Battlefield inspiration

[Marto]

Hi,

For no other reason apart from adding interest, has anyone got any interesting battle tactics that they use regularly?

The reason I ask is that my 'style' has become a bit one dimensional in army formation and attacking/ defending tactics, and is becoming a bit boring.

Basically, I always put four horse units in my armies (English) and having lined my army up in a fairly standard formation; Spearmen protecting archers, heavy infantry in reserve behind them, and then the General leading from the rear, I put two horse units on each wide flank and begin the battle. I then rush down the flanks with my horses until I'm beind their army and charge the 'Generals Bodyguard' unit from the rear (its invariably a the back of their attack).

95% of the time this works. Send 60 of any horse at a General's Bodyguard unit from behind and whether he's a wet behind the ears newby or a seasoned 5 star Prince (or even the King) you will kill their General and the resultiing loss of morale will turn the battle to your favour. They rarely see it coming and always fail to react in time when they do. It works with siege defences too, just rush out of the side gate and get behind their General, any troops who made it onto your walls or through your gate will turn and run like cowards.

Sooooo, anyone got any other standard tactics that they use with such consistent success?

PS. Not that I'm bored of winnning or anything...

[Mune]

What do you do with your archers during battle? As England, they should certainly play an important role in your armies. What you do with your cavalry sounds just fine, killing the general early is always a good idea and placing your cavalry behind their army is always advantageous.

From what you've written, it sounds like your placing your achers behind infantry at the beginning of battle. Try this out: When arranging your army before the battle, have your archers in the front, preferably on a higher elevation (or a castle wall if your defending of course). Use their stakes to prevent a cavalry charge at your longbows. Having your archers in the front means that they don't have to shoot over the heads of your infantry, giving them much better accuracy (they shoot forward as apposed to a high arc). When the enemy closes in enough that your archers will soon be in danger, thats when your line of infantry charges forward (passing through your archers) at the enemy.

If your asking for advice on playing as England, I can't think of anything too 'out there' and creative. You'd want to change to a different faction to have a better variety of viable field tactics. Englands playstyle is pretty much just 'make the best use of your archers'. If you've played mostly Catholic factions and your looking for a change of playstyle, try a Muslim faction, they play very differently.

[Marto]

I wasn't asking for advice just ideas and different [established] tactics that people use to win. I told the story because it works 95% of the time and wondered had anyone else established a standard approach that's equally as effective. Question still stands. ???

I mix my formation up. I quoted the one above because I'm currently fighting cavalry-heavy armies so need spears upfront early for the charge. I find the stakes ineffective against more than two units of cavalry as the brighter enemies come round the sides too and decimate my ranks of Longbowmen. No enemy cavalry and I'll leave the archers exposed upfront until the infantry really need to engage..

Do you have a reliable regular approach? (Not faction specific)


PS. What's so different about Muslim factions? Just horse archers no? I've never noticed a major difference and I've been playing since MTWs inception...

[Musthavename]

I generally play the same style. Set up my infantry / archers somewhere in a line. Send my cavalry around the flanks. Collectively charge their General and attempt to kill him. If their army turns to help, run and see if you can pull him away. Then, let our lines engage, they'll retreat after a while, hunt them down with the cavalry behind.

Mainly for me this works as its the way to win with least casualties. If i've got decent artillery i'll try to "snipe" their General aswell. Likewise I always prioritise killing their artillery before anything else, even their General.

If you're finding cavalry flanking your archers, heres what I do. Make sure your archers have skirmish mode off. Now, instead of one line of infantry, just have two. If you begin to see cavalry coming round. Bring the second line back and charge them with it. Afterwards, you can then bring this infantry line round the flanks to help with your primary line. Any sort of Skirmishing unit (Almugvhars, Lithuanian Noble Sons, or even hybrid troops like Ottoman Infantry) work well. As while they're idle behind they can still effectively attack.

It's more using tactics that suit your units. Say if you were playing England, power on the Longbows. I always put my stakes at the rear of my lines instead with spears at the front, as the enemy seems smarter in SS regarding stakes. That or make a sort've "box" with stakes / spearmen.

Likewise, if you were playing an infantry heavy faction like the Danes, hide two-handed weapon users on the flanks and use them as shock infantry flankers. Iberian factions will want to have an infantry line then a Javelin line. Horse archers can pepper the army before they get there, then run around the flanks. It all depends on exactly what kind of faction you have. I personally don't just spam my "kill General with cavalry then outlive army" tactic constantly. The same goal is generally in there, but the way I do it is different depending on faction.

The way you've got your army is the typical English army anyway. You're just doing whats standard for the faction. The Muslim factions are all still different from each other. Eygpt / Kwarz are cavalry powerhouses. The Turks loves bows to hell, plenty of cavalry archers and normal archers, and with Ottoman infantry literally your entire army can wield bows (Mongols are also very similar to this). Moors don't really have a great selection of units bar Camel Gunners late on, so they're a bit different.

The message is basically this. If you're tired of the way your battles play out, its because of your faction. Start a new campaign if you want something a tad different.

[Marto]

The message is basically this. If you're tired of the way your battles play out, its because of your faction. Start a new campaign if you want something a tad different.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with this comment ^^




Although I never lean on my archers (4 units max.). I like a toe-to-toe fight.

[obbob]

I dunno if these are actually better strageties, but here are 3 REALLY fun ones i sometimes use.

1. Create a full stack (or two) of elite archers and put em against an infantry army and watch it wither down.

2. Raise a mercenary elephant army out of Persia (takes time...and insane amounts of money to support that 1500 upkeep per unit) and watch them stomp anything in their path

3. Take a full garrisoned citadel with 9 stacks of peasants and town militia with a powerful general (so they dont run away at first sight).

[obbob]

yeah i'd suggest a muslim or scandinavian faction. Egypt and Turks are Late Era focused, Khwarezm and Mongol are middle, and Moors are quite early to middle power focused.

I;d go with Turks, but you are going to have to cope with one of the most annoying starting positions ever

[St Naffatun]

Tactics like this are not an option for me, after playing BC I decided to go through the EDU file and gave heavy cavalry, heavy infantry and a select few other units 2 hit points. Heavy now means heavy and silly general charges from the AI are not so silly *watches 40 enemy general cavalry decimate my infantry at gatehouse* (worst .. eek... emote... ever)

My usually-successful tactic is a mixed stack of heavy infantry, spearmen, HA's, trebucet and mangonel. Thankfully with Tsarsies script the AI often has it's own trebs and their stacks can be a real pain to fight so it's no longer a huge advantage for me. Marvellous.

Only drawback is the conditions I'm fighting under (Byz campaign) doesn't seem to trigger much of this mercenary spawn. I suppose it only kicks in when a faction is down to its final handful of settlements haven't bothered looking at the script.

[Tetsu]

Due to the sheer power of the english longbow and the general strength of it's infantry I can't stop playing them, despite having tried near all other factions. Anyway, I don't follow the tactics you guys seem to, rather having decided on others. This is usually done with 2-3 general units, 6-7 archers, 6-7 spears and 4 swords. Numbers vary of course, depending on resources at hand, but most common numbers are 2 generals, 7 archers, 6 spears and 4 swords.

What I do is when setting up, I put my spears to the front. Then I place my archers in a semi-circle to the rear and place the stakes. That, combined with the spears at the front creates a near inpregnable anti-cavalry defence.

When the battle starts my archers race to the very front and begin to shoot, the swordsmen remain behind the spears, within the safe zone. Archers are pulled back (skirmish must remain off or they'll run outta the safe zone) and calvary are slaughtered against the stakes and spears. Infantry charge spears, spears kill their momentum and then swords charge them.

Meanwhile generals are causing havoc with the enemy, killing artillary, conducting hit and run attacks and generally screwing with them. Enemy general units are always selected for special attention with my longbows, 6-7 units of archers tends to make short work of them.

[Gorrrrrn]

As English:

Defensively:

I place archers across the front with stakes.
(they withdraw behind the swords if attacked by infantry)

Behind them the sword armed infantry
(they advance to the stakes if infantry attack)

Place heavy spears on flanks angled back
(to protect the flanks from cavalry)

billmen if any tucked in behind the spears.
(to attack any cavalry that hang around in melee)

cavalry either to rear or extreme flanks (depends on terrain) and whether the enemy is attacking with a lot of missiles (attack with cavalry) or cavalry - let them run onto the stakes /spears then counter-attack

Offensively

archers out front in skirmish line to fire on enemy infantry

cavalry alongside on flanks to counter any cavalry attacks on them.

spears in line to advance at the walk and engage front rank of enemy infantry

heavy swords advance at the walk behind the spears to attack weak points in enemy line and break it

GB behind swords to break through enemy line and attack routing troops

cavalry to deal with flanking attacks, unprotected enemy missiles, or swing round behind enemy and attack stubborn defenders in rear.

(But amend for awkward terrain - differences in numbers etc)

[aduellist]

For something different, try Norway early. Your cav is gonna be pitiful for quite a while, ditto archers, but you can really spam out viking raiders.

I found my "ideal" early army to consist of a general, maybe 3 or 4 peasant archers, a couple units of light cav (if available) and between 9 and 12 units of viking raiders. Not a spearman in the lot. Even on defense, the best tactic is a full out charge!

[spartan117]

What battle ai are you using?

With the battle ai I am using if I approach the enemy general from the rear before they engage my lines, the enemy does react. The enemy general will charge and then some of the enemy infantry will then assist.

[Marto]

What battle ai are you using?

With the battle ai I am using if I approach the enemy general from the rear before they engage my lines, the enemy does react. The enemy general will charge and then some of the enemy infantry will then assist.

That's why I said: 'always fail to react in time'.

Sure, they react but not before their General's Bodyguard unit is down to 4/5 men and the infantry still don't seem to turn around and catch up with things unless the General is a double-hard bastard.

I said 95%. The rest of the time something goes awry...

(In answer to your question I just downloaded 6.1 off this site. I didn't analyse what was included - the standard mods I suppose...)