endless poor battles

[nebunelux]

Hello,

First I want to mention that I am not a veteran/pro M2TW gamer.
I have only played easy and medium settings games.

My problem with all my M2 playthroughs is:
After 100-200 turns when the AI factions get strong and you have a war with them, they tend to overwhelm me with a lot of low quality stack or half stacks.
So instead of having 1 decisive battle I need to play a lot of tiresome battles where the AI is attacking me with low quality troops (I guess because they can be recruited more often).

I usually have 1-2 or maybe 3 stacks of the highest quality troops available.

So it's no problem beating them, but after I play 3-4 battle where I beat the crap out of him, he keeps coming back with low quality troops which are just harrasing me, I end up pressing auto-resolve and lose many precious troops because of this.

What I would like to see is an AI which "thinks" a bit better. I would like to see him building a strong army before starting a war with me, and after a few decisive battles it would be nice that he gives me a break and not come attacking me with militia's. It's just annoying.

This happens with all M2TW games, even all the mods.

I suspect this doesn't change on H/H or VH/VH.

[Sitalkes]

Yes, it is annoying that you only get attacked by lots of small stacks this does change if you play on VH or play a mod. Your battles also get a lot better if you play on H or VH (the enemy will try to outflank you). However, you can make it more fun by going for chivalry points and attacking him with more-or-less equal forces - attacking in overwhelming force gets you dread points, but a greater challenge is to attack with a small force and rack up the points for your generals.

[The Kybrothilian]

It's usually a wiser move to divide your army to smaller parts to combat those smaller enemy armies. That way, you can deal with them in a much shorter time.

[Symphony]

It's usually a wiser move to divide your army to smaller parts to combat those smaller enemy armies. That way, you can deal with them in a much shorter time.

And while that's a valid workaround for the purposes of the game, it DOES violate the military dictum of concentration of force....when you're compelled to do strategically silly things to alleviate a pain point, that's kind of a crappy workaround for a strategy game.

[Avatar]

And while that's a valid workaround for the purposes of the game, it DOES violate the military dictum of concentration of force....when you're compelled to do strategically silly things to alleviate a pain point, that's kind of a crappy workaround for a strategy game.

Not entirely. For one thing you can tie up a large enemy stack with a couple of peasant units, stopping them from intercepting a larger army. Sure, the peasants are going to be toast by the end of the turn, but it can impair enemy troop deployment. Its even funnier if you can get those peasants into a fort in a strategic spot, because an enemy stack without siege weapons has to spend an extra turn exterminating them.

Being able to fight the enemy on your own terms is pretty much the whole point of Sun Tzu's art of war, so you should use and abuse the available tactics.

[Symphony]

Not entirely. For one thing you can tie up a large enemy stack with a couple of peasant units, stopping them from intercepting a larger army. Sure, the peasants are going to be toast by the end of the turn, but it can impair enemy troop deployment. Its even funnier if you can get those peasants into a fort in a strategic spot, because an enemy stack without siege weapons has to spend an extra turn exterminating them.

Being able to fight the enemy on your own terms is pretty much the whole point of Sun Tzu's art of war, so you should use and abuse the available tactics.

There are military dicta that don't stem from Sun Tzu, and that aren't entirely covered in his work

At any rate, what you're refering to (a screening manuver) is quite different from conscious dillution of your force to match the enemy's deployed force. That's actually a game mechanic forcing you to meet the enemy on their terms to save yourself some irritation.

Don't get me wrong...this isn't a rant; within the context of the game as written, it's a perfectly valid way to deal with the problem. It's just a bit crunchy that a strategy game has a mechanical flaw that can compel you to do something "un-strategic"

[The Kybrothilian]

And while that's a valid workaround for the purposes of the game, it DOES violate the military dictum of concentration of force....when you're compelled to do strategically silly things to alleviate a pain point, that's kind of a crappy workaround for a strategy game.

When you are facing multiple small foes, it is a wise move to split your forces to combat each one. This is how Romans did when they fought a war against disparate tribal societies, for example, when Caesar attacked the Belgae during his Gallic wars.

[nebunelux]

Let me give you an example:
I was playing a mod (Last Kingdom, it doesn't make any difference) with a RR/RC submod (which gives very very low replenish rate for good troops, like 1 in 18 turns).
So I am having like 2 stacks of good, above average troops and the enemy who has rich lands keeps stacking at the border like 8 half to full stack. I killed 4 stacks of his with 1 of mine without losing more then 200 men.
But I get tired of playing the same battle every turn, because every he keeps reinforcing the border with the same low quality troops. So after I beated almost 10-12k of his with 2k of mine, my army started to shrink. So I can't go back and build it again, I still have 8 stacks waiting to roll over me.

Did I mention that his stacks come packed? all stacks are close together so attacking 1 means he will have like 3 reinforcements. I know the WA is attacking at night...

I don't get this. No matter who hard I beat him he still comes back. The only solution is having a overwhelming large army that can beat all his stacks in one turn AND capture a city. Which is very unlikely without using "character_reset".

Regarding VH mode I think he will attack me with the same number of stacks, but they will contain better troops, so the problem doesn't disapear it only gets worst.

It's nice to battle ones every few turns with high quality troops that can make a difference, but not every turn having endless poor battles.

[MDCCLXXVI]

Who says you have to have only a couple super-stacks? (max number of top-tier units).

If you only require 6 units to take X city, why send 12?

I tend to have one primary front, where I have two or three super-stacks operating only a few turns from each other to complete the mission.

But elsewhere on the board, I have some quarter-stacks of 5-6 units to strike targets of opportunity and under-defended cities/citadels.

I find sending in disruptive and weak attacks to seize and defend a city, will draw some of the enemy forces away and allow my superstacks a chance to make quick progress without wading through all the half-stacks the AI throws at me.

So yeah, find a way to draw the enemy away from your main armies.

Example:

Im fighting a faction which has 50+ territories, all of Europe/Italy over to Constantinople.

I have most of the rest, all of Africa, Holy Lands, East of Constantinople, and also the British Isles and the mediterranean islands.

The main warzone where my superstacks are is pushing westward toward Kiev.

I wanted to draw some forces away cheaply, so I attacked from Sardinia/Corsica and attacked Genoa with 4-5 midstrength units. Currently defending it as cheaply as possible. (pikes + catapult = win)

I also just sent some armies from the British Isles to take Caen. Not a big stack, probably 5-7 units. The mission is to take and defend Caen, thats all. That should absorb most of his Europe armies, and I'm hoping Genoa will absorb the Italian armies. That leaves my superstacks to fight only eastern europe and northern europe stacks.

^ A very cheap method of distracting, I find coastal cities are very susceptible to attack in this method. just bring some seige or a few spies and take in one turn, and spend the next 20-30 absorbing the enemy stacks.

---

the superstacks are almost all heavy infantry (sword & pike 60:40) with a few light infantry and horse for support, and 1 or two anti-building seige. Their mission is to take cities, that is all. I have a supply line behind of cheaper garrison units to populate the cities after the stacks move on.

And I also have a field stack, which is a more balanced army. 2 gen/5 sword/4 pike/3 archer/2 heavy horse/2 light horse/2 field seige. Its only mission is to engage and destroy armies in the field which threaten my seige stacks.

Generally working on two cities at the same time, with a field stack a little further ahead, a reinforcement stack just behind and a supply line of garrison troops.

plenty of spies as well for recon.

^ the above is of this Scotland campaign. H/H

Killed England for the British Isles, then sent armies overseas to Marrakesh in Africa and travelling counterclockwise around the board.

[Aeratus]

But I get tired of playing the same battle every turn, because every he keeps reinforcing the border with the same low quality troops. So after I beated almost 10-12k of his with 2k of mine, my army started to shrink. So I can't go back and build it again, I still have 8 stacks waiting to roll over me.

You need to make more stacks. Try making a bigger economy to support even more troops. Obviously, it would depend on the type of mod and campaign, but 1-2 stacks seems too little in your situation.

For example, in the vanilla campaign, I would have around 15-20 elite stacks at around 160 turns, in addition to the militia garrisons. Your mod is harder than vanilla, obviously, but you should aim to make more units.

Did I mention that his stacks come packed? all stacks are close together so attacking 1 means he will have like 3 reinforcements. I know the WA is attacking at night...

Look at it from this perspective - fighting multiple stacks at once is a good thing, actually. You can kill 4 armies all at once without having to waste time fighting them separately.

I don't get this. No matter who hard I beat him he still comes back.

Send your stack directly to his city. Don't bother fighting the armies on the way unless they are really in the way. After you capture his cities, he won't have any more.

[Sitalkes]

Another solution is to try to find a choke point such as a pass or a bridge and put your army there - eventually the AI will attack you and hopefully will have combined some armies to do so. Well I sympathise as it is annoying in the later game to have finally built up some great armies only to find that there is no oppposition that can match them and battles are too one-sided - but it does make a difference what difficulty level you choose - I have made this complaint before on this forum and that is the response I got. since then I discovered that the ratio of the match-up determines whether a win gets you chivalry or dread so that makes the challenge of fighting lots of small roughly equal battles interesting - and now heroic victories are much more common!

[Xellos_Moon]

another solution is to auto-resolve

[NobleNick]

...My problem with all my M2 playthroughs is:
After 100-200 turns when the AI factions get strong...

You are correct that this is your problem. Win the game in 100 turns and the problem goes away. Winning an M2TW campaign on H/H (or easier) is very doable with any of the major factions (e.g., England, France, Spain, Italian factions, HRE, Moors, etc.)

[nebunelux]

You are correct that this is your problem. Win the game in 100 turns and the problem goes away. Winning an M2TW campaign on H/H (or easier) is very doable with any of the major factions (e.g., England, France, Spain, Italian factions, HRE, Moors, etc.)

I am playing the game because I enjoy it, and I don't want to end it fast.
What is the fun in ending it fast under 100 turns? You don't benefit from all the technological advances, you empire is under developed.

For me it's not about the challenge of beating the AI, it's about enjoying the medieval times and history which is a very exciting and interesting era. That's why I don't like Shogun(2) TW. In fact I would really like to see a Medieval 3 TW game

On topic: If you have medium quality troops and you are seriously outnumbered by low quality troops (militia included) and you split your army means that your small army will lose more men in the little fights and overall wouldn't you get your ass kicked?
Consider that your enemy has more settlements and more cash so can produce more troops, but for some reason only produces low quality troops.

Can't the AI be modded in such a way that he would fight less battle, with higher quality troops and more decisive ones?

[shikaka]

I am playing the game because I enjoy it, and I don't want to end it fast.
What is the fun in ending it fast under 100 turns? You don't benefit from all the technological advances, you empire is under developed.

For me it's not about the challenge of beating the AI, it's about enjoying the medieval times and history which is a very exciting and interesting era. That's why I don't like Shogun(2) TW. In fact I would really like to see a Medieval 3 TW game

On topic: If you have medium quality troops and you are seriously outnumbered by low quality troops (militia included) and you split your army means that your small army will lose more men in the little fights and overall wouldn't you get your ass kicked?
Consider that your enemy has more settlements and more cash so can produce more troops, but for some reason only produces low quality troops.

Can't the AI be modded in such a way that he would fight less battle, with higher quality troops and more decisive ones?

1) Use more junk troops, even in standing armies, that way you will have more stacks. Also, cheap units will take casualities and expensive units can be kept as a battle decider force
2) do not allow AI nations to blob, take a few provinces off them, and give it to someone else
3) there are mods where the buildings are designed in a way that when you reach for example tier 3 infantry, you lose tier 1 infantry (that is: once moorish sword militia is availabe, you cannot recruit moorish city militia anymore), that helps the AI a bit

(4: use horse archers/javelin cavalry , if not availabe in home turf, recruit mercenary units in the holy land)

[... where did it run?]

What? Dictum of concentrated force.. you seem to be missing out on a lot of stuff, tactics, ideas and strategies.

Most likely you are reffering to Heinz Guderian (general of nazi germany) pretty much invented strategy on how to employ newly developed tanks, which revolutionized warfare at that time. The idea was to mass a lot of fast moving armoured vehicles to serve as spearhead to pierce enemy lines. While all other nations used tanks as infantry support, scattered all around. This was one of the reasons who nazis managed to blitz and simply crush france which had way stronger military force at the time in a matter of days... Erwin Rommel with 7th Panzer division was nicknamed "Ghost division" for their ability to move and spearhead extraodinary fast.

But it's just one way to deal with situation. And there is a lot more. If we would look at acient history we could take roman army's massacre in german forests (forgot the actuall name) where barbarians kept harrasing romans until they were done for weeks.

There is a lot of examples of guerella warfare where concentrated force simply wouldn't work. As general you should be flexible and adapting, not stubborn with one tactic. If it doesn't work try something else. better force your enemy to do something else which is more useful to you.

[Sitalkes]

Most likely you are reffering to Heinz Guderian (general of nazi germany) pretty much invented strategy on how to employ newly developed tanks, which revolutionized warfare at that time. The idea was to mass a lot of fast moving armoured vehicles to serve as spearhead to pierce enemy lines. While all other nations used tanks as infantry support, scattered all around. This was one of the reasons who nazis managed to blitz and simply crush france which had way stronger military force at the time in a matter of days... Erwin Rommel with 7th Panzer division was nicknamed "Ghost division" for their ability to move and spearhead extraodinary fast.

Guderian didn't invent the schwerpunkt, it was used by Alexander the Great, and when writing his book on armoured doctrine he also used ideas developed by B. H. Liddell Hart and Percy Hobart that were tested to some extent by the British maneovres in the 1920s'. This said that a combined arms attack (primarily the infantry) would make the initial breakthrough, which the tanks would exploit and use their mobility to get into the rear areas and cause havoc and confusion especially in supply lines, artillery units, and headquarters - the idea was for the tanks not to have to actually fight very much, but rather to keep the enemy permanantly off-balance and to retain the initiative.

This strategy won't work in M2TW because of a lack of HQ. second line troops, supply lines etc, and using armoured cavalry to breakthrough an enemy line will cost the cavalry a lot of casualties unless they are faced by infantry only armed with swords or ordinary bows - it is much better to use a "chest and horns" approach - hold the enemy while you attack from the flanks, using the cavalry's mobility to pick favourable match-ups.

[Symphony]

What? Dictum of concentrated force.. you seem to be missing out on a lot of stuff, tactics, ideas and strategies.

Most likely you are reffering to Heinz Guderian (general of nazi germany) pretty much invented strategy on how to employ newly developed tanks, which revolutionized warfare at that time. The idea was to mass a lot of fast moving armoured vehicles to serve as spearhead to pierce enemy lines. While all other nations used tanks as infantry support, scattered all around. This was one of the reasons who nazis managed to blitz and simply crush france which had way stronger military force at the time in a matter of days... Erwin Rommel with 7th Panzer division was nicknamed "Ghost division" for their ability to move and spearhead extraodinary fast.

But it's just one way to deal with situation. And there is a lot more. If we would look at acient history we could take roman army's massacre in german forests (forgot the actuall name) where barbarians kept harrasing romans until they were done for weeks.

There is a lot of examples of guerella warfare where concentrated force simply wouldn't work. As general you should be flexible and adapting, not stubborn with one tactic. If it doesn't work try something else. better force your enemy to do something else which is more useful to you.

I think maybe you don't understand force concentration. It certainly wasn't a WWII (or even 20th century) innovation.

The idea is to achieve local numeric superiority via concentration of your available forces against a relative disperal of the enemy's. This minimizes your casualties and maximizes the enemy's. Think of a M2TW battlefield...more numbers allows for more opportunities to flank the smaller force, inflict greater ranged casualties via missle superiority, rout individual units faster...essentially, do more damage while losing fewer troops.

Your example of the Germanic tribes' ambushes in the Teutoburg is actually a textbook example of the force concentration concept; the Roman line was extremely spread out (dispersed). Arminius couldn't hope to establish global numeric superiority, but the spread nature of the Roman line, combined with the terrain, allowed him to inflict devestating casualties through local superiority....it let him hit the Romans in such a way that he had more bodies in any particular engagement.

As the Legions dispersed throughout the Empire for security reasons during the 3rd century AD, they stopped being as potent an offensive force. They were more effective defenders via force dispersal, but we're talking about offensive operations here.

Robert Lee's invasion of Maryland in 1862 is another fantasic example. Lee split his forces so as to engage and invest several objectives at once. His orders to do so, Special Order 191, were discovered by Union scouts wrapped around cigars. Had McClellan been more competent, and better able to move his forces at speed, he could have isolated each of the split columns and destroyed them piecemeal. He failed to do that, allowing Lee to recombine his forces. At the resulting battle of Antietam, McClellan failed to commit all of his forces, allowing Lee to achieve local superiority in several spots on the field, and turn what SHOULD have been a crushing defeat of the Army of Northern Virginia into a relative draw.

There is a time and place to split your forces; generally when you're in a defensive posture, or when you know (like Lee did) that your opponent can't move quickly enough to exploit the opportunity. When you have a numerically superior force in the field conducting offensive operations is not that time; what you save in multiple engagements you lose in increased casualties to your own forces. It's actually giving up your own superiority to match the enemy's force composition.

That's not stubborn...that's simply not wanting to spend men to fight on the enemy's terms. In essence, by dispersing your forces in that situation, you're playing Rome to the AI's Arminius...why would you give an enemy that kind of opportunity? The game will let you get away with it...that doesn't mean it's not a tactically poor move.

[NobleNick]

I am playing the game because I enjoy it, and I don't want to end it fast.
What is the fun in ending it fast under 100 turns? You don't benefit from all the technological advances, you empire is under developed.

For me it's not about the challenge of beating the AI, it's about enjoying the medieval times and history which is a very exciting and interesting era.

Well, for me, a 100-turn game, fighting something like 200 battles, does not seem fast. And I always hit the top of the tech tree that interests me, and get to spam those high quality units. (In fact, that is the part of the game I really like: spamming top end units and crushing stack after stack of my hapless opponents.) I'm not interested in gunpowder units, and get my small interest in big guns satiated by playing M2TW: Americas expansion. But I understand your point.

On topic: If you have medium quality troops and you are seriously outnumbered by low quality troops (militia included) and you split your army means that your small army will lose more men in the little fights and overall wouldn't you get your ass kicked?

Absolutely, you will lose more men. I do not agree with the strategy of splitting up your forces, except as needed to counter multiple threats.

Consider that your enemy has more settlements and more cash so can produce more troops, but for some reason only produces low quality troops.

One way to force the AI to not spam you is to take some of those settlements. In other words, try to duck around some of those stacks the AI sends at you and hit them on their turf, by attacking their settlements

Can't the AI be modded in such a way that he would fight less battle, with higher quality troops and more decisive ones?

I'm sure the answer is "yes," but do not know how to go about doing that.

[PrestigeX]

I see what you mean for sure! I normally notice this happens where the AI fields armies with massive numbers of artillery - not even trying to be tactical. but ..
Fam member, 2-3 random infantry units , and then 8 trebuchets, catapults, and misc other arty.

junk armies that are very costly to auto-resolve , and tedious as hell to actually fight against. Sometimes the enemy even scores a lucky shot and kills your general.


Milan can be a little annoying with it's armies of nothing but Geonese Crossbowmen -- its annoying in a way, but these are actually very very capable foes.