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    Your Elvenar Team

Manual Fighters' Thread

Gkyr

Chef
Brief intro: One of the different motivations to sign into Elvenar is to manually fight the battles on the hex board, although not too many players do this consistently for most of their battles. It is my primary motivation.

I am thinking about starting this thread to see if their are any other MFs out there, and lets get one thing straight from the outset: MF is short for 'manual fighter' or 'manual fighting' and does not have any other meaning.

Posting: While it would be gratifying to read replies of general support and encouragement, I would ask that replies be limited to questions about MF or useful tips and tricks for MF, so as not to TLDR this thread. There are plenty of other threads in which to be purely social. Of course if there is little interest we won't have to worry about that. Also, this is not intended to be a discussion of the general merits of auto-fight vs. MF.

For this to work well, Human MF are needed to weigh in because my experience is limited to that of an Elf. I tried fighting as a Human but just preferred to go on as an Elf town.

New players are first encouraged to learn the battle basics in Elvenar here. Tactics will be assumed to take place in the long middle game (approximately chapters 5 through 14, after Golems become 2* but before blossom mages become 3*, in the Elf city) unless posters identify their battle as occurring the the early or late game stages. Beginning game tactics are quite different owing to the difficulty in province fighting that one must graduate through. If there are any late game MF out there I would like to hear from you, although I suspect that there are not.

Finally, if you wish to post a detailed discussion about a specific battle scenario, complete with screenshots, please start that discussion as a separate thread so as to not bloat this general post with a lot of images and spoiler buttons.

Skeptically patient,
Gkyr
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
lets get one thing straight from the outset: MF is short for 'manual fighter' or 'manual fighting' and does not have any other meaning.
There's no way I can make that mental adjustment.
sam.png
 

Gkyr

Chef
First post of Tips:

During a manual combat, the greatest losses have their beginnings in being wrong-footed. Not only do you have to match your enemy’s weakness, you have to stay out of your own way.

When making a move, there are three immediate responses to consider: 1. attack a vulnerable unit (ie, a unit over which you have a buff advantage like an Archer attacking a Mage), 2. attack the next enemy unit to move (in order to decrease their hit strength; this is what the opposing algorithm does much of the time), or 3. position yourself (to avoid blocking your next move or for a future advantage).

When engaging the opposing unit at the beginning of battle, move forward only enough to engage the enemy unit. Make the enemy expose itself to you by moving into your territory.

This is for new players. Most seasoned players know this stuff. Nothing new here.
 

Gkyr

Chef
Tourney battles are good tactical discussions because they are always 5 units against 5 units. This decreases the complexity somewhat.
Regarding Tourney battles:

When fighting a Knight, you want at least two archers in your setup.

When fighting two Hellhounds, you want 2, preferably three, Golems in your setup.

When fighting two Cannoniers, you want to avoid Archers, unless you want to spend them as cannon fodder.
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
When fighting a Knight, you want at least two archers in your setup.
Too general of a statement. But if we are to ignore who his other friends are, I would counter using Blossom mages instead bc she can hit him but he can’t hit her back bc she is out of his reach at her max range, making it possible to get the job done with zero damage. Double win. He can hit the archers most of the time though, unless there is an obstacle.

I can’t wait for your chapter on Bud Sorceress though!
 

Gkyr

Chef
Your point is a good one but, for the past two years, Tourney opponents have paired knights with Mist Walkers which will take out a complete Blossom squad on the first strike. Archers get hurt, but that is why there are two squads.
This current Tourney is unusual in that there have been a preponderance of HMelee without MWs - I have used as more Blossoms in the last two days than I have for weeks.
I can’t wait for your chapter on Bud Sorceress though!
That wisdom is yours to contribute.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
In my Ch18 city I've been manually fighting for almost 5 years now as an elf because I enjoy it. All my units are 3* and I face all 3* enemies. I've yet to find a Spire battle I couldn't win though I've been going to the top for over 2 years. Higher tourney provinces are sometimes catered once enemies get over 2x my squad size. Some of the 'rules' I live by in no particular order:
Range is king. The units I use 99% of the time are: Archers, Golems, Orc Strats, Rangers, Blossoms and Frogs.
Learn turn order of units; this is based on initiative and placement in the lineup.
Learn which of your units are targeted on the first strike by specific enemy units (esp Mist Walker). Ex: MW will always target an Archer over a Blossom. Facing a mix of Heavy Melee and Mist Walkers, I use a mix of Archers and Blossoms. MW's target an Archer on their first strike, I focus on removing MW's with my first strikes and any leftover Archers help the Blossoms mop up the HM's.
The enemy units never skip a turn and rarely retreat. I do both strategically to improve my situation. Allowing the enemy to move towards me when they can't yet reach my units positions me to remove them before they get a shot off.
Target enemies in the order in which they will be able to strike your units. Ex: Blossom could hit an Orc Deserter or a Thief. Orc Deserter is targeted first since it can hit the Blossom before the Thief can reach it (as long as the Blossom still remains too far away for Thief). If it's Orc General v Thief, Thief is targeted first since Orc General moves much slower.
Learn the difference between the enemy units that appear similar to your units. Ex: Orc Deserters and Orc Strats. Orc Deserters are specialized against Light Melee; Strats against Light Range. Orc Deserters don't have a defense buff against LR, so if the Archer can hit him first, it does some real damage and applies a debuff to his defenses. Since the Blossoms will go before the Deserters as well, they can often take out the Deserter before they get a strike off at all.
That's it from me for now, but will watch the thread and comment/contribute in the future.
 

Raccon

Well-Known Member
This is for players new to manual fight: Always scout before deciding what troops to choose. Scouting is basically sending one of your troops to fight just to have a chance to see the battlefield layout and obstacles, then press the white flag and surrender to return to main page and decide what troops do you need.
Send a single squad of highest initiative for scouting so the enemy won't hit you first.
If there is a Mist walker in the enemy lineup send an orc strategist instead, as the Mist walker always hit first, so the best scouting option would be the orc strategist as it has highest debuff against the light range.
Use a light mele that has debuff against both the mage and light range If the Mist walkers bring their mage friends along, so to minimize the damage, I usually use axe barbarians as they have debuff against both mage and Mist walkers.
 

Gkyr

Chef
Thank you to @samidodamage @Raccon and @Yogi Dave for spot-on suggestions.
I have no standing to approve these contributions from some exalted position; I am just another rank-and-file player but I appreciate it as OP that you have taken the time to share your experience.

For scouting, peeking at the battle set-up, usually one test squadron is used, as mentioned. But for complicated battles and you are obsessive about a great outcome, setting up an entire line of test squads or your actual planned squads is best. Why? If it is mages on both sides, I usually forget who goes before whom and often the attack order makes a difference. If it is your Golem versus an enemy's Hellhound, or your Banshee versus an enemy's Thornrose mage, those opposing units have the same initiative number and sometimes all of your units of the same number get to go first, but sometimes the algorithm breaks up the order and the enemy gets to move before your last unit. If you are blocking the Hellhounds from your vulnerable squad(s) using Golems, this makes a big difference.
Then you can look at the turn order strip at the bottom of the battle screen and see who is going to get the jump on whom. As @Yogi Dave said, you can put a high initiative unit in your 'test lineup' in order to prevent the enemy from striking first (if no Mist Walkers, who are always first) while you evaluate the rest of the battle order from the strip, then retreat and make any necessary revisions before engaging the battle.
 
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Sodbury

Active Member
Learn which of your units are targeted on the first strike by specific enemy units (esp Mist Walker). Ex: MW will always target an Archer over a Blossom.
Is there a list of these first strike preferences somewhere?
Do the preferences tend to hold across unit levels? (For example, do Mist Walker and Mist Walker II have similar preferences? Might a Mist Walker prefer an Archer to a Blossom but a Blossom to an Archer II?)
To what extent do these preferences hold after first strike? I'm often amazed when a heavy ranged unit barely scratches my banshee instead of obliterating my nearby archer. If I could anticipate this behavior, it would be a huge advantage.

(The thread is a year old, but it seems reasonable to ask here than to kick off a new one.)
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
If it is your Golem versus an enemy's Hellhound, or your Banshee versus an enemy's Thornrose mage, those opposing units have the same initiative number and sometimes all of your units of the same number get to go first, but sometimes the algorithm breaks up the order and the enemy gets to move before your last unit. If you are blocking the Hellhounds from your vulnerable squad(s) using Golems, this makes a big difference.
If they have the same initiative number, then tie breaker goes to position number, with highest position going first. Example: Your Golem is in Position 3 and Hellhound is in Position 5. Hellhound goes first and will be reachable to your Golem on his turn. If you flip it and Golem is in 5 and Hellhound is in 3, then wah wah, Golem goes first but spends a turn walking and can’t reach Hellhound. I tried to illustrate that here.

Is there a list of these first strike preferences somewhere?
The way I remember it is they generally follow initiative order, and then there are exceptions. The initiative order by class is LR->M->LM->HR->HM. Even just painting with broad strokes like initiative order, you still have to remember within each class, who goes first. The LR class alone requires a crazy number to juggle in your head if you count in enemies too. After that, you remember by individual exception cases, like Mist Walker likes to pick on Dryads. Another exception is the Golem/Hellhound example above. Golem is technically HR and Hellhound is LR, but they share same initiative number. Unfortunately, I don’t have a chart though. I can’t make one either bc I don’t know all the cases myself. I mean, look at the unit stats overview chart for all unit types. It’s a damn big chart with a crazy ton of units types to track! This is also crowdsourced info. I doubt Inno will ever explicitly tell us the AI battle algo so it requires players to devote the time (and dead troops) to study and share. [Not to mention, even the battles do not always correspond to official documentation sometimes. See also: Buff/Debuff bug]. Even with Mist Walker case, it’s a very high % she will go after the Dryad, but it’s still not with 100% certainty. It’s high enough % for it to be an implemented strategy though, IMO. I will risk bringing in mages to battle even with Mist Walker around if I bait with Dryad too versus thinking she could kill a whole stack of my mages on opening round.

Do the preferences tend to hold across unit levels?
Yes, it’s pretty safe to treat all the various promotions of a unit to be the same.

To what extent do these preferences hold after first strike? I'm often amazed when a heavy ranged unit barely scratches my banshee instead of obliterating my nearby archer. If I could anticipate this behavior, it would be a huge advantage.
Ancient Orc guy also sometimes walks past an archer to go after an Orc Warrior, but I haven’t devoted enough time to figure out what the heck he is up either. It gets tricky because you can only visually confirm if certain unit types are within range of another and it’s against your nature to put some units in harm’s way as a sacrificial offering just to see what AI would do. Most of us are fighting to win the damn encounter. I have only done deep dives for a few units bc it’s so time consuming and also wasteful of your units. You have to intentionally pick weird lineups to test different “what if” scenarios. @The Fairy did ask me a specific question regarding frogs once and I was curious enough myself to look into it. I can confirm frogs follow initiative. This is important in application because I often pair a frog to a Hellhound to just tone it down a little before Hellhound strikes since it’s got crazy range to reach so many units. However, if there are both LR and Hellhound present, then the frog will target LR first instead of the Hellhound you have him there for in an autofight, which means he will take a full strength bite out of your archers or mages (uh oh!). In which case, you might need to alter strategy for manual vs autofight with the same lineup of enemies.
 

Lelanya

Scroll-Keeper, Keys to the Gems
Yeah Crackie orcs seem to be maddened by the sight of another orc on the opposite side. I have teased the last Orc General with a view of an Orc Strat, and played ring around the terrain with 2 nearly dead units. I have killed a full strength HM with an archer with 2 guys left, with this tactic.
 

Sodbury

Active Member
[enemy attack preferences]
Super useful info, thanks! I spent a little time applying what you've said. Works like a charm so far. Two swamp heavies chased my Cerberus II (initiative: 9) around for 15 rounds, totally ignoring my gang of Faineant Frogs (initiative: 8) as they slowly peppered the poor heavies to death. This opens up all kinds of new strategies (to me) for avoiding losses.
 

Smooper

Well-Known Member
Super useful info, thanks! I spent a little time applying what you've said. Works like a charm so far. Two swamp heavies chased my Cerberus II (initiative: 9) around for 15 rounds, totally ignoring my gang of Faineant Frogs (initiative: 8) as they slowly peppered the poor heavies to death. This opens up all kinds of new strategies (to me) for avoiding losses.
I used to fight manual all the time and I enjoyed the ability to control the fight. The main problem it takes hours and hours and hours to get anything accomplished and so now I am trying to optimize the autofights.

In the spirit of this thread though, I like to move my ranged to a corner if I know there are fast movers like orcs or dogs. I get my heavy melee between and let them to most of the work against these units. Those goofy bandits or whatever they are called can be taken out easily by mages or heavy ranged even though their is no bonus when attacking them.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
1 of the drawbacks of manual fighting is order....
and by that I mean, even if you pick troops
1,2,3,4,5 and they are all the same type, they
won't necessarilly attack 1,2,3,4,5... its bizzare
but thats usually what causes my troops to get
hung up behind other troops.
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
1 of the drawbacks of manual fighting is order....
and by that I mean, even if you pick troops
1,2,3,4,5 and they are all the same type, they
won't necessarilly attack 1,2,3,4,5... its bizzare
but thats usually what causes my troops to get
hung up behind other troops.
See what I said earlier. Tie breaker for same initiative goes to position number, with highest first. In a fight of all same units, your units will fight in the order of 5,4,3,2,1. (Remember the Battlefield from top to bottom is 4,2,1,3,5 to add to the confusion :) )
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
In a fight of all same units, your units will fight in the order of 5,4,3,2,1. (Remember the Battlefield from top to bottom is 4,2,1,3,5 to add to the confusion :) )
While I know the battlefield is 4,2,1,3,5, I know for a
fact that same units do Not follow the 5,4,3,2,1.
I will watch closer from now on, but that has not
been my experience.
 
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