i hope this game isnt as hard as the demo...

[xchrisbobisx]

i just downloaded the demo for this game and i tried playing the battle of agincourt and i am getting hammered. is this game as hard as the demo? almost makes me not want to get it anymore. in this particular instance during the cutscene the narrator says archers will be the key to victory. from my past 20 failures i will have to beg to differ. my archers are terrible shots, i light their arrows on fire and 240 archers set the skys ablaze. at the end i see about 3 enemy corpses. that didnt thin the ranks at all and because of that my front line gets smashed after the 3rd wave my armys almost entirely destroyed. then once things have gone for the worst i get ambushed by about 60 enemy calvary. the two companies of halberds i have in the back cant thin the ranks of the french calvary at all. this is the farthest i gotten in the demo, the other campaigns are even more impossible for me. mostly because my calvary wont charge, and my archers cant shoot. in the aztec mission i get my calvery to get into a "wedge" give them about 1/4 of a mile to gain momentum and still they get stoped dead in their tracks the second they engage light armored aztec warriors. and again my musketeers get outshot by aztec bowmen. my heavy infantry gets out melee by naked aztec light infantry. i dont see how strategy works. theres only so much you can do given the time allotted. what strategy is there when 5 batallions of aztecs bum rush into your ranks, you cant retreat, your calvary would just run in and melee like regular infantry and your archers cant shoot for fear of hitting your own men?

[Sensi Karate]

Firstly, how in the world did you lose to Aztecs? Spain smashes nearly everything in the American Campaign.

The demo isn't really that hard. The real game has difficulty level for beginners to pros, so you'll be fine. You need to use tactics, just keep playing and finding what you can do to defeat them. Rush your army back and then shoot your archers at a further distant so they can kill more men. Aim all your archers at a single unit. Charge your Heavy Cavalry after you've engaged the enemy with your infantry. Charge your Light Cavalry only when they are tired and morale is down so they route. Aim all your infantry onto one side if you are outnumbered or the enemies men are stronger. Put all your cavalry onto one side so you smash the opposition cavalry faster. Use your light cavalry/medium cavalry to kill there archers, so then you've routed some of there men and the rest of there army starts to worry. Kill the General so they route faster.

Theres loads of tactis you can use to destroy an army stronger then you. Research, Practice, Win.

You'll love M2TW.

~Sensi

[skullman86]

Historical battles are generally much harder than typical battles because you are stuck with what the developers give you (and you are usually at a disadvantage to make it interesting).In a real game you get to make your own armies so you build them the way you want, to your strengths.

-fire arrows lower morale and have a slower firing rate along with lower accuracy so it's a trade off

-charging infantry will get a slight bonus because of the charge and the infantry that is bracing itself will most likely lose more men in the beginning of the mêlée if the unit's stats are similar to the charger's...losing those men in the beginning lowers morale and can cause the unit to route so that may be the problem.

-cavalry is kind of broken in the un-patched game, it doesn't do full charges at certain distances and it is pretty poor as far as response times go

-muskets are also kind of broken in the un-patched game IIRC, I think their fire at will button was causing poor reaction times and they weren't firing when they were supposed to (you don't get these until much later in the game anyway)

[xchrisbobisx]

ugh im still getting hammered in the demo, i already gave up on Agincourt. the 60 man calvary and 40 man heavy infantry ambush party is already a match for my main force, which is getting DTed up the arse. then when the ambush comes the calvary chop down my archers gg. as far as the aztec mission thats proving difficult too. the horses suck i wish they could mow through people LOTR3 style destroying rank and moral but they dont. they charge and run a few guys over and start swinging their swords. i usually lose the aztec mission with still 1000 aztecs left. anyways i hate historical battles hmph. i would much rather play on easy and destroy everything with a massive army of heavy calvary. no skills no tactics no AI, just lots of charging ^_^ hopefully like you said after i get the game patched horses and guns will prove to be more useful..

[HunterKYA]

It's a game that takes some getting used to, especially if you're not used to playing the games from the Total War series. For myself, in particular, my introduction to the Total War series was the original Medieval Total War and it took me a couple months to get used to the controls and most aspects that were incorporated into the game, but I got the gist of the game after that, so all other Total War games that have been released since then have been relatively easy to get into, with very few elements that needed to be learned.

It'll take some getting used to, but give yourself some time and you'll get the hang of it. Guaranteed.

[Sensi Karate]

So you just charge your cavalry straight into infantry? Lol. Use your infantry to hold the lines whilst you go around and charge them from behind or on the wing! Read what I said before.

~Sensi

[xchrisbobisx]

ok ill try agrincourt one more time minus the flame arrows...lets see how that goes. i tried moving my people around into the forrest, blitzing, in a big defencive circle, etc etc etc they all fail epicly. edit- ok tried agian, i guess fire arrows wernt that good. when i used fire arrows i had 1000 french left, with regular arrows i had 800. then again i put everyone on AI control but they AI kind of sucks. ran my archers to melee the heavy calvary.

[Georgy Zhukov]

How the hell did you lose on Agrincourt? You only try to use flame arrows when your archers begin to run low. Its really not that hard once you get the hang of it.

I remember the Demo fondly, good times, good times.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

You don't really have to do anything to win on Agincourt... just keep your troops where they are and move men to compensate for any gaps. Oh, and don't forget to defend your archers against the cavalry who come from behind. They can really be a pain.

[xchrisbobisx]

well i surrender best i did in agincourt was get the french down to 500. and that was with all my archers on AI and i just controled my king, and ran all over the map until the damned calvary caught me.

[Lysimachus]

Buy the real game! I mean, in that I think it must have only took me 1-5 times at most to win Agincourt.

[Dux]

as others said, buy the real game


I too lost both of the demo levels, but i just bought the game and now 3 months later I've conquered the world on vh/vh. It took some time, but it was worth it

[wilpuri]

well i surrender best i did in agincourt was get the french down to 500. and that was with all my archers on AI and i just controled my king, and ran all over the map until the damned calvary caught me.

Why on earth do you put them under AI?

[Old_Scratch]

How to win against the Aztecs with any other faction. Charge your cavalry right into their infantry, then fall back. Rinse and repeat until victory. Never use wedge formation. Five units of heavy cavalry alone should be plenty to defeat an entire Aztec army controlled by the AI.

[Georgy Zhukov]

well i surrender best i did in agincourt was get the french down to 500. and that was with all my archers on AI and i just controled my king, and ran all over the map until the damned calvary caught me.

Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never put ANY of your men on AI, always control them use your archers to target the closest units and retreat them back if knights get through.

[Sodbuster]

On Agincourt the archers are actually pretty good fighters too. My strategy was to shoot the enemy infantry until they were charging my lines, then charge my infantry and archers into them. Your goal is to surround them as much as possible. Since they don't all attack at once, it's pretty easy to overwhelm and rout them. As soon as they rout, move all your men back into line. Do NOT chase them. When the reinforcement cavalry show up, I use whatever unit has the lowest amount of men to take the brunt of their charge, then charge whatever units I can spare into them. If you can surround their cavalry with infantry they'll drop really fast and then rout.

Keep your men in line! Do not let them chase the enemy units, keep them behind the stakes and all together. Any unit that runs off chasing down enemy routers is now worthless and might as well be dead.

[Sensi Karate]

I was just playing one of my campaigns before, with my army consisting of mostly Levy Spearmen, two mercenary crossbowmen and a General (no other cavalry.) France had Sergeants, three Mailed Knights, three Crossbow Milita, Archers, and some other Sergeants (there are two version of them. ) It was in there favour with a 3 to 1 advantage and they had a tiny percent more men then I did. I lined my men up unto the right wing and put my crossbowmen infront. I used my crossbowmen on there right wing until it was a thin line of men and then I charged my army right into them, routing them fast. I then push left whilst there army was rushing around. I used my General to charge there infantry whilst they were engaged with mine. Whenever there Mailed Knights came to kill my General, I'd rush through my Infantry and they would back off. I eventually won after a hard battle with a lose of only 350 men. It was a heroic victory. ^_^

Listen to what everyone said, buy the game and play the Campaign, much more fun then Custom Battles or the Demo. It just takes time, sooner or later you'll have the power to conqueor the Pixelized world!

~Sensi

[Pfundner]

i always thought the historical battles were pretty tough, but you must be seriously newby to be having this much trouble... (thats not an insult, it just means ur a newb! =])

just get the game, and do lots of custom battles on easy untill u get better. the basics are pretty obvious, cavalry pwn archers and light infantry, archers pwn infantry and spearman and spearman pwn cav (having said this, if your cavalary are heavy, such as a general, and on a hill they can wipe out pretty much anything except pikes)

i guess what makes you a better player is just being able to react quicker and more effectively to what the ai does, which will come quickly with experience.

good luck

p.s make sure to get the patches, like someone said earlier lots of things are broken in the vanilla (unpatched) version of the game

[Double A]

Here's a very surprising calvary tip: Calvary units stretched out in a line have less charge bonus than them in a column. I know, I found it hard to believe too, but it's true.

And there's no harm in trying...

And charge them into the flanks, that does more damage cause they don't get stuck on anyone in LOOSE formation.

And wedges are generally for charging into the flanks or rear of an enemy, or into a tight line or some bad quality spearmen in the front. (Just don't be surprised if you don't see many of your calvary left)