"How to Use Horse Archers" in Rome: Total War

[SidGreen]

I can never get horse archers to work for me, but when fighting them I always get 3:1 casualties :(

[ollandosss]

Still, Orda Khan, I'm with you: I want my units to do what I order them to do. Sometimes, I want them to melee even if it is weaker. For instance, I don't want to let a few guys in a routing unit -- including the general -- get away while my guys are drawing and aiming.

That irritates me more than anything: Losing a cataphract, for instance, because the units nearby will not stop firing at an enemy unit that's already routing and that my cataphracts are finishing off.

Again, I want them to do what I ordered them to do -- although that didn't always happen in real life, either.

double clicking for a charge doesn't work on horse archers. But when you hold Alt and click once for attack, they will storm down on any unit and destroy it with their daggers! (supposing the unit consists of archers/peasants or moths.
I too was very frustrated by not being able to chase down routing units in the beginning. But that Alt key is magic :)

[Vincent Butler]

I frankly don't find horse archers very effective against heavy infantry, such as Legionary/Praetorian/Urban cohort, Royal Pikemen, Armoured Hoplites, etc. This might be because I have not used them much, but watching my brother with standard horse archers against Militia Hoplites, from the front they were only moderately effective. Coming from behind works for any missile unit, even slingers. Hmm...cavalry slingers...slingers, especially Rhodian/Balearic, decimate chariots, by the way.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Could it be that you're playing the wrong Horse Archer faction?

The Armenian Cataphract Archers decimate all those heavy infantry and more. My cavalry generals leave one "historic" marker after another on the sands of Libya and Cyrenecia against the hapless Romans with all their fancy Cohorts (played on VH/H).

Slingers? Bah...a bunch of useless stone-chuckers

[Myth]

Could it be that you're playing the wrong Horse Archer faction?

The Armenian Cataphract Archers decimate all those heavy infantry and more. My cavalry generals leave one "historic" marker after another on the sands of Libya and Cyrenecia against the hapless Romans with all their fancy Cohorts (played on VH/H).

Slingers? Bah...a bunch of useless stone-chuckers

If Rome had proper hotseat mode i'd love trying to get the brutii to Marian reforms via an early Carthage conquest and try to contend Egypt and Syria vs you via Pretorian armies.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Bring it.

Romans>>>

[maybe in the fall or this winter...my schedule through the summer isn't leaving me with much time to sleep let alone play video games]

[Vincent Butler]

Never tried Armenia, my brother likes the Cataphract Archers, though they require different tactics, for example, horse archers relied on speed for survival, not necessary with the Cataphract Archers. They are not good for running down routers either. In RTW, slingers weren't that good, except against non-armoured targets. Balearic/Rhodian slingers did better, but still useless against armour. They decimate Spanish units, though. Slingers seem to be a lot better in EB. The cav slingers was a joke, in case someone thinks I am serious. Cav archers would be much better.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Never tried Armenia

You should. They are both fun and challenging, and for all those folks who've been bedeviled by the Egyptian Chariot Archers, this is payback time I wrote a very detailed guide to Armenia (it's on pg 5 of the Armenia guide) and if you ever decide to play them, I highly recommend you read it. Covers everything from unit roster, to temples, to strategy. I think you'd enjoy it

They are not good for running down routers either.

In melee, no they are not. But........keep 'em in the fire-at-will stance and they shoot those cowards in the back while chasing them That's one reason why Chariot Archers rarely get off the battlefield with even a single soldier alive. And besides, I already pointed out THE best unit in the game for chasing routers---Arab Cavalry. In the desert, they will catch anything including routing cavalry units. And you, as Armenia, can recruit them as mercs in two different provinces, one of which has them with an experience chevron to start. My standard cataphract army has at least two units of them, and sometimes four. Not much ever gets off the battlefield with those guys around.

The cav slingers was a joke, in case someone thinks I am serious.

Yep

[Vincent Butler]

So chariots do not destroy the Cataphract Archers like they do normal cav? That is why I believe heavy infantry is the best way to beat Egypt. Counter to archers is cav. Chariots own cav. Counter to chariots is infantry or elephants. Their archers attack the heavy infantry and elephants, trying to make them go amok, though I believe you mentioned that the Armoured Elephants don't run amok very easily. Chariots are not very good, at least not with the AI, if you know how to fight them. Again, I have seen that slingers decimate chariots as well, though the factions I usually play as cannot train them.

And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and felled all the good trees: only in Kirharaseth left they the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers went about it, and smote it. 2 Kings 3:25 KJV

[ReluctantSamurai]

So chariots do not destroy the Cataphract Archers like they do normal cav?

If you are referring to melee combat, no they do not. The Cats are the most heavily armored cavalry in the game, and they take less losses in melee, accordingly. Does this mean I throw my Cats at them recklessly? Most decidedly not. Chariot Archers want an archery duel. If you move a cavalry unit, or any other unit for that matter, towards them, they retreat in skirmish mode. Chariot Archers always lose the archery duel with Cataphract Archers. If I have a pressing need for my CA's somewhere else on the battlefield, I will order them into melee but only after the chariot unit's numbers have been whittled down to 1/2 or less. Otherwise, I keep them in fire-at-will while giving chase and more often than not, the chariot unit is destroyed before I have to make the decision to go over to melee.

That is why I believe heavy infantry is the best way to beat Egypt.

Spoken like someone who doesn't play a horse archer faction. If you wish to beat Egypt with heavy infantry....well good luck with that. Chariot Archers will skirmish to death any infantry unit, or javelin unit that tries to engage them. I know....I've tried it.

Counter to chariots is heavy infantry.

If you are referring to the scythed version, then yes. Once you stop a scythed chariot's mobility, whether by spears or massed sword units, they become dead meat. But......
......the counter to Chariot Archers is....archery. Armenia is very well suited to this because their best archer unit is mounted. The fact that that mounted unit is a cataphract, makes the job a cake-walk. So what do you do if you play a faction that doesn't get Cataphract Archers? As a Roman faction, Archer Auxillia works just fine. As a Greek faction, merc Cretan's work just as well. Never contested Egypt with Germania or Gaul, but I'm quite certain Germania's Chosen Archer, or Gaul's Forester Warband will shred CA's as well or better than AA or Cretan's.

Always deploy the archers to the flanks instead of behind your center units. That's where the CA's come at you (except for perhaps the general's unit) and that's where you "greet" them. As a Roman faction, all of my leftover Principes go to the Middle East after Uncle Marius makes his appearance, and they get deployed in front of the Archer Auxillia to keep the CA's at a distance. If you don't provide a screen, the AI sees this and sends the CA's into melee to rout your unprotected archers. The Principes provide an added benefit with pila volleys if the CA's get too close.

Let me know how well your heavy infantry approach works

[BroskiDerpman]

Egypt and Britannia's chariots wreck anything that isn't a unit with phalanx enabled, or at least cause a huge annoyance

To counter them use combined:

Javelin cavalry

Phalanx units

Elite slingers (the Balearic slingers are best versus chariots)


If versus the scythed chariots just use any archer with flaming arrows to amok them.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Egypt and Britannia's chariots wreck anything that isn't a unit with phalanx enabled

Are we talking about the same game here

Britannia's donkey carts get absolutely demolished by either Germania's Chosen Archer, or Gaul's Forester Warband And either of those archer units have good enough melee stats to go at it hand-to-hand if need be..........

To counter them use combined: Javelin cavalry Phalanx units

When I first started playing the Seleucids, I used this very approach. Militia Cavalry are cheap, and they die by the hundreds because Chariot Archers get a "Parthian Shot". You lose maybe 20-30% of your cavalry unit just giving chase. And don't ever go over to melee unless you are desperate, as your Militia Cav units more than likely get wiped out. It's doable if you go for attrition tactics...Militia Cavalry are cheap (less than 300 denarii, IIRC) and can be produced in one turn. Chariot Archers are much more expensive (haven't played Egypt in so long I've forgotten their actual cost) and take two turns to produce. But this whole approach is tedious and very boring (chasing chariots around the battlefield after you've routed the main army is frustrating, to say the least, as you watch your cavs numbers whittled down by the Parthian Shot) , which is why I was led to try other ways.

Phalanx are totally worthless unless you use them as a screen for your archers.

Elite slingers (the Balearic slingers are best versus chariots)

In RTW, slingers will get cut to pieces because the chariot archers outrange them, and you have to place them in front of your screen or end up shooting your own men in the back. And btw, at higher difficulty settings, you will never get a unit of chariot archers to rout using flame arrows because the AI gets a substantial morale bonus that cannot be overcome by a tactic that might work at lesser settings.

And a detail point here...fighting the scythed version is entirely different than fighting the archer version. And in my experience, an AI-controlled Egypt makes many, many more Chariot Archers than the Scythed Chariot. So yes, stopping the scythed version requires heavy infantry (unless you are playing as Armenia), but stopping the chariot archer requires..........................................archery.

Trust me guys, I've got as much experience fighting the Chariot Archer as anyone who still posts here...and my recommendation is to use archers with an infantry screen in front and deploy them to the flanks. Works every time.

Just curious guys....how would you go about stopping this?

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia03.jpg
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia04.jpg
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia05.jpg

All three of these stacks were lined up against me, plus another off-screen that I should have scrolled out further to get it into the screenie.

There's five Chariot Archers sitting in Jerusalem, there's four more in the partial stack, and seven in the full stack. The off-screen stack had four more, making a total of 20 Chariot Archers in the four stacks facing my lone cataphract army. All four attacked my army, in succession, on the same turn. That's nearly 6000 against my 1046 (VH/H settings). The AI did some unit shuffling between stacks because the first army to hit me was the faction leader's there in Jerusalem and it had 10 of the twenty chariot archers in it.

The result:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia07.jpg

Over 4000 Egyptian casualties including all 20 Chariot Archers.

Still think heavy infantry is the best way to defeat Egypt?

[BroskiDerpman]

Are we talking about the same game here

Britannia's donkey carts get absolutely demolished by either Germania's Chosen Archer, or Gaul's Forester Warband And either of those archer units have good enough melee stats to go at it hand-to-hand if need be..........



When I first started playing the Seleucids, I used this very approach. Militia Cavalry are cheap, and they die by the hundreds because Chariot Archers get a "Parthian Shot". You lose maybe 20-30% of your cavalry unit just giving chase. And don't ever go over to melee unless you are desperate, as your Militia Cav units more than likely get wiped out. It's doable if you go for attrition tactics...Militia Cavalry are cheap (less than 300 denarii, IIRC) and can be produced in one turn. Chariot Archers are much more expensive (haven't played Egypt in so long I've forgotten their actual cost) and take two turns to produce. But this whole approach is tedious and very boring (chasing chariots around the battlefield after you've routed the main army is frustrating, to say the least, as you watch your cavs numbers whittled down by the Parthian Shot) , which is why I was led to try other ways.

Phalanx are totally worthless unless you use them as a screen for your archers.



In RTW, slingers will get cut to pieces because the chariot archers outrange them, and you have to place them in front of your screen or end up shooting your own men in the back. And btw, at higher difficulty settings, you will never get a unit of chariot archers to rout using flame arrows because the AI gets a substantial morale bonus that cannot be overcome by a tactic that might work at lesser settings.

And a detail point here...fighting the scythed version is entirely different than fighting the archer version. And in my experience, an AI-controlled Egypt makes many, many more Chariot Archers than the Scythed Chariot. So yes, stopping the scythed version requires heavy infantry (unless you are playing as Armenia), but stopping the chariot archer requires..........................................archery.

Trust me guys, I've got as much experience fighting the Chariot Archer as anyone who still posts here...and my recommendation is to use archers with an infantry screen in front and deploy them to the flanks. Works every time.

Just curious guys....how would you go about stopping this?

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia03.jpg
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia04.jpg
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia05.jpg

All three of these stacks were lined up against me, plus another off-screen that I should have scrolled out further to get it into the screenie.

There's five Chariot Archers sitting in Jerusalem, there's four more in the partial stack, and seven in the full stack. The off-screen stack had four more, making a total of 20 Chariot Archers in the four stacks facing my lone cataphract army. All four attacked my army, in succession, on the same turn. That's nearly 6000 against my 1046 (VH/H settings). The AI did some unit shuffling between stacks because the first army to hit me was the faction leader's there in Jerusalem and it had 10 of the twenty chariot archers in it.

The result:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Armenia07.jpg

Over 4000 Egyptian casualties including all 20 Chariot Archers.

Still think heavy infantry is the best way to defeat Egypt?

Hmmm I guess it's just me speaking from Rome's vanilla multiplayer. That's why you don't get it probably. Chariots under human player will really wreck you up. That's why people use combined jav cav, slinger fire, and pikes. Chariots get wrecked by pikes. They can't attack a box of pikes and Balearics. Balearics are better versus Egyptian chariots then archers. You use phalanx as meatshield for your missiles and use them in loose formation with phalanx enabled to counter any chariot attempts to get close. The javelin cavalry keep provoking chariots into range of Balearics and there is no way for enemy to attack as you got better infantry.

So generally the deployment looks like missiles screened by loose formation pikes and with javelin cav with support.

For single player many things will work as it's the ai we're speaking about. I never bothered to play vanilla campaign but just went for mods. But versus chariots if you don't have them don't play into their advantage of open field. It may be the ai but it can still do some damage. I would just pike box with lots of missiles, that's a hard counter and the ai is especially dumb so it will attack or you can fool it into doing so.

But even in Singleplayer I just hopped onto a vanilla campaign and I have done the same thing, I screen archers with pikes and have javelin cav in support. Horse archers are even better but many factions don't have them.

So reluctant samurai I think you've misread my post. My previous post described the usage of a missile heavy formation screened by pikes and javelin cavalry.

Also chariots do wreck non pike infantry, even on larger unit size they're still very good anti non pike infantry.

As for the rest I am not going to debate on that as each campaign is different and players like playing their own ways and mess around with the ai in different ways. Then point is Im not even trying to argue against you, I am giving suggestion to a tried and true method of countering chariot swarming whether it be multiplayer under 15k cwb or Singleplayer.

Have a good day. ;)

[ReluctantSamurai]

Hmmm I guess it's just me speaking from Rome's vanilla multiplayer. That's why you don't get it probably. Chariots under human player will really wreck you up.

I get it. If I were playing against your suggested set-up, I'd counter with light cavalry to chase off your cavalry skirmishers while my chariot archers dice up your slingers due to a range advantage. I'd never let my chariots get tangled up with your infantry screen, and I don't see that you can do anything about it. Slingers are a direct line-of-fire missile unit, so in rough terrain, or where other obstacles are present, they can't shoot effectively. I would suspect that if RTW's multi-player is anything like Shogun, then the "Ironing Board" map is what you play on, no?

Balearics are better versus Egyptian chariots then archers.

If you are playing vanilla RTW as you say, then this is not the case, because using vanilla stats, chariot archers out-range even the Balearians. But foot archers have a slight range advantage on the chariots, and don't have to move in front of the infantry screen to shoot. Our two systems are not that different, other than I dispense with the javelin cavalry as unnecessary and use archers instead of slingers for the reasons I've mentioned.

Horse archers are even better but many factions don't have them.

I made suggestions on how to do it with non-horse archer factions

I am giving suggestion to a tried and true method of countering chariot swarming whether it be multiplayer under 15k cwb or Singleplayer

Vincent hasn't actually stated whether he's playing single or multi-player, but I am assuming it's single player. If it's tried and true for you, and you have fun with it, that's the whole point of playing the game....to have fun. I just know that a simple infantry screen of pike or javelin-types like Roman infantry in front of archers works well and I can't see even a human player defeating that unless they send something in to break up the screen.

[Vincent Butler]

Now maybe I just play on too easy a difficulty. The disadvantage of slingers is that they can't shoot over your guys, but if you order them to attack the chariots they can shoot them from inside the chariot archer's range, before the Chariot Archers skirmish mode kicks in. When I play, I see just as many Egyptian Chariots as Chariot Archers. As to the Britons, I can wipe out AI-controlled chariots with Gallic Warband, you just have to keep an eye on it. Again, maybe that is just the difficulty level. Realistically, and in the game, it seems, those scythes on the wheels of the chariots would not dismember soldiers, so a "Gladiator" arena scene with the guy getting cut in two is not very realistic. Yes, I play single player, we only have one Rome disk and can't seem to find the no CD patch, or at least get it to work. In my experience, heavy infantry, especially Roman infantry in Testudo, including ELC, can withstand the barrage of Chariot Archer's arrows. And can the EB Roman infantry form Testudo?
The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Psalm 68:17 KJV

[ReluctantSamurai]

The disadvantage of slingers is that they can't shoot over your guys, but if you order them to attack the chariots they can shoot them from inside the chariot archer's range, before the Chariot Archers skirmish mode kicks in.

I've been stressing the disadvantages of slingers in this situation. In rugged terrain or where there are obstacles on the field, they become very restricted in their fire. Archers don't suffer from this in similar situations. I've been on lots of Middle East maps that have a bluff that can only be accessed from the sides or rear. Slingers will only be able to fire at a unit some distance from the edge, and the chariots then move under your range and shoot your unit to pieces. I, personally, don't like the micro-management required to move slingers back and forth around a screen, and while they are moving and for a brief period after, to reorganize ranks, they are not shooting. I'd much rather keep continuous fire on a chariot unit with my archers tucked safely behind the infantry, especially when first engaging them as you have to cut through their hit points before you can actually start to kill them.

Now maybe I just play on too easy a difficulty.

I'm not busting you for playing on easy. You are obviously still learning all the ins and outs of the game. Pretty near everyone, myself included, played on easy while learning the game. You'll know when it's time to crank it up....every campaign becomes boringly easy. And as Broski has pointed out, whatever works for you, whatever style you prefer, is the way you should play. There are no rights or wrongs, in this. Should be obvious that I'm a cavalry man....have been since I first started playing Shogun I. So naturally I'm drawn to the horse-archer factions, and they are my favorite. Doesn't mean I don't know how to play phalanx-oriented factions, or javelin factions like the Romans.

I don't play EB, so I can't answer the testudo question. I can't imagine why they wouldn't...testudo is a uniquely Roman formation, and most devs don't usually remove such things from a faction

In any case, I'll get off my soap-box and simply encourage you to try everything until you discover what you like best.

[Vincent Butler]

Oh, I have been playing Rome for a while, though still figuring out EB. I just like to increase my odds of winning. Heavy infantry is just how I roll, my brother prefers heavy cavalry. Just different preferences, both have strengths and weaknesses. I use cav to augment my infantry, he uses infantry to augment his cav. I agree about the slingers needing micromanagement, I hate skirmish mode. Then again, that is my problem with cav archers, using them to their full potential requires a lot of micromanagement. Slingers are effective in EB, especially from walls or higher ground. The not being able to fire over troops just requires some change in strategy.

Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss. Judges 20:16 KJV

[ReluctantSamurai]

Then again, that is my problem with cav archers, using them to their full potential requires a lot of micromanagement.

I'll let you in on a little secret....I don't micro-manage my Cataphract Archers

In fact, during deployment, I remove the skirmish mode They have heavy enough stats to go toe-to-toe with just about any unit, and if there are no targets to shoot at that won't cause friendly-fire, I just turn them loose to support the heavy Cats in melee combat.

Against the Egyptians, I just assign one or two archers to each chariot unit and then move my attention elsewhere. By the time I come back to see how they are doing, most of the chariots are dead or routing

One still has to micro-manage the vanilla horse-archers at the start of an Armenian campaign, but as soon as I get a city to 6k population (I explain how to do this quickly in my Guide to Armenia), I start cranking out Cataphract Archers and within 20 years (both the cat units require two turns to raise so it takes some time to get 19 of them together in one place) I usually have enough to assemble my first all cataphract army. I still utilize foot soldiers for my siege and assault teams...heavy spears or Armenian Legionnaires backed by Cretan Archers, and several cataphracts to provide support. After that, it's all downhill to the Pyramids

[Vincent Butler]

That makes sense. So would you have them out in front of your lines fighting as regular cav archers, or behind your lines as archers, then use them as heavy cav? Seems to me that that is the logical way to use them, instead as just using them to wear down the enemy by constant barrage.