Share your Tricks, Strategies and Ideas

[Vander]

When defending in a siege, heavily outnumbered.

Take your generals bodyguard, redirect them out another gate and try to sneak them behind enemy lines.
Postion them right behind a unit of heavy infanteries, but do it subtle so he doesnt turn around in advance.
When you are at about 100m/yards away, charge them. Make sure your units are lined as wide as possible and don't let them leave holes in your line as you charge.
If done correctly, your cavlerie will charge right throught his line of unsuspecting heavy infantrie like butter, losing noone yourself and being able to just runback towards your own gate as it is in that direction where you where charging.
Rinse and repeat while your enemy is busy taking your wall down.

[TheBlindKing]

I think spy with army think dont works
is there any one achive this

[morble]

I think spy with army think dont works
is there any one achive this

You're right; the original post is in error. You don't get any special line-of-sight bonuses from bringing a spy with you to the battlefield.

[Gurbebio]

Probably well known, but still.

When attacking a fortress or citadel you face multiple gates. Most of the times i don't use artillery (slowmoving), but use routing enemy units to open up the (inner) gates for me

Just battle a unit till it routs, then follow it with infantery or cav. The enemy unit will flee to the city square and open all the gates for you, just follow them closely

[cave sexte]

Executing a Cavalry Charge Effectively:

One of the most frustrating things RTW players transferring to M2TW experience is the difficulty of executing cavalry charges. There are three things that are necessary for a good charge in M2TW.

1) A clear straight line to the target.

If you have friendies or complex terrain in between you and the target, the charge is likely to stall or disperse. Cavalry do not turn effectively, so make sure the enemy is not moving laterally to you when you decide to charge, or your men may actually miss (and look really stupid, charging wildly into the underbrush)

2) Sufficient distance to pick up momentum.

All units have a charge radius, but cavalry units have a very large charge radius. Enemy units inside the charge radius cannot be engaged with a charge because there is insufficient room to build up momentum-- your units will just walk up and start fighting, which nullifies the main weapon of your cavalry units: their charge.

3) A charging unit in good order.

Your cavalry should be nice and tight in their formation in order to make an effective charge. If they get spread out, they lose momentum and will be ineffective. They'll naturally spread out a little bit once they start to actually charge, but they should be as tight as possible before that happens. In fact, if they're disordered, they may never actually reach charge speed and will simple trot into the spears of your enemies.

Some tips to improve charge performance:

1) Aim for enemy targets BEHIND the guys you actually want to hit. If they aren't too far back, your guys will charge through the first line to inflict far more damage on the front line.

2) Do not target units that are likely to skirmish (aim for non-skirmishing units behind them).

3) Make sure that you use the double-click on your cavalry (i.e. they should be running before you hit.) There was some disagreement on this point early on here and on TWC forums. There is no statistical charge bonus from running before transitioning into a charge, but there are two factors that lead to better charges from a run.

First, the run speed is much closer to the charge speed than the walk speed is. This means that when going from a walk to a charge, the front line commonly outdistances the second line by a considerable margin.
When moving from a run to a charge, the gap created between lines during the transition is much smaller, so the unit is more compact, and therefore does much more damage on impact.

The second reason is that because they close the distance faster, the enemy unit often does not have time to set up to receive cavalry (you can watch the animation in which spearmen set their spears and infantry brace themselves behind their shields). When cavalry move from a run into a charge, they often close the distance before the target has time to execute that animation, and seem to do more damage as a result.

4) Expect your units to need time and distance to regroup before the charge begins. If they look messy before they start their charge, abort, reset, and try again.

5) If you set up a charge right and aim for a target in the second or third rank, the charging unit should run until they get within charge range (say, 50 yards or so) then they'll charge (mouseover says "Charging") through the front line toward their target, tossing bodies like matchsticks. Once they start to lose momentum, disengage by turning them quickly and running them to a target a sufficient distance away (200 yards or so). Don't leave them in there unless you have a good reason to do so (for instance, if you're waiting for a flanking force to hit and need to keep the enemy engaged until they make contact).

6) Sometimes, your charges will fail, either because of peculiarities of the terrain, or for other reasons. If your units have not begun to charge when they are within a short distance of the target, stop them, turn around, and try again. Don't let them get engaged if they're not charging, it's a waste of potential.

7) Don't fear the frontal charge at the outset of an engagement. Frontal charges were suicidal for most factions in RTW, but in M2TW they're highly effective. Remember, this is the medieval era: the quality of cavalry relative to infantry is much higher in this era than in the roman era. Knights and other heavy cavalry can and will break most infantry, including spearmen (and sometimes even pikemen) in a frontal charge, assuming they execute a good charge with a second-rank target.

8) As in RTW, cavalry are massively more effective in flank and rear attacks. Given their increased effectiveness and the difficulty of executing charges effectively, this makes the short, single unit flanking attack that was the characteristic cavalry action of RTW obsolete. Instead, rely on large, sweeping flanking attacks with massed cavalry. Hide them in the trees, race them around the flank, whatever works. Then, aim them for the last unit on the opposite flank and charge your knights down the entire length of the line. More often than not, it's an utter bloodbath. I've seen a complete, well-ordered enemy line of elite units disintegrate completely in under two seconds from a massed cavalry flank action. You'll routinely see single unit kills and captures in the 200-400 range when using this tactic.

[cave sexte]

Lo siento, accidental double post.

[(insert clever name here)]

Whoa, that merchant thing is awesome. And as for it being an exploit......well maybe.....but you know what, the stupid AI uses exploits that I can't take advantasge of so I don't feel bad. The AI simply ignores blockades of any kind and can still build ships and send them through your blockade, also, they can walk armies through your lands without asking, so you know what I don't care. And it's not like it's that unrealistic, you think there wasn't some military protection in areas where there was rare resources back then? I'm sure there was. And also, no one cared back then if you set up a monopoly so really the whole idea of allowing a faction to set up as many merchants as they want on a resource isn't that far off.

As for tips of my own.....well.....just always keep one general for use as homeland defense to go around setting up watchtowers and forts with a unit militia in them at all bridges and chokepoints. This keeps enemy agents out, and you can detect and kill the rest. This in turn reduces the likelihood of the AI stabbing you in the back. It can be a lot of micromanaging once you get going, but it isn't that expensive really as long as you use just one unit in the forts.

[harkonen]

Great thread, everyone.

I have a little tip , but i guess most of you guys know about this..
If you get a mission where you will receive some military units of some kind if you complete it.. change your capital to where you want those units the turn before you complete the mission.
Its no use in getting 4 feudal knights in a town which is far inside your empire, when some of your outskirts provinces are in big trouble.

It's not a great tip, but atleast i contributed with something

[Vindahl]

But doesnt it make the population unhappy and rioting when you keep changing capital? I mean, there must be some sort of penalty!?

[Town Watch]

Always ungroup your cavalry when trying to flank the enemy. Group attacking will cause your precious knights to disperse and have them all charge a different unit. This will be disasterous if you are just in the enemy's flank and decide to group charge. This results in half of your knights charging the enemys front, a third charges the actual target unit, and the rest just move to enemys rear and charge another unit.

When you ungroup your cavalry, all your knights WILL charge the exact target unit, thus massacreing the enemy, causing a mass rout and collapse of the entire flank, and eventually whole enemy army...

AND also when catching routing troops, ungroup your cavalry and double click a point on the battlemap well ahead of the routers, make sure that you click in a direct way where the enemy are fleeing. Now all your spread out knight units will try to get somewhat together and move to a close formation in the point you clicked, when you are just a bit ahead of the enemy unit, click ALT-Attack with all your cavalry.

[Viriatus]

Going through the city build browser in the campaign map: if you double click/click a lot the the city name, you will see a cursor appear and you can change the name. Only works for places you control.

I've only used this once, and it was an enemy's capitol (after I sacked it). It now is Fuzzlandia.

Lol Thanks a lot...i will try this after work

[Polarballs]

This is my first TW game and I'm not sure if this hasn't been mentioned because EVERYONE other than me already knew it but I'm gonna post it anyways.
The column heads on the Agent list (and others) are clickable and will sort your agents by type or name. I didn't see it anywhere, just clicked out of habit and it worked. Handy for later in the game when you have a bunch of agents to go through, checking to see if you have a priest worthy of promotion, where your spies, merchants and assassins are etc. etc.
The other tabs work as well but I never had the need to sort through Armies and Cities.

One more tip for sieges: You will often have enough build points left over for one extra ladder, give it to a throwaway infantry unit or an archer. Send them to a different gate or wall near to a gate along with a cavalry unit if you can afford it. Defenders will have to either split their forces to account for them or ignore them. If they ignore the threat you rush the wall and force them to split their units or if they continue to ignore them then take the gate and run the cavalry thru it. Usually they only completely ignore this tactic if you have them at a significant disadvantage.

[Killingtime]

One more tip for sieges: You will often have enough build points left over for one extra ladder, give it to a throwaway infantry unit or an archer. Send them to a different gate or wall near to a gate along with a cavalry unit if you can afford it. Defenders will have to either split their forces to account for them or ignore them. If they ignore the threat you rush the wall and force them to split their units or if they continue to ignore them then take the gate and run the cavalry thru it. Usually they only completely ignore this tactic if you have them at a significant disadvantage.

I've found that in M2:TW the AI is better at spreading its forces to cover this sort of attack than it was in R:TW. However, it's still not perfect. I always build 3 or 4 ladders and make sure that my units come over the walls from all sides. I've found that the AI doesn't distinguish between infantry, which can scale the ladders, and cavalry which can't. So I put my cavalry behind a ladder unit near the main gate and spread my infantry over the remaining ladders. Usually this means that the ladder with the cavalry "looks" like the biggest threat to the AI and it masses the larger part of its defensive force at that point...making the actual assault by the other units slightly easier.


I'm not sure if this falls into the tips or exploits category; I've noticed that when you're assaulting a multi-walled castle and you breach the outer walls in several places, the AI seems to sense that its position on the outer wall is indefensible and withdraws to the next inner wall. When it does this, it seems to be very fond of stopping with all of its forces in a single lump just inside the gate. This mass of troops is then the perfect target for artillery (esp. mortars). Now I tend to keep a mortar unit with my armies for just this purpose.

I've also noticed that when attacking a citadel, the AI seems oblivious to the link between the tops of the second and third walls. In fact, I've never seen it position troops to cover an attack that way (until my attacking troops reach the top of the inner wall and it belatedly rushes men to defend).

[Lopus]

If you besiege an enemy city/castle with long range artillery (trebuchets for me so far), keep your army AWAY from the walls, just barely within range for the trenchbuckets. Pound away at the walls (specially the parts where they have their archers and units in, aim at the walls, not the units.) Then when you run out of ammo, retreat the trenchbuckets, bring in your reinforcements, go to town.

[Andykarta]

Hey, I've been playing for about three weeks and find going on crusades a big pain in the tookus. The pope calls for a crusade to Jerusalem or whatever so I send a big army off. If they go by sea I have to use my whole fleet or it'll be sunk and if I go by land I'm usually in Turkey or someplace before the crusade's over. I've found it better to just take the reputation hit from the pope and concentrate on world domination. But it's such a big part of the game, I'm wondering, what am I missing? Is there some advantage in a successful crusade? And if so how do you do it right.

[Andykarta]

This reminds me. You can use a cavalry unit during a siege to attack the ballista/catapult unit and protect your walls from being breached. In most cases, one good charge will make the artillery troops rout and if you are lucky you can even bring most of your suicide cavalry unit back to the castle. The same works for ladder/siege tower units. If you make the unit carrying the siege weapon rout, the AI is too stupid to pick it up again with a different unit.

Excellent advice. Just yesterday I was defending whatever that french fort is below Caan (starts with an A). I had about five hundred units (about 150 cav) against 1049 sausage eating beer swilling Imperials including four catipults. Ignored the siege ram and went straight for the catipults, killed them and had time enough to charge several groups of ladders. (This game rocks btw). Routed Fritz on the ladders and sent my infantry out to cause more mayhem. End result, I felt like Alexander, six hundred enemies dead, two grand in randsom, and a little X on the map marking my heroic victory.

[Skasian]

Hey, I've been playing for about three weeks and find going on crusades a big pain in the tookus. The pope calls for a crusade to Jerusalem or whatever so I send a big army off. If they go by sea I have to use my whole fleet or it'll be sunk and if I go by land I'm usually in Turkey or someplace before the crusade's over. I've found it better to just take the reputation hit from the pope and concentrate on world domination. But it's such a big part of the game, I'm wondering, what am I missing? Is there some advantage in a successful crusade? And if so how do you do it right.

The benefits from a crusade r in the game manual but basically u get favour from the pope, if u are sucessful you also get the city. All the units that took part in the crusade gain experience (you can convert all your armies in the world to crusader armies before you take the crusade target and all your armies get exp). during crusade your units get double movement points and you can also recruit some unique crusading mercenaries. Oh and it seems as though your crusading army won't be attacked by other catholic factions also part of the crusade.

If your having trouble getting to the crusade location before units start deserting. Create ur crusading army as soon as its called and start them moving, then when your nearly there make the army join the crusade and then everyone is happy.

[dr. oak]

Protecting Merchants

Merchants can be free from asset seizure if you put a military unit on the resource then move your merchant in.

Careful though your army just sitting there for too long could rebel, so send patroling armies from your general or town/fort/castle to your merchant's resource.

[Space Voyager]

Protecting Merchants

Merchants can be free from asset seizure if you put a military unit on the resource then move your merchant in.

Careful though your army just sitting there for too long could rebel, so send patroling armies from your general or town/fort/castle to your merchant's resource.

Once again; this is a bug. Or not a bug, more of an overseen non-feature. The same can be done with building a fort on that spot. Than yopu don't even need an army and it won't rebel.

[ScottishAdam]

I believe most of you will know this already, but I find this battlefield tactic extremely benificial. Even on very hard it works a treat.

At the start of a battle when defending, I move 2 units of ma cavalry to the far sides of the map.(left and right). When the battle starts I engage all of my infantry (with spearmen at the front) with all of their forces. While the two armies are marching towards each other I send the 4 units of cavalry from the two sides to attack the sides of their army.
When they eventually reach there, it is too late for the enemy to do anything about as they are fighting with my infantry.
So they charge straight into the sides of their army TOTALLY desimating it. Even spearmen from the side get mutilated.

It works even better if there is a forrest at either side for the cavalry to hide in.