Post 06 Aug 2013, 00:54 by cmowla
Thanks.
Comment about the two battles with my archers behind the rock.
I found that not only do infantry and cavalry die from getting struck from the back from axes, pikes, lances, or swords, but also arrows...so if you watch it again, there are only a few instances when my cavalry and infantry were in deep trouble, but an arrow from the back is what really killed the enemy fighters instantly (once they stop walking) in a subset of all such points of risk.
For example, take a look at when one of my barbarians was being struck by two pikes around 10:14: the second (surviving) pikeman would have had his final stab to kill my barbarian, but an arrow killed him from behind. Then take a look at how one of the enemy sword fighters moving straight down die instantly around 10:40. Archer positioning was key, as it was when I had knights in between the butcher's and the vineyard to kill the last sword fighter and knight groups from the town to the west. Because I won this single player map yesterday, I knew how to position my archers (behind the butcher's and vineyard...)...so in real time for this part of the game, I only lost one knight in two separate instances...one instance when when I didn't split up all of my knights into a single unit/leader between 30:30 and 31:03, and one instance when one of the three single/leader decided to ride forward into death for no apparent reason.
Comment about enemy crossbowmen shots against my artillery
The one arrow hit/archer dies scenario held true for the battles when I was behind the rock, but I am certain you are exaggerating my "luck", at least given the mere presentation/replay. In the below wall of text, I touch on every such occasion which occurred in this replay. There wasn't that many such instances.
I did have to start again several times due to the enemy crossbowmen killing my rogues (maybe 3 or 4 times I lost a crossbowman), but that's because I didn't do prevention maneuvers in time (moving my artillery out of harms way or didn't send my knights to kill them immediately). About 50% of the time in my experience, a crossbowman survives an arrow from another crossbowmen. That makes it about 25% to survive two arrows in a row. So I wouldn't call every hit-but-no-kill luck.
For the first battle behind the rock, there were only 18 enemy purple crossbowmen, and only two of these crossbowmen had fired at my crossbowmen, the first fired one shot at 6:16, and the second fired two shots at one of my crossbowmen starting at 6:25, but he managed to survive being hit by two crossbow arrows, 1 bowman arrow and a rogue rock before he finally died by getting hit by a second rogue rock. It took 5 hits for this guy to die, and my guy surviving after getting hit twice by one archer is pure luck?
The only other occasions of this happening is at 3:34 (and I didn't give these two crossbowmen a clear shot), and when I teased the 6 gray unit crossbowmen groups on top of the walls, the first group at 16:39 and the second at 19:16, which, again, I did not give them clean shots.
So I wasn't really that lucky with my surviving crossbowmen because I didn't give the enemy much of an opportunity even when they did fire.
Comment about losing my 4 knights (in a square formation) during the two behind-the-rock battles
I did not have to redo a fraction of the battle even once solely for the 4 knights (in a square formation and in one group) guarding the one man gap between the pebble and the wall. A few times I did lose one because one leaped out into the open due to me moving my archers next to them, but not separating them (keeping all 4 in a group) is what saved all of their lives because they could (and did) alternate front line position. And, when they alternated, they didn't get struck from the behind from the enemy because the pebble in the way slowed down the enemy soldiers from quickly sending the next enemy soldier in the one-man gap. (I watched the battle scene to verify this).
Comment about losing infantry and cavalry to other infantry and cavalry, in general
My play was almost perfect in these matters. The main factor was the positioning of my artillery, but I saved my soldiers with other soldiers attacking the enemy from behind on more than one occasion. You have to remember also that knights have become stronger...you'll notice that I rarely assigned my lance carriers and barbarians to front line positions.
Most importantly, I enjoy and always try to perfect my kill to lose ratio, so the tactic I used guarantees that one will not lose more than 20 units (at worst) should one use saves only to redo major losses.
In general, my kill to lose ratio is almost always at least 4 to 1 in missions which give me archers. I also play Age of Empires 2 the Conqueror's expansion, and my best kill to lose ratio in that game is literally 179.19 to 1 (I killed 3763 troops and lost 21) (on the hardest difficulty, playing against 5 players and having only 1 ally), but I average about 22 to 1, taking into account my very bad days and my very good days and all that is between.
So keeping as many of my units alive as possible is always a priority for me. With this particular single player game, I just exploited my passion.