entrench and defend

A couple games showing the power of entrenchment. Entrench is probably the least-used overpowered feature left in T&P. Pretty much no one does it except me and bird. And even bird does it rarely. dance In time I think entrench will spread throughout the community (just as how in the beginning only a few used ambush but now everyone uses it), because you really cannot afford to give up a +100% frontal armor bonus in a pitched battle.

Game 1 AU_sims (British) vs. [ElitE]SoY-SauCe (Turks) @ Himilayas

This game is mostly non-descript, as I'm British and get obsidian and diamonds. Soy (aka ryceryder) decides to go for gp boom/attack and I am happy to oblige. In IV he reduces my 4th city and takes it just as I go V. Since my troops are entrenched though, I'm able to hold my ground and wait til the troops finish upgrading, and counterattack.

Game 2 AU_sims (Egyptians) vs. WH_Georgie (Germans) @ Amazon

Entrench is super-powerful on Amazon, because after the first 7 or 8 mins or so your opponent is almost always resigned to sieging a city before attacking it, with all the rivers/rocks/etc. Because of all the terrain, your opponent can't quickly turn around and attack away from the entrenchment, so you can buy yourself a lot of time. Sieging usually takes a minute or two at least, so if your entrench forces your opponent to go to another city you basically bought yourself one or two minutes to boom. In this game, Georgie gets a 1200 gp and attacks me a bit afterwards, and takes my 3rd city due to monarch and tac2 vs. tac1. With my 3rd city in hand he goes for my 2nd city with more troops. I entrench behind and wait for his troops to be reduced and then counterattack. After that it's just a waiting game as Egy can build late game wonders galore if they have the military advantage. This is an example of when you want to stay at the city you just got--it's really hard to take a city even if you have more trops if they're all half-dead, especially vs. an entrenchment. From Georgie's position it's hard to tell that's the right move though, as he had just seemingly demolished my army.

Some more notes entrenching is most powerful on the chokepoint maps like Himilayas, Amazon, Mesa, and Old World because there's usually only one or two clear paths that your opponent can attack from. Also, have an extra general (you should always have an extra general in any case) so you can re-entrench elsewhere if needed.

If you look somewhere in these forums there's also a Bantu vs. British game I had vs bird where I lost but I held a position for 3+ mins age down thanks to an entrenchment. dance

V nice sims. You're right. In a game today entrench would've been perfect and never thought of it. Next time P

So much shit to remember though. That's why I don't kill scouts every game ;)

i dunno.... what i dont like about entrenchments, is that your units cant move so you cant really micro them(yeah you can re-entrench them, but the general-abilities are too costly to constantly do that). also, because of that, sometimes half of your army doesnt do a thing coz the enemy is out of range /

Well, the question is, can the enemy get past it? If they can't, you don't have to micro them. The pressure is on your opponent to figure out how to get past it. On a map like Amazon or Himilayas, often it takes a minute or so just to re-route your army around the chokepoint.

BTW, you only entrench your LIs/FAs in GP age, keep your HIs and and HCs mobile. In enlightenment you can entrench both. In any case you have to micro your HCs anyway so that will keep your opponents from standing still and lets you draw them into battle. Also British (12 range FAs) and Chinese (12 range LIs) are especially good at this--no escaping there. dance

Also you never want to re-entrench, only troops that were idle for 5 seconds actually end up entrenching.

I try to use entrench a lot but get irritated because the units have to be completely unengaged for a period of time while they entrench. For example, if your troops are idle and u issue the order to entrench and one of ur dumb-ass archers launches an arrow at something, he wont entrench. So it's probably best to put the units on "no attack" stance while they entrench and then back to aggresive once they are entrenched.

I mean to use it regularly, just never remember the hot key for hold ground!!!!

shift+g wink

holding ground is not enough - they cant be fighting either

That's why you do it before the enemy comes in. If it's too late, use forced march instead. In an open field battle (rather than a sieging situation) forced march is better anyway.

I see a lot of noobs use Create Decoys when they should have used forced march or ambush, is there any necessary reason to use Create Decoys at all??

The only time I use it is if I see my enemy has no scout (if he has a scout they die in like 2 secs), or you're going on a raid (makes your raiding party look a lot bigger), or the rare times I do a decoy attack (attack a front line city with an army of decoys, but use the real army to attack the capital).

I used to create decoys a lot until I finally realized after playing 1 year what Force March does

First time I saw decoy Kiwi Ceral Killa had like 16 turk seige and I didn't click it was decoy and freaked.

I think BHG should change that in the next patch if there ever gonna be one, you shouldnt be able to see w/o scout which are decoys.

i used to use decoys to untiul i learned that by doing so it counts against my unit ramping prices so defeats the purpose.

wonder how many 'noobs' understood what we just said lol.

explain.... click on a unit, if it's not a scout spy or general and has a blue bar under it it's a decoy.

WHAT!?!? Decoys count for ramping?

I can't believe I hadn't noticed that.

yep so really it is stupid to use decoys

lol what the . well anyways. i havent noticed that eather. D

I still like using the other 3 better. 8)

well i just checked my assertion that decoys count against rampoing and i believe this now to be false. I read it somewhere but i just played in humbles proverbial sandbox to test it and i didnt see a change. so i think i full of shit. I believe it was nide who originally told me that. somewhere on this forum possibly old au site. ANyway someone else verify?