Turkish formations: am I doing it right?

[Clefable]

Hi, not sure if this is the correct place to post this thread, but I will give it a shot.

I am playing the Turks, and am having some trouble with my formations.

First off, I noticed that the Turks don't have anything that can properly survive a head on heavy calvary charge. Sipahi lancers and Saracen militia both have a bonus fighting calvary, but their spears only seem to work if the enemy horse isnt moving.

Secondly, a whole row of janissary heavy infantry running and screaming into the enemy either scares them off immediately, or if they stay and fight the JHI tends to kill them off. However, the JHI don't look so good when calvary have charged them or enemy archers have fired onto them.

Third, unless the JHI meet enemies who don't run away, it is the Janissary archers who cause the most casualties. They however, don't fare too well against calvary and other archers.

As dismounted Sipahi lancers are more expensive, I use saracen militia as my front line infantry. Furthermore, by using saracen militia, all my infantry can be retrained in cities.

My battle formation:

S S S S S S S
A A A A
H H H H H H

S: saracen militia
A: Janissary archers
H: Janissary heavy infantry

Seven units of Saracen militia, all in a roughly square formation. This seems to minimize damage whenever horses meet and greet them.

Four units of Janissary archers in loose formation in front or behind the saracen militia. Whenever they are in front, they have a better range, but get targeted by enemy archers. Whenever they are behind the saracen militia, they loose range but the saracen militia act as expendable armour for them.

Six units of JHI at the back.

Three units of Quapukulu. The only role of these heavy calvary is to try and flank and catch the enemy general unit from the rear.

In these battles, I normally lose quite a few troops to missile fire.

Eventually, I charge head long into the enemy or the enemy charges me. Whenever I charge, I get the saracen militia to attack whatever is in front of them, i.e they engage the same units they would have if they had been charged. The JHI I send to attack the extreme flanks of the enemy, this means they have to charge through the saracen militia who are holding the enemy in place. This either breaks the entire front line, or I get involved in a long and drawn out melee that sees many men on both sides dying.

I lose up to 30% to 50% of my men in battle.

Questions I have are:

Are there better front line troops/cannon fodder?
Am I losing too many men?
Is my battle plan too simple and therefore not properly using the troops? Especially the JHI?

[townie33]

1. Well if you want cannon fodder azabs ( did i spell that right?) at least they can attack and pin down enemy formations for a while. Sarcen militia work well too and they have the bonus of city recruitment.
2. I would change you spearmen to sipahi lancers because they have a better defense and offense rating compared to the saracen militia.
3. Use Ottoman Infantry! They are dual purpose fighters, they can be you first line of archers and also can melee if the need arises.
4. Rush your JHI to the enemy as soon as possible, this cuts down on missile deaths and may trap archers between you and your enemy.
Hope this helps. (Nice name )

[Nole4694]

You might want to replace a couple infantry with some cavalry for flanking, running down routing enemies and added anti-cavalry support

[Clefable]

My main problem with using dismounted sipahi lancers as anti heavy cavalry canon foder is that they are expensive. I tend to lose a lot of troops each battle, replacing lost saracen militia is quick and cheap.

Also, I have noticed that my JHI tend to get slaughtered by venitian heavy infantry.

Do sipahi lancers make good anti-cavalry cavalry?

So in view of what townie said, my new strategy is to let ottoman archers fire upon the rear of the enemy, while my JHI just rush in straight away. Sipahi lancers stay at the flanks and rear to protect against cavalry.

[Musthavename]

Jannissary Archers can plant stakes iirc. Can't you just use that to protect against cavalry?

[townie33]

JHI have the dreaded two-handed bug so that does happen

[lsteve]

I'm playing as Turkey too now.
In the early game I used a lot of mercenaries. Mostly they did the job well.

Now I'm near the 1300's, so I'm able to use J musketeers, J archers, O archers and some JH infantery. For cavalry I use Sipahi-lancers.

That is good for fieldbattles. Especially 3 or 4 units musketeers and when the enemy uses lots of infantry. Rout before contact.

For sieges, and now I'm specializing in defending sieges , I miss a wall defending unit. The best the castles can make is dismounted Sipahi-lancers, but they are only mediocre for cavalry. In melee they are definatly not worth their money. They are almost entirely wiped out, when defending sieges. Thats with using archers on the walls too.

In Tiblisi, against the Mongols, I'm using 5 Ottoman archers, 3 Janissary Archers, 3 Turkish archers, 2 Molotov-coctail guys (doing nothing mostly), 1 mercenary Rocketlauncher (did nothing yet), 1 general, 2 musketeers and 3 Dismounted Sipahi-lancers.
The D S-lancers are wiped out already and replaced by mercenaries.
In Rome, 3 80% units J musketeers saved Rome by killing/routing 700 Sicilian enemy's.

[Clefable]

If I use spearmen (saracen militia) to tie up enemy front line and then get the JHI to charge through them, will the JHI lose their charge bonus?

[townie33]

they might because they will hit the militia first then work their way to the enemy

[Xamt]

the turkish army roster is one of the most complete rosters in the game... you have excellent shock troops, archers, gunpowder units, cavalry etc etc

so in my opinion what you are doing wrong (if anything) is not looking at what your opponent fields and then tailor your armies to counter the units he recruits

i use as a general counter against heavy cavalry either horse archers or spearmen... but since the turks have stakes i would opt for them as a counter against heavy cavalry... just place your stakes in front of your main battle line (leaving small gaps in between to expand your front), then once the battle starts place your archers directly behind the stakes, and whatever infantry you like behind your archers... the enemy cavalry will have to charge through the stakes or come from the flanks... if the decide to do the former, problem solved -> move your archers behind your infantry and let the stakes absorb the cavalry charge, once the cavalry moves ahead of the stakes let your infantry finish the job

now if they decide to go for your flanks... use 1-2 units of spear militia in schiltrom formation to "anchor" your flanks, or use the edge of the map as 1 anchor and move your spearmen to the other flank

lastly have a few units of heavy cavalry+general to take care of whoever tries to run behind your lines

one last option that works miracles for me is having a stack full of horse archers (sipahis) along with a general and 2-3 heavy cavalry units... u will need to micro a lot but there's nothing out there (save perhaps a mongol army with a LOT of heavy lancers) that can cause you a lot of casualties

one final tip: make sure all of your missile units are targeting the same unit for maximum effect until they reduce it to about 1/3 strength, then change targets (depending on the amount of missile units you have it can be anything between 3 and 6 volleys)