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svnguyen
12-23-2002, 23:14
I like to hear people suggestions of a good English army.

This is my usually mix, but I always seemed to get routed quick go straight up with me people. For some reason they can't hold their own.

4 Chivalric Knights - General unit is one of them
4 Longbows if attacking/Pavise Arbalesters if defending
4 Order Foot Soldiers
2 Chivalirc MAA
2 Chivalirc Foot Knights

I noticed that in most battles, my Order Foot are usually the first ones to start routing. Any suggestions to fix this up?

Crandaeolon
12-23-2002, 23:43
I'd go lighter on spears, unless ya are facing lots of cav. Also, Chiv Foot Knights are rather slow. If yer using Pavs, that's no problem, but for the attack setup with longbows the Chiv FKs will slow ya down.

With 12-13k, ya could use something like the following:

2 v0 Chiv knights - one of them gen
2 v1-2 Alan Mercs - fast light cav for harassment and counter-harassment
2 v2a1 OR v3 Order Foot, depending on budget
4 v2w1 OR v2a1 OR v3 Chiv MAA, depending on budget and playing style
2 v2+ Feudal Foot Knights or Billmen, depending on budget and situation
4 missile units of choice. Longbows or arbs are both good, but longbows require more micromanagement, as it's not very useful to leave 'em on Fire at Will.

When upgrading stuff, the infantry should usually get the most attention. Valor and armor upgrades keep 'em fighting longer. Usually, it's better to pick valor if ya have the money. OTOH, it's cheap to upgrade missile units, and a couple of valor and/or armor upgrades makes 'em less fragile and thus leaves more room for mistakes and slow reactions. Even the best of players can fall asleep sometimes. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I don't write about actual battlefield tactics right now, but I'll be checking the thread in a few days to see if there's any interest for such a post. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Hope this helps, and good luck

Edit: a typo.

Puzz3D
12-24-2002, 17:00
svnguyen,

I think you're right on the money with that army. Just make sure you put most of the florins into valor upgrades on the infantry. Some armor upgrade of the ranged units helps also. Use the Order Foot in hold formation as a wall which will stand long enough for you to maneuver the other units to advantageous matchups. Any Order Foot which are in a position to attack with advantage should be switched to engage at will. It's not a fast army, but you should be able to stand firmly or attack slowly with that army.

Crandaeolon
12-24-2002, 18:03
Oh yes, Yuuki (Puzz) is absolutely correct. svnguyen, the army ya listed is a nice, balanced army that should be able to handle most situations. I should have mentioned this in my earlier post, but was busy fending off annoying relatives at the time, so apologies for the omission. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I presented an alternative geared towards a different fighting style. It's not really any "better" than yer setup, just different.

Cheetah
12-24-2002, 19:27
Hm, if I were to play the English I would surely pick those nice special units they have. You have already mentioned the longbowmen, Crand mentioned the billmen, and I would like to add the gallowglasses http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif So, based on it here is a modification of your army:

2 chiv knights (general) v0
2 alan merc v1 or v2
3 orderfoot v2
2 billmen v2
4 arbs v0 with armour upgrade
1 longbowmen v1 or v2
2 gallowglasses v2 or v3

IMHO this is a mostly defensive setup but it works well.

Cheetah
12-24-2002, 19:28
Quote[/b] (svnguyen @ Dec. 23 2002,16:14)]I noticed that in most battles, my Order Foot are usually the first ones to start routing. Any suggestions to fix this up?
Nearly forgot abour this ... you should buy at least v2 orderfoot, otherwise they have very low morale.

Puzz3D
12-24-2002, 20:43
svnguyen,

I've seen the gallowglasses do very well in battle, but haven't used them myself. Substituting billmen for chiv foot knight as Cran suggests and gallowglasses for chiv maa as Cheetah suggests would retain the same tactical structure as your standard army with the speed advantage of the billmen over the chiv foot. From there you can make adjustments such as, more ranged/less cav to win the shootout, more swords/less spears to win the infantry fighting or less ranged/more inf with the idea of closing with the enemy quickly. If you expect to face a cav heavy army, I would substitute 2 billmen for the chiv maa and thereby have 8 anti-cav inf in addition to your own cav.

One thing to be aware of is that many inf units can beat the Order Foot. So, if you leave them fighting alone in an unfavorable matchup, they will eventually rout and all of your units in the vicinity will take a morale hit when that happens. Also, it's important that spears face the unit they are fighting otherwise they are going to rout very quickly.

bosdur
02-01-2003, 01:00
Ah English, my current favourite.

I usually field:

2 order foot
2 billmen + 1 billmen general
4 fmaa
3 pav arbalesters
3 chiv knights
1 alan merc cavalry

In my army the strongest would be the fmaa, therefore they are at the center, billmen and order foot form my flanks, to guard against flanking manouvers, or to make enemy cavalry busy. My general will then stay and support collapsing flanks. Nothing too special here compared to a balanced army case just replacing 4 spears into 2 order foot & 2 billmen to fight better against cavalry especially lancers.

LadyAnn
02-01-2003, 02:10
svnguyen,

It is hard to tell you what to change in your army: each one has their own style, and a good army for one may rout consistently in the hand of another, even at similar skill level. Am also assuming this is a High-Era army.

I have noticed that you use the English army without the English-specific units, except for the longbows on attack.

I would take advantage of the gallowglass and billmen for their special abilities:

1. You can replace some of your Ord.Foot. with billmen. For 33% less cost, you have similar unit in billmen with much better anti-cav property (anti-cav bonus of 3/1 vs. 1/4 of the Ord.Foot.) and better melee (2 vs. 0) and slightly better defense (4 vs.3). This makes the billmen a versatile unit: playing the role of flank protectors against Cav (billmen are cav. killer, not ord.foot), but also could put up a good fight against swords like CMAA/FMAA. The 33% less expensive means a weapon or armor upgrade. The drawback is the unit size is only 60. So, there are still needs for a couple of the Ord.Foot. in your army. You may even increase billmen and decrease ord.foot. if you attack. Billmen has same honor as ord.foot., so val2 is minimum, val3 is preferable for both of them.

2. I don't have much success with Chiv.Foot. because they are slow and the unit size is only 40. Chiv.Foot. has armor piercing, so they could be handy against heavily armored units. Although they are cav. killer, they are also slow, so cav. could easily get way from Chiv.Foot. They already have honor of knights (8) and since they are expensive, I would not upgrade valor for them and leave them at val0.
I would use chiv.foot only on defense, because attacking with these guys means you will have to telegraph where you want to attack, or these guys will arrive so late, so tired at the melee to make a difference.

3. I would increase the CMAA among your rank, even at expense of a missile unit or the Chiv.Foot above. You may experiment with using Gallowglass (good charge, good attack, armor piercing, minimal defense and low morale).

4. Replace one of your Chiv.knight with an Alan cav could be handly, especially to harass the enemy's missile units (usually left undefended once the enemy commit their forces), chase enemy's general (unless they use billmen as general http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif ), chase routing cav (Alan cav is fastest).

5. The secret is unequal upgrade. Leave knights and high morale troops at low valor, while upgrade your spears and swords troops to val3, would prevent most of the premature routing you may experience by having high valor knights, leaving no money to upgrade spears and low morale troops. Since you didn't list how you buy your troops, I throw this suggestion in.

6. Consider use longbow on hilly/undulate terrain, pav.arb. on flat, gruadual terrain (instead of defense/attack).

Am mostly repeating what other have told you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Annie

Kongamato
02-01-2003, 07:00
It is good to hear that a worthy English army is being constructed.

I have spent a good deal of time playing 1 on 1 and I have become choleric and irritable at the newbies who play the English. IMO a secret program of the British government known as the Imperial English Education System has succeeded in convincing everyone that the English Longbow is the most superior combat weapon up to the atomic warhead. I have faced many a new guy who brings 6 or more Longbowmen thinking that I will go down like a French Knight. For all the right reasons that has not happened.

Swoosh So
02-01-2003, 13:08
3 Pav arbalisters
4 chiv knights (mounted)
4 knights templar (mounted)
3-4 Order foot
maybe 1 armour oiercing militia seargent or halberdier or an artillery piece.

Check out my replays in the enterance hall the post is newbies peasants and all peeps, the army is german but you get the idea substitute the gothic knights for chiv knights and youll give anyone a good run for their money

http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....;t=5561 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=5561)