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Salararius View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 03:28
Originally posted by Kumomoto Kumomoto wrote:

The point that many folks in this thread are missing is that the best offensive units (Knights and Stalwarts) are actually the best defensive units in the way that counts the most (killing siege armies). Most people completely overlook this because they don't experience protracted wars with lots of sieges...
Strategy and tactics are not the same.  I believe I've been using the terms offense and defense strictly in a tactical meaning.  Sieging is an offensive strategy involving defensive tactics (until the end of the siege).  To defend against a siege you need offensive tactics, which require offensive units.  But, you can't maintain a siege without superior numbers because sieging is defensive and units defend at a great disadvantage.  Only with walls and/or specific attacker/terrain combinations do defenders have any chance of exceeding parity by any measure (gold upkeep or production rate).  A siege army has limited terrain choices and no walls.  I've ignored sieges because in my opinion given equal economies, sieging should happen when one player has a clear military advantage.  If it happens earlier, then it should be to the detriment of the sieging player because a siege army has to defend without walls on terrain dictated by the person sieged (ie. doing the "sally forth" attacking).  If you can catch an opponent with the proper terrain, without the proper troops to defend (sally forth) that terrain, with sufficient troops to hold that terrain, an early siege may create a temporary military disparity that you could exploit in other ways.  To create a large disparity you would have to siege over and over and that would require a serious commitment to a defensive strategy which will always loose if the other guy simply throws the right troops against it.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 04:15
Perhaps most people aren't quite as nuanced as you, Salarius, and might interpret yours and others usage of the terms "offensive" and "defensive" as actually meaning offensive and defensive?


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Rill View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 05:51
The player setting up the siege chooses the terrain from which to siege, although of course the player being sieged had choices initially about where to put the city.  Thus the large number of cities with plains on all 8 surrounding squares.  However, given a choice of squares, usually a sieging player would set up in the most favorable terrain  (elves likely on mountains, orcs in forests).  A player with such squares on the edges of his/her town would probably build defensive (offensive) infantry armies to have the greatest advantage against that threat.

In my admittedly extremely limited experience breaking sieges, sally forth is a last resort; in general most people try to break sieges directly through raiding or attacking the siege camp; only if there were a large number of much smaller players would sally forth be a rational choice, and even then the armies would be very vulnerable to being wiped.

It seems like most of Salarius' analyses are based on single player vs. another single player or single city vs. another single city.  I have a hard time applying them to warfare as it exists in Illy.

But maybe it's because I tend to be a big picture kind of person.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 06:30
Originally posted by Rill Rill wrote:

The player setting up the siege chooses the terrain from which to siege, although of course the player being sieged had choices initially about where to put the city.  Thus the large number of cities with plains on all 8 surrounding squares.  However, given a choice of squares, usually a sieging player would set up in the most favorable terrain  (elves likely on mountains, orcs in forests).  A player with such squares on the edges of his/her town would probably build defensive (offensive) infantry armies to have the greatest advantage against that threat.

In my admittedly extremely limited experience breaking sieges, sally forth is a last resort; in general most people try to break sieges directly through raiding or attacking the siege camp; only if there were a large number of much smaller players would sally forth be a rational choice, and even then the armies would be very vulnerable to being wiped.

It seems like most of Salarius' analyses are based on single player vs. another single player or single city vs. another single city.  I have a hard time applying them to warfare as it exists in Illy.

But maybe it's because I tend to be a big picture kind of person.

you are missing big picture for sally forth, Its a good weapon in the hand of defender and it does offer lots of advantages.
Direct attacks, raids apart from sally will happen but sally should be used first and at regular intervals.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 09:30
Sally forth does have few advantages but it always seemed like too big of a risk to me.From begining feint attacks can delay grouping of troops for sally forth, and by the time real siege apears it may be too late to organize sally forth.Siege camp can even be formed and recalled after 10-12 hrs or so, just to triger movement of large number of troops in wrong direction.That is just one side, other is grouping of cavalry and sword units to be used for sally forth.Having cavalry and infantry even behind lvl 10 walls is something i would gladly avoid.It even pays off to form siege camp just to provoke other side to use off units for sally forth and then target that city with cavalry after walls are droped few lvls, it is always good to destroy oponent off formation in early days of conflict.It is better to have them on receiving side of your off units stats then to see them used latter in conflict against soft deff units used to protect your siege camps.Also sally forth ties troops for too long, troops that may sudenly be needed on other location.Nobody wants 20-30% of his alliance attack force sitting on wrong location behind walls when heat of battle is shifted on completly diferent side of map.Sally forth can maybe effectivly destroy one or two initial sieges, but smart oponent can use your own sally forth tactic against you.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 09:53
Originally posted by nightfury nightfury wrote:


Direct attacks, raids apart from sally will happen but sally should be used first and at regular intervals.

Any reasons why sally need to be used first? 

For one, there is the strategic risks sloter mentioned. Even otherwise you are better off using the full potential of your army with a normal attack at the first go, to kill off as many catapults as early as possible.

One use of sally forth is to protect a lone city away from other towns. In that case you could send an army to be stationed at the city, to be used as soon as siege forces land. 




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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 10:21
There is only one reason why Sally forth which is raid in nature might be good for early use againts stack of troops, but even with that in mind i still think it is a risk.I guess it all depends on nature of conflict and size of alliances that are fighting.It just shows that fighting in illy is very complex when it involves players rather then NPC.< id="gwProxy" ="">< jscode="leoInternalChangeDone" ="ifofjsCall==''jsCall;elsesetTimeout'jsCall',500;" id="jsProxy" ="">
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 12:34
a successful sally saves you for some time from bombardment. All it takes is some planning of troops from your nearby towns and players which are near to you. 
Leaving troops for longer time in a city is always risky but one can avoid it, send troops only for short duration say 30 minutes which will be used mainly for sally forth and then troops return eliminating risk of getting caught in defensive mode.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 15:42
Originally posted by Sloter Sloter wrote:

Sally forth does have few advantages but it always seemed like too big of a risk to me.From begining feint attacks can delay grouping of troops for sally forth, and by the time real siege apears it may be too late to organize sally forth.Siege camp can even be formed and recalled after 10-12 hrs or so, just to triger movement of large number of troops in wrong direction.That is just one side, other is grouping of cavalry and sword units to be used for sally forth.Having cavalry and infantry even behind lvl 10 walls is something i would gladly avoid.It even pays off to form siege camp just to provoke other side to use off units for sally forth and then target that city with cavalry after walls are droped few lvls, it is always good to destroy oponent off formation in early days of conflict.It is better to have them on receiving side of your off units stats then to see them used latter in conflict against soft deff units used to protect your siege camps.Also sally forth ties troops for too long, troops that may sudenly be needed on other location.Nobody wants 20-30% of his alliance attack force sitting on wrong location behind walls when heat of battle is shifted on completly diferent side of map.Sally forth can maybe effectivly destroy one or two initial sieges, but smart oponent can use your own sally forth tactic against you.

Thanks, lot of good information here.  I should not have said "Sally Forth".  I meant a successful attack on the sieging army.  I shouldn't have said "Sally Forth" because it's wrong.

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Salararius View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 May 2012 at 15:43
Originally posted by Kumomoto Kumomoto wrote:

Perhaps most people aren't quite as nuanced as you, Salarius, and might interpret yours and others usage of the terms "offensive" and "defensive" as actually meaning offensive and defensive?

Point taken.  Should I have not tried to explain what I was saying or was there a better way to say it?

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