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Thread: GUARD MODE ABUSE

  1. #1

    Default GUARD MODE ABUSE

    I don't know if anybody ever complained about how the player can ABUSE guard mode to destroy much stronger armies. What you can do is simple yet tremendously effective: take your army to one corner of the map, possibly on high ground. Put your infantry on a single line which covers ALL of the corner without leaving any space, and let them stay still with guard mode ON. This works with bridge battles and siege defend as well.

    What happens is quite disturbing: the enemy has no choice but to clash with your line without a chance to flank. Most notably, enemy soldiers will TIRE themselve pretty quick and become exhausted, while your soldiers will remain FRESH all the time! Apparently when in guard mode soldiers don't tire at all. This results in the enemy slowly getting destroyed then route, while you suffer relatively few casualties.

    Is there any known way to fix this? Because to win battles this way feels pretty sad, even playing on VH/VH, it's still ridicolous.

  2. #2

    Default Re: GUARD MODE ABUSE

    Erm, yes it's something that plagued TW titles since the beginning. A design limitation. Battle maps can't be infinite, so units are limited to a "square". That's not to say there couldn't exist clever ways as to how this could have been avoided from a design perspective, but sadly, CA has never considered them.

    The best way to avoid it is to not take advantage of this exploit. It cheapens gameplay and quite frankly isn't necessary. If you know how to manage your reserves, you wouldn't need to worry about being outflanked. This holds true especially with infantry heavy armies such as the Greeks and the Romans.

    Back in Rome, corner camping worked because probability centric unit balance heavily favored static line tactics, sometimes to the point where it got ridiculous (one or two of militia pikemen could theoretically wear down an almost indefinite number of enemies if attacked head on). In latest iterations, such as Rome II and TW:W, unit balance was changed to a more orthodox hp/damage system. Among other things, camping became less of an issue because putting your entire army in a corner limits your own mobility as well, and staying there usually doesn't compensate for stat or number inferiority of your troops, unless you have a really good hill advantage, which happens rarely enough to discount it as a viable strategy for every battle.
    Last edited by Carl Jung was right; December 12, 2016 at 03:41 AM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: GUARD MODE ABUSE

    Well thx for the suggestion, still i disabled fatigue because sadly the AI is stupid and will run around a lot with his troops, making them exhausted very quick. In RTW fatigue happens to give a huge drop in terms of attack, defence and morale, to the point that even elite units get slaughtered by cheap fresh ones. I even tried to give every unit the " very_hardy " line but it didn't quite fix it.

    Actually to get a somewhat challenging campaign the only thing i can do at this point is edit the EDB and give all factions a great bonus except mine. Even with this, it can't be helped when it lets me conquer their cities while their armies are sitting elsewhere doing nothing.

  4. #4
    Daminios's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: GUARD MODE ABUSE

    Hello Ironlich ....

    AI never improved after MTW ..

    But .....
    Good old MTW is still alive & growing !
    Do drop in some time over at the Org .
    Ancient Total Wars is moving along at a brisk pace .
    And a new Roman Wars release is coming sometime soon in the new year .

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