24 hour turn, or once within the same time, the amount of damage will be equal. The only gain is that even though you only get half an attack, the enemy armies you remove in that 1/2 attack, can't attack you if the other guy logs in before you log in again for your second 1/2 attack.

Good point Zorg, you're absolutely right. But what I was actually meaning was that I would move my marks into a tower and fire a shot. Then log in after a couple of hours and move them out of the tower, and put another marks army in. Then do the same a couple of hours later. This way, I could get several full shots in, which made up for my lack of movement ability. Since my enemy also had little space to move in, unless he could do the same back to me, I had a good advantage.

You forgot to mention the techs that increase your movement in certain terrain.

True, we did. But if you don't have the movement techs by the time you've got a good ranged force, then something has probably gone wrong. Usually I find that the movement techs are a good use of gold while I wait for my resources to build up.

Yes movement techs should be an addendum to include with 5. They are more of a bonus though than a critical element.

As for comms, they come under just about every point - outposts for vision, building of towers for range, boosting of attack rating, etc.

Last Edited : Saturday, 27 March 2004 - 11:44

attacking at 41% strength can give more damage in a time frame than waiting till 100%. Since damage in regular games is capped to 1000. If your unit deals more its best to attack with them frequently.

Some extremely good comments posted here and certainly worth much to a new player.

I agree with almost everything mentioned here, but will somewhat argue the point made in item #3.

Recently, I have defeated 2 players within the same game AND in the 'maze-like' map(where ranged usually have additional advantage due to the cover), with an all melee army against an enemy with substanial melee cover forces and massive ranged armies. This was my first experience in the game that I choose to try an all-melee army...and somewhat surprised, I've done well.

ranged units only get half experience for kills.