How do you win overwhelming/heroic victories?

[PaleBlueDot]

What army composition do you use to get total victory, say below 15% loss against an opponent at least as powerful?

I know similar topics have been raised earlier, but hopefully new ideas has come up since. Especially after the event of 6.3 stats.

Obvious ones: Bridge battle with loads of archers, Horse archers with skirmish mode and small battles with careful cavalry maneuvering against infantry. Also effective are missile units on a slope, combined with infantry or cavalry charging down at the suffering enemy.

In other words, using missile units in advantageous terrain is a possible way of pwning. Anything else?

How do you win your most overwhelming victories? How is your army composed, and how do you use it?

(Also, how is army strength calculated? Is the recruitment cost, upkeep, or the total unit stats added together?)

[Æsir]

Siege battles when I'm defender. I never fight on walls - only in city square where you can concentrate crossbow and catapult fire. The enemy usually is broken in crossfire at the entrance into square and runs.

[Medkirtys]

Cavalry only armies or Byzantine generals

[Fred Putz]

Depending on the enemy You need 2-4 Infantry Units (prefered Archers) and 2 Cavalry Units. Use the Cavalry to outflank the enemy from both sides. Kill the General first. Looks like that:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Romans had: 2 Cavalry, 1 Catapult, 1 Ballista, 1 Varangian Guard, Rest Spearmen, Archers, Javelinmen. My spearmen weren´t used - they were reinforcements and too slow. It´s another talk if the enemy has a real General or is called Mongols.

[k/t]

Heroischer Sieg, hahahaha. Games in other languages are funny. It's so weird to see Diablo 2 in French.

[Fred Putz]

Heroischer Sieg, hahahaha.

That´s the official translation for the german MTW version - i would prefer "Heldenhafter Sieg". So it should be in the next translation for StSt. As i said somewhere else - the english language is conquering slowly but effective.

Never looked at that much - thank You.

[Ichon]

Easiest is to kill enemy general or captain soonest. At least the nearest units morale will collapse instantly and the rest of the units will have lowered morale the rest of the battle leading to faster routs.

Some situations its nearly impossible to get 10% casualties if the enemy army is composed of lots of HA or HC and your own army is not but you can still get heroic victories, just not with so few losses.

Hardest battle not to take losses on is uphill versus lots of enemy archers or versus lots of HA so basically AI gets the same advantages as player but only rarely gets the situation to use them.

I probably average about 20-25% between the tough 50% loss battles and the easy 5% or less victories. Of course it also depends a bit on faction and roster you have access to. In Cuman or Lithuanian campaign I might get 40% losses per battle but at the same time usually using 300 to fight 1,500 so not sure it is a fair comparison. Then using CS or Teutons it might be 15% loss per battle because their rosters are so strong and defense heavy with good cavalry in plentiful supply vs nearest enemies which aren't favorably designed for that sort of competition.

Probably most costly faction battles will be with similar armies that neither side has many cavalry or archers so its a slugging match. I remember several huge Denmark vs HRE battles where there weren't more than 2 cavalry in either army and 0 archers/siege.

[django333]

The easiest way to get heroic victories is to use an army made up of a general unit, two heavy cavalry units and the rest horse archers. With a full stack you will have far less numbers compared to an infantry heavy army but your horse archers will absolutely destroy the infantry units. Use the heavy cavalry to break stubborn units and run down routers. Guaranteed heroic victory every time.

If you are playing with a western faction just flank as much as possible. Use spear units as the bulk of your army. Use heavy infantry to flank (two or three units on each side of a full stack) and heavy cavalry to take out archers and then charge rear flanks (three or four units for a full stack).

[JorisofHolland]

Use of Javelins also gives you a certain ... advantage.

[Andytheplatypus]

What army composition do you use to get total victory, say below 15% loss against an opponent at least as powerful?

I know similar topics have been raised earlier, but hopefully new ideas has come up since. Especially after the event of 6.3 stats.

Obvious ones: Bridge battle with loads of archers, Horse archers with skirmish mode and small battles with careful cavalry maneuvering against infantry. Also effective are missile units on a slope, combined with infantry or cavalry charging down at the suffering enemy.

In other words, using missile units in advantageous terrain is a possible way of pwning. Anything else?

How do you win your most overwhelming victories? How is your army composed, and how do you use it?

(Also, how is army strength calculated? Is the recruitment cost, upkeep, or the total unit stats added together?)

From what I have been able to guess at the M2TW strength calculator is this: I really am not sure what the hell they are thinking, for the most part I think its mostly the number of units followed by just the main attacking power and defense number. Im pretty sure it doesnt take into account Shock Cavalry Charge bonus or artillery using and strategy for it.

So usually when I play and I want a Heroic Victory I just get a mostly Heavy Cavalry army together and smash the enemy. You will be supprised how effective they will be. Unless they have horse archers that can run away.

[Lugiahua]

It is not hard if you play as French or Romans and have Lancer/Scholarii....lol

[Arker]

Attack the center of the enemy battleline from the rear to cut the line in half. Have the freed up soldiers help one side, have the cav help the other.

[FatRod]

I get them almost all the time in my Venice Campaign:

6 Crossbow, 2 Arbequeser, 2 Heavy Cav, 1 General, 9 pike militia.

Put the archers and guns on a hill. Create a 180 degree ring of pikes around them in guard mode. Protect the rear with the general and cavalry.

Enemy charges the flanks with their cavalry, getting slaughtered on the pikes. Enemy infantry charge the front getting stuck on the spears. Crossbows kill enemy general, and the guns rout the infantry.

All too easy

[Lord Minotaur]

i win with peasants against 4 stacks of catas DDDD

[jahjeremy]

A stack with your general and a few cavalry and the rest horse archers will wreck pretty much any AI infantry army.

Turks are good for this, or if you want the OP sauce, Golden Horde.

[PaleBlueDot]

Loads of good tips, thanks! Anything more specific, maybe not involving mass cavalry or long range missile units? Also, I am thinking of something practical to use on the campaign, so some peasants against 4 catas isnt really much use

[midget_roxx]

Loads of good tips, thanks! Anything more specific, maybe not involving mass cavalry or long range missile units? Also, I am thinking of something practical to use on the campaign, so some peasants against 4 catas isnt really much use

Mass horse archer really is the best way though :/. Otherwise you're going to have to get a normal army and have exceptional cavalry flanking or defending a mountain.

If you want you can try the pike-shot tactics which work amazingly well especially against general-less armies

[chris7ian]

Horse Archers dont come til late for most factions so I suggest you 4 heavy cavalry. I tend to flank two on each side and envelope the enemies rear. Target catapults/trebuchets first if they have any. If they have horse archers I wait until they come forward and then engaged them if I dont have any good archer/crossbows. If no HA or siege weapons I flank and go for the nearest heavy cav on one side and the enemies BG normally moves to engage them while I wrap around from the other side and engage the enemy BG, a tactic of Alexander the great.

Really it depends on which faction you like. The above works well for the HRE. Even my Administrator Govenors when Heroic Battles for me. I havent lost a battle to France, Genoa, Sicily, or the Vikings in quite some time.

If I have a horse archer unit I always use them to flank and attack the enemy BG. You'll lose a lot but they soften up the BG unit really well.

[omicron32]

Heroic victories aren't usually a problem for me. I seem to get them when I am outnumbered and decimate the enemy. With any army try to gain the high ground, attack their flanks (especially with siege craft, shock troops or cavalry), and attack/defend using your troops where they are most effective (spear men/pikes vs cavalry, heavy inf vs light infantry/spear men, missile troops to weaken stronger units). My armies usually consist of a couple cannon fodder units (peasants) to take the initial charge, yes they lose but it stops the enemy and they are cheap to replace, some spear men to deal with cav, missile units, 1-3 heavy inf, Cavalry (heavy and light) and a seige unit or 2.

Depending on the enemy make up i may have my missile units skirmish in double or tripple lines to do the most damage before hand to hand starts, and then send cav to deal with enemy archers or seige, then once h2h starts hammer and anvil or just flank, double flank with heavy inf., cav.

As far as formations I tend to seperate my entire army into single lines by type:
M=skirmishers, archers
C=Cavalry
S=Spearmen
H=Heavy Inf
P=Peasants/Light inf
B=Siege engines

-----MMMMMMM-----CCCCCC
-----PPPPPPPPPP-----
-----SSSSSSSSS-----
-----HHHHHHHH-----

This way i can react quickly to anything they throw at me, if they charge cav i have missle retreat light take the charge and spearmen run in to do as much damage. If they throw infantry at me i have light take the charge and send heavy inf in and have the spear men flank or watch the rear for flanking cav the missle units also try to get behind or the the sides of enemy to as much damage with the least possible friendly fire.

I don't know if I'm exploiting at all but I don't have trouble with battles unless horrifically out gunned.

[RollingWave]

Generally, as other have meantioned.. the easy ways are generally...

A. Cavalries : especially horse archers followed by heavy cavalry.

B. Defense : especially siege and bridge, though sometimes good slopes will do.

C. Kill the general : takes some luck though, Naffatun helps the most