When offense is not the best defense

**mcv** · October 16, 2009, 05:17 AM

I won a losing battle in a hilarious way. I'm playing SS 4.1 with Denmark, conquered Upsala and Oslo, then discovered I didn't own all of Norway yet. Where is the other town? It's a bit hard to search through all those mountains, so assuming it'd be near the coast, I sent a general with a small army (how hard can those rebels be?) in a ship along the coast. I found Bergen, and also found it was filled with a horde of viking raiders and crossbowmen. Too much for my small army of spearmen, archers and weak general.

Still, I'm not going to keep my army at sea and risk them being sunk by pirates. So I land, besiege, and quickly send some other troops and a better general by the fastest route (some over land, some over sea).

They won't arrive in time, however. The besieged Bergenians immediately sally forth. Hordes of viking raiders and crossbowmen pour out of the fort. I pull back my infantry on a slight elevation (no real hills in Norway apparently) in a clearing in the forest. But my general's bodyguard quickly runs the other way, hoping to charge the enemy in the rear. My spearmen will obviously get cut to pieces, but maybe the cavalry can do some damage, is what I'm thinking.

So imagine my joy when all the defenders pour out of the fort and chase my infantry, completely ignoring my cavalry. And by ignoring I mean: not leaving any defenders behind in the fort. So my otherwise lousy general quickly sneaks into the fort behind the vikings' backs, and parks on the central plaza waiting for three minutes to run out.

My spearmen got slaughtered. I lost way more troops than the rebels, but that didn't matter, because having the only unit on the plaza means you win. The rebels did eventually send some viking raiders back, but it was too late. I won, despite having no chance to win and losing most of my troops.

**meese** · October 16, 2009, 05:26 AM

Haha, I've never actually done that before. Did he get any traits?

**Navajo Joe** · October 16, 2009, 05:42 AM

I believe there is a 'Sneaky Bastard' trait, so he certainly qualifies for that!

**Medieval American** · October 16, 2009, 06:26 AM

Its worth trying this just to get that trait! How else can I get my Generals to be Sneaky Bastards? What other funny traits are there?

**mcv** · October 16, 2009, 08:06 AM

I don't think he got any traits out of it. Certainly not Sneaky Bastard. Is the engine even able to recognise this situation?

**Vaz** · October 16, 2009, 09:42 AM

I don't think there's such a trait. Just looked through the vnv's text file, and there's nothing about it, and I can't find a trait or trigger with "sneaky", or "bastard" that's relevant.

**CrossSide** · October 16, 2009, 09:54 AM

Yeah I've done that so many times, it always works. But you need horses for it

What you also can do is putting a army of spearman in the streets who will hold the computer for a while and then run around with you're general and take the square. Easy game

**Lemming69** · October 16, 2009, 10:00 AM

off topic but is 4.1 a lot different to 6.1 or better in any way?

**Navajo Joe** · October 16, 2009, 10:04 AM

Guys, I must confess I was trying to be humourous, I can honestly say that their is no such trait, as 'Sneaky Bastard', although perhaps we should have a word with BYG to add it, it would be sort of funny!

**mcv** · October 17, 2009, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by Lemming69

off topic but is 4.1 a lot different to 6.1 or better in any way?

It's older, so probably different and not as good. But it's the most recent version of Stainless Steel that works without the Kingdoms expansion, so everybody who doesn't have Kingdoms is stuck with 4.1 for now.

Back on topic: is it possible to fix the AI so that it always keeps some defense for the plaza? With a clear battle-winning objective like that, it's stupid to leave it undefended like that.

**Tacitursa** · October 17, 2009, 10:16 AM

Back on topic: is it possible to fix the AI so that it always keeps some defense for the plaza? With a clear battle-winning objective like that, it's stupid to leave it undefended like that.

There is already a fix. Just dont exploit game mechanics and cheat. When the AI sally's forth just fight them. Your troops dont get to the plaza on there own, It's upto the player if they want to abuse the exploit or not.

There's loads of exploits like this in the game that cant be fixed you just have to make the decision as a player. The worst one is AI putting full army stacks onto single ships and then sailing them. Such as scotland putting pretty much there entire army on a ship and attacking bruges on turn 3 or 4 you can sink it and remove the rest of scotland with just half a stack.

You can either

1. Send 3 ships and destory the entire army very easy and very cheap (exploit imo)
2. Send an equal ammount of ships to the AI and let balance decide the fate of the army
3. Let them land

**KittySN** · October 16, 2009, 12:25 PM

Siege a settlement with a general's bodyguard and when they sally, run to the corner of the map. When they finally catch up, run back to the center square. They won't make it back in time! I don't "cheat" like this anymore, but I still siege with a general's bodyguard and maybe a unit of cavalry. The general's bodyguard is way overpowered in SS. So can own most rebels in open field...