Offensive tactics

[Leet Eriksson]

I'm only good at defending but when i go offensive i auto-calc becuase i always lose if i personally commanded the battle.any effective offensive tactics(the turks in particular)?whats your army composition and how do you employ the tactics to defeat a defending enemy.

[Exile]

As Turks, I usually set up my attacking force on the best high ground near the enemy position. Then I send out my Turcoman horse to harass the enemy into attacking my main force.

Second choice is I advance my troops with archers in front and entice the enemy to attack them. I send Armenian HC and Turcoman horse around them and attack from the flanks and rear.

Depends a lot on who you're fighting (enemy troop types) and their numbers. Quick Turk armies with lots of archers shouldn't engage a strong force of heavily armed Christian troops in a straight out slugfest. Heavily armoured=slow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif use the advantages of your archers and lighter calvary.

Attacking is a bit harder than defending, but after a while you can do better at it than the auto calc will.

[TheViking]

you will never manage to win anything offensive if you
auto-calc.

The best advice anyone can give is, start do your own attacking. If you dont do it you´ll never learn

[Sandy-San]

i tend to use similar tactics for both offense and defence - a simple infantry wall, with archers behind and cavalry on the flanks. on high ground it makes for an easy defence, and as long as you keep the formation tight, you can use it to attack too, especially when the dumb AI does its 'walk up and down in front of your lines getting shot but not attacking trick'. you only need to put your units into four, maybe five groups too, which makes it easy to control.

with the faster, more lightly armoured muslim factions, you can do the same sort of thing, but let the enemy come to you, or move into missile range, then pull back when they advance, using your cav and archers to harass them.

so long as you've stuck to Sun Tzu's basic principles - never pick a fight with anyone unless they are smaller than you - you shouldn't have too much trouble.

(OK STW purists, I KNOW thats not Sun Tzu, but the principle is almost right, http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif and the engine was based on Sun Tzu in the first place... )

[Nelson]

The AI will often counter attack if it out numbers you. Attack with a smaller but superior force and you may still get a defensive battle.

When you must attack, moving aggressively to the AI's flank with all or most of your army can induce it move somewhere else, perhaps to a less advantageous position. As it moves it can get strung out and attacked piecemeal.

With overwhelming strength you can simply advance across the front with your whole force and just scare the AI away outright.

[Terrax]

The AI find my hand guestures to be paritularly offensive tactics. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif