Advanced battle tactics.

[SoulBlade]

We all know a few simple tactics for battles, which usually are enough to win the battle. I'll cover a few basic ones.

Hammer and anvil

1. Infantry attacks the enemy troops, they are "pinned" to your infantry, so they're not likely to run away and escape.
2. Cavalry, with their speed and powerful charge, run behind the enemy lines or flank or rear.
3. With alt+right click (double click for running) the lances are picked up and they charge the enemy troops. The casualties in most cases are devastating, especially if done correctly.

By correctly I mean:

• Charged behind the enemy lines.
• Cavalry are in a 2 row formation (to do this, drag your mouse while right clicking on the battle map)
• One division of cavalry attacks one division of enemy units.
• Your infantry actually pinned successfully the enemy.

Terrain advantage
(a.k.a You can't win, I have the high ground. )
Star Wars reference

The battlefield, in most cases, has hills. Meaning it isn't even, so if you are fighting on a hillside, one of the sides will have advantage - in damage, as far as I know. If you are on the hill, good for you! You might win the battle, even you have lesser troops or are a newbie in the game.
Also, archers have an advantage. If 2 troops of archers meet and one of them is on top of a hill, these archers will shoot first, because of what...? They have the higher ground!

Anyway... this is the basic battle field tactic in TW. Do you have any other, more advanced, harder to perform, more effective and perhaps... specific for a certain type of army composition? A picture from a bird point of view would be helpful.

[xcorps]

It's not "advanced", but I like bringing only Mailed Knights to a battle. My last campaign I didn't build any infantry at all except for garrisons. All my field armies were Mailed Knights. I take 9 plus whatever generals I want involved. I break them up into three groups and alternate charging from the flanks and the front of the enemy lines, and use the generals to attack leaders. I fought a battle yesterday where I engaged two full stacks of of HRE and destroyed them both with ony 100 casualties. (H/H)

[Vanderdecken]

The Mongolian Death

-The Mongolian Hordes are composed mainly of horse archers, with many supporting light and heavy archers, and light heavy cavalry.

Nearly impossible to beat with your average Medieval Army. However, playing as the Turks, I find that one setup can help you defeat them.

Composition of the Amry:

-Spearmen. Lots, and lots of spearmen. The more heavily armoured, the better. This should be about 6 or so.

-Archers, Lots and Lots of archers. Preferably ones that are of a high quality. This should be about 8.

Finally, 4 units of heavy cavalry. It seems counter intuitive, but trust me, you need some calvary that can take some punishment.

Finally, a General who is extremly high in the chivalry. Most Mongolian generals are very high dread, so it accomplishes nothing to try to make their army route with an equal amount of dread. If you want to defeat the Mongols, make your soldiers fight to the very last.

Battle:

The High Ground. It is absolutely critical that you position your men on the high ground. If not, the Mongols will tear you to shreds. The hill, especially a jagged one, neturlizes calvary charges and makes them easy pickings.

The Mongolian strategy is to send in their horse archers to soften up the flanks, then using archers and a combination of calvary charges to break the enemy. Make sure you use your arrows cautiously, as archers tend to waste them trying to take down horse archers. Pick and choose.

Once most of the archers are dead, send in your melee infantry. Engage them. If all is as it should, you should be in a good position to take down lots of the Mongol cavalry. Just be sure you don't let a unit wander too far out, or the cavalry will swoop in from behind and annihilate them.

If worse comes to worse, send the archers into the fray. Do this by simply pressing "alt+right click" once you've highligted the archers. Or simply right click if they have no more ammunition.

It is also imperative, that you use your cavalry only after a good deal of enemy cavalry is dead. Facing Mongolian cavalry one to one with normal cavalry is suicidal. Therefore, your own should be kept in the rear until such time as the battle seems fit by the commander.

Most of the time, this strategy works if you are facing a Mongolian army, one to one. If, in fact, they bring reinforcments, be sure you have a way for your army to retreat once the initial barage of arrows is complete. You don't want to waste your troops in vain, but denting the enemy eventually wears them down.

If you manage to kill a general, you can consider the battle of a victory, as the general is more key to Mongolian sucuess, than all of their armies. Simply for the fact, that it is nearly impossible to route a Mongolian army until he is dead.

[AJenny58]

I forgot where I learned this tactic, but I like it it and use it quite a bit.

Step 1 - You put your army in a straight line facing the opponent. But the trick here is that you drastically strengthen one side of your army. It is best to allign your strong side with the enemy's weak side.

Step 2 - Have your whole army engage with the front lines of the enemy's. You want the enemy to be fighting with everything so that he cannot flank you.

Step 3 - Push your strong side straight through the enemies line. If you have alligned your strength with the enemy's weakness it shouldn't be hard.

Step 4 - Position the troops that made up the strong side for an attack on the rear.

Step 5 - Attack the rear and win.

You may take many casualties on the weak side of your army, especially if it takes too long to break through the enemy's lines, but it is alright because you have turned the whole battle backwards and the enemy will be confused and disorganized.

[PrestigeX]

Maybe some tactics of interest when not using an Ideal Army (say mostly infantry, no archers, little/no cavalry).

Infantry 2 lines.

First line the lower quality - spearmen. 2nd line - heavy inf or high experience spearmen.

2nd line far enough behind first line - first line engages enemy infantry. 2nd line splits into two groups, and plugs gaps or runs around the flanks, and try to completely surround enemy b4 engaging.

This is basically the same as Hammer n' anvil as done with Cavalry, but the main difference will be that your opponets will 'fight to the death' - they will all die - can be advantageous or not doing this, takes longer, but if you trap a valuable General in there it's a guaranteed death.

This is also good because you get time to concentrate your Cavalry on killing all their archers and xbowman, their cavalry etc... And/Or use your cavalry to capture everyone.

It's usefull than more simple Hammer & Anvil in the campaign because then you don't have to fight the same men again when they' regroup after standard battle wins.



Siege Strat -- instead of guarding the gate, or being on the walls, split your men into 3 groups -- one halfway in the main 'road' , and 2 on the side 'roads' leading from the main gate. The enemy pours into the gate, over the walls, and then have to all pass this main area being shot at an later charged from 3 sides -- prolly the biggest strenght of the enemy follows one direction, leaving your other 2 groups able to reposition and shoot enemy in the backs / flanks charge up on them and completely win. Need Crossbowman for this.

[Re_Minder]

I'm currently using (and abusing) one strategy quite a lot (my Lithuania got from 1 land to 10+ in 10 turns due to it on SS 6.4, VH/VH). It's basically a variant of hammer & anvil except that it doesn't actually need an anvil.

The basic setting: having 2 units of cavalry (one of them having high charge bonus or being a general) and enemy having no cavalry. You need to bait the army with your weaker unit while keeping your heavy cav quite far from it. When the enemy starts following, move in your heavy cavalry to attack their backs. Some units will turn around to face it (when it gets close), but at least some will keep following the bait. The first thing you should do is to avoid the counterers - run around any melee units that are facing your heavy cav.

Then, you can do three things - run back (if some of the units preparing to counter are archers and you don't want to lose any troops), smash into archers (in most cases it doesn't matter if they're facing you, they'll still rout), smash into anything that is following the bait (if that unit has high morale, retreat instantly after the charge). The key is to attack a unit that is separated a bit from others and faces the bait. Killing the archers should be your priority - only they can damage your troops, but other than that, you're free to kill units in any order you want. I sometimes even leave some runners for that weaker unit to get some experience. I've beaten a full stack of Danes with 2 units like that, it only took some time.

Vs 1 Cavalry Unit + infantry

Everything as above, but in this case you must abuse the fact that enemy cavalry will eventually start chasing one of your units if you try attacking their backs as in previous version. Then, it's only a matter of baiting the cavalry unit further from the main body of enemy army and trapping it between your 2 cavalry units. This is especially useful when you use horse archers as they can whittle down the cavalry while being chased.

Vs 2+ Cav units

As above, but prepare for some losses as you'll probably need to create the true hammer & anvil with your cavalry.


By the way, this strategy is extremely useful as it abuses the AI estimation of forces and their power. If you attack a castle full of defenders they will most likely sally, allowing you to take lands without those annoying and costly siege battles.

[cpt krunch13]

My only tactic I consistently use is to simply mass all of my cavalry into one huge wave of horses and have them ride around the battlefield delivering devastating blows wherever need be. I know its "noobish" but it almost always gets the job done

I dont really have any infantry tactics other than hire mercenary units for cannon fodder, this way I dont feel so bad about them getting slaughtered as they aren't my fellow countrymen...yeah, thats not really a tactic is it?

[AJenny58]

People only call it "noobish" because it works well and is easy (against the AI of course). It kind of fits in to my previous post.

[cpt krunch13]

People only call it "noobish" because it works well and is easy (against the AI of course). It kind of fits in to my previous post.

Kind of like the phalanx squares people use in Rome Total War but in my book nothing is unfair when it comes to battle.

[Re_Minder]

People only call it "noobish" because it works well and is easy (against the AI of course). It kind of fits in to my previous post.

It may be not exactly noobish... but your tactics are still no close to good (please, don't get offended). Your "concentrated wing" still must go through the enemy units and that means at least minor losses. It probably works as it's based on the same principle of anvil & hammer, but instead of quickly walking around the enemy to smack his rear you choose a long and painful way through him... while walking through a glass wall is the shortest way to get behind it, it is much easier and less painful to go around it...

You should really try the basic hammer and anvil in skirmish and compare the results with your own formation. You'll see that it's better... It may be your unique way of fighting and it may work, just like washing yourself with your feet in the bath, but wouldn't you like to be more efficient and be able to do so much more than you can do now? It's up to you... I can say it's really fun to be full enemy stacks with a third or less of what they have.

In case you have trouble imagining the basic hammer & anvil, it looks like

[cpt krunch13]

It may be not exactly noobish... but your tactics are still no close to good (please, don't get offended). Your "concentrated wing" still must go through the enemy units and that means at least minor losses. It probably works as it's based on the same principle of anvil & hammer, but instead of quickly walking around the enemy to smack his rear you choose a long and painful way through him... while walking through a glass wall is the shortest way to get behind it, it is much easier and less painful to go around it...

You should really try the basic hammer and anvil in skirmish and compare the results with your own formation. You'll see that it's better... It may be your unique way of fighting and it may work, just like washing yourself with your feet in the bath, but wouldn't you like to be more efficient and be able to do so much more than you can do now? It's up to you... I can say it's really fun to be full enemy stacks with a third or less of what he has,

In case you have trouble imagining the basic hammer & anvil, it looks like

Thanks for the tip, I'm always up for learning different strategies and you are correct about my current tactic if my cavalry "clump" stays immobile for just a tad too long it gets quickly surrounded and sustains heavy casualties so thats certainly an issue. Thats why I ussually just keep them behind the infantry to smash through weak points of the enemies lines, but going in from the rear (innuendo not intended) is something I'll have to try

[Re_Minder]

Thanks for the tip, I'm always up for learning different strategies and you are correct about my current tactic if my cavalry "clump" stays immobile for just a tad too long it gets quickly surrounded and sustains heavy casualties so thats certainly an issue. Thats why I ussually just keep them behind the infantry to smash through weak points of the enemies lines, but going in from the rear (innuendo not intended) is something I'll have to try

It was actually meant for AJenny58, but it should improve your fighting too .

You've probably noticed it, but another problem with cavalry charges is that charging head-on always leads to some casualties, and, as you mentioned, that slow-down effect hurts too after the charge. If you aim at their backs anvil& hammer way, like 80% of game's units will instantly rout after the charge connects, you will lose almost no or none at all (most likely) cavalry, enemies will mass rout and even if they'll survive, you'll have time to retreat while they'll be turning around. It is, however, very important for your infantry to have enemies engaged so that they couldn't turn around.

Just try that in skirmish. Good luck

[Aeratus]

If I really need to win a clutch battle, here's my battle plan, with cavalry on one wing only:

[Aeratus]

It may be not exactly noobish... but your tactics are still no close to good (please, don't get offended). Your "concentrated wing" still must go through the enemy units and that means at least minor losses. It probably works as it's based on the same principle of anvil & hammer, but instead of quickly walking around the enemy to smack his rear you choose a long and painful way through him... while walking through a glass wall is the shortest way to get behind it, it is much easier and less painful to go around it...

I think it depends on the balance of strength. If your cavalry is much stronger than their left wing, you can pretty much walk right through them, and in that situation, it would be more efficient to walk through the glass because you save time. But if their left wing consists of some heavy pikemen, then you might want to go around them.

[Re_Minder]

I think it depends on the balance of strength. If your cavalry is much stronger than their left wing, you can pretty much walk right through them, and in that situation, it would be more efficient to walk through the glass because you save time. But if their left wing consists of some heavy pikemen, then you might want to go around them.

Missed your post. if we're talking Scholarii vs Spear Militia, chances are that you won't have great losses by going through. But if we're talking Mailed Knights like, I've never passed through a unit without losing 1 or 2 horsemen at the very least. It also takes more time to go through than running around with double click.

A single wing with H&A is possible, though it is simply faster to do two wings when you have 2 or more cav units due to... well... geometry. It's not a major difference though, a second or two saved doesn't change the battle much.

PS. Erm, you forgot your plan.

[AJenny58]

All is fair in love and war.

[... where did it run?]

I like hvy infantry zerg rushes. Not very advanced, but fun and simple.

Other is with Russia. Dvors and Tsars guard are required (in the early period kazaks and druzhina)... pew pew with arrows. Some units starts getting after your horse archers. You isolate them and then charge with heavy cav (or even dvors if the isolated unit isn't to heavily armoured).

Now this is difficult to manage at normal speed so I ussaly play this on 1/2 or 3/10 of normal speed.

[Aeratus]

Oops. That picture disappeared for some reason. I've fixed the post.

In a clutch battle (i.e., the opposing force is substantially stronger), I think a single wing is better. This is because, in that diagram above, the AI's cavalry on the left will simply sit there and do nothing, while your cavalry on the right wing routs the AI's wing on that side. On the other hand, if you engage both wings (and assuming that the AI's force is stronger), you would be outnumbered on both wings. So essentially, the single wing H&A is a way of divide and conquer.

Of course, if your force is about the same strength as the AI, then double wing might get the job done quicker. The relative army strength is an important factor, obviously. If I have a full stack of Gothic Knights or Tsars Guard, I wouldn't mind simply charging head on into halberds even.

I also use single wing from a habit from RTW multiplayer, which is built on fact-paced cavalry action (so 6 units of cavalry would wipe out 3 units in a flash). However, I've never played M2TW multiplayer, so I wouldn't know if a single wing works well against a human.

[cpt krunch13]

In a clutch battle (i.e., the opposing force is substantially stronger), I think a single wing is better. This is because, in that diagram above, the AI's cavalry on the left will simply sit there and do nothing, while your cavalry on the right wing routs the AI's wing on that side. On the other hand, if you engage both wings (and assuming that the AI's force is stronger), you would be outnumbered on both wings. So essentially, the single wing H&A is a way of divide and conquer.

Of course, if your force is about the same strength as the AI, then double wing might get the job done quicker. The relative army strength is an important factor, obviously. If I have a full stack of Gothic Knights or Tsars Guard, I wouldn't mind simply charging head on into halberds even.

I also use single wing from a habit from RTW multiplayer, which is built on fact-paced cavalry maneuvers. However, I've never played M2TW multiplayer, so I wouldn't know if a single wing works well against a human.

Yep, thats the thing right there, a lot of tactics that work well against AI might not work against another human. It appears that most people's tactics, mine included, take advantage of AI weaknesses or blunders. I've never played multiplayer for any Total War game to be honest I'm kind of nervous.

[Aeratus]

And also, multiplayer games are usually played on the flat ground map (at least back in MTW and RTW days), so terrain strategies would be strictly inapplicable in this situation.