Stop The Retreat

[yoko366]

Last Night I am fighting a battle, I am winning the battle, then (I am fighting the almohades and I am Spain)they send in reserves, and start to route me a little but I cannot call in my reserves because not enough of my warriors have died (and even whenn I do they come from always the part of the map farthest away) how to I trade tired units for reserve? and as I start losing this battle my general who was EL Cid was not retreating by the time my reserves got there he was and I out numbered the enemy but my resrves immediatly start retreating and I was unable to do anything

[ShadesPanther]

Ctrl and W is withdraw which means they stop fighting and run backwards and if you just dont stop withdraw they go off map allowing you to bring on reserves. Sometimes if they went past routing friends or over a field of dead bodies their morale will drop and if it lasts long enough they will just run away

[ichi]

Yoko:

IMHO, the most challenging aspect of fighting large battles is managing reinforcements.

Best-case Scenario: If you can mass rout the enemy and stay organized you can set up on the edge where enemy reinforcements enter, and pick 'em off one by one as they come on the map.

Worst-case Scenario: You are 3/4 of the way across a large map when suddenly you notice your army is tired, half dead, scattered, and facing fresh enemy heavy cav.

Here's some ideas, although I'm sure some will be ridiculed by better players:

For the first wave, keep at least one unit at the Rally Point, away from battle.

Put the Rally Point off to one side a little so that reinforcements are not directly in the path of routing units.

Consider putting Rally Point in trees. I put my Rally Point about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way on to the map, but this varies.

Right-click on units that you want to retreat (or use Control-W as Panther suggests) and choose Withdraw From Battle. This is much more effective than using the rout button.

Use up archers and get them replaced, but not all at once. Use the Fire At Will/Fire on Command button to manage which units use up their arrows (more important for longbowmen/archers than arbs/crossbows, since archers can go through ammo pretty fast). I think it is bad to have all of your arrow units run out of ammo at the same time.

I try to replace early, if I have strong replacments. Alternately, use weak, tired units as decoys - let the enemy chase down a shot-up unit to buy time for your replacements.

Fight on your half of the map, but not too close to your edge.

I set most units on HOLD POSITION to help me keep them organized and from running into the next enemy wave.

Watch out for fatigue. An exhausted unit is a worthless unit (except as fodder, see decoy idea above). Rest or replace.

The AI frequently will send small groups of one or two units heading your way. These are easy if you stay organized.

Try to arrange it so that the first replacements will be good cav units.


More than you asked for, but the answer to your question is:

Right-click and select Withdraw From Battle

ichi

[Obex]

Quote[/b] ]Try to arrange it so that the first replacements will be good cav units

How is this done? Nothing suck worse than needing good units, and having peasents show up.

Ok, now that i think about it, there are lots of things that suck worse, but thats a different discussion.

[ichi]

Quote[/b] ]Try to arrange it so that the first replacements will be good cav units


How is this done? Nothing suck worse than needing good units, and having peasents show up.

Ok, now that i think about it, there are lots of things that suck worse, but thats a different discussion.

Obex: During deployment, simply scroll through the replacement queue (pay close attention to the order the units are in), replacing units to get the right forces on the field. Plan it so that the next unit in the replacement rotation will be a Knight or other high quality unit (easy to check, just rotate all the way through once). Do this by replacing a unit on the field with the unit in the queue that is just before the one you want as a first replacement.

Do this before you choose a formation, as cycling thru the queue will do wierd things to the formation on the field.

Try it, its easier to do than it is to explain.

ichi

[cugel]

If you are defending, after you have routed the first wave of attackers, send off your depleted units and reform for the next wave. One useful thing to do is to bring on more missile units. Often the enemy morale will be lowered by losing their general. When they start taking missile fire they will often rout without engaging in hand to hand. The more missile troops you have, the more likely this to happen. This can often give you a victory over the AI, where a human player would see that your infantry units are exhausted and depleted and launch an all out attack.

[ShadesPanther]

sometimes in the desert in MP i bring Pavs for that reason, after them coming a good bit to my position wait for them to get quite close then launch a volley killing lots of them and causing them to rout especially if you are higher up