Re: The Ashes of Rome- Blood and Steel
I have been discussing strategies (well, mostly droning on and on with an audience) with Beskar AKA Tiaexz AKA he's always going to be known as Beskar so he can just deal with it.
These pertain to the Byzantines in particular, since other than England, they are one of the best archer-based factions.
Horse archer tactics: Skirmisher Cavalry + Reserve foot Dual Army strategy
1) Use two armies. One of them is all cavalry, 80-90% horse archer.
2) Use the second army as a user-controlled reserve force. The AI does not control it. They join the battle when your existing troops are dead or routed or withdrawn voluntarily.
3) Priority: Attack the enemy's cavalry force, harass them and force them to break off from the main force. Whittle them down, mostly from the sides or from behind (easy to do with horse archers, even against moving cavalry targets) and then crash into them with your general to pin them, and crash into them from behind with Byzantine Cavalry (Or lancers, Armenian cavalry, etc) to prevent them from fleeing. They rout very quickly.
4) Assassinate the enemy general with your Byzantine Cavalry/Skythikon. Ignore the rest of the enemy force, stay out of range of their infantry, stay on the move and in spread formation because of their archers.
5) Use your general to harass the enemy skirmishers so they can't take solid aim at your cavalry, they are in flee to safe distance mode, and that takes precedence over firing.
6) When the general is defeated, cavalry beaten, then use all of your horse archers at once to attack from two sides, or from the rear, and hit them at point-blank range. The arrows do more damage with direct shots to the rear of the enemy army, or to the sword-wielding/spear-wielding flank. Avoid front and shield-bearing side of the army.
7) Exhaust your missiles.
8) Voluntary withdraw of all horse archers except for a couple who want to gain experience, and are "fresh" to "warmed up" so they ride faster.
9) Reserve force contains foot archers and defensive infantry (high defense spearmen, infantry with big shields, shieldwall formation, etc)
10) Use foot archers to annihilate the enemy without taking infantry casualties. (SEE ALL-FOOT ARCHER STRATEGY)
11) Force mass rout, mop up the rest with your couple units of fresh horse archer and general.
You should sustain few horse archer casualties, some of which will heal, gain tons of horse archer experience, gain foot archer experience, general experience, and sustain almost zero foot archer, foot infantry deaths. Ratio of deaths of your force to the enemy army should be 1:50 at worst.
Horse archer tactics: 4/8/12 horse archers, no general, no reserves, no other units.
1) Do not deploy as single army. Deploy as four captains, to the north, south, east, and west. User-control all forces on the battlefield.
2) Horse archers deployed first will face the front of the enemy, in skirmish mode and with spread formation/Do not fire automated mode. Be prepared to break off and flee quickly.
3) 3/4 of your force is deployed to the flanks, and needs little maneuvering to completely outflank the enemy.
4) Rear force attacks enemy general/captain, usually deployed to the rear. Flanking cavalry assists with this move if necessary.
5) Flanking forces attack enemy from the sides/rear. Redeploy to the other side if the enemy army changes direction.
6) If the enemy breaks army up into different units chasing your horse archers, lead them on a chase while not firing, have another unit sneak up behind them and fire, then force a rout.
7) Utterly exhaust your arrows.
8) Withdraw from battle with 90% of your force intact.
9) You lose the battle, but cause major losses to the enemy. Follow up next turn. You have more arrows.
How you gain lots of experience with horse archers, at the lowest possible cost to you, without losing units.
All foot archer/1 general army strategy
Copied from my instant messenger to save me time typing.
Infantry archer's weakness: Approach, and melee. Right?
Aren't infantry archers your lightest infantry, and therefore, have the best non-cavalry running speed?
Here's the deployment.
Three rows of archers.
First row: Spread formation. 1/3 of your archers. Your general waits nearby, to the side.
Advantage: Missile troops will not cause much damage, cavalry can be cut off from a formed charge because your general charges them first.
fire against cavalry or general with this force. Wait until the enemy approaches, then turn off fire and retreat as fast as you can towards your second line.
Your general hits anything that can possibly chase them down in time. Anything faster than they can run.
Second line is many paces back
Approximately just inside the range an archer can fire, lets say
so, anyone approaching your first line is now IN RANGE of the second line
you withdraw your first line behind the second line, and keep moving backwards.
Now, your second line "becomes" your first line
and your third line "becomes" your second line.
and your first line withdraws all the way to behind the third line, and becomes the new "third line"
second line: Not spread formation, but in a "long" line formation
this means that more individual archers can fire in a direct path to the enemy, less need for "arc"
this allows you to completely obliterate any additional cavalry or generals in time.
Move your general behind the second line
as the enemy infantry approach, break off the attack and withdraw to the third line
your third line, which became the second line, is already firing on them.
Flaming missiles this time.
No line formation. Spread them out into individual units
they fire from the flanks, without having to move.
and also head on.
So, couple units far left
couple units far right
some dead center
all flaming missiles.
Your general does a formed charge against anything that approaches the third line
your third line archers target any approaching unit, in synchronous targeting.
Demoralize/deplete, move onto next infantry unit
general charges previous unit
your original first and second line archers have already redeployed, and now they fire non-flaming missiles at fastest repeat speed against whatever is the largest bulk of the enemy remaining for maximum death count
When you run out of battlefield to retreat to (and hopefully, you've retreated to higher ground for obvious reasons)
You use your archers (which should be SURPRISINGLY "fresh") as infantry
do a mass infantry charge
engage the enemy, and have your general crash into their rear flank
they have no missile troops or cavalry or general
their infantry is depleted, and exhausted from chasing them across the battlefield
demoralized
your general finishes them.
Your general also gets like 800 kills personally
Gold chevrons
and your archers gain experience
Tank tread strategy
I've also been experimenting with the following completely bizarre setup.
Archer army:
instead of lines, two "columns"
left and right flank, but within range of each other.
general in the middle.
as the enemy approaches, the archers on the part of the column closest to the enemy withdraw to the far side of the same column.
they do not fire directly at the enemy, but at the units approaching the OTHER column
because that way, they are not firing head-on.
they're hitting them from the sides.
which causes more damage.
So the enemy, moving toward your archers, will be under constant fire, from what they consider their flanks.
it is as if they are being forced to run a marathon while under missile fire from the SIDE
and your column is mostly stationary, except for the front "ends" which "crawl" the columns backwards
like tank treads
and your general hits and runs, back and forth
nothing but formed charge, retreat, formed charge
anything attacking him is TOAST from two flank missile fire and formed charge
even if the enemy all attacks one column, the other column just stays where it is, firing on them the whole time.
So, at any given time, there are always stationary archers completely out of melee range
they're always fresh
and can always retreat safely while allied archers prevent people from chasing them
I hope to demonstrate these troop movements in coming updates, and showcase how successful they were in battle.
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Originally Posted by mambaman
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