Reinforce + autoresolve

**Metzgershund** · March 30, 2009, 08:11 AM

So I've found the secret to blitzing even harder. On accident.

Send forward a stack to siege a city then come up with one unit to lead the "assault" (d'okay) and autoresolve.

Voila!

You now control all of Europe and have lost 5 men.

Does this work for everyone else or am I just awesome like that?

**Gornard** · March 30, 2009, 10:12 AM

Oh yeah i noticed that. I wish i hadn't though, because from now on i'll be tempted to autoresolve when it happens.

**Monsieur Alphonse** · March 30, 2009, 10:23 AM

Auto resolve is done on normal difficulty and not campaign difficulty if I have read the empire script correctly.

**Faris ad Din** · March 30, 2009, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Metzgershund

So I've found the secret to blitzing even harder. On accident.

Send forward a stack to siege a city then come up with one unit to lead the "assault" (d'okay) and autoresolve.

Voila!

You now control all of Europe and have lost 5 men.

Does this work for everyone else or am I just awesome like that?

I don't understand what you mean. Do you lay siege with one stack, send in an extra unit next to that stack as reinforcements, and then assault again and autoresolve to win with minimal casualties?

**Arta** · March 30, 2009, 11:14 AM

I think he means sending your full stack to siege a city, then using one unit to actually attack with, while the stack reinforces, autoresolve and only the single unit stack takes casualties. I think.

**Metzgershund** · March 30, 2009, 11:15 AM

@Alphonse: The difficulty has nothing to do with this, it's just a major glitch.

@Faris: You have one (1) full stack. Send it to start the besieging a city. After it is set on the city left click on unit of militia then right click (attack) the city the full stack is attacking. The 1 unit of militia will show up as the main attacking force in the window with the full stack acting as reinforcements. Click autoresolve and voila. You have lost 5 or 6 men but destroyed the apposing force.

Not a game breaker but what the hell CA? Just what the hell man.

Cheers,

Metzgershund

**EgyptianNecrophiliac** · March 30, 2009, 11:52 AM

Gah.... this will be temping to do sometimes... Damn you Metzgershund

**coman** · March 30, 2009, 11:57 AM

The main body takes casualties. You only see the casualties from the initiating stack.

**Metzgershund** · March 30, 2009, 12:55 PM

@Egyptian: Haha, yeah. When I'm in a tight spot (3 stacks on 1 of mine) I'll do it just so to save some money on anal reconstructive surgery, otherwise I refrain.

@coman: I don't really know what you mean, but the full stack doesn't suffer any casualties (from my experience at least), only the militia unit... and it's 5 men...

**akinkhoo** · March 30, 2009, 01:05 PM

I don't really know what you mean, but the full stack doesn't suffer any casualties (from my experience at least), only the militia unit... and it's 5 men...

sure? i used this a couple of times and i actually lost a regiment from the other stack. :\

**Metzgershund** · March 30, 2009, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by akinkhoo

sure? i used this a couple of times and i actually lost a regiment from the other stack. :\

Never happened to me like that. No, no I'm not "sure" it would not either, as I stated my comments are from my own experience.

This is a major fail by pre-release testers of the game. How do you not notice something like this before release?

**coman** · March 30, 2009, 01:55 PM

You're being hyperactive about something that you've observed incorrectly.

You will lose troops from the second stack. You will lose ships in reinforcing positions. The game has incorporated a new function of multiple reinforcing armies. It's strategically beneficial in auto-resolve to approach from multiple directions and have trailing armies behind your van.

It seems to add a significant bonus to the resolution and I think there might be a bug in addition to the display, that a routed army is counted as destroyed. If you attack from multiple directions you can cut off their withdrawal and wipe out the entire stack that is encircled.

Before you go and roll your eyes and pitch a fit, I've been playing over a hundred hours a week (I'm insanely bored) since launch and have tested this strategy and auto-resolved, reloaded and manually fought many dozens of battles.

coman

**ckangas** · March 30, 2009, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by coman

You're being hyperactive about something that you've observed incorrectly.

You will lose troops from the second stack. You will lose ships in reinforcing positions. The game has incorporated a new function of multiple reinforcing armies. It's strategically beneficial in auto-resolve to approach from multiple directions and have trailing armies behind your van.

It seems to add a significant bonus to the resolution and I think there might be a bug in addition to the display, that a routed army is counted as destroyed. If you attack from multiple directions you can cut off their withdrawal and wipe out the entire stack that is encircled.

Before you go and roll your eyes and pitch a fit, I've been playing over a hundred hours a week (I'm insanely bored) since launch and have tested this strategy and auto-resolved, reloaded and manually fought many dozens of battles.

coman

100 hours o.O! that's like every faction...5 times

but in any case, it should probably show combat losses for all the reinforcing armies on the battle resolution page instead of hiding them.

**Metzgershund** · March 30, 2009, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by coman

You're being hyperactive about something that you've observed incorrectly.

You will lose troops from the second stack. You will lose ships in reinforcing positions. The game has incorporated a new function of multiple reinforcing armies. It's strategically beneficial in auto-resolve to approach from multiple directions and have trailing armies behind your van.

It seems to add a significant bonus to the resolution and I think there might be a bug in addition to the display, that a routed army is counted as destroyed. If you attack from multiple directions you can cut off their withdrawal and wipe out the entire stack that is encircled.

Before you go and roll your eyes and pitch a fit, I've been playing over a hundred hours a week (I'm insanely bored) since launch and have tested this strategy and auto-resolved, reloaded and manually fought many dozens of battles.

coman

Good lord I don't know what your situation is but you have a lot more free time than me.

Well all I can say is that no matter how hard you try to justify me sending in a full stack then 120 militia and losing 5 men while the opposing force loses 1900, I don't think you can make that cement canoe float my friend.

Unless the AI is as confused as I am when I enter a battle against an army + reinforcements and their reinforcements... are.... behind me? (even though on the campaign map they were in front to a 70 degree angle, but I'm sure there is an explanation for that too, right?)

So..... no.

Just no.

**Heartfire** · March 30, 2009, 06:04 PM

The position on the campaign map no longer loads the same onto the battle map. Another feature that CA unfortunantely took out.

But regarding the topic, COMAN IS CORRECT.

**Faris ad Din** · March 30, 2009, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by Heartfire

The position on the campaign map no longer loads the same onto the battle map. Another feature that CA unfortunantely took out.

But regarding the topic, COMAN IS CORRECT.

From my limited observation, it's even completely reversed from north to south. This has ruined my strategy on more than one occasion.

And I defer to the person with 100+ hours of experience a week! (168 hours total a week)

There is a threshold some people refer to as the 10,000 hour threshold, which is the time needed to become an expert at something. There are just shy of 9,000 hours a year, so go figure.

Coman, the Totalwarian! The E:TW Grandmaster!

**Zenodox** · March 30, 2009, 07:37 PM

All stacks take casualties when multiple stacks are involved, it just only shows the kills and losses stats of the two main stacks when the battle statistics come up.

If you take 5 casualties on your single unit stack, and are reinforced by a full stack it probably means each unit in your main stack took about 5 casualties (it seems to spread casualties very evenly).

Around a 100 casualties for killing a full enemy stack isn't that unusual if you have good units and a good commander in your full stack. The commander who takes control when you autoresolve is clearly a military genius

.

**Azmodan** · April 14, 2009, 12:29 PM

Autoresolve and reinforcements make a very imbalanced feature.

reason 1: autoresolve calculates a random number of casualties and distributes that percentage among all your regiments. if u would fight manually, some would get annihilated, others suffer severe casualties and rout, and others would stay nearly intact. with autoresolve u always have a small number taken from all your regiments and thus just hit replentishment and your army is brand new and more experienced.

reason 2: autoresolve calculates all your regiments, including the reinforcements. so the casualties number from reason 1 is divided among 2 or 3 army stacks, making each regiment loose 2-3 ppl.

reason 3: in a 2 on 2 stacks battle, manually you would fight with 20 regiments against 40. As the player only gets to control 20 but the computer receives all the reinforcements. In this case it;s better to hit autoresolve than actually fight.

reason 4: in a 3 on 3 stacks battle, it;s mandatory to hit autoresolve - there is no chance to win in manual battle mode