What is WITH the balance in this game?

[Intrepid Stupid]

There's no way to farm levels or really gain an advantage through gear, and I'm fighting dredge that do 13 damage when I have guys that do 1, and have more HP to boot. And I just lost one of my best guys to an rng battle after choosing oversee I think? Bowmen seem useless since they dont even have enough range to attack an enemy before they can move in range before the next turn

[Aleonymous]

Think outside the box :)

In this case, the "box" is trying to deal brute-force STRength-damage right from the start. No. You should first break the ARMor of your enemies, and then hit their STR.

Another "box" is the turn-queue mechanic, that is quite different from what you're used to. Study & understand the turn-queue and its changes, before performing any reckless actions, e.g. killing an enemy or rushing up to hit somebody.

Never choose "Oversee" in War battles. From my observations, it's like auto-lose, especially on high difficulty levels.

Archers are lethal when the enemy ARM is shredded. Their best use is coming up, behind your front-line melee units (which should typically be ARM breakers), and poising themselves for a Puncture hit on ARM-broken enemies.

[Intrepid Stupid]

Yeah, I've been attacking their armor. The problem is when they are attacking my STR for 10+ (never the armor unless its a special move) and I have dudes attacking their armor for 1... They don't play by the same rules, and seem to be able to ignore armor

[Aleonymous]

In this case, it seems that you need to stay away from high-STR enemies, maneuvering you units, and bide your time for a [break>break>smash] combo-attack that will neutralize those threats, one at a time.

You can click on enemy units to check their movement-range (in order to stay away from them) and you'll also need to be *aware* of the turn-queue: Place your units in a logical order, with breakers ahead of damagers. Playing defensively (picking out enemies as they come to you) is probably the safest tactic in overall.

Oh, and never deploy your units too close to such enemies because you don't know their turn-order before hitting the "Ready!" button.

[wcc]

I feel you missed this hint:

Originally posted by Aleonymous:

Another "box" is the turn-queue mechanic, that is quite different from what you're used to. Study & understand the turn-queue and its changes, before performing any reckless actions, e.g. killing an enemy or rushing up to hit somebody.

The biggest weakness of these high-strength units are their own companions. Don't kill the weak ones and delay the brute's turn to eternity.

[FrostPaw]

I'm struggling with how the strategy works, break the armor, do more damage to the strength. Except enemies don't bother breaking my armor and when their armor is gone sometimes I'm still only doing a couple of points of damage.

Archers seem to be difficult to make use of, too close and enemies just ignore my front line and walk up and one hit them. Too far away and they're wasting turns out of range to be useful. If I'm not in a direct line I can't even shoot at them but somehow my guys are being hit at range from odd angles anyway.

I can't tell if I'm under level, if the enemies I face are actually a balanced challenge or if a mistake I've made in maximizing my leveling ability earlier in the game is now making it even harder/impossible.

I can tell there is something good to it, but either the way its being presented or the sheer weight of advantage enemies get seems to be frustrating my ability to assimilate a strategy. If I can't see what I'm doing wrong, I can't adapt to overcome.

[Aleonymous]

Originally posted by FrostPaw:

A. I'm struggling with how the strategy works, break the armor, do more damage to the strength. Except enemies don't bother breaking my armor and when their armor is gone sometimes I'm still only doing a couple of points of damage.

B. Archers seem to be difficult to make use of, too close and enemies just ignore my front line and walk up and one hit them. Too far away and they're wasting turns out of range to be useful. If I'm not in a direct line I can't even shoot at them but somehow my guys are being hit at range from odd angles anyway.

A. The crucial part here is to keep your party's STR higher than the enemy-team's (broken) ARM. If you break their ARM, but they clip your STR, it's no good... Of course, your team will receive STR-damage, but you can keep your team's STR high "effectively" or "on average". Your safest course is to keep one of your high-STR heroes away from harm, and only bring him in when the enemies are softened, to "clean up" the board. Very good heroes for this work are Warhawks (Gunnulf, Bersi) and Alette, because they can hit multiple targets per turn, in a single attack. Note that I am referring to Alette as a "high STR" hero; her max STR is ~10, but it it gets an "effective" boost by Puncture, i.e. when she's in range of ARM-broken enemies.

B. Positioning is also crucial. You can check the enemy movement range (by clicking on them), and position your fragile heroes out of their range. Biding your time, and letting the enemy come to you (while you are in-formation), is the safest course here. Also I don't understand what you mean by "If I'm not in a direct line I can't even shoot at them"... There's no LOS (line-of-sight) here, not a requirement for right-angles, when it comes to regular attacks. There's only a couple of active-abilities (special attacks) that require a straight line, e.g. Alette's Thread-the-Needle or the Backbiter's Run-Through.

[FrostPaw]

Originally posted by Aleonymous:

B. Positioning is also crucial. You can check the enemy movement range (by clicking on them), and position your fragile heroes out of their range. Biding your time, and letting the enemy come to you (while you are in-formation), is the safest course here. Also I don't understand what you mean by "If I'm not in a direct line I can't even shoot at them"... There's no LOS (line-of-sight) here, not a requirement for right-angles, when it comes to regular attacks. There's only a couple of active-abilities (special attacks) that require a straight line, e.g. Alette's Thread-the-Needle or the Backbiter's Run-Through.

It does seem to help to just sit back and wait, I've tried that in a couple of battles and had some success.

As for ther archery I now realize if I mouse over a square to move, enemies in range now highlight with the number of damage you can do. This is a great help....apparently I was moving always just out of range without realizing it and it made me think I had to be on a straight line to aim at them.

Unfortunately my high level chars keep dying and the rest have been mostly focused on armor protection. Since I can't respec I have a feeling I'm destined to struggle. Still, I managed to scrape through the bridge defence sequence and can now rest my guys again. Thanks for your suggestions.

[Aleonymous]

You're welcome :) Good luck with what's next!

*** One final note concerning Archer safety: The most common threats for your archers are 1x1-sized melee units, namely dredge Grunts & human Raiders. The problem here is that all these 1x1 units have a 4-tile movement-range: this means that --in an open field-- if your archer is just in-range to attack them (5 tile-range), then they can walk up to her and retaliate. So, always make sure that your archers are not out in the open, but out of the movement-range of such 1x1 enemies, typically by standing behind allies.

[Sgt. Steiner]

I stood behind an ally and he took damage from my archer, too. I guess you mean not directly in line of fire but on a diagonal.

[Aleonymous]

Originally posted by Sgt. Steiner:

I stood behind an ally and he took damage from my archer, too. I guess you mean not directly in line of fire but on a diagonal.

If you used Alette's *special* attack (called "Thead the Needle") then, yes, your ally will also take damage. But, if you use any archer's *regular* attack (for Strength or Armor damage), then only the enemy is hit and your allies are same from friendly-fire.

[Fire and Glory]

Also, please note that Rook's special can be incredibly useful in taking out the heavy hitters, send up some guys to break armor, then send in Rook to make everyone take out the enemy's Strength.

[VG Purist]

Strategy tactics timing cunning and skill

[Ishraqiyun]

I agree - the game is too much 'on rails' to be considered as a real strategy game. It's like they decided that grinding would be like cheating...

[easytarget]

Or that grinding is about as much fun in game design as it sounds.

[Ishraqiyun]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Or that grinding is about as much fun in game design as it sounds.

Better grinding than endlessly trying unwinnable missions.