How to Play: Loyalists vs. Drakes

[nelson]

Hi everyone! Here is my second effort in my attempt to complete/update the How to Play series. I would appreciate everyone's feedback before I post it to the wiki Is my advice actually good? How could it be improved?

===Loyalists vs. Drakes===
You may ask, "Why bother creating a guide to playing Loyalists vs. Drakes? It's simple, just spam Spearmen and you win." Well, if your opponent is so foolish as to buy only drakes, the simplest strategy is indeed to spam Spearmen and move a wall of them forward, keeping them on good terrain when possible. It's only once your opponent mixes in some saurians that your strategy gets a bit trickier, requiring some blade or impact damage as well.

* Bowman - A- - You'll want some Bowmen to clean up the inevitable Clashers, but Bowmen are bad damage-soakers, so you'll only want to recruit them once you have some Spearmen and other units to shield them.

* Cavalryman - A- - You will need Cavalry as scouts, and to deal damage to saurians. They excel against Augurs (the main threat to your spearmen), where their impact resistance and cold resistance serves them well. However, Clashers and Skirmishers are a real problem, and Burners will mess them up if you don't have enough Spearmen and Horsemen to support them.

* Fencer - C+ - These are lousy against Drakes, but can deal incredible amounts of damage to Saurians. The main problem is that Augurs punch right through their high defense, so only use a Fencer against an Augur if it's daytime or you think you can kill it this turn. With luck, a Fencer can hold a village for a round or two after sneaking around the back to capture it (so long as there isn't an augur in range), so if you like stealing villages Fencers may come in handy.

* Heavy Infantryman - B- - HI are surprisingly useful against Clashers despite Clasher resistance to impact, and they're murder on saurians. The main problem is that Augurs or Burners will demolish HI, and most of the Drakes can get free hits on them with their firey breath. Also, HI are too slow to catch the high-move drakes and saurians if they don't want to stand and fight. HI can be useful for holding territory against Clashers and Skirmishers or assaulting an entrenched position, but Spearmen are usually a better buy.

* Horseman - A - Horsemen are death to everything except Clashers and maybe Skirmishers. Catch a Skirmisher on bad terrain in the daytime, however, and it'll die just like everything else. Grab a Horseman ASAP to scare off Gliders and prevent them from village-grabbing. With Horsemen in the field, your opponent will be forced to spam Clashers to keep your Horsemen away, and will have to skip recruiting Burners (until he has enough Clashers to shield them from Horsemen). Don't try to charge Clashers, their firststrike means that your Horsemen can only win a Pyrrhic victory at best. The biggest problem with Horsemen is that they are even more expensive than the costly Drake units, so trading Horsemen for Drakes is a bad trade. Don't let your Horsemen die, let a cheap unit like a Spearman take the fall and heal your Horsemen to strike again.

* Mage - D+ - Drakes are fire resistant, your Mages are useless against them. Mages can still be used to clean up Saurians in the daytime, and if there is an annoying Skirmisher holding a village that you need to recapture maybe a Mage is worth buying. However, Mages are weak and expensive and Skirmishers can easily hunt them down and kill them at night. Don't recruit this unit if you can help it. Saurians are weak and just about anything can kill them in the daytime.

* Merman Fighter - A - Mermen are great against Drakes for the same reasons Spearmen are, as long as there is water on the map. If you can trick Drakes into a water battle, you should win. A Burner or two could be a real problem for your Mermen in the daytime, but Drakes are slow at crossing water, especially deep water, so you should be able to get away if Burners are coming for you. Your cold resistance means Augurs aren't so bad, but they do make your high defense in water useless. Just don't let too many Augurs hit you, which should be easy since they're slow in water.

* Spearman - A+ - You need Spearmen. Some players would assert that all you need are Spearmen. If you spam Spearmen, you'll have lots of cheap damage and you can simply mob the expensive Drake units. If your opponent counters with Clashers, you can simply bring enough Spearmen with you to overwhelm the more expensive Clashers. Your opponent's obvious counter is the pierce-resistant saurians, and Augurs will really ruin your Spearmen at night. If you see lots of Saurians, consider recruiting other units, but you'll always want Spearmen around as damage soakers and to discourage the more dangerous Drake recruits.

[ozean]

Once more: great guide & thanks a lot for the effort!

To me the HI description sound more like a plain C. They seem to really be a bit too slow to be of much use against drakes, and their fire vulnerability doesn’t help either…

I was a bit surprised about your take on the Fencer and its village stealing ability but maybe you’re right.

[monochromatic]

I would bump Cavalrymen down to B+, personally. I feel Horsemen can do a much better job in both scouting and picking off non-Clasher drakes. Yeah they're 6 gold more expensive, but killing those burners/fighters/gliders with net you 16 gold+, 2 kills and it can more than pay for itself. And I agree with ozean; HI should be a C. They can pick off badly placed saurians, but if they aren't, they only have 2 strikes so they tend to miss more than not (for me, at least) and can't chase those Skirmishers with their slow and bad movetype. Plus, the Skirmisher's skirmish ability allows them to just run by. And don't underestimate Spearman vs. saurians at day: strong at day being 8-3 is still pretty devastating, and upon leveling into a Swordsman, those saurians just die.

Otherwise, this is a really good guide! Good job!

off-topic

100th post. Whoo!

[Hulavuta]

Saurians aren't the only thing that the Spearmen need to watch for. The Clashers have firststrike as well, nullifying your firststrike on their turn. They also have a slightly superior melee attack to the spearmen, and they don't have a weakness to pierce. They don't have that resistance like the Saurians do, but they are still a useful counter.

[Caphriel]

Well, I pretty much disagree with all your ratings, except the 14-gold units. When playing against a Loyalist player, most Drake players I've seen use a lot of saurians, and a few drakes as supporting units. Because of spearmen and bowmen, drakes get murdered by Loyalists during the day. Thus, saurians to push at night, and drakes recruited sparingly, as necessary. Your advice seems more applicable to a Drake that uses mostly drake units, with a few saurians for support.

My comments:

Cavalrymen are good, but not A material. Skirmishers slaughter them at night, and clashers slaughter them during the day. They're big, expensive, low-dodge targets at any time of day. However, they beat saurians during the day, and can help negate the Drake mobility advantage somewhat. B+.

Fencers are better than C+, maybe B to B+, especially if the Drake player is mostly using saurians. They do have 10% cold resist, reducing augurs to 3 damage a hit during the day. Blade damage is good against saurians, obviously, and the skirmish ability is useful to block retreats.

HI...They're slow. Very slow. They will never, ever, EVER catch a Drake unit during the day if the Drake player doesn't want to be caught. Augurs will maul them at night, and skirmishers can plink them. They're pretty much a total waste of gold, unless your opponent is using skirmishers almost exclusively. D-.

Horseman. A couple are good, but they're expensive and need to be screened, and they will take a ton of retaliation from almost any drake during the day if they fail the kill, and possibly even if they succeed on the second hit. They're good against saurians during the day, but useless at night. B.

Mage. Hard-counters the Drake's best anti-loyalist units. Can sometimes solo-kill them, exploits their weaknesses, gets around their 60% dodge on all terrain. Sure, it won't work on drake units, but they'll be outnumbered by the saurians anyway. On the other hand, they're expensive and vulnerable to skirmishers at night. B-;

[PsychoticKittens]

But if a loyalist is expecting sub-saurian spammage because they're a loyalist; wouldn't the drake make their drakes more to prevent their saurians from getting eaten away by blades and fire? It's almost impossible to determine whether the drake player will make more saurians or drakes at any point in the game; especially the beginning where recruits are most important.

But then again, that's like saying your recruiting method should be 'close your eyes, click, and pray' which isn't the case either.

[Mabuse]

a good drake player will get saurians against loys, since drakes are, hands down, at a good disadvantage.

so drake player want to utilize day/night cycle against loys ----> saurians, maybe throwing in some drakes later if it seems advantageous.

at least thats what i expierienced when i played against good players

[siowy]

yes to what caphriel and mabuse said.

[The Black Sword]

Hmm, as someone said the problem with this match up is that what you recruit depends very much on what your opponent has. So it's difficult to give a set rating to everything. Generally though, when a drake player sees loyals they immediately switch to saurians(definetely augurs sometimes they mightn't use as many skirms), with a fair number of clashers thrown in.
This is because the Loyal initial recruit generally involves lots of spears/bows.

For Augurs you need cavalry, I think augurs can probably beat any of the other units if you don't have them. A horse or two is also good against the augurs. Fencers are a good unit but unless they're strong, they don't actually benefit from the saurian blade weakness and they didn't do as much damage as spears in the first place. Likewise the 10% cold resist is too small to have an effect on an augur. Someone said it makes them 3-3 at day. If it does, I've never noticed this probably because augurs won't fight at day anyway. So some fencers are useful but I wouldn't go heavy on them.

For clashers bowmen are the best unit IMO, also don't be afraid to use a horse for the final blow, if the drake needs more
than two hits to kill. Make sure you can cover the horse though.

For Skirms, if they have enough, then a mage is a very good unit. Personally I've found the bowmen are also ok against the skirms. Fencers and cavalry also work well but only in the day.

Besides this a couple of spears are good damage soakers and ok damage dealers at certain times, they're also useful in scaring off the inevitable counter-recruit of drakes. Merman are also absolutely excellent against any type of drakes. If you get enough water to use them then you should.

If the drake player counter-recruits fighters/burners then you need to increase you're ratio's of spearmen, horsemen to other units. If he counters cavalry with extra clashers then you need more bowmen etc.

The only unit I think I'd never use would be the HI. No good against impact resistant drakes and torn apart by either burners or augurs. He does deal fairly nice damage against saurians but wouldn't you rather have a cavalryman who is twice as fast.

All the above is IMO, and I hope it helped a bit.

[5dPZ]

I don't think mage is the "worst unit" for loyalist in this match up (you give it a D+). It might be a bad unit for rebel-drake match up, but for loyalist, it is almost a must-have to play against drake player, that is, good "drake" player.

There is NO way, repeat, no way, Heavy infantry is ranked higher than a mage in this match up.

[Yoyobuae]

Why are skirmishers rated so low in this matchup? Between all matchups, this ought to be the one where they shine.

The usual saurian disadvantages still apply though: less damage/less HP/more terrain dependent. So probably there won't be too many saurians out the same time (mistake I've done a few times vs Loys). Makes army too low damage/incredible fragile in bad terrain.

Dunno. I feel that just playing the daytime alone is not enough. Saurians may be stronger at night but they're inherently low damage. Loys daytime turns will hit much harder (specially if they get to hit drakes). There's no running, loys will reach drakes forces and hit them hard, they have the speed to do so.

And that is my problem. They'll hit hard enough that units will be lost. If I lose a clasher on the initial offensive, that's a lot of lost offensive power. Wouldn't it make sense to lose a skirm instead? (That doesn't require too many of them, maybe one or two).

I guess that is why Mages need to be rated higher. Skirms make such a good match against loys. Spearmen/archers do less damage/receive their retaliation. Cavalries do good damage/take more retaliation. Horseman are simply a bad idea against melee pierce/high def target (maybe only if OHK is possible). Fencer would only be average~good against them (unless strong+daytime). Mage/HI are much better against them, but not without their downsides. Morever, cheap skirms are easier to replace.

To me it seems that the drakes by recruiting a cheaper unit (skirm) are pushing the loys to recruit more expensive/special purpose units (HI/Mage).

So far I'm at a lost on this matchup (me = drakes). This is the only solution I have though up so far.

[Hulavuta]

The only unit I think I'd never use would be the HI. No good against impact resistant drakes and torn apart by either burners or augurs. He does deal fairly nice damage against saurians but wouldn't you rather have a cavalryman who is twice as fast.

Cavalrymen are ripped apart by Clashers and even Saurians

I don't think mage is the "worst unit" for loyalist in this match up (you give it a D+). It might be a bad unit for rebel-drake match up, but for loyalist, it is almost a must-have to play against drake player, that is, good "drake" player.

There is NO way, repeat, no way, Heavy infantry is ranked higher than a mage in this match up.

Mage is good for killing Saurians.

[Caphriel]

Cavalrymen maul saurians during the day, especially strong cavalrymen. And if they stay around to fight with clashers during the day, that's probably good for you; your bowmen and spearmen will make mincemeat out of them, and even trading one cavalaryman for one clasher, you're gaining gold.

[Yoyobuae]

This is what I mean. Whatever drakes put in the front line dies against loyalist's daytime assault. Might as well just accept a few skirms loses and try to kill spearmen in return (the calvaries will probably be too well protected). Trading 15g for 14g isn't so much of a loss.

Depends on the Cavs vs Spear/Archer balance of the loys though.