Probabilities & Strategy

[LordDuBois]

I'm new to Warbarons (but an avid Warlords fan from way back) and love the game but have a couple of questions (which I posted to Chat as well but this is probably the better format). Anyway:

1.) When searching ruins, especially early in the game, I have lost my hero more often than not. Even those marked as low threat. Does the hero's stack count when searching ruins or is it just the hero's abilities? Is there some trick I don't know? Is there some way to know the probability for success prior to searching a particular ruin?

2.) When attacking neutral cities, similar to the above, it appears the attackers winning probability has to be above 90%? Again, especially early in the game, I've lost too many heros. This is especially perplexing because against attackers my cities with similar defenses don't seem to enjoy the same rate of success.

As mentioned, I'm a Warlords fan, but apparently applying similar strategies (rapid expanse/ruin searching in the early stages) in this game doesn't necessarily work. I don't mind - like I said I love this game - but would just like to know the rules up front so I can adjust my game play accordingly. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!

[ezras]

To answer #1 there is an extensive forum discussing this. Basically the only thing that counts when searching ruins is undead lore, a hero ability. The Paladin starts with the highest and can search lvl 1 ruins with relative success. To ensure the success of your hero's searching just produce a couple scouts or ghosts and the undead lore that they have will stack with the hero and give you near certainty of success. Not sure what it is exactly but 2-3 scouts with a paladin is almost always a victory in ruins. (DK and Valk are much lower Undead Lore (UL) and will certainly be killed in ruins.

However the strategy of rapid expansion is still successful. Not sure how to answer #2 other than the city wall that is stacking with the units you are attacking.

[LordDuBois]

Thanks Ezras!

I usually start with a Dark Knight so that probably has a lot to do with it. Also, I'll give using scouts a try. Thanks again for the advice.

[flash]

to question nr.1: The hero ALWAYS fight alone in ruins. The stack he is in is ignored, except UL bonus.For my part, I usually excusively get in the ruins with a Paladin, making him an UL specialist on leveling afterwards. And I also try to ever get in these ruins with UL allys (strongest here is the ghost imho, but far too expansive on the start - so i usually use scouts).

question nr2:
If the win percentage showed you 90% win chance and you still lose the battle; its simply bad luck for me. You have to take care of wall level and wich unit is in, as ezras said. An orc with wall level 3 (+5 STR) have 15 STR overall, so it should be no problem to kill him with a decent stack (hero and 3-4 minor units like l.Cav or such). But if the city is defended by a Spider and wall level 6, you are fighting agsainst STR 45 (Spider 20 + City Defend Bonus +15 Wall +10) and that is a huge difference! To kill such a unit, you need yourself much better units.

[strach]

LordDuBois
1) When you search ruins you don't use your heroes strength, but undead lore. That means that if you want to search ruins you have to pick up a palladin as your first hero. In L1 ruins you have to have 12UL to be 100% sure of winnig, so it's good to produce some scouts (+1UL) to accompany your hero. In L2 ruins you need 20UL to be perfectly safe, but I often visit them when I have over 15UL. In L3 it is 33 - but having over 27 should be ok. Since wizards and ghosts give you +2 and +3 UL it's not a bad idea to accept them with a palladin, if he appears around ruins.

2) When your winnig chances are over 90% you will win every battle with at least one unit left. That's a rule in Warbarons (there wasn't such a rule in W and W2). It means that if you have 80% chance you will win 8 out of 10, but if you have >90% you will win 10 out of 10. So at early stages make sure that you hero fights only >90% battles, so you are 100% sure that he is safe. It is to risky to lose your hero at early stages.

3) Rapid expansion is the only reasonable way of playing Warbarons. The most common mistake which newcomers do is sitting in their castles. Get as many cities as you can, plunder production which you dont need, use the money for good heroes with good allies (an early hero with a dragon can win a whole FFA game for you) or for specialized production. The only situation in which you can think of implementing other strategy is in FFA games in which you suspect that other players might team up against you, because you outnumbered them with your armies and cities, but since you have just started playing Warbarons that wont be your problem for some time