"Realistic" Armies

**Reiksfart** · April 12, 2010, 07:29 AM

First off, what a fantastic mod. Must be good if I felt the need to register..

Back in the day I used to enjoy playing Rome Total Realism with the suggested realistic Roman Legions. It made the game a little more challenging because you couldn't load up with all the best units. You had to play slightly smarter on the battlefield (only slightly, the A.I still wasn't very good) because you were almost certainly heavily outnumbered since a Legion didn't use all spaces in an army and Roman units were comparatively very small.

So it got me thinking about what a 'realistic' army would be like for CoW. Although I am an old time Fantasy player on the tabletop from 10-20 years ago, I really have no idea how to decide. Most players buy what they like if it's within the rules anyway, there's rarely much thought to fluffy realism in a competitive game.

Can we get some suggestions for each race?

**Ozzmosis** · April 12, 2010, 08:50 AM

I've never played tabletop, but from the game, I get the feeling that with the evil invasion stacks, there ought to be more emphasis on the rabble. I mean, in full stack, it ought to be between 1/4 and 1/2 marauders, skeletons or goblins, only 2 or 3 knights, blood dragons or big orcs, about 1/4 chaos warriors, grave guard or orcs.

**Vaz** · April 12, 2010, 08:59 AM

The thing with the Invasion Hordes, the outer forces will be likely full of either the very best troops and the greatest generals, OR the lowest troops with the weakest generals, while the Core of the army is the hardest units. The problem with the first is that once you've defeated the first waves, the rest become very easy kills for your experienced troops, and the problem with the latter is that the first forces are very easy, granting easy experience for your troops, OR becomes very boring for the player as they have to defeat stack spam of samey battles.

Instead, of 4 Easy, and 2 Hard Stacks, 4 Hard Stacks are the preferred answer.

**Outlawstar15a2** · April 12, 2010, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by Vaz

The thing with the Invasion Hordes, the outer forces will be likely full of either the very best troops and the greatest generals, OR the lowest troops with the weakest generals, while the Core of the army is the hardest units. The problem with the first is that once you've defeated the first waves, the rest become very easy kills for your experienced troops, and the problem with the latter is that the first forces are very easy, granting easy experience for your troops, OR becomes very boring for the player as they have to defeat stack spam of samey battles.

Instead, of 4 Easy, and 2 Hard Stacks, 4 Hard Stacks are the preferred answer.

But in the case of the first, you'll suffer heavy casualties and thus less able to defend against the marauder centric stacks. In the case of the latter, the unending waves will tie down your troops allowing the elite Chaos forces to march unmolested and attack your armies from the rear.

**Vaz** · April 13, 2010, 07:11 AM

2000 User Owned Units, versus 2000 AI controlled units means that you'll suffer perhaps 600 Casualties at most, and all of those will at least gain an experience.

I always execute with Factions not using a Family Tree, with the exception of Dedicated Governers, particularly ones of castles. A General usually gets 1 Dread a battle with me, and as such results in a 5-6 Dread General quickly, resulting in a quick charge of some other fast units, particularly fear causing ones. This means that even against some Chaos stacks I'm hitting about 3-4 units routing at least 2, and killing the rest. It's an easy win, and Cavalry units quickly amass Gold Chevrons.

Artillery, when deployed at range is fantastic as well, also gaining quick experience.

The latter, the point of the matter is not really the difficulty, but a case of it's just stack spam. How many people hate that about Third Age? Plus, it's also an even quicker route to getting experience. Hell, even when I played as Silvan's on TATW, I did the same thing as I do with Elves - either a Full Stack of Ellyrion Reavers, and quit the battle when I'm out of Arrows, OR a half stack of Ballista and a Half Stack of Shadow Warriors, quit the battle when they begin to get in range. It's a loss, but it's also 2000 Less enemies.

**Thorn777** · April 14, 2010, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by Vaz

Artillery, when deployed at range is fantastic as well, also gaining quick experience.

I completely agree with you on the issue, but I'm just curious and don't know if I'm missing something: what use has experience for artillery?

As far as I know it only adds a max of 3 melee attack points. Or did I miss something?

**Ozzmosis** · April 14, 2010, 05:58 PM

I'm not sure, but I heard somewhere that it gives an accuracy bonus?

**Outlawstar15a2** · April 14, 2010, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by Ozzmosis

I'm not sure, but I heard somewhere that it gives an accuracy bonus?

Well, I can from years of playing tell you that's not the case. At least from what I notice artillery accuracy remains the same.

**Vaz** · April 15, 2010, 04:57 AM

Originally Posted by Thorn777

I completely agree with you on the issue, but I'm just curious and don't know if I'm missing something: what use has experience for artillery?

As far as I know it only adds a max of 3 melee attack points. Or did I miss something?

I've been told that it works out as Higher than that in total - much like weapon upgrades count as +6, and armour as +2.

Higher Morale and the like.

I'd check it again, but I'm fairly sure an increase in experience does increase accuracy - but not in projectile accuracy, it's more to do with the missile accuracy. For example, open battle_config.xml - you'll see how "accurate" missiles are. Change this value to 0.1, and play a game - then change to 10, and play a game. There's a major difference. That's what I'm assuming here, but need to test more.