Like a lion

[Lorbi]

P.S. On playing defensive, I think you indeed have a advantage as long as you defend sucessfuly. The onus of the game weight heavily on the attacker. A attacker goes far from his home and attack a fortified enemy while on bad ground on enemy territory. But what happens when both players play defence?

On a balanced map the attacker should have cntrol over at least 3 more villages if his forxes are that more away from home than the defenders. Usually the place where the fight takes place is in the middle between the players with only a shift to the defenders side of that has half the length of the average distance of villages.

my english isnt the best but i hope you got the point.

[Sombra]

P.S. On playing defensive, I think you indeed have a advantage as long as you defend sucessfuly. The onus of the game weight heavily on the attacker. A attacker goes far from his home and attack a fortified enemy while on bad ground on enemy territory. But what happens when both players play defence?

On a balanced map the attacker should have cntrol over at least 3 more villages if his forxes are that more away from home than the defenders. Usually the place where the fight takes place is in the middle between the players with only a shift to the defenders side of that has half the length of the average distance of villages.

my english isnt the best but i hope you got the point.

Personally I think Beholder has a point here.Defending nearer your home base is an advantage being able to recruit near to your base and sent the troops where they are needed is short time is an advantage. Holding the villages for healing with good defensive values is an advantage, being able to sent your leader to battle is a reasonablr time is an advantage etc. . So indeed when you see the enemy coming and are well prepared its very hard to crack an enemy position.
IF the two player decide to play defensive some games simply end in a stalemate.

THe reason IMHO why Wesnoth is able to prevent the constant stalemates ist the addition of DAY and nNIGHT cycles and the addtion of low maintance troops.. with other words if your enemy can spawn goblins and WC endlessy and you are limited to your numbers of troops by the maintenance costs ..its better to do something.

AS I argued before in other threads a change in the way of the fog of war would add a new level of strategic thinking because the attacker would be able to concentrate his forces near the frontline and still be hidden fro the defenders view or undermann his own posion on another remote area of the map. Alas till today we dont have a mod to test this theory (besides all the balancing headaches...skirmisher ...etc).

[Lorbi]

On a balanced map the attacker should have cntrol over at least 3 more villages if his forxes are that more away from home than the defenders. Usually the place where the fight takes place is in the middle between the players with only a shift to the defenders side of that has half the length of the average distance of villages.

my english isnt the best but i hope you got the point.

Personally I think Beholder has a point here.Defending nearer your home base is an advantage being able to recruit near to your base and sent the troops where they are needed is short time is an advantage. Holding the villages for healing with good defensive values is an advantage, being able to sent your leader to battle is a reasonablr time is an advantage etc. . So indeed when you see the enemy coming and are well prepared its very hard to crack an enemy position.
IF the two player decide to play defensive some games simply end in a stalemate.

ok .. you did not got the point.
if u defend yourself that near to your castle the attacker just numbers you out because he controls more of the map which results in having more villages

edit:
exceptions are very very small maps ( which one may consider unbalanced ) and unbalanced ones

[Sombra]

Lordi if both players are nearly equally skilled they will get equal numbers of villages as most MP maps are constructed this way.

AS you can ee where the attacker concentrate its forces its "easy" to concentrate your tropps in the same area ánd "wait" for the attacker to leave its defensive postions..aka world war 1 take the attackers down.. go to counterattack etc.

If you wish we can try an MP aka meteor lake and see if you are able to break my defense . With other words I give you the first attack )

[Jami]

P.S. On playing defensive, I think you indeed have a advantage as long as you defend sucessfuly. The onus of the game weight heavily on the attacker. A attacker goes far from his home and attack a fortified enemy while on bad ground on enemy territory. But what happens when both players play defence?

Defensive play rapidly becomes more and more difficult as a game progresses, as it allows your opponent to choose the time (and place) to attack your position, as well as allowing them to build an army suited to counter your defensive one. This allows them to choose where and when to attack, often destroying or severly injuring multiple units with little retaliation. For games with factions of different alignments, this can be a game breaker due to either reduced retaliation damage, augmented damage, or both. For games between factions of entirly the same alignment (Namely, Loyalists vs Loyalists, Undead vs Undead, Northerners vs Undead, or Northerners vs Northeners) where tod has little impact on the game the point still remains that the attacking player is often able to eliminate one or more units, and seriously injure more with little damage to himself.

A comment for the bolded part, a defensive player cannot defend every hex with good terrain and maintain a line or ZOC. especially since every faction treats terrain slightly differently. Unless your playing an ANL game (in which case, your opponent will be attacking you from water to village 90% of the time.

Examples of terrain differences: Knarlgan Dwarves, the best race suited for defense, recive piss-poor defense in forest. Requiring them to use poachers or footpads to defend such spots. Considering the overall vunerability of such units a smart opponent will eliminate them early (probably during day, when they are very weak), take the forest hex for themselves, and then proceed to use the forest hex against the next opponent. There are several other examples like this (Undead move slowly though mountains/hills, Northerners can use this terrain to their advantage by hit+run tactics with their 1mp. Rebels and saurians have overal low HP, Loyalists can smash them in day (even archers) with a mage and a few spearmen. Outlaws can run circles around Loyalists, using higher MP and a better movetype to utilize ZOC and backstab. Drakes can hit and kill any unit during daytime, and fly away over water/forest/mountain after enduring a few blows.

Quite fankly, playing defensivly is a recipe for disaster against any good player. Since by doing that, you lose the chance you could have had to disrupt their attack and draw them out of position.

Also, in a game where both players play defensivly, the game stalemates. Whoever takes advantage of their opponent first wins.

[Weeksy]

Footpad generally has enough hp that it can survive a turn of being attacked, and if you bring in a gryphon or second footpad the next turn, you can often keep up the defensive long enough to get a good number of dwarves, gryphons, and thieves, who slowly move forwards in an unstoppable force. If your enemy doesn't break your defense before you've got your swarm, you've probably won, as knalgan swarm is often better than any other race's swarm IMO.

[Lorbi]

Lordi if both players are nearly equally skilled they will get equal numbers of villages as most MP maps are constructed this way.

AS you can ee where the attacker concentrate its forces its "easy" to concentrate your tropps in the same area ánd "wait" for the attacker to leave its defensive postions..aka world war 1 take the attackers down.. go to counterattack etc.

If you wish we can try an MP aka meteor lake and see if you are able to break my defense . With other words I give you the first attack )

.. what i wanted to say is that if the players have equal number of villages the frontline is in a place where the difference in the distance to the castle/leader is of nearly no importance ... if there are 21 or 24 hexes between my castle and the front is does not give the defensive player an overhelmig advantage

btw: would really like to play a game with you anyway. not just because of the discussion here but because i think it would be an intersting math and also give me some hint how good my skills are ( feel free to contact me ... in my profile there are all the IM numbers etc. )