How to deal with Genoese Crossbows?

[kriscorrie]

Hello,

I have planted a small army near milan stationed on a bridge, with two aims!

1) To increase my number of generals, by generating "man of the hours"

2) Train troups to max experience

Im funding milans troop production, so the keep sending waves at me!

However they are sending huge armies of Genoese Crossbowmen, and im beginning to get the impression that they are overpowered!

Im playing and English Campaign, and was hoping to create elite retinue longbowmen using this method, but it appears the genoese are actually better than my longbows???

So the question is, what the best way to deal with them? With particular reference to bridge based battles!

[xxxMoRaVexxx]

I think you must send more retinue longbows or maybe additional artillery on your bridge army or maybe when they reload send light cavalry(don't really know but i think it works)

[Carl von Döbeln]

Send some light cavalry

[kriscorrie]

given that my heavy cavallry generally gets slaughtered, i doubt light cav will do the job!

[Xamt]

genoese x-bows >> longbows since their pavice adds a whoping 8 (or something ridiculous like that) to their defence and they have a silly armor of 5... the only real way to counter them is on open ground with cavalry, having higher ground, or having a huuuuuuge amount of archers

then again if you wanna stick with your "hold the bridge to get xp" idea get some catapults ... in a packed place like the middle of the bridge they will devastate enemy troops and leave u with less casualties

but if i were you, i would fight them in open space where my cavalry would make minced meat out of 'em.

[Thompson45cal.]

genoese x-bows >> longbows since their pavice adds a whoping 8 (or something ridiculous like that) to their defence and they have a silly armor of 5... the only real way to counter them is on open ground with cavalry, having higher ground, or having a huuuuuuge amount of archers

then again if you wanna stick with your "hold the bridge to get xp" idea get some catapults ... in a packed place like the middle of the bridge they will devastate enemy troops and leave u with less casualties

but if i were you, i would fight them in open space where my cavalry would make minced meat out of 'em.

I agree 100%, I think this is your answer.

Thompson45cal.

[LadyAn]

If you face an armor piercing missile units such as crossbows, what is prefered: light cavalry or heavy cavalry?

It is true that if you put a light cav and a heavy cav standing in front of two xbows, the light cav suffers higher casualty. That's because heavy cav armor, although effectiveness is reduced by the armor piercing capability of the xbow bolts, still has some protective effects.

Let's keep the same two cav units but let two peasant archers firing at them. The light cav's casualty is now much higher than the heavy cav. It may lead us to think that "if heavy cav can't do the job, doubt that light cav can."

But there are two other factors affecting the balance: cost and speed.

For the cost of 1 heavy cav, you may be able to buy 2 light cav (or 3 for 2). Now, look at the casualty rates, you may find that although the first light cav unit is decimated, you may still have another fresh light cav unit, while you have no reserve in the case of heavy cav.

Light cav has the advantage of speed. Speed translates into less casualty (one volley instead of two before engaging).

In summary, against non-armor-piercing missiles, heavy cavs has advantage. But against xbows, that advantage is reduced and it is more economical to use light cavs.

I should say that shield is very useful, armor piercing or not. Use the light cav that has shield.

As for "general producing tactics": I usually bypass that and prefer to send overwhelming force to take out Milan, Pope be damn! Pope protest? Take over Rome.

Annie

[Double A]

given that my heavy cavallry generally gets slaughtered, i doubt light cav will do the job!

Doesn't anyone read the unit cards?!? Crossbows get a bonus against armor! So using heavy calvary gives them bonus attack, and they're slower so the crossbows get an extra shot. Run them through with light calvary and use ha's if you have any

[fritsje5]

Yes I'd also suggest heavy cavalry, and I don't know but, can you actually sabotage barracks to keep them from mass producing genoese xbow men or can they automatically be produced when building upgrades for walls etc.

when that is not the case I would think you need heavy artillery/cavalry for on bridge battles but certainly not try to outshoot them with your own archers, that would be just such a waste.

And if that won't work out I'd suggest you start this doing to another country such as Egypt or something.

[Surgeon]

Find a faction which doesn't use crossbows as their main weapon and level up on them

[Mithrane]

For the purposes of gaining large amounts of highly experienced longbowmen, I preffer to "grow" an infantry-based enemy. Mostly, I try to use Danemark, as they are very infantry heavy and in a position which makes it easy to work my "magic".

What I do is a several step process, which begins as soon as I can get forces moving.

1.) Isolate them.
-This means making sure that someone else has as many of their closer territories as possible. Either you take them, or you burn them.

2.) Keep them contained
-For Danemark, this means a navy. Keep their ports blockaded, and keep their navy dead. Don't let them leave

3.) Make friends with their enemies.
-Do whatever you can to get other countries such as HRE or Poland to help fight the Danes. This will make them more aggressive, thus removing their papal savior, and give them trouble growing at all.

4.) Sabatoge
-Get some good assassins and spies in each of their cities. I recommend 2 of each per city, 3 assassins per castle.
-Destroy ANYTHING that isn't letting them make average infantry.
-You do NOT want them getting artilery, crossbows, or cavalry.

Now you have them growing. Get your own lines in order. Take out Scotland and France. By now, you should have either the Master's Woodsman's Guild or the Woodsman's Guild HQ, or at least access to Ret. Longbowman in 1-2 places. By now, they should be at a position where they are pumping out cheap armies just to get the bodies to the lines. If they look to be about to die, try to give them some breathing room by brokering peace with other countries and perhaps gifting them a small city to make money. Preferably one you can quickly crush should they get too strong.

5.) Plant your children.
-Now get together an army of about 75% longbowmen, 1 light cavalry, 1 artilery (balista is fine), and 2-3 units of infantry (higher quality the better).
-Place them near the middle of your farming country's production center of cities/castles.

6.) Wait
-Don't attack them unless they get a HUGE army building up in a city
-If they do, siege it for a few turns to damage their numbers, and then let of the siege.

7.) Kill
-If ANY of their armies leave their towns, destroy them. If any rebels show up, destroy them. (foreign army in their lands = lots of rebels)
-Keep their faction leaders alive, and their cavalry minimal, and they have little to counter you.

8.) Retrain
-Don't send a unit back to retrain until it is down to 1/3 effectiveness.

9.) Regroup
-Filling out a 2 chevron group which is 3/4 full from a stack which is 1/2 full will often raise the chevrons of the smaller stack.
-This now more experienced smaller stack is the right size to send back to retrain.
-Keep this up, and you will find the magic numbers, and you will find it much easier to gain exp.

10.) Crusades
-Call every crusade you can. Try to make sure there is a crusade going every 25 years (the minimum between calls to god).
-Make sure they are crusades which will not fail. That is, don't call for a crusade on Egypt as England. Most of your troops will abandon long before they get there, and few will join. Call for them close to home so you can be the one who completes them
-Have a spy at the location so you can see if it is about to end ahead of schedule.
-Have your growing army join the crusade JUST before it is completed. They will get exp and the general will gain very good traits for infantry/archers.




In this way, you can grow 2-3 full armies of 2+silver chevron ret longbowmen in very short order. Once you get them very experienced, you will should have a general or 3 groomed and ready, with the backing armies of infantry and cavalry, to make a march on a stronger country and win quickly, before the Pope can call you out on it. Reform, regroup, and retrain, gathering to full numbers before pushin on to your next victim. Usually takes 5-8 turns after finishing of a country to have everything retrained and set up to take on the next foe.

[Mithrane]

Oh, and as to the original question... How to beat *insert Italian Milita State's Troop here*?

Numbers. Simply numbers. All of their units, especially in early-mid eras, are disgustingly powerful. But, the absolute worst thing to try to beat them with would be, yep, you guessed it, archers. Unless you can get your archers to fire from their right/back, you will be hitting shield, and thus not doing spit.

Want to mow them down? Cavalry or light-offensive infantry. Any form of cavalry will do, though light will give you a better return for your money, on average. Light, fast moving, hard hitting infantry with good numbers (numbers being the key second only to speed) will rip them apart if they are unprotected.

But, here's the problem. They are Italian. So... they have gobs and gobs of super-human spear milita defending them. This means, unless you can get behind them, cavalry is useless. This also means that your light infantry are going to have a very very hard time pushing through.

So, what does this leave us? Artilery. Longer ranged, pounds the faces off of those pasta-loving sons of a bleepity bleep.

Problem? You can't have an effective all arty army.

Solution? Back it up with standard army.

Final answer as to how to beat Genoese Crossbows? Full army with larger numbers, higher ground, or vastly superior quality, with artilery being paramount in terms of easy kills.

[Mad Luddite]

Crossbows shouldn't destroy longbowmen like they do in this game... see Crecy.

[NobleNick]

kriscorrie,

The Genoese crossbows do indeed have excellent stats:

Genoese Crossbow Militia (GCM): Attack=12AP; Defense=15 (9 against AP arrows)
Genoese Crossbows (GC): Attack=12AP; Defense=16 (9 against AP arrows)

Retinue Longbows: Attack=8AP; Defense=14 (5.5 against AP arrows, can set stakes)

Longbows have a more rapid rate of fire. This somewhat evens up the
bleak looking stats above. Still, unless you can enforce some extenuationg circumstances, your Longbows (which ARE very good archers) will take significant casualties from GC, GCM (or Pavise crossbows). Several things to consider:

1.) As suggested in another post, sabotage any archery-enhancing buildings the Italians might have (don't know if this is an option, since I have yet to play as an Italian faction).

2.) Build armorers for your Longbow-producing cities, and sabotage armorers in Milan's cities.

3.) Use high ground if available. Longbowmen and the better crossbows have the same range (160). But if you can get your Longbows on high ground, their range is extended while simultaneously shortening the range of the crossbows. If they are back far enough, they can then fire on the crossbows with impunity, being out of crossbow range. Sometimes the crossbows will react to this by coming onto the bridge: Excellent. Back your Longbows up a bit more and ensure they are in loose formation (should have been that way from the start). Soon you will find the spot where the crossbows are packed onto the bridge like sardines, nose to nose with your infantry, and cannot attack your archers. Annihilate them.

4.) Divide and conquer. The GC have a morale of 5, while the GCM is only 3. If you have enough Longbows to concentrate fire from 3 or more units onto one unit enemy crossbow unit plus add in another Lonbow unit with flaming arrows, you should be able to rout a GCM or even a GC in short order. Move to the next crossbow unit and repeat. Routed units will probably return; but they will be fatigued, and (more importantly) the enemy loses the use of their firepower while you concentrate on picking off other units.

5.) It always helps any ranged duel to have a lot more archers than the enemy has.

6.) My personal favorite solution is to do as Mithrane suggests: Terminate all Italians, and train your archers against someone with a less potent ranged threat.

I hope this helps.

[Strom]

I don't know... In my experience (I fought a desert archer vs crossbowman battle last night) it takes about four units worth of a typical longbow unit to kill a good crossbow unit at extreme range even with height advantage resulting in zero friendly casualties. The higher rate of fire doesn't mean too much when they've shot all of their arrows and some bad guys are still standing...

If you're taking too many casualties to your heavy cavalry then run some peasants/militia in front of them to soak up a volley or two. You need enough cavalry so that you don't get bogged down and shot to pieces though... Often if you can get to a crossbow army then they'll skirmish away from you which lets you pick them apart in detail at your leisure, as long as you have enough junk units to keep the crossbows from focus firing on your cavalry too much.

[NobleNick]

Desert Archer = sux --> ATT=7; DEF=6 (=3 against AP arrows)

Genoese Crossbows (GC): Attack=12AP; Defense=16 (=12 against non-AP arrows)

So you effectively had:

(GC)--> ATT=12; DEF=12; against (DA) --> ATT=7; DEF=3.

Yeah, that is not going to go well for the DA. I am surprised they still had archers standing when they ran out of arrows.

Even with Longbows, I like to outnumber the crossbows by at least 2 to 1. That is because simply winning is not good enough: I want to win -AND- still have my Longbows. With 2-to 1 superiority, I can position my Longbows so that at least one unit of Longbows is shooting into the crossbow's unshielded side. The crossbows --even the better crossbows, like Genoese and Pavise-- DO go down under Longbow fire. It just ain't pretty for the Longbows, unless you have overwhelming numbers.

[Strom]

Desert Archer = sux --> ATT=7; DEF=6 (=3 against AP arrows)

Yeah, that is not going to go well for the DA. I am surprised they still had archers standing when they ran out of arrows.

I marched the desert archers around the enemy so they ended up uphill from the crossbowmen (adventurarii (sp), I think they were) and shot them down without taking a single bolt in reply. When my four entire, unwounded, units of desert archers had shot every arrow they possessed there were still half a dozen adventurarii left, but I'd also killed roughly half a dozen of the regular, non-pavisse, crossbowmen standing behind them. (The adventurarii were standing in woods, so that might have helped them out some.)

Then my general charged and killed the whole lot of them without taking a single casualty.

Imho I think you should be able to field a supply wagon as one of your units that lets archers re-arm in mid-battle. And I also think that archers (and artillery) should get more accurate if they shoot at the same target more than once. Watching a couple of hundred archers shoot volley after volley at one lone guy is kinda hilarious, especially as you see the arrows landing in a neat circle around the victim. Maybe, though, the arrow accuracy could use a bit of a tweak...

Crossbows shouldn't destroy longbowmen like they do in this game... see Crecy.

I'm not sure that Crecy is the fairest example of crossbow vs longbow as the crossbowmen weren't allowed to take their pavisse shields into battle, had been marching in the rain for a while so their crossbow strings were much degraded and were trying to advance on a prepared uphill army and were not generalled well.

That said, I agree with you that it seems like the crossbowmen did worse in reality at Crecy than they would in the game. Possibly because I don't think the game models rain soaked strings well. Also it's hard to imagine archers in the game having enough arrows to kill that many crossbowmen and still have any left for the infantry, which historically they did. Archers also seem to be pretty danged inaccurate in MTW and finally I'm not at all sure that archer range and rate of fire are accurate, it seems very easy for infantry to run up to archers from maximum range to melee and only take a couple of volleys as long as they don't reform on the way. Things like fallen bodies don't serve as obstacles, there are no wounded guys trying to retreat and blocking the way of reinforcements, no mud getting churned up into an impassable morass, etc.

I believe that there were also a couple of free companies of longbowmen in Italy for quite a while which implies that they did at least passably well against crossbowmen but I haven't come across any battle descriptions between the two from that time. Does anyone remember reading about any?

[Jackster]

stand behind a hill or a building with your longbowmen and the AI Crossbowmen will start shooting to the skies and not do anything.
Just like all other people said, cavalry works. Send in Demi Lancers and Hobilars while the Crossbowmen are spread out and reloading on the ground. Massacre them everytime.