Them Crazy Roaming Armies...

[76561193736498472]

Alright I'm not one or much of asking for help, so I'm just going to make an opinionated statement.

I took a little break from this game because I got back in to Arma 2, Arma 3 and heavily again into Civ 5. I have both expansions so I'm all caught up on patches and updates.

When I run a game, I play 8 factions, small map (I like cramped maps, conducive to added warfare, at least it is on Civ 4/5) and I set everything to random, except for starting cities, to which I choose Settler and I play on Knight.

I know the key here is to expand, not turtle, and explore (since it is a 4x game) and be aggressive with claiming nodes, farms, PoI and all that.

So where my panties get into a bunch is the fact that everytime I do that, or leave a city guarded by one or two units, I'm swarmed by Roamers, lose a few units (fine) and maybe lose a city as I'm trying to take out the nearby baddie camps.

Now I've been around these types of games for years (beginning with the old time Civs) but this game, since the recent X-pack, is making me scratch my head. I love, bloody adore, setting everything Map Setting wise to Random. So I know I eat dirt when it comes to the Roamers and the Baddie camp strength.

I'm used to dealing with "Barbarians," but I just raqe-quit a game where I started off pretty well, vassalizing two Indies but I lost a lot of units then got City slammed by Roamers.

What in the blue hell am I doing wrong? Besides not taking out the Roamers first

Yeah, here's some extra

-Mark

[76561193736498472]

Yeah I got what I expected, no responses

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Small map 8 players everything random.
On a small map the roamers and enemy ai are alot closer.
I suggest geting a wall and six archers asap.
That shoud stop 90% of all invaders.

I am geusing that the small map and large numbers(love that setting btw)
Means enemies and roamers only need a turn or two to reach your towns.

I suggest leaving a stronger garrison and not getting to far from your town until you have enough defenders.
Use hero parties to clear out spawners.

It is more important to keep your nation, state, company, five man squad intact.
To destroy your enemies nation, state, company, five man squad is second best.
Sun-tzu.

In short:
Defend more.

[Noble Ten]

Trying to take out Roamer camps around your area very early can keep the pressure off. However it is risky if you loose too many units early on. So its hard to say. While building walls and having ranged kill them is a good source of letting them exp up. It implies an enemy at the gates penalty -2/300 moral to the city. Unless you are a warlord and researched War Culture.

Personally, with a small map and lots of roamers, I think you need to put more effort in defence. Or take their camps out early like I mentioned.

They should also harrass AI if they are near them.

[76561193736498472]

The settings I use I use across the board for all these types of games, going all the way back to Civ II.

For Civ 4, I use all Random settings, Small map, 8 Civs

For Civ 5, all Random Settings, Small Map, 12 Civs, 12 City States.

I cram Endless Legend on all Random as well

It's just what I like doing. I'm a war ♥♥♥♥♥. I watch CNN when conflicts erupt, I have a massive amount of war videos, documentaries, MP4s, everything. All my book shelves are filled with war books going all the way back to Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, The Peloponnesian War, and of course, Nazi/Soviet WWI/WWII stuff.

For some reason I play awesomely on all the other games, but for some reason, this game baffles me.

Before the latest X-Pack, I've never ever had troubles like this with Roamers or Camps, but I've been exceedingly humbled and ragey since.

Thanks for the tips guys

-Mark

[Morphic]

Without adding the same advice others have already ... your biggest problem is the Small Map setting. If you made it Medium or higher, you'd probably be fine.

Also, while AoW 3 focuses more on being aggressive and punishes turtles ... it's perfectly okay to turtle, you just need to know when and how. For example, turtling to "rush" certain Research or buildings is a solid tactic. However you don't want to keep building loads of T1s-T2s, you'll want to replace that cannon fodder for T2s and T3s, dismissing weaker units if you have to.

Basically you'll want to "Rush" your initial area -> Explore with scouts -> Build more units or build up your city -> Conquer/settle more territory -> Turtle or Attack -> Repeat.

[Johnny 5]

on a small map with 8 AIs theirs likely to be not many roamers.
I make it a priority to focus on taking them out around my main city and captured cities because it pays off later. I don't have to deal with being harassed later.

Hunt them down first and you won't have to deal with them later.

[Eye of Mobius]

I too had to edit my strategy for this game as the environment is far more of a nuisance than opposing factions. I was really enjoying goblins but the necro camps in particular have made it a little less enjoyable at the start. Right now I am dwarving it and developing new tactics around meatgrinder defensive formations rather than trying to break up enemy formations and always finding flanks as it burned through the goblins too fast with the exposure.

In the tactics of battle against roamers and opposing factions early on I am now trying to force enemies to come to me and take opportunities I choose to present them. The best example is the early necro roamers with lost souls and reanimators against my cities; I fall back from the wall to put down the lost souls and rush forward to meet the reanimators when they break the gates.

[vault101tunnelsnake]

I have found that keeping at least 3 units in a city will usually deter any early game raiders. After you get a decent army you should go to work clearing bandit camps and other places that spawn monsters.

[76561193736498472]

In my current game, about 15 turns in, I left a stack of 4 in my 2nd goblin city, a Roaming 6 undead army (4 Lost Souls/2 Reanimators) just destroyed my 2nd hero and took my 2nd city.

I'm going back to Civ 5.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Frayed Sanity:

In my current game, about 15 turns in, I left a stack of 4 in my 2nd goblin city, a Roaming 6 undead army (4 Lost Souls/2 Reanimators) just destroyed my 2nd hero and took my 2nd city.

I'm going back to Civ 5.

You're Goblins fighting Undead. You're inherently at a disadvantage, plus Lost Souls are floating/incorporeal so they ignore walls. Furthermore you are playing on Small maps. You can easily change multiple settings to curb your problems. Set Roaming Parties to low or Defender Strength to weak. Heck, increase your Starting Army to Strong.

Hell just change your Race to something else, like Draconians or Orcs and Undead won't be such a big problem. Even if you want Goblins that badly, then be Theocrat and you'll be able to soft counter Undead.

You also need to choose your Defenders wisely. Everyone likes saying Archers, Archers, Archers ... but with a Wooden Wall an Archer Mono Defense isn't always the best idea. You'll need a unit to bodyblock for your Archers. With T1s you should have 1 Swordsmen for every 2 Archers or if you have strong Supports, grab Supports instead of Archers. When you have access to T2, replace the Swordsmen with Pikemen.

Age of Wonders is a totally different game than Civilization and Endless Legend. You can't play it the same way even if you were doing well prior to Eternal Lords. Maybe upload a video of you playing so we can see the mistakes you are making and help you out.

[Outis]

Playing as goblins vs undead, choosing water adept greatly helps because of rot spell and liberal use of Blight Doctors for weakening coupled with swarm darters. Lost souls shouldn't stand a chance. Hiring a Theo Hero also helps.

Clearing brigand camps with goblins should be pretty easy with swarm darters and maraders to absorb damage. Keep maraders on defense for most part and concentrate on one enemy unit at a time.

AoW3 roamers truly reflect brigand/insurgent behavior more than other 4x games. You really do have to operate your forces within military doctrine. Defense/Security comes first, then offense. Every defense is an offense waiting to happen. Use combined arms tactics. Range to weaken enemy, melee to destory enemy. AoW3 game mechanics rewards the player that waits for the enemy to come to them in tactical combat. Do not rush the enemy, have them come to you and attack your melee units once due to action points. Counter with range units to weaken and attack with your melee units to destroy. Use Flank attacks.

[76561193736498472]

I find it funny that when I played the way suggested, I still got mauled. I took some time away from it, played some Civ, slaughtered about 60 people in Skyrim, mostly townspeople, some goats, and attacked the guards, so now i'm going to try it again.

God Bless Me

[76561193736498472]

I try to expand aggressively, and usually queue up beginner tier units just to help clear out the surrounding areas, but I also try to expand aggressively, as it has been suggested, so I queue up a settler once I get some T1 units up, buy that mandatory 2nd hero, and even accpe the units that are sometimes offered to me.

The settler goes out with that 2nd hero army, and eventually gets swarmed by roamers.

My Leader army needs to go out, clear the area, but I can't, because even if I leave three units behind, they'll die.

Also, once I started games with no starting spells, I also began to become the welcome mat.

Like I said, any other game of this type I have NO problem, this game I lose my hair to.

[Draktok]

Frayed, the roaming units always spawn from red cities, and often times the roaming units won't even attack cities (it seems about 50/50 when they do) ... I don't think i've ever had such a problem you're referring to , except twice. I sstarted 2 games as a goblin and underground, both times i was swarmed VERY quickly underground and lost city to aggressive roamers. Honestly, though, I just changed up my early strat (get walls up on 3 or 4th option) as well as started leaving behind 2-3 ranged units, and I stopped having a problem. Really , though, if you explore and find that red camp and kill it asap - there seems to be one always near the city - life is much better and I dont' go crazy.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Frayed Sanity:

I try to expand aggressively, and usually queue up beginner tier units just to help clear out the surrounding areas, but I also try to expand aggressively

There's a big problem, IMO.

A ton of people say "be aggressive!" but they either don't play on Default settings or they are not "truly aggressive". Also "beginner tier units" makes me think you are building Irregular Units, which are usually weaker than T1 units. For example, Human Civic Guard and Goblin Untouchable are Irregular units. Those are, IMO, trash throwaway units that you shouldn't build. Instead you want Goblin Swarm Darters and Sword/Axemen, "actual" Tier 1 units.

Basically, it's "okay" for you to not rush expanding or clearing out everything. You can be defensive as long as you are not idle. You should clear out your immediate surroundings of ~20-30 Hexes/Tiles around your first City. After that you can stick to your City while you use scouts to explore or run your Primary Army to clear something or attack a City. So long as you aren't just sitting passing turns or dogpiling units, you should be fine.

Then if you do manage to find a solid spot for another City, get a Builder. Have it build a Road from your first City to the location you want your second City, with an escort of course. Then build a Fort there and garrison its escort. Then you build a Settler and run it to your Fort and have it Found a City there. By doing this your new City/Outpost will automatically have a Wood Wall, furthermore in the ~4 turns of getting a Settler and running it there your Fort could be attacked. If it is, you can either Cancel/Keep the Settler and not lose it, provided you lost the Fort. If you kept the Fort, then you know it's a prime target for roaming parties and can start building Reinforcements while your Settler waits or constructs a City.

You can then use your Builder to build a Watchtower in your general vicinity to get a better view or your surroundings and see when roaming armies are coming. Using this Info you can find where they are coming from and have your Primary Army go off and kill their Hideouts/Spawns. I had a major issue with Bandits because I'd literally have 2-3 Hideouts spawn within ~15 Hexes of my first City most maps. This meant I'd have 2-5 parties of 4 Scoundrels running around just waiting for my City to have 2-4 guys and they'd attack, chipping my defenses for the next party and so on.

Once I started being a bit more defensive, I almost never had a problem. The time you want to be full on aggressive is in Multiplayer or Large+ sized games. The Civilization games lack a lot of combat complexity that Age of Wonders has, Age of Wonders is basically a totally different game. When I first started AoW 3, I was coming from Shogun 2 and played AoW like I did Shogun... totally did not work out at all lol.