Blood & Glory Part I
Warfare in Middle-earth PBM
by Tom Walton
(originally printed in Paper Mayhem)
In Middle-earth PBM, nations live and die by sword. Agents. emissaries,
mages, and artifacts are all very nice but in the end it is common soldier
who's going to bring the enemy to his knees. Everything else is just window
dressing, tools to be used to soften up an opponent before you storm his
cities and enslave his people. This article is directed at newer players
who've yet to master the quirks of the game. The information presented here
is meant to reduce the advantage that veteran players have gained through
hard experience.
Troops: The Best Buy for your Money
In a nutshell, heavy is better than light. GSI has thoughtfully given the
heavy versions of cavalry and infantry exactly twice the strength of the
lighter versions along with a correspondingly doubled maintenance cost.
This means, regardless of which version you pick to recruit, you pay the
exact same amount of gold per strength point each turn.
This situation gives the heavy troops a distinct advantage over the lighter.
First, you can recruit heavy troops just as quickly as lighter ones, which
means that it takes less time (and less orders) to whip up a force of sizable
strength. Second, heavy troops don't eat any more than lighter brethren
do, allowing you to food twice as many strength points for the same amount
of food or city support. Finally, equipping heavy troops with metal arms
or armor is much more cost-effective than doing the same for light troops.
For example, giving a light infantry soldier bronze armor will increase
his defensive strength by 3O%, for a total of l.5 points. Giving the same
armor to a heavy infantry soldier will result in an increase of 3 points
(30% of 10). In effect, you get twice the increase for the same cost. This
also applies to weapons, but the overall benefit is much smaller.
Archers represent an anomaly in the game system, having a high offensive
but low defensive strength. They also come with their own steel-equivalent
weapons, which means you don't have to waste gold arming them. If you're
pressed for resources or don't have the funds to maintain more heavy infantry
or cavalry, archers are a good short-term solution to the recruiting problem.
Don't count on them to provide the backbone for your army, however, their
low defensive capability insures that they'll be wiped out in droves. Instead,
use them to fill in the gaps in your forces, or for an added 'punch' in
battle.
Men-at-arms are the cannon-fodder of ME-PBM. It takes five men-at-arms to
match the strength of one heavy infantry soldier, and these troops will
cost 25% more gold to support. Worse, they'll eat five times as much food,
a serious consideration for an army on the march. Unless you're one of the
few nations that has a significant advantage in recruiting men-at-arms,
don't bother with them; better still, unless you expect to enter battle
right away, disband them and replace them with something more cost-effective.
Arms and Armor
If at all possible, never waste your time on the 'Make Weapons/Armor' and
the 'Upgrade Weapons/Armor' orders. Instead, buy or transport bronze or
steel to the place you're going to recruit, then specify the specific weapons
or armor in the recruiting order itself. By reading the order description
carefully, you'll see that the weapons and armor will automatically be made
from city stores and given to your troops, without your having to issue
any extra orders. Armor has a much bigger impact on troop strength then
weapons do. Bronze armor raises troop defense strength by 30%, while steel
armor raises it by 60%; this is a straight, across-the-board increase. Weapons,
however are factored in with a number of other things (such as training
levels), reducing the actual difference that the weapons make to offensive
strength. A reasonable strategy for the allocation of arms and armor is
to give your troops bronze weapons and bronze/steel armor, but not steel
weapons (the one exception might be heavy cavalry).
As far as leather and mithril weapons or armor goes, forget about it. Leather
is better used in creating cavalry and dumping on the market, while mithril
is far too expensive to be given to troops. Mithril costs 5 - 20 times as
much as steel (sometimes more), but is only 67% more effective.
Blitzkrieg, Middle-earth Style
Cavalry is expensive. Unless your nation produces an excess of leather and
mounts, or you have gold to burn, it's nearly impossible to field an all-cavalry
army. In addition, setting up to recruit cavalry takes more orders, as you
not only have to get your bronze/steel to the appropriate pop centers, but
also the required mounts and leather. Most nations don't have the gold or
orders to spare, especially in the early game.
For those few nations which can afford to do so, recruiting cavalry is more
than worth it. First off, cavalry is slightly more efficient in terms of
maintenance costs (2.67 strength points per gold piece. compared to 2.5
strength points per gold piece for infantry). Second, and more importantly,
it's much more mobile. An all-cavalry army can force-march seven hexes in
clear terrain in one turn, while an army containing infantry can only march
four hexes. In rough terrain, such as predominate in Harad, cavalry can
move four hexes, compared to infantry's two.
The difference in movement capabilities leads to a wide range of possibilities.
A cavalry army can always outpace or run down an infantry army; it can also
respond to threats more quickly, allowing a player who invests in cavalry
to maintain a smaller garrison force. This is especially important for nations
like the Easterlings, the Northmen, or Northern Gondor, all of which have
widely separated pop centers in clear terrain, or who possesses good road
networks. For these nations, a cavalry force can race from one end of the
nation to the other to meet enemies approaching from different directions.
A cavalry army also has the advantage of better armor modifiers. A single
heavy infantry troop given bronze armor will have its defensive strength
increased by 3 points;.the same bronze armor given to heavy cavalry will
result in a total increase of 4.8 points. For weapon/armor upgrades, heavy
cavalry is the most cost effective troop type in the game.
Finally, a large all-cavalry force is great for springing surprises on an
enemy, striking fear into the hearts of the most powerful foes. If the enemy
believes your army to be mostly infantry, imagine his surprise when you
race past his defending forces to lay waste to his nation. And, once you're
in his territory, you'll be impossible to catch (unless he's also built
a cavalry force).
Training Troops
The best way to increase army effectiveness is to train troops. This not
only has the benefit of raising your overall offensive strength, but also
improves the command rank of characters with the army. Training troops is
most productive when the army consists of entirely one troop type.
For example, assume that you have an army that's all heavy infantry. The
army commander issues the 'Army Maneuvers' order, while the secondary commander
gives the 'Troop Maneuvers' order, specifying heavy infantry. The army commander
will raise his own skill 1-5 points, his sub-commander's skill by 1-5 points,
and his army's training rank by 1-5 points. The sub-commander in turn, will
his his own skill rank by 1-7 points and the training rank of the heavy
infantry by 1-10 points. In all, the army commander's skill will increase
1-5 points, the sub-commander's skill by 2-12 and the army's training rank
by 2-15 points (since it's all heavy infantry). In a few turns, you can
create some good commanders and an effective fighting force, all at the
same time. Best of all, it doesn't cost anything.
Battle Basics
He that gets there with the most wins. This as true in ME-PBM as in any
other game. If you want to win battles, splitting up your armies and sending
them in all directions is the absolute worst thing that you ran do. Many
players get defeated because they can't effectively concentrate upon a single
goal, or because they insist on defending every village they own. Don't
make the mistake of spreading yourself too thinly; pick one target and throw
everything you have against it, then move on to the next one. Conversely,
only defend against one enemy at time.
Intelligence
Information is intelligence. Surprisingly enough, very few players effectively
use the 'Scout' orders to find out how strong enemy forces are, or what
characters are traveling with the opposing armies. Without good intelligence,you
risk the chance of being defeated in a debacle that'll make the pages of
Whispers, not to mention leaving your nation open to conquest. Always do
as much scouting as possible before you actually enter battle; this allows
you to pick and choose the fights that you are assured of winning, while
avoiding those which favor the enemy.
RUN AWAY!
Don't fight to lose. Monty Python said it best: if you can't win, RUN AWAY!
Contrary to common sense, many players fight battles that they know they
can't possibly win. Running away allows you more time to pick up more troops
to even out the odds, or perhaps convince another player to help you out.
At the very least, your army will be a constant thorn in the enemy's side,
since he can't know what you're going to do with it; and he might waste
many fruitless turns chasing it around the map. The only exception to this
rule is when fighting the battle may hurt the enemy so badly that he can't
take a pop center that he's trying to grab.
Strike Swiftly
Speed is of the essence. When trying to conquer a nation, speed is imperative.
The longer it takes to bring an enemy to his knees, the more time he'll
have to raise reinforcements, make alliances with other players, or improve
his defenses. Each turn of unnecessary delay makes it that much more likely
that something will happen to force you or your allies into withdrawing,
or even turn the tables against you altogether. When you invade, move as
quickly as possible and knock the enemy out as soon as you can. Don't allow
him time to prepare, or give your neighbors the opportunity to capitalize
upon your preparation.
What to Hit
The real prize in any war is a nation's major towns. Take
his major towns and he has no place to put a capitol; it'll knock him out
of the game. Don't mess with the smaller towns, or worse yet, the villages
and camps; they'll only waste troops that could be better used against other
targets.
Siege, Threaten, or Capture?
To siege or not to siege. The siege and threaten orders are the most unreliable
and unproductive combat orders in the game. Unless you have an extremely
large army led by an excellent commander, or the pop center is small and
lacks fortifications, sieging/threatening probably won't work on the first
try (or second or third). Don't use these orders when fighting an active
enemy, unless you're almost sure of success; instead, capture or destroy
the pop centers. It's best to use the siege/threaten orders once the enemy's
already been defeated and you don't have to worry about being attacked in
the interim.
Defense
The best defense? If you can't stop an enemy invasion, don't try. Let him
waste time and troops capturing your towns; he'll become weaker while you
continue to recruit and train your armies. Once he's lost a few thousand
men,take the battle to him and destroy his forces, then recapture what you've
lost. Let your pop centers and fortifications do the fighting for you.
Scorched earth
As a counter to the previous tactic, if you've made an invasion
and you can't reasonably expect to hold on to what you capture, then don't
capture it--destroy it. Granted, you don't get any revenue or production
from ruins, but neither does the enemy. If you're forced to make an invasion
that you can't complete, blast as much of the enemy nation into rubble as
you can before withdrawing. It'll wreck his economy and make it much more
difficult for him to fight you the next time around.
Terrain
Use the terrain. There are a number of natural features on the map which
can channel movement through particularly critical points. Grabbing these
features can either provide a point for invasion, or narrow your defensive
front down to a very small area. If at all possible, place a camp at the
location and start building fortifications to block enemy movement. If this
isn't an option, having a sizable army standing by to defend it is an acceptable
alternative.
If All Else Fails
Improvise. Take chances. Throw the rules away if they don't work for you.
The only true test of battle is whether you win or lose; everything else
is just so much hogwash. Unlike real-world commanders, we have the opportunity
to try out silly schemes with wild abandon, so go for it! Remember, if it's
crazy and it fails, it's stupid, but if it's crazy and it works, it's brilliant.
You can't be brilliant unless you're willing to look stupid.
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