FOTS Battle formations?

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Have anyone figured out any good battle formations for your army in FOTS?

[Jihada]

I'm only a few turns into the campaign but as riflemen can't fire overhead, I put them in the front line to fire first then retreat them to a flank or behind and charge or defend with the melee troops. Cavalry on the flanks to protect against enemy flankers. I suppose rifles could stand behind the mellee troops if defending on a hill.

[The Dutch Devil]

Thread moved to gameplay and strategy discussion.

[BubbaLou]

Sounds like you could use BubbaLou's Guide to Gunpowder Total Wars. That ought to get you making V formations, killzones, and hill emplacements in no time.

The inclusion of melee troops is nice - Line infantry battles are often like deployment battles, you take a good angle and once you have a superior formation you sit on it and let the guns do the job. Having melee troops gives you something to do in the meantime.

The early game feels alot like my old Ottoman campaign from Empire - odd mix of capable melee troops and rather mediocre gunners. I didn't think I'd be raising any samurai troops at all, but I'm enjoying FOTS' traditional units as a complement to my line. For starters, the lack of early game artillery not only makes line positioning more critical but also necessitates your traditional component. The computer likes to bring them along, so for the first two years you kind of have to have a few spear kachi lying around to deal with charges before they start carving up your line. Spear levys are more than capable of carving through gun levys, especially with an angle, and will even wreck line infantry with a good angle too. As a sacrificial goat, they're great for pinning troops for your guns, or silencing parts of a line by entering melee. They also make good assault troops for taking walls.

However if you've got four line infantry in a fire pit formation standing back from the walls, melee troops also die very well. Handle with Care.

[jonny duck]

Oddly enough when defending in a land battle, grouping a chunk of your units and telling the AI to defend a bit of land puts them in a nice formation. It also moves them and stuff so you can focus on the more important aspects of battle: Naval Bombardments and first person aiming.

At the moment I'm using a a formation of line/levy infantry in the centre, spear levy on the wings and yari kachi in the centre behind the infantry. The spear levy are useful for flanking and countering enemy cavalry flanks, the yari kachi rapid advance and attack their centre after a couple of volleys.

Also to note, if you can time the volleys right, your General is very good at breaking their line infantry/matchlock kachi. Just try not to get swamped or flanked while he's engaged (i.e. use him to make stuff route, he's gained enough experiance in 6 battle to level up to a circle and two lines!)

[BubbaLou]

Here's a good picture of something approaching what I want. Too many levy gunners but that's ok - this wasn't a serious battle. This is also an illustration of how I like to attack.

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Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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So what's going on here? Well for starters I have all the pieces I need - a good sized well trained gun line for early game, enough reserves to do something funky (in this case I'm going for a double envelop), and some arty. You can defend with inferior forces - I don't like attacking without at least some sort of advantage, whether its numbers/training/firepower, whatever. Gimme something to work with.

Frankly I'd trade a levy gun for more spears here. Also know that once the cannons are in a range I like, I will disconnect them from the army so they end up sitting in the back.

If this was online, I'm practically telegraphing to my opponent "i'm gonna envelop you with the levy and sharpshooters on each wing" - to do something like this, I'd have to disguise it and move into formation as I advance - but it's an offline, Hard-level battle. Notice the spear levy (with the +2 Armor like a bawss) making up my second line - these are the policemen. When opponents try to ride dirty on me - up the front, in the back, on the flank, I don't care where - I throw spears in the way and open fire. When the problem is solved, I withdraw the spears to avoid further friendly fire or I attack their line flank to start silencing their line.

If I get smacked from an oblique angle, or flanked hard, see those flank troops? They will instead form a trapezoid to my gun line and just start shooting. If I have to, I'll peel my line back as well to meet the threat. And if I'm hit hard on an angle, the troopers on the opposite side do the envelop (the levy is a coinflip. I might move it across for a reserve) and it becomes a single flank instead of a double. But I'm on the attack so it's not expected.

If my opponent has a doom fortress defense on some nasty hill or some such, I'll arty it and try and surround. Doom fortresses need different formations anyway - front on is suicidal.

If they try to surround me, a few options:
-Meet the surround with my reserves. I have good quality troops and some arty, let's do this.

-Arty up the middle and cannonball, only as many shots as it takes to destabilize the middle and then I'm going in. The goal is to bust his line open before the surround starts eating me up - with his two stretched wings I'm going to get a great position if I pierce the middle and get troops in behind

-Go somewhere he can't get an easy surround, IE: terrain advantage. I'll put my flank against a big hill so he has to do some crazy running to surround. I'll find a good slope, get two gun lines on that slope, and doom fortress it up. I'll find a house or a river that complicates his surround. I'll hide my deployment in a forest so he's wetting his pants not knowing how I set up. All map depending, of course.

This ought to help the OP get your thinking juices flowing.

[assistec24]

don.t loose your funds on levy infantry. recruit only decent infantry, like red bears or better imperial one, or (much better) western one, or imperial guards. Also sharpshooters are ok. In fots, its one thing to learn: decent rifle infantry will erase any melee troops. A army with one or 2 foreign veterans and 14-17 decent infantry rifle + 3 parrots or armstrong (and i will not say a single eraser unit, the gatling) units will erase a army of shogunate twice of size. Its a simple fact. I play in legendary level with decent infantry, who have a bonus of 5 vs cavalry (no need to flee, just face them/decimate them) just bc with an accuracy higher of 65-70 (foreign units can go high on a ridiculous 125 accuracy) and a 65-75 reload time will simply kill 75% of any melee unit before they can engage on melee. Also, enabling guard mode, they will fight on melee AND shoot, so even a katana unit will die if they face a decent rifle unit. Take also from research tree the suppression fire and the result will be the historical one: the fall of the samurai, the fall of melee fight. I fight vs AI on legendary in a siege (me in attacker role) and AI have 2 more armies to help. I was with 3 armstrong, 2 gatling, 12 red bears and 3 imperial guards. I put a gatling in each of my flanks supported by 2 infantry units on wings, and I just wait 4 the AI to charge. The gatling erase 5 cavalry units in charge killing 50-55 of them before even came close to my units, then the katana units, much slower, receive the gatling fire + rifle fire. In 10 min AI loose some 3500 mans. The siege end with 125 looses on my troops and a astonish 5450 for AI (3 armies). So, this its; fall - end - of melee combats; sure one most know how to use the rifle units.

[grumph]

you can easly beat the hell out of modern heavy forces with tradition heavy forces, as long as you avoid levy's.

your bows outrange the opponent by a bit, so they can get the first few shots of
main force flanks. as their forces cannot open a massive frontal fire on your troops, theyll get oblitated by the first charge,and while they are disorganised and trying to msuter a defence, a weaker force charges them from a diffrent agle.
cannon threath can be removed by loose formation and cover. its a option to just wait out their ammo and take some hits in the forest, not loosing too many men.
you need a distraction of some sort, for which levies can do, but samurai may be better as they are stronger and are better all around
sieges are easy as hell, as their rifles cant shoot you and you can hide a while form their cannons, unitl their rifles are there, and at the last moment man the wall to kill them en masse.
if you need to tke a castle, either wait them out or get some kisho ninja's to sneak in their back, cap some towers and spread some carnage, after which your main force can assualt, though wooden cannons CAN be ahndy here. it may also be worthwhile to have SOME modern cannsons for this if you can use them of your rules.

i agree though, modern units are much easier to use. but if you want a REAL challenge, use traditioal units on legendary.