Manual Battle~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Combat ExecutionWhen your unit's turn comes up, the unit is shown at the far left in the turn order at the bottom of the screen. Also, the movement range of the unit is displayed in the hex grid. As you point your mouse at enemies, the game will show the specialization stars for enemies that unit is specialized against. (E.g. if the unit has a three-star specialization, you will see three stars just like during the pre-battle setup screen.) If your cursor turns into a sword or bow icon on the enemy, the unit can attack that enemy. If such an icon does not show up, your unit is not close enough to attack that enemy.
Also, when you point your mouse at various other units (enemies and your own units), you will be shown the movement range of whatever unit you are pointing the mouse cursor at. This is crucial! (Which is why it's so critical that the hex grid actually draw and not be invisible.) Enemy movement ranges are displayed in red outlines. Use the enemy movement ranges to carefully position your own units. For example, Light Ranged can attack Heavy Melee outside of their movement range. Point at the Heavy Melee, then find a tile that is two tiles away from the red movement range--that's a safe place to fire from. (Though any Heavy Melee that has an attack range of 2 like the Paladin will be able to hit your archer; there's nothing you can do about that.)
You can do two things on your turn: move and attack. Attacking ends your unit's turn, so if you are going to move, you have to do it first. To move, just click on the desired destination tile (which has to be within the unit's movement range, of course). To attack, click on the desired enemy target (which also has to be within the unit's range, of course). If you click on your unit itself, the unit will pass his turn doing nothing, so be careful about this as it's very easy to do on accident! You can also have the unit pass his turn by clicking on the icon on the top of the unit's portrait at the bottom of the screen. You can have the unit move first, then pass the rest of his turn, if you wish. Note that you cannot take back a move once you've made it, even if the unit's turn hasn't ended yet.
Note: If you move a unit its maximum movement distance and there are no enemies within range to attack, the unit's turn automatically ends. On the other hand, if you've moved a unit its maximum movement distance and its turn hasn't ended, this is because there is an enemy somewhere that it can hit. Point at the various enemies to find which one(s) this is. It's not necessary to attack if you don't want to, even if there is an enemy within range; just have the unit pass his turn after moving if you don't wish for him to attack.
When attacking, be very, very conscious of the fact that: when you click on an enemy target, if your unit is not presently within range of his target but he can move within range, the game will pick some tile that is within range and move the unit there. (Before you click, it highlights the tiles that it is proposing your unit move to.) The game's pathfinding is pretty bizarre; it appears to pick whatever tile causes the unit to travel the farthest possible distance. Even if the unit only has to move one tile to get within range, the game will often have him move his full maximum movement distance off to the side somewhere. It's crazy. I would highly recommend
not relying on this auto-movement. Manually move the unit to the desired tile first, then click the enemy to attack. (As long as the unit is within range of his weapon, he will not move before attacking.)
As you play the game, you will get used to the ranges of your units and you will get good at being able to move the unit to where it can attack. Before then, just move the unit one tile at a time until he is close enough to attack. (You can tell if he is close enough if you point at the target and the game doesn't highlight any tiles for your unit to move to.) You can also click the blue "i" icon on the unit's portrait to bring up that unit's detailed information and look at its attack range there, then count hexes. I highly recommend practicing with Light Ranged units and get good at positioning them outside of the movement range of Heavy Melee; but the same concept applies to all units.
Note: Units have to take their turns in the order presented (which is based on their initiative stats). You cannot have a unit "save" his turn for later. The most you can do is have a unit pass his turn, in which case he has to wait for his next turn in the next round.
Unit PositionsUnit facing doesn't matter in this game. Attacking an enemy from the rear will not do any additional damage. Units always turn to face whomever is going to attack them at the moment that they get attacked, but this is cosmetic only.
All units block movement through their occupied hex to all other units. This includes both friendlies and enemies. Your own units will block your units' movements. This is critical to keep in mind to avoid blocking your own advance.
However, there is no flanking this game. Although a unit blocks his own hex, he doesn't influence any hexes around himself. An enemy unit can waltz right past him without hindrance. If you want to, say, use melee units to protect your ranged units in the back, you'll need to line up multiple melee units or use the terrain to your advantage.
RetaliationSome units can retaliate when attacked. (The game shows this on the unit's "i" information card as "Strike Back.")
Most of the time, a unit gets only one retaliation per round (the rounds are demarcated at the bottom of the screen). Thus, you can reduce overall retaliations by ganging up on a single enemy within a single round. Later in the game, some units will gain the special ability to retaliate multiple times in a round. You can also see this on the unit's information card.
Furthermore, a unit can only retaliate if its attacker is within its own attack range, so if you strike from outside of the attack range of the enemy, it can't retaliate against you. Remember that attack range is not the same as movement range; the game shows you the enemy's movement range in the hex grid, but not its attack range. You can check the attack range on the--you guessed it--information card of the unit in question.
Enemy AIAs in any game, the computer AI has some predictability that can be exploited.
- Enemies tend to target the unit with the highest initiative (of those that are within reach). This generally means your Light Ranged will get picked on first.
- At higher levels, AI units do appear to make more of an attempt to target units they are specialized against. (They don't seem to do this so much at lower levels.)
- But overall the AI will go for whichever unit is presently within range. So you can bait the computer by deliberately putting your strongest unit within range of an enemy so that the enemy has no choice but to hit that unit.
- Note though that the AI can sometimes be pretty clever. Say the enemy is a Light Melee that's just itching to attack that Light Ranged that's just out of its reach, and you stick a Heavy Melee in its way; in this sort of situation the AI will often walk all the way around your Heavy Melee before attacking in order to get into position to attack the Light Ranged on its next turn. This is something to watch out for. (And something to try doing yourself.)
Recent Posts