mmm

[Draksen]

I was thinking about a rather simple army composition : 2 unit types,
1-strong archery unit
2-strong pikemen

Strategy
Long range : archery firing
Medium range : pikemen form a line to protect archery,
archery keep medium dist. with ennemies
Short range/melee : pikemen in melee but groupped in-lines, archery firing
(groupped in lines= prevent too much cassualties of friendly fire.)

[A.Saturnus]

Definitely not my kind of tactic

[Alrowan]

umm... how bout no

simply because a h2h unit like CMAA will completely smash this army

id like to see you win a few battles to prove me wrong however

[Kraxis]

The idea itself is not bad... it has worked in history. But it will not work here.

First, Pikemen are bad at melee oddly enough.
Second, Pikemen have bad Armour (1). You will get too many casualties from FF.
Third, Archers are not very good at killing, neither from afar or in melee.
Four, it is easy to lock the Pikemen in melee and flank with light or worse with heavy cav. Those archers will get killed fast.

[Musashi]

It would work with SAPs, but not normal pike. You might Try it with JHI instead of pike, they're armored and good at melee, quite capable of surviving a few stray arrows and such.

I know it works with Varangian Guard http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

-Musashi

[Draksen]

by "pikemen" I mean Pikemen-like unit, but not necesseraly "pikemen";
a strong infantry unit not too bad vs. cavalry.

what about byzantium infantry or italian infantry ?

[Kraxis]

If you were Italian with 4 Order Foot and 4 Italian Infantry then perhaps, but still you lack some heavy hitters because the arrows won't kill enough for your line to do the work. And you still suffer from same problem of being flanked.
More or less the only faction I can think of that can do this is the Turks. Their archers of various kinds can often fight quite well. In High I have found it is effective to have (in low floring games) 4 Turcoman Foot with armour and 4 Jannisary Archers with weapons and then melee of your own choice. In high Florin change the Janissary Archers to Jannisary Infantry. But you have to make sure you use the arrows enough or else you will get trounced on.

[Foreign Devil]

You'd want some cavalry, even if only one or two units. They can be used to make flank and rear attacks on units that are engaging your pikemen. This will often quickly turn the tide in your favor, even if only for that unit.

[LadyAnn]

4 Ord.Foot + 4 It.Inf.? There are two weaknesses of such composition:
1. no punching power. The 8 It.Inf. (Ord.Foot==It.Inf.) has base melee of ... 0, so they are good against cav, but could never stop other sword/halberds infantry rush.
2. slow.

My opinion: may work to surprise the heck out of cav rushers, but against Barney Bunch, you won't have a chance. I believe if you set to expert mode, even the AI can chew you. Have you ever play against AI's Almohad Urban Elmo rush? I am amazed how AI did it. I lost that battle defending big hill on Morocco...

Annie

[ToranagaSama]

Ahhhh...if your talking MP, shouldn't this thread be in a different forum?

[LadyAnn]

Notice that I tried to steer it back to SP discussion? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Annie
ps: Urban Elmo is not to be confused with UglyElmo the MP player. It's my way to make those AUM be a bit cuter. Urban Elmo, in my lingo, is AUM.

[Kraxis]

Hehe... Annie, I said exactly that in my own post (about the 4 OF + 4 IF). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[deejayvee]

It works ok in SP with a Billmen/Longbowmen army. But at least one cavalry unit should be included.

[Musashi]

Rather than italian infantry and order foot, I'd go with Halberdiers because they will turn cavalry into dog food and will beat most other infantry units in a fistfight. If the enemy comes with an all VG or JHI army though, they're going to toast you like a marshmallow.

-Musashi