French Battle Tactics?

[soulspr]

Historical or not, I am wondering on how to use a French army in MTWII correctly, I have basically been using my heavy cavalry to charge the middle of an enemies army in most cases, and flank with heavy infantry.

[parvus]

mm u should draw out the enemy, and use ur missile units to soften them up. then u should charge ur heavy infantry against the enemy infantry to engage them in combat. thus u get ur general and at least 2 other cavalry squads (preferably knights, mounted seargents suck) to the back of the enemy. then charge on the backs of the enemy. this should rly crush enemy moral. whenever u can, use forests for ambushing as much as possible
i hoped that helped!

[Ippius]

French are predominantly late game and so once u reach late game in the campaign they pretty much pwn. They have bar far the most heavily armoured units in the game. The most heavily armoured longbowman (who doubles up as one of the best combat infantry in the game-Scots Guard), crossbowman (Aventuriers), knights (Lancers) and militia cavalry (gendarmes) usually u want a predominantly cavalry and missile army. Shower the enemy with missiles and flatten the rest with the knights.

[Greyco]

The best strategy always depends on the terrain.

Example: (one of my prefered tactics)

You've got open grounds with some bushes on your left flank. This is perfect for hiding your cavalry in to suprise the enemy.
In such cases I leave my left wing appearing weak with my general unprotected. He looks like an easy target and your opponents are eager to send loads of their cavalry in to finish him of quick.
So put some spear units near your general and as the enemy rushes your flank pinch them down there. Now you can make a swing with your cavalry that was hidden in the bushes and hit their cavalry hard in their flank and back. If you have loads of cavalry you can send some units behind the enemy lines devasting their misile and artillery troops. After that it's only mopping up the remains.
I've had numerous great victories with that tactic.

But make sure you use a strategy that fits your playing style. I like the French for their fine cavalry, I love a great charge at the enemy's flank. But you could be more a waiting type and love raining arrows on your opponents.

And always try to fight a battle in conditions that are good for you. (Don't go attacking armies in hilly regions while it's snowing; when you're defending try to have those conditions; don't fight in a wooded area when your army depends on missile troops and cavalry; etc)
A victory isn't a victory when it comes with great losses that could have been avoided.
Sometimes

[Smeghead]

France is a good country to play as, because they have good cavalry and cavalry dominates the field (as it should) basically no army in the game can hope to defeat a full stack of heavy cavalry in an open field (except perhaps another likewise full stack army, or one of horse archers)

As france I just build whole armies of feudal knights and attack the enemy in the open... The charge bonus means infantry of any kind are demolished, and I might include a few dismounted knights and siege weapons for breaking open castle doors to allow the horsies in...

Whoever says cavalry charging is bugged and useless just hasn't used them 'em masse'... The more, the merrier for you

[Romanos]

Moved to the Battle Planning

[Ulazlo the Warmonger]

You could always attack up the center with some lancers but one of my preffered tactics is to have some scot's guard, heavy cav, and some infantry(replacable with scot's guard).

First stage is just some arrow fire to eliminate some of the enemy, and disorganize the formation. If they look pretty lose, and weak units then charge then.

If not then either use up all your ammo, then charge their center with infantry or wait for them to charge and just brace for it.

Then just use cavalry charges on the flanks and there are two outcomes usually together. Mass routs and Mass enemy death

[parvus]

nice i must take note of this

[Gorrrrrn]

Been playing a French campaign.

They're a good faction to play, provided you don't upset the Pope too much. (but if you get big enough the other catholic factions are likely to attack you anyway - even if (as in my campaign) the Mongols are taking over the planet (well Poland and Hungary have vanished.)

On the battlefield - assuming you have a balanced army, I adopt the default medieval formation in large scale battles. missiles to fire at enemy, heavy infantry to engage frontally, cavalry to sweep enemy cavalry off the field and attack, missiles isolated from enemy infantry, also to attack any artillery.

Not got to the late period units yet, still using militia cavalry, dismounted knights and swords and peasant archers / crossbow militia. But am getting my first scots guards (tasty) and aventuros - look forward to lancers!

For smaller engagements you can very things.

As people have said -use the terrain to your advantage. against a static enemy use missiles, against a mobile enemy infantry and cavalry.

(and remember to remove the volugiers and similar from their shield wall if you want to move them around quickly.)

Have Fun

[MosMus]

I am more experienced with the english army, however I just started out a campagin with the French, they have really nice cavelry so I would do a front attack with them first then maybe use my archers and finally I would charge with the infantry,

[Mythlacar]

Surrender! I mean uhh...



I personally pepper the enemy with missles then at the last moment flank and charge with calvary, then have some dismounted noble knights mop up whats left

[parvus]

thing is, wat france has as missile cavalry come very late in game.

[Cassy]

Early France is a hammer and anvil army. Their armies are geared towards heavy cavalry and pikemen. Their best tactic is a line of pikemen to engage and bog down the enemy, with heavy infantry protecting the flanks. Then a lot of heavy cavalry to sweep around, charge into the enemy's back and cause a rout.

Mid-France gains more complexity with some very good missile troops, but the basic stragedy stays the same.

Late France has the finest gunpowder and cavalry available, but honestly I am an embarrassingly clumsy commander with gunpowder units.

[Brenil]

I'm currently in the middle period (around 1200) with my French campaign and am so far enjoying it, quite alot.

I'm using the LTC 2.1 mod with the latest Darth's Formation and Battle AI mod and Ultimate AI 1.3 on VH/VH.

So far I've yet to lose a battle (don't re-load unless there's a bug or a really awful battle map, such as ontop of Mount Everst maps), including a 3 to 1 melee in the Holy Land during the first crusade... one of the best battles I've ever had.

Anyway, my strategy in the field is based around massed infantry and precise use of cavalry, along with support fire from archers or crossbowmen.

A typical defending situation (when I'm outnumbered I typically hold ground and let them come to me), I setup my men in the best terrain possible and attempt to put my crossbows on a hill or rise with spearmen guarding the front and heavy infantry or cavalry on the flanks with my general in the rear for morale support. This allows me to react with heavy cavalry quickly, use a buffer of spears to stop any cavalry charge and rain arrows down with almost max accuracy.

The key on how I use cavalry is using them on the flanks purely unless it's a lone infantry squad (non-spearmen), in which case I run over them. Using hit and run tactics works the best most of the time in either case, does the most damage and keeps my men alive the longest.

On attack, it's a little bit more tricky, but I typically setup a line of archers and have them soften up the position while my infantry moves through my archer line and advances under the cover of arrows.

If the enemy have better archers than me (England and Milan typically do), I use my light cavalry and heavy cavalry to pull feints and hit and runs on their archer line while my archers setup and my infantry advance.

Once my infantry engage in melee, my heavy cavalry engage the flanks (or hit the commander with a full cavalry charge. While my light cavalry mill in the back and support the heavy cavalry for pincers (works great against enemy heavy cavalry, engage with mine, then pincer them with the fast moving sergeants) or they run down any units that break to make sure they don't turn around and start fighting again. Also any enemy cavalry that attempts to hit and run me, I slow them down with light cavalry.

I couldn't disagree more with this statement:

mounted seargents suck

Light cavalry is fantastic in all situations (even sieges). Their speed and ability to quickly switch from spears to swords means they're the best at running down anything, be it routing infantry, cavalry, or disrupting archers (what they're really valuable at), they're the only cavalry that can reliably catch horse archers, instead of getting chewed up and lured by them.

Good use of light cavalry is just as devestating as heavy cavalry and it's very easy to get quality veterans from them.

Hope it helps, in my experience a good mix of all the units is the best approach. France is a very strong faction and I haven't even gotten to their speciality yet, which is late game. Mixing units is the most cost effective and in the end reliable way of beating any foe. Also, instead of having one army of knights, you can have several armies of mixed quality units and with practice, experiece. In the end they're cheaper, more widespread, and more reliable than an incrediably expensive single army of nothing but heavy cavalry.

Besides, what do you do with that army when you meet another who are pikemen and armor piercing archers (or gunpowder)?

[Hex Khan]

I've just finished my very first french campaign, and for the early stuff, it is advised you trust in the traditionally boring tactic of spearmen holding the line with knights charging the rear.
the same applies for the high age units, but i tend start using voulge militia men instead since i'm into the phalanx stuff, with the better fuedal knights and repeating the hammer and anvil tactic.
With both early and high era units your main missile should be the crossbow, on the account france doesnt have the great longbow, yet...
for the late era france is fantastic, they have militia pikemen, gendarmes, scots guard and basilisks

i usually have 8 pikemen, 4-6 scots guard, 3-4 gendarmes, 3 basilisks as my traditional french army (leaving 2 spare spaces if i use minimal selection to play with), the hammer and anvil works fantastically well again, however i find having basilisks in the centre flanked by three units of pikemen and scots guard with a gendarmes unit on the flanks and one in the centre is delightfully deceptive, the ai seems to love charging the cannons only to be encircled by the flanks, at least thats what happens against the aztecs, by the time i got that far i bled europe dry and no one was willing to come and play with the might of france.

Though I must confess i'm far from an ordanence commander, more of pike man myself the cannons dont play any major roll except break moral with a few shots fire, mainly included for instantly beseiging cities, never leave home without a basilikfor crumbling great walls.
And i'm utterly useless when using musketeers, though i'm working on that with my spanish campaign, they just tend to fire twice then stand there looking pretty, which is annoying at best...

[Violent Dave]

I'm sorry I gotta say something. When I see the title of this thread on my frequent visits here I think to myself "French battle tatics? You mean the rout?"

Stupid brain, why do you have to be so mean.