I don't understand: how do you all do it?

[war91]

I'm doing all types of custom battles, because after reading the custom formation thread (loads of great ideas) I wanted to try a few. Here is what happened.

1) Hammer and anvil
I had my infantry in place, and they pinned down the enemy infantry, so I took four units of heavy cavalry and tried to go around... Only to have them clip the enemy too early, and then they all charged one unit. I won, but in the end, it didn't go the way I wanted it to.

2) Weak center, strong flanks
This went horribly wrong, and it is when I noticed something: at the start of every single battle, the enemy just takes every single unit and spreads them out, making one humongous line. They just attacked head on and almost surrounded me. They didn't even try to focus on the weak center I presented to them. I won this battle as well, but in the end it had nothing to do with the tactic.

How do you have such fun battles against the AI while using these formations? No matter what I do, the AI always does the same thing: that one long line of everything it has, and it gets very annoying. The only way I can stop from getting surrounded is to also spread out. It works all the time, but it completely ruins the fun of using my own tactics and formations.

What do I do?

[Pontifex Maximus]

1) Hammer and anvil
I had my infantry in place, and they pinned down the enemy infantry, so I took four units of heavy cavalry and tried to go around... Only to have them clip the enemy too early, and then they all charged one unit. I won, but in the end, it didn't go the way I wanted it to.

This one works for me every time. Just make sure to control every cavalry unit individually so they don't clip the enemy, get them safely behind the enemy and then charge.

2) Weak center, strong flanks
This went horribly wrong, and it is when I noticed something: at the start of every single battle, the enemy just takes every single unit and spreads them out, making one humongous line. They just attacked head on and almost surrounded me. They didn't even try to focus on the weak center I presented to them. I won this battle as well, but in the end it had nothing to do with the tactic.

You're only mistake here was thinking the AI would actually be intelligent enough to notice. Sometimes I overthink the AI, and it's unnecessary, let me tell you that.

How do you have such fun battles against the AI while using these formations? No matter what I do, the AI always does the same thing: that one long line of everything it has, and it gets very annoying.

Alot of the tiome it depends on the faction you are playing. Gaul always does this to me, but the Greeks not so much.

The only way I can stop from getting surrounded is to also spread out. It works all the time, but it completely ruins the fun of using my own tactics and formations.

Well, play to win I guess.

What do I do?

Download a mod.

[war91]

It must be a bug or something, as every faction I play against does the same thing: be it Gaul, Greek, Roman, etc.

[Scutarii]

Weak center: don't use it, AI doesn't recognize the 'weak' part of your line, they just engage without discriminating between them. For the hammer and anvil, as Pontifex said, control cavalry units individually, don't let them clip before you charge. This is the easiest one to do, pause if you need to, to micromanage. You could also try the wedge formation (not the cavalry one, the entire army one). There are others, I can't remember them all.... And one thing, download a mod that uses Darth or Sinuhets formations, it really helps with stuff like this. The formations don't directly affect the Ai's thinking, but the formations they can go into and start in really influence their decisions.

[mrbonzai211]

EASIEST SOLUTION:


download the latest XGM mod and enable "darth formations" for the AI. It really does revolutionize the usually generic AI.

[Cheme]

EASIEST SOLUTION:


download the latest XGM mod and enable "darth formations" for the AI. It really does revolutionize the usually generic AI.

Not knocking the darth formations but the thing that really made the game harder for me after that mod was all the armies are so close in color. I had a hard time distinguishing how the battle was going because all I could tell was there was a blob of guys fighting and it was difficult to distinguish what portion of that blob was actually mine without selecting my hole army.

[Benz282]

How do you have such fun battles against the AI while using these formations? No matter what I do, the AI always does the same thing: that one long line of everything it has, and it gets very annoying. The only way I can stop from getting surrounded is to also spread out. It works all the time, but it completely ruins the fun of using my own tactics and formations.

Well, my solution to the boringness of vanilla campaigns is to make them interesting yourself. Instead of steamrolling, send one stack in and pit it against the entirety of the enemy forces. For the actual battles, you can limit yourself by using weak troops, protecting a unit or two of Peasants (convoy), ambushing...lots of other stuff.

The AI tactics can't really be helped without darth formations or something of the like. If you don't wanna do any of that, then instead of lining up parallel to the enemy, maybe you should consider moving off to the side. Engage one of the enemy flanks with the bulk of your forces, and work your way down their line.

[Hader]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[Aristarchus]

The only way I can stop from getting surrounded is to also spread out. It works all the time, but it completely ruins the fun of using my own tactics and formations. What do I do?

I never spread out to match the enemy line, but instead bunch my units to punch through once I find the weak point in the enemy line. Against Gaul, for example, the sword units are usually on the end. Sending cavalry out to flank them usually makes them turn away to give chase, while I direct archers at them. Meanwhile, I push forward at some points, hold back on others as a reserve and to keep distance, so the fight is not one-on-one all along the line, which the enemy wants. And keep the general and a supporting cavalry to protect the center from the opposing general and to take advantage of a weakening point. Once the line breaks, the spread-out enemy line prevents all the units getting to the battle, while my units are able to surround the units on the broken line and work outward. About that time, the swords turn to the center again, and once engaged can be hit from the rear with the flanking cavalry. Rome is especially good with hard-hitting tactics like this.

Not sure how you always win by spreading out your line. Against the Britons, for example, or facing Roman cohorts with weaker barbarian units, I find that a sure way to lose.

[war91]

I think I over exaggerated: I don't spread my line all the way out, I just don't put them close together like I would to use a formation.

I'll have to use the XGM mod. I have EB, and I love it, but it just makes things to slow for me. And plus there are times when I want to use those ridiculously inaccurate units like screeching women.

And I can't believe I never thought to just punch straight through them like you said.

Edit: sorry about that Hader, I don't know why I didn't put it here to begin with.

[Eccentric]

yeah its really annoying that the ai always comes at you in a long thin line, but I found that what works really well against this long line is to put your troops in a small bunched up formation and charge at either one of the flanks(works really well with just cav), the ai units will try to turn around to face you while you easily break the few on one side, they take so long to all turn around form a line again.

Or you can modify a bit, for example when you go into a custom battle, all your units will be stretched out like that too, I changed it so they come onto the battle field in 4-5 line deep, when I fought in my campaign, I could even use the strong flanks, weak center tactic on gualish warbands(which are normally stretch really long cause they have more men)

[Obliterate76]

My favorite strategy, is when you take Spanish Tustedo Pikemen (about 5 units) then you take 5 units of musketeers with the armor upgrade and place them in line with your pikemen. Make sure that the first line of muskets is past the pikement who have their spears lowest to the ground. If not, your musketeers will not even think about firing. This technique works critically well, especially when the front pikemen have about 5ft long pikes guarding your precious musketeers. Cheers!!

[war91]

Uh, I think you're talking about the wrong game.

[General Decius]

It seems u only made a mistake with the Hammer and Anvil (My Favorite strategy) Next time try to avoid that mistake bring your cavalry out wider and charge from behind, and if your cavalry arent good at hand to hand just pull them out and keep charging eventually the charge bonus will get to the enemy and normally they'll break.

[Lord Thesaurian]

just keep practicing maybe ur just not cut out for this?

[Lord Dakier]

Why do you think they take a long line?... If your getting beaten when they use a long line break their formation which cavalry.

"Should A Soldier Not Defeat Double Our Own Casualties We Cannot Win This War - Lord Dakier"

[AqD]

No matter what I do, the AI always does the same thing: that one long line of everything it has, and it gets very annoying. The only way I can stop from getting surrounded is to also spread out. It works all the time, but it completely ruins the fun of using my own tactics and formations.

What do I do?

The AI is actually being smart by doing so. It sucks for AI not to use a long line.

Weak center? Well that's what I use for weak center:

Initial deployment:

 HHHH
AAAAAA

CCCCC
 KKK

Bettle begin:

C
C              K
C  { Enemy }  K
C            K
    HHHH
   AAAAAA

H = heavy infantry, A = foot archer (with flamming)
C = horse archers, K = heavy cavalry / generals

Weak center to attract enemies, but no actual fighting. The center should be put as far as the arrow range allows. In right flank the knights should try to pursue enemy skirmishers/archers and break enemy formation (again, no actual fighting). And left rank, 4-6 horse archer units, deployed only after the foot archers begin firing flamming arrows, and they would do the main killing - shoot from back or un-shielded right side.

The enemy should be thrown into chaos very fast. Then heavy cavalry could finish light units and cavalry, and a few of enemy infantry who make their way to reach the center should be routed immediately.

The tactic is used to deal with balanced enemy army, with heavy infantry/spearmen, archers, slingers, skirmishers, cavalry, ..... It works for me everytime!

---

For infantry-only formation, just make the line as long as enemy's, and reserve all those which can throw javelin/pila at one flank (2nd line), then you can wrap the enemy up