Tactical Primer?

[Pragmatic]

Can someone post the location of a tactical primer for MTW? Something to help a wargame newbie like myself to actually win a battle with acceptable loss ratios? I am completely clueless with fighting battles.

In one battle, I was the Danes, trying to take Norway from the rebels. I had 300 vikings, 120 archers, and 20 royal knights (my heir; 4-star command rating), against 300 vikings.

You'd think I'd win handily, right? But nope. I outnumbered them by 140 units, but I barely pulled it off.

So here are the things I've noticed. Let me know if these problems can be resolved.

1) The royal knights kept charging ahead of the rest of the army, even though I chose the formation that goes missile/foot/horse.

2) Changing facing of a formation is a pain. When I try to turn the whole formation, using the ALT-Rightclick. This causes each unit to change facing, not the whole formation.

3) What's the point of formations? I'll set up a formation, but it takes so much micromanagement to keep it up as I travel toward the enemy, what's the point? It's not like my troops are going to STAY in that formation.

4) What's the point of archers? In the battle I described above, the archers killed practically no vikings. Blech!

5) Do all the battles devolve into disorganized melees? I want to set up a spear wall. I want my troops to be like the Roman legionaires, not like the Celtic warriors. But once battle starts, it all falls to pot.

6) How do you fight a battle well enough to get skilled attacker? I can't win battles when I outnumber enemy troops, how am I supposed to do it when I'm outnumbered myself?

Argh, this is so damn frustrating!!!!

[Yagyu Jubei]

Hey M8 don't let it get you down....I remember my total frustrations with the STW battle tutorial where you just had one unit of archers to take out one unit of spears....I almost through the disk out the window!!!
I will give you a couple of ideas and I am sure some more folks will jump on the topic as well...
1) This is a problem when you are trying to move the entire army as a unit and you have slower moving footsoldiers in the front... When I am the attacker I will use this method, but only in the very beginning stage of the battle, as the terrain changes and the opposition moves, I have to think of the easiest way for my troops to get to where they will have the best advantage.. Try painting your spear units to a position and then while hitting the space bar, paint in your next line. I find that painting them into a formation in smaller groups is much more efficient than trying to get the whole army to move as a unit. I think that this will help with #2 as well(the alt right click really only works for one unit at a time)... find pairings that work together for you...Like in your battle above I would place the archers in front(probably not grouped) having them in "skirmish" (unless I really want to hold my ground and fire till you see the whites of their eyes by using "hold position"), Then I would make two groups of 2Viking units each just behind them. Then I would have the cavs in back and have them ready for flanking or cleanup.
3) The formations are good only to a point...I enjoy experimenting with the differant formations and seeing how I can attack or defend using the way they start you off....But this is really only just the beginning, after that you have to use your head and do things that make sense to YOU.
4) Archers are great for many things...Try to keep the high ground...They do so much better when they are above their targets..keep them in lines no more than 3 deep preferably 2 as this will give them a better view of their targets....I don't like to leave them in the "fire at will" position as they tend to shoot when the enemy is still really too far off....wait till the arrow turns green for a while before targeting your enemy....then move in the archers protection as they get closer and closer...this is when I switch the archers to "hold position" so they won't keep running back...if they are protected, there is no sense in them moving back...hold the line and instill fear in the enemy...
5) No not all battles end up this way...stay organised and keep your mind working...remember to use flanking moves and use each unit for what they are best at.
6) practice...practice..practice

There are many keys to winning....High Ground!!!!!is the biggest one...If the defending army is on a hill attack him from above, even if it means marching your army a long way. I have had lots of fun marching my armies to high ground experimenting with formations and lines, trying to make them move like a real army would move...then when I aproach the hill I use the paint method to make the formation that I think would work best.....
Don't give up m8...keep trying and just try to enjoy....If you lose...think about what the enemy did and try to learn from the ai...


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Watashiwa Yagyu Jubei desu! Ganbate!

[theBlind]

Hi there

Ok, first of, I am not totally sure, what exactly you have done or not, so I´ll just write a few general guidelines I use.

1) Use the formations. Especially 5 and 6 are very useful. Take your men together and move them towards the enemy (not attacking - just move).

2)Use your archers to pepper the enemy as long as the AI likes it. (Thats free kills after all)

3)Take it slow. The AI will maybe start a few tries to get you to rush. Don´t fall for that. If they want to die, they can come to you.

4)Enemy Archers are prime Targets, as they make 2) harder for you and die fast.

5)Again: Stay cool. The enemy will maybe try to flank you with some troops. If its not a major tread, don´t treat it alike. The flanking enemys are under heavy morale pressure already, so you can easyly rout them with a small force. Use only what is necessary (you need experience for this part). Then let them rout or kill them off with your cav.

6)Use cavalry as a fighting unit only in last resort. They are expensive, die easy (for that much money) and are FAR better in hunting down fleeing enemies. Use them to attack enemy archers not covered by the main force.

Thats all I can thnk about right now. It all comes down to you getting more experienced. You can have very good and tight control over your troops, but you have to know how and only you yourself will learn. So use those guiedlines, they should help. If not, I can´t be blamed, I beat some Almos 1500+some kills to kinda 130 losses with basically thos tactics alone.

.)You came to triumph over your enemy, not to work. Think about it ;-)

theBlind

[Dionysus9]

Keep plugging away, you have identified the areas you need to improve on. The fact you even know about facing and the Alt key is impressive.

Group units in formation with the G key before using ALT RIGHTCLICK and they will maintain formation when they change facing.

If you walk your formation to a new location the cavalry wont outpace the infantry. If you run them, then cavalry will arrive first, unless you re-select the cav and slow them down.

Best advice I can give you is to go and checkout the SHOGUN ACADEMY. Almost every single piece of tactical advice at the Academy still holds true for MTW.

Link is:
http://shogun-academy.tripod.com/

If you see me online and want a game, I can help you with troop movements and orders. My online name is Bacchus.

Oh, one more thing, use the hold position command to keep your spearwall in formation.
They default to hold-formation, but need to be told to also hold position so they dont re-adjust or follow a fleeing enemy.

P.S. Most battles devolve into disorganized melees...the most organized (or I should say least disorganized) general normally wins.

[Yagyu Jubei]

I love threads like this.....

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Watashiwa Yagyu Jubei desu! Ganbate!

[ToranagaSama]

Try being pragmatic and MASTER the tutorial!

Most Shogun vets mastered the tutorial first. The underlying reason for this (cause even the impatient did this), is that the demo/tutorial was released prior to the full game; and the period of time beteween the releases was substantial.

Personally, I gave the MTW tutorial about 5 minutes!

Suggest:

1) Locate and d/l the Shogun Demo/Tutorial. This is an excellent tool to learn the VERY important BASCIS of combat. (Don't let the japanese stuff confuse ya!)

How to use terrain. How to use archers. How to use cavalry, etc. (I think there's cavalry) The demo/tutorial is progressive in nature and it's also good fun!!

2) Then, possibly, move on to the MTW tutorial. Like I said I didn't really use it, but I suspect it'll provide some basic tutoring regarding the differing "variety" of units that Shogun doesn't have and MTW does.

3) Give MTW another go.

[BlackWatch McKenna]

Grouping units is a good place start.

Group the Wikings; Group the Archers; Group the Horse.

Now you have three fancy groups. When you choose the Groups, you can Paint them where they need to be. In this situation, I would advance on the enemy vikings like this:

[150 enemyVikings]

[friendly archers]
[friendly vikings][friendly horse]

Then you can just pepper the enemy until you are out of arrows. I would concentrate on their left flank (since that is closest to your horse). Once you are out of arrows, just put your archers on YOUR Left Flank and march your Vikings up to them. Since you have the same amount of Vikings, it would look like this:

[enemy vikings]
[your tough archs][your vikings.][Ur Horse]

Push your horsies around to their flank on your right, push your Archies around their flank on the left...

...and then crash into them with your vikings. Once engaged, Smash your horse into the Rear of the unit your archers shot. Your friendly archers can flank on the other side.

In theory, as the enemy left and right flanks give way, you can roll them up.

//black

p.s. Also, you could try setting up custom battles to get the hang of troop movement, etc.

[Cheetah]

PAF