Just got the game and have some questions on battle planning

[Corner Mcloud]

Well I just bought the game and I am playing as England. I actually own MTW but it never worked right on my old PC, but for some reason it still does not work on my new PC which is quite nice and plays MTW 2 nicely.

Anywho, I am a big fan of the game so far since I my original thought was that the battles would be such long events that I would get bored and turn to autoresolving. However so far, I love the battles and this fear is gone.

Like I said I chose England, because I have always liked the Longbowmen unit in other games. I have been conquering rebel settlements with Rufus in the North and Robert in Norman lands. So far so good and my economy was not bad (since managing it was another fear with a game of this scale).

Here are my campaign questions:

1. Under William the Conqueror, I was bringing in close to 5000 or more florins per turn, but once he died and Rufus took the crown, its down to 1200 and I actually have more cities now... so what could have happened?

2. I get messages to upgrade castles and cities, but the upgrade is not there or greyed out.... what do I need to upgrade them then? I checked and I have the money or am i just missing something?

3. What do i need to build artillery like catapaults and Trebuchets?

Here is my Battle questions:

4. How do I get my archers/longbowmen/missile units to engage in melee? I hit the skirmish button off, and the cursor for the missile units is still and bow and arrow. When I double click for them to charge they dont. Sometime they begin shooting arrows again. I want them to charge like spearmen, so what am I not doing?

5. How do I effectively use my missile units and spearmen combo?

I have only had 3 pitched battles so far, 2 with France and 1 with Scotland and I won all three however I felt I did not command very good. In every battle I put my archers in the front line, spearmen in the 2nd line and my cav to my flanks. I let the enemy approach and got some arrow shots and then retreated my missile units behind the spearmen and let the spearmen come forward and attack. My cav protected my flanks and were used to attack the enemy flank and rear once engaged.

The problem I see is a limited use of missile units. after 2 volleys into the enemy they pull back and I cant fire any more or else my spearmen could suffer from friendly fire. Despite winning I wanted to do more with them, in both cases with France this was the scenario.

With Scotland I attacked their king in a pitch battle with a full stack, and he retreated to Edinburgh. But then the Prince Heir had a army outside of Edinburgh too so I attacked him next. I went into a pitched battle, however the Prince Heir was reinforced from the King from Edinburgh. I took on two armies but still outnumbered them by 500 troops or so.

The thing that sucked was I started in a huge forest, so during deployment I noticed some higher ground and open behind and I pulled back and setup a similar formation as all before, Longbows-archers to front, spearmen, cav... etc. However the enemy was advancing on me through the forest and so I could not attack them with missiles until they were almost on top of me and I had no further place to retreat to since it was the edge.

Meanwhile, the King attacked my right flank with about 700 men, including some heavy cavalry. I engaged in one volley with my longbowmen and retreated back behind the spearmen. then I ordered two spearmen units and the longbowmen to setup up on my right flank to face the king. Unfortunately the Prince Heir also had heavy cavalry, and avoided my right most flank of spearmen and hit my longbowmen during their march. the result was mass confusion and death. For the whole battle my Longbowmen were cut down and needlessly slaughtered, I tried to get them to charge melee but it didnt work (aka problem stated above #4), so they were useless. Meanwhile my cavalry did all they could to engage the Kings men while my front army wiped out the Prince's men. Once the Prince was done, I had spearmen left to engage the King's remainder. Rufus had to engage, rally the troops and thankfully didnt get killed. I won the battle but lost 3/4 of my men, not too mention most of my longbowmen were at 2/10 of strength afterwards.

:hmmm:So looking at this battle, what could I have done differently? Am I using my missile units right? Or should I do something different? Any laid out strategies would be most welcome because I want to learn and get better. I understand that the terrain plays a huge importance and the position of hills but I still think I am missing things. Would any of you handle the Battle against Scotland differently?

I appreciate any help!

[clandestino]

1. Under William the Conqueror, I was bringing in close to 5000 or more florins per turn, but once he died and Rufus took the crown, its down to 1200 and I actually have more cities now... so what could have happened?

Have you trained any new units, maybe their upkeep is eating your profits? Or William had some awsome mangement skills that earned you extra 3000 florins but that is highly unlikely.

2. I get messages to upgrade castles and cities, but the upgrade is not there or greyed out.... what do I need to upgrade them then? I checked and I have the money or am i just missing something?

If they are greyed that means that you cities are on automenagement or you simply don't have enough money to upgrade them. So try to uncheck automanage box in settlements scroll.

3. What do i need to build artillery like catapaults and Trebuchets?

You need to build ballista maker and then upgrade it to catapult maker.

4. How do I get my archers/longbowmen/missile units to engage in melee? I hit the skirmish button off, and the cursor for the missile units is still and bow and arrow. When I double click for them to charge they dont. Sometime they begin shooting arrows again. I want them to charge like spearmen, so what am I not doing?

Select unit, pres ALT and point unit at enemy while pressing ALT.

[Thompson45cal.]

well you've had some excellent help, while I was typing out this longwind and probably useless info, but I'm gonna post it anyway.

Not so sure how much help I can be. I played the campaign for about 3 months before becoming addicted to on-line multi-player games. So my knowledge is some what limited.

1. Not sure if the death of your king causes a reduction in your florin revenues or not, but I know that when your people ain't happy they don't pay their taxes . Could be a number of factors causing this lose of florins hard to say.

2. Castle and city upgrades require a certain amount of population, your issue could be that you don't have enough people to upgrade.

3. In the store bought games there's a building tree that shows what buildings build what units and what’s required. There's a building tree posted in the forums somewhere, I know I've seen it. Sorry that I don't have a link for you.

4. Hey! this one I know with a surety .... to engage in melee any ranged unit......from archers to treb crews to horsearchers. Select the unit, while holding down the alt button select your target.

5. I think your archer/ spearmen stratagy is sound.... but maybe this could help some
(A) It's always better to shoot out of the woods then into the woods.
(B) In the woods longbowmen can plant stakes that the enemy cav may not see till it’s too late.
(B) If the enemy is charging your archers with cav units (assuming your archers are up front. Use your cav forces to pin the oncoming cav (as close to your lines as practical). Once pinned by your cav, engage your spearmen to attack the cav.... they then will becoming the pinning force, at this point pull back your cav (or push them through) and use them to hit the enemy cavs flanks or rear while your spearmen have them pinned.

Not sure how much this will help, but it's a start. I'm certain other more experience players will be willing to help you better then I have. But I hope this will help some.

Hope to see you in the game.
Thompson45cal.

[phowa]

Yeh i know what you mean with forests theres not much you can do but when you get the better grade archers like Retinue and yeoman they really start to cut down the enemy.

When youre in big battles most of the time the enemy will charge youre line and there will be a big lump of soldiers waiting to get to the fight so just shoot at them they are normally far enough away from your soldiers so you dont get friendly fire.

[Corner Mcloud]

Wow, thank you all for the quick answers to my questions. I just have a few follow up questions..

(B) If the enemy is charging your archers with cav units (assuming your archers are up front. Use your cav forces to pin the oncoming cav (as close to your lines as practical). Once pinned by your cav, engage your spearmen to attack the cav.... they then will becoming the pinning force, at this point pull back your cav (or push them through) and use them to hit the enemy cavs flanks or rear while your spearmen have them pinned.

I noticed on this forum that it seemed anyway, that people were using Melee units at the front, side by side with infantry and spearmen, and let them fire until engaged by the enemy charge, and even after the charge? Is that helpful? I thought missile units should not engage in Melee? (at least most of the time)

so would a first row be successful in this formation?

Inf--missile--spearmen--missile--inf--missile--spearmen ??

also... It seems like when a spearmen unit for example is engaged with an enemy unit that they are bogged down in that fighting, besides hitting the flanks and rears... is there any other way of getting other melee units in there?

Lastly, how do I use crossbowmen effectively? If say a crossbowmen unit is firing on an enemy spear militia and then the militia engage in melee with the front part of the crossbowmen formation, is it wise to leave them? Is the other rows effectively firing on them or do they automatically switch to melee too?

and should Crossbowmen be firing on the flanks and rear of an enemy who is engaged with my melee? or not? Is this a case of bad friendly fire?

Because I hear how great crossbowmen are, but just not how they should act...

thanks again

[Thompson45cal.]

Well for me personally, I prefer to have my archers at the front till They are threatened by a cav charge or infantry assault, at that point I prefer to move my supporting infantry to the front in relation to a infantry assault and use my cav tactic previously mentioned in my prior post, leaving my archers stationary and continuing to fire.

Some archer and crossbow units can hold their own very well against enemy units in melee, but on the whole, my experience has been that archers do more damage with their bows then they ever can in melee.
So I don't recommend leaving them in front or even in line with your infantry during an assault.

Archers have a high trajectory that's easily passes over your infantry line, I target the rear most units to reduce friendly fire problems. Crossbow with a lower trajectory does need some elevation or a clear line of site.
And what you mentioned about going around the flanks and shooting the enemy is a tactic I employ often, and it works well with muskets also. But these units require some kind of support disengaged cav is a good qualifier. I pretty much always have my archers and crossbow OFF skirmish mode so they'll continue to stand and fire when the enemy approaches......

Once you notice the enemy line or unit begins to waver...... depending on the circumstance, is when I send my archers in to melee (if they are needed or if the units they're attacking are weak and ready to rout).

I haven't done this much thinking about a number of issues in a long time....... I think I fried something in my head..... Is that smoke I smell?
Thompson45cal.