The Crack Guide to Fighting

[crackie]

one the most important tactic (to me) is kiting

I have not heard this term used before, but that doesn't mean it's not something I'm already doing and you're just giving it a unique name. What is it?

most of your examples occur on a clear battlefield but this never happens

Of course it starts with a clear battlefield! I took the time to make a clear battlefield from scratch for a reason. You start out teaching the basics and it's understanding the foundations that allows someone to adapt and maneuver to other situations, aka think for themselves. You don't start with specific outlier cases and work out towards general strategy. Otherwise, it's like teaching people how to hit in a 3-2 count before they understand how to swing a bat. People need to walk before they can run. A lot of people are autofighters. Some don't even know there is a battlefield. But for fun, let's look at the alternative...teach people the foundation from the perspective there are obstacles everywhere. "Oh, it looks like you can't move anywhere, hit anything, and you have 2394871893719347293742 obstacle combinations to memorize and account for. Guess y'all better cater!" I think it's far more effective teaching people this is your max movement and range bearing NO obstacles at this starting Position. Now regardless of what RNG obstacles pop up, max movement + range is still the furthest you can ever hope to cover. Anything other potential obstacle combination will still fall under that range!

Those fast ones suck but sometimes you can block them with the hated HM and then they are toast. But only if they don't reach their target on round 1.

If I know everyone's initiative, movement, and range, (including the enemy's) then I'm not trying to block a Hellhound though. I'm trying have him killed or be as close to killed before he even moves.

a lot of the time starting position is overrated

I will disagree with that emphatically. If you think understanding clear map strategy and starting position is a fruitless endeavor because it never happens and is therefore a low probability outcome, I'm curious how you concluded on a HR blocking strategy for dealing with a Hellhound as practical strategy. A human city cannot block a Hellhound with Mortar, Frogs, or Orc Strategists since they lack the movement or moves after a Hellhound, and humans don't have access to Golems. I'll even give you favorable terrain RNG in this hypothetical situation where where the Hellhound can be blocked. But then...uh oh, an elf's Golem shares an Initiative with a Hellhound, which means whether he goes first to be able to block the Hellhound is...*wait for it*...dependent on starting position.

If you understand the foundation, then you can bare knuckle fight with no buffs or Fire Phoenix. If you can bare knuckle fight successfully, everything only gets easier as you progress because your units get more promotions and you have access to more toys (wonders). You wouldn't need to use 6 buffs a week to clear the Spire. But hey, feel free to take none of the advice! People are free to not learn any of this stuff and keep marching Sword Dancers into battle. Doesn't affect me at all!

 

[Raccon]

I have not heard this term used before, but that doesn't mean it's not something I'm already doing and you're just giving it a unique name. What is it?

Basically it's about always moving out of enemy's range while keeping it whthin your maximum range and hit it constantly. It's mostly done by 5 hex mages such as grandpa or the Blossom or the light range against 0 range Heavy mele like the orc general or trent. Against two hex range Heavies such as knight, paladin or valorian guard it's best to use mages as the light rang wouldn't be able to stay out of harm's way!

 

[Raccon]

I forgot to mention that kiting has become a rare opportunity since elvenar's "shady characters" lineup, almost always, includes two Mist walkers as top cover.

 

[crackie]

Basically it's about always moving out of enemy's range while keeping it whthin your maximum range and hit it constantly. It's mostly done by 5 hex mages such as grandpa or the Blossom or the light range against 0 range Heavy mele like the orc general or trent. Against two hex range Heavies such as knight, paladin or valorian guard it's best to use mages as the light rang wouldn't be able to stay out of harm's way!

1. This applies only to manual battles. There are other topics that pertains to battle for everyone that prob should be covered first. Time is not infinite and is a limiting factor. The biggest time suck is creating all the custom images so ideally, I'm trying to get tips out that will help as many people in one swoop.
2. If you are manual fighting, and they are a minority (remember, most people cater! ), isn't this just...common sense? Isn't the concept of keeping your troops out of harm's way instinctive to manual fighting or am I jumping to conclusions and giving humanity too much credit? Are we at the point where we need to tell people not to drink the contents of a battery in a manual? Cause if you don’t care about where your troops go, why waste the time manual fighting when autofighting gets the job done faster.

Most autofighters start at the combat pentagon and ends at the combat pentagon. I know because they often ask me battle questions in terms of class color like, "Can I use 3 blues and 2 purples here?", when they mean 3 light melee and 2 mages. They don't even make the distinction of which light melee and which mage because to them, they're all the same. That's what the combat pentagon says. Of course, also left out is how they slotted their 3 blues and 2 purples into the 5 slots because they don't think that's important either.

I'm trying nudge them along to let them know there are other components at play than just pure attack abilities and everyone has niche specialties so no two units in the same class are the same. Even before they click auto-fight button, they should understanding things like the slot of troop affects position, initiative affects reach, and why they should check out the Unit Stat Overview page to learn the troops a little better because it's so much more resourceful than the in-game guide for unit strengths. I know the Unit Stat Overview pretty well, but it's still bookmarked and I pull it up on occasion to double-check something or thinking things through if I want to experiment with something different. So it need not necessarily there to be memorized, but players should at least have awareness this reference page exists. The 3 most useful attributes listed there are Initiative, Range, and Movement. A manual fighter understands the mechanics of battle better since they can see the Battlefield play out, but they too will benefit from familiarizing themselves with the Unit Stat Overview page and certain key attributes rather than being reliant on the in-game strength system. Hence, that’s something I am more willing to explain and create new graphics for.

 

[Smooper]

@crackie I think you misjudge what my post was conveying. I was merely pointing out some things that maybe you should cover since you hadn't. I did not know how much you were intending to post in your battle manual. It is full of good information for fighting in general but I was mentioning things that you might need to cover. I guess I could wait until you said "all done" and then bring things up that I think should be covered. I want you to cover things I do because maybe i am missing some nuance.

That being said, your #2 point above...I would say yes this might happen. I would say half of the battles I have had in the spire this week have required me to retreat right away, take a small hit rather than rushing forward with initiative, doing partial damage on a dangerous troop and then be left blowing in the breeze because nobody else could get by obstructions and make attacks. Then this lone troop is smashed against 3 or 4 attacks. I retreat out of range of their movement on turn one, if I can, and then absorb a mist walker attack or a mage attack and go for the kill on turn 2 when their troops are spread out and can't concentrate fire. So, a long winded way of saying, yes, I think players can make the mistake of rushing into trouble on turn one.

Let me know if I am reading things wrong but you don't have to get so upset. I think your guide is great and as I posted in the making troops thread, I have been using much of your advice.

 

[Smooper]

I forgot to mention that kiting has become a rare opportunity since elvenar's "shady characters" lineup, almost always, includes two Mist walkers as top cover.

I don't think Mist walkers should stop kiting, in fact it invites it. You can't do anything about Mist walkers anyways. Let them come and destroy them when your turn comes and then kite away from the other troops as you continue the battle.

 

[Raccon]

I don't think Mist walkers should stop kiting, in fact it invites it. You can't do anything about Mist walkers anyways. Let them come and destroy them when your turn comes and then kite away from the other troops as you continue the battle.

A usual enemy lineup (that has Heavy range to kite) usually have two Mist walkers + two heavy melee and either a dog or an anciant orc.
Mist walkers can cover every corner on the battle field unless there are obstacles which usually affect friendly troop movements as well.
SO, If I used mages, two of them would be dead before I even started and I'll have to face five enemy troops with 3.
If I used cross bowmen (I play human) the two mist walkers disable my two LRs on first round (killing around half the stack and debuffing the survivors by %20 for 3 rounds)
Now my turn starts with 3 and a half vs five fresh enemy.
Suppose I still went ahead and made a Kiting run against the enemy Heavy melee, the mist walkers + anciant orc or dog would send the rest of my mage or archers to meet their creator right after my first kiting attempt
There are rare occasions however, where there are only heavy melee (kiting with LR or 5 space range mage) or 3-4 Heavy melee and 1 or 2 - three step LM (kiting with 5 space range mage)

 

[Smooper]

Kiting works against moving heavy range (golems, orc strategists), all heavy melee, most light melee (except hounds) and the short range Mages. It depends on what you put out. The mist walker example is fine. I would not put mages across from mist walkers so there is a good chance they won't hit your mage. Personally I would put a dryad across from one mist walker and then throw a few other archers in and 2 heavy melee. The heavy melee would be able to wreck the ancient orcs or dogs on turn one or two. The other archers would gang up on the mist walkers on turn one. Mist walkers and dog would be combat ineffective and then I would kite the heavy melee with my archers. I have done this type of thing many times.

 

[Raccon]

Apparently we have different interpretation of kiting.
To me it's shooting an enemy outside it's reach without getting hit when it's enemy's turn.
The heavy range you mentioned moves 3 and hits 3 hexes away. The anciant orc moves 4 hits 1.
Naturally mage always shoot before the heavies or LMs. Here is what kiting means to me;
1) five hex mage or a 3×3 archer gets into position and hits a trent.
2) trent moves two steps but can't shoot you.
3) your mage or archer moves back to maintain safe distane and shoots again.
In the case of heavy range (3×3) or anciant orc (4×1), they can hit you on their turn right after you, so to me that's no longer kiting it's melee.

I would not put mages across from mist walkers so there is a good chance they won't hit your mage. Personally I would put a dryad across from one mist walker

It dosen't really matter if you put your mage across from a mist walker or not. Mist walkers move 4 hexes and shoot another 4. A Mist walker in position 1 or two Mist walkers in positions 1,2,or 3, in an open field, can hit all five position in your line up unless the terrain isn't favorable.
Daryad as a decoy is a good idea, it works most of the time to protect your mages. However when you are using daryad as a bait in conjuction with other Light range types the mist walker becomes unpredictable and could potentially go after the Light range with higher iniciative i.e cross bowman, archer. I've tried Daryad bait next to other LRs many times, some times MW take the bait, and some times it kills my crossbowmen instead!

 

[Smooper]

Apparently we have different interpretation of kiting.
To me it's shooting an enemy outside it's reach without getting hit when it's enemy's turn.
The heavy range you mentioned moves 3 and hits 3 hexes away. The anciant orc moves 4 hits 1.
Naturally mage always shoot before the heavies or LMs. Here is what kiting means to me;
1) five hex mage or a 3×3 archer gets into position and hits a trent.
2) trent moves two steps but can't shoot you.
3) your mage or archer moves back to maintain safe distane and shoots again.
In the case of heavy range (3×3) or anciant orc (4×1), they can hit you on their turn right after you, so to me that's no longer kiting it's melee.

It dosen't really matter if you put your mage across from a mist walker or not. Mist walkers move 4 hexes and shoot another 4. A Mist walker in position 1 or two Mist walkers in positions 1,2,or 3, in an open field, can hit all five position in your line up unless the terrain isn't favorable.
Daryad as a decoy is a good idea, it works most of the time to protect your mages. However when you are using daryad as a bait in conjuction with other Light range types the mist walker becomes unpredictable and could potentially go after the Light range with higher iniciative i.e cross bowman, archer. I've tried Daryad bait next to other LRs many times, some times MW take the bait, and some times it kills my crossbowmen instead!

about kiting that heavy ranged: you can do it but you have to take advantage of terrain. In an open field, then it is more like you say.
about mages across from a mistwalker: if the mistwalker has no terrain or allied troops in the way, yes, they will shoot first turn. many times they get stuck behind terrain though and they won't get a shot off. Then you could have the chance to move up on them. The other reason is don't make the mages an easy target if you bring them in a battle against mistwalkers. put them off to the side a bit. mistwalkers might target a dryad or other LR and then you can easily hit them on your 1st round turn.

 

[Queen of Beltane]

I need help with the two-wave fights. Sometimes, it's OK most of the time it's a bloody mess. I can easily beat the 1st round, but I'm pretty much toast for another wave with the enemy at full strength. I have access to all three camps and all troops within the camps. Although, I get the frogs from the Hut and one of the new event buildings (it's much handier than I thought it would be) and the Valorians from Valorian Valors. There won't be upgrades on those two for a while. I'm about 2/3 of the way through S&D for reference.

 

[Smooper]

@Queen of Beltane Just some basic help is to use your regular barrack troops mostly since by the chapter you are in they are all maxed and get magic debuffs when attacking. You don't say whether you use a fire phoenix or any of the expiring military buildings and we don't know if you have any wonders which boost your troops attack or defense.

 

[Queen of Beltane]

I have a fully evolved Fire Phoenix, and I try, and usually have at least one, of the following the Unleashed Unit Upgrade, Mage Multiplier, or Light Ranged boost from the Lab. I also have Needles (LR 115%), MM (health 113.5%), DB, and SS up training and providing troops. Even using regular barrack troops, in the high halls it just never seems to be enough without vitality surge or crystals to get the numbers back up.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

Most use a feed level 10 brown bear, supply instants and time instants to help build up our troops in between tournaments/spires as well. I also will cater some of the top spire and later tourney rounds to save on troops.

 

[Raccon]

That's the case I'm experiencing recently in Spire. Recently the second wave troops are the kind that would murder player's troops that are proper match for the first and third wave. It's no longer a secon wave, it's a curve ball phase!
Up until a month ago I fought all the way to the top, but recently I've been catering in Spire more than ever thanks to the curve ball phase. Before, in really hard encounters, I could revive a portion of my dead squads with vitality surge to finish the last wave, now I just switch to catering as soon as I see my troop options that are adequate for the first and third wave would be sitting ducks for enemy's second wave.
Crackie has good tips regarding troop selection according to enemy lineup. When you face a multi wave encounter double check with crackie's guid and see if you have reasonable troop options that could handle both encounters or not, even so, after the first wave assess your surviving troops and surviving squad sizes, see if they're a match for the second wave or you lost the right ones in the first wave or your squad size is too small to win.If not, quit the second wave to avoid total loss and move to cater.

 

[crackie]

I'm reading this thread with an open mind and very willing to be persuaded that another method might be more effective/efficient no matter who/where that knowledge may come from. Heck, I play with a teammate with a 9-plot city that's doing 5k in tourney on pure catering so I accept there are multiple solution sets that may all be very effective that may not fit my personal playing style. I'm also open to the idea that some strategies may appear unconventional and ludicrous on paper, but can work, like the suicidal Buddy strategy. However, to convince me, your ideas still have to withstand me poking at it and pointing out the flaws in logic or system. A statement made with a strong foundation should be able to withstand prodding though.

That said, I sometimes have difficulty understanding your examples as you've used them, @Smooper. That makes me wonder how a beginner will be able to digest it and what takeaways they may garner. Please know I'm in no way trying to discourage you from sharing your ideas. To me, teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin. If you're learning, you're teaching yourself. If you're teaching, you're learning how others understand the material. Either way, you have to first be the student and learn the material. I think your ideas would benefit from some refinement though.

For example:

Just some basic help is to use your regular barrack troops mostly since by the chapter you are in they are all maxed and get magic debuffs when attacking.

It is not completely true, nor is it completely false, but it is flawed.

Yes, it is true that troops with 3* promotions get buff/debuff special abilities. However, 3* Sword Dancers are still pretty awful, as are 3* Drone Riders. On the other hand, Orc Strategists are pretty fantastic even at level 1 and Vallorian Guards are not too shabby at level 1 for handling Heavy Range enemies, especially for early chapter players when the mages haven't gotten their promotions yet. Therefore, favoring a unit just because it is a 3* unit is not always the soundest strategy. Sometimes that level 1 unit is still the best unit for the occasion, even if it has no special abilities yet. Orc Strats don't get their first promotion until Halflings (chap 11), which means they stay at 1* for a loooong time. To look down at them because they are 1* would be a mistake.

I also strongly disagree with the idea that the key to solving multi-wave encounters (or single wave!) is to rely on mostly barrack troops. That would just be inherently false in too many cases to list. Generally speaking though, human players have a coverage gap on pairing against light melee enemies with heavy range as their Mortar guys are notoriously unreliable. Therefore, most human players resort to better Merc Camp alternatives like the Frog. Their barrack light range unit, the Crossbowmen, is also not as good as an elfin Archer either, so most Human players also default to the Ranger, another Merc Camp unit. To suggest they use barrack units instead is falling backwards to the lesser effective unit. Therefore, to suggest relying mostly on barrack troops is to paint with too broad of a stroke and not really sound advice. Every unit has its niche situation that they act favorably in, even the Light Melee and Heavy Melee units that I generally despise. And then what might happen is they kill off their useless Light Melee units and waste precious training slots replacing them when they probably shouldn't bother training any (unless you are early chapter with all 1* units, which means they are all stick figures and not all that distinguishable yet). It leads to unintended consequences.

If you're going to paint with broad strokes, you have to remember that's going to be a big umbrella to carry with more situations to cover. Will it hold up? Will it be true for the other race that isn't same as your city? Is it only true if it comes with a litany of conditions and exclusions? Because then, you're really asking someone to remember a laundry list of conditions to apply that general statement, which isn't exactly easier in making a concept more understandable or digestible.

 

[Smooper]

@crackie I won't quote your post because what you say is true. I will say I only play one human city and you keep bringing up sword dancers and I only shoot at them and hack with them. Yes, they are terrible enemies and I assume terrible allies. I use my axemen sparingly but they do have purpose sometime if I just want to chop some mistwalkers who have walked toward them or any other archer for that matter. Most mages can stay out of the way of LM on the first turn.

Now the part which I ask you not to take the wrong way but is important. We both have been painting with broad strokes here. You with your map and me with my troop selection. I gave simple advice on using 3* troops that generally holds true. I have lots of frogs but find one star frogs to be weaker if not equal to my 3* mortars. So I save my frogs for when they will be stronger one day, I can't even make them yet. If you have a couple vallorian valor buildings then you might choose valorian valors but if you don't, you won't get them until chapter 11 as 1*. Paladins are 3* in chapter 6. They don't require another building to make them and they are quite serviceable when you need tanky troops which crush dogs, and other troops who might poke their nose to far into your business.

In my opinion the simple "use 3* troops when you can" is good advice for players who don't want to know a ton about fighting.

 

[samidodamage]

you keep bringing up sword dancers and I only shoot at them and hack with them.

There are no enemy sword dancers. Those are Elves Barracks LM units. They are similar to Human crossbowmen.
See: Wiki page for enemy units
Also note that though there are some enemy units that physically resemble the training ground units that players have, they are different units with different abilities. Ex: Orc Deserter and Orc Strategist look very similar. Deserters have higher LM attack bonuses than LR; Strats have higher LR attack bonuses than LM. Deserters have no extra defense bonuses against LR. Strats have no extra defense bonuses against either LR or LM.

Just some basic help is to use your regular barrack troops mostly since by the chapter you are in they are all maxed and get magic debuffs when attacking

I disagree strongly with this approach. It worked in the distant past because all 3 bldgs shared the same 5 slot training queue. Now each bldg has its own 5 slot training queue. Limiting losses to one training bldg makes it way harder to replace losses. Spreading the units you use over all three bldgs makes replacement significantly faster.
To accomplish this in lower chapters when, for example, my 1* frogs were not as good as my 3* Golems (Elves Barracks HR units):
I used my frogs in the lower provinces/rounds of tourney (where you're only facing 1* enemies) and early Spire encounters. I saved the Golems for the higher/harder fights. Passive production of frogs from event bldgs along with the frog's range was more than sufficient to keep up with those minor losses. I've kept those passive producers and upgraded them with RR's. I still rarely train frogs (good thing since I want to train Rangers and Blossoms!) and haven't dipped below 1000 squads in inventory in months.

I think you have some interesting approaches @Smooper that may work for some play styles. However, it's tough for me to follow what you're explaining. For example, in the over 5 years I've played this game and read/watched every tutorial/fighting guide I can find, I've never seen the term 'kiting' used. Your examples were very hard to follow. The ones I read sounded more like 'keep your troops out of the range of their opponent's next strike whenever possible'. If that's the case, only manual fighters (which is a very tiny percentage of the very tiny percentage of primarily combat players) can use this advice. On the other hand, the huge majority of players who are either mobile only (no ability to manually fight) or hybrid cities (mixing catering and auto-fight) can look at the Starting Position maps in this fighting guide and improve their understanding of how troop position/movement factor into how the AI (not really AI, but using that term for simplicity) will move troops during an auto-fight. In turn, that will improve their results from auto-fights.
I was under the impression this thread was created to help the OP with specific info on things that may have been missed in creating the guide.
After all, in the original post, crackie said:

Let me know if there are other topics you want me to cover, though I can't guarantee it will be added.

Perhaps you should look into developing a guide for Manual Fighting. Careful with that, though. Folks who've been manually fighting since before I even started playing the game are extremely knowledgeable about manual tactics and strategies. You'd have to develop a more complete understanding of the troops of elves, humans, training grounds, merc camp, and the enemy; but then you'd bring a fresh perspective to the matter and that is always refreshing!

 

[Smooper]

@samidodamage Sorry about that. I have never seen sword dancers, as I play as human. What I am usually fight is thieves and they are terrible.

 

[Smooper]

I was going to post more info here but it seems that it isn't welcome opinions so I will say Happy Gaming and bid farewell to this thread.