Anyone has a viable strategy for the Scions?

[Tarquelne]

Archer: 6 + 155% = 15.3

That's "slightly better".

To put it simply, it is practically impossible for an archer to match up to the honored band, due to it's higher base strength, and inbuilt 30% bonus. It is a wall, quite frankly. And nothing moves it. I think they're worth the extra maintenance.

I think the only thing missing in that analysis is that at any task both can do - or can't do - the Archer is better. You've get a ranged attack and are paying less per turn. That's gold that could be supporting a Necromancer, or helping you get the next tech. Or supporting a second Archer. Another ranged attack, another defense that's close to a HBs: If all you want is defense a stack of 2x Archers is often going to be more flexible and robust than 1x HBs. OTOH, a mix is even better.

A mixed stack of HB and Archers can apply ranged attacks, let the HB handle the strongest attacks or counter attack but still have (presumably less-experienced and less-promoted) Archers soak-up lesser attacks if the HBs become too weak. Maybe the HB's Cannibalism will keep that from happening. But enough magic, siege, or just bad luck can make any unit weak. Relying on a few really good units makes you much more vulnerable to misfortune. Or a Hero. When you've got HBs the best use of an Archer - after ranged attacks - might simply be insurance.

I think Cannibalism strengthens the case for Archers. But not when the Archers have it - when the HB has it.

If the attackers can't kill a few Cannibal HBs you may as well not have any extra defenders. But if you do, and you generally will, they may as well mostly be Archers. Cheaper to maintain, can still contribute ranged attacks.

If the attacks can kill Cannibal HBs... then you're probably better off loosing a few HBs and a bunch of Archers rather than a few HBs and a few more HBs. If a few Cannibal HB's can't stop an attack a whole stack of them may not either. You'd be better off throwing in some Archers to help weaken the attackers - or to just pay less per turn for the privilege of waiting to get killed.

(Lets not forget about Skirmishers, btw. A strong attacker will waste an attack on it, hopefully leaving the Skirmisher alive and the attacker weakened.)

There's also upgrades to consider: I'd rather have a mixed group of experienced Longbowman and Headless Principes at the next tier than just Headless Principes. And I'd really rather have Principes that aren't Headless.

So while I don't agree with odalrick that the HB has no role, I do think it's quite possible to over-commit to HBs.

 

[odalrick]

Compared to archers, their attack is high.

And compared to Centeni, their attack is low. Centeni are twice as many.

I already explained this part. They defend better than archers, and centeni, and they attack better than archers and Centeni.

Honored band are a very powerful defensive unit.

Again, I feel this is a difference in playing style. When it comes to defence, I'm looking for good enough, not awesome. Something to garrison backwater burgs without bankrupting me. If they happen to have a minor ability that aids attacking, great!

I also usually build my cities on hills, and there tends to be a lack of production options in the early game when I build pallisades and wall. I got Masonry to harvest Patrian Artifacts.

There is also the minor bonus of not relying on finding copper.

Rapid reinforcements to threatened areas is vital. If a stronghold can't be taken, why would the enemy attack there? Somewhat less important in single player, but it allows a smaller standing army and an army that moves faster on the offence.

No war has ever been won by defending the enemy to death. Pacifists are leeches on society and the sooner we exterminate them all, the better.

When it comes to attack, Honored band have the same strength as Centeni, plus an extra 30%.

For twice the cost.

Incidentally, have you thought about comparing the suicide spell to using two Centeni? I suspect 'bands come out miserably outclassed.

As you've pointed out, they do flounder a bit compared to other civs' axemen, as they become weaker by lv4, but they're better than centeni.

Level 2. Level 4 for iron, but if you get iron, I should at least get adepts.

If I had to pick one or the other it'd be Archer. Hands down. Primarily because of the HB's higher maintenance cost.

However, since we don't I use both.

Obviously noone has to pick only one, except chosing what to research first.

Even with both I don't know why one would build Honored Bands. Trying to guess where the enemy attacks, paying upkeep, no passive training, useless in later offensive wars...

To put it simply, it is practically impossible for an archer to match up to the honored band, due to it's higher base strength, and inbuilt 30% bonus. It is a wall, quite frankly. And nothing moves it. I think they're worth the extra maintenance.

The comparison is never really one archer versus one Honored Band though. Add in maintenace, speed, production cost...

Also, although you may get two archers for the maintenance of one band, remember also that you're dividing potential xp in half.

And doubling free experience! And archers get passive training from the start. (Not that defensive units need experience.)

Double maintenance may seem like a lot, but when it can do the work of 5 or 6 of it's lesser bretheren, the cost doesn't seem so bad.

True.

But the work defensive units need to do is provide a time buffer for the offensive units (the real army) to do their work. And Honored Bands are lousy at that and they're lousy at attacking and have no other redeeming features.

If you still think archers are superior, try fighting the hippus sometime, and watch them rape your cities and field armies with +40% vs archer horsemen.

Hippus are always a pain. However, the big weakness of horses is defence which incidentally Honoured bands are bad at exploiting.

I spent about 50 minutes writing this post @_@

I do enjoy a good debate though. I hope I don't seem mean.

About the same I spent on the last post. It was in school though, so it's ok.

 

[Vehem]

To put it simply, it is practically impossible for an archer to match up to the honored band, due to it's higher base strength, and inbuilt 30% bonus. It is a wall, quite frankly. And nothing moves it. I think they're worth the extra maintenance.

Also, although you may get two archers for the maintenance of one band, remember also that you're dividing potential xp in half. You may only get half xp for defending, compared to attacking, but when you're killing 10 units per turn, that mounts up a lot. Give a band Cannibalize, and a good mix of drill/combat/shock promotions. Put it in front of the enemy, and watch whole armies die, one after another, to your single unit. The more it kills, the more xp it gains. the better it becomes at killing, etc etc.

I think these points are pretty much the crux of why it works. You can choose between Honoured Band which are pretty solidly the better defenders if you have any access to metals - or you can have the cheaper and potentially faster archers, with their support/ranged ability. Personally I take an Honoured band and a couple of archers per city early game (I also play a very tight empire as Scions). The archers gain XP shooting at anything that comes adjacent to the city, then the 'band gains some more by finishing the unit off.

 

[WarKirby]

And compared to Centeni, their attack is low. Centeni are twice as many.

One dead enemy is better than two of your dead troops. If you throw a centeni at the enemy and it dies die, most likely another, uninjured defender is going to fight against the next one. Centeni have a much higher chance of being able to kill an enemy outright.

As I mentioned, a band has a natural 60% bonus attacking an archer in a city, which is one of the most common offensive scenarios. It makes a lot of difference. Centeni don't have the power to break a defence.

There is also the minor bonus of not relying on finding copper.

Well, if you don't have copper, your centeni are even more useless too.

Rapid reinforcements to threatened areas is vital. If a stronghold can't be taken, why would the enemy attack there? Somewhat less important in single player, but it allows a smaller standing army and an army that moves faster on the offence.

Well, for this case, horsemen would be better than centeni. In general though, as Scions I don't spread my empire out much. So rarely have a need for this. And keep in mind that centeni/archers are only faster if you expend a promotion on Mobility. That's a promotion the band is going to be putting in a Combat rank instead, thusly being even more powerful. Speed doesn't come for free.

No war has ever been won by defending the enemy to death. Pacifists are leeches on society and the sooner we exterminate them all, the better.

Oh I disagree. Certainly, standing around defending does nothing. By try walking around pillaging things instead. When you have that much defence, there's bugger all they can do to stop you. But I'm sure they'll gladly try, and waste a disproportionate amount of troops doing so. And once you slaughter enough of their feeble attempts to prevent your pillaging, then you can attack.

Incidentally, have you thought about comparing the suicide spell to using two Centeni? I suspect 'bands come out miserably outclassed.

See the top of this post. Again, you can use bands to break a defence. The suicide spell makes your odds even better. Sacrificing two centeni is almost certainly not going to take a city with more than one unit. but sacrificing a band has a reasonable chance of killing the strongest defender.

Level 2. Level 4 for iron, but if you get iron, I should at least get adepts.

Actually, it's lv3, we were both wrong. At lv3, a normal axeman surpasses a band for general attack. However, for attacking archers, assuming you take all combat promotions, they draw even at lv6. Probably earlier if things like shock/city raider are used instead, but the average level of a rank and file offensive unit is 2-5, so honored band will usually at least hold their own.

Even with both I don't know why one would build Honored Bands. Trying to guess where the enemy attacks, paying upkeep, no passive training, useless in later offensive wars...

When you march into enemy territory with a stack of doom, you know exactly where they're going to attack. Your army. An offensive army is likely to be moving at 1 per turn anyways, because your army's power is seriously reduced if you buy mobility for every unit. And you simply can't buy it for siege weapons.

The comparison is never really one archer versus one Honored Band though. Add in maintenace, speed, production cost...

And doubling free experience! And archers get passive training from the start.

Archers get passive training when you build an archery range, not otherwise. And likewise, melee units when you build a training yard. Admittedly, the training yard has a higher tech req, but not much more so. And that same tech unlocks City Garrison anyways, so it doesn't matter too much.

But the work defensive units need to do is provide a time buffer for the offensive units (the real army) to do their work. And Honored Bands are lousy at that and they're lousy at attacking and have no other redeeming features.

I've already proven that they're at least on par with axemen at lower levels, and that increases significantly when attacking archers, which is the main thing you need offensive units for. Until you get ghostwalkers, martyrs of Patria, Principes, or longbowmen, Honored Band have more offensive power than any scion unit.

Hippus are always a pain. However, the big weakness of horses is defence which incidentally Honoured bands are bad at exploiting.

But centeni are even worse. They have the same strength as a horseman, but -10% unless you pay them.
Having 2 movment on a centeni is helpful, but if a horseman takes Combat I, your centeni is screwed. Remember the opportunity cost in power you sacrifice to gain that speed.

 

[WarKirby]

double post

 

[WarKirby]

That's "slightly better".

Actually, it isn't. If the archer sticks with the City Garrison path, and uses that extra level to buy Combat I, it gains an extra 1 strength. (and the band still wins!) Taking the path to headless nets it only a 0.05 strength gain. Remember we were comparing a lv4 and a lv5 archer there.

 

[Tarquelne]

nets it only a 0.05 strength gain.

Oh.... 0.05 strength gain is slightly worse...
No, my problem was I'd mis-read what you meant by level.

 

[Breez]

Bah I disagree with you all!!!!

(Note: Scions are the NEXT race I am playing so I am talking pretty generic here)

I defend cities with 2 archers

One gets City/Hill Defense the other gets Drill 1-4 then Blitz. I LOVE defensive strikes!

An Archer with Blitz (then the Archery upgrades after that) sometimes gets a defensive strike on 80% of the incoming attacks so MOST of the enemy is starting off 30%-60% damaged. With blitz I can attack/bombard and still get my defensive strike.

I don't think any of your comparison arguments took defensive strikes into account at all, which when you are looking at difference of .05 str i think they are much more relevant than that.

Also I think using specific promos like Shock is irrevelent. Last night I was being attacked by stacks over 60 in size with

5% Melee
20% Ranged
30% Mounted
45% Recon

 

[WarKirby]

One awesome thing about the scions, is that pure power is all you need. The enemy simply cannot overwhelm you with numbers once you get a defender or two with cannibalize. An honored band with a drill promo or two, and cannibalize, can swallow a literally infinite number of inferior enemies. The single and only thing you have to fear are things powerful enough to kill you outright, or at least to do significant damage. Laugh at the pitiful 45% recon stacks they waste on you.

 

[Valkrionn]

I think these points are pretty much the crux of why it works. You can choose between Honoured Band which are pretty solidly the better defenders if you have any access to metals - or you can have the cheaper and potentially faster archers, with their support/ranged ability. Personally I take an Honoured band and a couple of archers per city early game (I also play a very tight empire as Scions). The archers gain XP shooting at anything that comes adjacent to the city, then the 'band gains some more by finishing the unit off.

This is the way I defend my core cities, actually... The tank (HB), and the ranged attacks of the archers, make it nearly impossible to take the city.

 

[KillerClowns]

One other thing: be glad the AI doesn't know how to use magic very well. A few magi with Banishment will really, really . .. .. .. . the Scions up. IIRC, it's got more punch than any other mage-level direct-damage spell, won't (usually) hurt the mage's allies, after a few shots of that, a handful of fireballs are sufficient to mop up. This will only come into play against humans, or if the AI gets trained to use Banishment against Undead/Demonic civs. I suppose then, a few assassins would quickly become a vital part of any defense.
Which reminds me; remember that Cannibalize doesn't help against direct-damage spells (the aforementioned Banishment, Tsunami, Maelstrom, et cetera).

 

[WarKirby]

One other thing: be glad the AI doesn't know how to use magic very well. A few magi with Banishment will really, really . .. .. .. . the Scions up. IIRC, it's got more punch than any other mage-level direct-damage spell, won't (usually) hurt the mage's allies, after a few shots of that, a handful of fireballs are sufficient to mop up. This will only come into play against humans, or if the AI gets trained to use Banishment against Undead/Demonic civs. I suppose then, a few assassins would quickly become a vital part of any defense.
Which reminds me; remember that Cannibalize doesn't help against direct-damage spells (the aforementioned Banishment, Tsunami, Maelstrom, et cetera).

The Scion Corpus I spell, Draw Strength, gives resistance to magic. It's specifically designed to partially counter this. Not completely though. That is one weakness the scions have.

That, and you can take undead slaying for extra effectiveness against all of their units. I suppose that is one area where centeni are useful, they're living units.

 

[Vehem]

The Scion Corpus I spell, Draw Strength, gives resistance to magic. It's specifically designed to partially counter this. Not completely though. That is one weakness the scions have.

That, and you can take undead slaying for extra effectiveness against all of their units. I suppose that is one area where centeni are useful, they're living units.

Aye - it's a nice counter-balance to their general strength in quite a few areas. If they use their armies to attack their neighbours, they're effectively forcing those neighbours to invest in the promotions and spells that can seriously hurt the Scions and halt their attack. Once they have those, the Scions are quite vulnerable to the counter attack.

On the other hand, if the Scions play nice, it's a waste of tech/nodes/promotions for the other civs to specialize against them. They're powerful, but it's relatively easy to take them down a peg or two if they start throwing their weight around...

 

[odalrick]

Well, for this case, horsemen would be better than centeni.

Except they cost twice as much and require a resource and a building. Any city can shovel out Centeni. But sure, military centres may build horsemen, they too are better than Honored Bands.

In general though, as Scions I don't spread my empire out much. So rarely have a need for this. And keep in mind that centeni/archers are only faster if you expend a promotion on Mobility. That's a promotion the band is going to be putting in a Combat rank instead, thusly being even more powerful. Speed doesn't come for free.

But the speed compensates for power by allowing many more units to converge on a single point, before counter-measures can be deployed. Blitzkrieg.

See the top of this post. Again, you can use bands to break a defence. The suicide spell makes your odds even better. Sacrificing two centeni is almost certainly not going to take a city with more than one unit. but sacrificing a band has a reasonable chance of killing the strongest defender.

So you want to throw away a unit on taking out the strongest defender, without bringing along enough units to actually take the city?

I wont start suiciding units until I have enough troops to actually take the city, so taking out units is less important then neutralising them.

There are two main advantages for Centeni suicide troops, and a few minor ones that I won't bother enumerating.

First, Centeni are two units. That means halfway through the battle, the enemy gets a strength penalty proportionate to damage already suffered.

Secondly, sometimes the Centeni survive. With a load of experience to boot. I suspect this factor makes the investment of centeni compared to 'bands more like 3:1. That is: for the same amount of hammers invested in suicide Honored Bands you could get three times as many Centeni.

Actually, it's lv3, we were both wrong.

And matches at level 2.

When you march into enemy territory with a stack of doom, you know exactly where they're going to attack. Your army. An offensive army is likely to be moving at 1 per turn anyways, because your army's power is seriously reduced if you buy mobility for every unit. And you simply can't buy it for siege weapons.

A stack of doom is always unstoppable, otherwise it wouldn't be a stack of doom. It's fairly immaterial whether it's defended by five units that can kill five units each or ten units that can kill 2.5 units each. The important thing for a stack of doom is high level units and the industrial power of your cities, not the individual power of it's defenders.

And I will buy Mobility I for all units. The slight reduction in raw combat power is more than offset by the reduced time to the enemies to build reinforcements and greater possibility to end at a +defence tile. Also, higher movement means each unit can cover a greater area means I need fewer units means more experience for each unit. Reacting to unforeseen circumstances is also easier.

Siege units come on-line about the same time as I can start purchasing Mobility, and become obsolete at about the same time that most units have mobility. So that works out well. If I wanted to I could build some units with no purpose other than defending the siege, id est Honored Bands. However, they would become obsolete along with siege and I couldn't even assign them to guard duty due to their outrageous upkeep.

Archers get passive training when you build an archery range, not otherwise. And likewise, melee units when you build a training yard. Admittedly, the training yard has a higher tech req, but not much more so. And that same tech unlocks City Garrison anyways, so it doesn't matter too much.

City Garrison is another pointless luxury. Remember, for defence units I'm looking for good enough and ability to be conscripted into an offensive force. City Garrison is just overspecialisation.

City Raider is good, only it's not available for any offensive units, and other research paths provide a similar benefit, offensive units and economic benefits.

But centeni are even worse. They have the same strength as a horseman, but -10% unless you pay them.
Having 2 movment on a centeni is helpful, but if a horseman takes Combat I, your centeni is screwed. Remember the opportunity cost in power you sacrifice to gain that speed.

And Centeni cost half to produce. It works like this: Centeni 1 attacks, injuring the Horeseman, dying in the process. Centeni 2 attacks, kills the Horseman and buys Combat I. The next horseman faces three centeni, one of which has combat I.

Sometimes the first centeni even wins, it's not like 4.8 versus 3.8 is a huge advantage.

edit:
And why wouldn't you pay them? One gold just before a battle is too much? But not if you pay it every turn?

 

[Breez]

I just played Scions for the 1st time tonight.

Looking back at the math, Kirby you left the Archers +2 first strikes they get naturally while including the 30% hvy formation bonus the honored get. I had to verify that, I had a Archer with ONLY Combat 1 promo that had 2 first strikes and I had an archer with combat 1 and drill one that had 2-3 first strikes, the difference being due to the 1st strike chance on Drill one.

Missing 2 first strike PLUS Defensive strikes in your math... No cookie for you.

ALSO as I reread I laughed at one coment...

Level 4 isn't an arbitrary value by the way. This is the max level an archery range/training yard will take a unit to. And is usually the highest level a defensive archer will reach.

I will chalk it up to different play styles... but my defending archers are typically what get level 15 to free Bridget first. I don't abuse the exp from zero damage, but i DO abuse something else.

The AI is stoping 1 square away from my city while gathering for a push. Neatly putting them outside my archers range. However if I have 1 square of roads, the square they are in doesn't matter but that one square between does. Sometimes they will destroy my road, or show up before they are there, as mentioned above, in those cases I use Mobility I. I run my archers out of the city, do a ranged attack for exp, they run back in behind the walls. Rinse & Repeat. They sit there and heal but as I get more and more archers (say 5-8) I am doing more damage than they are healing.

After a few rounds of this I start bringing one or two attackers with me to start picking off a few of them per turn that they would never be able to kill with out being softened up 1st.

Some times this goes on for 20+ turns as he keeps reinforcing and I keep grinding them down. I like the grind because MY units are getting stronger while the AI is simply tossing more fresh green troops at me.

Personally I think MATH wise they are pretty even. Pick the one that fits your play style better... or the one you think looks cooler!

 

[WarKirby]

The AI is stoping 1 square away from my city while gathering for a push. Neatly putting them outside my archers range. However if I have 1 square of roads, the square they are in doesn't matter but that one square between does. Sometimes they will destroy my road, or show up before they are there, as mentioned above, in those cases I use Mobility I. I run my archers out of the city, do a ranged attack for exp, they run back in behind the walls. Rinse & Repeat. They sit there and heal but as I get more and more archers (say 5-8) I am doing more damage than they are healing.

After a few rounds of this I start bringing one or two attackers with me to start picking off a few of them per turn that they would never be able to kill with out being softened up 1st.

This is an exploit. Enemies aren't supposed to stand and heal while you shoot the crap out of them.

Also, ranged attack xp is beng soft capped in 0.51. Ranged attack xp will be multiplied by by:

1 / (currentxp / 5)

In this case, up until 5xp, you'll actually get more than before. It becomes normal at 5, and drops rapidly from there. Half at 10, a quarter at 20, etc.

 

[xienwolf]

Should (hopefully) be:

1/ (currXP/5 + 1) to avoid division by zero issues. Thus "standard" rate for the first 5 XP, and rate diminishes every 5 after that.


The AI won't stand and take it when you do ranged attacks from the tile next to them, but unfortunately it isn't quite smart enough to avoid a ranged attacker who dodges in and out of range repeatedly. Difficult strategy to work against, but also odd that they would mass forces 2 tiles from your city, unless that is outside your culture range.

 

[Vehem]

Should (hopefully) be:

1/ (currXP/5 + 1) to avoid division by zero issues.

Aye - had to check that, but seems I was actually thinking when I wrote that code...

changeExperience((iUnitDamage * iXPPercent) / ((getExperience() / 500)+1) , -1, false, false, false);

 

[WarKirby]

The AI won't stand and take it when you do ranged attacks from the tile next to them, but unfortunately it isn't quite smart enough to avoid a ranged attacker who dodges in and out of range repeatedly. Difficult strategy to work against, but also odd that they would mass forces 2 tiles from your city, unless that is outside your culture range.

How about increasing the danger detection range out to 3-4 squares, instead of 1. And still consider in danger if there's a unit with ranged attacks and enough movement to come within 1 tile. Or alternatively, Always consider to be in danger if the stack was hit with a ranged attack in the last turn, even if there are no enemies apparently in sight.

For the sake of speed, if it's not done already, perhaps the check could be run once per tile, rather than once for each unit on the tile. Since the AI tends to mass armies in one location, seems like that'd be alright.

Also, that +1 seems like it'd skew things. At 5 xp, you'd be getting half (rather than at 10). And at 10xp, you'd be getting a third. Moreover, with the exception of being at 0xp, there would always be a penalty in force. Is this intended?

 

[Vehem]

For the sake of speed, if it's not done already, perhaps the check could be run once per tile, rather than once for each unit on the tile. Since the AI tends to mass armies in one location, seems like that'd be alright.

Only if you know where that location is. Otherwise you need to run it once per tile for *every* tile to find one that is in danger, as opposed to once per unit in the unit list. If you have more units than tiles, it might be more efficient, but that's not normally the case until the very late game.

Also, that +1 seems like it'd skew things. At 5 xp, you'd be getting half (rather than at 10). And at 10xp, you'd be getting a third. Moreover, with the exception of being at 0xp, there would always be a penalty in force. Is this intended?

Aye - I removed the decrease to RANGE_COMBAT_XP_PERCENTAGE that I had originally added to compensate for the way the math works. Ranged combat is going to be for getting a few early levels and then primarily as support for other units. Archers may still need to get involved in risky combat to become maximally effective.

There's a definite nerf to riskless XP gain here though. Even the Scorpion Clan had worked out that it was worth exploiting