Minimizing losses against archers

[Coffeejunk]

Hi all,

I just started out (lvl 7 now) and the mobs start to get a bit tougher.
Especially in the Swamp part, where I run into enemies with a couple of stack of 100+ skeleton archers.

When they start shooting, I start dying. And with the support mobs around them, sending griffins in is a bit painfull too...

Maybe I'm too concerned with losses (more then 10% of a stack is considerd way to much in my book..).

Two questions from this:
- What is an acceptable loss (number of units (% of stack))
- How do you deal with ranged attackers to minimize losses?

Thanks

[wolfing]

Originally Posted by Coffeejunk

Hi all,

I just started out (lvl 7 now) and the mobs start to get a bit tougher.
Especially in the Swamp part, where I run into enemies with a couple of stack of 100+ skeleton archers.

When they start shooting, I start dying. And with the support mobs around them, sending griffins in is a bit painfull too...

Maybe I'm too concerned with losses (more then 10% of a stack is considerd way to much in my book..).

Two questions from this:
- What is an acceptable loss (number of units (% of stack))
- How do you deal with ranged attackers to minimize losses?

Thanks

If I know there are plenty more of the units I can buy, I don't mind if they get slaughtered (like peasants, and a little later, archers and swordsmen). At least in normal difficulty, money is not an issue

There are several ways to deal with ranged attackers:
- Shroud spell, they will try and get away from the area
- Totems from shamans, archers almost always try to shoot them
- blind/hypnosis/sheep spells
- phoenix next to them
- 'Target' spell will make them shoot the unit you designate (I think)

[kadrzys]

I can say I simply cleared whole cementery with stack of priests and inquisitors in my army. First round hit all of them with evil shoal, bless priests, then hit undead archers with priests and inq. Second round you can hit again undead archers with your "fighters of light" or Holy Anger blessed priests and get rid of some annoying undead stack (this way I minimized losts to single units, like 2% per battle), remember you got Chest of Rage, Magic and two ranged units ideal against undeads. (you can also add stack of bowmen with they frozen arrow to slow some annoying stack of ghosts). Other slots fill with some cheap tanks (as swordsmen, bears/ancient bears) or try to get Royal Snakes as an ideal melee unit till latemid game

[player1]

Originally Posted by Coffeejunk

- What is an acceptable loss (number of units (% of stack))

It depends from your recruiting potential.
If money is not a problem (never was for me on Normal) and troops you use are available in abundance, losing some of them is OK. Even 50% or more is OK, if it is important battle.

On the other hand, if troop type you use is very rare and only avilable in limited amount (or far away), then you really don't want to lose any. Of course, sometimes it is just best to abadon unit type that is difficult to fill up and switch to something more common in the area. In my game, for this reason, I used some pirate units on freedom islands, some dwarven ones in the mines (to replace pirate group that was unavailable in the mines) and some elven ones in elven territory (to replace dwarven groups unvailable there).

[player1]

Originally Posted by wolfing

There are several ways to deal with ranged attackers:
- Shroud spell, they will try and get away from the area
- Totems from shamans, archers almost always try to shoot them
- blind/hypnosis/sheep spells
- phoenix next to them
- 'Target' spell will make them shoot the unit you designate (I think)

And there is always Ressurection spell.

[Namel]

How does shroud work? It has some kind of area? I thoguht it was just debuff for single unit and never learned it since I thought more profitable to just kill 20% of archers with damage spell rather than make them hit for 20% less.