Apaches... How to use them?

[Cataclysm]

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to use Apaches effectively. I've tested many things in the custom battles, even fighting in the desert (for the combat bonus) doesnt seem to work. I always loose less men than the enemy, but always loose anyway. I've tried using hidden scouts to attack from the rear, guns, horse archers, you name it and I cant win. Are there any effective ways to defeat foes like the Aztecs or Mayans without resorting to a pure HA army or suffering catastrophic losses?

[Surgeon]

Not sure if it's just me, but every time I played with Apaches, all it took me was a full/near full army of Dog Soldiers or Koitsenkos (once you get them). While you are still using Dog Soldiers, also throw in 2-3 units of melee guys like Scouts or Onde's Men.

All you need to do it set them on loose formation and arrange them in a 'bracket' form, e.g.:

........A
......A
....A
...A...M
G.A...M.....................................Enemy here
...A...M
....A
......A
........A
Where G=General, A=Archers (Dog Soldiers and/or Koitsenkos) and M=Melee (Scouts and/or Onde's Men). Koitsenkos usually don't need melee units to protect them because they're pretty powerful hand-to-hand as is. With this formation I slaughtered all kinds of armies including the European settlers'. Aztecs and Mayans took very huge casualties but sometimes still overwhelmed me (they usually outnumbered me vastly on those occasions). If you're playing campaign, you'll sometimes have to guerilla-fight them by shooting them up and them withdrawing.

[Oploc]

Yea, gurilla tactics FTW, if you don't mind getting the "winning first" +1 dread trait.

[Grimmy]

I tend to do well with the Apache when I play them in the same sort of formations that worked with hastati loaded Roman armies in RTW.

The braves work much the same way as the roman troops. Barrage with javelins and then charge the weakened and demoralized units to finish them off.

[Jsm111]

Yeah I Was Going To Mention That...Before You Start A Battle You Arrange Your Soldiers Anywhere You Want Them In The Blue Area(Your Area)...

[Paleface Killer]

Learn from Chief Paleface Killer here

Basically, before you get the good units from the long houses, you want to maximize the usage of apachean brave. What I do is, have your archers (dogs + rabbits) stand near your infantry line but on higher ground to maximize enemy arrow exposure. And then, your main line is going to be composed of Apachean braves. Behind the line, you should put medicine man in chant mode and generals. If the enemy try to advance to you, they'll take plenty of arrows before hand. When they charge your line, they would have already sustained a lot of damages and most likely they'll break when the javalines from the braves hit.

You can also have scouts and hide them on the side on higher ground. Since they can hide anywhere, you can catch a lot of peopel on surprise juts by charging them when they get close. This combined with the morale hit from medicine man and javelins should make the enemy break quick.

If you're fighting Europeans, use the same strategy but try to counter charge their cavalry if they chrage you. Basically, get them bogged down and you should be able to deal with them.

Medicine man, with its high attack, can be used as a tipping point when you just need that extra help to break the enemy.

Basically, don't be afraid to take casualties. In my fights against Europeans with cavalries, I consider doing 2:1 to be a good fight. You can't really do much when they got dragoons and bodyguard charging your line of Apachean Braves.

However, after you get onde's man, that's a different game. Use them to deal with cavalry much more effectively.

And then you get thunder braves and mounted thunder braves. That's basically game over.

[NorphTehDwarf]

I'm gonna sound completely retarded here, but how does one gain the ability to build long houses? I've built all the buildings it's possible to build at the start, but for most places that never went past hunters' tipis for some reason. I got M2TW on Steam and as such don't have the manual.

[Surgeon]

To build the Hunter's Longhouse you need to recruit 50 missile troops and hold 10 regions. To build the Raider's Longhouse you need to recruit 50 infantry units (these can include missile troops) and hold (AFAIK) 15 or so regions.

However, the campaign is apparently bugged so that sometimes the script doesn't work properly. In one campaign as the Apaches I never got the Longhouses but got gunpowder and horse units very quickly.

[Insurgent]

The Apachean tribes have excellent missile units (awesome archers, mounted archers, gunners, mounted gunners and javelinmen) however I can't find many decent melee units with them. So you should rely on your archers mostly in apache wars.

[Emperor_Palpy]

I rather dislike the Americas Campaign. Practically all the Indian tribes suck compared to Spain and get easily pwned. Plus, Spain is impossible to beat unless Havana rebels! (not likely) And against each other i never win unless i send a full stack, and then half of them die. I've lost against rebels with near full stacks!

[killer_squid]

I rather dislike the Americas Campaign. Practically all the Indian tribes suck compared to Spain and get easily pwned. Plus, Spain is impossible to beat unless Havana rebels! (not likely) And against each other i never win unless i send a full stack, and then half of them die. I've lost against rebels with near full stacks!

Which is why if you play close to Spain, you take their only city on the land first.

[Sokar Rostau]

This might sound like a stupid question, but what Scouts are you talking about that can hide anywhere? Are these the Light Infantry where you start the Campaign with 3 or 4 units but can't recruit elsewhere until later? I haven't seen Hide as a Special Ability or anything, is it a passive ability?

[pwijnands]

I think all units, with the exception of the general's unit and siege equipment, can hide in forests. The Apachean scouts can hide anywhere they want.

[Mythlacar]

The Apachean Tribes get new recruitment buildings by recruiting, winning battles and taking over settlements.

If you want a Melee Infantry (Which recruits Apachean Scouts, which can hide anywhere on the battle map) you have to recruit as many Melee Infantry as possible in the Apache camp. The Apache camp is crucial, as it is the ONLY camp that starts with a melee infantry building, and you can not make them from the start, if memory serves.

Same goes for missle troops, for the new missle buildings you must recruit missle troops. So as you can guess, numbers play a big part in the Apache tactics. I usually had a full stack in every camp, plus a few stacks running around killing rebels/winning new camps.

To get Gunpowder or Calvary troops you must defeat/capture a large amount of Gunpowder or Cavalry troops from one of the European colonies. When you're playing the Apaches you should get a warning saying the French have arrived, when you get that send at least 3-4 stacks over to the east of the Comanche camp and ambush the French in the woods. Make them rout and run them down, Apachean troops run faster than the Europeans, so you will get your Gunpowder units quick. The Cavalry, eh... just hope you get enough of them killed before they run.

For your army composition I favored armies of 10-12 units of my Best Archers (Koitsenkos, Dog Soldiers, etc) and fill the rest with apachean braves.
I deployed like this. B for Braves M for whatever archer unit I have

B M
B M
B M
B M
B M
B M
B M
B M

Turned off skirmish, when the enemy charges you do a lot of damage with your archers, when they acually make it to your lines your apachean braves will do a lot of damage to their morale. They SHOULD rout before doing much damage. If your archers do not rout them quickly when they hit your line, send in the braves to help them out. Say your two middle archer units are tied up, send in the two middle brave units behind them into melee, the enemy will rout. Then pop back into your lines and fire away. Calvary units do a bit of damage, so if they hit your lines, send in not only whatever is already in melee with the cavalry but also one extra archer unit, and brave unit from each side of the cavalry. C are the enemies cavalry

B M <--Send these in
B M <--Send these in
B MC
B MC
B M <--Send these in
B M <--Send these in


If you have a big hill to deploy on, put your archers at the top of the hill and braves at the bottom, just let the braves die, and the archers fire away. (This ONLY workes against the other natives, the Europeans will just sit out of range of the braves and slaughter you with gunpowder) When the braves die or rout, the tired troops low on morale will then run into a fresh line of archers.

Don't worry about letting your archers melee, the apachean archers are just as good at melee as they are at long range. Now, obviously my plan of attack didnt get me the Melee Infantry buildings, but I did well without them.


Once I got gunpowder and horses I would add in 4 units of Gunmen on horses, to circle and shoot the army as they marched toward me, and run them down once they routed. I also replaced about a third to half of my archers with gunmen and deployed like this. G are the new gun troops.

B M
B M
B M
B G
B G
B G
B M
B M
B M

It should be noted that if you have any gunmen, even if you have a hill it is better to put your braves behind you and gunmen/archers in front. The Archers on Hill with Braves being sacrificed at bottom doesn't work as well with Gunmen. Sometimes it works much better, and the army routs once they run up the hill and hear the gunfire, but most of the time they still hit the line, stronger than they would have been if your line was all archers up there.

Hope it helps, good luck.

[Dragoon]

Try this thread for a prober unlock of Apachean Buildings

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=130776