Slitherine

Slitherine have created an enjoyably complex game (simulation?).

There are so many options in terms of numbers of units, their type, the skills they are awarded and the equipment they are given that I can see myself running through the campaigns many times in order to try out various combinations. While that is part of the joy of the game I am struggling to keep the variations in my head (and life seems to short to write everything down).

I have seen, in various posts, information starting to appear that covers some of these issues. Has anyone started to pull together a more systematic analysis of the unit types, skills and equipment?

I can see that this needs to be done in a kind of open ended way in order not to detract from the enjoyment but on the other hand it would save some of the frustration of repeatedly fighting the same battles in order to try out the large number of combinations that exist.

Any thoughts?

Well, here's the possum theory, but understand the following applies only to single-player

Of my melee troops, I go with roughly 1/3 heavy cavalry, 1/3 heavy infantry, and 1/3 light infantry.

Light cavalry can be useful in the early stages of either campaign, but becomes less and less useful in the mid-game to end-game.

For fire troops, I stay away from javelin troops, and favor archers. Ideally, I would have a body of archers equal in number to one of the thirds above.

I almost never recruit more than 13 or 14 units, total. I have completed a campaign with as few as 10 troop units. The rest of my denarii I spend on equipment.

For skills, I have evolved an almost rigid system.

For Infantry, light or heavy, it's like this -

Swordsman, Drill, and Feint, in that order, over and over. At Level 6, I interrupt the cycle to take disciplined formations, for any infantry type that has it available.

At Level 12, Master Swordsman should come up in the rotation.

At Level 13, take Frenzy, and your troops become killing machines.

Usually I go for Missile Protection after that, and maybe Block.

Now, Roman heavy infantry types do not get Disciplined Formations (they are disciplined from the start), nor do they get Frenzy. But the rest of the system still applies.


For cavalry, it's like this -

Swordsman, Drill, and Feint, in that order, over and over. At Level 8, I interrupt the cycle to take Trample.

At Level 12, Master Swordsman should come up in the rotation.

At Level 13, take Frenzy, and your troops become killing machines.

Usually I go for Missile Protection after that, and maybe Block.


Now, Frenzy is the key to this progression, but it lowers your armor rating, both melee and missile. I make up for this with a combination of skills (Block and Missile Protection, after Level 13), and equipment.

I usually do not buy any of my troops equipment better than Weapons 1, Helmet 1, and Armor 1 until after I have recruited all the troops I am going to use for the whole campaign.

I make a point of buying my archers Stronger Bows, Extra Arrows, and Heavy Missiles as soon as those items are available. I do not buy my archers any other equipment improvements except maybe a helmet late in the campaign. Archer skills are totally different. The key skills are obvious; they have that little red-and-white bullseye symbol next to them! When no "bullseye" skills are available, I go with skills like Drill and Endurance. Skirmish is a great skill. Train it as soon as you can.

Elephants suck.

Fanatics suck.

Praetorians are very, very fine troops.

Do not, not, not underestimate the importance and power of light infantry. In anything but clear terrain, good light infantry will eat heavy infantry alive, and not even spit out the bones.

In anything but an absolute emergency, keep your cavalry and heavy infantry in clear terrain, at all times, at all costs.

There will be a few scenarios where you have no choice but to send your cavalry and heavy infantry into the woods. Needs must when the devil drives. But most of the time, you can work the terrain to your advantage.

Lavish great love and attention on your heavy cavalry. Upgrade their equipment before any other troops. You will probably only have 3 heavy cavalry units, but they can be your knockout punch if you train them right, equip them right, and use them right.

Heavy cavalry (properly developed) have combat power equal to any heavy infantry. Yet they are far more mobile.

When faced with evil enemy archers, you can often open a hole in the enemy line simply by leaving a gap in your own. The enemy unit which is not facing one of yours will usually "aggro" to one side or the other, leaving a gap. Then one of your heavy cavalry units roars through the gap and nails the archers good.

Always think flanks. If you can't nail the enemy archers via the trick above, find a way to go around. Use waypoints to go around his flank, then come back and do his archers like the monkey did the miller's wife - hard, fast, and from behind.

Heavy cavalry at the charge are very very fast, and capable of executing sweeping manuevers in plenty of time to save the day. Don't be afraid to experiment.

LOL, this post has grown much too long; I'm rambling. I hope some of this helps you, tex

Gosh, that must have taken you some time to put together, loads of good information, thanks.

I had not given much thought to using Drill and Feint before but had concentrated on Endurance and the "anti" skills then adopted the "protection" skills as they came up. More to think about! How do you see the effect of those skills improving the performance of your units?

I am currently being trashed by a group of level 28 ghosts near the end (?) of COM. They seem quite immune to projectiles but judging by the horseshoes can be trampled quite nicely. Consequently I am running through the battles again ignoring archers (which I am missing on some Elephant battles) and adding trample to my cavalry. Looks like I should investigate Frenzy as well.

It would be interesting (to me anyway) to find out the relative advantage of weapons and armour compared with another unit to a similar value. I am also not clear whether helmet acts as a simple addition to the armour value or represents some new type of protection in the calculations.

Your post looks like the start of a very useful mini-manual, thanks again.

swordsmen and any type of damage are complementary. Armor and hp are complementary. If you have low starting armor, get dodge and protection instead.

Armor and damage are really only useful if you have a lot of them.

If you do a lot of damage, you dont need concuss damage.

Against ghosts, use cavalry charges and infantry. I dont remember how good they are in rough- try to take them there if possible.

Just like possum said, with the following changes and/or additions:

If you don't see any decent "bulls-eye" skills for your skirmies, give them "Drill" to make them cheaper to command. At higher Drill levels, the individual unit actually gives your whole army faster command point regeneration. That effectively gives you more orders to use on your other troops.

Helmets are only half as effective as the same level of regular armor, for the same price. They only pay if you have an armor level that is at least a level higher than the helmet that you're buying, or if that troop type can't buy normal armor.

The total injury inflicted equals your damage level, minus the enemy's protection, plus your concussion. If your damage level is already higher than the enemy's protection level, concussion is pretty much a moot point. Rather than adding 2 points of concussion damage, adding 4 more of regular damage will be twice as effective.

If your protection level is abysmally low, such as with skirmishers, it might be more effective to use "protection from" skills to avoid the hits entirely. As for endurance, if one fighter with 5 extra endurance faces another with 3 more points of damage potential, it will only take two hits for the higher damage to more than negate the higher endurance. The best defense is a good offense.

I build up a core of around 4 light infantry early in the campaign, and gradually supplement these with heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, and archers as Denarii allow. In the early missions, lights are a good match for anything except cavalry, and in later battles they are still essential for prying enemy units out of woods and rough terrain, or luring heavy units in.

I try to bring my troop compliment up to 12 before adding any more than minimal gear (extra ammo, better bows). After giving the troops a level of weaponry and armor, I eventually bump up the numbers to around 14, which allows me to swap out up to two units which are ill-suited to the particular scenario. Remember that you can sell back an unequipped unit and recover 100% of the purchase cost, so you can pick up "temps" until you have enough funds to buy the units you intend to keep, but any experience gained by the temporary help will be lost.

I'm sure some folks will disagree, but for my money the "anti-" and "protection from" skills are next to worthless. Sure they're nice in theory, but my own experimentation doesn't lead me to believe they actually work well enough to be worth it.

Dodge doesn't impress me at all, and neither do boots. Yet again, they're nice in theory, but my own experimentation doesn't lead me to believe they actually work well enough to be worth it.

Swordsman, Feint, and Drill uber alles. Those three work. But Master Drill isn't worth bothering with; Expert Drill is enough.

For Heavy Cavalry, once you have Frenzy, consider strongly going after Grand Master Swordsman III so you can buy Teutonic Horses, which may just be the most effective of the "elite" equipment items.

Oh, and one last thing. If you're playing as the Romans, be sure you get Auxiliary Cavalry, not Nobles. The Nobles have no armor, just like Light Cavalry.

If you're playing as the Celts, Celtic Nobles are the only Heavy Cavalry available, and they are indeed very heavily armored.

Ave! Thanks for this guys, it will be really useful. I am still battling through my first campaign as Rome and the above will save me a lot of grief in future.

I have a question on the Anti-skills; are they related to Melee AND Missile combat? If I give my Archers Anti-Skills, will it enable them to cause more casualties when using Ranged attacks?

They are melee only, but very useful for skirmishers, who otherwise would have minimal chance of inflicting kills vs melee opponents.

Cool, this thread was started exactly 6 months ago today, or at any rate the first post is dated 3/27, and today is 9/27 here in California, although I realise it's 9/28 already in the UK.

Anyhow, re-reading my highly opinionated posts above, I was a bit embarassed, but there's only one thing I'd change.

I was mistaken to say that Master Trample gets you Teutonic Horses. Teutonic Horses become available when you reach Grand Master Swordsman III. Master Trample gets you Sarmatian Cavalry Armor, which is also very nice.

It's hard to say this, in a way, because I have enormous respect for Iain and all the lads at Slitherine. And so I'm a bit reluctant to criticise their fine work, which is still head-and-shoulders above that of their larger rivals, but...

I am still convinced that, in the single-player game...

• Elephants Suck.
• Fanatics Suck.
• Agility is broken or almost-broken, so buying Boots and training Dodge/Parry is a waste.
• All three of the "Anti-" skills are worthless.
• Both the "Protection From" skills are worthless.

I love Legion Arena. I played the demo before the game was released, and bought the game as soon as it was released. I have played the game solo and MP. I still play 6-8 hours of Legion Arena in an average week. I am the author of the only player-made mod for Legion Arena yet released to the public.

So it's not like I am criticising the game harshly or anything. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

But I do have some very strong opinions about the subject of skill training and equipment

No problme - we always like to hear feedback

iainmcneil wrote:They are melee only, but very useful for skirmishers, who otherwise would have minimal chance of inflicting kills vs melee opponents.

Thanks for your reply Iain. I'm trying to develop the "ultimate" army - I am playing the full Mithras Roman Campaign on Very Hard using the Beserker Mod. I have got to the 4th and 5th Ascension of Saturn using two different armies but came to grief in both so am looking for that final killer skill combination.

It may be the Disciplined Offensive formation for all my infantry giving a huge 30 Melee Attack points (even a Grand Master Swordsman III only gets 20). And the only downside is a little loss in Armour which can be rectified by the purchase of 1 level of Armour.

If a games values can be judged by the amount of time played divided by the purchase price then in my 20 or so years of Strategy/Tactical computer wargaming, Legion Arena wins by a mile. Many Thanks!

Actually i don't agree about the Elephants:

I've got on unit of them and they are very handy especially in the missions where you have minimum lost requirements....and my unit is very good at crushing enemy cavalery.

REALLY???

You use Elephants for cavalry killers?

OK, tell us more. What skills and equipment do they use? Do you use them alone versus cavalry, or with escorts?

The most effective way I have ever found to use elephants versus infantry is with a unit of heavy infantry following right behind them. Kudos to Sum1Won for that suggestion

Hey, anguille, you never told us how you make your elephants into cavalry killers...

Care to share the secret?

Elephants make decent cav killers due to a very high protection against being trampled and not being as heavily outnumbered by cavalry. They can still be trampled though, even by skirmishers in the aggresive formation.

sum1won wrote:Elephants make decent cav killers due to a very high protection against being trampled and not being as heavily outnumbered by cavalry. They can still be trampled though, even by skirmishers in the aggresive formation.

Uhh, but WHY? Why use Elephants? Why not just use cavalry for anti-cavalry work. They're cheaper, faster, learn more quickly, and are far more versatile.

possum wrote:

sum1won wrote:Elephants make decent cav killers due to a very high protection against being trampled and not being as heavily outnumbered by cavalry. They can still be trampled though, even by skirmishers in the aggresive formation.

Uhh, but WHY? Why use Elephants? Why not just use cavalry for anti-cavalry work. They're cheaper, faster, learn more quickly, and are far more versatile.

Flavor. The same reason you like armies of militia.

Possum, Sum1won et al. What is the prevailing wisdom on endurance? It seems to be like a solid addition to the Possum Pattern. Or is the thinking that to get to the higher skill levels in Swordsman and Feint, it is not worth the investment. Is the amount endurance adds to the unit's HP not enough to make it worthwhile?

Is any equipment after Weaon Grade 3 and Armor Grade 3 really worth the cost for your basic units? Each 200 GP only gets you +3 concuss damage. Doesn't seem worth the money does it?