Infantry

[Dhepee]

The Cavalry thread got me to thinking. Is it possible to win consistently with just infantry? Obviously certain types of battles are winnable with just infantry, but what if you didn't use a single mounted unit, how would you do?

I've tried it and it actually makes battles a little tougher at first, but once you get the hang of it and the right unit mix you actually seem to do a little better in terms of percentage of a unit lost. I'm using Gothic Foot Knights, Archers, and SP. You are forced to make the army move as a cohesive whole, or they get cut up, but they will absolutely maul their opponents if you keep them together.

[Hetman_Koronny]

*bows*

JHI, nuff said http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I have tried infantry only armies. It is tougher when you're the attacker, for defending is much more natural with infantry. On the other hand you won't catch many prisoners after you finally rout the enemies. That can be a drawback, especially when enemy general would make a good prisoner.

If I was to play with some per cents my average army consists of infantry in 80% (out of what 30 sometimes 40% is made of ranged units). The rest are mounted units. I very seldom use artilery.

*bows*

[LordChance]

I have played a few early games with nearly only infantry and it worked...TURKS are in my eyes the masters of this strategy their fanatic bowmen (is it futuwas) and saracens are a great core and a cheep one...Also in late the Janisaries are amongst the best infantry...

However infantry armies are about mass...not finesse and that makes the games a little boring...not always but mostly...and as above said its all about archers (preferably arbalest)

[DeadRunner]

i Think it is possible to win only with infantary m8

but is better you ask to high tactians

[Dhepee]

I don't agree that a mass of infantry takes the finesse away from the game anymore than cavalry does. I've spent a lot of time working on a tactic that involves splitting the enemy line in two, using a combination of missiles and rush strategies. .Splitting the Line (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=10845) I have found that for that tactic to work I need large well discipline units, such as pikes or swabian swordsmen or gothic foot knights. The more powerful cavalry units tend to be too quick to charge without orders and are also smaller in size and more vulnerable to flanking. Too many times I have had a cavalry unit get out of formation or get surrounded. The infantry units are much more suited to this tactic and if you can surround your enemy you can destroy them in detail.
I have also found that with a slowly advancing line of infantry, that as you get closer to the enemy two things happen.

1) Their archers usually move to the first rank and start firing on you, but that's okay, their fire is too scattered to do any damage and you can use massed volleys to drive them back. Once you get too close to them they skirmish back through their line and it takes them awhile to get reorganized and they disrupt the enemy defenders; making your attack more effective.

2) At some point a unit of enemy cavalry will make an ill-considered early attack on your line. You can catch them with your spearmen and hit them on the flank with a melee unit, it usually sends them running, and the enemy takes a morale hit. Then just pull your units back into the line.

Both work to disrupt the enemy and soften them up for your attack, especially if you use the missile tactics discussed in the thread that I already linked to.

One more thing that i forgot, if you use a sorted double line the archers will be in the center and you will have a very long line. Both of your extremities, in most cases, will be farther out than your enemy's flanks, if you turn a large unit, 120 or 200 men, inward so that your line encloses the enemy like this |***|, the *'s being the enemy

(the formatting is a little off, your lines and flanks should not have the gap) you can wrap them up. If you use cavalry the actual unit sizes may be too small to effectively wrap up the enemy.

[Cebei]

If you are fighting against an infantry army, of course you can win. But if the enemy has mainly horse archers, then it is not quite possible to win with only foot soldiers. Imagine an army with JHI+JI or SarInf+Futuwwas against an army of faris, TurcHorse, Boyars, SipahisOTP.

Even if you win the battle it will probably result because of a tactical withdrawal by the enemy, after peppering yourtroops for an hour leaving you with hundreds of casualties. Guess what will happen next turn http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Hamburglar]

I wouldn't care if my enemy came at me with horse archers. Foot archers rip horse archers to shreds, and foot archers are a LOT cheaper.

I never really restrict myself in campaign games, but for the most part I'd say my armies are very heavily infantry based unless I'm playing as the Muslims or the Russians/Novgorod. Even as the Muslims I always have a ton of infantry though.


I usually rely on mostly melee infantry. As Catholics I never buy any missile troops unless they are Longbowmen, mercs, or regional missile troops like Bulgarians or something. Going out there with like 16 melee infantry units is actually very powerful. You charge their lines with all your spears and then flank with all your sword type guys and you can usually eradicate them.

The AI always uses a lot of archers and those archers are just meat if you charge straight at the enemy. They can fire a couple volleys (maybe 2 if they're arbs or xbows) and then they have to engage hand to hand.

I find it 10x easier to go with infantry based armies than cavalry based armies.

[icebrain]

I very rarely build any cavalry. When I do have it for a battle, I tend to use them either for surgical strikes (run in, hit some archers, drop back, repeat), as scouts, or to take out arty.

My armies are generally 11-12 foot units (balance depends on what I'm going against, and whether I'm defending or attacking) and the remainder archers/arbs and my general. If I bring cav, it's usually just one or two units, and I almost never use them on defense.

I've found that a very effective defensive tactic is to find a hill and make a half-ellipse with spear and hth units (chivalric sergeants/maa work best). Keep one or two hth units in the rear, along with your general, and string missile units out in single-person rows.

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg947h/Image4.jpg

Often, the enemy will just be stupid and sit around eating arrows (like the AI can't seem to figure out where to hit the line). It works even better if you're right up against the back of the map, because then when you withdraw spent missile units, replacements come in quickly. The goalie unit is there to go out and hit anything that tries to get around your flank (which doesn't often happen). Just send them out until said attacking unit runs away, then pull them back in.

Sometimes, a horse archer unit or similar can manage to work in behind the enemy and fire with impunity. Stupid AI.

[Marshal Murat]

I try with calvary sometimes, like the dimountable ones, I split half cavarly and foot. I use the calvary to get a the flanks (Hellenic) and the dismounts as an anvil. If I launch the cavalry against the enemy archers to early, the enemy rushs in his main foot units.
With infantry though, I usually play the Byzantines, thier army is well rounded, including the foot warriors. An avarage army is Byz infantry, some spear/peasents, and some Trebzoind archers. This works good against catholics, but with Turks, I have to use, Kats, Pronial Alligoni, Byz Cavalry, and Lancers. Also the Byz armies, I sometimes include an odd Slavic Warrior or so.

[Cebei]

Quote[/b] ]I wouldn't care if my enemy came at me with horse archers. Foot archers rip horse archers to shreds, and foot archers are a LOT cheaper.

Depends on which foot archer and horse archer you are using. Any shortbow infantry can not defeat turcoman horse very easily (horse archers have range bonus as they are firing from a higher level=horse) and always have the threat of being flanked by quicker cavalry. You are right however in -say- longbowmen VS simple horse archer.

Anyway, duty of horse archers is not winning a battle. They should be used in strategic retreat tactics (similar to RUssian Cossack tactics=attrition). If horse archers are being kicked by foot soldiers, then there is something wrong.

[Marshal Murat]

Horse archers are used for two things, Flanking and peppering the enemy with fire, or chraging down fleeing enemy units, or charging archers.

[Degtyarev14.5]

Quote[/b] (Marshal Murat @ Oct. 10 2003,11:16)]Horse archers are used for two things,

Flanking and peppering the enemy with fire,

or chraging down fleeing enemy units,

or charging archers.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

A.

No offence, I'm just razzin' ya.

[Anti-christ]

once when i wanted to try my horsearchers in melee, i charged 100 spearmen. and judge my surprice, they kicked ass. they charged like ten guys and then just kept on kikcing ass. they were both on 1 in valour and no weapon and armor upgrades. i tried it later and they won again... i wonder what they did to those poor spearmen...

[ChaosDrake]

against catholic armys its a good way to use much infantry units you win the most time with them but against orthodox, muslim and the golden horde you get massacred by their nasty horse archers k you can win against them but you got to much casualties its not worth to fight against them with pure infantry armys

my favorite army against the catholics, muslims and the orthodox(early era) is like this:
2 cav (1 heavy and 1 medium sometimes only heavy)
4 archer units
2 spearman units
4 feudal soldiers units
3 armor piercing units
and at least the general is always a cav unit( most time Royal knights)

you can crush every army with them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif when you use the same tactic like me send out the archers in skirmish mode let them run behind them the infantry frontal attack with spearmen and the feudal soldiers slow forward, bring the rest of the inf at the left or right flank let them run fast forward and the cav at the other side fast forward when the inf crush on the enemy army start to surround them with the units on your flank and attack from behind, thats it

but my greatest problem are the golden horde my casualties are to great against them and then i have use a pure cav army against them and voila they run this little skirmishers hehe it works fine this armmy consist out of this unit:
11 heavy cav(includes general unit) and 5 medium cav

but when they attack with 2 or more stacks of armys you got a problem to hold them off the only way i see is to withdraw from the battlefield after you have stopped the first wave and reinforce them every round with new cav units( dont use your best general i take a general with 4 or 5 stars with bad attributes)

if someone not understand this hehe me too im confused this is not my language http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Marshal Murat]

Usually I chose Byz, and regular army is
2-5 Byz Inf.
1-2 Trebzoind Archers
1-3 Kats
2-4 spearmen

The Muslims usually have the advantage with horse archers, but in fighting Catholics, early, it its easy with the Byz Infantry, they are multi purpose (escpecially with the javelins) hehehehehe. The golden Horde is easy to defeat, if you have lots of cavalry, and some horse defeating foot soldiers, to take care of heavies and the mongol infatry.

[ChaosDrake]

yes the byz are great in the early era unstoppable, i like them too hehe i dont play all factions normally i play the english, HRE, Byz and the danish only, i like the danish since viking invasion
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif i love the jotumvikings uhm have forgotten how the correct name is lol

oh and something off topic I WANT A MULTIPLAYER MODE

let us make a petition to CA that they implement a multiplayer mode on the strategy map then i think it would be the greatest game ever made