CALVARY ARCHERS

[kensai_loki]

i'm playing the tuks in VH/VH long campaign and its getting.......... boring:sleeping:

All becoz of yes as most of u players notice, CALVARY ARCHERS!:hmg:

i really dont see the rock scissors paper effect. u know, calvary mows infantry, infantry mauls spears and spears impales calvary. u know what i mean...

thing is what is the calvary archer's achilles heel?:help:

just a little background.....
im on my 108 turn [ playing on 1.0 timescale ], been playing very slowly coz only my 2nd campaign in m2tw. first one was the spainish, even more boring.... need to absorb all the little aspects of the game. i've just been using calvary archers stack [singular] to go around mauling every kind of army coming at me. just massacred 3 stacks of Sicilians eventhough i admit one of the the hardest plainly due to their D norman knights. those guys just wont die and they remind me of the T-1000 terminators. they just keep on walking... ok back to my point, my calvary archers of sipahis and turkomans just keep raining them :hmg: until they run and finally when the general dies after an ill-fated belief that his boys can catch up to my calvary archers which my boys will lead him to a trap far away from the rest of his boys where i will follow up and gang bang him in isolation. usually my arrows will reach a little less than half before i win the battle in average unless i'm going against the D norman knights< if only they spoke in a german accent and have red glowing eyes>

thing is at first i thought a well rounded army can beat my Arch Calv stack but i've been against every kind of army with siege weapons, with missiles and etc still my arc calv rules supreme. highest is 15% casualty. the only unit that make me serious in battles was the mameluke arc calv. they can hold their ground and fire serious arrows and not get tired... well in actual fact they are turks too, what u expect? some sort of the nemesis of my cal arc... too bad the egypt is under the rightful rule of the Turks :angel: Ok but seriously sometimes i can just form up my boys in formation and got to the toilet and not pause the game and when i finish answering the call of nature
my boys still be doing fine cause of skirmish mode and i'll proceed with a massacre.<did it twice>

comparing m2tw with rtw, the calvary archers did very little damage especially with my phalanxes or my legions. they were like mosquitos back then. yes in a sense this charateristic is being very historically accurate. look at mongols. i copied their tactics. its just that the challenge is very much lacking. there is no need of having a well rounded army anymore. after 5 or 6 battle just retrain them and walla u got an army of chevron and silver grades. repeat it at least3 times and u got gold grade cavalry archers. then the aI is truly screwed. been trying to mash my calv archers with light calvary who can catch up to me in custom battle and they arent that successful either cause they can NEVER get into formation to give an honest charge. skirmish mode. they lose in melee with the turks. what if the ai copied my moves and great many stacks of calvary archers? then I'll be screwed....

well im just waitin for the mongols to come. finally a challenge i hope. meeting them for the first time in m2tw, gunpowder to be discovered and the world to turn round where my calvary arcs gonna massacre unamoured men in chicken suits. < calvary arch vs infantry - armor = orgasmic massacre >
just wondering how you guys playing m2tw in multiplayer? i bet my balls everyone gonna hoard up on calvary arc in their stacks.
well guys thats just my opinion. thanks for reading and also in advance if you are to share your thoughts too. appreciate too if you guys can give me suggestions to harden up the challenge...:drama3:

[Quintus.JC]

I really like Reiters. During the later period of the game when my empire is well established I just takes half-stack of them and able to beat most AI armies. These guys are quite amazing. Pistol Bullets that's armour piecering. They also have very good melee capablities which will ensure that even when they're out of bullets they'll still give a good fight. Vardariotai is another missile cavalry unit I really like. They're fast, have good missile attacks and their melee status even outweights Feudal Knights. They also have cool looking swords, but that's just my bias opinion. :yes:

The Turks do have excellent Missile Cavalry, but apart from Sipahis the rest can't hold their ground in a good old melee fight. Although they weren't designed for this obviously.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

I have warmed to HA as of late since have been playing with factions that use them often. Have always considered the HA as an archer on a horse.... this suggests that I use them as a cav compnent as well so they must be able to protect themselves. Vardariotai work well so have been using them often in my Byz campaign.

I usually class HA in 2 categories... those who can melee and those who cant.(Vardariotai and turkopoles for example)I see no particular use for the latter except to slow down or draw away a unit.

I havent built any all HA stacks but seems it could work very well,esp those Reiters... I will HAVE to try those even tho itll be a long wait :furious3:

For defending against many HA attackers ill try to have a hi-morale unit in loose formation in front of the rest of my forces to draw the fire. Also put a spear unit in loose form to chase them around. The sacrifice units will suffer many losses but the rest of your force will remain intact.

If you have many archers take them off skirmish...9 time out of 10 the AI wont charge their HA into your missles for awhile at least so make a line of archers abit in front of your other INF and wait em out.


Shameless thread hijack... but when I was looking at unit specs in the *Lest we Forget* topic I noticed that Handgunners are NOT fire by rank and all other gunpowder troops are. This is shocking information... and I will have to attempt reuse of this unit nowI have in the past and they always fail... but no fire by rank is PLP to me, perhaps with this breakthru they will finally serve the empire effectively.

[PBI]

I suppose musketeers and arquebusiers are the nearest thing to a counter to horse archers; the fact that horse archer stacks are so powerful is perhaps a reflection of the fact that the AI never builds these units.

Failing guns though, I suppose decent, armoured foot archers like pavise crossbows chew up horse archers quite nicely. I find light cav are OK against the non-melee light horse archer types, but I find half the time I'm fighting the melee types like Vardariotai or Mongol Heavy Archers, so I prefer to use archers instead.

[Vladimir]

Foot archers. And if you want a challenge, don't spam.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Question:

Do yall send in your HA as regular cav as well? esp when they have no ammo left? or am I the only 1 who wastes troops in this manner?

[kensai_loki]

well if u have a stack of HA only and you got no arrows left....
but rarely that happens with HA stacks. only happens to me when i finish my arrows and the AI is walking around with those terminator types inf like norman stacks.
but the thing is since HA usually moves pretty fast just surround an isolated unit and charge them from all sides. if u finished ur arrows already and got them to run a few kilometers, they'll rout in no time....:hanged:

hmmm does turks have reiters?

[Quillan]

To oppose an army composed mostly of horse archers is possible, but it requires certain things: lots of missile power, and firm command control of the units in the army. This is why the AI never seems to pull it off. Horse archers are incredibly powerful when properly used. They do not have an Achilles heel as such, but there are a few things about them:

They are less accurate when firing while moving than they are when sitting still.
They are less accurate when firing behind than when firing forward or to the side.
Many (but not all) horse archers are lacking in melee power or armor.
Almost no horse archers have missile ranges that equal or exceed foot missile troops.

So my preferred method is an army based around foot archers with long range missiles. You want some melee infantry for protection, and a little cavalry, but primarily missile. If I have to fight a horse archer army, I'll set up and sit still, letting them come to me. I'll start shooting first because I have the best range. I'll concentrate my fire to gut enemy units. When they start getting close, I might use some of my units to chase them off, but never get so far away you get separated from the army. If they do charge, then they're playing into my strength rather than their own. I keep my archers off skirmish because I can't afford to have them run, and I prefer archers with good armor.

The ideal chasers are probably Venetian Stradiots, as they have good armor and are fast moving. They'll take casualties from shooting, but if they ever catch the horse archers they'll probably wipe them out.

[Yaropolk]

For chasing individual HA units here is a good strategy: use 2 units - first the cheapest fastest light horse unit you have such as alan light cavalry, followed immediately by your heavy knights. Light cav will take heavy casualties, but will tie up the HA's into a melee fight, the knights will decimate them. Light cav can then be dismissed / recruited. Mercs work well for this role.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I spammed HA's too as the Turks and it does make the game very easy. But you won't be invincible. Milan will spam xbows at you that will annihilate Sipahis and Turkomans, and the Mongol armies always slug battles out into a close victory for whoever gets it in the end.

As for Reiters, I'm not so keen on using them except with combined-arms armies, since they lack the range and melee ability against any enemy ranged units. Camel Gunners are the way to go.

[Duke Bart]

I suppose if you are extremely motivated you can try toi corner the HA but honestly there really is no way to beat them without either throwing the same thing at them and hoping for the best or spamming archers w/ armour

[Askthepizzaguy]

I once posted battle replays regarding how to take on an army of lots of horse archers, good cavalry, and lots of infantry. Basically I was the Byzantines and I had a comparable army, mostly infantry and some cavalry.

The main idea was that I chased the horse archers with my cavalry to make them run away, which drew out their heavy cavalry, which I promptly surrounded and butchered with mine and my spears. Then, ignoring the horse archers, I did the hammer and anvil against the enemy infantry and slew their commander.

Now, I had broken and battered forces, and the entire enemy horse archer battalion remained. So I spread out my forces to avoid the missile fire and spread the forces in a wide net. heavy infantry in the middle, cavalry on the ends. Sure, my forces were weak, but horse archers and melee don't often mix, except for Cataphracts, and they are too expensive to field en masse and you deal with them like you would a general's bodyguard. Surround and pound until they die.

Now, I forced them backwards while losing less men than before, until the reached the edge of the map and were surrounded. I put my men in a tighter formation and charged. The enemy were forced to charge too, and I surrounded them.

Butchered them to death.

It's not a question of which unit, against the horse archer, for anything can surround them in great enough numbers and force them to melee to their deaths, but what tactic you use against the horse archer.

If you had a large amount of light cavalry you can force their deaths quicker by pinning them immediately, but light cavalry kind of dies quick in melee too. Use a mix of heavy and light... light to pin, and heavy to melee. You can use large amounts of archers, but they are vulnerable to any kind of cavalry and usually suck in melee. Personally, I think a large contingent of heavy infantry will work, so long as they have good stamina and attack. Axemen and spearmen are brilliant at this.

The more men you have, and the better in melee they are, the worse off the horse archers are.

:2cents:

[kensai_loki]

exactly you see....

these are the methods to kill AI HA stacks if they do appear pizza dude.
just like in rome i get a stack of phalanxes against a stack of HA.
i just spread them from from 1 end to the other end and corner those mosquitos that always happens to be persians. they run but ultimately they run out of space and in the end impale themselves on my phalanx.

now i'm wondering whether everyone does that on multiplayer?

anyway the mongols finally appear.... only in a 1.5 stack.... boring.....
i thought they gonna appear in 6 or 7 stacks like mtw 1. i was pysching myself for a ha vs ha stack thats gonna make me shit in ma pants but i'm really dissapointed... a castle or bridge fight will wipe them out. it aint no invasion man its more like a friendly neighbourhood visit. anyone knows how to make the mongols appear in greater numbers? maybe i should load my game cause maybe its just my luck they appear in small numbers...

[Quintus.JC]

As for Reiters, I'm not so keen on using them except with combined-arms armies, since they lack the range and melee ability against any enemy ranged units. Camel Gunners are the way to go.

It's true that Reiters have a much shorter range than Camel Gunners, but their melee stats is noway bad for missile cavalry, much better than camel gunners at least. Plus they also cost less recruit and upkeep money. Not to mention their missile attack is a staggering 20.

[Quintus.JC]

There are many different ways of killing Missile Cavalry but I personally find Missile Infantry best for the job. Crossbowmen from Europe could easily take care of Turkish Horse Archers.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

anyway the mongols finally appear.... only in a 1.5 stack.... boring..... i thought they gonna appear in 6 or 7 stacks like mtw 1. i was pysching myself for a ha vs ha stack thats gonna make me shit in ma pants but i'm really dissapointed... a castle or bridge fight will wipe them out. it aint no invasion man its more like a friendly neighbourhood visit. anyone knows how to make the mongols appear in greater numbers? maybe i should load my game cause maybe its just my luck they appear in small numbers...

They come in three waves. Usually a wave consists of three to five stacks. If you see only one and a have stack, you are either unlucky or you may have missed some stacks.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

anyway the mongols finally appear.... only in a 1.5 stack.... boring.....
i thought they gonna appear in 6 or 7 stacks like mtw 1. i was pysching myself for a ha vs ha stack thats gonna make me shit in ma pants but i'm really dissapointed... a castle or bridge fight will wipe them out. it aint no invasion man its more like a friendly neighbourhood visit. anyone knows how to make the mongols appear in greater numbers? maybe i should load my game cause maybe its just my luck they appear in small numbers...

Perhaps the rest are just in a area of the map you cannot see, they will appear in greater numbers than that. The Golden Horde was a far graver threat to me than the Mongols ever are/were. Mongols have no INF to speak of and I can say comfortably that I have never lost a city/castle to this faction in MTW2...they are after all just a big horde of light cav and archers...

[kensai_loki]

there's a golden horde invasion?

thought there was only mongols and
timurids right?:dizzy2: :dizzy2: :dizzy2:

[cassu]

if i remember correctly the mongols were called the golden horde... do you mean the timurids?

[Eikon the Magistrate]

The Golden Horde appeared in MTW1 the Mongols and Timurids appear in MTW2.

since this is my 100th post...do I get a cookie?

[Askthepizzaguy]

:cookie:


hmm... I guess not.

[Quillan]

Technically, the Golden Horde is a successor to the Mongols. The Mongols invaded in the 1200s, and the territory they kept afterwards in Russia formed the Khanate of the Golden Horde. It wasn't an expansive bunch, unlike the Mongols under Genghis or the Timurids under Tamerlane.

[Martok]

there's a golden horde invasion?

thought there was only mongols and
timurids right?:dizzy2: :dizzy2: :dizzy2:
cassu is correct: The Mongols and the Golden Horde are the same thing. The Timurids make an appearance separate from the Mongols/GH. :yes:

[Doug-Thompson]

The AI simply can't cope with well-handled cavalry archers.

You could make an arguement that the AI can't handle well-handled anything, but cavalry archers are a particular challenge for the AI because you can wipe out AI armies with very few losses.

I don't have any multi-player experience, except for hotseats, so I'll leave the question about what happens in multi-player to others.