How to defeat Wood Elves as Bretonia?

[stcrispin]

I’m playing Carcassonne Bretonians and have repeatedly paid off the Wood Elves to not attack me. However they keep declaring war over and over. I’ve avoided fighting them as the Vampire Lords to the north have been my biggest problem.

Most recently they had enough of my peaceful ways and took my Capital. Their main army left to conquer Estellia so I came at them with a 2 stacks. The final battle was 1392 of my guys vs 501 of theirs (they fielded Hagbane Tip Glade Guards a deep wood scout and 2 Dyads)

I figured I would hit their 4 archers with my 5 Mounted Yeomen. (Mistake... they tore me to ribbons even though I did some good charge damage on their scout archers and one glade guard) and then I’d use 7 units of Fire Arrows on the 2 Dryad units (thinking they look like trees and trees burn...). But again that assumption was wrong as the dryads are aperantly immune to both fire (barely did any damage to them at all) and nature magic damage (my tree explosion spell didn’t phase them)

End result: I was soundly defeated and lost 656 men and killed only 63 of theirs.

My archers range is much shorter than glade guards, my Men at Arms (Shield) Spearmen at arms (Shield) and Polearm guys couldn’t stand up to the charge of the Dryads to protect the archers.

Any tips on army composition to defeat them? I would have thought at 3 vs 1 odds that it would have been a simple fight but even with planning for the oppositions forces it was a total loss.

Also: I’m playing an difficulty “Easy” so I don’t know why I’m being soundly beaten repeatedly.

I’ve played TW games since Shogun TW came out way back when and own every version except the 2 new ones (China and whatever that other one is). So I’m also not new to the games.

Suggestions?

[stcrispin]

Easy mode just gets stupider and stupider.

Most recent 2 battles:
Wood Elves field 109 (somehow they have an army one army that has 5 hero’s embedded. How do you get 5 Heros?) they face my army of Greatswords, Archers, and some Men At Arms (Shield) which has 1300 men.

Result Elves lose 90 I lose 1100+ To ass insult to injury, even though they only have 19 men (9 are Lords or Heroes) left and I have around 200, it’s still called a Decisive Defeat. My level 19 lord is eliminated.

Next they attack my support army that had been too far away to participate in the first battle.

Elves: 1 level 13 Lord, 9 hawk riders
Me: 1 level 14 Lord, 360 archers.

Result: Elves lose 3 hawk riders, I lose my lord (to hawk riders since his lord didn’t even join the fight) and 323 archers

Easy is not easy...

[Wyvern]

Not trying to be harsh here, but sounds like you're doing something very very wrong.
1)As a general rule, you don't want to war wood elves. If they declare war, ignore them unless they sally out, dont go fight them until youre well levelled, since fighting them is both tedious as well as netting you very little gain.

2)If you do want to fight them without cheesing(like wasting their ammo by running a lord back and forth dodging shots), bring a lot of heavy cavalry, shielded infantry and artillery. Dont waste your time with unshielded troops. Hell, you can even go all cav if youre late game as brettonia and have decent micro. Focus out their cavalry/fast monsters if they try to block you, while pushing onward with hte rest of your cav to crush the archers, since AI is terrible at defending them. Ignore their infantry and slow monsters until the end. If you need to counter their mounted archers, you can use a handful of your own archers/arty, or just ignore them until the end. Do not go in with garbage cav like mounted yeomen, since they have neither the leadership nor combat stats to succeed. Keep in mind that while not expert melee troops, wood elf skirmishers are much better in melee than many of their equivalents in other factions.

3)Wood Elf defensive structures can net them insane buffs on home turf, and AI happens to be really good at managing parthian shot skirmish units, which is what makes them so frustrating to fight, thats why, unless youre a experienced player, you should avoid fighting them like the plague.

4)On the issue of hero spam, you just need a lot of hero buildings. It's not particularly difficult. As brets you can spam your cav and damsel building to get a lot of heroes if that's your style.

5)On the issue of trees vs firearrows. Trees are weak to fire, but dryads have 20% physical resist and 60 armor to offset that(might not be that much armor in WH1, it's been a while since i played, but you also get techsthat buff armor so that could also impact it). Treemen and treekin have even more armor, which negates the low AP fire arrows rather nicely.

[stcrispin]

Thanks for the input. It’s appreciated. As an experienced TW player I don’t think I’m doing things “wrong” per se, I’m just bewildered how hard “easy” is.

I didn’t declare war or attack the elves, in fact I paid them repeatedly to re-establish peace each time they declared war on me and crossed into my land to obliterate whatever army was close enough.

However around turn 85 they came at me in force with 6 full 20 stacks and took my capital. I felt obligated to take it back despite the “advisor” telling me to do so “at all costs”. I had actually been in the process of trying to cleanse my northern border of Mousilan Vampire Lords (not sure of spelling) until the WE rushed me. Lost 5 settlements and my Capital rapidly and despite reducing their forces to 6 armies with nothing but lords and heroes and 9 (well 6 now) hawk riders in them I still can’t retake any of my settlements. The keep coming out after my armies and crushing them despite incredible odds against them. (Like 9 vs 900... in which I lost 800 and the elves lost 3, hence why they have 6 hawk riders now instead of 9! Lol)

So it’s turn 107 now. I’m wondering, considering the devastation all over the map, what is “winning”? I’m starting to think just surviving is a big win.