Trueshot defense strategy |
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Whistlemist
New Poster Joined: 25 Jan 2015 Status: Offline Points: 10 |
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Posted: 25 Jan 2015 at 00:30 |
I'm thinking of the best location defensive-wise for my capital city. 7 food squares are not an option because I'm using Tenaril. This means mountains are a good option. I'm wondering, from a purely defensive point of view, which is the best location for an Elven capital with an army mostly of Elven Trueshots:
1) Large Mountain entirely surrounded by Large Mountains. Seems good at first, but it seems that the most important battles, if seiged, are early on when the city army goes out to attack the seiging army. In this scenario, would my army of archers get a big penalty for attacking up a steep mountain? 2) Mountain surrounded by hills. Defensive bonus if attacked, but perhaps not such a large penalty for attacking uphill if I sally forth? 3) Hill surrounded by plains. Defensive bonus if attacked. Ditch all Trueshot strategy and have a cavalry to sally forth. 4) Hill/Mountain surrounded by mixed terrain of hills/mountains/plains. There are many more available locations of this description and perhaps this outweighs any advantages from the above strategies where I control the terrain of the battle. Have a greater component of cavalry & infantry in the army to be able to fight on all the surrounding terrain. What do you think?
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Artahm
New Poster Joined: 22 Jan 2015 Location: Polska Status: Offline Points: 9 |
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A 7 food large mountine sourrounded entirely by plains is what you wanna go for and this is how you do it:
http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/the-magical-7-food-mountain_topic4094.html
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Rill
Postmaster General Player Council - Geographer Joined: 17 Jun 2011 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 7078 |
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Trueshots get a bonus when attacking on a mountain.
The main disadvantage in having a city surrounded by mountains, even if you are an elf, is that usually when you are being sieged you need other players to come to your aid. Because cavalry travels so much more quickly than any other unit, cavalry units are most often what is used to relieve sieges. Therefore people prefer to be surrounded by plains, where cavalry has an advantage, because it is much harder to defend a siege camp that is set up on a plain and therefore easier to defend against a siege there. I'd be very interested to hear what Kumomoto has to say on this topic. To me he is the elf who has the most experience in defending and attacking in the mountains. I still remember some of his actions in the Valar and Consone wars.
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Whistlemist
New Poster Joined: 25 Jan 2015 Status: Offline Points: 10 |
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If plains are the only way to go, then cavalry is the only useful soldier and we should all be humans. I'm thinking that what really disadvantages elves here is the absence of high food-value squares in the mountains. Seems like a structural imbalance in the game which 5% magic bonus doesn't compensate.
Another thought - a bunch of elves banding together in the mountains would lessen the advantage of cavalry speed and make Trueshot seige relief more feasible.
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Whistlemist
New Poster Joined: 25 Jan 2015 Status: Offline Points: 10 |
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Another thought - if cavalry are what's normally used to defend sieges, then aren't sieging armies also usually cavalry heavy? If you build cities in the mountains and take away the effectiveness of cavalry altogether, might that not reduce the size of many armies that might siege you? If you also take care to establish your cities in a region where your alliance is strong and foot soldiers can travel shorter distances, are we getting close to a valid alternative military strategy?
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Rill
Postmaster General Player Council - Geographer Joined: 17 Jun 2011 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 7078 |
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Defending armies are not usually cavalry heavy, even on plains. Usually on plains you use spear troops, since those have extra defense vs. cavalry (for most units, kobolds being the exception). The reason people don't defend a siege with cavalry is that cavalry are too expensive to build and maintain relative to the other troops.
The people who are planning the siege can coordinate among themselves when the siege will land and have troops travel long distances to arrive in a (relatively) surprise attack -- at least the square on which the siege will land is not known until it actually does so. This means that people who are defending against a siege have less time to prepare than the attackers do, so they will be more likely to need to use cavalry for a quick response.
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Rill
Postmaster General Player Council - Geographer Joined: 17 Jun 2011 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 7078 |
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Being an elf surrounded by other elves in the mountains is a valid strategy, by the way, one that Kumomoto used good effect in the Valar war, if I'm remembering it correctly. That's part of why I would love to see his comments in the thread.
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Brandmeister
Postmaster General Joined: 12 Oct 2012 Location: Laoshin Status: Offline Points: 2396 |
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A silly statement, but one which I have heard often. Every tool has its place. Cavalry is an ideal tool for breaking sieges because response time is critical and it is very fast, so it makes sense to surround cities by plains. Marshals are superior in this role to knights, incidentally. Infantry excels at general purpose attack. Bows and spears are good defensive units (vs infantry/bows and vs infantry/cavalry, respectively) that work well together to defend tournament squares and sieges. By the way, trueshots are inferior to sentinels in almost every respect. Their only real advantage is a slight edge in attack power, which comes at a far higher build cost and a lower speed. There are many mountainous areas with high food dolmens. If you wish to pursue your mountain strategy, look into Tor Carrock and those areas. |
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Brandmeister
Postmaster General Joined: 12 Oct 2012 Location: Laoshin Status: Offline Points: 2396 |
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@Rill: It is also worth mentioning that most cavalry defends half as well as it attacks. Not an enticing defense option when spears are less expensive and build much faster.
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Anjire
Postmaster Joined: 18 Sep 2010 Status: Offline Points: 688 |
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Sentinels are exactly equal to Trueshots in attack power/time and are greater in all categories with regard to defense power/time. |
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