Company Strategies

[Lordchip's Tactics] [WyldRage's Tactics]

Lordchip's Tactics: Formation vs AV

Newbie: So, you’ve been playing and enjoying Kohan for a while now, and are starting to develop some questions about the game. I hope to answer one of them with this article, specifically when and why does the attack power sometimes drop to unusually low levels during the game, for no immediately apparent reason. The answer to this is that those numbers that hover over the formations in the tool tip boxes actually mean something. They actually relate to the actual AT value possessed by the units in that formation. The percentages are the ratio of a company/units normal attack values in one formation to their maximum possible AT (without additional factors such as blessings). However, when a company changes formation, each unit’s attack values do not change instantly, but gradually increase or decrease to match the normal value for a particular unit and formation. E.g. a unit with a max AT of thirty (such as the basic dragoon) will actually only attack with an AT of around twenty-four if they’ve been in skirmish formation for a while. If you put the same dragoons in pressed column mode for over a minute, their AT will eventually drop as low as nine! If you already know that much, then I will attempt to detail the exact mechanics of the system, and how to use it to your advantage. As you know that knowledge often equals power, you are willing to read this rather lengthy article in order to better understand the situation.

Experienced: You may already know many of the tactics I suggest, but there is a chance you may not yet have been exposed to a few of the ideas I describe here, or that a more detailed understanding of the fluctuation of AT values due to time and formation may be helpful in improving your game play.

Everyone: You have two different ways of reading this article. If you are curious why I came to the conclusions and numbers I did, I recommend reading the whole article. If you do not care about the proof for my numbers, but simply the implementation, skip to the third section. Either way, I hope you find this article useful.

First, I took a recruit level dragoon with an attack value of 30 max, and no modifiers. I timed how long it took to increase from skirmish values (24 AT) to attack formation values (30 AT). This 20% change took me twenty-one seconds. A forty percent change, either up or down in attack value, took 41 and 39 seconds respectively. The seventy percent change took one minute and thirteen seconds. A very small margin or error led me to assume that the change of one percent per second occurred. However, to make sure it was not by a single unit of AT for a set amount of time, but instead percent AT per second, I took your average footman.

Again, it took me about twenty seconds for a twenty percent change and about seventy seconds for seventy percent change in attack value. Further calculations show, although no one suggested this, that it is not one unit of AT recovered/lost per set amount of time.

As a result of my trials, I found that an actual change of one percent of the total attack value per second occurs when changing formation. In other words, if your troops have been in pressed formation for a while, they will not be fully combat ready for over a minute. This is very important to know: you should never use pressed to rush across the map for a long time, just so you can get to a far away battle earlier. If you do so, your troops will not be capable of fighting once you get there, costing you more time. I also noted that, the formation of your company no longer matters once you have engaged in combat, when speaking of the increase and decrease of AT (aside from spells and other similar factors, of course). Once you engage in battle, formation is “forgotten” temporarily and instead your AT begins to rise regardless of formation, unless it is already at max. Note that the change is still quite slow, however. Also, when your units “dig in” and get their defensive bonus, AT stays at max (barring other modifiers) no matter what formation you have. If your scouting is good, this can be used to your advantage. If enemy troops hang back just outside the ZOC of your defensive units, after a march mostly in, say skirmish mode, it is extremely advantageous (if you are ready, that is) to ‘pull’ enemy troops onto your fortified position. This will increase even further the advantage that fortifying gave you. Think about it: your defense is increased and their offense is weakened even before you engage them in battle. For about twenty seconds even void beasts aren't as intimidating, even less so if they've been column marching for a LONG time. The longer your opponent is in attack formation, the smaller your advantage gets. If you are prepared for them, take the chance now! Also, there are some other techniques you can use this formation/att. system in.
There are other techniques that were not originally discussed online by me. For the original discussion of the following ideas you can go to this topic on the Kohan board. http://216.74.100.143/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000437.html
For those who have already read too much, however, I will mention some of those ideas here. The first and easiest tactic (suggested here by Nathan and Fomar) is to implement is to change your cavalry from combat to pressed just as you are about to flank with them. While pressed is supposed to be the most combat inefficient formation, any AT loss is rather negligible, since the decrease- as well as increase- in AT is gradual. What this allows you to do is effectively and quickly get to the often vulnerable backside of an enemy formation where the vulnerability of the support units far outweighs the small loss of AT from a three to seven second change of formation. Once you are behind them, switch back to an aggressive formation so you will no longer have to micromanage your flankers. They should wreak havoc if the enemy has forgotten to defend his/her backside or is too slow to intercept your now much faster cavalry. A more risky, but still useful tactic (suggested by Stronmaus) is to actually use pressed formation and it’s no-engage policy to go straight through the enemy companies, if you do not have the time to go around. His post here is a highly recommended read. In fact, there are a lot of worthwhile reads on the message board, but here is my bit. Tell me what you think!

Well, the attack value actually begins to rise slowly when the unit entrenches, after two minutes in the same spot. By the time the company fortifies (six minutes after entrenching), the attack value is already at the max. I do not yet know whether entrenchment and fortification timers count down during combat, though that should be simple to test, and is what I shall investigate next.

Ever wonder whether it is worthwhile to put engineers in a company's support position? Well, no, I don't really think it is. Two engineers will only decrease the time to entrench by twenty-four seconds and the total time to fortify (from the moment they stand in place) by ninety-six seconds. I just don't think that time wise, it is worth the two support positions, unless a patch beefs them up.

However, if you used the Ascended Council Hero Dogun Mossk in the hero slot, who has a (this information is from "The Awakening", a wonderful site available here http://kohanic.home.att.net/ and run by Chimaeros, be sure to read the fan-fic, enjoy the cartoon, you'll understand it if you watch enough TV) the provided ability of a forty percent decrease in the entrenchment and fortification time.

Now, the bonus does becomes worth considering, with or without support engineers. Even if you don't have the support engineers it may be worth spending fifteen pieces of gold to temporarily attach Dogun to a company. If my calculations are correct, it will save you over three minutes to get a defense unit fortified even without the support engineers. Do this with elite grenadiers, an archmage, and a channeler in a forest, and you have the ultimate, though not all powerful one-company defense team, especially if a city, outpost, or magic puddle is nearby. If you can find one, a magic puddle is an especially useful tool for either offense or defense. They're almost as unbalanced as the bunny slippers, though I think they may only show up on custom maps.

Anyone who reads your post above should have already come to the following conclusions (some of which you mentioned):

1. Pressed formation is HUGE! Use it as much as possible when going from one combat front to another or when moving your forces into position to attack or defend. The quicker your forces get to the front, the quicker they can either a) start entrenching, b) start fighting, c) get to a formidable defense position like hills or jungle.

2. Akin to # 1. When a battle is inevitable, it is always good to be in a good defense position (again, jungle, hills, etc.). I often move my companies in pressed formation until they are in that good defense position and then change to combat mode. This will at most decrease the AV by 3 or 4 points but could raise the DV by as much as 6. So many times this is a VERY effective combat tool.

3. Always keep formations in Combat mode when not fighting or moving quickly to combat. This bears repeating ... ALWAYS keep formations in combat mode when not fighting or moving quickly to combat.

The reason is simple... If they are in combat mode, then when you do put them in pressed, it takes (thanks for the numbers Lordchip) up to 20 seconds for the company to drop to even skirmish mode AV. This means that you have a LONG time (20 seconds can last forever) to move that company anywhere you wish in pressed formation before you see a dramatic change in AV.

4. Try as hard as possible to never put your companies into combat after a LONG forced march unless you have to. Their AV is VERY low (which means they get wiped out earlier) and their morale is low also (which means they get routed quicker). This is another reason why keeping companies in Combat formation is so important. Because sometimes you have to do a long forced march. Combat mode beforehand will decrease the negative effects of a long pressed march.

I have seen a few people simply throw away their otherwise impressive armies by moving too far in pressed mode and attacking afterwards. I watch as they get slaughtered because their Infantry's AV is down to 10. Unless that infantry has LOTS of Mages, they will not win any battles.

Anyway, my 2 cents. I love playing with the change from combat to pressed formation to wreck havoc on an enemy. Although I suck at economy, I like to think I do fairly well with the forces I can get onto the battlefield. For instance ... I played a game last night with Heatwave as one of my teammates. I had a HORRIBLE start. By mid-game I only had 3 cities and one company of Skels with 2 prophets (I also had a few zombies, a few shadelings, and one zombie company with a prophet ... overall still a weak force). But Heatwave was kicking ass! He brought up his army to help defend my border and launch an attack.

Well, there was a huge battle with me and heatwave on one side and all 3 of our opponents on the other. Heatwave and I were able to keep the battle on the outskirts of a town so our forces were near a supply zone.

With my one skeleton army I was able to 3 times press that company into the archers and support of the enemy, crippling their firepower. I also had time to retreat those forces back to the supply zone and keep doing the same thing.

Once I saw the enemy coming at us with 3+ companies of archers/mages. They would have massacred the armies we had in the field, or at least force us to fall back to supply and maybe siege the town thereby removing the critical supply zone.

But I had 1 full shadeling company and 2 less-than-half-full shadeling companies. I quickly press marched all three for about 5 seconds into the heart of that archer/mage regiment. My shadelings were wiped out (so what?) but the enemy's archer/mage regiment was so hurt that it had to push back to supply.

So you see, the pressed formation allows for some very good tactical decisions if done correctly.

Another thing to note is that the rank of the company appears to affect the AV/DV of the hero attached to it--someone has probably already mentioned this. I had (mistakenly) thought that the hero's own strength was independent of the men under his command and only influenced by his own level--but apparently, a great company can make even a good hero great. So, if you have an elite unit operating at 150% effectiveness so is your hero. Your hero will find it more worthwhile to be commanding elite guard rather than elite footmen (the stronger the unit, the higher strength increase). Add in a mix of support to skew the numbers even more.

One side note about att: When engineers start building, their att will drop to a low of %25. So, first remember to rest your engineers after they build. Second, protect your engineers if you suspect the enemy might have scouted the terrain (you can see builds in progress even in the grey zone) Third, don't be afraid to put your engineers in pressed to get them to the build area, by the time they're done building, they'll be at %25 anyway. Finally, if you see engineers building, especially if their building is near complete, feel free to throw shadelings or scouts at them and have a reasonable hope to at least cripple them while they're weak.

Company Strategies

[Lordchip's Tactics] [WyldRage's Tactics]