What's so Good about Turkey?

[Exarch]

being the opponent of change that i am, where i tend to favour factions with heavy cavalry (and MUST have lances) and good archers and heavy infantry, i've heard a lot of players extoll the wonders of playing as the turks.
what's so wicked about 'em?
what makes them so badass?
is it jsut the gunpowder?

[RollingWave]

you should try Horse archer factions in general and you should see what ppl love them. good HA tactic simply dominates anything, espically dumb computers.

HA can fire while moving, so while they will lose to most similar level archer / crossbows in a strait shoot out.. they SHOULDN'T be doing a strait shootout with them.

here's my typical HA tactic (mostly with the SS Cuman faction though which is even more evil since they can recurit HAs from even small towns and wooden castles heh.)

basically just put them into two or 3 control group. typically i start them out as spread out formation and skrimishing mode on. have the groups go into different directions as they approach the opponents. try to find high ground to move to and try to get one of the group to their back end. if your fired upon start running . missiles do a lot less damage if your moving quickly (obviously) while yours still land fairly effectively.

while HAs tend to do less damage per unit than foot archer head on, the fact that they can

A. get to high ground a lot easier
B. shoot from your back most of the time
C. shoot while moving
D. risk shooting fairly up close.

makes them much harder hitting overall.

if the enemy sepearte. (say they charge melee units at you .) send you other group and charge their archers / seige.

I'm not at my game computer now so i don't have pics with me, but generally speaking if your not being shot at you should move your HAs up close to the point where at laest you can run if they charge you but you get a very clear shot. the combination of close shot + rear shot is just amazing. it's almost as hard hitting as Jinets raining those javlin of death on our back. and they last longer and is a bit more versital.

most of the better versions of HAs are pretty solid melee too. if they don't have a particularly large contingent of archers / segie I typically go back to close formation, I tend to turn off skrimish after my trap is set (so i can charge in went the time is right.)

a few trick.

1. if you only have 1 or 2 unit of HAs chasing routers turn fire at will on so they can shoot at the routers too. but if it's a massive chase with a lot of units then turn it off, because you'll shoot ur own units a lot more often than the runners

2. I personally find the circle formation useless, if i'm being shot at i'm much better off just keep running towards favorable ground and/or away from fire anyway.

3. i rarely stop and shoot, i usually keep them on a slow trot. it's personal thing i guess but still i find it effective to keep them moving. if i need to start running it helps too.

4. if you don't have a ton of HAs in that stack, then aim your targets, always pick on guys you can cause the most damage on. (light horse, light infantry, opposing archers etc..) you want to disrupt their formation and give them a major moral penalty before you engage.

5. if you have a stack where HA is your primary force, then don't even bother, just fire away and let them pick their own targets. you should end up devatsting almost everythign anyway. have a small group of heavy cavs backing them up if you want (you'll have your generals anyway) often times they will try to quickly charge you with cavs. and you have a nasty surprise waiting for them

6. HAs are the most effective unit to chase down other cavalry... because even if they can't catch them.. they can shoot them !

as the Turks, basically your early field army should be pretty exclusively turkomans. with a few arab cav + general to back up . have a secondary army that can do the seige for you and/or hire mercanries. the idea is to devaste their army in the open .

[Samir]

Turks are a wonderful faction to beat up any european knight armies. that simple. you just run away with your horse archers while firing some arrows at the knights, rinse and repeat, lots of victories...

their position is excellent, giving them choices to expand towards the Levante, Byzantinum, even pirating Europe or conquering islands and africa.

their economy is great after 50 turns, at least if you consolidate some of your borders. Crusades are no real problem as asia minor offers about 2000 great spots for defensive battles against the crusading armies.

so if you wanna try a guerilia faction you should try turks.

other than horse archers they have access to great foot archers, jihad units and due to their position they can recruit the best mercenaries almost all the time.

their only real challenge are the other horse archer factions (Byz, Kiev, Novogrod and to a certain point Egypt and the Spanish) and of course the Mongols and Timurids. Until those 2 arrive you usually dominate the Levante, have Asia Minor and the caucasus under a strict military defensive layout.

Economically you are basically independent, you trade and ally with the muslims, take provinces that the crusaders gain in the levante.

[Kaiserjagen]

Turks are a wonderful faction to beat up any european knight armies. that simple. you just run away with your horse archers while firing some arrows at the knights, rinse and repeat, lots of victories...

Plus later they get heavy janissary infantry and heavy cavalry to keep things interesting if HA's aren't your thing.

[Carl von Döbeln]

nothing

[AmiR TimuR]

Masterrace

[Tpoucat]

Longbowmen>horsearchers. Period.

[Mithrane]

Longbowmen>horsearchers. Period.

From a 1 v 1 standpoint? In most cases, if you can keep the Horse Archers out of melee, then yes, Longbowmen will win. From a strategical battle standpoint? No, not even.

Yes, any standing archer will eat a horse archer regiment alive if they can stay protected. And the stakes from the Longbowmen make that even easier to do. However, you won't win much with an army full of longbowmen, but a full horse archer army will take anything but a siege.

The better your tactics are, the better you use them, the better horse archers become. Longbowmen are an essential part of a very segmented army-type. As the English, you are strong because your infantry protect your longbowmen, who lay ruin upon advancing troops, who are broken by flanking heavy cavalry.

England is a slow, methodical, defensive type of army, great for hills and forests. Horse Archers are fast, aggressive, harrassment armies, designed to pick at weaknesses and stay on the move. (GODS I wish that there were a strategic withdrawl option which didn't lose troops and count as a defeat)

Now, as for the Turks? I've honestly never played them. But, from their roster, they start very similar to the Byzantines, who I have played extenssively. So, I would expect any early-game strategies for the Turks to be similar to those of Byzantium. The Turks, however, get heavier ranged units (gunpowder) and such at the end game, making them work better as "standard" battle units at end game, but with still strong mounted archers, making them very similar to Russia.

Add to it the fact that they are a Muslim nation, which gives them the power to call Jihad, but no Pope to be annoyed by. They also have the supreme money making location in the world, with the possible exception of northern Italy into HRE. And, as a Muslim nation, you have the option to push for the Hashashim guild early and get some EXTREMELY powerful attack infantry long before any neighbor can.

Add all of these advantages up, and, even with the Mongols/Timurids pounding at their doors, they are a very tempting nation.

[Kaiserjagen]

Longbowmen>horsearchers. Period.

LAWL

Only if you use the horse archers incorrectly (such as the AI may do).

[Exarch]

LOL, thanks for the helpful tips doods
i'm tempted to try turks now, but the thing is that they occupy such a spread out starting position.
and u've always gotta look out for your eastern frontier....

[Glowboy]

Janissary Heavy Infantry are anti-infantry and anti-cavalry they're effective agianst armor and as far as I know don't suffer from the 2H bug and have very long reach.

[Exarch]

that's nice
i played a custom battle with janissary musketeers and they pwned everybody!!

[Queen Annes Revenge]

From the playable factions, the Turks have the best late tech and units in the game, outside of navy. Janissary units, Monster Bombard, and Qapakulu are all insanely powerful and faction unique!