Saracens From Hell

[Thane Talain MacDonald]

A simple attack, sending a large crusade force from Italy to palestine in hopes to pick up a boatload of GA points and the favor of his papalness. I outnumber the enemy 2-1, mostly Italian Infantry and cavalry. I attack, simple job, the only units I'm worried about being the enemy's two line units of saracens, so I hit the with all of my spear, three Italian light and two Order Foot. Should rout them fairly quickly since they're surrounded, right? WRONG.

These Saracens, under a 1 star commander and Valour 1, not only proceed to last until hell freezes over, they proceed to dish out twice as many casualties as they take. Emboldened, the REST of the enemy armor proceeds to refuse to ever break too. After twenty minutes of fighting I finally win. Of the 512 enemies, 469 dead, 21 captured, and 22 escape. I thought Saracen morale was supposed to be LOW? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

My casualties? 662. Including all but twenty Italian Inf and seventeen Order Foot, an entire unit of Hospitallers (butchered to the last man by a combination of Desert Archers, and Ghazi Infantry), an entire unit of FMAA butchered, a unit of crossbows butchered, two units of Alans butchered, and two units of Mounted Crossbows almost butchered. All because I had to reduce enemy units by 95% or more before they would break.

[deejayvee]

Did they have no retreat?

Because that effects how quickly they will run away, doesn't it?

[The_Dude]

Maybe the ennemy general have some V&V upgrading moral. Do you attack uphill? Ennemy gets bonus when you attack uphill.

[Papewaio]

Should have sent a few units to slow down the opponents best (high armour low attack) and quickly wipe out a few of his worst units which may have caused the lesser units to chain rout... then using superior numbers go for the big boys.

Basically eat the hors d'oeuvre before the main meal.

[A.Saturnus]

Had a similar thing yesterday.
Italian crusade in Egypt. My Italian Infantry didn`t break his Saracen like I hoped. But I think they were higher valour than mine. Ghazi killing Hospitaller knights including my general. Of course all my units run, in spite of "no retreat" (actually, a crusade can retreat over sea, as it did, but it seems my men didn`t know it). HIS general died too, but all units rallied. It`s strange, I often see AI units running away five or six times in a battle, but I usully can`t rally a unit more than once.
However, the next attack was a defeat too, but the Sultan died and his men became rebel. I`m going to get Egypt today

[Alrowan]

some people are just unlucky... honestly, try figure out what the REAL deal is.. personally, i think some people just cant take losing

[Jaret]

I find muslim factions to be the underdog in MTW, especialy as time goes by and the Catholics get their Knights.

I wonder how you have failed in your crusade ... my battles always beginn with archery duells ... that I win 90% of te time since I always bring 4 units of the best Archers I got + 1-2 units of mounted archers/crossbows.

Solution is quite simple ... shoot them first ... then walk over and slap´em.

[Captain Fishpants]

The chances are your Saracens didn't have any line of retreat to another province, and thus got a huge "do or die" morale bonus. Once backed into a corner nearly all soldiers in M:TW will fight like cornered rats, which means that they *will* dish out damage before you take them out.

MikeB ~ CA

[Thane Talain MacDonald]

Nope, this was an amphibious assault on Palestine smack dab in the middle of a sprawling egyptian empire. They could've pick any direction and ran three provinces in a row and still been in their own nation.

As for routing the worst, the Saracens WERE the worst :P Its not like you can rout Ghazis, they're like cruise missiles http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

And I can't do an archery duel when they're on top of a hill, its bad form and I'd lose :P

[Al Qasim Hussein]

You might be surprised what you can do on an archery duel downhill. Especially if you have mounted crossbowmen. IF you have the units RUN close enough to the enemy archers that you can hit them but their infantry doesn't charge you, you'll wind up running under the arrows (remember, you MUST RUN, which is why horse archers/crossbowmen are superior in this manouvre - even if they're tired, they can still outrun infantry&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif The arrows should hit the ground BEHIND your men because you're running.

At any rate, pepper the archers or, if its your thing, the infantry behind them. Get them interested in these archer units so they don't notice that your bringing up your 1000 or so infantry and cavalry close to their position. They'll usually bumrush your archers w/ infantry when they get fed up w/ your harrassment at which point you have your missile units RUN LIKE HECK behind your infantry and suddenly YOU'RE defending THEIR attack, and you are in the drivers seat from then on.

I vow, this works ridiculously often.

[A.Saturnus]

In my case, the AI didn`t wait for me, it came halfway down the hill to attack me. However, it`s not that I lost. I expected to loose. What annoys me is just that I couldn`t rally Order foot after the death of my general while having no retreat. If it were reversed, the AI outnumbered and with a dead general, it could even rally peasants. Be honest, how often have you seen AI-peasants ralling after the death of the general, with retreat and do you really expect you would be able to do the same?
I`m not saying the AI is to strong, it surely isn`t. But cheating is a bad way to improve it, and if you let the AI cheat, make it so that it can`t be noticed

[malkuth]

Dont diss Sacarens they are pretty much Egypts only Front line unit they have during the whole game. They are tough as hell. In fact when I played egypt once the only units that gave my Sacarens trouble where AUMs.

[Ckrisz]

Without Saracens, Muslim armies don't really have a good cavalry-stopping 100-man unit. Nubians are unarmored, and I've seen them break under a charge before.

[Lord Romulous]

yeap the saracens are the goods.

they are the backbone of my turk armies. that and armenian heavy cav. and desert archers.

im still to early in years and tech to get the janisary units.