Nomadic Culture DLC- out now, free until 10/29

[Sp4]

How do you micro a stack of horse archers? They're ridiculous.

[lars573]

It ain't that hard. Lots of groupings is key.

[Myth]

Micro your cav archers in groups of either 10 or 5, depending on how the batle goes. Don't speed the battle up unless you're confident you won't get into melee. Siege assaults with all cav armies are possible in minor settlements (as Scythia I took several minor settlements guarded by fullstacks with all Armoured HAs in a stack). The enemy is clumped up and you just rain arrows on them while in a cantabrian circle (makes your HAs harder to kill with arrows).

Siege assaults on major settlements with walls and towers... no. Either AR or starve them out.

Also, if the enemy has quality infantry like hoplites, shoot them in the backs. Don't waste arrows, plinking away at hoplon shields and 80 armour.

This guy made a list of videos showing the fastest conquest of the M2TW map. If you don't mind some swear words (OK, a lot of swear words) you can see how to use melee cavalry very effectively. Mind you, the efficacy of cav has been reduced for Rome II to more bearable standards, but still if you charge a phalax from the back it will do the work.

Actually the AI knows how to chain route levy pikemen who don't have adequate cav support on the flanks. It also knows that if it has better skirmish/ranged troops it should stay away and whittle your guys down (happened to me last night as I corner camped with only a few slingers at the back).

[nearchos]

I cant micro also on legendary level, a cav army in battlefield, i gave a try with Parthia patch 3, and was a mess.
Only costly victories at best.

I will try with the suggestions im reading in this thread because a lot of interesting factions are cav oriented.

[Kamakazi]

How do you micro a stack of horse archers? They're ridiculous.

It takes a bit of getting used to. And a lot of on the fly decision making. Horse armies are no joke to the palyer controlling them and to the player fighting them. I never really grouped my cavs all single order. Bit of a glitch keeping them in line with a funky mechanic.

Also myth I should have clarified. Any walled settlements are a no. Minor settlements are an instant win

[Sp4]

The cavalry in M2 was awesome compared to anything in any other TW game. You don't really need some sort of special tactics cause a stack of heavy cav would kill anything that wasn't a stack of elephants.

-E- I also only had a stack of the very first horse archers cause this all happened like 5 turns into the game but they're really crap at doing anything against hoplites especially with no noticeable infantry to keep them stationary and not interested in the horses for a bit. Really if any faction that has hoplites decides to do bad things to you early on, you might as well pack up >_>

[MadKow]

Managing a full AH army is a pain. Somehow on both Medieval TW, one of my favourite factions was the Turks, not only because Janissaries were awesome but also because i could do some nice stuff with horse archers, as long as i had a solid infantry to pin the enemy down. It was a thing of a certain beauty to have the enemy line depleted one unit at a time, attracted by the fire of my ottoman horse archers, only to be surrounded and promptly routed by charges from all side.
This time, the BAI seems to be more prudent, always leaving a spear unit close to their own slingers or archers... Armoured Horse Archers seem to be quite effective in early game though, and easy enough to get to. Also, heavy shot.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Basically saying that its pandering to the fanbase and that they need to fix the game before they put out DLC.

Have tbh mate, I agree with them.

[Sp4]

I need correct myself. I -like- these horse archer armies. I like them because they're different, still roflstomp OP and the AI doesn't know how to deal with them (though honestly, I don't know either, except for more horse archers but maybe pinpoint accurate ballistas protected by heavy spear infantry would do a decent job). I guess the only real downside of these armies is that you can't really hold ground because that's not what they're made for and since the entire faction(s) don't have any other kind of notable, recruitable and usable melee infantry, that's a bit of a handicap.

I started training arts that give them more ammo and less siege attrition losses as soon as I started playing and then ran around with just armoured horse archers (and 3 units of ballista cause they murder tightly packed hoplites, which just tend to eat a lot of ammo otherwise). I also trained my spies towards reducing the amount of time an enemy can hold out during a siege and just decided to starve out every city I come across rather than actually assaulting (unless AR is all the way in my favour) and it's actually quite effective. What's also nice is that you can go into a battle you have absolutely no hope of winning, cause some damage and withdraw safely to repeat that the next turn. It's like another layer of campaign map attrition XD

It does take quite a long time to play these battles though and unless the enemy is another faction with horse archers (which is ridiculously funny to watch), nothing really poses a threat.