The best mid-late game Army, formation, and tactic

[WildArmsFx]

I can only speak for the factions I have played being Kong Rong and Cao Cao. But this should work for the majority of coalition members. I play hardest setting and the AI crumbles to this. Just make sure you can contradict night battle if you are using the double army method as each army lack vital components to fight on their own. I usually only need the single Army method. I saved multiple battle of this being used if someone wants to direct me on how to share saved battles.

The only unit you need to unlock for this build is Azure Dragons and maybe horse archers much much later on.

This works best when the enemy is attacking/charging at you. Something you can force with catapults.

If I have two armies to a task group it will be my main force and then re-enforcing. The main difference being re-enforcment army will not have catapults and consist of faster units so I can have my two armies fight as one in battle. But usually the Single Army compisition is fine until fighting emperors.

Single Army
6 Azure Dragons w/ green CO
3 Catapults, 3 medium crossbow w/ blue CO
2 shock cav, 4 antimissle w/ red or yellow CO

Double Army
1st -
6 Azure Dragons w/ green CO
4 Azure D and 2 medium crossbow w/ blue CO (ill explain why blue later, mostly fire arrows)
4 catapults and 2 medium crossbow w/ blue CO
2nd-
6 Shock Cav w/ red CO
6 anti missle w/ yellow CO
6 horse archers (optional if not unlocked) w/ blue CO



Formation for an open field battle-

AZ dragons in Boomerrang/horse shoe formation with an open back. My front line will be 2x the length of my flank. With the flanks curving 60 degress not 90 allowing the AZ dragons to shoot semi-foward with a wide open back for you own shock cav to manuver. Not as tight as horse shoe with 90* turns but not as wide as a bommerrang. Set them to fire at will in mixed missile formation. They will reflect charge damage on cav and can hold up infantry long enough to be charged from behind by your shock cav.

Missiles and catapults are in the middle in two lines. Crossbows line in front of catapult line. Make sure crossbows are a good distance from your front line as they dont like to shoot as close to enemies as bows do.

Shock cav will stay close to formation engaging enemy CO's (they melt CO's), gaps in the AZ dragons line, the open back of the horse shoe, and most beautifully with great effect charge into the backs of enemies engaged with your front AZ dragon line. Any enemy shock cav will be melted by missiles from AZ dragons and crossbow long before they get to your AZ line, which reflect charge damage anyways. The only cav you need to worry about is anti-missle which your shock cav can kill real quick is they come for your open back.

Anti-missile Cav will MOST IMPORTANT distract the charging enemy to give your catapults as much time as possible to shoot. The entire time an enemy Army is charging it should be slowed and harrased by you anti-missile cav. These are the units you want to be shot with arrows because to shoot the enemy archer must stop moving allowing your catapults to deal far more damage to them then they can do your well armored anti-missle cav. Unless you have an easy kill on open archers in the field dont charge them, just harass and delay. Your catapults will do enough anti-missle damage.

Horse Archers allow you cav to act more indipendent as anti-cav's direct counter is missile. So on the offensive you can elmiinate the spear men protecting the enemies missiles. Or they can just be in the middle of the horse shoe addiing to your missile barage. These are optional units if you dont have them unlocked and are not needed to the over all strat.


Siege

Everything besides cav shoots missiles in your army, so siege becomes easy even without waiting turns for walls to deteriote. Catapults will open up gaps in walls. Sometime I like a purple CO for my AZ dragons in sieges because they unlock fire arrow bonus while not being as weak as a blue CO but purple is still weaker then green.

Basically its a game of reducing the enemies missile range to give your army missile superiority. A suicide unit with fire arrows will take down enemy catapults and towers, usually an AZ dragon. After that your catapults can target enemy crossbow. Once crossbows are dead your crossbows can move and target bow archers. Once bow archers are dead your AZ dragons can move in to target enemy shock cav, anti-cav units and other lightly armored units. While the remaining ammo from you catapults and crossbows are used for armored units and opening up their walls for breach. Once all ammo is spent just move in with your dragons in melee formation while letting you cav support, kill CO's, and mop up.

Try to avoid engaging enemies that are on a wall with missles as they can a large protection bonus. Its best to collapse the wall with catapults. The game does have a glitch where a enemy unit will lose archers if the wall collapse with them ontop but not show it or remove moral. So it will show the enemy unit as being full health/morale with only 20 out of 120 units left after a wall collapse. They are dying and will be gone from the unit but the game just doesnt know how to calculate it.





SIDE NOTE-

Azure Dragons are OP and need a nurf. Peasentry is the best way to build an eco and no matter what you must unlock food tech to grow your settlements. Even with the whole chain unlocked and every settlement at max food production w/ land development and government support building chains I struggled to feed all my Imperial Cities. Peasents are the best eco because again food is so needed and they are the same buildings. Plus public order and corruption gets so out of control with population growth/expansion you will need at least 3 building just for that. Two for public order and one for administration. With two more need for food on any settlment with a farm you really only have one open building spot. That building spot is usually a tax collector until population grows to a point where I can no longer keep order and then it turns into a school for charecter XP.

Basically Azure dragons should be on a more obscure tech tree with the Food Tech tree not having such a strong unit or even a bonus unit. For most play styles green is always the first unlock followed by mixed admin and military to unlock the building for anti-corruption. All the purple is not usefull early-mid game and blue the benefits from blue you can get naturally via buildings, prestige, and expansion (like extra trade agreements etc). Even if you wanted to build an early or mid game commerce/industry eco, you would still be better off unlocking green first so you can reduce the ammount of argiculture buildings and replace them with industrial buildings. Theres no point to unlocking +15% industry when you need to have land development buildings in every settlment due to low food or cities unable to unlock or building spots due to lack in food. Its much better not to have that bonus and to have bigger cities with specialized building for industry. Once you get to the point where you need to unlocks to build better buildings, you should already of had green and admin building unlocked.

They also need a direct counter the enemy can actual use, the enemy AI has yet to figure out how to defeat this strategy even with over-whelming numbers. In the mixed missle formation AZ dragons should get -50% to ranged damage making arrows more effective. Or then enemy should really field more catapults. Or a cav unit that can charge without damage being reflected aka elephants

[Stargater]

This is quite a good guide.
Make sure to add it in the guides section.
It will be even more amazing with Images for each relevant section.

On on the Azure dragon, I will always feel safe and comfortable when they are in my frontlines.
The enemy cannot do much against them and they hold the line quite well.
Is it true that there isn't anything to counter them effectively :)?

Try to avoid engaging enemies that are on a wall with missles as they can a large protection bonus

Did not know this O_O

[WildArmsFx]

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

The hardest setting is not that hard. Turn on battle reaslism, it is much harder than legendary. I only say this because almost every person that plays on legendary feels they need to say it every post they make like a veegan does every time they eat a meal. No offense intended OP.

End game army comp that i use regardless of faction, is good for any army you fight and rarely needs any melee.

3 Trebuchet

5-6 Onyx dragons

4 defenders of heaven or azure dragon

4-6 cavalry with good charge bonus for cycle charging.

For all the battles i fight, i could probably drop all the melee for something else, but better safe than sorry. Mostly with the 3 treb and 6 onyx dragons though, everything will break before it makes it to your melee line.

When you siege, just creep in slow at max range and you probably will lose no troops whatsoever if you are patient.

What is battle realism? Isnt that on by default and prevents pause?


Onyx Bows are redudent in your army, not a good unit, and forces useless tech to unlock. Fire is the only reason to have bowmen mid-late game and Azure dragons already fufill that role.

Crossbow Range - 250 range good vs armor
Onyx Bow- 200 range bad vs armor
Azure Dragons - 200 range bad vs armor

Onyx dragons are not really worth it, especially with kong rong. There is 0 reason to use bows over crossbows with azure dragons and catapults. Its redunent. The tech tree to unlock them isnt that beneficial or vital like green and corruption. They lack range and armor to protect against range, which means catapults would have to waste ammo vs crossbows. I would suggest crossbow archers, as their chain coincides with admin which is vital to get so its only 1 point.

With a good blue commander and levels, something common late game, crossbows outplay even the best bowmen. They have more then enough ammo and can direct counter enemy ranged units with added range. Bowmen including Onyx dragons also lack armor piercing damage, which become the main stay of AI armies mid-game on harder difficulties. They can shoot faster with far less effect. The armies on lengendary laugh off light archers after turn 75. Even turn 20 on a princess campaign AI armies are full armored.

Why do you have range in a non-blue retinue? Specializing armies is pretty necasarry and should be done early on. Having 2 blues in one army is not-worth the pay off. Ammo, rate of fire, damage, etc are all effected by a blue CO.

Why would you swap out Azure Dragons for onyx dragons when you already have retinue of range? You give up melee unit for slightly more bow ammo, thats it. If I was forced to not use crossbows, I would ditch the onyx dragons for more Azure Dragons and a green/red CO.

Onyx Dragons are really really late game too, far to late to have any effect on Lengedary. Tech tree for most factions is green then admin/military for corruption. I would have to give up alot vital tech and Azure dragons to unlock before I unite China. Unless your spending 200-300 turns beating the campaign, I cant every see unlocking them.

If you want a good light ranged unit, play Kong Rong. He gets the crossbow version

[Imnuktam]

Yeah battle realism stops pause which is one part of the difficulty, it also restricts camera view to be what your force can see. It is off by default.

This build i mention has a different playstyle than what you are describing but with it you can take any settlement and any force you encounter without ANY losses. As long as you are patient and let them come to you, or creep up at your max range slowly, your melee units will never even see melee outside of finishing off the remains inside really well garisoned keeps defended by a stack.

You have a lot of misconceptions about Onyx units. Onyx are not 200 range they are 250 range, and their ammo advantage is huge to that of other ranged units, especially Xbows. The fury and thunder units kong rong can get are pretty comparable, but if you want fire you need onyx. As a trade based economy he should be going down that tree anyways, so it definitely isnt a worthless branch. Though I dont use them in melee, they also have that huge advantage over Xbows in case they do get stuck in one.

The reason i stick them in a non blue commanders unit is just for numbers, 3 isnt enough range units with 250 range, need at least 5. 3 trebs is necessary on some keeps to make sure you can take down all siege defenses without any losses and still have ammo for AI's 250 range units. Specializing helps, but isnt at all necessary. In this build you just need to make sure you have an arrow for every enemy, which is why the Onyx and their large ammo supply work so well.

With the way ai behaves in this TW title and the effectiveness of range, it really doesnt matter what you add to a unit that has 3 trebs, 6 onyx dragons and a couple Defenders of Earth to be honest. That build will always force the enemy to march on you, and you will wipe everything before it ever reaches your line,. My 3 or 4 melee units just stand there and do nothing 9 out of 10 fights. Even my generals dont need to do much other than counter the enemies Gens.

As good as azure may be in your build, they would just collect dust aside from firing their bow a couple times if you stick them behind 3 trebs, 6 onyx and 2 DOE. Combine with night battles and it really doesnt matter what the ai does, you will be able to endlessly wipe their single stacks since you will have zero losses at the end of the fight. So long as you break their Xbows before they get in range of you (and ai usually doesnt have too many) you will finish ever fight with every soldier you started it with.

I would call Onyx mid game, with late game upkeep. I have unlocked and added them to an army by turn 40, though their upkeep cost made them few and far between that early.

[WildArmsFx]

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Yeah battle realism stops pause which is one part of the difficulty, it also restricts camera view to be what your force can see. It is off by default.

This build i mention has a different playstyle than what you are describing but with it you can take any settlement and any force you encounter without ANY losses. As long as you are patient and let them come to you, or creep up at your max range slowly, your melee units will never even see melee outside of finishing off the remains inside really well garisoned keeps defended by a stack.

You have a lot of misconceptions about Onyx units. Onyx are not 200 range they are 250 range, and their ammo advantage is huge to that of other ranged units, especially Xbows. The fury and thunder units kong rong can get are pretty comparable, but if you want fire you need onyx. As a trade based economy he should be going down that tree anyways, so it definitely isnt a worthless branch. Though I dont use them in melee, they also have that huge advantage over Xbows in case they do get stuck in one.

The reason i stick them in a non blue commanders unit is just for numbers, 3 isnt enough range units with 250 range, need at least 5. 3 trebs is necessary on some keeps to make sure you can take down all siege defenses without any losses and still have ammo for AI's 250 range units. Specializing helps, but isnt at all necessary. In this build you just need to make sure you have an arrow for every enemy, which is why the Onyx and their large ammo supply work so well.

With the way ai behaves in this TW title and the effectiveness of range, it really doesnt matter what you add to a unit that has 3 trebs, 6 onyx dragons and a couple Defenders of Earth to be honest. That build will always force the enemy to march on you, and you will wipe everything before it ever reaches your line,. My 3 or 4 melee units just stand there and do nothing 9 out of 10 fights. Even my generals dont need to do much other than counter the enemies Gens.

As good as azure may be in your build, they would just collect dust aside from firing their bow a couple times if you stick them behind 3 trebs, 6 onyx and 2 DOE. Combine with night battles and it really doesnt matter what the ai does, you will be able to endlessly wipe their single stacks since you will have zero losses at the end of the fight. So long as you break their Xbows before they get in range of you (and ai usually doesnt have too many) you will finish ever fight with every soldier you started it with.

I would call Onyx mid game, with late game upkeep. I have unlocked and added them to an army by turn 40, though their upkeep cost made them few and far between that early.

I think you should play the game on legendary, it would put a lot of things that I said into perspective. That's what this strategy was made for.

I think you would enjoy playing the game on legendary because it will force you to learn mechanics you yet to discover in the game. Like how to force peace between two factions, the multiple ways on how to absorb another faction via diplomacy or War, how to have a full army garrison in a city permanently, or the depth of the spying system.

Fire arrows are for destroying enemy structures and lighting brush a blaze. Which makes no sense to have a unit with low armor and high cost be a suicide unit. In mid to late game you should almost never have them turned on, Onyx dragons are already weak verse armor no need to make them weaker.

Ammo is not what you think it is. Ammo When comparing should be how many units can my unit kill before it runs out. So even though crossbow men have less missiles they do more damage meaning more kills before they run out. You can shoot a thousand 9mm rounds at a tank, still won't do as much damage as one armor piercing round. Which is why crossbow men have virtually the same ammo as bowman late game. Especially considering during that's a vast majority of battles will be over with archers still having ammo.

Onyx dragons weren't just a redundant in your army because of range. Which at full range it's still going to be a problem on moving targets due to the slow trajectory of the arrow, crossbows have less travel time. The main thing your army is lacking is armor piercing damage via range. The majority of late game units will laugh off arrows from light archers even Onyx dragons.

On an easier difficulty there are definitely a large variety of tactics you can use to beat the game. But on legendary doing a beeline for Onyx dragons is not going to work out.

Onyx Dragons at turn 40, ok bud. You started this convo hating on people for bringing up the fact they play on legendary, and then feel the need to make up lies about your own gameplay. Insecurity is a horrible stench.

This Thread is for helping other people and discussing battle strategies, you lying about your gameplay to make a poor strategy seem more feasible does none of that. Even if it was possible, I guarantee you admitting to everyone you rush Silk Road as your only Tech is not accomplishing what you think it is.

[Imnuktam]

Originally posted by WildArmsFx:

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Yeah battle realism stops pause which is one part of the difficulty, it also restricts camera view to be what your force can see. It is off by default.

This build i mention has a different playstyle than what you are describing but with it you can take any settlement and any force you encounter without ANY losses. As long as you are patient and let them come to you, or creep up at your max range slowly, your melee units will never even see melee outside of finishing off the remains inside really well garisoned keeps defended by a stack.

You have a lot of misconceptions about Onyx units. Onyx are not 200 range they are 250 range, and their ammo advantage is huge to that of other ranged units, especially Xbows. The fury and thunder units kong rong can get are pretty comparable, but if you want fire you need onyx. As a trade based economy he should be going down that tree anyways, so it definitely isnt a worthless branch. Though I dont use them in melee, they also have that huge advantage over Xbows in case they do get stuck in one.

The reason i stick them in a non blue commanders unit is just for numbers, 3 isnt enough range units with 250 range, need at least 5. 3 trebs is necessary on some keeps to make sure you can take down all siege defenses without any losses and still have ammo for AI's 250 range units. Specializing helps, but isnt at all necessary. In this build you just need to make sure you have an arrow for every enemy, which is why the Onyx and their large ammo supply work so well.

With the way ai behaves in this TW title and the effectiveness of range, it really doesnt matter what you add to a unit that has 3 trebs, 6 onyx dragons and a couple Defenders of Earth to be honest. That build will always force the enemy to march on you, and you will wipe everything before it ever reaches your line,. My 3 or 4 melee units just stand there and do nothing 9 out of 10 fights. Even my generals dont need to do much other than counter the enemies Gens.

As good as azure may be in your build, they would just collect dust aside from firing their bow a couple times if you stick them behind 3 trebs, 6 onyx and 2 DOE. Combine with night battles and it really doesnt matter what the ai does, you will be able to endlessly wipe their single stacks since you will have zero losses at the end of the fight. So long as you break their Xbows before they get in range of you (and ai usually doesnt have too many) you will finish ever fight with every soldier you started it with.

I would call Onyx mid game, with late game upkeep. I have unlocked and added them to an army by turn 40, though their upkeep cost made them few and far between that early.

I think you should play the game on legendary, it would put a lot of things that I said into perspective. That's what this strategy was made for.

I think you would enjoy playing the game on legendary because it will force you to learn mechanics you yet to discover in the game. Like how to force peace between two factions, the multiple ways on how to absorb another faction via diplomacy or War, or the depth of the spying system.

On an easier difficulty there are definitely a large variety of tactics you can use to beat the game. But on legendary doing a beeline for Onyx dragons is not going to work out.

Onyx Dragons at turn 40, ok bud. You started this convo hating on people for bringing up the fact they play on legendary, and then feel the need to make up lies about your own gameplay. Insecurity is a horrible stench.

This Thread is for helping other people and discussing battle strategies, you lying about your gameplay to make a poor strategy seem more feasible does none of that. Even if it was possible, I guarantee you admitting to everyone you rush Silk Road as your only Tech is not accomplishing what you think it is.

I have the game saved on that playthrough all the way back to turn 40 or so with liu bei on either very hard or legendary so I will go check. You assume a lot and seem to think only legendary offers diplomacy, or forcing peace before telling me the army I roll regardless of difficulty wont work lol. A force you obviously havent had much experience with if you think Onyx range is only 200, or that they are replaceable with Xbow. Legendary doesnt make the ai more strategicially competent going from very hard, (or arguably even hard) to legendary. It just gives it a lot of numerical advantages.

Instead of calling people liars and making insecure comments about insecurity, just get in the game and do the math. Maybe try the army i suggested and realize you didnt crack the code you just enjoy using Azures, much like i enjoy fire spam and using Onyx archers.

Be open minded, try a custom battle and use your force and keep track of your losses then turn around and use one that is

1 Strat and 1 other general suited for fire arrow and ranged, last will usually have cav
3 Trebuchet
5-7 Onyx Dragon
2 Defenders of Earth (not as necessary or cool post nerf, just fun to mop up with. Build was really OP feeling pre Treb / DOE balancing)
4+ cav

I usually have 1 strategist, preferrably one with brilliant, though sieges are the only time ammo might be needed with Onyx's huge quivers. The other two generals I try to make sure serve opposing purposes. One anti-general, another anti Infantry.

if you are good at manipulating the ai's deployment and movement using your own cavalry then get them to blob up with it early to eat the fire spam before flanking them and you can literally lose next to nothing in most battles.

[Imnuktam]

Just logged in to check. I unlocked them on that playthrough turn 39 on very hard, was my 3rd playthrough. Only other thing I researched up to that point was the first food tech, resettlement. So if you rushed just Onyx you could get them by turn 34. Wouldnt reccomend since i could only afford the 6 in my main army for a while but its easily possible.

Its not all about damage, the combined fire spam of Trebuchet, Doe and Onyx breaks them so fast your melee experience only involves chasing down the runners with cavalry.

As long as you fight night battles to stop reinforce (upside of another -15 to their morale) and dont get sloppy, you will never need to have a second army to fight with or waste much time waiting for troops to replenish, but it does get pretty ZZzzz after a while

[Stargater]

Originally posted by WildArmsFx:

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Yeah battle realism stops pause which is one part of the difficulty, it also restricts camera view to be what your force can see. It is off by default.

This build i mention has a different playstyle than what you are describing but with it you can take any settlement and any force you encounter without ANY losses. As long as you are patient and let them come to you, or creep up at your max range slowly, your melee units will never even see melee outside of finishing off the remains inside really well garisoned keeps defended by a stack.

You have a lot of misconceptions about Onyx units. Onyx are not 200 range they are 250 range, and their ammo advantage is huge to that of other ranged units, especially Xbows. The fury and thunder units kong rong can get are pretty comparable, but if you want fire you need onyx. As a trade based economy he should be going down that tree anyways, so it definitely isnt a worthless branch. Though I dont use them in melee, they also have that huge advantage over Xbows in case they do get stuck in one.

The reason i stick them in a non blue commanders unit is just for numbers, 3 isnt enough range units with 250 range, need at least 5. 3 trebs is necessary on some keeps to make sure you can take down all siege defenses without any losses and still have ammo for AI's 250 range units. Specializing helps, but isnt at all necessary. In this build you just need to make sure you have an arrow for every enemy, which is why the Onyx and their large ammo supply work so well.

With the way ai behaves in this TW title and the effectiveness of range, it really doesnt matter what you add to a unit that has 3 trebs, 6 onyx dragons and a couple Defenders of Earth to be honest. That build will always force the enemy to march on you, and you will wipe everything before it ever reaches your line,. My 3 or 4 melee units just stand there and do nothing 9 out of 10 fights. Even my generals dont need to do much other than counter the enemies Gens.

As good as azure may be in your build, they would just collect dust aside from firing their bow a couple times if you stick them behind 3 trebs, 6 onyx and 2 DOE. Combine with night battles and it really doesnt matter what the ai does, you will be able to endlessly wipe their single stacks since you will have zero losses at the end of the fight. So long as you break their Xbows before they get in range of you (and ai usually doesnt have too many) you will finish ever fight with every soldier you started it with.

I would call Onyx mid game, with late game upkeep. I have unlocked and added them to an army by turn 40, though their upkeep cost made them few and far between that early.

I think you should play the game on legendary, it would put a lot of things that I said into perspective. That's what this strategy was made for.

I think you would enjoy playing the game on legendary because it will force you to learn mechanics you yet to discover in the game. Like how to force peace between two factions, the multiple ways on how to absorb another faction via diplomacy or War, how to have a full army garrison in a city permanently, or the depth of the spying system.

Fire arrows are for destroying enemy structures and lighting brush a blaze. Which makes no sense to have a unit with low armor and high cost be a suicide unit. In mid to late game you should almost never have them turned on, Onyx dragons are already weak verse armor no need to make them weaker.

Ammo is not what you think it is. Ammo When comparing should be how many units can my unit kill before it runs out. So even though crossbow men have less missiles they do more damage meaning more kills before they run out. You can shoot a thousand 9mm rounds at a tank, still won't do as much damage as one armor piercing round. Which is why crossbow men have virtually the same ammo as bowman late game. Especially considering during that's a vast majority of battles will be over with archers still having ammo.

Onyx dragons weren't just a redundant in your army because of range. Which at full range it's still going to be a problem on moving targets due to the slow trajectory of the arrow, crossbows have less travel time. The main thing your army is lacking is armor piercing damage via range. The majority of late game units will laugh off arrows from light archers even Onyx dragons.

On an easier difficulty there are definitely a large variety of tactics you can use to beat the game. But on legendary doing a beeline for Onyx dragons is not going to work out.

Onyx Dragons at turn 40, ok bud. You started this convo hating on people for bringing up the fact they play on legendary, and then feel the need to make up lies about your own gameplay. Insecurity is a horrible stench.

This Thread is for helping other people and discussing battle strategies, you lying about your gameplay to make a poor strategy seem more feasible does none of that. Even if it was possible, I guarantee you admitting to everyone you rush Silk Road as your only Tech is not accomplishing what you think it is.

This discussion is interesting and beneficial for me. There's no need to call each names man :).

Let's keep it about the game please so it won't derail the thread please.

[WildArmsFx]

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Just logged in to check. I unlocked them on that playthrough turn 39 on very hard, was my 3rd playthrough. Only other thing I researched up to that point was the first food tech, resettlement. So if you rushed just Onyx you could get them by turn 34. Wouldnt reccomend since i could only afford the 6 in my main army for a while but its easily possible.

Its not all about damage, the combined fire spam of Trebuchet, Doe and Onyx breaks them so fast your melee experience only involves chasing down the runners with cavalry.

As long as you fight night battles to stop reinforce (upside of another -15 to their morale) and dont get sloppy, you will never need to have a second army to fight with or waste much time waiting for troops to replenish, but it does get pretty ZZzzz after a while

What faction.

And this was Legendary, right? Because again that's not what this thread was geared towards. No strat is bad on campaign mode and should be based on entertainment. If you want to rush light missiles, have fun. But if you want to contribute towards this thread I suggest playing/beating the game in legendary first.

[Imnuktam]

Originally posted by WildArmsFx:

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Just logged in to check. I unlocked them on that playthrough turn 39 on very hard, was my 3rd playthrough. Only other thing I researched up to that point was the first food tech, resettlement. So if you rushed just Onyx you could get them by turn 34. Wouldnt reccomend since i could only afford the 6 in my main army for a while but its easily possible.

Its not all about damage, the combined fire spam of Trebuchet, Doe and Onyx breaks them so fast your melee experience only involves chasing down the runners with cavalry.

As long as you fight night battles to stop reinforce (upside of another -15 to their morale) and dont get sloppy, you will never need to have a second army to fight with or waste much time waiting for troops to replenish, but it does get pretty ZZzzz after a while

What faction.

Was Liu Bei.

Course once I got there I realised how expensive they are in relation to your economy that early. After I finally got the 5th or 6th for main army it was a while before i had ehough to start giving them to other generals.

Unless you use a mod for upkeep reduction or dont field a lot of forces its of limited use to rush them. That was done back when I was playing mod free vanilla so upkeep and unit price were a bit crippling as I remember back.

Since then I have tried some mods that made the game so much better. If you try one for upkeep try the 25% for ai and player, that makes a nice change for the better with the ai Imo.

Lets them have a few more forces out but not overkill.

[WildArmsFx]

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Originally posted by WildArmsFx:

What faction.

Was Liu Bei.

Course once I got there I realised how expensive they are in relation to your economy that early. After I finally got the 5th or 6th for main army it was a while before i had ehough to start giving them to other generals.

Unless you use a mod for upkeep reduction or dont field a lot of forces its of limited use to rush them. That was done back when I was playing mod free vanilla so upkeep and unit price were a bit crippling as I remember back.

Since then I have tried some mods that made the game so much better. If you try one for upkeep try the 25% for ai and player, that makes a nice change for the better with the ai Imo.

Lets them have a few more forces out but not overkill.

Yes again I wrote this thread for legendary. I have no doubt you can do that Strat successfully on the easier levels.

[Imnuktam]

Originally posted by WildArmsFx:

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Was Liu Bei.

Course once I got there I realised how expensive they are in relation to your economy that early. After I finally got the 5th or 6th for main army it was a while before i had ehough to start giving them to other generals.

Unless you use a mod for upkeep reduction or dont field a lot of forces its of limited use to rush them. That was done back when I was playing mod free vanilla so upkeep and unit price were a bit crippling as I remember back.

Since then I have tried some mods that made the game so much better. If you try one for upkeep try the 25% for ai and player, that makes a nice change for the better with the ai Imo.

Lets them have a few more forces out but not overkill.

Yes again I wrote this thread for legendary. I have no doubt you can do that Strat successfully on the easier levels.

You can do it on legendary too, was the same army i used both playthroughs I played on legendary before using mods to make game actually BE harder. I am guessing you guys are new, but going from very hard to legendary only gives the ai numeric advantage, that is all. It does not make it harder to fight in battles in or any smarter or any more strategic. Get a mod for AI if you actually want smarter ai, get a mod to lower their upkeep if you want them to have real army. Turn it up on legendary if you want to brag that you play it on legendary.

You have admittedly played only 2 factions, think Onyx archers are useless because they only have a 200 range (making me think probably 2-3 total playthroughs) and after making a thread called "The best mid-late game Army, formation, and tactics" you dismiss people with 500 hours in offering advice because you figured out how to put blue , yellow and green units in with a matching colored general.

Unsub.

[WildArmsFx]

Originally posted by Stargater:

Originally posted by WildArmsFx:

I think you should play the game on legendary, it would put a lot of things that I said into perspective. That's what this strategy was made for.

I think you would enjoy playing the game on legendary because it will force you to learn mechanics you yet to discover in the game. Like how to force peace between two factions, the multiple ways on how to absorb another faction via diplomacy or War, how to have a full army garrison in a city permanently, or the depth of the spying system.

Fire arrows are for destroying enemy structures and lighting brush a blaze. Which makes no sense to have a unit with low armor and high cost be a suicide unit. In mid to late game you should almost never have them turned on, Onyx dragons are already weak verse armor no need to make them weaker.

Ammo is not what you think it is. Ammo When comparing should be how many units can my unit kill before it runs out. So even though crossbow men have less missiles they do more damage meaning more kills before they run out. You can shoot a thousand 9mm rounds at a tank, still won't do as much damage as one armor piercing round. Which is why crossbow men have virtually the same ammo as bowman late game. Especially considering during that's a vast majority of battles will be over with archers still having ammo.

Onyx dragons weren't just a redundant in your army because of range. Which at full range it's still going to be a problem on moving targets due to the slow trajectory of the arrow, crossbows have less travel time. The main thing your army is lacking is armor piercing damage via range. The majority of late game units will laugh off arrows from light archers even Onyx dragons.

On an easier difficulty there are definitely a large variety of tactics you can use to beat the game. But on legendary doing a beeline for Onyx dragons is not going to work out.

Onyx Dragons at turn 40, ok bud. You started this convo hating on people for bringing up the fact they play on legendary, and then feel the need to make up lies about your own gameplay. Insecurity is a horrible stench.

This Thread is for helping other people and discussing battle strategies, you lying about your gameplay to make a poor strategy seem more feasible does none of that. Even if it was possible, I guarantee you admitting to everyone you rush Silk Road as your only Tech is not accomplishing what you think it is.

This discussion is interesting and beneficial for me. There's no need to call each names man :).

Let's keep it about the game please so it won't derail the thread please.

I didnt call him names, that is against Steam forum rules. I simply called him out on his lies, you cant get Onyx Archer turn 34 and that he didnt do it lengendary. Which he has admitted I was correct about. You also cant load old save on Legendary, something everyone who plays it knows, but he has yet to realize. I was ready to eat dirt if he was right, but when he admitted he could load back to previous his claims about legendary fell apart.

He started this convo insulting and spent his entire time not understanding thats strat on easy dont auto-convert to legendary. There is no reason to have a convo about strats on easy, the game does not require specific strats on that difficulty. I would challenge him to play his strat on lengendary as it would put what Im saying into perspective.

The idea of rushing Onyx Dragons is as good or better then rushing Azure Dragons is laughable. Even the devs agree with me with the rebalance in 8 princes, onyx dragons are tech 3 with Azure Dragons being tech 4. They are worlds apart. Actually when you google "Onyx Dragons" the threads that come up are how they are not worth the tech tree, not a good unit, and not nearly as worth it as Azure dragons. This isnt just coming from me, the green tree universally recognized as the best tree followed by corruption chain. The bonus from blue can be unlocked passively thru buildings and prestige and purple isnt usefull prior to corruption. Besides upgrades to build up garrison in mines and slave mobilisation, only 1 point each, purple is late-game. Corruption gets out of control real quick. Those bonus to eco dont stack on each other but act as a combined % boost and only apply to your base income. My eco usually grows by 40% in a turn when I unlock the final admin building.

If you read his review of this game, its obvious he lacks a basic understanding of the games mechanics. Which is how I knew he wasnt playing on Lengendary before he finally admitted it. He critcizes the game for things the game has, but he just hasnt figured out how to do. Its really comical because the things he criticizes in the game are soley due to his poor playstyle and rush to useless techs. In his own words he admits the strat is junk, he was just to arrogant to admit it was himself and blames the game.

If this guy was lying about marrying Jennifer Lawrence, I would of said cool. If he was lying about a 7.8 kd in fortnite, I would of said cool. But when he lies about beating legendary with a junky strat and saying he gets Onyx dragons turn 34 (impossible) on a thread meant to help people on Legendary, Im gonna call him out. Legendary takes hours and can be undone due to one small mistake. Its extremely hard and unforgiving. So yeah I dont want people wasting hours rushing silk road only to have to restart because his insecurities and lies.

I have no problem saying Legendary is an extreme challenge for me. Most my advice comes from reddit, youtube, and forums, whith almost none of it being mine. Im not gonna be like him and try to act cool by saying its easy and not a challenge. Video games arent a source of pride for me.

To be honest I knew nothing intelligent was gonna from a man who starts a convo insulting people by calling them vegans for stating a thread is for Legendary strats. If other people talking about strats to beat legendary makes a person feel so insecure they need to insult, its pretty obvious they have internalized insecurities flooding out. People dont feel insecure about accomplishments, they feel insecure about failures. Which the whole reason I the difficulty that into thread was so people like him wouldnt argue strats they did on easy mode, because they dont transfer to legendary.