Military Development and Utilization

[Ry Vor]

Okay, hotshot.  This is sort of the main axle for many players and for several kingdoms.  Many questions:

• When and what do you recruit?
  
• How do you deploy your forces in the early game?
  
• How much do you value a kingdom with five forces?
  
• Do you take group movement customization like Champion Stallions and Wowie Totem?
  
• Do you take Human PC's and foreign controlled PC's in your capital region militarily?
  
• Do you try to have just sufficient force to gain brigade promotions without overwhelming?
  
• Do you explore neighboring regions other than recalling the out of region force?
  
• Do you seek out encounters as much to advance leaders as for the artifact?
  

Anything else you like to add on how, especially in the early game to transitioning to mid-game how you utilize military, maybe from different kingdom perspectives.

[RELLGAR]

I'll  answer  one, I go after encounters  for leader promotions mostly. I will, go out of my way for certain artifacts, none of the weapons  are beneficial except for promotions and the bonus the give for the encounters,  with the exception  of the assassination  daggers.

[uncledarkseid]

what is the order of leadership advancemet?
captain to general to marshal etc... and the intcremental increases in between?

please

[Strongwill]

Centurion 5%
Captain 6%
Captain Major 7%
General 10%
Major General 11%
Commander 12%
Marshal 15%
Grand Marshal 16%
Lord Commander 17%
Warlord 25%

You could email these questions lol

[Wookie Panz]

What and when do you recruit?
I'll try on this one:
Every position is different and recruitment varies with the position, the type of game, the region you are in and who are the other players in the game and where are they in relation to you.
That's the long answer.   The shorter answer is the best players adapt and plan ahead.   Are you playing a military position like a dragon?  Recruit early and often and promote through your attacks.  You have to feed these guys.

Playing a magic position?  Some very good players dump units right at the start and promote wizards with the gold saved.   If you can summon by spell you save a lot of gold.
Playing DE?  Skeletons and dammed that can be converted to zombies are a big part of the success of the DE.
You can never go wrong by planning ahead and that should start with the draft.
We still see the occasional draft where a position is placed in a region where it loses it's advantages.  NO does not fit in the north or CI in the south.  Dragons don't like water, sea positions don't  like being land bound.  It sounds obvious but it does happen.  Look at the position and see what your recruitment options will be before you draft.  What will you need to recruit and will the area fit the position?
Again and again we see the top players have a plan, right from the start, and often a plan B and C.   Read your setup and if there is a position you want to learn about just ask someone on the forum and you will find that many players have most of the setups saved from previous games.  Some early research will pay off big later on.

[Senior Tactician]

To be more clear about my question, I notice that using some tactics like Barrage and other special attacks requires the attacker to use option #2 as far as how long the group fights before retreating, it seems to take some of the luster off of using such tactics since it limits how long my group will stand and fight before retreating.
It seems to be kind of a balancing act, but I'm sure there are some things I'm missing which is why I ask.
Thank You !

I agree, this fact used to dissuade me from using some tactics.  But with fortifications, and more recently with the improvements to fortifications, the calculations are a bit different.  There should be practically no need to go tactic 3 vs a PC.  If your group is big enough to overcome the defenses... its more than big enough to absorb the damage and shouldn't retreat (many brigades also had defense increases).  I took a legendary castle the other day with 7% losses, I used determined attack but now I realize was not necessary.

[Senior Tactician]

Rellgar and Wookie are right on for their points, I behave similarly.

One question you have to answer fairly early in the game with some kingdoms is "do I want the ability to capture legendary castles."  For magic kingdoms, you can throw together an army very quickly that can do so, but without overlapping crack the sky and fear, some kingdoms will have to recruit specific troops types for their bonuses and train these troops up to veterans or elite to be able to eventually capture legendary castles, it can take a lot of turns to prepare such a force.

I'm just gonna to a quick answer to each

• When and what do you recruit?  I only build armies for specific purposes, and those purposes rarely include engaging other armies.  I build groups just large enough to take a village, a town, or a large PC.  I like to keep my groups as small as possible so that its possible they can eventually teleport.  Unless I decide early that I want to be able to capture legendary, then the army planning comes into play early, recruiting all the brigades I can that give a fear or valor bonus (minotuars, zamorans, hill giants, mammoths, trolls(PC bonus), specters, ghouls.  But at the same time trying to keep the different types of brigades down so it doesn't prohibit trainings. With kingdoms that have weak starting brigades, I usually get rid of the kingdom names to keep a slot open for promotions.
  
  
• How do you deploy your forces in the early game?  I rarely use groups early in the game unless training brigades to get an elite to recruit high-end companions like hill giants and mammoths.  Or building that big group to take legendary.  Troops recruited for no reason just sit around eating up your food and gold.
  
  
• How much do you value a kingdom with five forces?  I like it a lot, but I also like having good wizard potential so the only 5-army kingdoms I really enjoy playing are the DA, RA and UN.
  
  
• Do you take group movement customization like Champion Stallions and Wowie Totem? Never
  
  
• Do you take Human PC's and foreign controlled PC's in your capital region militarily? Only if training for an early elite brigade.
  
  
• Do you try to have just sufficient force to gain brigade promotions without overwhelming?  Absolutely. This is very important to me, a group must engage the PC until the battle reaches the "storm" phase, AND must take at least 5% casualties to have a chance to increase brigade rating.  I think about that for every battle until all the troops are elite.
  
  
• Do you explore neighboring regions other than recalling the out of region force? Almost never.
  
  
• Do you seek out encounters as much to advance leaders as for the artifact?  More for the leader advancement.  I usually don't go after artifacts unless the kingdom has a bonus to leader increases.  I find very few of them useful for my play style and I find artifacts not a extremely effective way to gain a lot of status.  If I have spare orders though, I will search out my region and maybe grab the artifacts at some point.
  

[RELLGAR]

I echo most of what Senior Tactician said. I do sometimes explore out of my region territory early, if I think they are a potential enemy.