The Crack Guide to Fighting

[crackie]

I already have the Battle Simulator as the last link in the Appendix of the Battle Knowledge section. I don’t feel comfortable actually analyzing the Battle Simulator for others though. It’s a massive effort on their part to even have built one at all. If I were to analyze something, I would need to put it through the ringer and see what happens, but I have no reason to on something that was done with volunteer effort and offered freely to all. They already know what their AI is and isn’t capable of because they have the source code. So it’s not like they need or are asking for a volunteer QA dept to help them test and refine the product. Plus, any shortcomings inherent in the Battle Simulator is still going to be better than anything I can come up with myself (right, @Zoof?). Hence, I have only explored it superficially and know it exists, but have not devoted more time to it. As you’ve said, if you know how to fight, there isn’t a need to use it, similar to the Spire Wizard if you know how to solve the logic in the Spire. It would just take even longer for someone like me to slog through the encounters using it than not. I’ve told my FS these tools exists, but have it left it up to them to decide for themselves if it is useful.

Maybe you should start a new conversation about the Battle Simulator to see what others have to say about it and bring awareness to it if people don’t already know it exists? You sound like you know more about it than me.

 

[crackie]

I have made a slight tweak on slide #17 regarding use of Rangers during Autofights.

It used to say:
When autofighting mid-to-late game, your mileage may vary using Rangers as AI sometimes uses the extra movement to park a Ranger in an adjacent row, thereby blocking another Light Range’s shot.

Now it says:
When autofighting, Rangers tend to target by enemy initiative order. This means with Light Range enemies present, the Ranger will cross into other lanes to shoot at an enemy Light Range unit instead of the Mage unit it’s lined up across, thereby potentially blocking another Light Range’s shot after him.

What seems to be causing them to stray is the fact that there are enemy Light Range present and your Rangers are targeting by Initiative order. Since Light Range act before Mages, your silly Rangers will go off chasing a Light Range enemy instead of killing the mage he's been assigned and getting him out of the way. Since Rangers are the first "good guy" unit to act whether you are a human or elf, all enemy Light Range units will still be alive, unless other Rangers have killed them first, which is very unlikely since Rangers can't one-shot kill Light Range units with one shot, even with buffing unless it's like the first 5 provinces. This is more endemic to Rangers since they have +1 movement over Archers and Crossbowman, and therefore can stray very far no matter their starting position (similar to Mist Walkers). Archers and Crossbowmen can only stray if they are in short positions (II & III).

This creates a bit of cascading snowball effect like a Rube Goldberg machine gone astray, especially if you also have Frogs in your lineup. Then the Frogs end up targeting the Mages that are still alive, which is a horrible matchup for frogs, instead of maybe the Light Melee you've tried to assign them to. They waste their shots pinging off the enemy Mages and then when it's the enemy Light Melee's turn, they get to snack on your units with full strength because you never made it that far to touch them yet. And this is very bad news for your squishy™ Blossoms and Light Range.

The good news is autofighting is making a whole lot more sense now and the randomness of it all is greatly diminishing. Now it's applying a counter strategy after understanding what the heck it is doing so hopefully prevent them from chasing things with swords while they're sitting in tanks.

 

[Gkyr]

People have been looking for this?
Then you will find a more complete explanation of it in crackie's Fighting Guide.

 

[samidodamage]

People have been looking for this?

Not that I've seen? I may have missed something.
There were posts discussing including the Combat Pentagon in this Fighting Guide back in June (p1 of the thread). That was instigated by me since I was not able to get the links (that were already in the guide; I just didn't recognize them as such) to work. Some remedial education for me, and it was fine, lol!
There was also discussion of a different graphic several of us had seen a few years ago showing that Pentagon concept applied to the troop selection window in a way you didn't have to go find the pentagon graphic just to learn the strengths/vulnerabilities of the different unit types. Never found that graphic, but crackie worked up another one and included it in the guide.

 

[crackie]

People have been looking for this?

It's not in my Fighting on Crack tutorial, but it's in the Know Thy Friends and Enemies entry in Battle Knowledge (1st one after Table of Contents). It goes a little into why the Combat Pentagon can be slightly misleading sometimes and how the Unit Stats Overview is more accurate. It also shows how to tell unit strengths using the Army Selection Window instead of Combat Pentagon like @samidodamage said. helya's first post in Battle Knowledge also has the link to Battle page that has the wiki for the Combat Pentagon.

Unless you mean how to actually pull up the Military Help window, as in covering what buttons do and where?

 

[Gkyr]

@crackie I put your link with it. People looking for it may not know where it is in your Magnum Opus.

 

[Queen of Beltane]

Having low-level armories for the BB sound great, but I need armories that produce orcs given that if I need to negotiate or cater I need thousands of them not to mention how many I need to upgrade buildings. Right now I need 5200 to get each workshop to the next level. They also cost population. What do you sacrifice for the fighting city. It's my favorite part of the game. For reference, I just opened Constructs.

 

[crackie]

Having low-level armories for the BB sound great, but I need armories that produce orcs given that if I need to negotiate or cater I need thousands of them not to mention how many I need to upgrade buildings. Right now I need 5200 to get each workshop to the next level. They also cost population. What do you sacrifice for the fighting city. It's my favorite part of the game. For reference, I just opened Constructs.

The low-level armories are temporary to be spammed out and potentially deleted after a Brownie feed. They are to temporarily inflate your training size. I maintain large, permie armories/breeding grounds.

 

[Queen of Beltane]

OK, I'll find some room for temp armories I'll have to work those in at the beginning and end of Chapters when I have the most room. I'm also trying to think of big things that don't really help me in any significant way. I wish we could teleport AWs.

 

[Khalani]

First of all, thank you crackie for all the information and assistance in learning the battle portion. It is very much appreciated. What I still seem unclear about (well the biggest thing lol) is how to know which troop to use. Example is mages. How do I know which one is really the best one to use on which troops? Do I need to understand which level of enemy troop I am up against before I can know that?

 

[crackie]

First of all, thank you crackie for all the information and assistance in learning the battle portion. It is very much appreciated. What I still seem unclear about (well the biggest thing lol) is how to know which troop to use. Example is mages. How do I know which one is really the best one to use on which troops? Do I need to understand which level of enemy troop I am up against before I can know that?

Check out Know Thy Friends and Enemies post in Battle Knowledge section.

 

[HenryGoodBoy]

Will someone please point me to where I can get help with the battle UI? I can't find that help, because when I look, I get so many search hits for the battle pentagon and the strengths and weaknesses of different types of units. By "battle UI" I mean:
- knowing which tiles have obstacles, which have troops. The graphics of combatants and bush obstacles are very pretty, but it obscures the tiles where the action is, Sometimes I see a gap in the cute graphics of a couple of bushes, but when I try to send a dream walker through, I find thatte there is no gap between the two bushes' tiles, blocking me completely
- seeing an overall map of the tiles. When I look at my city, I can click on "Move" and then "Hide Buildings" to see my city's layout. How do I do that with battles?
- turning on tile outlines and keeping them on. Some tile outlines are visible when I click on a troop, but the outline disappears when click is over
- Seeing battle order. The ribbon on the bottom tells me battle order, but it's really hard to match that to the troops on the map
- Knowing if/where troops move when I use them to attack. I can get a squad where I want it to begin an attack, and as soon as I do it moves, then attacks. Usually it moves to block my other troops <grrrr...>
- Seeing what the little bits of text that pop up during attacks are before they float away and vanish. If I miss the text that floated away, can I ask to see it again?

I have other questions about how to use and interpret the battle map, tiles, and mouse-over hints. Surely there is a guide out there? I just can't find it

 

[TimeMachine]

Will someone please point me to where I can get help with the battle UI?

I would like to suggest you to make a screenshot of one or even more of them fighting situations you're experiencing problems with in order to upload them here.
This way it will be much easier for the community to give you some good advices.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

Will someone please point me to where I can get help with the battle UI? I can't find that help, because when I look, I get so many search hits for the battle pentagon and the strengths and weaknesses of different types of units. By "battle UI" I mean:
- knowing which tiles have obstacles, which have troops. The graphics of combatants and bush obstacles are very pretty, but it obscures the tiles where the action is, Sometimes I see a gap in the cute graphics of a couple of bushes, but when I try to send a dream walker through, I find thatte there is no gap between the two bushes' tiles, blocking me completely
- seeing an overall map of the tiles. When I look at my city, I can click on "Move" and then "Hide Buildings" to see my city's layout. How do I do that with battles?
- turning on tile outlines and keeping them on. Some tile outlines are visible when I click on a troop, but the outline disappears when click is over
- Seeing battle order. The ribbon on the bottom tells me battle order, but it's really hard to match that to the troops on the map
- Knowing if/where troops move when I use them to attack. I can get a squad where I want it to begin an attack, and as soon as I do it moves, then attacks. Usually it moves to block my other troops <grrrr...>
- Seeing what the little bits of text that pop up during attacks are before they float away and vanish. If I miss the text that floated away, can I ask to see it again?

I have other questions about how to use and interpret the battle map, tiles, and mouse-over hints. Surely there is a guide out there? I just can't find it

There is some information in Wiki. It won't have all the information as not to give away too many spoilers. I'd keep playing with what does what to fully learn it and see how it goes. If you have any specific questions just let us know and see what we can do.

Battle - Elvenar Wiki EN

en.wiki.elvenar.com

 

[Lelanya]

Will someone please point me to where I can get help with the battle UI? I can't find that help, because when I look, I get so many search hits for the battle pentagon and the strengths and weaknesses of different types of units. By "battle UI" I mean:
- knowing which tiles have obstacles, which have troops. The graphics of combatants and bush obstacles are very pretty, but it obscures the tiles where the action is, Sometimes I see a gap in the cute graphics of a couple of bushes, but when I try to send a dream walker through, I find thatte there is no gap between the two bushes' tiles, blocking me completely
- seeing an overall map of the tiles. When I look at my city, I can click on "Move" and then "Hide Buildings" to see my city's layout. How do I do that with battles?
- turning on tile outlines and keeping them on. Some tile outlines are visible when I click on a troop, but the outline disappears when click is over
- Seeing battle order. The ribbon on the bottom tells me battle order, but it's really hard to match that to the troops on the map
- Knowing if/where troops move when I use them to attack. I can get a squad where I want it to begin an attack, and as soon as I do it moves, then attacks. Usually it moves to block my other troops <grrrr...>
- Seeing what the little bits of text that pop up during attacks are before they float away and vanish. If I miss the text that floated away, can I ask to see it again?

I have other questions about how to use and interpret the battle map, tiles, and mouse-over hints. Surely there is a guide out there? I just can't find it

Oh wait now. Are you saying that the invisible terrain error is back? Don't tease now, this is my very favorite battle error!
Where did this joyful situation occur? Spire, Tournament or Province fight??

 

[Fayeanne]

- Knowing which tiles have obstacles, which have troops.

The graphics don't always make this very clear, so what I do is highlight a unit nearby and see where it can move. When it's your turn, you can point your mouse at any unit (even an enemy unit) (don't click on it!), and the game will show you that unit's movement range, and if the unit is blocked by obstacles, you will see that it cannot navigate there. So basically move the mouse cursor around highlighting units and seeing where they can move; this can help you to determine which obstacles are blocking which tiles. Works best if the units have decent movement ranges, of course.

- Turning on tile outlines and keeping them on.

On my browser, the tiles always have outlines, but they are difficult to see (they are a faint grayish brown). Highlighting a unit to see its movement range (described above) makes the tiles easier to see. I don't know of any better way; there's no way to "hide the obstacles and show blocked tiles" like in the city map (feature request!).

- Seeing battle order.

I don't think there's a direct way to determine which units are which in the battle order outside of just matching them based on their health levels and applied debuffs and such. Not ideal...

- Knowing if/where troops move when I use them to attack.

If you click directly on a target to attack it, your unit will move on its own, and yes, the AI is terrible at selecting a destination since it tends to favor moving the maximum possible distance even if it doesn't have to. It's better to manually move your units.

When it is your unit's turn, its movement range is displayed by outlining the tiles in yellow. You can point the mouse cursor at one of these outlined tiles and you will see a path displayed in solid yellow. This is showing where the unit would move if you were to click on that tile.

If you point the mouse cursor at an enemy, the game will show solid yellow tiles if the unit will need to move in order to attack that enemy; these solid yellow tiles are showing where your unit will move to if you were to go through with the attack.

So before clicking on an enemy, point at it and check for any solid yellow tiles. If you see any, click on a yellow tile within your unit's movement range first to move there. (Be careful not to accidentally click on your unit itself because this will cause it to skip its turn.) Then once your unit is within range of the enemy, you can click on the enemy to attack and your unit will attack without moving.

- Seeing what the little bits of text that pop up during attacks are before they float away and vanish. If I miss the text that floated away, can I ask to see it again?

Not that I know of; I don't think there is a combat log or anything. Those are displaying damage values and applied debuffs. You can see the latter by pointing at the unit in the turn order at the bottom; a pop-up will display the applied debuffs by name with red text (they are labeled "Buffs" but are really debuffs), but this doesn't tell you specifically what effect they have, unfortunately. Without looking it up on the wiki or knowing the ability names by heart or something, you just know that the arrow icon means that unit's attack is decreased, and the shield icon means defense is decreased. This is true for both your units and enemy units.

 

[Glandeh]

If you hover the mouse over your troops, they will get a slightly different color in the order of battle at the bottom of the screen. Easy to miss, but then you can determine the order.