How to deal with HA with byzantines?

**arcanek** · October 12, 2009, 02:43 AM

Well, I started playing Byzantine empire and am at around 50th turn now. The mod is the latest RR/RC compilation mod without BGR at VH/VH.

So this time I started out somewhat differently as before - instead of trying hard to defend Caffa (that little town north of the Black Sea) from those pesky Russians I just gave it to Khwarezm for Alliance... which they accepted very happily. In previous plays I found that while I battle away Seljuk, either Fatmid or Khwarezm take on Seljuk too and grow into a major power. Since I can never make peace with Egyptians and Mongols can take care of Khwarezm, I allied with Khwarezm. Now they took Seljuk territories in Iran and Jerusalem after Jihad, and are also happily killing Fatimids. They are number 1 faction in everything except for finance, almost tied with HRE so I'm waiting for Mongols to kill them... otherwise I would lose.

As usual I'm at war with all neighboring factions, minus Cumans and Russians this time because I gave up Caffa. Venice is no problem now as I took Ragusa, Poland, Genoa, Sicily are yet too far to be a threat, Fatimid too busy fighting against Crusaders and Khwarezm.

Those horse archers of Hungary and Seljuks are mighty annoying - Turkoman Cavalry and Magyar Cavalry. The problem is that Byzantine army is mainly javelin skirmishers. They can eat heavy foot infantry for breakfast but can't handle horse archers. Toxotae (basic archers) are okay but it seems I can never outshoot enemies when they also have many foot archers and siege weapons. Mourtatoi are still rare and few. Should I just stick to spamming Toxotae for attrition against more expensive horse archers?

ps. Btw I often hear that HRE just disintegrate among themselves. In my games they are always THE superpower, killing anybody that crosses them.

**Byg** · October 12, 2009, 04:38 AM

Toxotae and also there are some good mercenary archers. Enemy Fari are really tough to deal with.

**Loose Cannon** · October 12, 2009, 08:36 AM

Are you playing with the April or the October RR/Rc? The reason I ask is because I'm playing early ERE on vh/vh with October but my campaign seems to be going very differently. At turn 47, the Khwarzies are finally starting to expand, The Fatamids have made no progress aginst the Crusaders and Genoa just took Cairo during a crusade. I've got practice ranges at Corith, Sofia, Adrianopole, & Nicosia (plus Ragusa & Caeserea) so recruiting Mourtatoi archers is not a problem.

Toxotae are worthless against anything. They're levy archers with a Latin name. Fari calavry have better stats (missle, melee, defense, RANGE, rate of fire) all over Toxotae. Their range alone would cause a loss of half the unit in a 1v1 battle so you must spam Toxotae to have any hope against them. Using any mercenary horse archer (tuckopole, turkoman, magyar) is a better choice. But your economy sould be good enough by now to build the military you need.

The HRE is big in this game but they "bent over bacwards" to give me a ceasefire because they're still at war with Poland-Venice-Denmark-Fatamids-Hungary. But in Late Era games, the HRE AI gets excommunicated & dogpiled causing its breakup-usually.

**Sir Walter** · October 12, 2009, 10:17 AM

Use your foot archers. Professional foot archers beat horse archers because they get fire arrows (instead of "Circle and Shoot" which doesn't work) and they're more accurate.

**The Colonel** · October 13, 2009, 08:49 AM

Archers and the skythikon (sp?) 1-2 punch combo. Personally I take 1 unit of HA and one unit of light cavalry, use the HA to chase the enemy ones to a corner of a map (the Light cav follows the HA as well) and just use a pincer move to finish them, if they route they are right on the border so they won't be coming back either.

**Gnostiko** · October 13, 2009, 11:44 AM

As Byg said, until you can get more Mourtatoi, hire mercenaries!

**Deadly Rabbit** · October 13, 2009, 06:31 PM

skythikon are brilliant, and cavallarii and mounted acritae handy. I only use Toxotae in garrisons generally because of their crapness, mourtatoi otherwise. I use mounted acritae as a combo light cav/missile cav. Have them use their javelins on bodyguards, heavy cav and heavy inf, and then use them to chase off enemy horse archers, or clean up routers.

**The Colonel** · October 13, 2009, 10:50 PM

Also something people underestimate is the limited control of reinforcement armies. I usually accompany my main army with half a stack of assorted HA ranging from mercs to skythikon and give them general orders, correctly used you can command 2 armies at once, as long as you dont have to micromanage the reinforcement HA

**arcanek** · October 14, 2009, 12:04 PM

Well I lost this campaign. I got pawned by those Latin Crusaders that took Constantinople by surprise, instantly making my economy go -5000 per turn. I did take back Constantinople but Hungarians took Bulgaria, weakened from Bulgarian rebellion and Crusaders. Venice took back Ragusa and Durazzo, and Turks took back Caesaera. Russians, Cumans, and Crusaders are all demanding money for not attacking so I think they will all also attack soon.

Anyhow how is fire arrow more effective against HAs? I thought it did same damage but reload much slower.

**Sir Walter** · October 14, 2009, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by arcanek

Well I lost this campaign. I got pawned by those Latin Crusaders that took Constantinople by surprise, instantly making my economy go -5000 per turn. I did take back Constantinople but Hungarians took Bulgaria, weakened from Bulgarian rebellion and Crusaders. Venice took back Ragusa and Durazzo, and Turks took back Caesaera. Russians, Cumans, and Crusaders are all demanding money for not attacking so I think they will all also attack soon.

Anyhow how is fire arrow more effective against HAs? I thought it did same damage but reload much slower.

Makes 'em run. Horse archers have rubbish morale (except Sipahis and I don't know about Turkomans, they're probably average).