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    Your Elvenar Team

Auto-fight from a beginner's perspective

Moho

Chef
I am in Chapter III, in the process of researching Advanced Silk Manufactory. I take all the researches in order.

Since I started playing this game a month ago today, I have been aware of the fact that using my troops can ensure a better success for my city. I am not sure how good I am at making use of my military to reach this goal, but I am working on it.

fight 01.jpg

fight 02.jpg


The new Magic Dust Tournament is about to start in 10 hours' time and I hope I will do a great job there.
Please share any advice you find useful, or any thoughts may fit in this discussion. Let's talk about it. :)
 

Fayeanne

Well-Known Member
Hmm. Against that match-up I would have gone all Bowmen. They will take out the Mages easily, are neutral to the Light Ranged, and are good against that pesky Orc. Especially if you have an Enlightened Light Range building up--may as well get good use out of it.

I will say I avoid Light Melee like the plague, especially on auto-fight. The AI seems pretty poor at moving units (just look at where it proposes putting them during manual fights if you let it select where to move!), so the less the units have to navigate, the better; thus why units with longer attack range seem to fare better on AI. Plus Light Melee is just weak overall anyway.

But I do think you have the right idea. There's no real harm in experimentation. Try lots of things and see what works; the worst that happens is you have to spend supplies and time to rebuild your units. (Obviously you may wish to be a bit less bold with unit types you have limited numbers of, such as if you are getting Frogs from the Witch's Hut or something.)
 

Moho

Chef
I will say I avoid Light Melee like the plague, especially on auto-fight.
I understand. However, I used them successfully before. So far my flair has helped me win even against enemy gangs with slightly larger Squadsizes. I would say I can win 95% of the encounters where Squadsizes are not highly disproportionate in their favor. I am surprised myself when the battle seems to suggest I should only attack with Axe Barbarians and Bowmen. I usually win. (Let us not forget my minuscule experience though.)

fight 03.jpg
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
I had never played a combat game before this one and I started out trying to always cater; didn't even train troops unless for a quest for the first several chapters. If I can learn combat in this game, anyone can, lol! I did it for the same reason as you: catering gets expensive, even more so as you progress through the chapters. One of the most informative things I found was watching the autofight battles. To do this, select your troops, then the 'fight' button instead of 'autofight'. On the battlefield screen, there is a sword on right side of the bottom user bar. Click that and you can watch the autofight battle. I learned a bunch doing that even though I didn't know what I was looking at when I started it.
You'll also be able to see if your troops are disadvantaged by obstacles on the battlefield due to where they are placed. Just under the sword is a white flag. You can surrender and you'll only lose the units that have been killed to that point in the battle. If you have 1st initiative (you should have with the above line-up) that means zero losses. Surrender, go back out and change troop positions to ones that are more favorable to the battlefield terrain. As you learn more, you'll be able to just send in one crossbowman (highest initiative of your troops; you'll only take a hit if there is an enemy Mist Walker-highest initiative of all troops) to scout the terrain, make decisions about troop placement, surrender, and then set up your own troops.
At any point during a manual battle when it's your 'turn', you can hover over your unit that is going to move next. You can do this at the beginning of a battle just to see how it works. The hexes where they can move will highlight in yellow. You can hover over enemy troops and a red sword or bow/arrow (strike symbol) will appear if your unit can move and strike that enemy unit. If you want to try moving the units manually, hover over the yellow highlighted hexes until the hex you wish to move into is solid yellow, then click the solid yellow hex. To strike the enemy unit, hover over the enemy unit, it will show the red strike symbol, then click on the enemy unit. While you can just hover over the enemy unit you wish to strike and click, the AI sometimes makes really stupid decisions about where to move your unit to do this (like blocking another of your units from moving when there were other choices) so it's always preferred to move your unit first, then strike.
Hopefully this will help you begin learning the combat system. It was slow going at first, but has been well worth the time I spent on it.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
@Moho Barracks light melee troops are not that good. Mainly because they are so slow. Units they are "good" against like mages and light ranged all have long range. The mages and light ranged almost always get 1 free hit on you before you can close the gap with your light melee and start attacking. If there is any terrain in the way you have to move around, they might get 2 free hits in.

In the fight you showed, the opposing force was 3 mage units, 1 heavy melee unit, and 1 light ranged unit. I would have used 5 units of light ranged troops. They would have had bonuses against the enemy mage units and the enemy heavy melee. And would have been neutral against the enemy light ranged.
 

Silver Lady

Well-Known Member
I unfortunately can only auto-fight as I don’t currently have a PC to play on. I know everyone complains about the auto-fight, but any info to help make the best of the situation is most gratefully received. I’m in the Orcs chapter and try to fight about half the time. Needless to say I loose lots of troops and have to spend lots of time and supplies rebuilding. This means my progress on Spire, Tournaments and Provinces is much slower than I would like, but catering everything is also slow due to the cost. Suggestions please.
 

verygr8ful

New Member
I really appreciate this thread, thanks for posting! I have been playing for years and have only auto fought until recently. Now I want to be able to reach the top of the Spire and so I am trying to figure out how to hand combat, and wow is it confusing, aggravating, unsatisfying.
I have bugged the best players I know for tips to reach Spire top, and I am working on it, but it remains an elusive goods/troop greedy thang, Argh.
 

Moho

Chef
Against that match-up I would have gone all Bowmen.
I would have used 5 units of light ranged troops.
Thank you. I am surprised though because the Axe Barbarian seemed to the more efficient unit compared to the Bowman.
If I can learn combat in this game, anyone can, lol!
Thank you for the explanation. I feel like I'm in debt now. :)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first round of the Tournament has passed. Unfortunately, it started while I was busy with something else, that is multitasking. I didn't want to delay the start, so it was automatically... auto-fight.

No problem, the battles were not epic anyway. Maybe a couple of them could make one hesitate for a moment, but in general they were easily manageable due to the disproportionate squad sizes.

One of these days, I hope I will be able to tackle them a bit more leisurely so that I can take some notes and put the information together for some useful demonstrations. That might be helpful.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
@Silver Lady
I feel for mobile-only players trying to learn combat. Here's a link:
Mykan's Fighting Guide
Though written when there was no mobile and before Spire and the current tourney structure, the information regarding troops, their placement, and which units they work best against and are vulnerable to is still valid. Scroll down in the first post to just below the Battle Pentagon to start reading about some of that.
The map province fights still work the same way, so the info on the mix of enemy troops and recommended units to use will still work for those fights. The breakdown by province type starts at this post:
Provinces
Ex: if you're fighting a marble province on the world map, the info under Marble provinces will be helpful.
My brain didn't like the 'pentagon' way of explaining things, and I was only able to really grasp the concept by looking at the 'Army Camp' tab of a military production bldg. Mobile has that window so maybe this will help:
Each unit is vulnerable to the 2 units to its left and is good against the 2 units to its right. So the first unit Light Melee is good against Light Range/Mage and vulnerable to Heavy Range/Heavy Melee (I look at it as circling back around, if that makes sense). Mages are vulnerable to Light Melee/Light Range (to its left) and good against Heavy Melee/Heavy Range (to its right).
The devil is in the details. Though your Sword Dancer (elves light melee) is 'best against' light range and mage, it may not be the best unit available against them. Archers (elves light range) are also 'best against' mage (and heavy melee) and their movement and strike range can be a huge advantage over the slow moving, close strike Sword Dancers. This can be especially important in an actual fight where the other enemy units are Heavy Melee. Those Sword Dancers will be crushed by the Heavy Melee and are usually in range of their attack once they manage to reach the mages.
When you tap the 'i' for more info on mobile it just lists 'best against' and those 2 unit types, another disadvantage. Browser provides detailed info on specific percent attack and defense bonus against those units as well as health and attack numbers for that unit. It also provides movement and strike range, strike-back capabilities (where present) as well as initiative. Mykan's Guide has a detailed description of each of the units. The Wiki has a chart of that info by unit at:
Unit Stats Overview
Again, on browser I can have any of those resources open in another browser tab and flip back and forth as needed while I'm fighting.
Mobile is definitely at a combat disadvantage in many ways. I hope some of this is helpful.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
Thank you. I am surprised though because the Axe Barbarian seemed to the more efficient unit compared to the Bowman.
Combat in Elvenar is largely about which unit can get off the first attack. If you hit them first, you are going to have a much easier time winning fights and will suffer much lighter losses than if the AI units hit you first.

The problem with Axe Barbarians (or Sword Dancers for elvish players) is that they only move 3 spaces a turn and can only attack units right beside them. Every light range unit in the game has an attack range of 4. And many of the mage units have an attack range of 5. This means that every single light range and mage unit in the game will be able to hit your Axe Barbarians at least once before you can close the range. The mage units with a range of 5 can hit you twice.

So the Axe Barbarian probably does have a higher attack rating and health rating than your Crossbowmen and look good on paper. But they always take such a beating getting within range that in reality they do not perform well. Crossbowmen get to start shooting from 4 spaces away, so they do not have this issue.
 

Moho

Chef
Combat in Elvenar is largely about which unit can get off the first attack. If you hit them first, you are going to have a much easier time winning fights and will suffer much lighter losses than if the AI units hit you first.
All right, I understand. It is also clear why the Axe Barbarian seemed to be such an efficient unit, but he was not.
I hope I'll figure all these things out but I'm not so sure.
Thank you.
 

Moho

Chef
I read the pages that have been recommended to me. Part of them I had already skimmed. I also did some research on my own and found older forum discussions, where these very things are explained by former and present players.

Well, it's a game. We're all people with various backgrounds, who enjoy playing this game for different reasons. Some of us enjoy certain parts better than others, while having difficulty with the rest of the game.

I remember how hard it was for me to understand how the Ancient Wonder worked, with its reward chests for people's contributions to the research. It took a lot of explaining from many people for me to eventually get it. And it was such a simple aspect of the game after all.

Of course people's brains are different, and mine seems to be a bit more different than others. I enjoy building the city. This is the number one reason why I started playing this. The military part baffles me although I do my best not to disappoint myself and my Fellowship members.

But maybe I'll understand someday. And besides being Elvenar players, we're also human beings who enjoy socializing. And especially with the new restrictions during the pandemic, Internet socialization may have skyrocketed.
 

Moho

Chef
Okay, back to our topic. I have just finished a Tournament fight. I used my old instincts again, where I had the feeling the Axe Barbarian was going to do a good job. I think he didn't.

I made a short film of the encounter, and then I took snapshots of the fight so that we can discuss what is going on there. For example, I can see that the enemy is the first to attack. I guess my troops would have attacked first if I had used the Bowman.

I can also see how they sometimes simply move around apparently for no reason, without attacking each other. These movements do not really make sense to me.

It also obvious that the terrain influences the fight. Those patches of vegetation and irregular land impact the way fighters move on the field. However, I fail to understand the details.

I am going to post the snapshots of the actual fight. It looks long and tedious because there are a lot of images. But maybe working on these pictures will help understand the mechanism of a battle.

Processing the images took a long time and I didn't have time for comments. I'm planning to edit them later with my thoughts and the ideas of other participants.

It is not clear what the troops do exactly and why they act they way they do. Please let me know what you think of all this.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This was the fight. You can see my decision to send the Axe Barbarian to the battlefield. Now I think I should have sent the Bowman.

fight 01.jpg
 
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Fayeanne

Well-Known Member
A few observations I've made with the AI:
  • If there is an enemy within range that they can hit that turn, they always attack. Even if the attack would be suicide (e.g. a Light Melee attacking a Heavy Melee and getting killed by the Strike Back).
  • If there is more than one enemy within range, usually they go for the enemy with the highest Initiative (and for units of the same type, this goes according to the order shown to you at the bottom of the screen). However, enemies do also seem to prioritize certain unit types over others. I am not sure if this is the same when your units are on AI. (I have mostly watched the enemy AI.) Curiously, I have seen examples where it seems this type of prioritization kicks in only when the enemy is higher level (e.g. star rating). This might have been coincidence though.
  • Even when there is an enemy within range, the AI's movement is affected by the enemy it really wants to hit. For example, if you have a Light Ranged behind your Heavy Melee and the enemy Light Melee really wants to hit your Light Ranged but can't reach, he will often walk as far as he possibly can toward your Light Ranged, then stop and hit the Heavy Melee.
  • If there are no enemies within range to attack that turn, the movement of the AI is...odd. I have seen Heavy Melee take one step and pass their turn. Often Light Melee will walk half their movement distance and stop. I guess they are trying to let the enemy come to them? Or maybe are trying not to put themselves into harm's way. I haven't really decided yet what it is doing.
You are seeing what I mean about Light Melee, though. :D I had similar experiences as you, and pretty much gave up on them.
 

Fayeanne

Well-Known Member
Yes, I would try that, personally. Maybe stick the Orc Strategist in the center across from the enemy archer to encourage his AI to go after that archer. He is good or netural against everything else, so he shouldn't get taken out too quickly. (Though most likely all those Light Melee are going to go for him so expect to lose the Orc Strategist.) Paladins are pretty good at dealing with their counter units so shouldn't fare too badly against the archer even if he gets a hit off on them. One nice thing about range 2 on a Heavy Melee is archers can't kite them unless the terrain is in their favor.
 

Moho

Chef
es, I would try that, personally. Maybe stick the Orc Strategist in the center across from the enemy archer to encourage his AI to go after that archer.
Oh, thank you. I get it somehow. Not everything, but something is better than nothing.

Unfortunately I won't be able to do it. I lost the Orc Strategists in a Tournament fight. I was multitasking again, and I forgot the Orcs were not a complete squad. I only remember it after the fight. It was a tricky fight because the Squadsizes were almost the same and I almost lost. But I didn't.

I won't go to the Spire, but at least it's good we had this conversation. I wonder if the mortars would be as good as the Orc Strategists. Probably not. I happen to have some mortars from an instant. I lost most of them and I hope I'll be able to keep them alive during the Tournament. Next week I will have researched Mortars too, but right now a squad is all I have available...
 
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