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I would also check out the map before heading out and seeing if you can organize your current army into a better formation. For example, in maps with rogues/assassins, ensure your backline is tanky enough to not die from a few of them attacking them on enemy phase. Or move your cavalry units behind your frontline against enemy polearm units.
Hrmmm, or maybe there is? It probably will involve cannon fodder strategy and saving up archery team for secondary stages. Point is, I don't think permadeath is suggested on first run.
It is a bad idea to play with perma-death on your first playthrough. You will only have a good understanding how the units and their advanced classes work, once you are mostly through the campaign at least once.
Which will naturally lead to a lot of lost units. It isn't impossible for a new player to play with perma-death, but you will have to hit the Arenas whenever possible, be selective with the items you buy and so on and so forth, in order to have the money to pay the upkeep of lost troops.
Q1. The Info page says Heavy Infantry, Heavy Cavalry, Light Infantry, Light Cavalry, and Dragons can cover allies.
However when changing a class to Soldier or Spearman, both of whom are Heavy Infantry, these are their flavor texts:
Soldier: Front line Heavy Infantry. Heavily armored, and protects back lines with Cover.
Spearman: Front line Heavy Infantry. Polearms are strong against Cavalry.
Spearman doesn't say he can cover like for Soldier. Will Spearman also cover? Why did they specifically say that for Soldier but not Spearman?
Q2a. Are all covers the same value, or some units will cover better than others?
Q2b. If some units can cover better, what determines the cover strength?
Q3. When is the right time to use arena tokens? Save them till the end, or use as soon as I get them?
That is what is known as flavor text: its a descriptor that may or may not reflect actual mechanics. I don't know that there is a difference in Cover between Soldier and Spearman. It might just omit that from the flavor text as an oversight.
I do believe there is a difference.
As I understand it, its hard-coded into the class, and not off any specific stat. The description of block says heavy units confer more than light units. Presumably Heavy Infantry and Heavy Cavalry confer better block than Light Infantry and Light Cavalry.
When you need them. There are 3 main uses for Tokens: you can build up units in the Arena, with more exp and cp if those units are just a bit away from promotion. You can also use a token to get gold when you need more gold, and you can surrender forces in the Arena for faction XP, which isn't a lot but like units if you're just a touch away from faction level up it might be worth it.
I usually don't save them for very long as the marketplace often has nice mercenary units and artifacts that drain me, and that bazaar that appears on certain levels. If you're about to reach a bazaar level, its nice to have at least some gold reserves so you can buy the good stuff, like dragons.
There is another option you can do (warning: its really boring)
Once you get Barnabas, and if you have a healing item like Everlasting Potion or just a couple good healers, you can use a token and then finish most of the units, but keep some archers alive. Then have your Barnabas led unit have a low threat rating and good healing, so the archers constantly attack that unit. That unit will gain exp, cp, loyalty and leadership while being shot the archers volley fire. CP caps pretty quick, and exp goes down sharply after you reach a few levels above the archers, and loyalty of course caps at Loyal. Leadership, however, won't cap and Barnabas has a trait that makes the units in his squad grow Leadership faster. So if you have a couple of conscripts or mercenaries that you want to make leaders, you can have them join Barnabas and just receive archer fire for a while. Turn animation speed on max to make it go faster.
I wouldn't recommend doing it too often, so if you do this just do it with a few units. Mercenaries that have a leadership trait like Soldier Captain or Archer Captain are good choices to do this with. Spend 100 turns getting shot by a couple archer squads, and you'll gain a couple dozen leadership gains to those units. You honestly don't need more than a handful of mercenary leaders, since you get a lot of really good story heroes as you progress. I did this on my first run and leveled up 4 conscripts that had leadership traits, and it helped a bit.
There is a tutorial page on positioning. The Characters in the front Row/Column cover the behind them. And they cover the ones behind them by 1,5 times their width. This means you can move an HI in between two lines and it will protect both of those lines.
You also want to put your squishiest character in the middle, as both front and backrow will be attacked the most. (Assassins and Thieves attack the backrow on the first attack)
Cover is a special ability that reduces damage for those directly behind them (and a little for those in the backrow.
Your and the enemy will favor to attack in line, the first enemy on their line. It will go from top to bottom and decide from there.
Top, right most, on your side, will attack Top Left most of the enemy first, then it will favor Middle Left and then Top Middle, before going Left Bottom. Same is true for the enemy. (there are units, like Mages and Thieves, that do not follow these rules, but most do)
This means any character places in front will protect those behind them... and heavy armor reduces weapons damage. Magic stat reduces Magic damage.
Cover is a special trait that reduces damage to those behind them. There is also a Bodyguard trait and a few other tank traits you can use. They all have the same "fixed" values..
While the Cover trait does not change, i am going to answer this as a general question for which are the best tanks. Sentinel (big guy with Towershield and Spear), Paladin and Ranger (Guy with Hood) are your best Tanks, in my opinion.
Sentinel's shield give them a good protection against Rifles and their big Armor makes them good at tacking hits. They also have the Cover trait. So they are great frontline units.
Paladins have a heal of their own and usually a good magic stat (or at least you usually bring them up form a mage class with mage attributes), which makes them a good defense against Magical attacks, but they also have good armor. And there is that technology that buffs if you have them along with a healer.
Rangers get a big boost to evasion in Ambush tiles, so they are great evasion tanks.
Use them whenever you need them and no more than you need. You get 2000+ Gold from running the Arena and you can bring 5 units. So you can give some units some extra training this way.
On my first playthrough i only used it when i needed cash, merits or CP tokens for Dragons.
When i played the hardest difficulty i used them whenever it was available to train my weakest units.
Doing Arenas you get XP and CP tokens (give a bit of Class Experience and regular Experience), as well as Merit Tokens (allows you to gilden a class into a Gold class, when they have the gold arrow, which is interesting for many of the "story" NPCs and late game for your best units). In the Bronze Arena you get like 2k Gold... i think its 2k additional per level above that. You also get a random item from the Arena.
So you don't want to just "stack them" up... but they are a source of XP for units that are close to level their CP and such... that is why i am hesitant to say "do them as soon as you can", because its kinda a bit wasted CP and levels.
Q2. Will mercenaries ever gain the Commited perk (-1 capacity cost)?
The biggest advantage is they are cheaper, and unlimited in number. So you can hire a few and got a couple decent ones. You get lots of good leaders through the story and through mercenaries, but you do need basic line troops. Fighters with high strength are important to recruit where you can. That means Fire, Lightning and Dark affinities, often with a good Strength relative to their level.
Here is a list of Strength scores for the first 10 levels that you want to look for:
L1: 25
L2: 26
L3: 26
L4: 28
L5: 28
L6: 29
L7: 30
L8: 30
L9: 31
L10 32
Having 1-2 less points than that isn't bad, however, I generally pass up on them if they have 3 less than that, unless they are Earth or Light affinity; those will usually have 1-3 points less but make up for it with more HP or Leadership. If they are Lightning with high Skill, they can make good Light Infantry, like Skirmishers and Rogues.
Bowman and Militia can have similar Strength, in theory, but in practice are usually a touch behind, and that gap grows with level. They growth slightly lower in Strength and a lot lower HP, but have different classes to change into.
Getting a nice supply of 24-25 Strength fighters at level 1 is very useful in the early levels, as they will promote easily after 500 CP and in the mid to late teens should promote to their final forms. At that point they will be Loyal (see below) and easily be the backbone of your forces. Be sure to check the units that come with the story characters, as some of them have decent stats and others are garbage. If they have trash units, replace them with some of your better conscripts as early as you can.
Yes. There are 5 levels of loyalty: Mercenary (+2), Uncommitted (+1), Neutral (+0), Committed (-1) and Loyal (-2). Those are gained through fighting battles and taking objectives.
1) Not really, no. Matter of fact, since Mercenaries already come with "advanced resources" spent... there are, over all a lot of benefits for the whole buying mercenaries business.
That being said... i personally rarely buy mercenaries.
2) Yeah, eventually they can even get loyal perk.
I am assuming that enemy units give more xp the further you are in the game. So even if I lose one, due to more xp, they should level up relatively quickker.
Or am I missing something?
Q2. Are all perks equal for all units? E.g. is Tier 3's Hit-and-Run the same value as a Tier 2's Hit-and-Run?
Yes. You can hire another unit before the next battle and train them up over the next few maps. I don't recommend using perma-death on your first play-through.
Technically they don't give more exp; the amount of exp you get is based on the difference in levels between the unit in question and they enemy they are fighting. In theory a L1 fighting a L5 (+4 levels dif) is the same as a L11 vs. a L15, as its also +4. In practice, as you progress through the game the units are higher level, so they have the ability to grant more exp. Depending upon how far behind a specific unit is, however, they may very well net a lot more exp. If you have a L5 that has been on the bench for a while and take them into a mission where your average level is 15 and the enemy is 18, then that L5 unit will gain a lot more exp than your L15 units do, and catch up relatively quickly.
Due to this dynamic, even lower level units can catch up and become meaningful, assuming they don't die and keep fighting and getting exp. Often you get to the point where you are equal level and the exp drops a lot, so your high level units don't get much exp while your lower level units are leveling up like crazy.
No, there are some difference. If you look at every unit, especially the Tier 3 units, in the Tutorial section, you'll note that they explicitly state this sometimes. Like the Hussar, says that they can hit and run but with better ability than the Scout. I can't say the exact numbers and how much different it is, but according to the Tutorial notes there is a difference.
This is one of the reasons why I recommend getting conscripts with good stats early, as those Tier 3 units are often really good.
On a different topic, while you haven't asked it yet, but just in case you haven't realized it yet, there is something called Threat in the game. Each unit has Threat, and each squad also has a Threat rating based on the sum of the units in the squad, plus extra for artifacts as well.
On the enemy turn, if the enemy can attack multiple of your squads, they will attack the squad that has the lowest threat first. This can be used to your advantage, in many ways. A good way, especially if you are using perma-death, is a bait squad.
A bait squad is one with low threat, that the enemy targets. Less units in a squad is the simplest and easiest way to lower threat. Soldiers have a trait called Guardian, which reduces incoming damage by 25% while defending (the enemy turn) and have high hp and armor. Make a squad that has a couple soldiers and a couple medics and has lower threat than your other units and that will cause them to targeted first. The high defense coupled with a couple medics means they won't take much damage.
You can either make a quality bait squad with excellent units that is good at it, or alternatively, you can make a scrub squad. As I recommended above, you can hire several conscripts for the cost of 1 merc, and some of them might be good. If you are patient, you can save before hand if you don't get anybody good just reload the save. Even doing so, you'll likely get 2-4 scrubs for each quality conscript. That's ok though; its just a cost of recruiting. A scrub bait squad is comprised of those scrubs with bad stats and affinities, and as long as the whole squad doesn't get wiped out there usually isn't any penalties for a couple of them dying.
Having those special bait squads helps a lot to protect your more vulnerable units, as they will almost always go for 2 soldiers + 2 medics before they go for 6 archers, even if the archers are squishy. Bait squads do see a fair amount of fighting, so using your excellent conscripts isn't a terrible idea either, though the scrub conscripts taking the higher risks is, as I noted, a valid tactic in perma-death.
I am adding this text so that it won't appear in preview.
Here we go.
Q1.
I have turned off perma-death.
However, there is a chapter where your entire army is decimated. That seems to be part of the story.
If I had kept playing with perma-death on, would I potentially lose ALL of my units?
Q2. How many traits can a unit learn at most? And can you unlearn traits?