You think a faction is overpowered? Come here!

[pauxlo]

The Wolf rider is more useful for the Northerners faction that it would be for other factions. It often is one of the first units to level (since it has three attacks and lots of movement, it is often used to finish off enemy units), and its level-ups are both even more useful.

But it is right, Northerners would not use as much wolves as Loyalists can use cavalry.

[enders_shadow]

Each faction is different. Comparing the different units and their equation will lead to the fact that the factions will be the same.
Cheaper wolfs mean that an extra grunt/troll appears too early, and Northerners will be too strong.

couldn't you get rid of that by just upping the price of the grunts or trolls by 1 or 2 gp?

[monochromatic]

So the wolf riders don't have any "hidden skill".

Pillagers, it's got to be Pillagers man. Those things are a pain for anyone to deal with.

[Eowar]

Cheaper wolfs mean that an extra grunt/troll appears too early, and Northerners will be too strong.

couldn't you get rid of that by just upping the price of the grunts or trolls by 1 or 2 gp?

The problem is not the number of trolls/grunts, but their speed : Northerners must get a lot of these guys, but not too early.

So you have to kill them as quickly as possible : at the beginning they won't be able to have lots of grunts/trolls because the wolves are quite expensive, but if you allow them to survive, for exemple by playing defensively (wich is not stupid against such an agressive-minded faction) they will multiply, and eventually beat you off thanks to their number.

[Moribund]

and eventually beat you off thanks to their number.

Hehe.

No but seriously I find that I do worse with Northerners if I wait too long since on average I will have more units and therefore be paying more upkeep. I find trading units much more effective. But on the other hand I am a noob and in addition due to my noobiness I sometimes recruit really bad at the beginning, making a first night rush prohibitive. Second night rushes often work ok too (if I don't get attacked at day), so I dunno.

Anyways on the subject of Wolf Riders I use to be so mad that they cost the same as a Cav and they are terrible in every stat.

However, I think Pauxlo and Mono are right, and those two ideas come together somewhat. Riders have 3 attacks, which in conjunction with their high movement makes them ideal for finishing units in a faction of 2-hitters. Furthermore, they level extremely quickly. I think an intelligent rider will take 2 kills and maybe a minor scuffle to level into the highly rated Pillager, which works especially well with Northerners because of their crap ranged attacks, allowing to bash on meleeists en-masse.

I think that solely on the basis of their xp, Riders are well worth it (though not as much as Cavs! I love balance bandwagons).

[Eowar]

Of course upkeep is a disadventage, but that balances their number (wich is an advantage).

About the xp, Saurian augur costs 16, has a magic cold attack, pretty good moves and dodges quite well, and heals.

I don't really like the idea of expecting that at least one of my riders would be intelligent, moreover you are not supposed to recruit a lot of these guys (that doesn't give you many opportunities/chances? -not sure of the word-)


Then, I have another question. How can we defend a stronghold (e.g. a village) with the Drakes?

Honestly, the saurians are too weak, and the Drakes have bad defense and fear the pierce, so many units can attack them from a good terrain (e.g. elvish archer, thunderer...) without taking heavy retaliation.

The Clashers don't counter the ranged attacks and are very expensive, and they are likely to die if the oponent lauch an all-out assault on your village (wich is likely).

For exemple, the spearman is (in my opinion) the perfect village holder since is has good defense, around 35 hp, good retaliation and is cheap, so you can suicide him to slow down your oponent (during a night, for exemple).

I don't think that bringing reinforcement would be the best idea, because a group of Drakes can be ZoC-ed and trapped (so they lose their famous mobility), and the saurians doesn't last very long in open field.

Here I am, how could I keep the villages I managed to grab with the Drakes?

[Dixie]

I'm not a great player and drakes are a difficult faction to pull off, but the primary strenght of the drakes would be mobility. Basically, you don't get caught on bad terrains and don,t attack units on good terrain. If a unit has secured such a good spot, you usually go around it. With Drakes, you ought to have the initiative: choose where and when fights happen. About the village (and I might be wrong about that last statement), I think you should generally not hold on to it too hard and instead threatens your opponent's villages. He won't have much troops to spare for village stealing if he's got his hand full with territorial defense.

[Velensk]

Alternatively if holding a village you can simply make a wall where the enemy can only attack with two units at a time. Sure drake defense isn't good but if you can set up a situation where they'd have to hit every time you can still hold. This is rather faction dependant though.

In many situations, drakes find it best to simply temporarilly adbandon the village and then given the enemy a powerful counter attack.

[Eowar]

I asked that ("how could Drakes defend something?") because I was playing a survival with a friend who enjoys playing Drakes, but it was on a small map and we had to kill the waves quickly (befor the following wave spawns) so :

1) We couldn't choose when the fight would start, so the Drakes has lost this adventage.
2) Small map, Drakes are still fast but the foes didn't need speed, so the famous Drakes' mobility became useless.
3) At the end, we must stay in the castle (too many invaders), so Drakes had no choice but defend without leaving their towers. (and they are not extremely good at this...)

I find it "bad" (don't know a better word...) that Drakes are underpowered in such a gamestyle (survival).

As if they were "forced" to play offensively...

[Moribund]

how the hell do i kill dwarvish guardsmen on villages?

[Velensk]

Drakes are forced to play offensive. In survivals, drakes operate on the principle that if you kill off your enemy quickly, it's easy to survive. Combined with easy access to +8 healers and both alignments (you can kill them fast at any time) they can fare better than you think (actually as most survivals remaining on 'offense' is good no matter what faction you are but for drakes it is especially important).

As for getting guardsmen off villages. Lots and lots of firepower and persistence. Magical attacks/damage types work better and ranged attacks tend to be more efficient than melee. The whole point of guardsmen is that they can hold villages well and your enemy pays quite a bit for that ability.

If you're in a situation where you've got a guardsman on a village, consider ignoreing them and focusing on killing all their support if it's nearby. If it isn't nearby then you should be able to attack the guardsman from 5-6 hexes. Even guardsmen can't handle that at the wrong time of day for a couple turns.

[Moribund]

I mean with Northerners. And it's on my village.

[Velensk]

Like I said, a whole lot of persistence and firepower. If you have 5 grunts hitting a guardsman at night you'll do about 36ish damage per turn, less 8 damage for healing and then another turn of night and you should deal enough to kill him even allowing for some bad luck. Archers can also do decent damage (and take much less in return) and assassin can prevent the village from healing him. Trolls would be incredibly slow to kill him but would regenerate the retaliation.

Now it's still incredibly inefficient however remember you're the one who allowed him to get a guardsman onto your village.

[Moribund]

Also the Dwarf in question is healthy/resilient.

I know its my bad but is it inconceivable that as Orc you might have to retreat during the day?

[monochromatic]

Just let him have it. He'll have to leave it someday. Use the rest of your force on something else.