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

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: Densepack and friendly fire.

My first attempt to create massive friendly fire casualties by piling dense squares of cavalry archers on top of each other was a dismal failure.

Eight Parthian HA were put into "squares," which were then put into a very dense, overlapping mass. I then assigned them all to attack one of three Greek hoplite units, then let autopilot take over. I used three hoplites because I didn't want the little experiment to end too quickly.

The HA lost 17 out of 433, all from friendly fire. Three of those healed up after the battle. Those 17 represent 3.9 percent of the HA engaged.

Most of the casualties were in the first few volleys. Squares "scatter" much more quickly than long lines of HA. A little movement during skirmishing and two squares will completely break contact, eliminating the overlap and the friendly fire problem. As discussed, it appears that "friendly fire" comes from having different units in each other's way, not from having one unit in a deep formation.

I have absolutely no idea whether any of this applies to foot archers, slingers or javelinmen.

===========

The vast improvements in skirmishing, compared to M:TW, also seem to favor squares for HA.

Skirmishing and all HA movement was very dependent on the unit leader in M:TW. For instance, if a unit skirmished away from another unit, the moving unit would "wait" until the leader/flagbearer got out in front and the rest of the unit would then follow behind him.

Now, skirmishing HA seem to move whenever an enemy is getting close to any member of the unit anywhere, and they all move at once.

I suspect, but can't prove, that skirmishing in M:TW was triggered by the distance of the target unit (unit leader?) from the skirmishing group's leader, and that the trigger in R:TW is the distance of ANY unit from ANY member of the skirmishing group.



One of the advantages of having a long, thin line of HA in M:TW was that it allowed the leader to get out in "front" of a thin formation by turning around and moving a very short distance. Then the whole formation would do a quick about-face and skirmish away. However, the ends of a drawn-out formation were quite vulnerable. This is not a problem any more. The HA will skirmish as a body in R:TW. If the leader is in the middle of a a dense mass and can't work his way to the front quickly, there's still no problem.

Beyond that, HA now seem to fire equally well in all directions. At least with Parthians, facing doesn't seem to matter any more.

Unless "squares" are much more vulnerable to foot archers, I can't think of a good reason not to put HA units in squares with a little distance between each unit. Even if "densepack" does make them more vulnerable to foot archers, you can hit cantabrian circle.

[Orda Khan]

HA will fire quite readily in all directions and are a force to be reckoned with ( at last )
The use of cantabrian circle makes the HA less vulnerable to archer fire ( about time to ) for too long I've had to watch my HA stand about as easy targets.
Loosing on the move ( traditional tactics at last ) finally my HA do what they are supposed to do

Now the bad news.......
Order them to melee... Why do they still loose on the move?
Why does one guy at the back shoot his mate in front? ( Same unit )
......And yes they still get themselves tied up and trapped, they skirmish better but they can still come unstuck.

Please note.......I have tested exclusively and they do not all obey commands. Turning off fire at will will not necessarily stop them loosing on the move.
As for their accuracy, no modern archer can claim to have any idea about this aspect. There are many Roman reports about the amazing accuracy of Hunnic HA ... 'never miss their mark' The modern archer is no comparison for how many modern archers are faced with a screaming horde that intends to stove their heads in? There was none of the ritual we observe with modern archers because it could quite easily cost them their lives. Modern archers also do their shooting as a hobby, the HA of the steppe did it as a matter of daily existance and were therefore more than adept.

And yes I am an archer

.....Orda

[alpaca]

Well I have fought quite a bit with Armenia on VH/VH now and I have to admit, I almost exclusively use Cataphract Archers with which I usually get at least 10 times more enemies down than my own units.
Not only do they have overwhelming abilities (9 melee +3 charge, 10 missile, 18! armour and 4 defense skill) but they are also Horse Archers!
I use 7-10 of these in an army along with 3 or 4 "normal" Cataphracts (10+16 melee/12 melee in close combat) whose sole aim it is to kill any charging cavalry or wreak havoc on shaken infantry units. Cataphract Archers in a single line on loose formation can kill about anything you let them shoot at (including light cavalry which is usually broken before it reaches the line) and the only drawback is their speed (a bit less than normal cav speed I think).

Anyways, FF with regular HA is not such a great concern (I don't use the circle, though, cos the rate of fire is worse if they get stuck in each other :P) as long as you don't charge into the enemy units.

I'd like to do some testing with horse archers, too. So if someone is interested (online) just send me a PM or contact me via eMail.

[Doug-Thompson]

The firepower of square "blocks" of HA concentrated around a target has to be seen to be believed.

"Blocks" of HA are much, much easier to move around than the long lines of M:TW. Triple the number of men and their firepower can be concentrated in the same amount of "front." Also, they are MUCH easier to maneuver and "swarm" enemy units with them. Since HA now fire in all directions, facing takes care of itself.

Oleander Ardens is on to something about how the infantry's shields are pretty good, but that most R:TW troops are much more vulnerable, armor-wise, than what we're used to in M:TW. This compounds the deadliness of HA. These horse units are much easier to move about and much less of a hassle to use than their M:TW counterparts. They can get to the side and behind infantry much more readily, especially if the infantry is locked in a phalanx.

Now the bad news.......
Order them to melee... Why do they still loose on the move?

I'm guessing again, but I think the HA override an ordered melee attack when their ranged attack is more powerful. Vanilla HA have a very poor melee attack, even with a charge bonus.

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.

Please note.......I have tested exclusively and they do not all obey commands. Turning off fire at will will not necessarily stop them loosing on the move.

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.

[frogbeastegg]

This is all getting highly interesting.

Dark_Magician, some horse archer units (all?) can use circle, as can some (all?) mounted javelin units. It's their special skill.

Oleander Ardens, now that really is fascinating. I would have expected slingers to do better against armour than arrows. Your finding on shields matches my own experience. If you can find the sheet with the results I'm interested in seeing it.

Doug-Thompson, I think we can say that there is no real penalty, except the occasional FF incident, when using missiles in dense formations. The old accuracy penalty for deep formations is gone. Also in the old games the back ranks simply wouldn't shoot; they would begin the animation but never actually shoot. This is a significant change indeed.

It also appears that the old crowding penalty is either gone, toned down or altered. Stacking units on top of each other before was a really bad idea, but now it seems fine. I remember someone saying in one of my phalanx topics that it is a devestating tactic to deploy many phalanx units on top of each other.

Orda Khan, that's another big alteration from past games. One the one hand it makes HA more deadly as they charge, on the other if you wanted them to shoot you would tell them to.

alpaca, that does it - I have to play with those Cataphract Archers! They sound like plenty of fun

I can't do any test games this week, but if someone else takes you up on your offer I am very interested in the results.

[Oleander Ardens]

Froggie I have yet to find that little sheet, well you know, a students room

Today I have some spare time before going out, so I will experimant a little. It seems best to use huge size, large and very high armor/ very low armor units..


BTW I too believed that Slingers should be better against armored enemies, but the results told otherwise, in anyway I will make today a large amount of trails and post them hopefully tomorrow..

And yes Cata Archers are my Nr.1 unit. Incredible good unit, only Elephants and maybe Catas can defeat them...

Cheers
OA

[Doug-Thompson]

The advantage of slingers over archers appears to be that slingers are much better skirmishers.

Just for fun, I put a band of slingers against a unit of Egyptian desert axemen. Again, I just ordered the initial attack before leaving the whole thing on autopilot.

Slingers were able to get away and destroy the axemen all on their own. They didn't lose a man while the axemen were reduced to 20 men left out of 82 and routed. Archers in another test got caught and killed before doing much damage.

===========

Last night, I just happened to have one unit of Parthian HA get attacked by one unit of regular foot archers from the Seleucids. The Cantabrian circle performed as advertised -- no losses at all until 2 or 3 were killed by while melee-attacking the remaining routers after the circle had been turned off.

I swear, the archers were trying to melee attack at one point, at least.

========

Fought a series of battle last night using HA/Persian squares, cataphracts and a few mercenary cavalry.

None lasted more than 15 minutes. All were clear victories at least, and most involved large numbers of enemy Desert Calvalry and chariots. Several involved a lot of enemy foot archers.

HA squares make it much easier to co-ordinate with melee cav. No more having to work through a long line of HA when you want to charge.

The combination of cataphracts and Persian horse archers is deadly. Sounds like the mounted cataphract is a combination of the two -- the boyar of R:TW.

Cataphracts make mincemeat of any cavalry fast enough to charge HA. Let the enemy cavalry charge, shot at all the way by HA using the Parthian shot, and hit them from the side with cataphracts. The nearby HA stop fleeing and pour in fire on the enemy cavalry, which won't cause too many losses to the well-armored cataphracts.

If the enemy is a tough, armored unit that still has fight left in them -- which is very rare -- select the cataphracts and alt-attack. I read in another thread that cats change from lance to the mace, which has an anti-armor bonus. I will have to set up a custom battle and watch before I can claim to have seen this with my own eyes.

In the pursuit phase, I kept cataphracts close to some enemy spear units that hadn't routed yet and were trying to withdraw. The spears had to form up, turn around and point their spears toward the cataphracts to avoid being charged in the rear. This allowed the nearby HA surround the spears and pour in arrow fire. When the units routed, the cats charged.

[Orda Khan]

My post was a bit blunt I must admit, but it is because this issue is so annoying. Even weak HA can hack routing units, the ones you don't want to escape and they are conveniently fast. It is possible to run them to an area close to the routers and let them loose their arrows as they run and finish off the stragglers from a close up situation. I lost so many doing this I could not believe it, I could actually watch them falling as they galloped. So I thought melee may be a better option by preventing this but they would still fire!!!
This is not to say HA do not kill enemy too, they are much better at this now I must admit. I just find it annoying that I sometimes have to send them off in the opposite direction to make sure they don't go killing some of my stronger units.

In a square as opposed to long lines is far more manoevreable and aesthetically pleasing IMO but the guys at the back should use a bit of common sense and not shoot their mates in the front

....Orda

[Doug-Thompson]

Hmmm. We haven't mentioned unit size.

I don't suffer many same-unit friendly fire casualties, but use large size. Is this a problem in huge size?

===========

Having a unit pursuing routers, only to get shot up by friendly horse archers after you've turned off fire-at-will and pressed the halt button in the HA, is, well, annoying.

Like Orda Khan, I've found that running HA alongside a routing unit works even better than direct chasing. For one thing, you can have "siderunners" on each side without risking friendly fire.

HA are fast but Persian Cavalry is fast enough, have a better missile attack and a much better melee option.

[Paul Peru]

HA are really good now. I'm quite early and Armenian, just got my first Cat archer, have used HA exclusively until now, excepting my initial units + a few emergency merc hirings...
As reported, HA can mostly be left to skirmish on their own in RTW - even when confronting several enemy units. Cantabrating gets a bit hairy in crowded situations, and "the thin red line" breaks skirmishing every time.
I can also testify that they seem to be a bit "bowstring happy" and independent-minded.
-They will fire 2 volleys at whomever they choose before switching to the designated target
-They may still fire when told to stop and fire at will is disabled
-FF is a thundering nuisance (but is worse with jav units IMO)

Melee is strictly for taking down routers, but they're great for that purpose. I once had to charge 2 units of HA into some cataphract butts to try to save my general (he died) and they actually killed a few. (pyrrhic victory) (What nearly lost me that battle was that my own "#¤@£$ cats couldn't even take out a unit of slingers. Admittedly, they carged head on, but were all alive on impact. For some strange reason, the slingers lost 15 men. My cats had lost 30 by the time I got them out of there. Never seen anything like it, maybe the Parthian general had some magic VnVs) Apart from that episode and 2 times I auto-resolved battles that looked easy and got narrowly defeated, I'm amazed at the amount of behind I have kicked. I went after the Seleucids at once, but have only taken Assyria from them because I soon got other challenges. Parthia attacked, and they are the only ones I've lost battles against. They have cats, and those pesky HA Luckily Pontus held off until I had almost gotten control on the eastern front, but had they ever got huge stacks of men!

My finest victory was when I ran into a Pontic captain and his 1150 men. My general was leading 2 depleted veteran HA units north from Assyria for retraining. 81 men all in all. The Pontiacs felt quite secure when attacking on their turn. Of course they had crappy units. 5 PHC(capt), 14 PLC, 80 peltasts, 80 archers, and the rest was Eastern Infantry - the crappiest there is!! Didn't think it'd work, thought I'd take out about 100 before I retreated. Got the capt on the run while picking off the archers (had higher ground). Capt. got away, but without cav or archers, they were walking ducks. Spent my ammo, then charged one unit at a time with my general, and had my HA ride them down when they broke. 650 dead enemies, got the rest on the next turn

Looking forward to using cat archers. PHC is great as well, by the way. Cantabrian circle looks cool and works in many situations.

[Doug-Thompson]

As reported, HA can mostly be left to skirmish on their own in RTW - even when confronting several enemy units.

... I can also testify that they seem to be a bit "bowstring happy" and independent-minded.

Here's a surprize -- Skirmish mode works much better when you surround the enemy units. Often, the AI just doesn't know which way to go. Even if it does attack resolutely, it's taking heavy losses from fire from the side and rear. This makes it just about impossible to get cornered by infantry.

Surrounding, or "envelopment" in the proper military term, also cures the friendly fire problem.

Therefore, a weak HA unit that's galloping as fast as it can around the enemy and to the rear will have a lot more positive effect on the battle than one that's steadily pouring arrows into the front -- and at infantry shields -- at fairly close range.

Last night, I had a weak unit of HA galloping toward the rear. The enemy general's cavalry went after it. The HA withdrew. The enemy general went back to some more critical sector of the front, but the to-and-fro tired them out.

A tired HA unit can still shoot effectively. A tired melee cav unit is dead meat.

Then there's the morale effect of surrounding the other guy. Apparently, having a cavalry unit directly behind them makes infantry really nervous. In fact, I'm having battle after battle where the other side simply tries to leave when I start moving around them.

My finest victory was when I ran into a Pontic captain and his 1150 men. My general was leading 2 depleted veteran HA units north from Assyria for retraining. 81 men all in all. The Pontiacs felt quite secure when attacking on their turn. Of course they had crappy units. 5 PHC(capt), 14 PLC, 80 peltasts, 80 archers, and the rest was Eastern Infantry - the crappiest there is!! Didn't think it'd work, thought I'd take out about 100 before I retreated. Got the capt on the run while picking off the archers (had higher ground). Capt. got away, but without cav or archers, they were walking ducks. Spent my ammo, then charged one unit at a time with my general, and had my HA ride them down when they broke. 650 dead enemies, got the rest on the next turn.

Now there's an excellent example of using a melee unit in cooperation with HA. I've often moved melee cav behind a phalanx and just left them there to make the spears nervous, then poured in fire. When the unit routs, charge.

[Silver Rusher]

Hehe... I'm practically horse-archers only. In battles they are my favourite unit class, honestly. Never survive without 'em.

[Doug-Thompson]

Hehe... I'm practically horse-archers only. In battles they are my favourite unit class, honestly. Never survive without 'em.

Incredible as it seems, HA/Persian Cav, a mercenary phalanx and other foot mercenaries cooperated very well in a battle last night. Granted, it was against the AI.

It was a weird situation. I had some Parthian HA/PC and decided to press on in an invasion against Pontus. If the enemy attacked, the Parthians could always withdraw.

The province they invaded, however, had a mercenary phalanx available, some mercenary peltasts, three Thracian mercenaries -- and one unit of those "supercharged Thracians" that are so good. Can't remember the name. Starts with a "B".

I was very pleased at how well the phalanx discouraged the Pontic cavalry, the mercenaries slaughtered the anti-cavalry spear units and the horse archers killed everything. I think the phalanx lost two men. The best mercenaries lost about 20, I believe, but killed 263. I don't think I even used the Thracians.

[Paul Peru]

HA may be "too good", but I honestly think they should be good. Maybe there should be more of a difference between the factions. Some cultures were very horsey and bowie, others less so.
Getting the kind of range and accuracy we see in RTW would require HA-ing to be a lifelong lifestyle thingy, as it was for some peoples.

Phalanxes being easy meat for HA is quite intuitively correct, so the AI would need to adapt, composing armies differently when facing a HA-based adversary. Lately (in my campaign) Seleucids have gotten themselves some elephants, which helps. In one battle I lost a whole HA unit, which got trapped against the red line while left to skirmish on it's own while I was busy taking out the phalanxes. They've used the same elephant unit in many battles now, and I've killed a total of 1 pachyderm(!) They rout quite easily once the rest of the army is gone, though. Pontus has started using chariots, which has caused a few casualties. It will be interesting to see what happens when they bring along chariot archers.

I would feel quite rotten to exploit HA superiority to the extent that I do, but
-as stated, I think it's natural that I do well from a rock/paper/scissors pov.
-hey, my homelandz are pourr, and my peeple are fue. They must rely on their skillz as archererz and horsererz
-waging 3-way war with my Armenia the only enemy for both Parthia and Pontus makes for a suitable challenge anyhow.
-my empire gets a level of consistent quality management both on and off the battlefield rarely witnessed in real life

The sarmatian mercenaries suck, btw. My cat archers seem to do better in melee. [jokemode]historically a handful of sarmatians could take on thousands of angry saxons, and last for ages in melees as well [/jokemode]

[R'as al Ghul]

Well, you guys have done some thorough research on HA.
I want to add what I found out in my Parthian campaign on VH/VH. Currently I'm fighting against Seleucia, Pontus and Egypt. Armenia is wiped out.
First of all I agree that HA are finally what we ever wanted them to be. Really dangerous. They shoot while walking and while running. They use the parthian shot and the cantabrian circle and finally they know how to skirmish, which is most astonishing.
On skirmishing:
Ok, there are occassions where they get caught. This is due to the fact that the maps are to small if you fight very large armies. If the Ai charges your unit of HA with something fast like Militia Cav, they will finally end up at the map edge and your HA has to go into melee mode. Vanilla HA suck at melee and they'll probably loose a lot before they can escape. In this scenario your general is usually very far away which makes ordering so much more difficult. Your only chance is to take them off skirmish mode and order them to a safe place before continuing shooting. Another possibility is to deal with the problem before it appears.
On friendly fire:
My experience is that it mostly appears when two or more units of HA are shooting and moving through other units at the same time. HA which stand behind each other or even overlap but don't move, cause very little FF if at all. It helps to have a chirurgeon in the retinue.
On envelopment:
I think that the reason why envelopment is such a good tactic with HA is not only due to the morale penalty which the AI units get for having an enemy unit to their rear, it has also to do with the shields of the infantry. Shields only seem to protect against arrow-fire from the front (which makes sense to me). So, if the enemy phalanx or whatever is facing your HA it will take lesser casualties than when fired at from behind or the flank. If you zoom in on an enemy unit with shields, you notice that at the moment of the first impact of an arrow-volley they raise their shields and cry "We're under attack". The subsequent volleys won't kill as many as the first did, because they have their shields up. If you cease your fire or focus to another unit they will drop their shields again and will become more vulnerable again. If you shoot them in the back there're obviously no shields at all. This causes more casualties, more morale penalties and causes the AI to change facing or position, making the situation even worse for him. Continous volleys in the back routs most units very fast.
On cantabrian circle:
My experience is that when you face a shoot out against foot-archers, you have to switch to CC to 1. avoid casualties by enemy fire and 2. maximize your own fire. I've no proof for this but it appears that the fire from a CC is much more devastating than a normal volley. It may have to do with the reaction of the foot-archers. Usually they run away so that I can shoot their backs. Almost as if they were afraid of that particular formation.
On melee-mode:
I could frequently observe that HA charge with their secondary weapons even if they have arrows left. It occurs when the unit they shot at is breaking or even routing. If the HA are near enough they will charge at will. If you want to make them charge by your command, take them off fire-at-will, use alt-attack and pray. If you play on VH it's not really recommended since your vanilla HA suck big time at melee-stats. For this purpose I bought some very expensive Sarmatians which I'm very dissapointed with. They only work on wavering or routing units. This has to do with the insane bonus of +7 attack for the AI when playing on VH. My cataphracts lost to Eastern Infantry. 'nuff said.

Random observations:
You can't kill elephants with arrows but you can make them run amok very fast. Concentrate arrow fire from all sides for a few volleys and the AI won't get them under control again. The same is true for chariots. But I prefer to kill them with Bedouin Warriors charged in the rear while the chariots run amok. Getting rid of the chariots gives me more space to manouver.
Eastern-Generals are not so suicide happy as their western counterparts. This has most probably to do with the skirmish mode that applies to the Jav-Cav. Modding the western Generals to Jav-Cav might be a last resort if CA can't fix them.


R'as

[Doug-Thompson]

On friendly fire:
My experience is that it mostly appears when two or more units of HA are shooting and moving through other units at the same time. HA which stand behind each other or even overlap but don't move, cause very little FF if at all. It helps to have a chirurgeon in the retinue.

Excellent observation. Important, too. This needs a test to verify it.

shields of the infantry. ... If you zoom in on an enemy unit with shields, you notice that at the moment of the first impact of an arrow-volley they raise their shields and cry "We're under attack". The subsequent volleys won't kill as many as the first did, because they have their shields up. If you cease your fire or focus to another unit they will drop their shields again and will become more vulnerable again.

Now that's some good close-up scrutiny. While computer animations sometimes don't reflect what's going on in casualty calculations, I'd bet that observation is correct. Another good test subject.

On cantabrian circle:
... I've no proof for this but it appears that the fire from a CC is much more devastating than a normal volley. It may have to do with the reaction of the foot-archers. Usually they run away so that I can shoot their backs. Almost as if they were afraid of that particular formation.

You can't kill elephants with arrows but you can make them run amok very fast. Concentrate arrow fire from all sides (emphasis added) for a few volleys and the AI won't get them under control again. The same is true for chariots.

Again, I have no tests or proof, but plenty of experience with fighting AI chariots. They do get bewildered when they start taking fire from multiple directions, much worse than infantry units. It's almost as if they are coded to avoid taking any flanking and rear fire and go nuts if they can't. Once they are running amok, a good charge by just about any decent melee cav will wipe them out. Chariots need to be finished off. They are too dangerous to just leave out there, running around with their arms flailing. I once had an HA unit that was never touched by "sane" chariots who lost 12 men after the chariots were driven crazy.

Eastern-Generals are not so suicide happy as their western counterparts. This has most probably to do with the skirmish mode that applies to the Jav-Cav. Modding the western Generals to Jav-Cav might be a last resort if CA can't fix them.

Interesting.

[R'as al Ghul]

This thread should be stickied.
Anyway, I have a huge problem. The Nemesis of my HA is the map-edge.
Ever fought against a full stack of Eastern Infantry with a dozen units of HA? It's proven very hard to keep the HA under my control.
I usually try to flank such an army on both sides to envelop as soon as possible. Since the AI has more troops, he will chase every single HA unit of mine with one of his EastInf. Eastern Infantry is of course crap but it's fast and the AI makes a sport of pushing my HA to the map edge. When my wings go around his flanks he dispatches as many units of EastInf as I have in my wings. The rest/ main body marches towards my main body.
So from his center map position he chases my HA to the map-edges, dividing my army into three. This wouldn't be a problem if my units wouldn't stop to follow my orders at a certain point.
If they are to close to the edge they will refuse any given order, wether f@w or skirmish-mode is on or off. Eventually they'll have no more space to retreat and pressed against the invisible map-edge-wall will have to fight hand-to-hand against the spears. They may win but they'll lose about half their unit.
In reality the Infantry would never ever be able to catch them, that makes it even more frustrating. But even worse is the fact that sometimes the units can pass the red line. If you order them to charge a routing unit in the last possible moment, they will fight them even beyond the red line, without routing, and return once they have finished them.
In my current Parthian campaign I've to battle Pontus, Seleucia and Egypt every turn. They keep invading with large stacks. My tactic so far has been to fight them in the desert with HA-only armies and the odd mercenary unit thrown in. Since the enemy stacks get bigger (over 12 units) I'm at the end of manouverability. What can I do?

R'as

[Tamur]

This thread should be stickied.

Agreed, lots of very good info.

[Doug-Thompson]

The Nemesis of my HA is the map-edge.

Truer words were never spoken.

In my current Parthian campaign I've to battle Pontus, Seleucia and Egypt every turn. They keep invading with large stacks. My tactic so far has been to fight them in the desert with HA-only armies and the odd mercenary unit thrown in. Since the enemy stacks get bigger (over 12 units) I'm at the end of manouverability. What can I do?

It may be too late. Your surrounding enemies may be too strong. Or it may be a problem that can only be cured on the strategic map.

Fight them, kill as many of them as you can, then withdraw. Swallow the defeat.

Normally, this would get your whole army killed. However, if you attack them (or are attacked by them) early enough in your movement and have plenty of movement points left, you can successfully withdraw.

Frankly, I've only done this when forced to, and fortunately haven't done it often. However, I have done it.

The key point on army survival seems to be whether an army has enough movement left to "break free" after a battle. In other words, the army that withdraws will get away IF it can still move farther than the pursuing army. Withdrawing units before they rout and leave the battlefield themselves also seems to help.

Since you're all HA and the enemy is full of infantry, there's a big "gap" here. It's dangerous, but quite usable.

Also, if you whittle down the infantry, they will think twice about attacking you again even if they can reach you. The odds have changed. For instance, I attacked a much bigger stack of Seleucids, but they were all phalanx units. The HA killed 872 Seleucids without loss, but ran out of arrows.Therefore, I had to withdraw. I suffered a "Close Defeat," but what was left of the Seleucid stack ran back toward Antioch the next turn.

==========

Another nice trick is raiding. The AI doesn't like enemy troops running around their territories. You don't need many units to cause real damage to the economy. Land units can blockade ports, for instance, just by going into them. Just like a ship, only you're on the land. Leave the next turn, or withdraw when attacked.

Once, I besieged the city of Sidon with four mercenary Arab cavalry -- Not four units, four cavalry. It took the AI a turn or two to figure out what was going on.

Chances are the AI will chase some raiders around, allowing you to whip them piecemeal. Also, you'll gather some really nice intelligence, and may find an unexpected opportunity.

[Satyr]

I am currently playing as Armenia and I am facing some of the same issues. I have quit bringing anything other than cav to the battlefield. That's right! Almost all horse archers and a few melee cav to go in for the kill. If you keep tabs on your HA and spread them out so that they are being chased in ALL directions, it is usually easy enough to circle back into the middle of the map and not get cornered. But you have to take control before they get anywhere near the edge. I am winning almost all of these battles against superior forces and taking few losses. Just take your time and constantly monitor the battlefield for problems. This does, of course, assume that you are not adverse to using the Pause Key.

[R'as al Ghul]

Well, the pause key is my friend since I played the Turks in MTW and I have no problem admitting it. I'm still playing without any speed-mods.
Yesterday I fought to big battles.
1. 20 units of Pontic Eastern-Infantry. It was a siege sally. I had about 12 units. General, HA and PersianCav and one unit of 10 camels. I stacked all HA at my left gate. At the beginning of the battle I quickly marched them to the outside corner of the wall, the enemys left flank. I tried to concentrate my fire on single units that approached mine and went to melee with several units once they broke. Things went very well without much running around the map. In the end I killed 2200 out of 2400. The after battle screen said about 100 had survived but the whole stack disappeared from the strategic map.
2. An egyptian stack of 20 units plus 5 units reinforcement were attacked in open desert. Luckily I started on a hill. I kept my forces together in a dense formation on the hill. I figured that since the Ai had superiour forces he would come for me. And so it did. Attacking my flank with 2 Desert Cav. Concentrated fire and succesive melee reduced them to about two dozen routing individuals out of 160. Next wave was Chariots which was also repelled in the same style. Problem: His main line of Nil-spearmen had come very near in the mean time and the red line was in my back. I had to split my forces and skirmish away. Until now I had barely moved while his units had to march through the heat and up the hill. They were very tired and in the moment they were flanked they broke easily. A minor annoyance was the fact that the routed DesertCav was substituted by more Chariots. Battle went very chaotic in the meantime. All of my units were in serious danger of being pressed against the edge. Strangely, those units that I tried to micro didn't do very well and lost about 50% of their strength. Other units in similar situations, which I hadn't the time to deal with, had more success and lost only about 5 men. Two units didn't lose a single man at all!! Some units that i already counted as lost, finished about 40-50 spearmen in melee and routed them on the mapedge!!
I have to say that all of the units had at least 2 copper chevrons and the general was 8-10*, but I was really astonished how well they do when left alone. It seems to be better sometimes to just let them do their business without interfering.

R'as

[Doug-Thompson]

I just had 180 or so cavalry just fight more than 2,000 cavalry, archers and chosen warrior infantry. My group included 108 HA.

No, I didn't win but I sure had fun killing more than 180 enemy, mainly good cavalry. I ran and ran until the enemy cavalry had to separate from their infantry to try and catch me, then doubled-back on the cavalry, then kept shooting until out of arrows.

[Paul Peru]

In my current Parthian campaign I've to battle Pontus, Seleucia and Egypt every turn. They keep invading with large stacks. My tactic so far has been to fight them in the desert with HA-only armies and the odd mercenary unit thrown in. Since the enemy stacks get bigger (over 12 units) I'm at the end of manouverability. What can I do?
R'as

Well, what I've done in my current Armenian campaign is sealing off Pontus by placing 4 or 5 forts in strategic locations. Their stacks show up at one fort after the other, then go like "oh, a fort... I think there's a Sarmatian on a horse in there... let's go try that other place we ran into a fort again". I'm such a near-cheat. But I don't cheat. Quite. Sometimes I go fight them, if Egypt and SE have been busy elsewhere for a turn or two. Egypt keeps having rebellions, and they and SE are at war as well. And sometimes I buy a Pontic general, though I think they're getting less eager to get bought now.
For EI-stacks, I find routing them early to be quite easy and safe. It takes some heavier cav, of course. I have cat archers, which is a lovely all-in-one solution, but a unit of cataphracts or two or a general works. Charge them from behind, and they're goners. Huge stacks of EI makes me feel like Obelix. "Fresh Romans!!"

All those things with wheels and those other with trunks, though...
I've gotten so used to not taking losses, and now I've actually got to send my men to the afterlife some. I agree with other observations: arrows don't kill elephants, but make them run. Chariots running amok are really dangerous.

Anyway, I'm not so sure my campaign is winnable. The Egyptian armies are getting really tough, now. I think I'll have to take some of their cities ASAP. They often leave them poorly defended, and when they return to siege later on, I can sally. Sallying with HA is great, but of course that's another near-cheat. More times than one have I been out to kill a few enemies and spend my daily ammo allowances, just to end up standing there laughing as the broken enemy army retreats. "Doh, those HA shoot at us, let's get'em. Doh, those towers shoot at us, let's go back out of range. Doh, now the HA are shooting us in the back. :|"

[therother]

This thread should be stickied.

It's been given the next best thing: it's been indexed! Keep up the good work!

[Doug-Thompson]

There's no doubt about it: When the odds are even or in favor of the human player, the AI starts retreating as soom as HA start surrounding them.

I've had too many battles now where the other side turned around and started heading for the map edge as soon as a couple of HA got in behind the main body.

Combat difficulty changes the odds -- in theory. An AI phalanx unit that has a melee combat multiplier because of a tactical setting of "very hard" will still die like a dog to HA. However, it will not turn around and withdraw as quickly because the "odds" are supposedly better.

I assume the AI will start getting fidgety when they get surrounded, whatever the units doing the surrounding. However, HA can do this surrounding with less risk. It's much harder for enemy units to "punch their way out of the bag" against skirmishing HA. Very fast vanilla HA are good for getting around the enemy army, too. Not even most cavalry can catch them. Also, leaving big gaps between HA units doesn't seem to matter. The AI still gets scared.

==========

Elephants on the strategic map move just as far in one turn as cataphracts or Persian Cavalry.

This means the Parthians can conquer and cross the vast Russian steppes very quickly, because an HA/Persian Cavalry + Cataphract + Elephant army can move while elephants have no trouble knocking down the reinforced gates of barbarian factions and killling any infantry they find inside.

This became apparent after Dacia made the serious mistake of attacking me while I was supposedly pre-occupied in killing the Brutii.

======

Tactically, elephants don't have a skirmish setting. However, they're extremely effective as cavalry archers. This allows you to engage and destroy units -- such as flaming pigs, I presume -- from a distance.

I have yet to enjoy the challenge of engaging live bacon. However, I have encountered foot archers who fire flaming arrows and various light troops, trying to sting my elephants into frenzy.

I hit ALT+Right click to select the elephants missile attack, and sometimes move away from the unit that's trying to engage me. One of my favorite game moments yet came while luring a bunch of skirmishers in one direction and then having Persian Cavalry charge them from behind, routing them.

[L'Impresario]

On cantabrian circle:
My experience is that when you face a shoot out against foot-archers, you have to switch to CC to 1. avoid casualties by enemy fire and 2. maximize your own fire. I've no proof for this but it appears that the fire from a CC is much more devastating than a normal volley. It may have to do with the reaction of the foot-archers. Usually they run away so that I can shoot their backs. Almost as if they were afraid of that particular formation.

Haven't seen this mentioned so far in this thread, but the morale penalty is actually continuous when a unit is being under fire from HA in CC. You'll easily notice (if you are the victim in this case ) that the "under fire" icon of that unit is lingering much more time,and esp. when it has no particular armour or shield. I 'm not sure though if this amounts to archers retreating, as it cannot be certified (at least in my eyes), that the AI handles a particular unit according to the amount of mrl penalties it recieves (among other factors) -or at least I haven't seen often the AI trying to save a lone cavalry unit, "shaken", under fire and trying to catch a much faster enemy. Maybe sometimes it brings that unit closer to the main formation but it surely reacts slowly to heavy enemy fire and unfavourable situations.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Any tips for using horse archers against other horse archers?

I'm currently the Armenians (Rome Total Realism MOD 3.2, Hard battles and Medium campaign) and have just started. Thanks to taking both that rebel city and the first Parthian city to the south, not to mention dedicated fiscal plaaning, my economy is out of the tank (for now). A little while after taking their city, I spotted some Parthian varmints encrouching on my newly acquired territory. Taking 1 unit Cats, 1 Sarmartians (who aren't all that hot, in my book), a general and 4 horse archers, I faced:

• [4]Horse archers
  [2]Generals
  [2]Slingers
  [2]Eastern Infantry (known as sparabara in the realism mod )

And I got beat. My HAs traded fire and casualities for a while, and I decided enough was enough, and I attacked with my Sarmartians, who quickly routed. I also threw in my Cats, who eventually fought to the death. And I realized, in this battle, that Horse Archers Can't Flank. At least not vanilla ones. I lost everyone except for the general (barely) and two HAs. Fortunately, after that fiasco, the enemy withdew the cavalry contingent and laid siege with a handful of infantry. I managed to speed some reinforment HAs to break the seige (very satisfying ).

But I may be fighting HAs for a while (Sarmartia looms to the north). Any ideas? I suspect that the cantabrian circle should be used.

Very useful thread, by the way.

[Doug-Thompson]

Anybody tried putting foot archers on guard mode?

Alexander the Pretty Good's question made me wonder. HA outgun foot archers because HA fire on the move. Foot archers can't.

ANY movement by foot archers, however slight, causes them to stop firing. Often, foot archers will move and then move again before they have a chance to draw, aim and fire.

So, putting foot archers in guard mode should keep them shooting.

If you're on defense, you can just stand on a hillside and dare the HA to come to you. If you have to attack -- well, perhaps you could "leapfrog" if you had enough foot archers. Just leave half on guard mode while moving the other half. Just be sure to keep your melee infantry close by so your archers don't get charged.

Also, I've often wondered how light siege weapons like scorpions do against HA.

==============


L'Impresario

I wonder what the morale penalty would be if something was circling and was behind the enemy at the same time. Possibly pretty severe.

[The Hun]

Cantabrian circle is the obvious way to attack foot archers since no longer are you a standing target. Also foot archers are now under constant fire because there are not now volleys. Cantabrian circle or 2 or 3 units against 1 is the way to attack AI HA. Map edges are overcome by selecting engage at will and ordering HA to a point where they can once again use skirmish.
My armies are all Scythian HA and Scythian Noble HA and they destroy anything they meet so far. Any strong unit can be killed by concentrated fire.

Doug Thompson... you mention leap frog....you mean 2 or 3 lines volley advance, volley advance? To do this I would use guard for all or some will skirmish. Guard is old hold position order. This will be effective of course and my counter would be to concentrate on one or both flanks.

BTW...I never use archers on skirmish, only hold. It means micro management but I guess I want them to fire rather than run about

Alexander... Sarmatians are very good,but they do not like to get isolated. Did you manage to split the infantry from the cav in that battle? It is what I would attempt or try to lure the generals to their death

[R'as al Ghul]

Problem: Horsearchers refuse orders when on skirmish mode, this gets dangerous when they skirmish near the map-edge. In battles with full stacks the chances are high that fast enemy units such as Desert Cav manage to catch your Horsearchers and fight them h2h or even that your whole army gets split into single units, each pursued to the edge. If you try to manouver your HA out of this situation the skirmish engine interferes and it's impossible to simply ride around the enemy although there might be enough space.
Solution: Take your HA off skirmish and on guard mode. Leave F@w on. Manually manouver them around the enemy unit towards the map centre. Preferrably with double click. Once they are in a safe position with the enemy between them and the map-edge, turn skirmish back on and guard mode off.

It's basically the same as "hold position" was in M:TW, order the unit to guard a terrain. I tried this in my last battles and could always get my HA out of situations where they would have otherwised been lost.


R'as