Tips and Tricks - from Experienced players

[Selerz]

If there’s any tips and tricks players know of that’s useful and that people might not now of I would be grateful if they could share it here. It could be anything from a specific formation to a good unit combination to a strategy for a specific faction. Easterggs, Medieval II engine related things and anything really that’s useful.

For instance I recently learned that it’s possible to merge units by dragging a unit card over another unit in the same stack and it proved higly useable. You can zoom in on the radar of the battle map for some extra flavor and that building mines early is a great way to boost your economy. Attacking settlements from all directions in battle to trap the enemy is a great tactic to use.

I also learned it’s good to have melee Generals in the frontline behind some trash units since they’re usually very powerful and replenish fast while the trash unit takes the main aggro; It’s just that you need to keep an eye on your general by double clicking his unit card so he doesn’t get cornered and killed. Stacking units in defensive checkpoints like Cair Andros and Osgiliath is a great way to ease defending and that you can litterally starve out a province to surrender.

All these things and more might not be the first you notice when you’re new to this mod or Medieval II so if you have more of these tips please share it here.

[Shield]

Ctrl+A , press M. Will merge your units.
Attack units from behind for maximum damage.
Having units nearby, keeps the troops morale high.

In battles, save some of your ammo and after the infantry is engaged, flank with archers and shoot in flank/back the enemy infantry.

Guard mode: First line will fight, the rest of the soldiers will wait and hold the position.
Disable Guard mode: Soldiers push and all try to fight.

In battle, group+ungroup to arrange soldiers.
If you grouped soldiers, you can use predefined formations, or to activate AI support.
Ai support is good when enemy is everywhere and you have to chase them down (after you won the battle but want to keep chasing the enemy soldiers).

When the general dies, to my knowledge, the Maximum Morale of the soldiers reduces greatly. (so they will break faster)

Even if you have more generals in the army, the only one that counts is the 1st icon.

When fighting elephants, trolls, giant creatures, use loose formation. This way less of your soldiers will be hurt.

[Lord_Shaper]

Just off the top of my head and with 1500+ hours of Med2 under my belt...

Shieldwall is an insanely good ability. It greatly condenses a units formation while increasing (possibly even doubling) their mass stat. This means you can run your unit into an enemy, they order them to attack where they will promptly force their way forward, then surround and slaughter the enemy for few casualties. It works particularly well if you can 2v1, using higher level units you will take practically no casualties. This tactic also largely negates both the pike and halberd animations, and because the unit takes up less space it can sometimes be useful to minimise arrow casualties. I've found it very useful when attacking a breach or stopping the AI when it does its annoying 'mass-push-forward' in a siege battle.

You can issue consecutive commands in a battle by holding the SHIFT key. I find it most useful when commanding cavalry, you can line up a charge better by ordering the cavalry to move to a spot in front of the enemy then ordering the charge. Its also easier when chasing down routing troops as you can order them after multiple troops.

Just on top of what Shield said re: grouping units, if you group your entire army together, you can adjust its position while keeping the entire formation the same.

Halberds and pikes move much faster with spearwall turned off.

For my top armies I'll make sure they have an ordered structure, usually as follows- *General+same type unit* *Infantry in terms of seniority**Archers in terms of seniority* *Siege* *Cavalry*. This might just be my own idiosyncrasy but I find this makes controlling them much easier and it also looks nice.

In terms of army composition I would say you want to get to a point when you're planning out and building your armies to specific purposes. Broadly speaking, in most of my campaigns I would look to build one of two types, 'battle' armies and 'siege' armies. The former is designed to kill as many enemies as possible on the field; the latter to take settlements. Battle armies are going to play to a factions strengths (Elves- mass archers/mixed, Dwarves- mass infantry/catapult, Humans- mixed arms etc), also if possible I would always try to have at least two cav units in the mix unless your faction really sucks with cav. Siege armies are all about heavy infantry, siege and maybe a small ranged contingent.

[Morifea]

1. Learn how to use Cavalry. Its your greatest Asset againtst the AI and a true Force Multiplier.
2. If you have selected a group of Archers and right-click on a enemy, the archers will target different units and not only the unit you right-clicked.
3. If you put Archers in Guard mode and give them an attack command, they will stop shooting when the enemy unit is out of Range. If not in Guard mode, they will follow the unit until it is in Range again and resume shooting on it.
4. Always use the Battletimer, in case the AI derps out during a Siege.
5. Be Mobile. Keep moving on the Battlemap and try to outmaneuver the AI. You have 45 minutes per Battle, use them.
6. Be prudent with the positioning on the Campaignmap. If your troops are on a hill on the Campaignmap, they will most times start the Battle on higher ground..... You should always have the high ground, otherwise you`re in grave Danger of losing your Legs

[Oneru]

1. When moving units around on the battle map, press and hold Spacebar to see where they will position themselves (yellow dots will appear).
2. Be sure to check the Faction Overviews on Arachir's youtube-channel to get basic information and tips & tricks on all factions.

Will think on it and might add more later.

[Frotzy]

1. Cavarly is seriously strong, and maybe not as OP in DAC as in other mods, still really really strong so trying to keep cavarly superiority for hammer and anvil tactics in every battle is a really solid strategy.
2. Grapeshot for the dwarven catapult against infantry should always be used over its default rocks. Seriously, its really really strong. Be mindful of friendly fire however.
3. If you want to besiege a settlement but you can only barely make it, always let your general go first, besiege it, and then merge the army with him. If you just pull the whole army at once you have to wait one turn to be able to besiege it.
4. When facing Mumakil, Balrogs or even Sauron, always use artillery, preferably ballistas, and loads of javelines.
5. If you play as Gondor and an invasion is called on Minas Tirith, you can not lose it under any circumstance. It'll seriously mess up your economy, troop production and frontline. To not lose it, don't bother with the gate and wall. If you have artillery or loads of archers, defend the slope on the way up to the second layer. Here you can place artillery and archers which will rack up some serious kills, and you get a nice chokepoint.
6. Another Gondor tip - rush Minas Morgul as quickly as possible. With artillerly, you can make a U formation around the gate, place catapults right behind your units and have at it. I've got upwards of 1500 kills with only one catapult this way. Plus you get some nice money, troop production center and Ithilien becomes more easily defendable.
7. As a rule of thumb - evil nations are generally better in open fields and good nations in chokepoints due to the good nations being more to quality and evil to quantity. Keep this in mind when playing, and if you're a good faction - especially N. Dunedain or the Elves, make sure to not get flanked by the numbers of your enemies.
8. If you need loads of money quick, take a settlement that you don't intend on keeping, destroy every single building and then try to sell it to the AI for 30k. They'll probaly decline, but keep lowering it in incriments of 2k or 3k, and eventually they'll accept. This'll get you somewhere between 15 - 25k.

[Gogosa]

1. When building buildings you can check on "show settlement details" how much gold you will get, cultural unrest etc. with that building when it's finished.
2. By clicking on enemy army on campaign map you can see how far they can go in next turn.
3. If you merge experienced unit with one without experience , it may lose some of experience.
4. Forts will provide free upkeep for up to 4 units.
5. Use spies!

[Lord Auerode]

On the campaign map:
- know your faction's strength:
trash vs. elite
well rounded roster vs. specialised roster
siege experts vs. experts in open battles;
and know how to utilize them
- don't spread to thin
secure regions you want to conquer and wait till you have the public order under control;
if you are not sure wether you can hold a region, just raid it and destroy every building in there for money;
always make sure you have reinforcing units following your armies
- knowledge is power
use spies and watchtowers to get rid of the fog of war in both your and your neigbour's territories
- wisdom is power
learn to utilize the auto-resolve, it can give very bad estimations of the actual balance of power
- power is power
it never hurts to outclass/outnumber an enemy massively in a battle, especially if you are bad ad fighting at the battle map (the battle might be boring, though)
remember you can have more than one army on the field
weaker neighbours are very hesistant to attack you - and can do little against you if you attack
- retreat is an option
you can tell your units on the battle map to leave the battlefield by clicking on the white flag
this will technically be a defeat, but if you lost no one and fired every arrow you had, there is a good chance it actually isn't, just come back next round with full quivers

on the battle map:
- know the units
which tiers exists (militia, pre-barrack mainstream, after-barrack mainstream, elites, ubers) and how to get them
which types exist (e.g. archers, sword'n board, shock infantry, light cavlry...) and against which types / in which situation they excel (or fail)
- use the knowledge
try to use units against enemies they easily can defeat
- the pawn
consider sacrificing cheap units so they occupy enemy units/alow your valuable troops to retreat/ let the enemies waste their arrows on them
- retreat is an option
you don't have to destroy the enemies, you only have to destroy their morale

[Sentient Tree]

-If your general is in your frontline, slant them back to the left behind another unit to keep your general out of combat. Never put your general on the left flank against cavalry.
-Base your battle strategy on your opponents army composition. If they have no arrows set-up defensively on a hill. If they have lots of cavalry stay in a close formation. If they're Khand, hide in a city or fort as they are a beast in open fields.

[Sir Matthias]

As someone who has played both dac and med 2 I would say(1000+ hours), don't use much cav in the early game, always prioritize recruitment in this order for most factions, meeting hall (trash troops), archery range, barracks, then stables. In dac cav is nowhere near as OP as in med 2 so I find archers to be the best tool when playing dac because they have a lot more potential damage to deal out. I recommend having a couple cav in the late-game and mid-game but not much in the early game because cav is really expensive and when dealing with infantry it gets very situational because of shieldwall. A lot of times when you hear about cav's glory it will be of a general's unit or the best, but mid and early tier cav is hard to use given the large amounts of shield wall and spears.

[Vifarc]

if you are not sure wether you can hold a region, just raid it and destroy every building in there for money

Playing Lorien, I never do this, nor I never kill civilians when I conquier a setlement.

- retreat is an option
you can tell your units on the battle map to leave the battlefield by clicking on the white flag
this will technically be a defeat, but if you lost no one and fired every arrow you had, there is a good chance it actually isn't, just come back next round with full quivers
you don't have to destroy the enemies, you only have to destroy their morale

When you harass a stack, beware not including fixed morale units, and you may prefer not including general, as he will have a defeat in his career.
Harassing can be usefull to randomly diminish quantitatively an enemy stack, but it's better if you can aim and destroy strategical units, so next try will be far easier or the good destroying attack.

[Selerz]

I’ve always wondered if it’s possible to equip archers with melee weapons or do you have to wait until their arrows run out because sometimes archers get attacked by a melee unit and they just try to run away and get killed instead of fighting back and what does Skirmish mode do?

[Danger Close]

If you hold Alt while clicking on a unit to attack then your archers will pull out their melee weapons and fight. As for your other question, skirmish mode makes archers run away when an enemy unit is close to them.

[Shield]

Armor piercing ignores 1/2 of enemy armor.

There are 3 types of armor:

1) General Armor which defends against ALL damage.
2) Chest Armor which defends only from melee damage.
3) Shield Armor which defends from ALL damage (100%) from front and (50%) from flank.

Area damage = hits more enemies at once.

In regard of charge, based on my observation:

Charge adds to your weapon damage on contact.
If you counter-charge, the unit with the greater charge will deal you damage = (weapon attack+charge -(the other unit weapon attack +its charge))

[Ngugi]

2) Chest Armor which defends only from melee damage.

By this is meant the Defence Skill, for the record.


Which leads me to note that just as a player want to use Armour Piecing units ("Effective Against Armour") against enemies with high armour value, it is as a thumb of rule a good alternative to deploy units who rely on Defence Skill against hostile AP units, and save your heavy units for other fights if you might. This because the enemy will not have as much advantage from their AP against an opponent that do not rely on Armour.

[Lord Auerode]

Playing Lorien, I never do this, nor I never kill civilians when I conquier a setlement.

I assume this is for roleplaying reasons? That is fine but not really what the thread is for. From a gameplay perspective it's a good thing to do.
And with the ridiculous pop growth the AI gets, I had situations where I was forced to kill everyone simply because any other options would have resulted in rebellions every 5 turns or so due to overpopulation.

When you harass a stack, beware not including fixed morale units, and you may prefer not including general, as he will have a defeat in his career.
Harassing can be usefull to randomly diminish quantitatively an enemy stack, but it's better if you can aim and destroy strategical units, so next try will be far easier or the good destroying attack.

Fully agree here.

[Shield]

"When you harass a stack, beware not including fixed morale units"

Why? Is "fixed morale" bad?
When you harass a stack, beware not including fixed morale unitsWhen you harass a stack, beware not including fixed morale units""When you harass a stack, beware not including fixed morale units

[Sir Matthias]

If you have a locked morale unit they will not be able to retreat.

[Ngugi]

Worry not, while units with the lock_morale attribute will not break and flee in battle due to enemy action, they can be ordered to retreat (as long as the army is allowed to; has not retreated before the same turn)

[Multicolored]

You can hold off annoying spam stacks from Mordor by just sieging east osgiliah and cair andros forever. Break siege and restart siege every several turns. I've done this with isengard so I could fight on my many other fronts, and we know how crazy Mordor stack spam gets.

Beware that castles that have been in enemy hands for a long time will have a huge population that you will never be able to keep down , even with a full stack. Save yourself the headache and execute them, for surely they will rebel and force you to take them over again. Towns are not as big a deal since you can turn tax down.