Does not work in actual battles
I had played with this on my own a bit, and it did work for me. Never as well as in the simulation, but still worked well.
...until today.
I sent in 1 worker, 1 warrior, 1 pikeman, 1 swordsman, 1 calvary and 1000 archers (lvl 6) with a hero (73 attack) against 619 pikes, 412 swords and 195 cavalry in an NPC lvl 8 valley. The simulation showed me having no archer losses and wiping the defenders out.
Actual result? My army being completely wiped out, and a loss of only 13 pikemen and 144 cavalry for them. To me, it looks like a change was made to the game.
the horse that broke the army's back
Or the one below. Quite intriguing that if you remove either the cavalry or the cataphract (or both) from the attacking force, the attackers win!
The battle mechanics in this game are extremely convoluted and far from intuitive...
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/821/cataphract.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/462...cataphract.jpg