How the hell do I defend against norsca as empire

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

I was doing so well and had solid armies all over but those norsca bastards surged southward and are either ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ razing or conquering/,sacking my settlements and on top of that everyone else is retaking my lost settlements and I'm freaking out as vahemlings are destroying my main province and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ marienburg is taking the opportunity and yet norsca wont ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ attack them

Its frustrating as I was doing so well and now everything is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ falling apart around me and I think I'm just flat out ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cause my armies are torn to shreds by the smallest of norsca armies and when I try to chase down worn down ones they just use the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ full march to run away making it pointless to try and actually finish them off if they run

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

And I dont know what to do about marien burg as I'm close allies with them

[spookySkylark]

Missiles.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by conor.r.foley:

I was doing so well and had solid armies all over but those norsca bastards surged southward and are either ♥♥♥♥ing razing or conquering/,sacking my settlements and on top of that everyone else is retaking my lost settlements and I'm freaking out as vahemlings are destroying my main province and ♥♥♥♥ing marienburg is taking the opportunity and yet norsca wont ♥♥♥♥ing attack them

Its frustrating as I was doing so well and now everything is ♥♥♥♥ing falling apart around me and I think I'm just flat out ♥♥♥♥ed cause my armies are torn to shreds by the smallest of norsca armies and when I try to chase down worn down ones they just use the ♥♥♥♥ing full march to run away making it pointless to try and actually finish them off if they run

Force to get witch hunters, slow down their armies, build walls, set ambush in wood ( try to get captains with poison, they give 10% more to ambush. Get the hunter follower+ 10 % more. )

[Dreagon]

Build garrisons everywhere. They usually are sufficient to beat a low tier stack of norscans.

[Ben Argo]

Yeah, ambush outside a weak settlement or use a single lord as bait. One AR ambush usually wipes an entire enemy stack with minimal losses.

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

What should I do about marien and my elihart settlement? Cause I'm close ties with then

[Ben Argo]

I could do a co-op tonight and give you pointers but it'll be several hours til my kid goes to bed. I'm on NZ time.

[Ben Argo]

Add me

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

Alright cool ^-^

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

Also for some reason my saves only autosave for the latest turn and a quick save and not stack the turns like it did before and it's not helping me feel any better cause now I cant go back and try and fix what I did wrong and try and prevent everything from going to ♥♥♥♥

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

And I have no idea if it's a bug or a change they did

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

Originally posted by Ben Argo:

I could do a co-op tonight and give you pointers but it'll be several hours til my kid goes to bed. I'm on NZ time.

I appreciate the offer a ton

[cb4n28]

For army composition the standard recommendation would be Halberds and Spears supporting Riflemen and possibly something like Outriders. Norsca's main advantages are relatively quick, high damage infantry, speedy missile cavalry, armor and monsters. Rifelmen should be able to significantly damange any infantry on approach so that your Halberds can clean them up. Norsca's missile cavalry will lose against Riflemen in a straight fight generally speaking and Outriders can hold their own against them. The armor piercing missles of both Rifelmen and Outriders can deal with the odd better armored Norscan infantry. So really the main challenge would be the monsters, Trolls, Skinwolves, Mammoths and so on can be a big challenge for Empire ranged as they can soak damage and are fairly quick at running down skirmishers. So you need your Halberds and Spears to deal with them.

If you have the latest DLC, Huntsmen and Hunter Generals can go a long way to helping with the monsters. They are both anti-large ranged and combined with Halberds can just melt enemy monsters

[funkmonster7]

When you get Riflemen, make sure you set up a gun formation (like checker board setup) because gun units shoot in straight lines - or at least their arcs of fire is much straighter than bow units.

But against Mammoths, you can have Riflemen in a line behind your front line and they'll hit Mammoths just fine because they'll just shoot over your front line's heads. You also have artillery, such as Great Cannons, which are good for gunning down monsters.

Don't set up your ranged units immediately behind your front line, they can shoot over heads if you position them in the right places.

If you have mages, make sure you use those spells. I think one of the lores of magic (High magic, is it?) gives you net. Use that on things that run quickly but aren't that easy to hit, like Skin Wolves. They usually don't have armor so if you net them and focus fire with Crossbowmen, they'll melt.

Beware of Skin Wolves, they are officially AL units themselves but they will tear through unarmored infantry like paper.

I'm more afraid of Skin Wolves than Trolls but if you're fighting the Troll LL then you'll be getting trolled by - well - a lot of Trolls. Trolls are nothing special, they basically just run into you, do some damage, back away due to low leadership, regen, and back to charging at you again. Just an annoyance. Keep ranged fire on them and they'll run off to the edge of the map.

Make sure you use your shock cavs well. Once your front lines engage, you must use hammer/anvil to beat Norsca down as they will try to do the same to you. The good news is they have not much of a spear unit to protect their flanks. The bad news is they have interrupting units like warhounds.

I once sent a single warhound unit to directly charge into an enemy Demi w/ Halberd unit, I didn't watch that duel because I was fully expecting the warhounds to die but it would've been worth it. Instead, Demis got rekted, routed and chased down and mauled completely. They only killed less than 10 of my warhounds. I was Vampire Count though... Anyway, Norscan Ice Wolves are the most dangerous warhound units, aside from Beastmen poison ones.

And for ambush: if you select your army, hold your right click on the campaign map (or pointing works as well, I can't remember), it will show you the ambush chance on that particular "tile", if you finish your turn on that tile in ambush stance. Many people don't know this, including me long ago. So, you can find an open road and set up ambush with 45% chance to succeed; or set up ambush in a forest just off the main road for 80% or 90% chance to succeed, but your red ring will cover parts of the road so that if enemy walks through that road, they get ambushed anyway. Basically, they don't need to walk directly into you.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

When you get Riflemen, make sure you set up a gun formation (like checker board setup) because gun units shoot in straight lines - or at least their arcs of fire is much straighter than bow units.

But against Mammoths, you can have Riflemen in a line behind your front line and they'll hit Mammoths just fine because they'll just shoot over your front line's heads. You also have artillery, such as Great Cannons, which are good for gunning down monsters.

Don't set up your ranged units immediately behind your front line, they can shoot over heads if you position them in the right places.

If you have mages, make sure you use those spells. I think one of the lores of magic (High magic, is it?) gives you net. Use that on things that run quickly but aren't that easy to hit, like Skin Wolves. They usually don't have armor so if you net them and focus fire with Crossbowmen, they'll melt.

Beware of Skin Wolves, they are officially AL units themselves but they will tear through unarmored infantry like paper.

I'm more afraid of Skin Wolves than Trolls but if you're fighting the Troll LL then you'll be getting trolled by - well - a lot of Trolls. Trolls are nothing special, they basically just run into you, do some damage, back away due to low leadership, regen, and back to charging at you again. Just an annoyance. Keep ranged fire on them and they'll run off to the edge of the map.

Make sure you use your shock cavs well. Once your front lines engage, you must use hammer/anvil to beat Norsca down as they will try to do the same to you. The good news is they have not much of a spear unit to protect their flanks. The bad news is they have interrupting units like warhounds.

I once sent a single warhound unit to directly charge into an enemy Demi w/ Halberd unit, I didn't watch that duel because I was fully expecting the warhounds to die but it would've been worth it. Instead, Demis got rekted, routed and chased down and mauled completely. They only killed less than 10 of my warhounds. I was Vampire Count though... Anyway, Norscan Ice Wolves are the most dangerous warhound units, aside from Beastmen poison ones.

And for ambush: if you select your army, hold your right click on the campaign map (or pointing works as well, I can't remember), it will show you the ambush chance on that particular "tile", if you finish your turn on that tile in ambush stance. Many people don't know this, including me. So, you can find an open road and set up ambush with 45% chance to succeed; or set up ambush in a forest just off the main for 80% or 90% chance to succeed, but your red ring will cover parts of the road so that if enemy walks through that road, they get ambushed anyway. Basically, they don't need to walk directly into you.

Also keep your general and heroes away from skin wolves, they are very good at killing those too. Even a low lv LL can not stand aiganst them.