Melee still the only way to go?

[Bringa]

Hey guys,

Back to FFH after such a long absence... yeah, must have been almost a MONTH! Anyhoo,

Played a game again last night against my friend. Just mentioning this so you know we both know exactly how good we are at this game. We're pretty much as equal as you get. We played Hippus vs Khazad with no barbs, no ai, no unique resources, always war, on a tiny LDMirror_Inlandsea map. That is to say, we tried to have as balanced a game as you possibly could.

And it went rather well. I took a small lead at first because I could expand faster than him, but due to my bad scouting he sneaked a small stack of axemen past me and razed my first city. Not to worry, I destroyed the stack and rebuilt. We were always within 50 points or so of each other as we teched up. I went straight for Horse Archers, obviously, while he teched slowly toward Champions. There was a little bit of back and forth, but I never really managed to break into his lands while he never really got a stack to live very long on the way to my lands either.

By the time I felt ready to attack I had around 16 Horse Archers, three of my four War Chariots, and Magnadine. He'd just built Maros. The first town I see he has about 8 or so Champions and the hill giants plus Maros. Obviously I can't take the town. I kill a few units in safe combats and try to move on, but he comes out with his units (all of them Combat II) and really puts the hurt on my stack. I lose almost everything. Sure I managed to outmaneuver him and get him to leave Maros alone in the city for a moment with only one champion and a thane, and I did manage to snipe Maros, but at the cost of a huge stack of units.

My main problem is this: horse units basically have two things going for them: that it's not so easy to get the anti-horse promotion, and that they have withdrawal, more so as Hippus. Withdrawal is only really useful if your enemy is far from his homelands. It's great to wear down a stack of attacking units. The thing is, none of these things help me at all when I'm doing the attacking. I know the normal wisdom is probably "then just go and pillage all his improvements", but that doesn't help me for very long. Eventually he'll move out with one of his uberstacks and just steamroll me.

Any advice for me? How do you win with Hippus in a 1v1 vs another human playing Khazad?

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hmm, I really don't see how the hippus can lose on a tiny map. Don't you just swarm him with warriors, and then hit the wary cry and say good game? Apprentice ship for 2 xp, build them combat 1, shock warriors, give them strength 4 with war cry, and kill him. Seems to work pretty well most of the time.

 

[odalrick]

I have next to no experience with the mounted line, but from what I've read on this forum, they are horrible with some backup. A priest (for medic), some defenders and a good defensive tile, a body mage if you have it. Pillage everything in sight, especially roads, until you can bring in an overwhelming number attacker. 2-3 times more than the defenders, because you need to attack each defender more than once. Make a few deep strike stacks as well, so the interior cities can't help the outer ones.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

It won't be the same in one-on-one, but high movement mounted units can get help to defend against unexpected attacks on the other side of your lands.

As for attacking, it requires another tech, but if you can get some assassins mixed in, it makes your mounted stacks much more efficient--when you fail to kill and survive by withdrawl, you can send in assassins to clean up.

And the other thing I like about mounted is that they can often get lots of experience by risking odds that would be foolish to fight without withdrawl, and occasionally winning. Of course, they can't spend that XP on city raider promotions, so it might not be enough to make up for that, but anyway...

 

[slowcar]

i think i can say i am a very experienced hippus player - and using only mounted units is total suicide. it is nice to have a few, especially if you have high movement chariots or high withdrawal horsemen. if you teched up to war chariots you played it wrong.

against khazad on a duel there are a few options:
- warrior rush with warcry, as already mentioned. the lower the base strength the stronger the spell!
- be prepared against triboks, here is the advantage on the other side
- pillage with horsemen or chariots - have a strong defensive stack as a mobile base of operation. don't forget to have hawks to scout. there is nothing a dwarf player can do against pillaging but dispathing his units on all roads.
- use the magic advantage you have - maelstrom ftw! (and attack before druids come available)

in a standard game tasunke has the advantage to level faster against barbs, in your setup you have to use the timeslots where you have the advantage.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Which Khazad leader was it? They are on quite a different level power wise.

This topic contains some good strategies vs. Arturus, but Kandros would be considerably tougher. He makes more warriors than you because of extra happiness, he scouts and levels early warriors faster because you're both aggressive and he can stick to hills while moving quickly and you can't, he techs faster than you because he's financial and you aren't, and the city defense bonus Khazad get + him being at least on par with you in terms of troop strength would probably allow him to fend off a war cry rush.

 

[slowcar]

the dwarven vault does not allow for a fast expansion. unless the kandros player tries to rush tasunke can easily expand a lot faster - and use the faster growing production for the rush.
it is only one option - once the dwarf can field triboks things get ugly very fast.
classic (BtS) mp is all about the catapults1, in ffh you can tech for mages - but the window for the dwarfs is big enough.

i would say that without constant plundering the tribok dwarves would win in a match of equal players - but once the hippus bring in their plundering horsemen: not so much.
as a khazad player i would not build a single road that is not needed and distribute emergency ministacks in all corners (sorry if your buddy reads here too )

 

[Kenjister]

I would have to agree that the melee line is powerful, but remeber that mounted units can withdraw on the defence. If you promote them with the flanking promotions they can get about 70-85% withdrawal chance. Though I have no experince in multiplayer, from fighting the Hippus AI I found that it is extremely hard to kill units that run away three squares if you counterattack. maybe if you go all the way into flanking you could lure his units out, making them lose the fortification bonus and keep most of yours. If you're Tasunke, then you could follow up with a few combat promoted HA's to hit him where he's weak.