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

[Creeper525]

think part of the problem is the foot archer targeting. It looked like the foot archers were targeting left of my horse archer. A bit like if they were targeting ahead of the horse, but did not get that the horse is NOT going to move in a straight line.

this should be put into the bug thread I think

also, I wich CA would maybe make the map boardars round, instead of square (wich creates corners)

though I know, a map edge is just as good as a map corner for getting your cav archers killed, but bigger maps would be great, everybody wants them anyway, not just to save Cav archers

just as big as the historical battle maps like carrahae, would be good enough, that have the extra 16 tiles, instead of the campaign battle size wich only includes 9 tiles

[Doug-Thompson]

Sorry for the much-belated reply, elephant. I've been away from the forum for a long time. Too long.

Re: HA squares. It refers to one unit put into a very deep formation.

There is something that I do know and could recommend, however: using Cantabrian Circle can gain you experience faster than in regular formation.

This is something that occurred to me in a siege battle at a Scythian campaign (VH/H). My horse archers sallied out to shoot the German spear warbands, and knowing that they will have a hard time coming near me, I messed around and make them all do the circle.

I tripled the speed, and after 5-10 minutes of game time, I noticed all of my HAs getting a chevron, with their status reading Tired, but unharmed.

In the next battles, I tried this again as I fought some Rebel armies. And it seemed that the HAs each gained another chevron at the end of the battle. Further retrials with the same HA army shows me that they gain one chevron per 2 battles using the circle.

In conclusion: Tired to Exhausted HAs (perhaps all units?) are more likely to gain experience if they kill something than they would when Fresh to Winded.

Maybe someone can test it out in order to prove/disprove my findings?

Now that would be a significant find. I'll look for that, but I'm going to wait until the expansion comes out at the end of next month.

According to FAQ postings by the developers, Parthians will get the Parthian shot while other faction's HA will have to use Cantabrian circle. Although the message wasn't detailed, it appears that Parthians will be better at skirmishing away than other factions, which will have to go into Cantabrian circle to get a similar effect.

If so, that would be a very good balance. Parthian HA are extremely good, but they are showed into a corner strategically. One of their first enemies is Egypt, a powerhouse. The developers also promised improvements to the AI, which will make the Parthian situation even tougher. They need that HA advantage. However, other factions would simply sweep if that ability carried over into, for instance, the Huns. Forcing them to use Cantabrian circle would balance things.

[Doug-Thompson]

Creeper525:

No doubt, the map is small for a lot of things, but especially for cavalry archers.

[Doug-Thompson]

Impatient for Barbarian Invasion horse archers, I played around with Parthia some more.

IF you turn skirmish mode on first and IF you turn on Cantabrian circle first and THEN target a specific unit, skirmish will work sort of like it should. The HA don't start firing at the nearest unit but they will move away from it and keep firing at the unit you targeted.

[Doug-Thompson]

The process of updating this for the "Barbarian Invasion" expansion kit has begun.

According to very early reports, BI:

Fixes the "Skirmish won't work" bug introduced by the 1.2 patch.
Reduces the effectiveness of archery overall.
Reduces the effect of cavalry charges.
Not all HA can use Cantabrian circle, only the light varieties.

I'll update this post some, but the topic will probably need a new thread in the colliseum, too.

[Kraxis]

Add that not all horse archers can use the circle. Only the light ones.

[Doug-Thompson]

Add that not all horse archers can use the circle. Only the light ones.

Done.

[Kraxis]

Horse archers seem to be much more attentive towards the skirmish.
They will react much more sensible towards enemies advancing on them (unlike infantry with skirmish). And if you send them towards a position inside the skirmish circle (too close to the enemy) they will run back and forth. In itself not very great but it actually makes them harder to hit.

[Elephant]

I don't know if this is the topic to post in about this problem I have, but it just seems that Scythian Noble Archers are more prone to getting killed by arrows than the basic Scythian Horse Archers!

In one of my battles, those damn Archer Warbands were able to take out 2-3 of my Noble Archers almost every round they fired, and my guys were doing the Cantabrian Circle!

Maybe the basic Scythian HAs' "Fast Moving" ability makes them harder to be hit by missile units?

[Doug-Thompson]

I don't know if this is the topic to post in about this problem I have, but it just seems that Scythian Noble Archers are more prone to getting killed by arrows than the basic Scythian Horse Archers!

Whoa. That's not good. Surely the Noble archers have better armor.

Are the regular HA running and the nobles just walking? Speed makes a difference.

[Elephant]

Whoa. That's not good. Surely the Noble archers have better armor.

Are the regular HA running and the nobles just walking? Speed makes a difference.

I always run the last few lengths to quickly get in range to attack the enemy archers whenever HAs are involved.

I also use Loose Formation with my Cantabrian Circle, so that they run in more spread out circles.

[890719k]

Does anyone have any solution against HA?
It is very hard to force it to melee as it runs faster than any of my unit.

[Knight Templar]

Welcome to the Org

To answer your question:
1. Use foot archers. There are more men in foot archer unit then in HA unit, plus, foot archers fire more accurate.
2. Try to circle them with one unit attacking from the front and the other from the back (although it's difficult as HA react very sensible towards enemies advancing on them)

[890719k]

Thx

But isn't it stated in this post that foot archers can no longer beat horse archers in RTW?

[Diurpaneus]

Light Cavalry and Foot Archers are the best units against HA. I preffer Light Cavalry (I always have one unit of light cavalry in my army)

[Knight Templar]

Thx

But isn't it stated in this post that foot archers can no longer beat horse archers in RTW?

In my Parthian campaign, where 75% of my armies are HA, I mostly dislike fighting against 5 or more archer units armies (of course, not too much; my HA are stronger in mellee) although this guide improved my HA tactics a lot

The effects of that are enormous. Foot archers are still one of the best counters to horse archers, but they're not nearly as good as they were in MTW, especially if the AI is handling the foot archers and a human is controlling the horse archers.

[Helgi]

In my Parthian campaign, where 75% of my armies are HA, I mostly dislike fighting against 5 or more archer units armies (of course, not too much; my HA are stronger in mellee) although this guide improved my HA tactics a lot

For me, I prefer putting my horse archers, when I can get my hands on them, all on one flank, my right. backed up with either 1-2 hvy inf. or 1-2 Hvy or Lt. Cav. Then I focus my attack on 1 or 2 enemy units to help smash the enemy's left with what else I have one my right.

[Pontifex Rex]

Hmmm,...I think my tactics with a Horse Archer army are somewhat different from most of the posts I've read. I use a "ride-by" strafing attack or defence which looks something like this (15-16 units).


_______{Enemy here}________




_________A A
_________A A
_________A A
_________A A
_________A A
_________A A
_________A A
_________A A


The army will ride from right to left (enemies left to right) at an oblique angle across the enemy's front until the entire formation rides past the enemy flank (skirmish mode off). The attacks will hit the the centre-righ to right hand wing of the enemy army with a torent of arrows. As the enemy army wheeels to face your new position you dash a ways out of range of any missile troops and redress the ranks as best you can. Once the lads have a had a good 30 second rest, they will charge again,...repeating the oblique attack.

The enemy army will eventually become disorganized and you can start spliting your formation into two wings (or perhaps three if needs be) and start picking the enemy apart. Likewise, once the enemy formation is disorganized, you can form the army into two lines as the enemy formations advances piecemeal, slowly falling back but wrecking havoc as you do.

If the enemy has cavalry your first "ride-by" will probably draw them out, so be ready with the skirmish button. Take out the enemy cavalry first and then the infantry. You may lose a dozen, maybe two dozen horses but, some will "heal" their wounds. As units weaken you can reorg and send remnants back for rebuilding or bring up replacements to distribute among the veteran units. Works quite well.

I just defeated a full 20 unit Macedon army plus 12 units reinforcing with 13 Horse Archers, 1 General, 3 Sarmatian Mercs and 3 Phalanx Mercs.

Cheers

[OhLawd]

Things to consider when fighting cavalry:
- Horse archers using cantabrian circle will tire out after a few minutes. Then, chase them down with fresh cavalry (ALWAYS keep a fresh cavalry unit handy!).
- You can also chase down horse archers by having some cav units chase them and others walk towards them (though staying towards the middle of the map), then alternating the roles. Have them in loose formation.
- Archers used to counter horse archers should be using loose formation, hold position, fire at will, no skirmish mode. For close range, fire works better. If they are charged by a cavalry unit, don't move them but have a spear unit charge the cavalry instead. Fire may be a good idea if they're using the circle. Concentrate all your fire on one unit.
- Any cavalry engaged by both a spear and cavalry unit will have the choice of either running while being mowed down by the cavalry or staying to fight the spearmen.
- Ballistae and to a lesser extent onagers can also be used against horse archers, but require a special effort to protect them against cavalry. Elite archers are downright nasty against horse archers, go to the center of the map and hire some Cretan and Rhodian mercenaries.
- Archers on top of a hill are at a large advantage in both range and firepower. Archery is almost useless in a forest though javelins have the advantage. You can also try to lure horse archers into ambushes.
- An all-horse archer force faces the weakness that their units can be corraled by cavalry one by one. This is why you don't want them in loose formation. Have two teams of light cavalry encircle them this way. Try to get their general.
- Don't plan on destroying the all-cavalry army, just stand your ground and try to get a good casualty ratio. Eventually the horse archers will run out of ammo and it'll be over.

[RLucid]

The weakness of skirmishing forces, is they tend to waste huge amounts of energy dashing back & forth, or cantabrian circle. Careful use of multiple Cavalry units, can take turns to tire, enemy horse. Then attack with fresh horse, when they're isolated.

I've had some success using Echelon formations. It does take some patience though and timing. I'll often have to rely on spearmen infantry to cover 1 flank and concentrate all my cavalry on the other.

[_]

.....[_]

...........[_]

The point is the 1st unit attracts attention of missile cavalry, it can either charge directly (if enemy cavalry are passive), or maneuver past and round, or it can wheel off and draw a unit onto it. Quite likely to be in loose formation, and moving fast and hard to hit. 2nd or 3rd can close up, if it has a charging opportunity.

The 2nd & 3rd units have similar flexibility. If AI charges unit 2 with a horse unit, then the others can quickly return back and tilt odds massively in favour. If the missile AI unit attacks each in turn, then it gets tired running about.

Very often you can catch a unit cold from flank, then secondary charge in rear. Once routing the freshest unit can chase it off the map, whilst the other regroup and rest.

Ideally you can lure the missile units, within range of Light Infantry Missiles with superior firepower and protected by spearmen. Then catch them as they retreat from behind, as the "bait" turns.

[OhLawd]

I did some custom battles trying different configurations against an all horse archer army. Every nation has at least one solution to the problem. I also notice another weakness of missile units in general - just firing arrows will make them Winded in a few minutes, making them an easy chase for a fresh cav unit.

3 slinger, 2 spear, 1 light cav vs. 6 horse archer
The horse archers more or less faced off against my slingers, I had to run the slingers up to the horses every once in a while due to the range difference (being on a hill helps). After a few minutes about half of the slingers and the horse archers were gone, then I overran the tired horse archers with the cav unit. This probably represents an ideal force balance (may want 2 cav though). Everyone was in loose formation the entire time.
Casualties: 1.5 slinger, .5 spear vs. 5 horse archer

2 armored elephant vs. 6 horse archer
This seems to be a uniquely Carthaginian solution. The horse archers were only able to kill one elephant, I eventually "lost" the battle because the elephants went mad.
Casualties: 1/6 elephant, 3 horse archer

4 semiauto ballista, 2 spear vs. 6 horse archer
It was fun to watch them shoot at the horses. Ballistas can't do much against loosely formed targets, but they were comparable to archers. I exited when both sides were out of ammo.
Casualties: 1 semiauto ballista, .5 spear vs. 3 horse archer

1 light cav, 5 war dogs vs. 6 horse archer
It's not too practical because the handlers can be killed so easily.
Casualties: .5 light cav, 3 war dogs vs. 1.5 horse archer

2 chosen archer, 1 spear vs. 6 horse archer
elite archers are the ideal opponent to use against cavalry. Just make sure you're using fire arrows because it conserves ammo and causes double damage against horse archers, despite the slow reload. I "lost" the battle, but only because I went at a disadvantage to prove how effective elite archers are.
Casualties: 1.5 chosen archer, .5 spear, 4.5 horse archer

Overall you can in fact fight horse archers with RTW vanilla, but the purchase and upkeep costs of horse units should be increased by 25-50% (at least in the case of light units) because the upkeep is roughly the same per unit as archers. This is not accurate because horses have to eat and drink (especially in the desert), must be trained to a similar extent humans are, and must be replaced regularly because of their shorter lifespan.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Excellent post! Be careful, however, because if you show continued aptitude for painstaking effort and methodical research, you will be captured by the EB development team and we will never hear from you again.

[Praetor Rick]

Overall you can in fact fight horse archers with RTW vanilla, but the purchase and upkeep costs of horse units should be increased by 25-50% (at least in the case of light units) because the upkeep is roughly the same per unit as archers. This is not accurate because horses have to eat and drink (especially in the desert), must be trained to a similar extent humans are, and must be replaced regularly because of their shorter lifespan.

The real problem with Horse Archers is that they come much earlier than most of the counters. Armored Elephants? Repeating Ballistas? Um, yeah, tier 5 units aren't really viable answers to tier 2 (tier 1 for Scythia) units in the campaign. Even tier 3 regular archers will leave you at a meaningful disadvantage if you have to face off against horse archers early in the game.

The other problem with Horse Archers is that they are annoying to face far out of proportion to their effectiveness. You go into battle against Parthia or Scythia as a non-HA faction, and there's not really any fun to be had there. You spend the entire battle trying to actually get to do something to the stupid things, and "win" by surviving until they run out of ammo after they inflict serious damage to your army. Or, if you're clever, you "win" by maybe pinning a couple of units to the map boundary so you can slaughter them, at which point they rout and instantly escape because they're at the map boundary, and even if they don't, they still run fast enough to get to wherever they're retreating to with minimal casualties. It is rarely, if ever, possible to crush a HA army with superior tactics - drive them off, maybe, crush, hardly ever.

[Doug-Thompson]

The real problem with Horse Archers is that they come much earlier than most of the counters. (emphasis added). Armored Elephants? Repeating Ballistas? Um, yeah, tier 5 units aren't really viable answers to tier 2 (tier 1 for Scythia) units in the campaign. Even tier 3 regular archers will leave you at a meaningful disadvantage if you have to face off against horse archers early in the game.

The other problem with Horse Archers is that they are annoying to face far out of proportion to their effectiveness. You go into battle against Parthia or Scythia as a non-HA faction, and there's not really any fun to be had there. You spend the entire battle trying to actually get to do something to the stupid things, and "win" by surviving until they run out of ammo after they inflict serious damage to your army. Or, if you're clever, you "win" by maybe pinning a couple of units to the map boundary so you can slaughter them, at which point they rout and instantly escape because they're at the map boundary, and even if they don't, they still run fast enough to get to wherever they're retreating to with minimal casualties. It is rarely, if ever, possible to crush a HA army with superior tactics - drive them off, maybe, crush, hardly ever.

That's all very true. I'm an HA fan, obviously, but understand other player's dislike: HA are frustrating to fight.

It's surprising and pleasing to see this old thread still kicking.

[eliterun]

one thing i've noticed with horse archers...

was sieging a pontic city, they sallied out, and when my HA were chased to the edge of the map i took them off skirmish ordered them to a more central location, and then put them back on skirmish + told them to fire @ the unit chasing them...and they ran right into the unit that was chasing them when I put them back on skirmish!

anyone else notice that if you give them commands to fire at a specific unit, skirmish mode doesn't work quite right?

[Darkvicer98]

Yes i've noticed when using too many Numidian Cavalry. I ordered them to fire on the Roman General and at the time they were up and down so a few of my units ran straight into his unit. Luckily i took few casualties and ordered them to retreat before continuing to open fire. Still i won the battle.

[Ralblecyasync]

HELP..
Rtw Dont install they say:an earlier version of rome total war is detected - please uninstall before installing Rome total war - goldedition.
hell? plz help me.

[MajorFreak]

My problem with the Cantabrian cirlce is that it takes too much space. Considering the friendly fire problems in RTW, the circle makes your HAs more likely to overlap each other and start annihilating each other.

*scratches head* you know, the only use for cantabrian is when you're on a flat plain type terrain...that's when i find the HA able to mob and not inflict blue on blue. It's when you try this on uneven group that you get friendly fire casualties.

[Oleander Ardens]

Looking for the wisdom of old days, to fight in new distant lands.

The gist of it is still valid for newer CA games.

OA

[seleucus1nicator]

i hate to fight horse archers, especially that of scythia.