Mini video guide on playing for traps

[SuitedQueens]

Just giving you the typical trap ideas. I explain some more obscure and advanced mechanics that you have to know in order to calculate them and execute properly up to 2 turns ahead.
https://youtu.be/Ml9AoXs8C28

[rbodleyscott]

Just giving you the typical trap ideas. I explain some more obscure and advanced mechanics that you have to know in order to calculate them and execute properly up to 2 turns ahead.

When I mouse over the linked thing, I just see a message saying "www.youtube.com refused to connect"

[SuitedQueens]

So, this video was covering only typical tactical situations, but I said nothing on strategical part. Delayed Oblique Order attack means initial full frontage advancement, feigned retreat of one wing and a center (when there are about 6 squares between armies left) and advancement of one heavily reinforced flank.

It's the most effective tactic for beating both default AI and Rise of AI. I don't remember last time when I lost more than 2% of my forces in Empires Exported Battles. And the thing is you are down on quality and numbers there, since I'm playing on Suicidal Burgundi with 0-1 General against 1-2 2-2 when I'm on the attack, so this concept is bulletproof.

You never rely on terrain, cause dice roll are still too random and comparative advantages are insignificant. Basically what happens is that you shift (and split to kite) your line while being pursued by superior forces (learn the power of fallback and turn around) and therefore never engage with most of the enemy line until about turn 15-16 if you still wouldn't able to rack up 40% due to their numbers superiority.

Your reinforced flank 2nd rank slightly shifted to the outer side to make envelopment faster and easier. You never rely on pushbacks-breakthrough strategy, cause they are too random and slow. You aiming for guaranteed cohesion auto-drops instead. As you can imagine you don't cover full frontage at all and trying to put as many forces towards reinforced flank as you can.

Avoid doing 3rd rank, cause it's too slow and proly wouldn't end up mattering in the grand scheme of things. It's viable during development to make a column of about 4 ranks and stretch it out wide, gradually turning clockwise to envelop enemy, but again it can be too slow and I don't like this braindead approach much.



2% usually comes from sacrificing 1-2 light horse units for tactical tricks like taking away ZoC's to get into enemy rear super fast, blocking front squares to move in into proper position with right facing 1 turn faster, setting up flanks on HI on the next turn (they won't turn immediately if can be charged by mounted or non-lights on the same turn), blocking fallback squares for both yours and enemy cav, putting up ZoCs to prevent fallback action, body blocking secondary ZoCs to alter your troops path, flank attacks etc.

OFC you gotta know mechanics well. I mean stuff like: can I make this intermediate move after taking away enemy ZoC to execute that trap to take away my cav bounce fallback square and then move in front of my infantry to enable them put up Primary ZoC at >90 degree. Or can I charge this not engaged enemy after moving to this intermediate square first. Rise of AI has some troubles with miscalculating this, default AI don't ever use any of this and humans I rarely see make any intermediate moves.

Its chess terminology BTW. It is an unexpected in-between move that interrupts an apparently forced tactical sequence and changes the outcome of the game.

[SuitedQueens]

Here's a quick example taken from my Empires AAR. Short and sweet just to give general ideas on how to use tactics described above and in the video.


Positioning:








Typical trap:








End results:

[rbodleyscott]

None of these links work for me.

[SuitedQueens]

Can you clarify this? Do you see screenshots posted above or do you mean YT links don't work? This vid has 80+ views and likes, so clearly some peoples saw it already. I edited original post again. Can you just copy the link to your browser new tab and see if it works. Ok, I checked ImgBB and it seems to be down, but I'm still able to see all images from different devices.

[rbodleyscott]

The You Tube video link previously did not work for me, but now does.

The screenshots are not visible in the forum, and when I click on the links I get "This site can’t be reached", which is to be expected if ImgBB is down.

[SuitedQueens]

Ok, so I checked both logged in and when I'm logged off from my PC (windows chrome), laptop (windows firefox), Samsung Galaxy (android) and IPhone (never logged in from that device before) and everything works fine.

I imagine that if something was off someone would proly tell me about it on Empires forums, cause I use this site to upload all my screenshots not only for AAR topic. I looked at disable BB setting and it's not checked too. I guess I will wait for more feedback.

Edit: imgbb is up now.

Edit2: IDK if you responsible for AI development, but I want to say that I exaggerated a bit that "slaughtered" part. Ofc default AI is not that dumb and Rise of AI just adds a few functions to the base package. It introduces improvements that possibly weren't implemented because of the time it takes to proceed every turn when you have them on.

[rbodleyscott]

Edit: imgbb is up now.

Yes, I can see the screenshots now.

Edit2: IDK if you responsible for AI development

I am.

Ofc default AI is not that dumb and Rise of AI just adds a few functions to the base package. It introduces improvements that possibly weren't implemented because of the time it takes to proceed every turn when you have them on.

Yes, we would not want the AI to take too long to process its turns in the vanilla package, so it relies more on rules of thumb than exhaustive analysis.