supply line

[Huttensohn]

One of the often occurring strategic problems in aof is that you often have quite a bit hinterland with lots of factories and then a small frontline, where all the fighting takes place but were only a fraction of your troops are.

How do you combat this? What's the most effective?
Using cavalry?
Using transport ships?
Using wagons?
Using fewer, but stronger units?
using your tcs in your core to research instead of creating troops that take forever to reach the enemy?

What about destroying your factories at the start and building them new nearer to the enemy. Does it make sense or is it a bad trade off? I think it makes more sense for orc monster caves, than, for example, Elven ent trainers.

[Midonik]

I would say that wagons. They can get you more units and faster. Deleting factories is an risky plan but if they wont be in range of enemy siege/suprise attacks and you can complete them in one turn, and obviously you just finished producing something in there then its definetly a win. Cav you should have but making more for the sake of getting there faster will mess up your army composition. On big maps you definently should research focus, but be more carful about that on small maps. As time goes by you definetly should get some stronger units for the sake of breakthru. Transports are situational.

[makazuwr32]

Everything is depending on what types of units uses enemy.
I usually produce in those tcs which are far from the frontline some units with at least speed 3. For infantries i recommend to have few wagons transporting between back and front.

Another good choice is to train there some powerful units (various ents for elves, elephants and mages for humans, liches and cavalry/mummies for undeads, orc leaders, various casters and orc slavers for horde).

It is safer to train cheaper and more useful units nearer frontline while more costly and powerful one behing.

As for breaking through tight spots — that is highly depending on race you're using, race of opponent, what troops or structures your opponent is using.

Worst scenario is elves (you) vs human fortification backed up by ballistas.
Elves than will require to break through:
1. Fast destruction of fortifications — melee units or blade singer can fit;
2. Some ent warriors coupled with druids and archers for shooting enemy units (highest priority are: non-building fire users, casters, workers, enemy ranged units)
3. Good addition would be few wagons liaded with blade dancers who have maxed jump range (5 speed of wagon + 4 range of jump + 4 speed of dancer) to bring the chaos o to enemy territory.
4. Some flyers also will be a pleasant addition to distract enemy.

As for destroying factories in order to move them closer - i do not like this move unless you have shit ton of place, shit ton of tcs (20+) and shit ton of free workers who have nothing to do. Alas i recommend to replace blacksmith-type factories once you've researched everything you needed.