Taksashilla [sic]

[Alfonzo over Innsmouths]

Post thoughts on strats and tacts

Personally for me, a traditional infantry-heavy army doesn't work very well at all with Taksashila; the enemy will always (usually) have much heavier infantry than you, even with indohellenic hoplitai, so you can't grind down the enemy additionally, their cavalry isn't particularly amazing against other cav. Elephants are very good on the charge, but they have a tendency to just suddenly all die at one instant for no reason if they get too bogged down.

So then, what do?

The Indians have access to Persian archers (Both AoR and as apart of their roster) and longbowmen (With a range of 200, 50 more than Persian archers). They also have access to big, cheap units of spearmen, swordsmen and axemen. What I've found is have two lines of longbows in front of a line of cheap spear levy, and a line a Persian archers behind the infantry. When the enemy advances, let the first line fire for a bit, then pull them back behind the Persians when they receive fire / are charged. Do the same with the second line, pulling them back behind the longbows you pulled back before. The enemy will whack into the spears, with a percentage of them deceased.

Then either a) Fire into the enemy engaged with your spears; the spears are cheap levies and should replenish quite quickly anyway, and if not, you can always snag an AoR levy unit to replace them anyway, or b) move them around the flanks and fire into them from the sides; risky for me because about 60 % of my army are archers, and I don't have the frontage to do this. Once the enemy is worn down (or more likely your units are close to breaking and your ammo runs out), use the elephants. This breaks the tired, worn down enemy and reduces casualties on elephants. Found this overall tactic to be weirdly effective against an early bactria and unsurprisingly effective against Seleucid satraps. the main reason it works is because of that extra 50 range on the longbows: because you are causing damage to them before they can get into your range, and by using the extra line of longbows, you increase the damage output of your range units when compared with the enemy's (unless they have artillery), and thus reduce the damage you take in combat.

Neat trick - if you have berserk elephants, select the berserk elephants and a second unit, then order them both to attack something. The elephants will change target from what they were killing to what you ordered them to kill. The second unit will also attack, but you can then simply cancel that attack order later.

The main advantage of this tactic is thus: the only people who SHOULD be getting killed are levies; cheap expendable troops that you don't care about anyway / easy to recruit / replenish. The important units (Archers, elephants) are spared the lions share of the damage, keeping your army in tip-top fighting shape even after multiple battles. Doing other more combat orientated tactics (Elephant charge followed up by axemen etc.) tends to kill a good chunk of your forces each time you do it, increasing conquest time waiting for replenishment. Additionally, even if the enemy DOES break through your lines, their cavalry should - SHOULD - be dead anyway on the end of your spears, and you can make an effective tactical retreat with your longbows / run away with your much faster skirmisher classes. Additionally additionally, the armies are cheaper and relatively easier to replace - the only real cash cows so to speak are the elephants. So running multiple armies of this type don't drain on resources.

[luck_ponte]

Nice insights! I was considering trying the Taksashilla out, I think this will be helpful. Also, may try and adapt this tactic to my Carthage campaign (Balearics ftw).