Invading Strategies

[James the Red]

Got any good tips on attacking enemy territory? I don't have EBII at the moment because I am waiting for the next version. But I'm thinking of handling things differently when I get EB again.

I'm thinking of starting a strategy where when I invade, I have a dedicated field battle army/armies and dedicated siege based army/armies (If I can afford it like that, of coarse). Before I was using my armies as 'all purpose' armies that do everything, but now I want to make specialized roles. The field armies have cavalry and pike-men (if my faction uses those), whereas the siege armies do not (except for generals) or have less of them.

I usually wait out sieges and automate the results, because while I like siege battles, I like the majority of the battles I fight to be field ones. So instead of having troops that both fight siege and land battles, I will use the siege army to besiege cities and the field armies to intercept the enemy, making less 'getting attacked while besieging' scenarios. Plus I can just merge forces and creating 'all purpose' forces after accepting causties if need be.

I'm also wondering if bringing extra generals and splitting my besieging forces up into smaller armies would make for more fun and/or easier city attacks? Has anybody tried that?

Also, any good unit compositions for a raiding army? Whose job is to hang out behind enemy lines and ambush stuff/devastate the countryside?

[QuintusSertorius]

Having more than one army on a war-front is surely making the game much easier, given the AI rarely co-ordinates with multiple stacks in response?

[Hummer]

I find I don't have enough money for multiple armies on one front.

[James the Red]

Multiple armies only when I'm rich like the Romans and I'm trying to take down Carthage in Africa.

Its hard, maybe I'm just not good, but I seemed to always have a hard time holding onto cities in Africa after I take them.

[nvm]

Carthage should not be very hard to take on as Rome. Find out where they don't have armies, attack there. Easy. Of course if you try to attack in a place where they actually do have armies, they are gonna put up quite a fight.

[wermez]

I use control f_factionname cheat each time I start the great war; in that way I can muster great armies on both sides, plan an ambushes in woody hills into which invading armies get, split my campaign into few vanguard/rearguard cavalry/psiloi duels and Alesia-type sieges. When bloodshed is over I usually send an diplomat and make peace; then I give to enemy small amount of tribute each turn to avoid constant warfare. Then I use f_factionname cheat again to lose control of other faction.

Hotseat campaign doubled the amount of awesomeness EB 2 had before, I only regret that missions still wont work. I hope that in year 2020. I will start brand new campaign in order to recreate real history events till the end of time period. How can I recreate Servile war? Probably by sending Sweboz FM into Italy and recruiting Samnites, Gauls, Greeks and cheap fodder I can find there.

[Nightsh4de]

Multiple small stacks on a single front is a strategy I use but in Empire TW to simulate corps converging on the battlefied (mraching to the sounds of the guns). But I don´t think it works well with M2TW due to the range you need to be in to reinforce, If I´m not mistaken, you need to be right beside the stack that is being attacked (ie. in one of the 8 surrounding tiles), so you can´t cover a front with multiple stacks very well.

I do sometimes detach cavalry and place them beside me to form a cork at the end of a bottleneck, but theres a risk they go rebel if a FM is not with them right?

So as you gather, I put a FM in that cav stack, but then you´re vulnerable to assassins unless you have plenty of spies to go around for protection.

As for army composition, yes its far cooler to tailor stacks to missions. I think it helps the economy too. Right now my plan for homeland defence is large stacks full of el cheapo troops to outnumber and whittle down key enemy assault units so when the enemy does get to the siege, he will be lacking his greatest assets. I have a suspcion though that AI may just bypass a garrisoned city for an easier target, but come to think of it, multiple el cheapo stacks give me options to reinforce more potential targets. I also think that since every city has access to cheapo troops, reinforcing defensive stacks should be very easy - i.e. the idea is to win by attrition because the enemy can´t reinforce as easily as I can. I´ll try it out see what happens.

It just ocurred to me I may not even need a FM in a defensive stack, but I don´t want them going rebel on me.... any ideas?

For offense, I think a single stack of elite, hard and fast units. Perhaps not even a full stack (economy of force, and of pocket lol). We can recruit mercs on the move to fill out casualties or fill out battlefield roles that we might need when invading a particular enemy.

[grok]

My favorite strat: scope out the enemy cities you want to take first. The outlying towns are rarely fully garrisoned. Create a few stacks- one a full, experienced stack led by a quality general, and two newer stacks at 50-70% strength. Attack from two or three directions, dedicating your smaller stacks to taking, sacking- you can get 15000 minai with a few sackings- and garrisoning cities and your larger stack to finding enemy armies and destroying them, crippling their ability to attack you. When your losses mount, use your fresh city garrisons and sack-cash to recruit mercenaries and combine units, keeping your armies at full strength.

Don't worry about a full stack off the bat- just recruit a handful of mercs the turn of your offensive. Far less money per turn spent that way.

Be aggresive, the AI can't handle your well-coordinated and efficient attacks, and if you turtle, they'll just continually send huge armies your way from which you can never recover your losses.

[Tuuvi]

Having more than one army on a war-front is surely making the game much easier, given the AI rarely co-ordinates with multiple stacks in response?

Isn't the whole point of strategy to make it easier to defeat your opponent? I really wish Total War had a more robust AI, I'd rather spend my play time coming up with strategies to defeat a strong opponent than I would trying to make sure the enemy doesn't get beaten too easily.

[Dayve]

I'm with Quintus - I never invade an enemy with more than 1 all-purpose army. If that means my invasion grinds to a halt for 2-years while I besiege a heavily defended city, so be it.

Game is easy enough already, it'd just feel like cheating if I invaded an enemy WW2 style with multiple army groups + smaller armies following behind for mop-up duties.

[QuintusSertorius]

Isn't the whole point of strategy to make it easier to defeat your opponent? I really wish Total War had a more robust AI, I'd rather spend my play time coming up with strategies to defeat a strong opponent than I would trying to make sure the enemy doesn't get beaten too easily.

You're exploiting the AI's known lack of co-ordination or consistency. The game isn't so hard that you need to bum rush them with multiple stacks, and you get much more interesting battles using just one (not even full) stack to clear an area for invasion.

[Tuuvi]

I don't use multiple armies to invade, I'm a 1-stack man myself. I just wish the AI was harder to beat and less easy to exploit, that's all. Imagine how much more fun the game would be if the AI was capable of responding to whatever strategies you came up with to defeat it.

[Dayve]

I don't use multiple armies to invade, I'm a 1-stack man myself. I just wish the AI was harder to beat and less easy to exploit, that's all. Imagine how much more fun the game would be if the AI was capable of responding to whatever strategies you came up with to defeat it.

They couldn't even fix the AI in Rome 2, and they had the biggest budget of any TW game for Rome 2. That's why they made it so all armies have to have a general in them in Rome 2 - they couldn't make the AI always have a general in its armies lol. It's also why they allowed armies to magically turn in to boats... they couldn't make the AI smart enough to embark/disembark ships.

And they just set the AI to detect unprotected cities in the rear of your empire and sail troops to attack them.

[James the Red]

I generally don't like micromanaging reinforcements from my homelands, preferring instead to hire locals from my recently taken cities and mercenaries. The siege battle army would double as a 'replacement force' for my field army.

So one stack quickly gets losses and becomes not very good at taking new cities or fighting in the field, thats were replacements come in. So instead of bring new guys from the homeland, I'm having a reserve force of replacements that I can use to replace my losses. Its not that I'm using multiple full stacks to attack the AI in different directions or converging on single AI stacks and overwhelming them with numbers. If my siege army isn't laying siege or garrisoning a taken city, its hanging out in the background, preferably hiding in the woods.

I don't think thats exploiting the AI too much.

[Dayve]

Hire mercenaries to replace losses. I do this a lot as the Romans. My Hastati and whatever allied troops are on the front-line flanks (so Samnite Spearmen) take the brunt of casualties. Principes take only a handful and Triarii take basically none. Cavalry take some losses too.

So mercenaries are perfect as hastati/cavalry replacements. I'm quite fond of those Uisusparos Kingetoi fellas, or even good old Hoplites, as Hastati replacements. After capturing a city I usually ship some troops to it by boat for garrison duties.

[myarta]

I prefer the campaign to the battles greatly, but I also get frustrated with grand strategy games that NEVER let you fight the battles if you're in a pinch or bored and want a change-up (I'm looking at you, Crusader Kings 2 / EU IV). So what I generally do is run sieges to their limit. This gives me a chance of not having to fight the battle at all, which is convenient for me since the basic strategy for a siege battle tends to get a little redundant by the 35th one in a campaign. Also, if I do fight them, they have suffered losses from starvation first so the battle is a little easier, and there's a chance if I focus on their general they will go into a mass rout that brings up the glorious Continue/End battle button that lets me get back to managing my Cursus (long u for plural) Honorum, provincial governors terms (a noble occupation for any Propraetor!), building upgrades, etc. The downside to not rushing is the -1000 Mnai per turn devastation around the city from the siege that can take many turns to go away, costing perhaps as much as 10k or more over the lifetime of it vs doing a wall assault on the next turn, or bringing siege equipment with me and doing an instant assault. So I feel that justifies my reduced casualties since it hits me in the pocketbook a bit which helps keep money more balanced mid-game.

If like me you prefer to run sieges to their full length, I do indeed do what James the Red was suggesting: put armies that are more capable on the defensive in charge of the sieges while a better-tier field army roams to swat away enemy stacks from disrupting the sieges.

Also as general advice: When I do fight battles, I tend to keep my most elite factional troops in the very rear. Sometimes they offer an area bonus of morale to the poor sods in front of them. I only commit them when the situation is dire. As the empire grows and it gets harder to send fresh troops from the core regions, the particular nature of the poor sods in front of them tends to change, pulled as others have said from the mercenary pool to replace losses, or from local recruitment if that's available (e.g. it's not for Roman provinces until Marian).

[Boriak]

I tend to have a single invading army but have reserve units standing by in forts to the rear. Reserve units tend to be the front line units as I expect them to take the brunt of the casualties. When the battlefield units lose numbers, I will merge them into a single unit, bring the reserves in, leave the remains behind in forts as the army marches on. These remnants of units then serve to plug in the gaps of the frontline forces.

If the invading army faces a field battle, cavalry will be present but I will pull the assault units out. If the army is about to siege, I will pull cavalry out and replace it with assault units - these are usually the ones that scale the walls.

Also: I always use plenty of spies to discover hidden armies that might jump on my army as it begins the siege.

[Funkmaster Rick]

Ship-based, ballista-launched hang-glider assault infantry.

[Boriak]

Ship-based, ballista-launched hang-glider assault infantry.

That's Rome II, I believe.