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Military strategy for conquering the VF continent

jlshetler

Member
Eight times I have asked advice on this forum about strategies for attacking the new continents, and you have always had excellent suggestions and insights. Hopefully others have found those discussions useful as well. Here are the previous links:

PE:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...trategy-for-conquering-the-pe-continent.8011/

ME:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/me-military-advice-request.8585/

PME:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...rategy-for-conquering-the-pme-continent.9210/

CE:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...rategy-for-conquering-the-ce-continent.10128/

TE:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...-for-conquering-the-tomorrow-continent.10701/

FE:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...gy-for-conquering-the-future-continent.11625/

AF:https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...conquering-the-arctic-future-continent.13724/

OF:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...onquering-the-oceanic-future-continent.17106/

Even from the first sector I am finding the VF continent a bit tough to tackle with OF units. Hopefully some who have already found success in Beta will share their secrets with us here. Our usual starting questions are:

(1) What is the best use of earlier age units to get started?
(2) Does VF introduce any new battle formats (like the urban terrain of CE or the two-wave attack of PME)? If so, what are the best tactics for dealing with them?
(3) Which, if any, of the three new VF units in the Part 1 release are useful?
(4) Is the enemy AI any different than in previous continents, so that Rogues might be useful?

Again, many thanks to all willing to lend their expertise.

-Joe
jlshetler, Houndsmoor
 

DeletedUser3882

There are few trees, rocks, hills, or water... Wide open terrain on them thar maps! They nerfed the hovers but it did no good!

AI is the same towards Rogues. Don’t use ‘em. 8 Hovers until there’s an army that’ll stop the steamroll....
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
Used either turtles or medusas (whichever was more appropriate) in any battle that didn't have flying units. Used hovers for just about everything else. The one exception was a sector loaded with a ton of plasmas; I used gliders for that.

I will say that they seem to have taken an interesting approach with this map so far. Seeing upscaled (very) old units with massive bonuses was a bit of a surprise.
 

DeletedUser3882

qaccy said:
I will say that they seem to have taken an interesting approach with this map so far. Seeing upscaled (very) old units with massive bonuses was a bit of a surprise.
Click to expand...
They’ve got to be setting us up for something up ahead :)
Those 6 unit, single wave battles haven’t been seen in a loooooong while...
 

jlshetler

Member
I agree -- I wasn't expecting to see TE and FE troops, and then when I saw them I really wasn't expecting them to be tough! I got through the whole OF Continent with 8 Eels and no trouble, but that strategy does not work here even from the first province. I will try 8 Hovers. Thanks to all for the tips.

Any word yet on the utility of the Ronin Bot, Augmented Samurai, or Ninja? I'm not too impressed with the VF Champion.
 

DeletedUser3882

I can see why they needed to nerf the Hovers is all I can say. Even with the current stats, they’re still almost too powerful. Finished up the continent map with really only two or three troublesome sectors throughout the whole thing... Just as @qaccy said, some turtles, gliders, etc takes care of it...

From fighting *against* the new units, they have some skills I like and could be quite useful, but not too sure if they’re worth giving up the extra attack bonus on a hover barracks just yet...

Samurai have that rediculous contact skill with range of 1 that completely negates its usefulness :/ But their movement is insane! Really have to watch out for them being able to close in on you. They have a good defense rating and their attack really puts a hurting on you if they get within that 1 range...

Ninjas I feel are current era Strike Teams with a poor defense. Very useful hiding in the trees, but if there’s poor terrain, defense is just worthless. They get picked off before having any real shot.

Ronin Bots I thought of updated Behemoths (without the stealth). Slow as Christmas, I mean, you can really clock them with a calendar in a 40 yd dash, but they have an impressive defense. Against Hovers you can too easily just run circles around them until you ping them down to nothing...

Granted, this is only part 1 with some interesting mixes. Early stages of every age is always relatively easy. I can see some strategy changes being needed into Part 3 and beyond with some tougher two wave battles. Not so sure 8 Hovers would fare very well against 16 samurai, for example.
 

DeletedUser3882

Side note @jlshetler
The province rewards this go round are awesome! I’ve always knocked out the Cmap quickly and for the first time, it really didn’t put a dent in my diamond wallet.

Total 600 diamonds rewarded across all the provinces. Net cost of only 200 to skip all of the blasted scouts I’d say was well worth it.

For those who are patient and take their time, that’s some decent pocket change to add to their coffers :)
 

ray13460

New Member
Seriously, Augmented Samurai skills need to be addressed. I can't see how a unit with the naturally skill to retaliate needs contact skill with a range of 1. It might as well not have a secondary skill in that case......wow.....
 

jlshetler

Member
8 Hovers doesn't seem to work against (wave one) 4 Medusas and 4 Scimitars, (wave two) 4 Medusas. How did you guys handle this second sector of the second province?
 

wolfhoundtoo

Well-Known Member
Flying units. Medusas are artillery and can't hit anything that flies. I think I used 8 dragon drones but could just as easily been 8 TE drones. You only need one to survive till the second province.
 

DeletedUser13838

heybo said:
I can see why they needed to nerf the Hovers is all I can say. Even with the current stats, they’re still almost too powerful. Finished up the continent map with really only two or three troublesome sectors throughout the whole thing... Just as @qaccy said, some turtles, gliders, etc takes care of it...
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I don't agree that hovers were too powerful. It's just that the units in the later ages have been poorly designed and VF is no exception (no units see stealth or fly and ranged units with rapid deployment were fine in ME when nothing saw through stealth).
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
Konrad the mediocre said:
I don't agree that hovers were too powerful. It's just that the units in the later ages have been poorly designed and VF is no exception (no units see stealth or fly and ranged units with rapid deployment were fine in ME when nothing saw through stealth).
Click to expand...

So lemme get this straight. The units from later ages are poorly designed, leading to hover tanks being more powerful than they should be. But at the same time, you're saying that there's a lack of good stealth counters and Ninjas are apparently still weak? How's that work?

AF+ units are honestly fine, it's just that it becomes a very difficult thing to balance units from different ages against each other, especially if you don't want to just cut and paste the same units across each age with a token stat increase. Would it be easier to balance units if every heavy unit starting with HTs had bonuses to fast and ranged units, stealth on plains and reactive armor (now force field)? Sure. But it'd also be pretty darn boring fighting battles the exact same way no matter what age you're in. The way it is now is pretty much the best it can get. There doesn't have to be a unit that specifically counters the HTs because such a unit wouldn't really make sense in its own age, due to no unit from that age having the HT's combination of abilities. Besides, the only true counter to them was Power Shot and I think it's unlikely we'll be seeing that ability again any time soon since it would almost certainly either be a worse Rail Gun or a carbon copy of it which would lead to the same balancing issues the RG originally caused. I think they learned their lesson in that regard.

Whenever people try to claim that new units are just weak as justification for their argument that nerfing select older units when necessary is uncalled for, it makes me wonder if they're simply not very skilled with the battle system and willing to put in the effort to try out new units and see how well they actually perform when used properly. This being said, that doesn't mean that every unit is equally useful, especially in the new design of releasing ages in parts with units being partially released. It's been said that the Samurai, for instance, will make more sense once the remaining VF units are released, but that doesn't help right now where they seemingly have no situations where using them is a smart idea despite their high attack power, resilience due to armor, and the fact that they seem to be able to effortlessly cross the battlefield. Perhaps these attributes will make more sense once the remaining VF units are released, but it's impossible to determine for the moment.
 
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Agent327

Agent327

Well-Known Member
qaccy said:
It's been said that the Samurai, for instance, will make more sense once the remaining VF units are released, but that doesn't help right now where they seemingly have no situations where using them is a smart idea despite their high attack power, resilience due to armor, and the fact that they seem to be able to effortlessly cross the battlefield. Perhaps these attributes will make more sense once the remaining VF units are released, but it's impossible to determine for the moment.
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They effortlessly cross the battlefield, only to be shot to pieces. A Combat Drone has the same movement and with those you can start shooting at other units. With the samurai you can do absolutely nothing. When the remaing VF units will be released they might be strong ahainst one other unit and still be shot to pieces by every other unit you use.
 

DeletedUser13838

qaccy said:
So lemme get this straight. The units from later ages are poorly designed, leading to hover tanks being more powerful than they should be. But at the same time, you're saying that there's a lack of good stealth counters and Ninjas are apparently still weak? How's that work?
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Read what I said more carefully. They've introduced units in AF, OF and now VF, piecemeal so they are not balanced against other units from their age. They are obviously not well balanced against units from prior ages since they get shot to pieces easily (see below).

AF+ units are honestly fine, it's just that it becomes a very difficult thing to balance units from different ages against each other, especially if you don't want to just cut and paste the same units across each age with a token stat increase.
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So what do they do? They introduce a ranged unit with rapid deployment that can't retaliate. Basically a VF version of the paratrooper. At least paratroopers had the advantage of no troops from its age or earlier that saw through stealth. Ninjas aren't so lucky. Their only counters are from prior ages. They should have been given contact at the very least or an improved version of stealth (separate topic).

Would it be easier to balance units if every heavy unit starting with HTs had bonuses to fast and ranged units, stealth on plains and reactive armor (now force field)? Sure. But it'd also be pretty darn boring fighting battles the exact same way no matter what age you're in. The way it is now is pretty much the best it can get.
Click to expand...
Do you really believe this? Do you really think champions are done correctly? Do you think the piecemeal introduction of new units is the best way? Will you be relying entirely on VF units to fight level 4 of GE this week?

There doesn't have to be a unit that specifically counters the HTs because such a unit wouldn't really make sense in its own age, due to no unit from that age having the HT's combination of abilities. Besides, the only true counter to them was Power Shot and I think it's unlikely we'll be seeing that ability again any time soon since it would almost certainly either be a worse Rail Gun or a carbon copy of it which would lead to the same balancing issues the RG originally caused. I think they learned their lesson in that regard.
Click to expand...
The only problem with HTs was stealth on plains, which is ubiquitous in every age. You don't need to do anything to nerf HTs - all you needed to do was reduce the number of plains tiles in later age battlefields. In fact make the first row hills in AF to make behemoths stealthed and HTs not stealthed for the opening move with both being vulnerable to their age's artillery. The fact that the first row in every battlefields map is plains seems poorly thought out.

Whenever people try to claim that new units are just weak as justification for their argument that nerfing select older units when necessary is uncalled for, it makes me wonder if they're simply not very skilled with the battle system and willing to put in the effort to try out new units and see how well they actually perform when used properly. This being said, that doesn't mean that every unit is equally useful, especially in the new design of releasing ages in parts with units being partially released. It's been said that the Samurai, for instance, will make more sense once the remaining VF units are released, but that doesn't help right now where they seemingly have no situations where using them is a smart idea despite their high attack power, resilience due to armor, and the fact that they seem to be able to effortlessly cross the battlefield. Perhaps these attributes will make more sense once the remaining VF units are released, but it's impossible to determine for the moment.
Click to expand...
So you just defend inno by claiming everything is perfect and anyone who disagrees is lazy and a moron? Got it.
 

jlshetler

Member
We've veered off topic here guys. This thread, like the previous ones, is for discussing strategies to conquer the continent map.

This separate discussion about the development of new unit types is interesting, and I encourage you to continue it in a separate thread.
 

DeletedUser13838

Sorry, my fault. I use turtles when there is nothing flying or with rapid deployment, Hovers when nothing sees stealth and flying units (scimitars) when the opponent has mostly artillery (taking out non-artillery first).
 
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