In the early game, your troop choices are limited, which can be frustrating.
1. The "game" typically gets the initiative
See below for more on initiative
2. The layout of the province is also typically laid out to favor the disposition of "game" forces
That depends on your troop choices.
3. The initial placement of my troops in the battle view always places my troops in the most awkward position preventing initial movements for strategic placement and I have not been able to figure out any logic between the selection of troops in the "fight" menu that translates to initial positioning in the battle view.
See below for how the troops are positioned.
4. When I "shortcut' by clicking my 'enemy' target it seems the game automatically always moves my troops to the most disadvantageous physical position blocking my other troops or allowing range units to 'escape' my blocking troops.
The AI is not very bright, which can be an advantage if you fight manually.
5. It appears the game typically has an advantage in "damage" and "hits"
Depends on the rating of the province.
6. I am always facing troops that are "hard" or "very hard" <- is this it for the rest of the game, I will always be at the disadvantage?
This relates to how far you've scouted. You may find lots of references to "overscouting" and "Goldilocks zone" on the forums. The more you've scouted ahead, the difficult the enemies. It's intended by the devs to control your rate of expansion vs progress in the tech tree. If you go to your tech tree and hover over the scouting chest for the next chapter, you'll see how many provinces you need to finish to advance. if you go over that in early chapters, you will find fighting terribly hard until you "catch up" by mid-late chapters, you can be 10 or more over without too much trouble.
7. Often the game is missing the 'lines' defining the movement hexagonals or my troops are invisible in the battle view
If you re-load the browser window, the system will warn you that you have a fight in progress and ask if you want to finish it, then step through any actions you've taken so far so you can continue from where you stopped.
Perhaps I need to understand the "finer" points of "combat" but it seems pretty straight forward - and if there are subtleties I'm missing - why is it so complicated? If the 'battle' option is discouraged by making it grossly weighted in favor of the game, then why include it?
Perhaps I should work on understanding my troop preparation better, but again - in the game flow, acquiring the "assets (buildings & foreign troops)" to "power up" my troops seems like I will be in a lag time and constantly "catching up" making me the "designated" loser by default. Again, I'm a newer player so perhaps there are subtleties in developing my armies or perhaps there is a game flow where you go through a growth phase before catching up - I don't know, guess i'll find out.
There is
some info on the wiki, and are several guides to combat available if you dig through the forums. Start by looking for guides by
@Mykan and videos by
@Jackluyt
Initiative:
The initiative is based on the troop's initiative. The higher numbers go first. The initiative is the final box on the troop screen when you look at them in detail
Troop Placement
The order your troops get put on the field is outward from the center (center, up, down, up, down):
The first troop you pick goes in the middle, the 2nd goes above that, the third goes below it, the 4th above 2nd and the 5th below 3rd. so:
4
2
1
3
5
(edit: took way too long to compose, so ninja'd, of course)
Dear forum visitor,
It looks as though you have not registered for a forum account, or are not signed in. In order to participate in current discussions or create new threads, you will need to register for a forum account by clicking on the link below.
