Turkish horse archer hordes

[humvee2800]

Any tips for how to use a horde full of horse archers?

Im finding when versing enemy armys of infantry... I simply can not do damage to their formations very quickly.

Another problem is that it seems if they have any cavalry I am screwed.

[Miraj]

One word: Piecemeal.

The advantage you have is mobility. You can run far away quickly. What you want to do is pick off the cavalry first. Turn off fire at will mode. Draw out the enemy cav which will inevitably follow you ahead of the rest of the army. Draw them right into a charge by your sipahi lancers. If no lancers just draw them out and surround them with your HAs and kill them one by one.

Then turn on the infantry. Fire at will off. Once again use one HA unit as bait and draw the inf forward while other HA units go behind and then turn on fire at will for just those HAs. attacking from behind will ensure casualties and arrows are not wasted. Basically keep circling around them and turning on fire-at-will only when the inf unit faces away from a given HA unit(s).

EDIT: And make it a point to kill each infantry unit via arrows to around 40-50% of it original size - no need to kill all of them. Once that is done for all, you can just surround and charge each one and rout them without difficulty.

It requires a lot of skill to get used to. So takes a while.

[humvee2800]

Thanks alot

Seems like I was doing similar things though not in the right way.

You experienced with Turkish armys?

(yah I do not have sipahi's, Ive been at war with the byzantines since about 10 turns from the start of the game. I took a few citys and built 3 armys then noticed the byzantines were not at full strength and decided if i had plans against them, It would be a good idea for me to ally with the fatimids and move against the byzantines with 3 armys while having the majority of my turkish main citys and castles produce soldiers and send them to a grouping area. (worked amazingly, the continuous supply of armys was the only way to beat the byzantines, especially, seeing how later in the game (when i was taking the western parts of anatolia), I found it took 2 of my stacks to kill a byzantine stack. This was about when my faction leader( while on his way to take charge of one of my besieging armys) was attacked by nearly a full stack of byzantine soldiers that had been coming through a nearby pass. forced to run to just survive that turn I eventually found my back up against the wall, thus I hired mercenaries. All I could hire where a unit of archers and 3 units of turkomans and 3 units of some other HA group....

Least to say I won the battle and destroyed a full stack of byzantines and my turkish horse archer army lead by my faction leader was the only way I ever could be this close to destroying the byzantine empire.

(It is hard trying to send armys to western anatolia.. especially considering I need to have a 2 to one advantage because of the lower quality of my foot soldiers).

Though now I finally have figured out how useful horse archers are ( I am a roman and greek player generally from rtw and thus have had somewhat of a dislike of having more then flanking cavalry) Im working on building large amounts of stables and the like in the western provinces so that west anatolia may produce a few horse archer armys and allow my infantry stacks to stop being massacred.

[DorosTheConqueror]

Best tip? Don't have a horde full of horse archers. Unless you're playing as the Mongols and/or concentrate on using heavy horse archers (like Sipahis) you probably won't have enough firepower to take out a large and disciplined enemy force. As an auxillary unit, or even as a dominant unit + infantry support, they can be amazing, but ONLY horse archers, and worse, light horse archers, is asking for trouble.

If you've got to, though, try and draw your enemy lines apart. Send HAs to either side of your enemy's line and keep firing and retreating until you've split them into multiple little pockets. This can be very, very hard to do right if you're not using the pause feature, since it generally requires quite a bit of micromanaging to ensure none of your horsies get stuck (nothing like paying attention to one side of the map, while on the other your skirmish AI screws up and an entire unit of cavalry gets charged by spearmen). I usually like to use one or two units as my primary "bait" (no skirmish mode, dash in close to the enemy lines to draw the infantry out, then withdraw) while the rest of them hang back in skirmish mode and keep up the pressure. Once you've got an infantry unit isolated from the pack, quickly disable auto-fire and skirmish mode, then charge the rotter from all sides- hopefully that'll kill his morale and he'll break and run. Repeat until you run out of arrows and/or the enemy runs out of men (but again, if all you're using is Turkomen, you'll probably be seeing a lot more of the former than the later)

Oh, and don't forget to build up your other troop producing buildings, too. Your best troops will eventually come from cities (and it takes A LONG TIME to get up to the top tech level unless you're making a point to stay on top of things) and from Archery Ranges (prior to the advent of Jannisaries, Ottoman Infantry are probably your best all round unit, and when combined with a few Dismounted Sips for anti-cavalry protection, can make short work of anything Byzantium can throw at you)

[humvee2800]

Those units sadly still seem to be a long way off


Hopefully the war does not last that long though im having significant trouble taking the final byzantine citys and the russians/hungarians are not acting to friendly to me having just taken constantinople.

[DorosTheConqueror]

Ohhh, don't worry, it won't be that far... at least not for the Ottomans, the Janissaries are WICKED far off.

Also, what horse archers are you using? Turkish Horse Archers, or Turkomans? You get Turkomans almostat the start of the game, but they're a lot better than Turkish Horses, so if you're not using Turkomans you should consider upgrading. They're one of the best light horse archers in the game; so good, in fact, that even the Timurids use them.

P.S. And that reminds me, since you're playing as Turkey you're going to have to formulate a counter-Mongol plan. A fight with those guys is virtually inevitable, and if you don't start making preparations at least fifteen to twenty turns before they show up, you might not be able to hold them off for long.

[humvee2800]

When do the mongols come again ( currently its like 1122 AD)

as well as where.. ( Ive never played this far into a middle eastern faction before in med )

What kind of army numbers?

Sorry im asking for so much info, but information is something as important as soldiers in war.

I need to know the threat the mongols pose in order to put together my future strategy. Ill have to play a bit more defencively and only take a few of the med islands after byzantium is gone. If I have a while I might think of attacking Hungary... however im worried if i destroy them ill be at odds with all of the catholics..

The fatimids are my allies but they are a VERY alluring target for me right now.... Ive checked on them a bit and their military machine is nowhere near to mine and If i took their lands my empire would be in a very good position for any future wars (as well as rich as hell)

(From what i remember sometime like 1230 ad or so)

[DorosTheConqueror]

The Mongols show up around the middle of the 13th century, somewhat before gunpowder gets invented, and they can arrive at one of three spots: Sarkel, Yerevan, or Baghdad. Sarkel is good (sort of) because it means they'll march across Russia and attack Kiev, ignoring you (unless you decided to go north and conquer Russia yourself). However, you'll still have to fight them sooner or later, and Mongols with a country are much worse than Mongols without a country. Yerevan and baghdad, they basically do teh same thing: spawn in the mountains, loot every city between there and Antioch, and then try and capture Antioch. I usually like to fight them at the river just outside of Antioch if that happens. Numbers? Lots. At least a dozen full stacks of elite units commanded by max star, max dread generals. They start with two tiny stacks and then quickly build up to speed. Basically, there's no such thing as too many reinforcements when it comes to preparing for the Mongols- my typical goal is to fill at least four or five forts with troops ahead of time.

And circles seem to foil enemy AI missile targeting. You're much less accurate and do less damage, but your cavalry is harder to hit and often your opponent won't even fire on units who're doing a circle. Just be careful you don't get charged, because skirmish AI is prone to misfiring when in circle mode and heavy cavalry can often clip your unit before you have a chance to get away.

[gogis]

If you want to be lazy and win whatever ammount of enemy, bring horde of cossack muskets/gunners deploy horses at wings, muskets in one line, press x6 and go for a cup of cofee.
Once you return, there would be a flawless victory without even working around

[humvee2800]

Hahah, so true.... though im not russia, im turkey.. and that is way ahead of where i am at anyways.

Oh one more thing.... ive never truly understood the point or how to use cantabrian circle....


I usually use it to dodge arrow fire...

[Saibot]

That's what it's for. Too expose your own horses to missile attack less and keep a constant flow of arrows going towards the enemy. But about the mongols. They bring about 8-10 full stacks of incredibly strong cavalry and good archer/infantry and they all have about 3 silver chevrons. They can Arrive at Yerevan, Baghdad and one other please. But i'm not sure about that one. So make sure your cities are reinforced once they come. First they'll raid some cities but then they'll try to settle down near or in Antioch.

[Banzai!]

Horse archers (at least mounted crossbowmen in my experience) are utter crap. In every volley they fire off something like 5 arrows hit their mark. Before you've made a dent in the opposing army you're HA's are very tired and are out of ammo.

What's more you can say bye bye to your HAs if they have broken lances or crossbowmen.

Playing as Aragon in SS I immediately disbanded all my mounted crossbowmen after coming up against Milan.

[Khassaki]

Horse archers (at least mounted crossbowmen in my experience) are utter crap. In every volley they fire off something like 5 arrows hit their mark. Before you've made a dent in the opposing army you're HA's are very tired and are out of ammo.

What's more you can say bye bye to your HAs if they have broken lances or crossbowmen.

Playing as Aragon in SS I immediately disbanded all my mounted crossbowmen after coming up against Milan.

SS reduces the combat factor of everything to ridiculous levels so its not relevant to vanilla.

For vanilla, mounted CBs shooting into the right rear of an enemy they can destroy even complete bodyguards if they have the time. Generally though, because you don't have the mobility of a historical army its best to include some infantry to act as a pivot for your mounted.

[gogis]

SS reduces the combat factor of everything to ridiculous levels so its not relevant to vanilla.

For vanilla, mounted CBs shooting into the right rear of an enemy they can destroy even complete bodyguards if they have the time. Generally though, because you don't have the mobility of a historical army its best to include some infantry to act as a pivot for your mounted.

You both not right, honestly. Both in SS and Vanilla HA's still overpowered, although HA's in SS slightly weaker.

I still using 10HA's+Gen armies on regular basis in my whatever campaigns (SS/Vanilla/DLV, not matter) with great success.

I dont get, what you talking about, really guys. I mean guys, complaining about difficulty and uneffectivness of horse archers.

In mtw 1.2 skirmihing really improved, all you need to do - select whole stack of orse archers and order them to walk to some point (NOT ENEMY!) and wait till they depleted in arrows.

It's easiest way, not godly effective, but still, ~50 kills/per/unit is guaranteed even for some ugly ones and weak, like russian Kazaks.

My HA's armies all have max experience in middle of game and i use them as "let's kill 50% of enemy, then retreat" force or even they take settlemetns if enemy stupid enough to sally on fake siege.

Anyone who say that HA's is inferior units, simply unable to cook them well, tbh.

It's best overall units in game, to say least.

Do you enjoy your infantrish "Clear Victories" with 20-15% army losses?
Keep going.
I enjoy my heroic spam with 5-6 casualties vs 1000+ dead crap.

[mbchudno]

Hello everybody, first post here. Very good forum, helped me a lot.

to topic, I play Russia mostly and its all about missile cav troops so I found this handy guide. it was very very helpful.

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73479

As far as i think, any missile cav units in the game are overpowered and undervalued by game's auto-resolve, so to get good results you have to fight your battles.

Typical fight with Russian HA army (50/50% Kozaks and Boyar's Son and general) is:

1) Turn off fire at will.

2) disable enemy missile and siege units (the only units who can hit you).

AI is not very smart and attacks with missile inf in front and siege on the back of the army. Initial charge (Boyar's Son and General) on front against enemy missile inf. gets everybody rushing forward (too late) and leaving their siege units unprotected, ripe for "weak" kazaks to melee rush against and kill in seconds. Key here is to break attack and retreat as soon as enemy missile inf and siege units routing. They can be finished once they far from enemy formation.

3) disable enemy cav (painful part)

Enemy Light cav can also be pain but you have so much of cav, you can flank anything. Melee with Boyar Sons, flank with Kazaks. Enemy Horse archers are pain, but you have full army of them, melee rush them with Kazaks then flank with Boyar Sons. Don't let anybody shoot at nether light cav or missile cav as you will have so much friendly fire you will loose too many people. Heavy cav is easier, they slow, boyar's sons faster and they hit like a truck with armor piercing spears they throw.

4) enemy infantry slaughter...

Now real fun begins. Create cross fire with Kozaks on sides and put Boyar's Son on the back of enemy formation going after my general and let it rip. Auto fire always off, no sense of firing on routing enemies and you will have plenty. Start from rear of the formation, work all the way up, slowly moving general back. Once unit you are firing at gets to shaken state, charge on its rear to rout and finish it. Don't forget to stop firing before charge.

Taking full stack army with force 10 times smaller is normal thing to do, even without generals. And low maintenance, with so little losses. Craziest fight so far was German stack (1000+ men consisting of siege, missile inf, medium inf, couple heavy cav units) VS reinforcements (3 Kazaks and 3 Boyar Sons) i sent to my main army that was atacking one of their cities. Germans walked past my army and attacked them. I thought i would simply weaken them in the beginning, but managed to destroy them loosing only 30 or so men and got Man of Hour

Later on, replace Kazaks with Kazak Cav and Boyar Son with Mounted Dvor.