Whats the point of contemp arty rocket arty

[Pericles the Lion]

A) 8 years.
B) 5 semi-active cities, 7 Diamond farms.
C) I believe all are well over 90k points, although I pay little attention to that. Edit: Even my lowest level city is at 266k points, so I don't know where you got this misinformation.
D) I don't farm GvG or GBG, so guilty of "not having enough battles" for your approval.
E) Again, guilty. Solo guilds all around. That way I don't have to play by someone else's rules.
F) There are many aspects of the game I thoroughly enjoy.
G) The other player posted opinion on relative unit strengths then later admitted he doesn't even bother manually fighting because he "doesn't have time for it", which means he has no idea on the subject.
Now if you have an informed opinion on the thread subject, please feel free to comment on that.

I apologize. I used the wrong indicator. I should have said "90MM", not "90K". Really changes nothing though.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I apologize. I used the wrong indicator. I should have said "90MM", not "90K". Really changes nothing though.

Actually, it's 90M. "MM" after a number here in Missouri means "mile marker". But you are right in that it changes nothing. Like the fact that this thread is about CE fighting units, which I have long experience with. And I was commenting on the posts of a player who by his own admission rarely battles manually. I think part of your problem here is that you confuse what I choose to do in the game with what I am capable of in the game. They are not the same thing. Nor do any of the aspects of my game that you criticized have anything to do with what I know about the game. I realize that I don't play the way you think is best, but that is irrelevant to this discussion, or really to any discussion of basic aspects of the game.

Now, do you have experience with manually battling with CE units and would like to add your two cents worth on the thread topic? Or are you just content to snipe at me from the bushes?

 

[The Angry Blanket]

Ah, so you don't actually like playing the game. Got it. Don't know why you bothered responding to this thread since you don't actually fight anymore. You have no way of knowing the relative strengths and weaknesses of units if all you do is auto battle for speed.

Because he plays different than you means he doesn't like the game ?

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Because he plays different than you means he doesn't like the game ?

The point is that he was commenting on the relative effectiveness of CE units when he admits never manually fighting anymore.

 

[The Angry Blanket]

The point is that he was commenting on the relative effectiveness of CE units when he admits never manually fighting anymore.

And you came to the conclusion that he doesn't like the game based on that? What about the relative effectiveness of CE units when using auto battle?

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

And you came to the conclusion that he doesn't like the game based on that? What about the relative effectiveness of CE units when using auto battle?

I came to that conclusion based on his statement that he "has better things to do."

 

[Orius Maximus]

I stopped most of the manual fighting in PME because it was too time consuming and tedious on fights I had little chance of losing anyway. Before I paid much closer attention to unit matchups and terrain. But that aspect of the game seems to become less important as combat bonus go up unless you've got a lot of attrition on GbG. It matters in PvP sometimes because players are more unpredictable and sometimes have much higher stats than anything the AI's got. Also, you can't see what a player has before fighting them, though few players seldom switch up their defenses. Unit abilities also seem to affect things as well, at least in the case of the powerful abilities.

How many people who drop several hundred fights a day on GvG and/or GbG are doing all of those manually? Most of the manual fights I do are either ones that can't be reliably fought with the AI or are in the PvP arena where I don't trust the AI, or where there's a specific strategy the AI is far too stupid to use.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I stopped most of the manual fighting in PME because it was too time consuming and tedious on fights I had little chance of losing anyway. Before I paid much closer attention to unit matchups and terrain. But that aspect of the game seems to become less important as combat bonus go up unless you've got a lot of attrition on GbG. It matters in PvP sometimes because players are more unpredictable and sometimes have much higher stats than anything the AI's got. Also, you can't see what a player has before fighting them, though few players seldom switch up their defenses. Unit abilities also seem to affect things as well, at least in the case of the powerful abilities.

How many people who drop several hundred fights a day on GvG and/or GbG are doing all of those manually? Most of the manual fights I do are either ones that can't be reliably fought with the AI or are in the PvP arena where I don't trust the AI, or where there's a specific strategy the AI is far too stupid to use.

So what you're really saying is that anymore you just get your boosts up high enough and don't worry about which troops do what. Got it. And since you "stopped most of the manual fighting in PME", that means you have no real idea of the relative worth of CE troops. Again, got it. So why are you posting on a thread whose topic is specifically the relative worth of CE units? There are those of us who find the actual fighting to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. To the degree that we would rather fight manually and enjoy the time than auto battle (click, click, click, etc.) our leisure time away. And so we actually have knowledge of how various units (especially in the eras below AF) vary in worth in actual battles. As I said before, I have spent years camped in CE fighting manually in more than one city. So if there is one era where I know the relative worth of the units, it's CE. Honestly, I don't know why anyone who almost exclusively uses auto battle should ever get into a discussion of the pros and cons of troop types in manual battles. Just go back to clicking that auto button and hope your boosts are high enough. Sounds like a hoot. Not.

Oh, and I just love this little gem:

Unit abilities also seem to affect things as well

No kidding. I'm sure that will revolutionize our military thinking now that we all know that.

 

[Mor-Rioghain]

I stopped most of the manual fighting in PME because it was too time consuming and tedious on fights I had little chance of losing anyway.

Anything worth doing is going to be time-consuming.

Before I paid much closer attention to unit matchups and terrain. But that aspect of the game seems to become less important as combat bonus go up unless you've got a lot of attrition on GbG. It matters in PvP sometimes because players are more unpredictable and sometimes have much higher stats than anything the AI's got. Also, you can't see what a player has before fighting them, though few players seldom switch up their defenses. Unit abilities also seem to affect things as well, at least in the case of the powerful abilities.

This entire paragraph is entirely subjective. It's your opinion that manually fighting has become less important. Many, many players would disagree with you. It's an entirely new type of challenge to see if you can speed up manual battle to keep up with those who auto-battle in exactly such arenas. If you can't challenge yourself in what a game has to offer, then why bother doing anything at all you might ask yourself.

On the bolded text: would it surprise you to know that it was really only quite recently that you could see the opposing army in most battle arenas? There are more than just a few players who thought that just dumbed the game down! What is the challenge when you know exactly which unit(s) to choose to fight because you have available to you what all of the individual units' strengths/weaknesses against the other types of units. Many players thought this was very boring but still pursued the challenge of mixing up units based on such things as terrain which isn't available for 'preview.' (Thank goodness).

How many people who drop several hundred fights a day on GvG and/or GbG are doing all of those manually? Most of the manual fights I do are either ones that can't be reliably fought with the AI or are in the PvP arena where I don't trust the AI, or where there's a specific strategy the AI is far too stupid to use.

I think you'd be quite surprised at the very high number of players who do exactly this. People didn't spend years of their lives playing a game to perfect a skill only to throw it out the moment that it was no longer 'necessary.' I've said before that I prefer auto-battle - and always have - but I have often been very impressed with just how fast the manual battlers are and they are more often than not matched up against those who only auto-battle.

It seems to me that you've arrived at this conclusion based on your very limited experience on a very recent time of the game's abilities/battle arenas and there's nothing at all wrong with that but to literally throw out 10's if not 100's of thousands player's predelictions and preferences based on that limited experience is a fine example of misplaced hubris at it's worst.

Wasn't it awfully nice of the developers to fix things up so nice and spandy so they could appeal to a broader player base by providing so many options to us?

 

[Orius Maximus]

.

On the bolded text: would it surprise you to know that it was really only quite recently that you could see the opposing army in most battle arenas? There are more than just a few players who thought that just dumbed the game down! What is the challenge when you know exactly which unit(s) to choose to fight because you have available to you what all of the individual units' strengths/weaknesses against the other types of units. Many players thought this was very boring but still pursued the challenge of mixing up units based on such things as terrain which isn't available for 'preview.' (Thank goodness).

I was inactive from just after the 2020 Archeology Event until the end of the 2021Winter event. The arena was added sometime in between then. If player armies were visible at first, I wasn't playing. In any case, it's not a complaint.

 

[Orius Maximus]

I manually fight a few times per day and while not as fast as autobattle it's quicker than you think it is once you get the match ups down pat. There are other advantages like a far superior fighting strategy than the AI could ever pull off. On Autobattle I can fight 12-16 fights before needing a unit refresh if I start with 0 attrition. Manually it's 18-29 fights. My boost is 2943/2087 attack being slowly changed to 2500/2500.

Yeah I mentioned that. Some setups are pretty easy to clear, and the AI is far too stupid to do it. It tends to be really bad with some types of units too, I've never noticed the AI to be any good with fast units, for example. Anything with a high movement rate seems to get charged in and cut to pieces early in the fight unless maybe they have an advantage.

 

[Mor-Rioghain]

I was inactive from just after the 2020 Archeology Event until the end of the 2021Winter event. The arena was added sometime in between then. If player armies were visible at first, I wasn't playing. In any case, it's not a complaint.

I stated "most battle arenas," meaning "all places you can battle" not just the PvP arena. When I first began playing in 2017 you couldn't see the opposing army at all in any type of fighting scenario.

 

[xivarmy]

Yeah I mentioned that. Some setups are pretty easy to clear, and the AI is far too stupid to do it. It tends to be really bad with some types of units too, I've never noticed the AI to be any good with fast units, for example. Anything with a high movement rate seems to get charged in and cut to pieces early in the fight unless maybe they have an advantage.

8 Fasts that can hit first turn it does fine-ish with. If you need it to do a half-step on first turn though (either because you're using rogues or because this is an age where fasts can't cross the whole battlefield in a turn) you need to semi-auto. Go in, move the fast units where they belong the first turn (either a lone unit to the corner or many units just out of range of enemy units), and then hit auto to finish.

Of course if you blow the opponent out of the water in stats and are using rogues, that usually just means you use the heavy or light instead that won't wander off too far ahead of the rogues.

But to understand how the AI fucks things up you have to watch it battle sometimes. (i.e. go into a battlefield and press auto and watch the show).

Another common "seriously?" error: any unit with blast (and there are a lot of them - it's the most common "see through stealth" ability) it will try to maximize the value of that blast by going right into melee range with the unit - even if it means eating retaliation! all for what amounts to often ~5% boost worth of extra attack Artillery with blast expose themself to more fire as well rather than hanging back out of range of some of the units still.

And on the topic of the thread in question, irritatingly missile artillery will *not* move forward extra squares on auto - so often there's only *1* unit in range of them and their special "hit 2-4 units" will be wasted and they'll despawn. Which is why they're manual-only

Good manual battlers make the best auto battlers too because they understand how the units work - and often how the ai works from watching it in comparison to what they'd do. Just the margin isn't as wide when the players have enough boost The player that's put in their time on manual probably can push attrition a little further. And might lose a few less units at low-mid attrition.

 

[Darkest.Knight]

I have never found more than 2 of the unit types worth using and I'll normally use a single type while I do autobattles. At around 100 attrition I have to start doing manual fights to survive, then I'll occasionally use other than my normal type of unit.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

And on the topic of the thread in question, irritatingly missile artillery will *not* move forward extra squares on auto - so often there's only *1* unit in range of them and their special "hit 2-4 units" will be wasted and they'll despawn. Which is why they're manual-only

Yes, I noticed this early on. Very frustrating, but educational, to see that special ability wasted. Once. Twice means you're a slow learner. LOL

Good manual battlers make the best auto battlers too because they understand how the units work - and often how the ai works from watching it in comparison to what they'd do. Just the margin isn't as wide when the players have enough boost The player that's put in their time on manual probably can push attrition a little further. And might lose a few less units at low-mid attrition.

This is an excellent point that I'm sure many players miss. When newbies don't do well on auto battle, many "experienced" players will simply tell them to get their boosts up. Which is technically true at some point, but auto battle doesn't become viable in the early ages without that high boost and/or a Traz pumping out Rogues. Doesn't make sense to me to give up all that early fighting (and winning) just because you got advice that only helps later. Learning to manually battle can also make precious early units last much longer, giving you more fights without having to wait on new units to train.

I have never found more than 2 of the unit types worth using and I'll normally use a single type while I do autobattles. At around 100 attrition I have to start doing manual fights to survive, then I'll occasionally use other than my normal type of unit.

I just fought several encounters in Colonial/HMA GE on 4 worlds and used everything except Champions both on auto and on manual. I do have several Rogues in all 4 worlds, but no Traz. Which means knowing which units will take the least damage from auto battle helps me make the decision on when to auto or semi-auto and when to do full manual so that my precious Rogues don't die off too quickly. Newbies can't learn that from always auto battling, so will always be at a disadvantage.

 

[stymie of Suwannee]

Put your Modern troops up against some TurTurrets and learn the advantages of manual combat.

 

[stymie of Suwannee]

It was like ”red light, green light” from Squid Games. Troops run out to their assigned distance, some die, then the fight starts.

 

[Orius Maximus]

8 Fasts that can hit first turn it does fine-ish with. If you need it to do a half-step on first turn though (either because you're using rogues or because this is an age where fasts can't cross the whole battlefield in a turn) you need to semi-auto. Go in, move the fast units where they belong the first turn (either a lone unit to the corner or many units just out of range of enemy units), and then hit auto to finish.

Of course if you blow the opponent out of the water in stats and are using rogues, that usually just means you use the heavy or light instead that won't wander off too far ahead of the rogues.

Yeah that sounds about right. Fast units made a poor early impression on me during the middle ages where they tend to charge halfway the battlefield and then get carved to pieces. That was from watching the AI using defending armies, because I didn't use them too much at first. Their main use early is to counter large numbers of ranged units, and even then under auto it seems to be a toss up between using the fasts as intended or countering ranged with other ranged. Eels are probably the one fast unit I can think of offhand where the AI doesn't screw up too badly, but the AI does seem to handle stealth decently well.

Using rogues usually involves sending a unit into a corner anyway, especially if it's a two wave fight to avoid damage.

But to understand how the AI fucks things up you have to watch it battle sometimes. (i.e. go into a battlefield and press auto and watch the show).

I've seen plenty of AI mistakes which is why I avoided using it until my stats were so high it didn't matter.

Another common "seriously?" error: any unit with blast (and there are a lot of them - it's the most common "see through stealth" ability) it will try to maximize the value of that blast by going right into melee range with the unit - even if it means eating retaliation! all for what amounts to often ~5% boost worth of extra attack Artillery with blast expose themself to more fire as well rather than hanging back out of range of some of the units still.

IIRC, Blast gives a bonus to damage when the unit is closer to the target, which is probably what the AI is trying to exploit. Blast first appears in Indy, where almost everything has a ranged attack, so going into melee range is stupid because the unit is needlessly taking retaliation. Though I'm not going to do complain about artillery doing it, because Plasma Artillery is about the only unit I find threatening again Hover Tanks.

And on the topic of the thread in question, irritatingly missile artillery will *not* move forward extra squares on auto - so often there's only *1* unit in range of them and their special "hit 2-4 units" will be wasted and they'll despawn. Which is why they're manual-only

They're manual only because everything about them is far too fiddly to trust the stupid AI.

 

[matthew patton]

yes horse based cav are terrible, they get creamed a lot. jeep based fast units are way better. They are still goof at taking out arty units. But the contemp rocket arty it won't reach in time