Tips to Win a Land Battle
Page last updated on 2011 / 02 / 08Land battles are an essential part of your pirating career, as described in the land battles reference. You may also find the land unit reference useful.
There are a number of ways for you to closer ensure a victory and minimise casualties in your crew:
- Weigh the benefits of attacking the city: Usually, the number of men guarding a city is proportional to the potential plunder you can take from it. The traveller in taverns can often give you insider information about troop numbers, so its always worth checking with him to see if he has any info.
- When you have < 100 soldiers: the land battle will be skipped and your men will either refuse to attack or you will duel the defenders leader. If they do have greater numbers, ensure you duel that man into submission quickly!
- Pick your starting location wisely. You will be offered three different locations. I tend to choose one that allows you to advance a couple of squares, forces the enemy into a bottleneck (for your buccaneers to shoot them down), or tree cover to minimise any potential shots the enemy will have at you.
- Avoid having your men on open ground, who are at risk from cannon, ranged attacks and cavalry. A good 25% damage can be caused by a range attack on open ground. Cavalry can move three squares and are particularly potent on the open field. Avoid avoid avoid!
- Flank your enemy where possible, this is possible when you've walked 'the long way' round to them or you had forest cover to creep up. Flanking them doubles your attack strength, more or less ensuring victory and minimising your losses.
- Watch for native units in the forest, all other units can only move once in the forest while the natives can continue moving. Ensure your weaker long range units are not within the radius of a (strong) native unit.
- Keep your buccaneers 3 squares distant from any close range units, who can easily wipe them out at close range. Use your bucanners to wear down units one or two at a time and use your close range units if possible to finish them off.
- Try and destroy your enemy and you will receive the full loot of the city, otherwise you will only receive a percentage relative to the size of the army that remains
- Have enough men! If you don't, there's a chance your entire crew will be wiped out, resulting in no loot and having to recruit your crew again.
- Positioning... Tree cover is good for getting your pirates & officers to sneak up for close combat, sometimes being able to avoid any long-range fire whatsoever. Buccaneers are OK on open ground away from cavalry, preferrably at altitude where they can shoot down at their maximum range (outside of close range attack).
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