DeI Battle Guide (Version 1.2.6, MP)
We have an active DeI Multi Player community that seems to be growing (at the main DeI Discord server which anyone reading this should check out: https://discord.com/invite/Wez6GSY, as well as dedicated dedicated MP battle groups like Total War Battlegrounds, so especially with the recent update that significantly changes battles, I figured I'd share some thoughts in the form of a guide. For now, this is mostly just a loosely organized brainstorm, but I'll fine tune it as I have time and invite anyone to share their own insights that I can incorporate. See you in battle!
The Mission
Before you build your army, you need to decide how you want to win the battle. Once you've set a goal and the battle screen finishes loading, you should know exactly what your mission is and have a plan to execute it if you want to win. The basic tactic is hammer and anvil. That’s not the only way to win, but it’s the most reliable. In an MP battle (unlike against the AI), you can’t count on being better at everything. So you have to choose your area of focus and build the rest of your army to support that. There are 3 main classes of units: infantry, missile, and cavalry. To compete the hammer and anvil, you need to have superiority in 2 of them (classically, that is cavalry and infantry).
The Unit Classes:
Infantry: Remember that this is about mission at this point, not tactics, so let’s break infantry down into two groups: defensive and offensive.
Defensive infantry includes hoplites, (most) pikes, and generic spears, as well as some defensive-oriented heavy swords like Romans or Greek thorax swords. Their job is not to get kills, but to not die before the rest of your army has finished its jobs. Defense, armor, morale, phalanx ability, and a large shield are the best attribute for these units. Generally, the heavier your defensive infantry, the better ("heavy" is a loosely used term, but generally means some combination of the visible stats armor and speed and the hidden stat mass. Fortunately, those all tend to correlate closely, so you can infer the latter pretty easily).
Offensive infantry include most barbarians sword units, (some pikes), naked spears, and the various “shock” infantry like romphaliaphoroi and axmen. Some of these troops have heavy enough armor and good stats to serve as an offensive mainline, while others are better served as flankers. Generally the difference between the two is in the unit speed and the presence of a shield. Unshielded and 3 speed units are better served on the flanks where you can more easily protect them from missile fire, and where their faster speed can give them enough room to maneuver around the enemy. The goal of these troops is to route the enemy infantry before they have a chance to win the cavalry and missile engagements.
In the current version of DeI, infantry rules, but it needs support to win efficiently. Most infantry will beat more expensive cavalry 1-1 and can frontally tank most missile units 1-1. But it’s very hard for infantry to win on its own without support. So let’s talk about that support.
Missiles: Missile units really cover a wide variety of groups. While some specialize in a particular role (like Mauryans longbows), others serve as hybrid troops (Greek peltasts - especially the heavy ones). Here’s a rough grouping: light archers, shielded archers, heavy archers, light javelins, peltasts, and light horse archers (I’ll explain).
Generally the goal of missile combat is to neutralize your opponent’s missiles and then have enough ammo left over to do some damage to the cavalry/infantry engagements. Unlike vanilla, DeI missile combat is more complicated than “slinger beats archer, archer beats infantry.” Units with shields (most slingers all peltasts, and some medium/heavy archers) fare better against enemy missiles. Archers are strong against light troops, slingers are strong against heavy troops (as are javelins, but at shorter range). However archers and peltasts can come with quite a lot of armor, whereas all slingers are light. As such, the best anti-missile units are medium/heavy archers with shields. Slingers do very well against unshielded heavy archers, but otherwise tend to lose the missile combat. Archers are likewise strong against light infantry and light cavalry. But most cavalry tends to be heavy, though they have small or no shields, meaning that slingers or javelins are often more effective at defeating cavalry. Some missile units also have notable secondary weapons such as Agrianians (axes) or spears. No missile unit has sufficient mass to repel a cavalry charge, but spears can help deal significantly damage to enemy cavalry that is already engaged.
Horse archers probably deserve their own guide, as often players use them wrong as waste a potentially huge tactical advantage. Horse archers have smaller unit sizes than foot archers, and generally lower range and ranged quality. However their greater mobility means they can avoid shooting into the shielded side of enemy infantry, and harass any high priority unit in your opponent’s army. They can also outrun any enemy cavalry while firing into then. But all of this, really, isn’t what they’re for. The value of horse archers is that they make your opponent respond to these threats, holding multiple units out of other roles and allowing you to concentrate forces elsewhere and gain numerical advantage. In the limited sense as missile units, they can be used to bait or encircle enemy archers, or (better yet) bring enemy slingers/archers away to the flanks, so you can win the main missile engagement without even firing a shot from your horse archers.
So if your mission is to win the missile combat, you’re likely best off bringing medium/heavy archers, but in doing so, you’ll limit your potential to turn the tide of the rest of the battle. For that reason, missiles tend to be the least relevant of the 3 classes (just like they were in history, go DeI!). However if your opponent makes mistakes and you’re able to launch some javelin volleys or a good amount of slinger shot into the backs of your enemy heavy infantry, the battle will be yours.
Cavalry: Here is the classic hammer for your infantry anvil. Cavalry deals damage in (at least) two ways. The first is impact damage. This is a calculation of the charging unit’s mass against the mass of the enemy infantry (or counter charging cavalry). The second type of damage is from traditional attacks, usually supplemented by the charge bonus which adds to both attack and weapon damage, prorated for 7 seconds. There are 4 basic groups of cavalry: melee with shield and either sword (anti-infantry) or spear (anti-cavalry), shock with a two-chances lance, skirmisher with javelins (or bows, but I don’t really put the light horse archers in the cavalry class at all as far as function, and then heavier hybrid lancer/bow cavalry fit better in shock than skirmisher group), and lastly “special” units like camels and elephants.
Shock cavalry is the classic hammer. With the highest mass and charge bonus, heavy shock cavalry like cataphracts deal phenomenal damage on impact, (though any cavalry should be cautious charging spear units, especially frontally, when braced, or those with expert charge defense). Against lighter cavalry, missiles, or sword units, the charge is usually enough to determine combat. Lighter shock cavalry are good for chasing down missile units or routing enemy units that are shaken or wavering, but cant be relied on to stay in combat for more than a few second or else to start taking significant casualties.
Melee cav are best for defeating enemy cavalry. Light melee cav can efficiently catch and pin heavier, more expensive enemy cavalry, while the heaviest melee cavalry can go toe to toe in mass and impact damage with all but the heaviest shock cavalry. Although melee cavalry are *more* durable in prolonged combat than shock cavalry, they still aren’t going to fare well against infantry due to generally lower stats and lower unit size. As such, cavalry with spears are better served in the specialized anti-cavalry role whereas sword cav are usually inferior as generalists to either spear or shock cavalry. Skirmisher cavalry are very effective against enemy cavalry because melt cavalry have either small or no shields, but heavy armor. Meanwhile, javelin cavalry are usually fast enough to keep out of range of the heavy cavalry that they are likely to target. They tend to be lighter though they have bigger shields, and so can be vulnerable to foot missiles, especially while moving away.
Lastly, there are special classes of camels and elephants. Both are highly effective anti-cavalry units. But while camels excel against enemy cavalry with both a bonus to melee stats against cavalry and a fear effect to morale, camels tend to be slower, lighter mass, and overall weaker than similarly priced cavalry, and so are inferior against enemy missiles or infantry.
Elephants, like horse archers, deserve their own guide. But in short, they have by far the highest mass of any units in the game and wreck enemy cavalry on charge. They also deal very high base damage (which is a hard coded effect and not reflected in the stats), that is very potent against cavalry due to the few enemy models, high mass, (and maybe other hard coded stuff). Elephants of course are not just anti-cav units and often the deciding factor in any battle. They’re massively expensive, but able to wreck and entire enemy line if they get into position. Be aware that unlike prior version, current DeI makes elephants at least somewhat resistant to missiles. This is especially notable for armored elephants that have a hidden shield missile block bonus against frontal fire. Elephants (even more than most units) take a lot of damage when withdrawing/pulling through enemy units. The best way to defeat elephants is therefore to pin then with an infantry unit (poor sods... make it a levy spearman and pretend they don’t have wives) and fire javelins or other missiles into the elephants. A free elephant behind the enemy lines usually means the end of the battle, but they cost enough that losing your elephant often means defeat.
Chariots don’t exist. I don’t want to talk about it. Go play a fantasy game (like Troy).
Winning the cavalry engagement often requires a combined arms approach of infantry, missiles, and cavalry. Most infantry can beat cavalry 1-1, and is especially potent when they’re able to join the cavalry engagement. Missiles can force cavalry away and do significant damage to the appropriate class (slingers/javelins against heavy cavalry, archers against light cavalry). It also often requires a balanced cavalry force. Light melee or skirmisher cavalry to chase and pin the enemy cavalry along with heavy melee/shock cavalry to deal the fatal blow. If the enemy tries to withdraw, the light cavalry will chase and run them down, if they stay, they’ll lose to the heavy cavalry (and infantry if you can bring them into the battle in time!). Of course once you win the cavalry engagement, circle around and rear charge the enemy mainline for the win.
The Strategy
OK, with that brief overview of the unit types, let’s talk about strategy before we get into army builds. Assuming you’re playing a roughly equal opponent, you won’t be able to win everything. That means you have to choose 1-2 areas to focus, and have a way to stall/mitigate the 1-2 areas you expect to lose. If the mission is "win infantry and missiles, stall cavalry," then the strategy is how you're going to build and deploy your army to accomplish that.
For beginning players, the easiest mission is to use holding infantry and try to cavalry and missile superiority. This allows you to not "lose" any area of the field outright, even if you infantry mainline gets very few kills and is "losing" most of their battles. The best example of this is a line of heavy spearmen. You probably won’t win against, say Imperial Legionaries, but you can make sure that you don’t lose before your cavalry arm is able to dispatch the enemy cavalry and circle around for rear charges against the engaged enemy infantry. Alternatively, if your goal is infantry and missile superiority, a force of tarantines and medium melee cavalry might not win the cavalry engagement, but they may be able to stall it long enough for your missiles to route the enemy missiles units and pike infantry to break the enemy line. There’s really no such thing as “holding” enemy missiles, except in the sense that you can force them to use their ammo (especially arrows and javelins) on your cheaper missile units instead of your more expensive infantry and cavalry. We’ll get into specific unit cost efficiency more later, but the principle here is to spend less money to stall your opponent’s strong area, and dedicate more money to overwhelm their weak area.
Deployment: You can also use your deployment to focus on your strengths (I'll expand this section at a later date with screenshots for examples)
The easiest to deploy your army is usually a single line with defensive infantry in the middle, offensive infantry and light spears on the flanks, with missile units screening in front and cavalry at the extreme flanks. But more advanced players may want to try out different approaches to keep your opponent on their toes and to leverage your strengths. If you expect to have missile superiority, start your army off to the left side of the map. That means you'll be approaching toward their right side and are more likely to be able to shoot into their unshielded side. Conversely, if you have few missiles but strong heavy infantry, deploy to the right and use your shield to guard your approach. You don't need to keep your missile units all grouped together. Often it had be beneficial to concentrate missile units (especially skirmisher cav and horse archers) on the left flank so that they can more easily access the opponent's right unshielded side. If the enemy has a line of phalanx, you can spread your units apart rather than forming a solid line. This may force them to open gaps that can be exploited for flanking. Not all lines need to be symmetrical to the opponent - you can deploy at an angle or even with a hollow center (especially if you have a second line of reserve troops). There are numerous ways to deploy your troops to catch you opponent off guard.
Army Builds: A balanced army build almost always wins. There are certainly exceptions, especially if you can catch your opponent off guard, but generally you’ll perform best if you bring 8-14 infantry, 3-6 cavalry, and 2-6 missiles.
When choosing your faction and building your army, you should focus on emphasizing a particularly strength that your opponent can’t equal, or particularly cost effective units for a certain role. Some factions have extra-large units such as Persian archers, Roman eagle cohorts, or Mauryan elephants. These are valuable units, and also can help signal the area of focus. Tarantines mentioned above may not win many battles, but for their cost, they can damage and delay more expensive enemy cavalry.
As mentioned above, you want balance not only between units classes, but also within them. Light spears can better maneuver to help the cavalry engagement than heavy spears, even while the latter can better hold the line against enemy infantry. Light infantry can serve as a mini hammer to your heavy infantry mini anvil if you deploy both on the flanks. I find that pairing the super light with the super heavy (Ekdromoi and phalanx, elephant and horse archer, Appulians and Agrianians, etc) is often the best combo.
Buying experience for your units can be very valuable. The cost is based on the price of the unit, and yet the increase in stats is flat, rather than based on the unit’s stats. As such, bulking up your weakest units usually returns a better value than spending on your most expensive units. Never spend experience on elephants. And remember that chariots don’t exist.
Tactics
Once that battle starts, things can get very unpredictable. These are human players - not the AI. So if enough people read my guide, then everyone will start doing things differently to counter my advice and this will all be moot! But a few good tactical tips should hold true most of the time.
General Battle Tactics:
Always act first. Whether you have better micro than your opponent or not, by letting your opponent act first you let them make the battle about their strong point. Most battles, even among quite skilled players, are decided by one player making a mistake. Acting first and pressuring your opponent throughout the battle increases the chance that they're the ones to make a mistake. Along that line, noob boxes don’t work, they just make the battle really slow and uninteresting. Ditto ballista (scorpions are more debatable) because they prevent you from quickly approaching your enemy.
If you can get missile superiority, often if makes sense to focus on that first. Otherwise, it may be better to select a high value enemy target and focus on it instead of the enemy missiles. Using your slingers against and enemy cataphract for example, while the enemy archers fire on your slingers.
If the enemy has a stronger mainline, particularly if they have pikes or hoplites, your goal should be to distrupt the enemy mainline by putting pressure on their flanks and/or withdrawing away from their mainline. This helps isolate their heavier units and open up for opportunities for flanking individual units.
Don’t pull through enemy units. If the enemy has traditional infantry, you'll take a lot of casualties. If the enemy has phalanx, you're exploiting a known engine bug that can't be fixed by the mod developers because the cure is worse than the disease (See Vanilla R2 Pikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oimI...maCdUYjfP8XUl0). So at best, pulling through is going to be seen by your opponent as cheating. And at worst, your unit is going to get shredded. If the enemy tries to pull through your infantry unit, immediately issue an attack order against that unit if you haven't already, or if your infantry is pinned by another enemy unit. If your're using a phalanx, rage quit... or disengage phalanx immediately and issue the attack order, then re-engage phalanx and issue the attack to face them once they have fully emerged on the other side.
When disengaging, there are a couple of important rules to follow. We can't "cycle" infantry quite as easily in game as the Romans ostensibly did in history, but you can safely disengage in a few situations. First, any time you're engaging phalanx* (I'll discuss the exception later). Second, any time you have faster infantry, though if the difference is a single point you should expect to take a few casualties. Thirdly, any time you are pinning the enemy unit with another one of yours. In the last case, ideally your pinning unit is at least as fast as the enemy so that you can prevent them from disengaging in pursuit.
Unit Specific Tactics:
As I’ve mentioned several times already. Pair units that balance each other out. Pinning the enemy cavalry with light cavalry (melee or skirmisher) and following up with heavy cavalry (melee or shock). Using some javelin units to charge toward the enemy missile units, and holding some slingers to outrange them and fire into their backs as they retreat. And of course the most important, bringing some Cretans, light spears, or peltasts (ipecretean peltasts meet both) along with your cavalry to help win the cavalry engagement.
If you aren’t likely to have cavalry superiority, use lighter cavalry to tire them out. That’ll decrease their mass if and when they return to charge your infantry.
Skirmisher cavalry have shields, whereas horse archers do not. As such, horse archers beat other horse archers when riding away from them and firing behind because the fleeing horse archers are moving away from the incoming arrows and often out of range by the time the arrows hit the ground, whereas the pursuing horse archers are riding toward the income arrows and get hit. Javelin cavalry, on the other hand, are better when pursuing, because they are firing into the unshielded backs of the enemy cavalry whereas the fleeing cavalry are firing into the shields of the pursuing cavalry. For this reason, skimisher cavalry, especially medium or heavy, can be very effective at chasing enemy heavy horse archer/shock hybrids, though you'll need to be sure to get within javelin range or else they'll be able to fire freely at you.
Nothing* can beat pikes frontally. So if you want to hold the enemy indefinitely, a line of pikemen are a good go to. However pikes are very difficult to maneuver and vulnerable to flanking. Pikes comes in two classes: short and long. Long pikes are traditional bronze shields and are ideal for holding. Short pikes are an offensive unit with higher attack, AP damage, and usually 3 speed, as well as better general stats outside of combat. The flip side is that they have smaller shields, generally lighter armor, and shorter range, which means more enemy can close the distance to engage in melee. The downside of any pike unit, especially long pikes, is that the enemy can bait and kite your units into breaking the line, turning the battle into a dozen separate 1-1 combats and making it easy to isolate and flank individual pike units.
Pikes, especially short pikes, have small shields and tend to rely on their heavier armor for missile defense. Additionally, a gap in your opponent's pike line is much more damaging than a similar gap in spears or swords. As such, they make high priority for your slingers or javelins, even if it means sacrificing missile superiority.
Hoplites follow a similar structure as pikes with a few notable differences. They tend to be heavier armor and always have a larger shield. This makes hoplites ideal for tanking enemy missiles frontally.
Generally, swords beat spears of equivalent value, but it's not quite that simple. Swords tend to do better against lighter opponents, while spears do better against heavier opponents. So light swords beat light spears by a greater margin than heavy swords beat heavy spears. Swords are also more likely to have precursor javelins and higher charge bonus, giving them a bit more tactical flexibility.
Technical and Mechanic Notes & Tips:
Elephants take massively damage pulling through enemy units, and do very little impact damage. As such, always issue and attack order for your elephants, and only disengage them from combat if the enemy is pinned by a supporting unit (peltasts work great for this).
Unlike elephants, chariots do damage when moving through the enemy... and they continue to not exist.
The best secret of 3 speed pikes is that when the enemy heavy infantry tries to disengage, you can deactivate phalanx and run them down.
Want to shock your opponent and beat their pikes frontally? Try this trick. Using Roman or Iberian infantry (pila or soliferra precursor javelins), turn auto fire off and approach just outside of pike length with your line evenly matched. Turn auto fire on, and then quickly issue a charge order (in theory, you can use locked group for the full line, though I often find this bugs out and I prefer to issue individual orders). If you time this right, the volley will disrupt the enemy formation, allowing your charge to penetrate their ranks and potentially win the melee frontally. This works especially well if you’ve softened the enemy up with some javelins or slinger fire.
Neither hoplites nor pikes have expert change defense, and so are particularly vulnerable to cavalry rear charges. However they can brace while moving forward in phalanx, allowing them to (very very slowly) advance without losing mass and opening up an opportunity for enemy cavalry.
Cavalry mass is an invisible stat (in game - its in the db tables), but you can usually infer it from unit speed, armor, and cost. Cataphracts are markedly better than equivalent western cavalry.
Elephants have an invisible shield entry that gives them frontal missile block chance. It a not a ton, and you should generally keep these units protected since they’re high value targets, but it helps.
Cavalry charge speed is faster than run speed. Light cavalry have 10 charge speed while heavy cavalry have 8. Nisean cataphracts have 10 charge speed despite 5-6 run speed. As such, disengaging from enemy cavalry rarely works without supporting units, even if your unit is lighter. Conversely, chasing enemy skirmisher cav is viable if you can get within charge distance. Some cavalry have notably different acceleration like Numidians, which allows them to better skirmish safely or disengage from melee with a slower cavalry.
Bonus vs. cavalry only applies to units when they're mounted. If you find yourself in the last phase of the battle with only cavalry left and facing enemy spear units, it may be useful to dismount and fight as heavy melee troops.
(Credit to Sboboo and Dyso for contributing)
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Originally Posted by Basilius
