Your Battle Plans

[HubertusDerGroße]

What is going to be your strategie on the battlemap?

My defensive battleplan looks like this: I will have 4 missle units in the first line, grouped into 2 teams so I can easily concentrate fire or give individual orders on enemy units. I will strech the missle units to the full length of my entire army and then set up spikes infront of them so I am immune to head on cavalry charges. behinde the missle units in the second line I will have my cheap infantry (militia) that will rush infront of my missle units when the enemy infantry gets too close. the militia will serve as a wall to defean any charge by enemy infantry, and to take enemy missle fire. once they are engaged in combat I will send my expensive infantry (3rd line) up to reinforce them. reserves (4th line) will be made up of spear or pikemen, because they can intercept flanking manoevers by cavalry or hold enemy infantry in place for a long time. I will also use them to mend any holes in my main battle line. then I will send my cavalry (5th line, right and left wings) around the flanks and charge the enemy from behinde and take out any enemy missle units. The general will be in the middle between the spear and pike units (4th line) and only be used when absolutely necessary (or when its safe to chace down routing units).

so I will have
1st line: 4 missle unit
2nd line: 4 cheap infantry units
3rd line: 5 expensive infantry units (the backbone of my army, if I loose that part of my army the battle is lost)
4th line: 3/4 spear/pike units and 1 general unit
5th line: 2/3 cavalry units



I'll need time to think about my offensive battleplan..

[Fondor_Yards]

It would make more sense to have your pikemen as your first infantry line. They hold a line immensely better then any other unit. They can give the rest of your army a wall to move and work around. Peasants will rout in seconds in meele combat vs anything other then peasants, they are a wasted unit as you have them, rushing out to charge incoming infantry*unless your using them as arrow fodder/cavalry charge fodder/etc, then they have a use*.

Also right now I only think english longbowmen have the stakes, so you'd have to be them to have those.

[HubertusDerGroße]

I'll use pikemen then..

[Crimson Scythe]

I'd have my weakest units in the centre of my line, flanked by pikemen. At a short distance behind the pikemen, I'd have my best heavy infantry, where they could react to flanking moves and also be available in the centre. I'd keep the general off to the right behind the pikemen, along with a unit of light cavalry or cavalry skirmishers. On the left flank, behind my heavy infantry, I'd have another squadron of cavalry.

Basically, what I would expect to happen during the battle is that the opposing troops will charge my line. When the weak units in the centre break as expected, the pikes on the flanks will create an artificial bottleneck, through which enemy units will pass slowly, where they can be ground up by my heavy infantry. All the while, my cavalry will hit the enemy line in the flank, after taking out the enemy general, while my missile cavalry will harass the enemy's support troops (e.g., archers or crossbowmen). If I only have light cavalry (instead of missile cavalry), these will be used to chase down routers as they break contact.

This is essentially a version of Hannibal Barca's tactics against the Romans, though a similar tactic was used at the Battle of Casilinum, in 554, by the Byzantines under Narses.

Worked pretty well in RTW too, I might add.

[Kurogane]

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

-Genghis Khan

Need I say more?

[Shaio]

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

-Genghis Khan

Need I say more?

damn right.

my tactic will be similar to crimsons most likley, only ill try and make my center out of crossbowmen.

probly something like
p= pike/spear.
b=crossbowmen.
h= heavy.
e= eleite.
g= general.

cc..ppbbbpp..cc
.....hh.....hh.....
.....e...g....e.....

same as i used with scots when i first played bi.

allow enemy to close with crossbowmen, maintain melee for a short while.. then pull back and charge enemy from side with heavy infantry as they follow your crossbowmen.
charge crossbowmen back in.. and wait for melee to end.

react to any flanking mavoures with cav and eleite infantry.. and spare heavy infantry if you have any.

all around its served me quite well. and is rather adaptive.

of corse battle tactics depend alot of terrain and the enemys army... for the most part im just gunan try to draw the enemy into making a mistake the then exploit that mistake.

[Germanicus75]

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

-Genghis Khan

Need I say more?

[awisler]

ill have a line of spear militia as cannon fodder, to absorb the initial charge, then if im fighting the heavier armored factions, ill have pretty much all heavy infantry behind the spear militia, if im fighting mostly lightly armored factions, ill have some faster lighter infantry on the flanks but keep heavy infantry in the center. ill also add an extra archer unit or two vs lighter armored factions. my heavy infantry will consist mainly of the venetian heavy infantry, because they have some good armor with a 1h mace to penetrate heavy armor, while also having a large shield for protection.

with this line its great because cavalry arent the greatest after their initial charge, so the cheap militia take the casualties for my heavy venetian infantry to tear them apart. ill probably have 2-3 archer units per army too, which ill replace 2 of with gunpowder units.

any conquered cities ill retrain my militia cannon fodder so i wont run out of my meat shield.

[Vihuri]

Bear in mind this comes from Total War noob

Whats the point in having missile units in first line? Do they inflict friendly fire if they are behind other troops? Or is their power greatly reduced if they are behind own troops? I think archers should never be the first line, that honour should go to pikemen.

My plan from my minor experience from demos and some historical knowledge about warfare will be like this.

First line is my pikemen whose job is to handle enemy cavalry charges. I have my heavy infantry in flanks to rush to Pikemens aid when they are engaged, thus fastly making enemies rout. To the very flank of my line will be my cavalry that will make supportive flanking actions and more importantly slaughter enemy missile units. Behind pikemen I have my hopefully strong missile units. I have 1 unit of pikemen in the both flanks of missile line to defend them. This will of course not be enough defend from massive flanking attack but I hope none will come.

How does that sound?

[Inhuman One]

I will do the same things as in rome total war I think, depending of course on the army I am fighting against.

Usually I put weak infantry in the middle, slingers and skirmishers in front of them. Spearmen at the sides to guards the flanks from cavalry. The strong infantry behind the weak infantry. The general behind the strong infantry and possible cavalry archers behind the spearmen, heavy cavalry at the sides of the general and light cavalry behind the cavalry archers.

I only use the strong units when its needed, especially when they are far away from a city where they can be retrained. I usually use mercenary infantry to lead the weak infantry. mercenaries were often used for the dirty work after all.

[Holger Danske]

Pike n' muskets... or Shieldwall n' Archers.

[Vangelis]

20 units of zweihanders...

unleash hell!

[The Mongol]

20 units of zweihanders...

unleash hell!

Damn rights.

Who needs strategy anyways, kill kill kill the enemy.

[Greenbeef]

This has been my standard formation for RTW as long as I can remember. Once the first line closes with the enemy, I swing the light infantry on the flanks to swing out and pin their flanking units. After a short while, I order my second heavy line to advance, not attack, past the first line. This forces them to push the enemy line back a bit and allows the first line to pull back to rest. The cavalry is there to meet any flanking light infantry, and with the general in the center of the cavalry formation, they act as morale boosters.

I'll have to adapt my tactics to the advent of gunpowder units, but I think I'll merely have to move my gunpowder units out onto the flanks and then have them skirmish back behind the line. However, I see gunpowder units as being excellent for ambushes. Draw the enemy in through a wooded corridor with your main line, then turn fire at will mode back on to smash their flanks with musket fire.

All battle plans have to be flexible to be successful. Just make sure you have enough reserves to meet any unwelcome surprises and I'm sure you'll do fine.

[Cyrus the Virus]

Probably not as strategic as others..Infrantry front, cavarly flank.
Or just as Vangelis expressed it

[Spong]

Its difficult to say without complete unit lineups for the different factions but in RTW my main tactics involved a pike line with archers behind and heavy infantry deployed between the pike blocks along the line. Cavalry usually deployed to the rear or on the flanks. If M2TW allows me to depending on the factions/units composition I might have non-pike spears/halberds etc. on the flanks to counter cavalry flanking maneuvers. Sometimes taking light cavalry to chase down skirmishers/exposed archers/routing troops and deploying them on the flanks.

[Charok]

this basically makes the enemy charge bonus almost completely ineffective due to easily being able to retrain miltia. once your militia absorb the charge, then you charge your heavy or more elite troops into the enemy, this way your units get the charge bonus, and dont a lot less losses then they would if they charged head on with that enemy unit and no militia in between.

The Italian factions will get better than average militia. So in the late game when I don't get musketmen or the best cannon as Sicily and I'm facing an enemy with superior gun technology, I will sacrifice my better moraled militia to the frontal gun fire. When I'm close to the enemy line I'll run my horse and heavy infantry units past my militia and take out the vulnerable guns.
So the only thing you can't let happen in my strategy is to not let the militia mass route before you get the good units close to the enemy. It could be a real possibility with all the major morale damaging rifles and cannons hitting them.
This strategy is only for an enemy that is almost completely rifle and cannon units that the AI may make in the very late game. CA said the AI will make balanced armies now so I may never have to use this strategy in the campaign. Remember that we can quickly get more of the cheaper militia units than the powerful, expensive units.

[awisler]

well, if they do get a lot of musketeers, counter with archers. musketeers weakness is archers, so you wont have to charge your heavy infantry too far back and risk being surrounded.

[Charok]

well, if they do get a lot of musketeers, counter with archers. musketeers weakness is archers, so you wont have to charge your heavy infantry too far back and risk being surrounded.

I mentioned I was going to take out muskets with my archers on the first page of this topic, but that was against a balanced army. We're now talking about a full gunpowder army. I don't think we can count out the muskets/cannons killing archers as easily as the archers kill them. The Spanish Musketeers in the demo could hit units from far away, so an archer army against a musket/cannon army would probably take a lot of casualties.

I'm not worried about being surrounded because my heavy unit forces will break their (no more than two) lines and split to push on both sides of muskets while the cavalry takes out their siege equipment and then flanks the rest of them. The enemy will also lose many men when they fire into their units that have engaged me. My Spanish musketeer AI allies in the demo were making impressive work of killing my units that were chasing the fleeing enemy. Dumb AI.

[Gazi Husrev-Beg]

its tricky question...depends what faction i will play with...since i usually never use same tactics, but adapt my tactics depending what enemies i face.If you battle Mongols for exeple, having some heavy/medium and light cavalary, pikemen/spearmen to protect your archers, i never use horse archers if enemy has many foot archers, since they get slaughtered far faster.Even when attacking I like to provoke enemy into attacking me, so his lines are broken and I can find weakest spot to start enemy rout.Provoke They tend to rush than choose retreat, than I make my advance when i see lines are disordered...