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Thread: I cant do anything against this army.

  1. #1

    Default I cant do anything against this army.

    Just look at the screen shots.



    This army is besieging my town.



    This army is reinforcements.

    My units cant even move under all their arrows, they just dont stop shooting.

    Some help, please?

  2. #2
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    Yeah, that's pretty difficult enemy army to crack. Even in AI hands massed horse archers can be hell, and it would be pretty much impossible to beat without a suitable map if the enemy would be a skilled player.

    But having more information would be helpful. What faction are you, what sort of the settlement is in defences, what is the turn number, what defenders you have, do you have any armies in the vicinity? Anything else that you think would be useful?

    My main suggestion would be to DO NOT SALLY OUT unless they are starving you out and even then do it at the last turn. Let the enemy assault the settlement instead. A massed archer and horse archer army is not ideal for assaulting settlements. Don't be afraid of losing a settlement, and aim to eliminate as many enemies as possible if you can't win. If they decide to starve the defenders out, then well, you pretty much have no other options but to sally out at the last turn and use the besieging time to gather up armies.

    A good side is that if you have a large army in vicinity and they take the settlement, then you can besiege it in return. The enemy is trapped inside, and you can starve them out if you so wish. Or you can assault if you have a suitable army composition, because horse archers won't retreat near the town square, and the houses block a clear line of fire. You can even apply the strategy even if you don't have a settlement: build a fort, lure the enemy to take it and voila, you have an enemy army trapped in a place they can't leave if besieged.

    If you instead decide to take the army on on the field: The foot archers are easy to deal with if you have enough cavalry, but on the other hand the best way to deal with massed horse archers is so called 'n00b box' : long range archers protected by a surrounding layer of spearmen. Since it is not smart to do both at the same time, my approach would be to attack multiple times. First time is to eliminate the foot archers with a good quantity of melee cavalry. Once that is done, either try to trap as many horse archers in pincer attacks, or withdraw the remaining cavalry, since it is pretty much futile to chase horse archers. You are pretty much guaranteed to lose if not all, then a lot of these horsemen. Then for the following attacks you use the 'n00b box' I mentioned, aiming to wither down the horse archers. Even then, expect heavy losses.

  3. #3

    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    First of all, thanks for the reply.

    I was playing as The Turks, I'm defending a town, it was around turn 40-45. I had a general, one spear militia, one azabs, one turkish archers and a ballista. I dont have any other armies around.

    At first I believed that I can win by making them flee with flaming ballistas but I got shocked when I saw how many men I lost on the first volley. I tried the battle over and over again, sometimes my general died getting shot(which seems to be hard from my experience). The biggest problem is he aims for the ballistas when the melee starts. Whole my ballista crew dies and that's how I lost almost all the time. I know I dont stand a chance but I expected to give them heavy losses because of the ballista. But the best I could do was around 250 losses.

  4. #4

    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    For some reason I can't edit my post so I'll add a few things here.

    The reason I had so weak defenders was I thought noone around Rhodes would attack me. I was allied with Byzantine(I know) and Venice didnt seem like it would attack me, it didnt anyway.

    My alliance with Byzantines went on for long, almost from the start of the campaign but suddenly they betrayed me and I gave them a settlement(Rhodes) for free at the start of our war. And it seems like I wont be able to get it back in short time, there are better targets anyway(Nicosia).

  5. #5
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubbleezzz View Post
    At first I believed that I can win by making them flee with flaming ballistas but I got shocked when I saw how many men I lost on the first volley. I tried the battle over and over again, sometimes my general died getting shot(which seems to be hard from my experience). The biggest problem is he aims for the ballistas when the melee starts. Whole my ballista crew dies and that's how I lost almost all the time. I know I dont stand a chance but I expected to give them heavy losses because of the ballista. But the best I could do was around 250 losses.
    Sallying out with a siege engine is not a bad idea, actually, especially when the cannons come into play. The problem is that AI might still attack, as in this case. Sometimes they don't and I'm not too sure why the difference.
    I'm currently playing Stainless Steel - mod, and my Aragonian town was besieged by 1 and a half stacks of Portuguese. I had a ballista unit, and using it's range to my advantage I killed their general. This time they just stood there, despite the huge numerical advantage. On other occasions, the enemies have attacked.

    I was playing as The Turks, I'm defending a town, it was around turn 40-45. I had a general, one spear militia, one azabs, one turkish archers and a ballista. I dont have any other armies around.
    I know I dont stand a chance
    Yeah, I don't see the fight winnable unless AI somehow glitches out. If it's just a town, even it's defences are not going to count for much if they assault the settlement. Still, I guess it's for the best to let the enemy assault. Keep your forces away from the walls so they don't get unnecessarily shot. Once they breach the wall, they will swarm in as a huge blob. Fight your enemy on the streets, as there their superior numbers won't be as useful, nor their bows. Kill as many as you can.

    After that, well, you do your best to avenge your fallen soldiers. Come back ever stronger and crush the villains under you foot!

    For some reason I can't edit my post so I'll add a few things here.
    You can edit your posts once you have sent 25 of them. I suppose that is to protect the forums from bad mannered trolls. And ah, I forgot. Welcome to the Total War Center!
    Last edited by Samittaja; April 25, 2017 at 12:12 PM. Reason: Improvements in style

  6. #6

    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    Thanks for everything, you really made me feel better!

  7. #7
    Silverheart's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    I would recommend allowing them to attack - a sally-out is just sheer suicide. Maybe if you have no other option (last turn after being starved), then attack and try to take some of them out, but you'd be better off trying to get some reinforcements of your own to the town (maybe sending a general to it, and then recruit a bunch of mercenaries once he reaches it).

    When the enemy attacks, it would be best to let the Azabs stand in front (loose formation on all units, of course), with the Spear Militia ready to charge in as soon as the melee starts. Keep the Ballista in the plaza to fire over the infantry´s heads, and place the archers next to it to increase the number of kills. You can probably lure them into aiming for your general by keeping him close to the front, but not engaged in combat, and you can minimize their chance to kill him by placing him next to the front but behind a building - that way, you force them to fire at an awkward angle, and most of their shots will miss and be wasted. This is, if anything, better than having their archers butcher your missile troops.
    Another potential tactic is to do the same thing, but send the general around to attack the enemy in the rear.
    Cramped into a narrow street, those lightly armored archers won't be able to do much against a General´s Bodyguard - sure, the damage will accumulate and they will eventually die/rout, but once they´re in melee they're sure to take many enemies with them.
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  8. #8
    Reaper_of_Souls's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    Would you post what's your settlement garrison? If we can know what consist the garrison units, we might be able to help you more.

  9. #9

    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    hi there!

    i now a way to beat the army. set up your army on the walls. make sure you got as much of the walls covered so it shoots enemies who come close.

    next get out with general and other horsemen if you have them. go to the right or left of the map and set your army up next to your town or castle, but out of range of enemy archers. slowly move the unit(s) up "north" until almost next to the besieger army.

    now you will see the enemy change formation towards your army. some units break formation and get close to the walls. the walls shoot them automatically....

    if besieging army comes for you, quickly run back south towards the nearest entry of the city. if they continue to come after u, get inside. all the enemy army is now in range of the covered walls and will start to shoot the enemy.

    if they retreat to the same position, repeat what you just have done, get out next to the enemy army and wait for them to change formation again.

    the key is to get the other army to follow you, sometimes even the whole army just sticks in front of your walls, wait long enough and the whole army is killed this way.

    only works of course if battle limit is "off". i have beaten 5 mongol armies this way in one go. try it! hope you can understand what i wrote down.... success!

    McMartin.

  10. #10

    Default Re: I cant do anything against this army.

    A situation like this can be solved a little easier if you have a night fighter general there. I just had a similar problem the other day. The Byzantines were besieging me on Crete, most of their troops were horse archers or regular archers, and my garrison army wasn't very strong. One Byzantine army was besieging my city, another was next to it as reinforcements. They wouldn't assault the walls, which would have saved me because horse archers aren't much use in cities, but they were just trying to starve me out. Finally it got to where there was one turn left before my city would surrender (and I had two generals in the city, one of which was pretty good, so I didn't want to have to lose them), so I had to sally and fight or give up. But if I had to fight both armies, I would certainly lose. Then I realized, my general is a night fighter, and the enemy reinforcement army was led by a captain. Captains can't fight at night (unless you attack them directly), so if I did a night attack, the reinforcement army wouldn't show up and I could fight only the besiegers. So that's what I did. Even with that I just scraped out a VERY narrow win, but it worked. So in the future, if you're going up against a faction like the Byzantines that fields armies like that, it's a good idea to keep some night fighter generals around for these types of situations.

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