Need help with battle strategy....

[Irishman0881]

I've been playing the game long enough now that I no longer consider myself a noob. I can dominate as pretty much any of the western european armies... right up until I run into archer and missile cavalry based armies then get massacred even when I have the numbers edge. Whether I have those same units myself with Poland or Hungary or not I cannot get a handle on any form of effective strategy.

I recently started my first game as the byzantines and made it just over forty turns before losing constantinopal and virtually every other battle on open ground. Any thoughts?

[Stolet]

Wow that is interesting. I mean, with the Byzantines (and other factions with horse archers) the open field battles are essential, and the ones you need to fight the most if you wanna dominate the world. Basically get a lot of horse archers. If the enemy has those, kill them first. The Turks will often have horse archers, but not more than 4 or 5 units, they tend to fight with spear militia or dismounted sipahis a lot. So, get a lot of Byz cavalry, or Vardariotai if you can train them. When exchanging fire with the enemy horse archers it's nice to use the loose formation so you suffer fewer casualties. Once you've taken care of the enemy horse archers, just circle around the enemy and shoot them unti you run out of missiles. Best to shoot the enemy in the back, or from their right flank, so they don't have their shield protection. The mounted archers are most effective against western factions, especially HRE for example.


As for the campaign strategy, try to make at least some alliances, so you don't have to fight everybody. Work on your reputation, this way you could have the option of choosing your enemies. In my Byzantine campaign I allied with the Turks and got into fights with Venice and Hungary. But you should write some more things about your campaign, how did you lose Constantinople, were you a Crusade target, which factions were you at war with...?

[Theseus1234]

Missile cavalry require intense micromanaging, and may even require you to pause the game if you don't already. You cannot trust the skirmish mode of missile cavalry and you should move them yourself. Close them in on the flanks of the enemy and back out before they can catch you. They can be a pain but bring the greatest rewards.

When fighting missile cavalry and archers, remember that archers are often more accurate than missile cavalry and can take them out, and archers are vulnerable to heavy cavalry. Another method is to use missile cavalry to chase down other missile cavalry. Just match up javelin cavalry or archer cavalry with javelin cavalry and archer cavalry for archer cavalry and you'll be all set. You'll lose some men in the process, and DEFINITELY don't chase them up a larger hill (they'll have the advantage) but you can force them away from your main army through only the AIs love of skirmish mode.

Hope this helps!

[Darth Umbrage]

The Byzantines are one of my personal favorites. They have great HAs and archers on top of decent heavy infantry. I play Byzantium much like I do Turkey. Try making a stack of horse archers with a couple generals or something with them followed by a slower moving army or archers and heavy infantry. Use the cavalry army to attack armies in the open field, avoid hand-to-hand if you can. After you run out of missiles, retreat. The game will call this a loss, but chances are you killed much more than they did if they killed any at all, it is worth taking the loss. Won't be too long and the chevrons will stack up on your cavalry and they will be killing enemies by the dozens. For larger forces (crusades/jihads) try to get the cavalry army behind them and force them into your infantry army. To Byzantium that means a huge amount of arrow fire from all directions.

HAs in the right hands can handle just about anything. Avoid these battles with archers you speak of if you can, go after their cities, not as a sure fire way to win but as a feint, try to lure them into range of your archers. Btw don't let the stack of cavalry get too far from the stack of infantry, they work much better close together.

[Irishman0881]

Thanks, guys. Yeah, my main focus since buying the game has been unlocking the Byzantines. I'll give your suggestions a go on a new game I'm about to start fresh.

Stolet,
to answer your question Constantinople fell to a Jihad which I understand because I was down by two to one odds I've just never put much thought into archer based strategies and it shows (had the same issues with using Poland). Like I said I think I'm just going to start over fresh and try some of the tips above.

Thanks again guys

[Stolet]

Good luck

[Darth Umbrage]

May the force be with you Irishman0881, lol, sorry, watching star wars right now, lol.

[Minastir II]

Horse archers are extremely good against western armies who usually lack mounted archers.
Get a couple of units of Vardartoi/Byzantine Cavalry and you hit and run armies before they attack your settlements.
Just recently I had 7 units of Skythikon, a Syrian Jihad army was nearing Constantinople. I attacked with my Skythikon and managed to take out the enemy General. After that I retreated with 100 losses (due to stupid cavalry) and they had lost 500, including the General. The army then disbanded.
Horse Archers are a huge advantage in the field, not so effective and sieges though.
So if you want to deal with Jihads, use your quick archers to your advantage, the enemy General should be your main target.

[Turtle Hammer]

Horse archers are often very useful defending in a siege in the campaign. I had two turns where I sallied out, unloaded at the enemy, then exited after a "successful sally". I didn't even have to defend my walls in the end.

[cfnickle]

Horse archers are a real pain to fight, but if you are a faction with them they are a life saver. Horse archers provide the ranged weapons of archers and are mobile so the enemy must allocate several units just to try and drive one off. if you have five of six units of horse archers and focus all fire on one unit at a time its a challenge to lose.... unless you are besieging someone, then infantry are better... for me anyway.

[Viking Prince]

If you want a European Catholic power to practice with to learn a bit of the missile cav issues before leaping into the world eastern powers -- you might take a dip into the Iberian factions. Jinetes are a great unit to learn with because they can melee a bit better than many of the missile cav. Also, you start the campaign with them so you will not need to play 50 turns to become teched up to recruit the units.

[Mangudai87]

You can use horse archers quite effectively even when defending in sieges. Because of their elevation on horseback they can fire directly over your own infantry almost point blank into opposing troops. This can be more effective than placing foot archers behind your infantry in the streets after a breach because they have to fire skywards over your men unless they have elevated ground. Some points to remember however, are to turn off skirmish mode when using horse archers in the city streets and to fire not into the enemy unit directly engaged with your own infantry but into the ones piling up behind them since you don't want to be shooting your own men. From personal experience though, I think one of the most effective units when defending breaches or choke points in sieges are catapults. If placed safely behind some defensive infantry and given a good line of sight they can wreak havoc on enemy troops, especially if they're becoming concentrated in closed spaces with no space to move.

[JusTheory]

You can never really dominate a horse archer filled army. The most reliable counter is foot archers. I put them on skirmish and have them target the horse archers. They have a shoot out and the foot archer numbers will win. This requires modifying your typical army with more archers. I have also found light cav to be effective. Sometimes the HA will engage because one or two of them do not move quick enough to dodge the charge. Other than that the only other tactic i've found somewhat successful is having a wide flanking movement pin the HA's between my main army and the flankers. That's a toss up though.

[Commander5xl]

Another way to practise with Missile Cavalry is the good old Mamluks, I feel they are some of the most versatile missile cavalry in the game. Also playing as Egypt will give you better practise early game against the Crusade threat, although if you are not expirienced enough you may find yourself in trouble against the Mongol and later Timurid invasion

[melkor1861]

Another way to practise with Missile Cavalry is the good old Mamluks, I feel they are some of the most versatile missile cavalry in the game. Also playing as Egypt will give you better practise early game against the Crusade threat, although if you are not expirienced enough you may find yourself in trouble against the Mongol and later Timurid invasion

I don't care how experienced you are, the Mongols will give anybody (except England) some serious fits!

[melkor1861]

When I'm fighting against a mixed army like what the Turks and Egyptians employ, I usually sent a few foot and cavalry archers to occupy the enemy HA, and concentrate on destroying their melee troops. this usually involves the rest of my horse archers and half my Heavy Cavalry circling around the enemy and hitting the backs, while javelin cavalry pepper the front. Simultaneously charge your heavies from the front and rear of individual units, and they will instantly rout (unless it is a 9 star mongolian general, lol). After the conventional troops are taken care of, I use my cavalry to herd the HA into a corner and charge them and destroy them

[Pc Genie]

In the case of armies based wholly on missile cavalry and archers, I'd get better archers (easy for me to say when I control England in the campaign) and light or heavy cavalry, smash into their archers with your cavalry whilst your archers shoot the missile cavalry, then go around the back of their missile cavalry with your cavalry and attack whilst you ceasefire your archers.

If they continue to shoot and run away, you need to 'herd' them into close-ish range or your archers and they can volley them down, perhaps even with a demoralising rain of fire arrows.

[Muagan_ra]

The best and only really effective way to deal with missile cavalry is massed archers / crossbowmen. You have Trezibond Archers, which are excellent units, and a healthy compliment of them will cut down the missile cavalry. I wouldn't bother trying to chase after horse archers with your own cavalry, it's a bit anti-productive and draws your cavalry away from their main task - destroying infantry.

You need to learn how to effectively use your missiles to best effect, which includes not just putting them on fire-at-will. You need to target the largest enemy units to maximise your firepower.

That said, it is possible to effectively chase them down with cavalry - it's just difficult. You need to get your units to either side of them, force them to skirmish to where you want them. You need to isolate individual units by "swimming" around them, and then rout them before moving on to the next.

[... where did it run?]

I'm playing as turks. Just recently 2nd mongol wave was defeated. First one massacered between the walls of antioch, the 2nd wave on (oshi!) open field. Of course suffered quite few casualties, but really not that much than I expected.

And guess what, maybe I'm doing it worng, but I don't go on Sipahis (HA of turks) or Turkomans as my main killing power. yes, I use them in balanced armies (around 4 units) but definatly not against the mongols.

Who saved me? - Ottoman infantry spam acompanied with few jessinary archers (stakes <3 those) and few Jessinary hvy inf in case heavy cavalry would round about my stakes. Few cannons are encouraged too, since mongols like to mass, and they help to reduce those nasty heavy lancers before jessinary hvy inf gets the chance to finish them off... (hell, their armies are huge masses already).


So basicly - foot archers > horse archers.
But then you know that you won't face an army which spams HA, use HA yourself for shooting at their backs while having ottoman infantry firing from the front. Once AI tries to chase after sipahi's or turkomans, ottoman infantry gets a clear shot at the backs of the enemy (Blah, those guys can even support meele fights too).

Now I'm waiting for timurids. Should be intresting. Hoping that cannons and naffatuns (however they are called) will work versus those medieval time living tanks ..