I have some questions.....

[H.]

Hey Folks,

First post as I have just joined but I have been watching the forums (kind of like a cyber voyeur but one of the friendly ones) for a little while now and just had a fairly intensive 3 days playing Floris Exp again after a break.
I feel it is only right to say a big thanks to the team behind the Floris, not only for the work done but the continuation of that work and the prompt support you give to members of the forum.

My post will be broken up into a number of sections which highlight what I already do and then the questions I have about that area, this way you understand where I am at in game and play style wise. In most cases I am after ideas and opinions, not hard fact answers. I have read a lot of what is on the forum but definitly not all and I hope the use of spoilers is correct so people are not presented with a wall of words.

Background:
I never played M&B or any of the official releases, saw a friend playing this mod, decided it was right up there with sliced bread on the awesome shelf and wanted in on the action. When out and purchased the game just so I could play the Floris mod. So, Floris is my base line for M&B, I have been playing it now for about 4 months on and off. Usually play the first 100 days at about 100 – 115% difficulty before I push it up more as I found I was getting insta-killed too often early on. I have my battle limit set at 250 units, playing on an old laptop that does not allow me to push the gfx or battle sizes, I have used vanilla M&B dust particles and have most things are set on low for hardware reasons as well. I have never used the birds eye tactics options that I have read about, I usually just use the group selection keys and then the “F1” etc options to control them and just ride around putting the groups where I want them.

Character & Companions:

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I usually aim to start with at least 3 in Leadership and Prisoner Management. Once I start levelling I  look to get 12 Str & Agi then just pump Int. I usually focus on my char on providing the following skills – Training, Surgery and Path-Finding. The rest are provided by my companions, usually the ones that have been turned into archers.

For my companions I turn them into either Cav or Archers. Cav are just designed to be a tank like, usually with pole arm, shield, 1 hand (blunt) and throwing. Archers are usually crossbow orientated and as soon as they get to 12 Agi and Str, they are then either Intel or Agi based to provide the party skills I need.
I have settled on the following companions:
Borcha
Ymira
Rolf
Mathald
Floris
Bunduk
Katrin
Nizar
Artimenner
Nadia
Sajjad
Edwyn

In addition to the companions I have also been using the “Stat Units” such as Hunters and Priests to help out with my skills. They do take up room but the instant boost seems like a worthwhile trade off.

Questions:
1. I have found that surgery is key to my ability to maintain an army and I am a little bit precious about all of my units apart from the man hunters. Do I just need to get used to losing more of my army each battle or should I be working hard to maintain my units?

2. I already use 1 of each “stat unit” to help with my skills, is it worth going to the next level, such as 5 of them for a +2 to the stat? Do others even use stat units?

3. I have all my companions equipped with blunt 1-hand weapons for extra income from prisoners but I have noticed that the blunt weapons seem to do less damage than the swords. Is the trade off worth it? Will is slow down their levelling as they will be doing less damage?

Troops and Tactics:

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I usually start in the Swadia area as I like the flat areas to ride round on and kill looters. Also I find the Swadia archers quite quick to upgrade. The location between Nords and Rhodok means I can make use of the offensive and defensive infantry respectively.

My usual start method is to get enough troops together to be able to take out some forest bandits who have taken some man hunters prisoner. I then use the man hunters to boost my prisoner management skill and harvest the forest bandits for prisoners. Once I have levelled up a little and have an income sorted I start to collect companions and the troops I want. Given a choice I usually collect the following troops:
Infantry – Mixture of Offensive (Nord Vaering line) and Defensive (Rhodok Condottiero line)
Archers – I start with Swadia Longbowmen line and then later switch to Vaegir Sokoliniy Glaz
Cavalry – I usually use man hunters upgraded to 1 level below slaver chief for the first while then move onto the heavy cavalry from Swadia.

I have found that bandits are not only a great source of man hunters but also units to stock my castles. At day 200ish there are bandit parties with 200+ prisoners, often levels 5, 6 and 7 and 50+ man hunters. And if you can fight 400 – 500 bandits with 120 units then the XP and kudos are quite nice. When fighting bandits, or any other large force that charges, I try and find a bit of land where there is a slight rise so that the enemy cannot fire from afar at my infantry, but as soon at the crest the rise they get hit with my arches. They will often not be in 1 big blob and have thinned out a bit so the arches have time to pick them off as needed with my infantry taking most of the hits on their shields. Then surge Inf and Cav forward to kill them all, being them back into line and wait for the next wave. If I am fighting armies with Cav in them I do the same thing but just as the cav crest I usually send my own Cav out in front to stall/engage them within the range of my arches and it also slows them to the point they don’t just plough through my infantry line into my archers.

Questions:
4.  Is my army make up similar to others? Or am I a filthy heathen for mixing the different factions together?

5. Heavy Cav – I have been spending a lot of time at war with the Sarranid and Khergit recently and have come to really respect their heavy cav units. So what I want to know is, given that only about 30% of any battle is spent using lance charging and the rest is in melee, which is the better choice do you think for Heavy Cav?

6. Archers – I have found in the last few games that I have discounted Rhodok crossbowmen because they have to stop to reload which means they have to be micro managed to get them to the fire positions when battling lords that do not rush. I have moved to Vaegir archers as they seem to do a bit more damage than Swadia ones. My question is then, melee wise, is it worth going with a sword or blunt when up again cav units that have broken through the Inf line?

7. How else do you defeat large groups tactically if there are no hills or rises conveniently placed and you do not have a whole army of level 6+ units?

Towns, Income and Kingdom:

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I usually rely on income from prisoners early in the game and invest in enterprises in most of the towns before I join a faction if I can. Then once I join a faction I sit around the edges of the battles and wait for a town to be taken by the opposition within the bounds of my own faction. I then swoop in and take it, usually with lots and lots of archers and plenty of man hunters with their big shields. I then dump all my soldiers in the down and go madly recruiting for level 1 units to train into basic archers. I normally try for a town first, If I can get about 300 kudos and do not claim a castle I normally manage to get it. I usually do not invest in land until later on as I don’t like to be tied to a single town early game.

In my last two games I have tried to build up lots of troops in the town I take and then swap it for a town farther out. In my current game I swapped Veluca for Shiraz and have now acquired the two castles next to it and 1 of the fiefs all while still with the Rhodok faction. The idea being that I can then quit the faction and have a strong starting point. I have not actually got to the point of starting my own kingdom yet, I get to the point where I have a good army and restart thinking I can do it better next time.

I have also used the TweakMB to increase the chance of a fief and town increasing prosperity on the arrival of villagers or a caravan but also increased the loss of prosperity for being raided, sieged and looted. I just liked the idea that the better you look after your own the more you gain. To do this I have ended up using man hunters put into patrols from my towns and castles. They seem to be quite effective and keeping smaller lords and bandits out of my area.

Questions:
8. Once I have industry in all the towns what is the next best way to make money? Land? If I own the town where I have land do I still have to manually collect the rent?

9. If I do own a town and a castle or two, but the king will not give me another and I revolt, do I get to keep them all? Or do I lose it all and have to start from scratch?

10. Filling up the garrisons of castles and towns can take some time, I have been using hired prisoners from bandits that I have defeated and sometimes hiring large patrols and sending them direct to a town. What are other people doing to achieve this?

11. I read a post about the AI only looking at the total number of defenders, not their level, so having a whole hoard of level 1 units would be an effective deterrent, and have only 300ish decent units at the top to defend it if attacked. Is it worth spending the time and money training these guys to level 2 or 3?

12. Sigmond (spelling?) has been hired to hand out in my town, does he train any of my guys like my constable? Or is he just there for the freelancers?

Random and Mod Questions:

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13. What is the benefit of having lots of honor? Lots being 100+.

14. I guess this is for WindyPlains and the Floris team – In silver stage there is the introduction of the gaoler and quartermaster options as well as some weapon auto-loot options. How hard and/or likely is it that these will be introduced into Floris 2.6? Is there realistically likely to be a Floris 2.6 given the break the devs are having and the silver stage project that is now separate?

15. The M&B community seems well alive with new mods and plenty of chatter. Without sounding rude, is Floris still going strong or now slowly fading away? Or is it just a quiet dev period? I really enjoy the game but I now have growing commitments away from computer games and have finite amount of time to invest in them. I just don’t want to jump on the party train only to realise that it is just getting into the station.

For anyone that has got this far and read my post I thank you very much and look forward to the feedback for my questions.

If you look at what I have written and am sitting there wondering how the hell I got to this point, by all means point it out to me, I understand that I have come to the game/mod late and do not have the background knowledge the players who spent time on the vanilla M&B will have.

Regards,
H.

 

[Michiko]

隐藏: Character & Companions

1. I have found that surgery is key to my ability to maintain an army and I am a little bit precious about all of my units apart from the man hunters. Do I just need to get used to losing more of my army each battle or should I be working hard to maintain my units?

It depends on your play style. When I play Sarranid infantry style I don't mind losing a lot of men, because I can easily replenish the numbers. But generally, when you get Surgery 10 and you use the proper tactics against opponents, you should only be suffering small handfuls of losses each game. Check out this old casualties thread from before, where we were discussing acceptable casualty rates.

2. I already use 1 of each “stat unit” to help with my skills, is it worth going to the next level, such as 5 of them for a +2 to the stat? Do others even use stat units?

I personally don't. I like the concept but I worry about them too much, since they're obviously not great fighters. The first time I fielded some surgeons, they got killed even if I stuck them in the back next to me. Enemy lancers broke through my infantry line and got to them. Felt bad.

3. I have all my companions equipped with blunt 1-hand weapons for extra income from prisoners but I have noticed that the blunt weapons seem to do less damage than the swords. Is the trade off worth it? Will is slow down their levelling as they will be doing less damage?

Blunt weapons have an advantage over swords, despite the lower average damage: They ignore armor much better. A sword will suffer greatly against an opponent in heavy armor, especially in the hands of an NPC that doesn't use momentum quite as well as a player might. However, blunt weapons barely get their damage reduced at all by armor. It scales very well against higher tier troops and their better armors. But I find that if you have an entire army of blunt weapon users, it's even more effective. Check out the Manhunters, who are some of the most efficient troops in the game right now.

隐藏: Troops & Tactics

4.  Is my army make up similar to others? Or am I a filthy heathen for mixing the different factions together?

Don't worry so much about it heheh. Part of the fun of the game is coming up with a composition that works for your play style.

I personally do not mix faction troops with each other. I will have mercenaries/sword sisters and sometimes manhunters in my faction army, but I won't mix Swadians with Khergits, for example. It's not that it's bad, but it's a personal choice. In Floris Expanded, there's a lot of flavor to each faction and they feel very different from each other, and exploring the differences is very interesting to me. Also, I find it to be a test of tactical ingenuity, when your troops are good at certain things but are weak in other things (for example, the Nords who have no real cavalry troops).

5. Heavy Cav – I have been spending a lot of time at war with the Sarranid and Khergit recently and have come to really respect their heavy cav units. So what I want to know is, given that only about 30% of any battle is spent using lance charging and the rest is in melee, which is the better choice do you think for Heavy Cav?

I like them both. I feel the Khergits are better lancers, but the Sarranids have better fighters overall. What I mean is that the Khergits may be doing more damage because of better lances, skills and proficiency, but the Sarranids can handle any situation. Getting dismounted or siege situations will not disrupt the Sarranid troop efficiency. For example, the Sarranid Sekban use long blunt weapons and jarids, and they also have shields. They are my personal favorites among the Sarranid cavalry troops because of their flexibility. In siege offense, you can park them right under the rampart and they will cover up their head and body with the shields, while complementing your offense with some kills from their jarids. Sarranid Qilich Arslan are light lancers but are fantastic swordsmen. I'm not afraid to charge them in front of the heavy lancers because even if they get dismounted, they will be able to hold their own deep in the enemy line.

As for the Khergits, the Korchen/Cherbi are your only real choice for "heavy cavalry", and they're really good at what they do. They lack the flexibility that the Sarranids have, but you have the Mandugai, who are arguably the best horse archers in the game, to complement them anyway.

6. Archers – I have found in the last few games that I have discounted Rhodok crossbowmen because they have to stop to reload which means they have to be micro managed to get them to the fire positions when battling lords that do not rush. I have moved to Vaegir archers as they seem to do a bit more damage than Swadia ones. My question is then, melee wise, is it worth going with a sword or blunt when up again cav units that have broken through the Inf line?

Hmm. Do you mean for the archers to use against the cavalry?

If so, personally I don't let my archers fight in melee unless they're actually melee fighters that have bows (example: Sarranid Tabardariyya). I treat them as a fragile and precious resource. When it looks like the enemy line will close with my archer line, I pull my archers back and let my infantry/cavalry do their job. However, by this point I would have already completed more advanced tactics. Ideally you should not take any losses to melee attacks among your archers. In medieval tactics, this is called "skirmishing".

7. How else do you defeat large groups tactically if there are no hills or rises conveniently placed and you do not have a whole army of level 6+ units?

With the two M's. Movement and Positioning.

I'm joking of course. But seriously, movement and positioning are the key to tactical wins. There are a variety of advanced tactics you can pull off based on your terrain, the enemy army composition (general ratios rather than exact numbers) and of course your own army composition.

Example A: Kingdom of Swadia versus Rhodok Republic
Swadians are all about the longbow and the heavy cavalry, but their infantry are actually really good fighters, if you can safely close them with the enemy line. That said, you need to protect them and distract the enemy archers in particular. A lot of people complain that the Swadian infantry has no shields but they forget that the heavy cavalry have fat horses as well as shields. Set up a line with your cavalry, put the longbowmen behind them in ranks, then put the melee infantry behind those. Advance slowly. Have a reserve light cavalry troop off to the edge of this line. It will look like this:

LLHHHHHH
  aaaaaaaa
  iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

L = light cavalry
H = heavy cavalry
a = archers
i = melee infantry

You advance this together slowly until the enemy line is in range of your archers. Tell them to hold fire until you know all your archers can reach the enemy line. The enemy line will start to break apart as many of them die. When they break formation and charge you, or better yet, fall back, charge your heavy cavalry, but keep your light cavalry in reserve. Charge your melee infantry almost immediately after, but tell your archers to either hold position or fall back a bit. Reform your line as necessary when enemy reinforcements arrive.


Example B: Sarranid Sultanate versus Kingdom of the Nords (pure infantry battle)
The Nord shielded infantry is the best in the game for sure. Pavise shields from the Rhodoks have better coverage per person, but the Nord infantry are better killers, and there's so many shields that they overlap and protect each other. That said, the softy Sarranid infantry will not stand a chance against the Nords without tactics.

What I do is I split my Sarranid infantry into different unit types. Tabardariyya and Yerliyya/Yeniceri are flankers to me. Al-Haqqani form my main line, with my archers just behind them. Overall, I'll have about 30% archers, 20% Al-Haqqani and 50% flankers. The reason I have so many flankers is because I'll be pulling a classic pincer maneuver.

The weakness of the Nords is their lack of mobility. Having that many shields means they'll be holding them up most of the time, and moving slowly as one unit. Or else they'll be turtling at their starting position. Either way, a mobile force has an advantage on them.

The classic pincer maneuver involves pushing your flanker troops around the enemy line, but staying outside of their archer range. The immediate effect of this is it will cause some of their infantry to turn to face the flankers. By this point your main line with archers should already be within an arrow's flight of the enemy line, inflicting casualties. If the enemy line breaks to retreat, push the advantage by moving closer with both pincers until they meet up in the middle. If the enemy breaks to charge you, which they're more likely to do, do a fake retreat. Pull your flankers back towards your main line until the enemy is within archery range. Then re-align the flankers off to the side again and complete the pincer. You do this because attacking the shields of the Nords head on with your light infantry will result in massive casualties on your part. You need to come in from behind one way or another.

隐藏: Towns, Income & Kingdom

8. Once I have industry in all the towns what is the next best way to make money? Land? If I own the town where I have land do I still have to manually collect the rent?

Yeah you still have to manually collect. That's a great long-term investment really. I made a lot of residual income from that. But I make quicker money partaking in the prisoner ransom business. Since you're using blunt weapons now, you can focus on getting troops that use blunt weapons (like your entire army), and hunt deserters and weaker lord armies. If you have limited Prisoner Management skill, prioritize troops that are tier 4 and up. Let go of the rest.

My income from prisoner ransom is enough to cover my entire army expenses, including garrisons.

This has two major benefits. Aside from the direct profit of ransoming prisoners, keeping the roads to your towns and villages safe will improve their prosperity. More trade in a town means more income.

9. If I do own a town and a castle or two, but the king will not give me another and I revolt, do I get to keep them all? Or do I lose it all and have to start from scratch?

You get to keep them. They will be the beginning territory of your rebellion. Be careful when doing this though, as they will prioritize warring with your faction, and other factions will also possibly declare war on you because of your threat. Expect to see their lords come besieging all your lands simultaneously if they can.

10. Filling up the garrisons of castles and towns can take some time, I have been using hired prisoners from bandits that I have defeated and sometimes hiring large patrols and sending them direct to a town. What are other people doing to achieve this?

11. I read a post about the AI only looking at the total number of defenders, not their level, so having a whole hoard of level 1 units would be an effective deterrent, and have only 300ish decent units at the top to defend it if attacked. Is it worth spending the time and money training these guys to level 2 or 3?

The AI decision to attack a fort is based on the number of troops currently residing there. The AI basically takes a quick survey of all possible forts (called "centers"), and tries to pick the easiest target. That said, you can stuff a garrison with 1000 tier 1 troops (recruits, bandits, etc.) and it will make it significantly less likely to be attacked. What I do is I tell my constable to recruit troops as often as possible. He can get 50 at a time per recruiter, 100 if you deploy both. Including travel time and everything, it could take only a week in-game to get 100 or more troops at a time. I often average at about 150 troops a week in one castle.

Upgrading them to tier 2 or 3 will increase their salary. If you want actual castle defenders especially if you'll be present for the actual siege defense, a force of 250 tier 5+ troops is enough to handle even up to 2,000 besiegers, if you have the standard composition of about 30% heavy/shielded infantry and 70% archers (of any type). Jam the ramps with the shielded infantry and rain arrows on your opponents. I once went AFK while a siege was going on and I came back to find that we had won with minimal casualties, against a large coalition of about 1,400 besiegers. The siege was broken and they retreated after about 800 men had died on their side.

12. Sigmond (spelling?) has been hired to hand out in my town, does he train any of my guys like my constable? Or is he just there for the freelancers?

Sigmund is just there to give you Freelancers. As far as I know that's all he's useful for. It's great though, since the Freelancers are good troops.

隐藏: Random and Mod Questions

13. What is the benefit of having lots of honor? Lots being 100+.

The most obvious would be that you automatically become friends with the honorable lords in all of Calradia as well. They'll start popping into your list of friends at about 70 honour, even if you've never met them prior, increasing in their relation with you as your honour goes up. I'm not sure if there's any other benefit to it, but this is significant to me.

14. I guess this is for WindyPlains and the Floris team – In silver stage there is the introduction of the gaoler and quartermaster options as well as some weapon auto-loot options. How hard and/or likely is it that these will be introduced into Floris 2.6? Is there realistically likely to be a Floris 2.6 given the break the devs are having and the silver stage project that is now separate?

I can't answer all of this as I'm not really a member of the dev team for either mod, but just for some additional info: They were originally intended as features for Floris 2.6. You can read more about this here.

15. The M&B community seems well alive with new mods and plenty of chatter. Without sounding rude, is Floris still going strong or now slowly fading away? Or is it just a quiet dev period? I really enjoy the game but I now have growing commitments away from computer games and have finite amount of time to invest in them. I just don’t want to jump on the party train only to realise that it is just getting into the station.

Related to the last question/answer, the mod is actually still being developed. But the next release will be 2.6, but there's no clear release date for that yet.

Don't worry. People like me will always be here to make submods and keep the community alive. At least until Mount & Blade 2 comes out. I'm sure we'll end up meeting each other again there though. 

 

[Leifdin]

7. You don't, you just run away
8. I think that land is more profitable than enterprises, especially if you spend your time around one town.
13. As already said, you'll have lots of friends. Also I think that you have higher chance of getting fiefs and title of marshal(not just because of good relations with lords -ever met a lord saying that he supports the most honorable vassal?)

 

[H.]

Thanks for the feedback Hanakoganei and Leifdin.

1. It seems I am then on the same page as most people regarding high surgery and also a training focus. That thread regarding battle cas was quite good thanks.

2. I usually have them grouped together and send them to retreat immediately if they make it onto the field, I do not let them hand around. Anyone else use Stat units?

3. I will stick with the blunt weapons then.

4. I think I will try out the different armies then. I have amassed almost all the Nord and Swadia troop types from bandit prisoners, so maybe I just roll them out and give them a go.

5. That is exactly the type of feedback I was after, I will give them a go as I already have Sarranid fiefs.

6. Yes I mean against Cav. I never plan on having the cav get to my archers but the reality is that they do. I seem to have a habit of picking fights where the odds are less than favourable and am at war with both the Sarranid and Khergits who have plenty of pony folk.

7. I think I have some work to do on the tactics area. Thanks for the massive write up, it highlights what can be done and also my lack/very limited use of the tactics options available in the game.

8. Well I guess I will just have to remember to collect and quit moaning about it. But happy to see others are the same regarding prisoner ransom as a stable income source.

9. Hmmmm… so I guess just MORE defenders is the way forward, I think I can manage that.

10./11. So given that information regarding the easiest target based on numbers…. Would it be worth having say one castle that is very defendable layout wise and packing that with say 400 amazing troops and the others with 2k each, then just let the AI throw itself against the other one and let it be the kill and capture place for enemy lords? Or will they still spread out and hit my other centers?

12. I am thinking of using freelancers as a spec defence troop as I can give the archers extra ammo for long sieges.

13. Oh, that makes sense, I was wondering why people talked with me and then increased their standing with me for no apparent reason. I have been spending a lot of time setting captured lords free so that they like me more, long term plan will be so they are more likely to join me when I create my own kingdom.

14./15. Yeah I had read the dev diary and also the post from Windyplains. Was just wondering what the thoughts were now some months on from those posts. Either way I guess I can just wait for 2.6 or learn to mod and add in the aspects I want with help from others on here.

Thanks again, given me plenty to look at and try in game.
H.

 

[Michiko]

Liefdin has a point too. There's nothing wrong with retreating or running away from a battle that you might not win, or might take unnecessary casualties from. Think like a guerrilla at all times and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble especially with having to replenish your ranks.

Hopefully you're faster than most lords on the world map. Put a bunch of horses in your inventory; even cheap/lame ones to help out in case you don't have a lot of cavalry units in your army. I personally love pure infantry tactics so I tend to not have any cavalry with me at all. It's kinda obvious but I'll highlight it for others who might be reading this thread that don't know it, but being faster on the world map means you can escape easier, run circles around opponents, and even strike two different areas more quickly.

隐藏: Guerrilla Warfare Examples

If they are besieging my main fort with a force that's too large to fight by yourself (2500 troops, for example), I would ride out of the castle and besiege their nearest castle. The owner of that castle is likely to break from the siege and defend it. In fact, there's a chance that all of them ride to defend it. Then I run away and ride back. If I can pick off some of their weaker parties in the process, I will. If your character has no moral issues with slaughtering innocents, make sure that all their villages are razed and eliminate as many farmer and caravan parties as you can find. The poorer the lords of the faction, the less capable they are of waging war. You might eventually be seeing all their lords with only 40-50 troops each. By that point you can crush them easily if you wanted, or you could forge peace with them at no cost so you have time to deal with other issues in your kingdom.

Mixing faction troops has a bit of a downside so be careful too. That's one of the main reasons I don't mix faction troops. Troops from the factions you're at war with will have negative morale based on how low your relation with their faction is. Less morale makes them less effective in combat in general, particularly because they're more likely to break out of formation. It's this morale that we attack when we use advanced tactics, in fact. Getting too many casualties on their front line will cause them to lose morale as it goes, which causes some troops to break formation. A broken formation is a weak one.

About Freelancers, they're actually really good fighters for what they are. I typically start engaging in wars with purely Freelancer and Mercenary/Sword Sister armies, because there will be no morale issues whatsoever with regards to army congruency.

 

[Leifdin]

Important point about guerrilla tactics: Whenever a party is defeated, village is pillaged(possibly farmers/traders are killed), centre is lost the marshal of factions gains controversy. If he has high controversy, the campaign will most likely shatter. They may choose new marshal as well.

 

[Michiko]

Haha yeah. I love it especially if their marshal is one of my enemies. I mess him up. When they reach 100 controversy they might consider replacing him immediately.

 

[H.]

hmmmm... food for thought, I did not know about the "controversy" factor at all. I might have to try it out, maybe use it as a means of breaking enemy seiges.

As for the guerrilla tactics, I am all to aware of them. I just came to the conclusion that continually running away is not going to enable me to make large inroads into enemy areas that are needed. I have invested in army speed quite a bit and the archers and offensive units are all quite quick at the T5 + mark. But sometimes you just need to stand your ground to get rid of those last 150+ lords.

Last night I had another round of playing and have been more successful when it comes to skirmishing, I have used a continual fall back tactic and have much better success. Esp with the Sarranid who have their Cav (heavy and archer) on there far flank.

What do you believe the most profitable and defenendable town/castle clusters on the map?

 

[Leifdin]

What do you believe the most profitable and defenedable town/castle clusters on the map?

I have no idea and I usually don't care -I take whatever I can. (Or I just don't remember. I haven't played Floris besides editing stuff for about year now)

 

[Michiko]

For me, most profitable is Dhirim, if you can hold it. And that's a very tall order. If all the villages near it are doing okay, and trade caravans make it there without getting harassed, you can earn a lot of money from taxes, rents and tariffs there Dhirim. In times of peace, Dhirim has the best income of all my towns. What makes it good is that it's in the middle of the map. Caravans go through there when going to trade with a town across the way.

Defendable... The Nord and Khergit castles feel a bit easy to defend, especially if you have the right troops. Outside of sieges, castles that are in a safe corner of the world, blocked by natural obstacles are the easiest to defend for me. Tulbuk Castle is a great example. You can cut off siege parties before they even reach the castle or village, because of the terrain. Wercheg and Chalbek Castle are both in peninsulas, and are similarly easy to defend.

 

[Articulo34]

...Khergit castles feel a bit easy to defend, especially if you have the right troops...

Uhhun Castle + 100 A5 units = Awesomeness

 

[H.]

Once I got my head around the defence of castles and towns, thanks mostly to this forum, that is not too much of an issue now. What I am looking at is the ability to protect a patch of land with just 1 army. Although the income of towns do vary a lot based on population and prosperity my current train of thought is that even a smaller or poorer town, castle and fief clusters can thrive if protected for long enough.

Frustratingly enough I am now heading away for a month on holiday so no chance to further dev and put into practice what is discussed on here. However I think that given the 30 odd hours of flights and airports I am sure I can come up with plenty of cunning plans for evaluation.

I have noticed there is a huge opportunity cost in focusing on one area too much, both in time and the ability to influence the battle tide of your faction.

The other thing I have noticed when looking at town, castle and fief clusters is regular bandit problems in the way of large parties of wandering bandits. It appears on most of my games that the for rests around Suno regularly have bandits, the centre of the Sarranid area is most prone to bandits in the desert. Then the two long valleys near Veluca seem to be regularly bandit infested. I am not sure if this is only in my game or if this is a function of less patrols in these areas.

Now while I think about it, can player faction patrols, created by talking to your constable out of garrison troops, capture prisoners?? I have seen peasants, caravans and my towns/castles after a siege with prisoners, but I have never noticed one of my patrols with them. The reason I ask is that it could be another possible revenue stream if the patrols are all man hunters, I mean they are slow but could still catch some groups.

anyway, flight 1 or 4, better get going.

 

[Michiko]

You should start trying to get some lords to join your faction if you can. It beats having to wait for them to defect to your side on their own.

Bandits really do get reduced in number by enough patrols and manhunter parties in the area. But as you can imagine, most named lord parties are too powerful for the average manhunter or patrol party. Lords or the player are supposed to intervene in those.

Patrols can capture prisoners but they don't usually. It's likely based on the weapon types, as auto-calc (computer-generated battle results on the world map) seems to factor that in. That's why manhunters are likely to come up with prisoners, and farmer parties too (because they have rocks and clubs).

 

[H.]

Good to know ref the patrols and prisoners, I will have to pay closer attention to that we I am back.

To get lords to join me I just have to make sure they like me a lot?? What is the relation requirement?? I guess I will end up with all the honorable lords if I have high honor...

 

[Michiko]

You need a minimum of 20 relation to even talk about that stuff with them. But that's not all you need. The game actually factors a lot of things in. For example, a lord is unlikely to join you if he actually likes his current liege as well. He might also refuse to join you if your faction is weak or unstable, or if he has a higher court position (whatever that means--likely tied to his fief holdings, because villages don't carry over, but villages tied to castles and towns will if you get the owner of the castle or town's owner to defect). He also won't join if he thinks his family will be endangered by the switch. Your argument for why they should switch will also factor in, because some lords like some responses more. However, if you switch your responses per lord, they might notice that you're just saying what they want to hear rather than what will be true, and they won't like that either. Best to stick to one or two that don't contradict, like caring for the commons and rewarding lands.

You typically want the honorable lords on your side anyway if that's how you play. It generally leads to less controversy and squabbling among the lords when you have your own kingdom. They like protecting the commons, so it's comparably easier to get them to defect if you keep telling them that.

Lastly even after all this, there's still some randomness involved. A 30% chance of success is already considered "high". If you think he has a high chance of switching and don't mind reloading, you can save before talking to him and reload if he says no and try again. But it's not so bad even if you don't reload. You can talk to him again about it in a week or so.

 

[coolchucky]

Example A: Kingdom of Swadia versus Rhodok Republic
Swadians are all about the longbow and the heavy cavalry, but their infantry are actually really good fighters, if you can safely close them with the enemy line. That said, you need to protect them and distract the enemy archers in particular. A lot of people complain that the Swadian infantry has no shields but they forget that the heavy cavalry have fat horses as well as shields. Set up a line with your cavalry, put the longbowmen behind them in ranks, then put the melee infantry behind those. Advance slowly. Have a reserve light cavalry troop off to the edge of this line. It will look like this:

LLHHHHHH
  aaaaaaaa
  iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

L = light cavalry
H = heavy cavalry
a = archers
i = melee infantry

You advance this together slowly until the enemy line is in range of your archers. Tell them to hold fire until you know all your archers can reach the enemy line. The enemy line will start to break apart as many of them die. When they break formation and charge you, or better yet, fall back, charge your heavy cavalry, but keep your light cavalry in reserve. Charge your melee infantry almost immediately after, but tell your archers to either hold position or fall back a bit. Reform your line as necessary when enemy reinforcements arrive.


Example B: Sarranid Sultanate versus Kingdom of the Nords (pure infantry battle)
The Nord shielded infantry is the best in the game for sure. Pavise shields from the Rhodoks have better coverage per person, but the Nord infantry are better killers, and there's so many shields that they overlap and protect each other. That said, the softy Sarranid infantry will not stand a chance against the Nords without tactics.

What I do is I split my Sarranid infantry into different unit types. Tabardariyya and Yerliyya/Yeniceri are flankers to me. Al-Haqqani form my main line, with my archers just behind them. Overall, I'll have about 30% archers, 20% Al-Haqqani and 50% flankers. The reason I have so many flankers is because I'll be pulling a classic pincer maneuver.

The weakness of the Nords is their lack of mobility. Having that many shields means they'll be holding them up most of the time, and moving slowly as one unit. Or else they'll be turtling at their starting position. Either way, a mobile force has an advantage on them.

The classic pincer maneuver involves pushing your flanker troops around the enemy line, but staying outside of their archer range. The immediate effect of this is it will cause some of their infantry to turn to face the flankers. By this point your main line with archers should already be within an arrow's flight of the enemy line, inflicting casualties. If the enemy line breaks to retreat, push the advantage by moving closer with both pincers until they meet up in the middle. If the enemy breaks to charge you, which they're more likely to do, do a fake retreat. Pull your flankers back towards your main line until the enemy is within archery range. Then re-align the flankers off to the side again and complete the pincer. You do this because attacking the shields of the Nords head on with your light infantry will result in massive casualties on your part. You need to come in from behind one way or another.

OK now, will you please share a video or something how do you control the above tactical situations? Or you can tell me somewhere on youtube that I can find what I want. I am really curious about how people make these in high difficulty.

Thanks in advance,