First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

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BlackBeans
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Joined: May 19th, 2019, 9:41 am

First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

Post by BlackBeans »

Hello.
I started noticing this pattern where, the first time I would play a certain scenario, I would try to guess what's coming and recruit accordingly (no fog and no shroud), based simply on the race of the leader of my opponents. However, doing so rarely ends up with the best first turn recruits, and thus when I replay the scenario aiming at a better result, my first recruits are often more wise.
Therefore, I tried delaying a bit my recruits on medium- or big-sized scenarios, where I don't need to rush the enemies. Since most of the time I don't walk my units full speed, but rather I slow down so I meet enemies at the right place, at the right time, I though it couldn't harm. It also saves some money. The only exception are scouts: since on these scenarios, capturing villages is often very important, I can't afford to delay sending scouts after them, so I tried recruting only a few scouts in the first turns.
At this point, I realized this could trick the IA, because it then tries to be smart by counter-recruiting. However, since I recruit only scouts, their composition is (sometimes) completely different from what they would otherwise recruit (for instance, I witnessed a dwarf with a knalgan alliance-like recruit list recruit four dwarvish guardsman out of eight recruits in the first turn...).
So, I was wondering if this is an existent strategy, or if there are some downsides I've missed. Do you think this could be a consistent way to start such scenarios, ie. does it make sense to delay recruits? I'm only talking about campaign strategies, not MP strategies.
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Lord-Knightmare
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Re: First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

I normally recruit a scout (or 2) on first turn for village grabbing and some trusty veterans (veteran units who have been with since S1 and are now good combat supports). Recalling leadership and healers on first turn are rather good. One other thing is recalling units which are ready to level up and slower units on the first turn. I normally go with this in my campaign runs.
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BlackBeans
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Re: First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

Post by BlackBeans »

Yes maybe I was unclear (I admit my phrasing was not good). When I meant "recruiting", it also meant recalling. Especially because veterans are the most expensive units to maintain.
That being said, according to you it does no good to delay the recruit/recall of the army core? I ask because I used to do pretty much like you, except that I wouldn't recall all my veterans, only those that are particularly efficient in a given scenario, and those who can still level up, until the last scenario. This seems the straightforward strategy. I am interested in knowing if delaying could be a viable strategy in any way.
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Krogen
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Re: First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

Post by Krogen »

If the scenario has no shroud or fog, always check the Status Table at turn 1 before you recruit, recall or do anything. It shows you how much gold your opponents have and just how big their advantage is, so you can decide how many of your veterans you need to recall and if you even need to spend all your gold. Also it makes sense to recall first level 1s that have some experience and level 2s, before you start recalling level 3s, to save as much income as possible. If you don't spend all your gold, it's good to keep your income positive or at least at 0, so you don't lose it slowly and in case of surprise enemies or if things take a bad turn, you have still something to fall back to. If you can't keep your income positive and you feel like it's a long scenario, you might aswell just spend all your gold, since you'd lose the rest anyway due to negative income. Your carryover might be a bit lower because of it, but generally it's better to have too many troops than too little. If you recalled just a small force but enough to make your income negative, so you slowly lost the rest of the gold, and then things go bad, you'll have no backup and lose.
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teddylenz
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Re: First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

Post by teddylenz »

On the first turn, I recall units that are ready to level up and slower units as well.
rocinante
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Re: First turns recruit strategy on medium-big campaign scenarios

Post by rocinante »

I agree, it's good to recruit slower units first. And I also like to recall loyal units early because of the lack of upkeep.
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