How do you counter Marksman?

[Keeper_GFA]

With guardsman being available to any melee unit with combat 3, assassins are fine. And although having one kill Hemah like that hurts, that is exactly the point of having them in the game. The assassin attacked and killed the single most valuable unit in your stack.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

I know that this is their purpose but I am telling that they do it too well. I thought my hero would be secured, I thought wrong.

In every strategy there should be a variety of counter strategies. Having only one choice to counter assasins before they kill your major asset is no fun.

 

[xienwolf]

Counters:


PASSIVE:
Have a Guardsman in the stack
Stay in your territory and own Dies Diei
Don't use Magic or Heroes
Surround the caster with 8 small stacks instead of keeping everyone in a single large stack

ACTIVE:
Have a hawk recon the area on a regular basis. Maintain some high movement interceptors
Have a unit who can see Invis with extended visibility range in the stack, maintain some high movement interceptors
Take out their production centers capable of building Assassins



I could probably come up with a few more, but the point is that there ARE other options, there are just limited PASSIVE options, which is not an issue.

 

[megamanx06]

those of you talking about bannor, he was asking about the amurites, so starting with guardsmen (or aggressive, except with unrestricted leaders) is not an option. Neither are breweries, come to think of it.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

PASSIVE:
Have a Guardsman in the stack <= this I did not have , as Hippus I went everywere but not the melle line
Stay in your territory and own Dies Diei <= I was the attacker, that was my only chance to shoot down the Calabim from their first place so I could jump in and swith 'last to first'
Don't use Magic or Heroes <= Eee? And play BtS? No, thank, I will take assasins on how they are now :>
Surround the caster with 8 small stacks instead of keeping everyone in a single large stack <= not doable from an economical point of view, logistic and fluf, we are talking here about a war between continents, backstabbing allaiances, multiple front lines and race for world domination, I could do all my attacks from see as I had see superiority [only one who went for some ship techs and OO on top!] but that would be an exploit of the AI not taking see warfare seriously, I was already bending my rules as I do not use malestorm normally cause I think it is overpowered

ACTIVE:
Have a hawk recon the area on a regular basis. Maintain some high movement interceptors
Have a unit who can see Invis with extended visibility range in the stack, maintain some high movement interceptors
Take out their production centers capable of building Assassins
--------------------
The problem was not that I did not see the assasins. Oh I saw them...everywhere. AI loves to build them and use in wolf pack tactics. I just thought I was ready for them having weaker units in the stack. The problem was that they cut out the fine meat and did not trip on the poisoned aperitifs I left them by the door.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

If you're really desperate from guardsmen, adopt aristocracy and build royal guards. They start with the promotion and are goddamn tough. Your economy might have a brief spasm as your food output takes a hit, so make sure to have some workers on hand to help fix that.

 

[Grand Seeker]

In my view, the marksman promotion is one of the things which needs some work.

As of today i find using assasins combined with some damage dealing mages to be the most efficient when it comes to attacking cities. And from the AI its the assasins I fear the most. No doubt.

I like the assasins a lot cuz it gives you some fear of loosing your mages. I also like the way I can use them to destory catapults and that like. However I find it to easy to simply spam tons and tons of assasins to just crawl all over the place. And its horrible borring to try to defend agains spams of assasin from the AI. The best counter is ironicly to use your own assasin. I must admit that I havent tried the guardsman promotion, but I'm sure a guardsman would die emidetly unless given to one of my extreme-heros which cannot die at the game I'm playing at the moment

The new promotion in version 0.4 makes it easier to see invisible creatures, which is a nice warm welcom. Maybe I'll actually start upgrading my units with sentry I and II just to get the third 'see invisible' promotion

I propose severall idees to fix the marksman, which I also have proposed earlier.

When attacking with a marksman promotion there could be 3 options:
1: The assasination went as planned (same as today)

2: The assasination had to be aborted, but the assasin manged to escape the guards: in game terms this means the attack simply isnt made.

3: The assasination had to be aborted and the assasin got cought.
The assasin gains the 'revield' promotion. No attack is made and the assasin is forced to defend first at next attack against the stack. The 'revield' promotion could also give other negative effects as apropriate.

Which one actually happens can be random. As a start one could try a probability:
1: 80%
2: 10%
3: 10%
---
The assasin will most probable get the job done, but atleast once in a while (one in 10) the assasin is revield and can be hunted down by whatever you have available.

Aslo a divination spell which gives the revield promotion to assasins & shadows could be added as a counter to marksman promotion.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Melee units with combat 3 can learn guardsman.

Melle units with combat 4 can learn it, not 3.

Is it also true that with this promo they will defend till they die so my longbows in the stack will be useles of guarding the guardsmen?

 

[Grey Fox]

They have a higher chance to defend even with low hp, this doesn't mean they will always defend though.

 

[xienwolf]

And with Defensive Strikes, the Longbows will defend them now, slightly.

 

[WarKirby]

Well assassins are the counter to mages, so you got what you had coming I'd say.

But yeah, assassins are almost too good.

EDIT: I almost think they should be changed to only be able to kill mages, and only weaken regular units by giving them a promotion that is removed when you enter one of your own cities. Something like low morale or no commander. (The assassin killed an officer or something)

This seems like a good idea.

It's all very well an assasin being able to kill a single mage/hero etc, but being able to destroy a division of troops under any circumstances, seems a bit wrong.

I'd be all for making it only able to attack arcane units and heroes, if that's possible.

 

[zup]

As far as I know assassins are the most effective in cities, not the field. Of course they are not supposed to take down that company of crossbowmen who patrol the walls and live in the heavily guarded military compound. At best he could take out some officers to temporarily disorganize and demoralize them. (A single man poisoning the entire company is too cinematic for this game I think.) But a lone adept on his way from the mage guild to his home? That's his business.

Assassins should be less about direct combat and more about borrowing vanilla spy mechanisms. BUT THEY MUST NOT DO THE RETURN TO CAPITAL THING!

Marksman and assassins are so extremely effective because once a unit is damaged, they will keep hurting it until it dies. It is not a problem just with magi and heroes but also with stacks of pure melee who don't have guardsmen. Perhaps they are just fresh from the assembly line? A newly created unit cannot possibly be a guardsman unless it is a vampire. Sure the AI loses some of its assassins in the process but it does not care. And of course I can use marksman the same way. But if I was using regular units then I'd have to throw cannon fodder against the entire stack.

My point (suggestion): Axe marksman promotion and then hammer down recon units' power with a heavy hand. And then rework assassins entirely.