@jwallstone. Yeah I did make a math error, at some point in there a two crept in as a multiplier, I'm not sure how. Thank you for keeping me honest. Agreed then, that the difference between them when both +damage items are in use is small (though sprites are still on top!), Vulture doesn't have those, and Sprites are clearly superior when those items are not in use. My problem here is my mage game where I used both S and L and found that S was way more effective (no whip or daggar) is waaaaaaaay more recent than my last warrior game where i used both WITH the whip and daggar, so I bow to your more recent experience. P.S. where are you getting those critical strike figures? I have never noticed that stat in-game.
@Vulture. Ok, I am starting to figure out what is going on here. 1. you have no ranged troops in your army. Range units are the best way to minimize losses, as I saw somewhere "distance is the only armor I need". A dead enemy doesn't do any damage (not counting the UNdead, which isn't what I am talking about). A key thing for you is to get yourself some range units. Two stacks is usually enough, and sometimes three, though by the end of the game, you do need a majority of melee troops. I would recommend hunters and elves. Yes, their damage is not as high, but this is compensated for by their lower likelihood of being in danger and therefore their ability to do damage and not receive any in return. 2. Use your abilities better. THe primary one I want to talk about is lullaby. This is perhaps the most powerful ability in the game, and you have been treating it like a small thing of little interest. With lullaby you can ensure that all non-mind immune level 1-3 enemy stacks are out of the battle for the first two turns or more (more if you are willing to use a spell to extend that). The other important dryad ability is summon thorns, but more about that a little later. 3. Change your use of timeback. They way you have been using it is to replenish the number of your tank stack after it has been damaged ie. the stack that dies the least. I use timeback on the unit that dies the most, namely sprites, at least how I use them. They are my primary strike troops. This is due to the way the AI works. It usually chooses its target based on two factors: 1. whatever is closest. 2. whatever stack will be damaged the most by its attack. I take advantage of this by moving my sprites right up into their faces. I send them after whichever troop is most likely to be able to do damage to my other troops, and they will heavily damage if not kill it. That troop is now most likely to go after my sprites without any encouragement, and the other enemies are as well. By presenting my sprites up there as a target, they end up taking most of the damage. Right before the end of turn two, all that damage is neutralized by timeback. By this time, my range unit should have decimated much of their troops with support from no-retal units like lake fairies (send them in at the end of turn one, and then out again at the beginning of turn two, though be sure to leave one movement so you can cast timeback). Also towards the end of turn two, your dryads swoop in and summon some thorns and then swoop out next turn. These thorns then replace the sprites as the focus of enemy attacks, and you don't care if they die. 4. Get your basic stats higher. Most of your stats should end up soming from items. Try to get your attack and int up to between 15 and 20. Defense is thew least useful of the three stats, so change some items around. Go looking for better ones if you have to. There should be some around. Do you have a wife? Does she have kids? If you answered no to the first, get one. Even if her innate bonus sucks you still have four more slots for items. Don't have kids. Most of them are useless and the item slot they fill is more valuable. The only kids that are useful as the ones that give % bonuses to leadership, att, int, or mana or the ones that give +5 to any of the three primary stats (and maybe a few others, I forget), but these are few and far between. IF your current wife has kids and they aren't the good kind, spend as much of your money as possible, divorce her, and marry someone else.
With these suggestions, there is absolutely no reason why you should take any losses from that fight you decribed. 3 stacks of 300-500 sprites or lake fairies each, 2 stacks of 10-23 ents, 3 stacks of 3-7 ancient ents, 2 stacks of 50 unicorns, 1 stack 8 Giants and one stack of 60 random lvl 3s. Clearly there should be only one stack that causes real losses with a good application of strategy. That is the giants because they deal area damage to all your ground troops. This makes them THE early target for killing. 8 of them is 7200 hp. One sprite/lake fairy hit and sniping from your ranged units and possibly a rage spirit move or a spell like helplessness and they should be dead or practically so. Your dryads will put everything but the ents and unicorns to sleep. The ent's ranged bee attack has a range of only three squares as far as I have noticed, so they should end up shooting at your sprites. The unicorns will also attack your sprites and suffer retaliation. Your lake fairies (which waited at the beginning of the turn) zip in and damage either the ents or the unicorns, the latter have more mobility, so i choose them to be the first to go. Turn 2 lake fairies move back out of range but keeps one movement point. Sprites attack the unicorns. Dryads wait. Range units snipe. Normal ents probably use run to move and attack the sprites. Ancient ents do whatever. Level 1-3 units stop snoring (you can put them back to sleep next turn using a phantomed stack of dryads if you want). Dryads move forward and summon. Timeback on Sprites. From here strategy should be fairly obvious: stay out of the way of the ents' bee attack, snipe with range units, hit and run with lake fairies and sprites. Summon more thorns with the thorns you summoned in the first place. OWN!
Yours lengthfully,
Ryastar
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