How to - Abuse Civony's battle engine for wealth and glory

How to abuse Civony's battle engine for wealth and glory
Things to keep in mind when fighting:
- Battle is governed by turns.
- A troop can only target one enemy troop each turn.
- Different kinds of troops move at different speeds and are able to hit at different ranges.

From the fights I've had, I assume that all units move forward each turn until they are in range to fight. This means that faster units will be farther ahead, and will be thus attacked first by the enemy.

If you look at the movement speeds of infantry, you'll see that workers are slowest, followed by warriors, then archers, then swordsmen, then pikemen. What would this suggest? It would suggest that your pikemen take damage first because they reach the enemy first, then your swordsmen, then archers, then warriors, then workers. Which means that warriors and workers are NOT good meatshields for the rest of the army--nor do they contribute much fighting in a short battle, they're still trying to catch up--unless only they are being taken.

When fighting enemy archers, however, your archers will be targeted first regardless of comparative speed.

So, to take advantage of this targeting mechanic, especially against enemy archers, consider swordsmen to be your payload, then add layers of one archer, one pikeman, and one cavalry. The enemy archers will waste one turn killing your archer, then another killing your cavalry man, then another killing your pikeman, and by then your swords are in the thick of it, striking the enemy down. Many more of your swordsmen will survive the encounter.

This works somewhat with all-melee engagements as well. Go into the exercise mode and try 1 cataphract, 1 cavalry, 1 pikeman, and 100 swordsmen against 150 swordsmen.

I've noticed that my Pikemen always seem to take the brunt of any losses...

What about using a small band of scouts as your shield? Surely they're the quickest units and are relatively cheap to produce too.

This is really smart - thanks for the tip!

CaptainD wrote:

I've noticed that my Pikemen always seem to take the brunt of any losses...

What about using a small band of scouts as your shield? Surely they're the quickest units and are relatively cheap to produce too.

Scouts, transport and workers dont fight unless every other unit is dead. And they dont really fight at that point either, they just lay down and die.

Im using a combaination of Archers and Warriors, works great.