Tactical concepts in combat for end-game
Dec 29, 2021 10:50:39 GMT
jonblend, Navia Lanoira, and 3 more like this
Post by run4glory on Dec 29, 2021 10:50:39 GMT
Hello everyone,
with this post, I want to make the first step into creating a thread with collections of ideas on end-game. These forums contain awesome guides for beginners, including general guides, farming guides, skills and equipment etc. I think one of the few missing pieces in this forum, at least for GCQ, are advanced combat-related tactics, (i.e. what you do on the battlefield and not the preparation beforehand) for end-game F2P players (although IAP players can also benefit from these ideas). Feel free to post comments or to extend this thread with your own thoughts, or even just to organize mine a little better.
A little sidenote about myself: I am a GCQ lover, it's the best game from Easytech so far IMO . I play the PC version of this game (short disclaimer: I cannot play "The last Roman" and Hero legend starting at Chapter 10 yet) but have completed (all 3-starred expect one) all campaigns and hero legend missions available so far. Also, I am entirely a F2P player, so there should be no point in this post where an IAP item/whatever is required.
Moreover, this is my first post in this forum! I have been a silent reader so far. These forums have helped me a lot especially in games like WC4, and has helped me advance as a beginner also in GCQ. Let me also thank every poster by helping other players advance! You are doing an awesome job. But now, onto the real stuff.
What is this guide about? (in more detail)
This thread addresses end-game players, players who are stuck in one of the last campaign or hero legend missions, either in finishing or 3-starring. It is NOT another farming guide, general guide, nor will it be about conquests. It is about beating these missions where you need kill an entire army and destroy four heavily guarded cities in 10 turns, about the toughest of these, and as an F2P player. IAP players may have a completely different view of the game, but can nevertheless benefit from the combat-related advice.
However, next, I will create a short section called "Requirements" in which I will state what requirements on generals, equipment etc are needed to successfully complete end-game. I will keep these sections rather short, as many excellent guides have already been written on this! If you lack one or more of these, I would consider looking up a farming or conquest guide to get the medals, before coming back. Keep in mind it is addressed mainly for F2P players, where priorization is vital, and that it's an opinion!
Requirements
1. Commander: Your customized commander should be an archer general. The skills should contain archer commander, advantage and march. Feel free to choose the 4th skill, it doesn't really matter anyway.
2. Skills: The by far two most important skills in the game are archer commander and advantage. Every archer general should have them maxed. Other skills worth upgrading, not necessarily maxing are the equivalents of the two for the other classes, march and perhaps guerilla. The rest doesn't matter.
3. Equipment: Healing items are exciting but overrated (maybe Eye of Horus is useful, who knows). Mobility and damage/crit are still key. Morale items (dragon tripod and laurel crown) are must-haves.
4. Pets: Mammoth should be maxed. It's an incredible siege unit you get for free. Self-explanatory to treat it like a general unit in battle, watch its morale and get war gear. Terracotta is nice too (I personally have it at 4 legions, but maxing is not a wrong investment). Goblin and griffin don't impress me and I don't think they matter. But I made my choice mostly by saving my gems to stay flexible in the future, excited for Behemoth gem if it ever comes out
Now onto the aforementioned combat-related tactics. But first, what precedes all these:
An obvious but necessary tip:
Don't play too fast! Playing GCQ is sometimes like playing chess. The hardest missions require the most time in thinking. This tip is necessary in order to apply the concepts explained in the rest of the thread, as they will address "where you should spend time thinking". But if you don't take your time overall, well then... ^^
Tactics:
The game offers a couple in-game tactics using scrolls. First, you should consider all options available to you in every round. Oration and forced march should be used constantly whenever you can. Destroy is also useful, but maybe surprisingly, much more often on urban areas (the six surrounding hexagons) than on the city itself (more on this in section "Pathing"). But again, don't use them too fast! Instead think about it, in conjuction with the topics covered in the rest of the thread.
Don't forget to throw in olympics if you have scrolls left but need more income. Most of the time, it pays you the scrolls back anyway, but together with a lot of money and industry. You will almost always have low income in missions.
That's it, if you swim in scrolls, you can use arson on high HP units, but don't rely on its effect. The rest doesn't really matter.
Morale:
Morale is one of the best indicators of the current effective fighting power of a unit (really, probably only surpassed by the type of unit and general itself). In terms of numbers, a unit with high morale does 125% damage, a unit with one morale drop 75%, and a double drop only 50%. Hence a unit with high morale does 2,5x (!) damage than a unit with double drop.
Hence, you should ALWAYS spend a good amount of time thinking about morale. Use oration to constantly boost the morale of your troops.
And even if you already know all of this, you may find the next crucial tip surprising.
The power of disbanding troops:
When a legion of a unit is killed (terminology: legion=circle, unit=conjunction of up to 5 legions together), the unit suffers a morale drop of 1 turn. Remember you have to capture 4 heavily guarded cities in 10 turns? ^^ 1 turn is a lot. Hence, a legion with low health (i.e. a legion that you predict will be killed in the next (counter-)attack) should be disbanded, in order to keep the morale high. If you do this consistently while using oration, after turn 3 or 4 until the end of the battle you will be able to manage all vital units in high morale.
I for myself disband a legion in probably in more than every second round.
Although morale covers 90% of the use cases, this tip also helps to avoid getting attacked by cavalry twice, or when you hit the population limit (swordsman and light cav bye bye)
Pathing:
Ngl, some campaign missions starting at Han and hero legend missions are really crazy to 3-star especially for F2P players Many of the objective cities have 6 urban areas, and all 7 (urban area + city itself) hexagons are guarded by 3-5 heavily armored legions. Undoubtedly, pathing is crucial.
Although I cannot really describe it in concrete words, you should in every turn spend time thinking about your troop movements. Estimate their speed of advancement, and think specifically about every hexagon you need to occupy to create a path that gives you access to all objectives.
In case you miscalculate or are simply unlucky, don't forget you have destroy (80% of destroys are used on urban areas left with 10 HP, but I need that hexagon) or forced march.
If you have one unit on one urban area, even if you think it's a demi-god, it is almost always a better decision to attack a neighbouring urban area hexagon to bring a second unit into the game, instead of attacking the city itself.
Speaking out of experience, most of the missions of the type "4 cities in 10 turns" end up me spending 7-8 turns to create the optimal pathing and access to all 4 cities, and then 2-3 turns to take all 4 cities at once.
Lastly, of course even if you follow all these tips, many details can be fiddled by simply repeating the missions. Be patient and have fun!
And now, back to the more experienced posters here. Extend this thread with your own ideas and experiences, and let's help each other to beat even the toughest parts of the game, no matter F2P or not.
with this post, I want to make the first step into creating a thread with collections of ideas on end-game. These forums contain awesome guides for beginners, including general guides, farming guides, skills and equipment etc. I think one of the few missing pieces in this forum, at least for GCQ, are advanced combat-related tactics, (i.e. what you do on the battlefield and not the preparation beforehand) for end-game F2P players (although IAP players can also benefit from these ideas). Feel free to post comments or to extend this thread with your own thoughts, or even just to organize mine a little better.
A little sidenote about myself: I am a GCQ lover, it's the best game from Easytech so far IMO . I play the PC version of this game (short disclaimer: I cannot play "The last Roman" and Hero legend starting at Chapter 10 yet) but have completed (all 3-starred expect one) all campaigns and hero legend missions available so far. Also, I am entirely a F2P player, so there should be no point in this post where an IAP item/whatever is required.
Moreover, this is my first post in this forum! I have been a silent reader so far. These forums have helped me a lot especially in games like WC4, and has helped me advance as a beginner also in GCQ. Let me also thank every poster by helping other players advance! You are doing an awesome job. But now, onto the real stuff.
What is this guide about? (in more detail)
This thread addresses end-game players, players who are stuck in one of the last campaign or hero legend missions, either in finishing or 3-starring. It is NOT another farming guide, general guide, nor will it be about conquests. It is about beating these missions where you need kill an entire army and destroy four heavily guarded cities in 10 turns, about the toughest of these, and as an F2P player. IAP players may have a completely different view of the game, but can nevertheless benefit from the combat-related advice.
However, next, I will create a short section called "Requirements" in which I will state what requirements on generals, equipment etc are needed to successfully complete end-game. I will keep these sections rather short, as many excellent guides have already been written on this! If you lack one or more of these, I would consider looking up a farming or conquest guide to get the medals, before coming back. Keep in mind it is addressed mainly for F2P players, where priorization is vital, and that it's an opinion!
Requirements
1. Commander: Your customized commander should be an archer general. The skills should contain archer commander, advantage and march. Feel free to choose the 4th skill, it doesn't really matter anyway.
2. Skills: The by far two most important skills in the game are archer commander and advantage. Every archer general should have them maxed. Other skills worth upgrading, not necessarily maxing are the equivalents of the two for the other classes, march and perhaps guerilla. The rest doesn't matter.
3. Equipment: Healing items are exciting but overrated (maybe Eye of Horus is useful, who knows). Mobility and damage/crit are still key. Morale items (dragon tripod and laurel crown) are must-haves.
4. Pets: Mammoth should be maxed. It's an incredible siege unit you get for free. Self-explanatory to treat it like a general unit in battle, watch its morale and get war gear. Terracotta is nice too (I personally have it at 4 legions, but maxing is not a wrong investment). Goblin and griffin don't impress me and I don't think they matter. But I made my choice mostly by saving my gems to stay flexible in the future, excited for Behemoth gem if it ever comes out
Now onto the aforementioned combat-related tactics. But first, what precedes all these:
An obvious but necessary tip:
Don't play too fast! Playing GCQ is sometimes like playing chess. The hardest missions require the most time in thinking. This tip is necessary in order to apply the concepts explained in the rest of the thread, as they will address "where you should spend time thinking". But if you don't take your time overall, well then... ^^
Tactics:
The game offers a couple in-game tactics using scrolls. First, you should consider all options available to you in every round. Oration and forced march should be used constantly whenever you can. Destroy is also useful, but maybe surprisingly, much more often on urban areas (the six surrounding hexagons) than on the city itself (more on this in section "Pathing"). But again, don't use them too fast! Instead think about it, in conjuction with the topics covered in the rest of the thread.
Don't forget to throw in olympics if you have scrolls left but need more income. Most of the time, it pays you the scrolls back anyway, but together with a lot of money and industry. You will almost always have low income in missions.
That's it, if you swim in scrolls, you can use arson on high HP units, but don't rely on its effect. The rest doesn't really matter.
Morale:
Morale is one of the best indicators of the current effective fighting power of a unit (really, probably only surpassed by the type of unit and general itself). In terms of numbers, a unit with high morale does 125% damage, a unit with one morale drop 75%, and a double drop only 50%. Hence a unit with high morale does 2,5x (!) damage than a unit with double drop.
Hence, you should ALWAYS spend a good amount of time thinking about morale. Use oration to constantly boost the morale of your troops.
And even if you already know all of this, you may find the next crucial tip surprising.
The power of disbanding troops:
When a legion of a unit is killed (terminology: legion=circle, unit=conjunction of up to 5 legions together), the unit suffers a morale drop of 1 turn. Remember you have to capture 4 heavily guarded cities in 10 turns? ^^ 1 turn is a lot. Hence, a legion with low health (i.e. a legion that you predict will be killed in the next (counter-)attack) should be disbanded, in order to keep the morale high. If you do this consistently while using oration, after turn 3 or 4 until the end of the battle you will be able to manage all vital units in high morale.
I for myself disband a legion in probably in more than every second round.
Although morale covers 90% of the use cases, this tip also helps to avoid getting attacked by cavalry twice, or when you hit the population limit (swordsman and light cav bye bye)
Pathing:
Ngl, some campaign missions starting at Han and hero legend missions are really crazy to 3-star especially for F2P players Many of the objective cities have 6 urban areas, and all 7 (urban area + city itself) hexagons are guarded by 3-5 heavily armored legions. Undoubtedly, pathing is crucial.
Although I cannot really describe it in concrete words, you should in every turn spend time thinking about your troop movements. Estimate their speed of advancement, and think specifically about every hexagon you need to occupy to create a path that gives you access to all objectives.
In case you miscalculate or are simply unlucky, don't forget you have destroy (80% of destroys are used on urban areas left with 10 HP, but I need that hexagon) or forced march.
If you have one unit on one urban area, even if you think it's a demi-god, it is almost always a better decision to attack a neighbouring urban area hexagon to bring a second unit into the game, instead of attacking the city itself.
Speaking out of experience, most of the missions of the type "4 cities in 10 turns" end up me spending 7-8 turns to create the optimal pathing and access to all 4 cities, and then 2-3 turns to take all 4 cities at once.
Lastly, of course even if you follow all these tips, many details can be fiddled by simply repeating the missions. Be patient and have fun!
And now, back to the more experienced posters here. Extend this thread with your own ideas and experiences, and let's help each other to beat even the toughest parts of the game, no matter F2P or not.