Two assasins

[Solo]

It is interesting what will be happened when two assasins 3L with ambush = 108 (100 + 8) will meet one another in the battle.

[piranha]

You know that group ambush is capped at 70, but if they have personal ambush all the way upp to 100% they will both miss and then fight normal. So not that exciting .

[Solo]

Thank you.

I meant personal ambush of course.

I thought that ambush calculation works as battle one.
I thought they will try to ambush one another while only one of them will have hit, not both. If so then it could be infinite loop as they both have 100%.

[kerog]

I think it's a one-shot deal: if both hit, or neither hit, then it goes to normal combat.

I do think that assassination defense should work forever, even if each unit gets only one chance to assassinate an enemy each battle. Or maybe that should be true only for units that have a nonzero natural personal assassination number and heroes. That would put an end to crow silliness.

[LPhillips]

The only real problem I see with Assassins is that they represent the ultimate defense. You can't afford to attack a city even with 40% group ambush, and you can't go around or you'll be intercepted. The 70% rule has worked wonders with ending Assassins as the end-all super stack, but I don't know what (if anything) could solve the problem of "ultimate defense". At least now it's not a perfect defense, as high-powered units have value now when attacking it.

[Argammon]

Assassins + Ghosts in city? Attack with catapult plus, say, 7 elves...

[KGB]

Assassins + Ghosts in city? Attack with catapult plus, say, 7 elves...

The problem is those Ghosts/Assassins are always in the back of the fight order. So the Elves/Catapult end up getting murdered by a horde of Hv Infantry fighting first.

KGB

[smursh]

What is needed is a way to attack only a single stack within a city. Perhaps a unit with a special raiding skill could lead an army to do this? You would need enough movement to attack and withdraw, but if you could separate the stacks it could work. The other option would be a way to use multiple stacks to launch simultanious attacks on each section of the city. I always thought it was unfair that the attackers can't do this. In real warfare armies laying seige force the defenders to spread their forces in defense. It is the attacker that knows where the attack will come and can concentrate their force before the defenders are ready. Why then do most of my armies sit around the campfire while only one stack attacks?

Launching simultanious attacks would need a special side button to activate the attack on a given city. Only one stack could attack each square of the castle. Then the huge defending army would face equal attacking force. If you add some ghosts/assasins the skill would neutralise out.

[KGB]

Smursh,

Age of Wonders (the game I mentioned above) had that kind of feature. Stacks next to each other could attack/defend each other allowing up to 32 units to be used.

The questions then become:

1) Why can't I use multiple stacks EVERYWHERE (ie out in the open) to attack enemy stacks. Age of Wonders allowed this but all that happened was everyone moved stacks in pairs or triples because 1 stack on it's own got murdered by 2 or 3 grouped together. If you can use multiple against a city there is no reason you can't use multiple in the open.

2) What do you do bonus wise when using 4 stacks to attack a city. Does each stack have it's own bonus calc's or are they all grouped together like the city defenders? If you group them together then what happens is that heroes and big bonus units (dragons, devils, archons) become insanely powerful multiplying their effects over 32 attackers instead of just 8. Not to mention what happens with siege units. You only need 1 to counter the walls for all stacks or 1 per stack?

I am not sure there are good answers to either of these questions that can be easily balanced in game play. The real answer is you should *never* be attacking a city with 32 defenders in it. You should bypass to another easier target city. The problem is many many maps have serious choke points that allow 1 city full of 32 men to dominate in the manner LPhillips mentions. So the final question is: Is that a problem with the game or rather a problem with the design of a specific map (I personally consider it to be a map problem)?

KGB

[Argammon]

Off Topic: I played AOW online a lot but can´t remember your name KGB. Did you play under a different nickname or only single player?