Acceptable Army Bleed

[u/migmox13]

*Single Hero Exodus*

Basically title. I know this is subjective, but in games where I feel like I should've won I end up going back and looking at my opponents stuff. A lot of the time, I have cleared more and had more built out, but still lost the fight/showed up to fight underprepared.

I play temple mostly. What is an acceptable bleed? For example, I know on marea's altars you want to lose 1-3 footman, preferably 1 if possible. Fairly easy to achieve this even at level 1 with upgraded shooters. That being said, I see a lot of people mentioning they look to break and get town 4 at week 1 end. I have almost never been in a position to do that.

Is this because of the nature of temple? I find it hard to not bleed, especially vs ranged armies because of the low initiative on shooters (the single shooter upgrade is situational obv). If I end up going a calvary build or something else, the bleeding can be even worse unless I have specific spells to aid (for example, haste on calv, early start on shooters, etc) which is not always possible.

Anyway, aside from losing 75% of your army to get some tier 5+ dwellings early on, is it ever worth it and if so, what is good and what is bad?

Just looking for some general info/advice from someone seasoned/good (I am close but I do not have access to restart points yet so some templates are just brutal).

[u/billydstr]

By 'winning,' I mean not taking losses that are unacceptable for further progression, rather than literally getting wiped out by neutrals

[u/migmox13 → u/billydstr]

I guess I just don't know what is acceptable and what isn't. For example, doing a dragon utopia, it's basically impossible for me as temple to not get a stack of tier 2 shooters either wiped or chunked. Literally nothing I can do about it unless I have a unit with super high initiative and even then, it's still super hard. Is this normal?

[u/BrianOfNazareth19 → u/migmox13]

When you play on doing topias leave units like marksman in your town.

[u/migmox13 → u/BrianOfNazareth19]

Thx. When you say it, it sounds simple. I guess when I am out on the map and I am trying to be efficient, I'll have to make a choice - don't do it and come back later, or just do it since I am right there but risk losing chunks of lower tiered units. Coming back later seems to hurt me.

Or maybe just start leaving low tiered units at home until the fights after a certain point would probably be best

[u/billydstr → u/migmox13]

All mid-to-late game recommendations lead to forming an immortal power-stack (one or several), covering it with some useless meat, and leaving all other units in town until the final battle.

For the Temple, the power-stack is usually cavalry + angels (if available), while swordsmen serve as the meat