Sword of Aragon: A Chronicle of Deeds

My chronicle of deeds grows ever longer.

In my last posting, I noted that "strategy game lovers might actually dislike" Sword of Aragon, a position that I hold more firmly now that I've had a chance to experience far more involved battles. The problem is that the enemy AI is rather awful. Enemy units dither around when they should attack, hole up when they should enter the field, and retreat when they should charge. They send bowmen, who could be devastating otherwise, out into the field in small, easily-destructible units. They surrender with 75% of their force still strong. I've won several combats against cities with tactics no more intense than simply hovering my archers just far enough from a city to hit it with their bows, and raining volley after volley on the stubbornly-entrenched defenders until they surrendered.

Unfortunately, these same AI problems often beset your allies as well. In both my fight against Paritan and my attack on Brocada, many of my allied units just hung around their starting locations instead of engaging.

My units do all the work scouring the city while my "allies" hang around to the southwest.

This is on "average" difficulty, though. I don't know if the AI might be stronger on "hard"; you have the option to change it every time you start the game, and I haven't experimented much yet.

Despite these concerns, the game continues to delight me with the ways that it breaks common tropes. Other strategy games I've played encourage you to think of some units as essentially cannon fodder. I'm thinking of the infantrymen in Warlords, whom you can create at a rate of 1 per turn, and whom I would gleefully (and somewhat sadistically, in retrospect), send on suicide missions to soften up enemy stacks before attacking with the units I really cared about. You don't want to do that in Sword of Aragon. A unit of 35 mounted infantry costs around 6,000 gold pieces to assemble and equip. No unit is "dispensable."

Creating a new unit costs a quarter of my available wealth.

I had some successes since my last posting, which I will recount anon, but also one big failure. My main army, with almost all my heroes (save my main hero) was moving along a mountain trail when they encountered a "small group" of titans. I expected an easy, quick combat, as random combats usually are, and was careless in my unit deployment and the initial rounds. The titans turned out to be absolutely devastating. I lost five heroes, a unit of cavalry, and two units of bowmen. It was the type of loss from which you seriously think about starting over, but fortunately this game (at least in parts) gives you enough breathing room to recover from such disasters. Particularly notable is that newly-hired heroes don't start at Level 1 but rather about half the level of your main hero. I had lots of recruits waiting to be formed into units in my four cities, and I was able to rebuild my army within about a year.

More on combat tactics at the end, but let me quickly recount what I accomplished since the last posting:

1. Brocada: Joined with the exiled forces and re-took it from Pitlag's army. The old guard took it over, so it's a vassal city rather than a city I control.

2. Pitlag's Army. I heard a rumor that they were camped to the southeast. Took my victorious army from Brocada and found their camp, wiped them out, seized their treasure.

3. Nuralia. I had heard nothing of this city to the east of Paritan, but it was on the dead-end of the road, so I figured I'd have to deal with it at some point, and I might as well do it before I turned my attention south. When I approached it, I had an option I didn't have (or didn't notice) with the other cities: to lay siege to it.

I kept the siege up for several months, but the defenders just "remained firm" each month, so finally I lost patience and just attacked. The battle wasn't too hard. The city had a lot of defenders, but as covered above, they were loathe to leave the safety of their walls. I just shot arrows at them until they surrendered.

4. Horsemen: Around the time I was attacking Brocada, I started to hear about tribes of horsemen in the plains south of Sur Nova. There were apparently several warring tribes, but one leader, Jantri Khali, was said to be uniting them under his banner. (Seven years before the world learned of Khal Drogo!) There were also reports that horsemen--I don't know which ones--were looting merchant caravans. As the months passed, I heard that Jantri Khali had defeated his rivals and was charging tribute to pass through the lands. Eventually, an ambassador from Khali approached me and offered an alliance, which I accepted.

5. Sur Nova. The giants that had given me trouble early in the game, blocking passages south, were a bit easier with my long-range compound bows. I killed them, freed their captives, and gained treasure. The freed captives told me they'd put in a good word at Sur Nova, the next city on the march south. I ended up taking the city without a fight; they simply welcomed me as their new leader. Nice when it's easy.

6. Miscellaneous Monsters. Around Sur Nova, my heroes found some evil cultists and a band of orcs with wizards. In both cases, the heroes had to fight alone, but they were easily victorious. Both produced lots of treasure.

7. Monastery. My court historian told me of a monastery to the east of Sur Nova where the monks apparently know some protective magic. I sent Gideon there alone for some reason, but it turned out okay. He got admitted to the building, donated 1,000 gold pieces, and received some information about an alternate route through the mountains, guarded by a goblin army with a dragon.

8. Tentula. Rumors around the time I was fighting for Nuralia said that this southern city was "once very prosperous" but "has practically withered since the disaster that devastated the world" (interesting hint to a back story not covered in the manual) and would therefore be easy to conquer. Soon, word came of impending collapse and riots in the streets. When I finally arrived, I found it quite well-defended, with 500 soldiers, but I won it with my usual bow strategies. It's a good thing I did: I hadn't been watching the months, and it was December. If I hadn't been able to take the city, my army would have faced a long and deadly march back to the nearest safe city.

9. Trolls. I recount this episode below.

As months go by, in between turns, a lot of random stuff can happen in the cities, some good, some bad, all lending some fun flavor to the game. Hail damages crops and diminishes a city's agriculture. Citizens donate money to help with the upkeep on the garrison. General "unrest" damages production. A "misunderstanding with a powerful merchant group" damages commerce. A prospector finds a new mine and increases mining production, or a bandit raid decreases it. Nice weather improves morale and decreases food use. Food shortages deplete the civilian population. Wandering adventurers give information that helps improve trade. A population surge increase the number of individuals available for recruitment. There are dozens of other possibilities.

Each transition of months brings both random events and intelligence.

All of these events have consequent effects on morale, city production, city population, income, and recruitment. I agree with most commenters that since the overwhelming majority of your income comes from battles, these considerations aren't terrifically important, but it irks me anyway to see cities operating on a net loss.

Okay, on to combat. A 25-minute battle I fought against some trolls illustrates the game's approach to both quests and combat. The episode begins some turns earlier, when hundreds of trolls surrounded the city of Sur Nova and demanded 2,000 gold pieces or else they would "kiill aall humann!"

In most games, you might pause to chuckle for a few minutes before attacking (has anyone honestly ever just given "all their gold" to a wandering bandit in Skyrim?), but Sword of Aragon encourages you to think about the situation with a little more strategy. In the city, I had a garrison of about 35 trained and equipped infantry, a new unit of bowmen, plus two heroes. If the trolls killed them all, it would cost well over 2,000 gold to replace them. Plus, there's the population of nearly 5,000 people to think about--no more recruiting in Sur Nova--not to mention the continued economic cost of supporting a devastated city.

In this case, I allowed myself the rare luxury of trying both options and re-loading, just to properly document the role-playing choices. Fighting turned out to be suicide. There were indeed hundreds of trolls, in dozens of units, and they swarmed my hopeless garrison from all sides. I had to watch as the game told me how many civilians they were slaughtering.

When I intend to leave a hero in a city, I lamely name him as the first letter of his class and then the name of the city.

So I reloaded to try the other strategy: agree to pay. They told me to "havve theee goold ready" when they came again.

Little did the trolls know that I'd already discovered their base of operations, called "Trollhome," and I was waiting for reinforcements to attack. The video below picks up as I muster all of my heroes and forces in front of their fortress and launch my assault. The video is unnarrated, but I have highlights below.

• 00:07: You see my unit names and statuses. Yes, I'm running out of ideas for naming the heroes and units.
• 00:17: The game gives me a description of what I'm facing and a chance to attack or retreat. Sometimes these screens give you a better sense of the size of the opposing force, but not here.
• 00:24: I scan the battlefield before placing my units. Though it looks like the bulk of the troll army is up in their village to the northeast, I know from a previous attempt that the biggest danger is a horde of them hiding in the mountains to the south.
• 00:39: I start positioning the units. Trolls rarely used range attacks, so the key to success in this battle is strong stacks that can repel melee attacks. I have too many units for fewer than three stacks, and I decide to go with exactly three groups of melee units. (When enemies use ranged attacks, you generally want more groups so they take less damage from arrows.) This is enough to create a wall protecting my archers and mage. I distribute the heroes and ground troops relatively evenly throughout the stacks.
• 01:40: The trolls immediately start pouring out of the mountains and attacking my groups. I'm able to eliminate or repel all of them. The game won't let the round end with opposing units sharing the same square, so one stack is either completely eliminated or dispersed back to another square.
• 02:22: Notice how many units are just dithering around the village when they could be swarming me. This is what I mean by the bad AI.
• 02:24: I finally get the ability to act. I take a look at the army list, and we've both lost about 8% of our effectiveness. This doesn't mean that 8% of the units are dead. These percentages are a combination of soldiers' lives and the hit points of the heroes, I think.
• 02:38: I begin by having my archers decimate the largest stacks of trolls. Each group gets two shots.
• 03:15: My plan at this point is to basically entrench in place and let them come to me. But the stack to the far left didn't get attacked in the first round, so I have them charge the group of trolls just to their south, eliminate them, then return to where they came.
• 03:40: I may not have the other groups charge this round, but I don't want to waste their movement when I can do something. I start by having the ranger in this stack fire a volley with his remaining movement.
• 04:04: The "2nd Javelins" were highly demoralized by the attacks of the first round, so I have a priest cast "rally" to restore some of their confidence (04:11), and Gideon casts "Heal" to restore their health (04:28). Gideon also shoots a bit at one of the stacks.
• 04:42: Morganna, my mage, casts "Confuse" on one of the stacks, then makes an attack.
• 05:10: Pasta, a priest, casts "Exhaust" on another stack.
• 05:31: Everyone else "entrenches," which protects them a bit in the next round.
• 05:40: Next round begins. Yikes! Look at all those troll units that suddenly appear! And the ones from the village are ominously beginning to come west (05:45). Nonetheless, my stacks of heroes and soldiers do a good job repelling large groups of trolls.
• 06:36: My actions in the second round begin. I pretty much repeat the last one: target large groups with archers, charge a couple of weak troll stacks, keep most of my fighting units entrenched but take advantage of ranged and spell attacks when I can. I'm a little worried that at the beginning of the round, we're still even in losses (06:39), but by the end of the round, I've clearly dealt with most of the danger from the south.
• 09:36: At the beginning of the next round, the stacks of trolls either break themselves against my units or flee to the south. I pick off the remainder with archers, rangers, and one cavalry charge during the next couple rounds.
• 11:41: Gideon is out of arrows. I have to "resupply," which costs a little money.
• 13:30: Fortunately, the trolls in the village haven't realized that they could easily overwhelm me if they just had attacked at the same times as their friends. I now start positioning units for what I think is the inevitable fight against them. There are a few rounds as I slowly approach close enough to get my archers in range.
• 16:00: I check the status. I'm only doing slightly better than them. They could still defeat me if they tried.
• 18:00: Notice how they spend a lot of time just shuffling around instead of charging.
• 18:15: I have to "resupply" my bowmen.
• 18:23: I finish killing the one unit they sent gingerly towards me.
• 21:28: I'm just in the midst of picking off some other forward units when suddenly they surrender--with 68% of their force left! (Compared to my 80%.) Note how much gold they have. I get a percentage of that gold based on the percentage of trolls I've destroyed. If I quit fighting now, I'll get 22,500 * 0.32, or 7,200. Not bad, but I'd like more, and they threatened to destroy my city.
• 21:57: When you continue to fight in such situations, you get only one more round. I spend it charging down and shooting as many trolls as I can.
• 23:44: Satisfied I can do no more, I end the round and the combat. A number of my units and heroes gained levels, and fortunately I didn't lose any heroes, but the combat was otherwise fairly tough on me. I lost 10 of 24 javelins, 4 bowmen, 4 of 22 cavalry, and 14 of 22 mounted infantry. It'll be a while before I can replenish these units with fresh recruits. My extra round ensured I got $8,325 instead of $7,200.
• 24:16: More important, I finished the quest and got 25 points--the highest I've been awarded so far--for doing so.

A few things that are raised by the video and combat discussions in general:

1. I see the wisdom of spreading out your units in most fights, so you don't lose too many soldiers to arrows and spell attacks that target an entire stack. But so far, I don't see any reason not to start everyone very close together. I wonder if later enemies will be capable of hitting multiple stacks at a time.

2. Spells so far have been under-whelming. "Rally" and "Heal" help a lot to counteract damage from enemies, but it's hard to palpably sense the effects of "Confuse," "Fear," and "Exhaust." I'm hoping some actual damage spells are coming along soon.

3. At the end of each combat, you get a battle summary that shows your "battle score," which I gather is the equivalent of experience points in a traditional RPG. Everyone who participated gets a share, regardless of what they did, and everyone has a chance of gaining levels or (for heroes) spells.

4. I really don't like some of the controls in the game. Consider moving a stack in combat: you hit ENTER to activate the stack, select the one you want to move, or "All" for all of them, hit "N" for normal movement, go where you want to go, hit ENTER to stop, and hit ESC to leave the stack. It doesn't sound too hard, but I find it easy to skip a step and find myself targeting when I want to be moving or (worse) moving when I want to be targeting. It's also not possible (at least as far as I can tell) to select multiple units without selecting all of them. If you want to move just 4 out of 5 units in a stack, you have to either first move the unwanted one out of the stack or painstakingly move the other 4 forward one-by-one, and then join them again.

5. Freeing captives from various monsters increases the number of people you can recruit in nearby cities. This is good, because the number of recruits otherwise grows slowly--maybe 5 or 6 a month--and if you need a unit faster, you have to resort to conscription, which damages morale and costs extra.

6. Garrisons. As I found out the hard way, if you don't leave a big enough garrison in a city, wandering monsters will attack it. I've taken to forming infantry companies out of local recruits and stationing them there. They're the cheapest units (since they don't have horses) and taking them on the road is difficult anyway because of their low movement speed.

Forming an infantry company to protect Sur Nova.

As I close this posting, I have a few options for my next move: 

1. Gernak. A city of goblins in the middle of the map. I can either approach from the direction that has the dragon or go around.

2. Zarnix. The next city on the southern coast. I know nothing about it.

3. Xafanta. This dwarven city lies to the east of Sur Nova, in the mountains. It's very close to my cities and I'd like to count it as an ally, but I've had no emissaries from them yet, just word that they're at war with the orcs. It seems wrong to just attack dwarves, but my ultimate goal is to unite the land...

4. Tetrada. This city is in the far northwest and, judging by the map of highways, probably the last that I'll approach. Word came that the "emperor," Lucinian III, had died, and his son, Lucinian IV, was promising to restore the city's position "as the center of the known world." At first, I thought he might be an ally, but then I got information that he's "ruthlessly suppressing opposition" and has appointed loyal army officers to political positions.

Looks like we'll be facing each other across a battlefield, Lucinian.

I only have 130 out of 500 points, so either I've missed a lot, or we still have 3/4 of the game to go, or the point rewards get bigger from now on (something my battle with the trolls seems to suggest). I wouldn't mind if there was a lot more left to play. This is a very fun game, and I'm glad my coverage has brought so many fans out of hiding to comment on it. A week ago, it was an annoying obstacle between me and the end of 1989; now, it's a reminder of why I started this project in the first place.