Basic guide for 2vs2 games

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krotop
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Basic guide for 2vs2 games

Post by krotop »

This thread is meant to give reliable advices on 2vs2 basic mechanics to newcomers that – I hope - could be added to Thrawn’s “Common sense : the best strategy” sections. Up to your judgement to modify, remove or add some parts of it.

2VS2 - BASICS :

1) Pay attention to your ally troops.

This is team battle, not side by side fight, so take care of them as if they were your own units. Except for sentimental values, they're as important as yours.
- your ally needs villages as much as you for recruit, heal or defensive slot, share them. Better well choosing who takes what at the beginning of the game, though, because the team will lose a little money each time you exchange a village later.
- don’t be reluctant at sacrificing a cheap, not so useful unit if it saves a more important one in your ally side (Ex : you may cover your ally mage with one troll of yours)
- don’t take a slot that your ally could make a better use than you (Ex1 : you take a forest where your ally could put his elves ; Ex2 : you take an hex to shoot a unit where your ally could have done better damages than you)


2) Communicate with your partner

Not only it keeps the fun up, but also it’s rather important to make your strategy coherent with your ally, but be warned that :
- people may not understand you plan, so make it as clear as you can but if it still doesn’t work leave it off and stay in control of your side.
- people may think it’s a bad plan, which may be true, so let him argue against it. Never compel someone to follow your idea, always ask him if your plan sounds ok. You can try to convince him but if it still doesn’t work leave it off and stay in control of your side.
- some people don’t like to receive advices, it makes them feel you’re playing their units and ruin their fun, so take it with philosophy and stay in control of your side.
*thanks to bert1*


3) Make your strategy coherent with your ally’s one

No matter how good you are individually, some moves which maybe ok alone can shoot in the foot of your ally if he had other plans (Ex : your rush on a strategic position while your ally needed you to remove an ennemy from one of his villages). Or the opposite, you engaged troop in a battle, counting on your ally support, but he didn’t follow because he didn’t get your strategy (Ex : you put a grunt on a jammy position to emprison a drake, but your ally don’t put a unit on the opposite hex, resulting in a meaningless sacrificed grunt instead of a trade).


4) Pay attention to the side order

This is mainly how the mechanics of the game differ from a standard duel : players are constrained to move their own troops side after side, while the battle is team against team, which makes tactics more restrictive.There are 2 configurations used for balance reasons (mainly to compensate first player advantage) :
- Players 1 & 3 against players 2 & 4, called “1212” to make short
- Players 1 & 4 against players 2 & 3, called “1221”

It’s a necessity to know which opponent is playing right after you. It’s good to ask yourself :
- Can the next opponent cover his ally before yours finish off units you expected to kill ?
- Can he shoot your exposed troops before your ally can cover you ?
- Can the next opponent attack your ally units if you don’t cover it ?
- Can he reach a strategic hex you wanted to leave to your ally ?
If you’re playing in 1221 configuration as the first player of the team, you’ll have to take care even more about which slots you’re leaving to your ally : are they safe ? will he make a better use of them than you ? does he even have troops to put there ?


5) General tips :

a. Abilities :
- If your unit is closed to a healer at the beginning of the healer’s turn, it will receive health points. This amount is added to health regained during your turn if you were on a village, had regeneration or were staying. You can earn more than the standard 8-10 hp in a turn that way.
- You can use backstab with allied troops
- You don’t share leadership or protection with your ally

b. Rolling troops :
- If you have different alignments with your ally, you can take advantage of any time of day with a good rolling cooperation.
- On the other hand, rolling may not always be possible without losing some field (see point 4) and you sometime won’t want to hand off a strategic position to the ennemy.

c. Mixing units : find a compromise
- With mixed troops, you’ll have better adapted units to any situation, using them to their full potential.
Ex : you’re human+elf vs drake+undead and recruited a mage as human facing drake, and elf archer facing undead, then you’ll want to exchange units to have mage facing undeads and archer facing drakes.
- On the other hand, tactics will be harder to handle, units blocking others, thus not being able to use them at all

d. Adaptation to maps & factions :
- Depending on the map size or configuration, you may not be able to mix troops at all or even want it for logistic reasons (such as grabbing villages fast or be the first on key points). Don’t mix for the sake of mixing.
- Depending on the factions, you’ll use the best compromise between rolling, mixing, or seperating sides. If you play loyalists+undeads on a small map, you’re likely to roll to take advantage of time of day and almost no mix so that the attack is more efficient (because of better tactics), while with elves+dwarves you’re likely to mix more so that every terrain is best used and you care less about time of day.


Disclaimer : don’t take this thread as a reference until a MP Developper approves it or these advices are added to Thrawn’s sticky “Common sense...” thread.
Last edited by krotop on July 26th, 2007, 9:29 am, edited 3 times in total.
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playtom
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Post by playtom »

i hope you don't mind me adding comments. ignore them if you find it useless.
You don' t share leadership or protection with your ally
actually a unit with leadership may share its benefit on ally troops as well as their own.

secondly, scouting is important in 2V2 battle as well(unless theres no fog or shroud, then all scouts have to do is taking villages), since you and your ally shares visions, it might be a good idea to station couple scouts around the enlarged permiter around your camp, it would be much better if your ally is complied to do so, therefore having a through and complete look over the perimeter. after the main forces catchs on. repeat this process until encountering enemys, then hold strategic stonrghold hex with sufficent enough scouts, wait till reinforcement arrives, then send off scouts to capture village or sneak behind enemy line to do reconnaissance.
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krotop
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Post by krotop »

playtom wrote:
You don' t share leadership or protection with your ally
actually a unit with leadership may share its benefit on ally troops as well as their own.
I took few minutes to check again to be sure, and you definitely don't share neither leadership nor protection on 1.3.4 & 1.2.4 editions.
playtom wrote:secondly, scouting is important in 2V2 battle as well(unless theres no fog or shroud, then all scouts have to do is taking villages), since you and your ally shares visions, it might be a good idea to station couple scouts around the enlarged permiter around your camp, it would be much better if your ally is complied to do so, therefore having a through and complete look over the perimeter. after the main forces catchs on. repeat this process until encountering enemys, then hold strategic stonrghold hex with sufficent enough scouts, wait till reinforcement arrives, then send off scouts to capture village or sneak behind enemy line to do reconnaissance.
This thread wants to point out differences between 1vs1 and 2vs2, and scouting in team don't differ from scouting in 1vs1, in my opinion : except for few maps - I'm talking about standard maps, not random or customs maps - you need at least 1 per side. They're good to take strategy points first, and other good applications better explained in the "How to play..." serie, but if you recruit too many of them, you're likely to be outnumbered by more powerful units than yours. Anyway, that's rather advanced strategy debate while the thread is meant for trustful basics.

playtom wrote:i hope you don't mind me adding comments. ignore them if you find it useless.
I'm rather glad you add comments and it doesn't hurt replying if it doesn't lead to energy suction debate. :)
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Post by bert1 »

Good advice from kroptop, I think.

One thing I'd like to mention:

At the level I play, two plans don't mix. Very often, if your ally has a cunning plan which is different from what you were intending to do, and you try to execute your ally's plan, it ends in tears. Stay in control of your own side.

Similarly with giving advice. If your ally is timid, leave him alone; he'll play better making his own decisions than trying to make sense of yours.

I suppose this applies less the more experienced the players are. Better players will be able to evaluate suggestions more confidently, and integrate advice into their tactics.
Last edited by bert1 on July 26th, 2007, 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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krotop
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Post by krotop »

Edited the original post.

You pointed out quite a problem indeed as it may sound a bit contradictory to the other advices, I hope the post is not confusing the way it is.
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Post by Thrawn »

*bump*

I like these. It's good general advice, and covers most of the basics.

Other people's comments would be appreciated, I feel. hopefully by people who have played more recently than I.

I'd say mixing troops is really important--many people just treat these as 1v1, 1v1, not as 2v2.
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this goes for they're/their/there as well
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Post by Beholder »

Healing units works better to your ally then they work to you.

Let say you have a Troll (or a Grunt in a village) and a shaman near. You get 4 healing on you ally turn and 8 on your turn. If he got a Dryad or White Mage, it's possible to get 16.

It works better if your ally play just after you on "1,2,2,1". You just need to end your unit turn near a healer and you are set. Healing is given at the start of your ally turn so there is no way to the enemy kill you or your healer. Your partner is free to move the healer afterwards too.
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Post by Taurus »

Thrawn wrote: Other people's comments would be appreciated, I feel. hopefully by people who have played more recently than I.
It's sound advice :-)
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