A couple of battle questions and my Turkish war

[Getanaxe]

Hey there, I've been playing M:TW for approximately a week now and I must admit it's amazingly addictive. I guess my main complaint is the AI just isn't I enough. It's pretty good, but definately needs to be better in the next installment of the TW series. I have a couple questions, but they're going to be at the end of this post. For now I want to just chat away about my new campaign, it's just so fun

Anyway, I didn't have much trouble in so-called expert games so I installed Medmod earlier today, and man has it made a difference (Atleast, I think it's the mods fault&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. I'm doing early, expert, MA, Turks. The year is 1100, 6 hours into the game, and I've almost wiped out the Egyptions. I have 2 stacks comprised of archers, Ghazi's, spears, camels, and a 5* general poised to strike Egypt itself, their final province. On the way I had some wild battles, including a one and a half hour standoff between two 1700 man armies (They kept bringing in wave after wave of archer reinforcements Our lines didn't even clash until the very end, when they finally attacked and I routed them.). So, here's what makes this situation difficult, frustrating, and amazingly fun:

1. Crusaders from the Holy Roman Empire have just landed in the province just north of Tripoli. They used the Byzantine ship route to get there within 2 years of the crusade announcement. I was expecting it would take them atleast another 2 years.

2. The Byzantines have just invaded two of my northern provinces.

3. The Egyptions destroyed my fleet. It will take my major armies 3 years just to get to the HRE crusaders.

4. A Spanish crusade is on the way to Palestine.

5. The Egyptions still have a rather large force in Egypt, which I will retake its lost lands if I move my troops away.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

It looks like I'm going to be fighting for every inch in this campaign. Freakin' amazing stuff, I love it If Byz sends its largest armies at me, I think I'm going to downright lose http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif. I've been entered into a three-front war woefully unprepared You bastards, I'm supposed to control the seas My armies should be able to reinforce any province at any time Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh Aaaaaahhaaaahahahahaha Time to give Egypt its empire back Maybe if I say I'm really sorry they'll forgive me and give me a ceasefire http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Ok, so now my questions:

What's the best way to deal with archers peppering your units before a major encounter? As in, if you rush them, you'll get attacked by enemy inf/calv/spear. So far I've just sat there and taken it. I like to yell Hold the Line and Steady at my screen as this happens.

Next, on multiple occasions I've tried hiding a number of calvalry behind enemy lines. Each time I bring them out to flank the enemy, they end up getting routed by enemy calvalry which disengages with my front forces in order to attack my flankers. Does this flanking strat only work when you're really close to enemy lines? Or should I just stick to running my calv around from behind my front lines after the enemy has engaged?

Sorry if it's kind of rambling, but I hope I made myself somewhat clear. By the way, great forum

[Mount Suribachi]

re archers - you know you can order your men into loose formation right? Just checking.

2nd, concentrate all your archer fire onto their archers. I'm assuming your defending and thus have the high ground. If you have large numbers of archers with a height advantage, concentrated archer fire can be devastating to any unit (especially lightly armoured archers)

3rd, sometimes you do have to grin and bear it. If you can then retreat to a forest, so much the better as the trees protect you from arrows, tho I doubt you'll find many forests in Egypt http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

There sometimes comes a point where you have to withdraw in the face of enemy archers, eg if you're fighting a staged withdrawal ie killing as many of the enemy as possible before withdrawing your army to fight another day, then you might drive off the 1st wave and the 2nd wave is all archers and you have only tired infantry, you will struggle to win as archers are fast, so withdrawal is the only option

But also there may come a point where you are losing the archery duel, so your only option is to CHARGE downhill at the enemy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Finally, on the campaign map, don't be afraid to abandon provinces in order to concentrate your army/reduce the number of provinces you have to defend. Of course, you burn every build to the ground before you withdraw...(right click on building, then click destroy in case you didn't know).

As for cavalry, I really, really suck at using cav, so I'll leave that to the cav experts, but it sounds like your cav has low morale and the morale penalty they will receive for being surrounded/outflanked (cos they are separated from your main force) is enough to tip them over the edge. Try using cav with higher morale, building mosques/churches in your cav producing provinces and check that the unit leader and army general don't have any morale affecting vices.

EDIT: Oh and welcome aboard Getanaxe http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[motorhead]

I agree with all of Suribachi's archer tips.

As for cav, if yer fighting in the desert remember that camel units get a bonus plus horse units get a penalty when fighting camels (was reminded of this a few hours ago as my Armenian HC got more than i bargained for from some plain vanilla camels).

Horse archers: (preferably Turcoman Horse), use these as skirmishers on the enemy's flanks. Have them pepper enemy units until some turn to pursue, try to lead them away from the main battle. If a single unit of archers strays too far trying to catch you, charge them (don't forget to take them off skirmish when u do this). Do not get into an archery duel with foot archers. Divide and conquer. Also, remember that these units are faster than most cav, 'speed = armor'. These units are also good mopping up enemy units that have routed and can quickly gain valor this way.

I don't often try and hide cav. Sometimes the computer does seem to notice and begins to search nearby woods. But it definitely helps if the unit doing your 'special ops' be of high morale (impetuous) as they will suffer penalties as they get nervous about their flanks being exposed. When i do spring a cav ambush, i like to wait for the main lines to engage then swoop in and chop up their archers. Get a few of them to rout, added to their front units getting worried about their exposed flanks and you have the recipe for nice victory.


Note: Even with medmod there will be some campaigns that just go your way and some where everything hits the fan. I've won the majority of my Turkish campaigns but have had a few where the Byz and the Egyptians ganged up and crushed me. Each time is always different.

[HopAlongBunny]

You may want to try going cav. heavy if you see a lot of archers in the opposing force. With 3 grps of horse archers you can probably split the AI quite easily. Pepper a flank til the archers split to attack, then run away. Start process on opposite flank. IF the AI reacts, you can be sure of it leaving the archers...or something else exposed. Rarely, the AI will hold ranks and march to battle; concentrate your fire on the scariest units you can find.

Don't forget your camels http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif If you run the AI around a bit and have camels as reserves; they will be fresh and slaughter almost anything.

[Dimonstre]

If they are some kind of mounted archers, use your infantry archers - in no time the green will be times bigger on the casualty bar.
And if they are foot archers - the best thing to opose them are pavise arbalesters or pavise crossbowmans. With the Turks you'll have to hire them from the tavern.

Cavalry (and not only) far away from your general with unprotected flanks will suffer moral penalty and if it is not a high quality like ghulams, knights, etc. will end up almost everytime routed. The key is speed. To hit them before they disengage and turn around to face your cavalry.

[Quokka]

Good Tips. I needed some of those as well. Loose formation saves many lives, but Spearmen don't get their rank bonus then do they?
I just had a nightmare (for infantry) rebellion to squash. 600 Spearmen, 480 Hobilars and 480 Archers. I only had 400 Feudal Sergeants and 200 Italian Infantry and 120 Vikings. I won but it was very costly to chase them down, thank god for the Vikings.

Mounted Crossbowmen are awesome in the desert, they are fast and the X-bow takes out armoured units nicely and they don't tire. I just used a few units to take out Bedouin's who weren't playing nice with my Mtd Sergeants. They also helped cut down Saracens, which the Archers were barely touching.

[Getanaxe]

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't go into loose formation when the enemy archers started peppering me because I was in a very tight U formation, and the enemy had huge amounts of camels and nerubian spearmen. They just sat there while their archers hit me. At first I was just going to bear it out, but then their first line of archers withdrew and another group took its place These waves of archers just kept coming and I felt totally helpless against them. Unfortunately, my army at the time was comprised of primarily spearmen and ghazi's, and a direct assault would have forced me into a tough position (Although I rushed the Ghazi's out on occasion). To repeat Quokka's question, spearmen lose their rank bonus in loose formation, right?

Nice tips all around though, thanks for the suggestions.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

I wouldnt worry too much about hte Spanish Crusade, they have to get through the Almos first and if they have already done that, this large Egyptian army should presumbaly hold them up for a while, so you could sneak of part of your army northward.

Also as said before you defintely want turcoman horse especially against Crusaders who usually have little cavalry apart form the slow, over armoured knights.

Regarding the spears I dont know if they loose their ranks bonus, but they are kept loose to reduce casualties from arrows - if I cahrged them down at some other unit I would put them back into close formation.

[HopAlongBunny]

Yes, HA's do suffer a morale penalties like all other troops. That's why you don't expose their flanks or rear http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif You should never need to put them in such a situation...they are the ones flanking the enemy.

They may be a little skittish in the early game-before you've built mosques to help morale a bit. Just use them in grps of 2 or more so they get the support modifier, and always grab the best terrain you can.

ps. why stop the conquest of Egypt? If you have a chance to remove Egypt from the game, it might be a good thing. There are a lot of variables, but letting the crusades land might not be a bad idea.

[Gregoshi]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Welcome to the Org Getanaxe. Good luck in your campaign. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you.

[Getanaxe]

Since school starts next week I decided to sit down today and finish this entire Egypt/crusade/byz conflict. 8 hours of play later, my situation went from terrible, to desperate, to terrible again.

I started off by mopping up Egypt, then pulled all the forces I could muster into Syria, essentially abandoning all my northern provinces to Byz (In Medmod you start with 2 extra northern provinces). Unfortunately, my armies in Egypt did not have enough time to join the gathering in Syria, so it was somewhat undermanned. None-the-less I broke the siege of antioch, and was feeling pretty good about myself... when civil war broke out. Lost half my territories, half my troops, and half my generals. Damn. I ended up holding Antioch, Tripoli, Palestine, Syria, and Egypt. Next turn, Byz invades Egypt with a monster army... Byz invades Tripoli... Byz invades Antioch... Byz byz BYZ After many many battles I managed to hold onto Antioch, Palestine, Tripoli, and Syria. Arabia was still in rebel hands, while everything else around me turned purple... except for one northern province, which is held by the Kievans.

Every year Antioch and Tripoli get invaded, every year I repel them. So far I've managed to kill 2 Byz Kings and 1 7* general... and, man, those guys alone have cost me hundreds of lives. Here's the basic rundown of my current defensive strats: In Antioch I use the standard U defense of spears with archers hassling the enemy troops until they get to close, then pulling into the U. 2 sets of Ghanzi's flank on each side as soon as the enemy forces commit to battle. They key is to overwhelm atleast one of the flanks while the other side holds. The AI seemes to have zero contingencies for these types of situations, and is quickly routed. I've also incorporated the 'loose' formation, only pulling the spears close together when the enemy front is about to hit (Major thanks for that tip, such a life saver against these archer heavy armies). In Tripoli I have far fewer forces, so I do the standard horse archer isolation method. Get my horse archers to split the enemy forces into various groups, then draw one group at a time towards my *9* valour prince and whatever other melee I manage to scrounge up. That prince may primarily be a horse archer, but he completely owns in hand to hand and has almost singlehandedly dismantled countless groups of Byz Infantry.

I'm not all defense though Just last year I finally managed to muster some forces to grab a couple weakly protected northern provinces. Did this mainly for the money and to tie up Byz's forces as they siege my forts, thus giving me some room to breathe. I think my biggest problem right now is Byz's total domination of the sea. I only have 1 ship producing province, and unfortunately it's simply not enough. Another big problem: in medmod there is no land bridge to constantinople. I have got to gain control of the seas. Defending the coast is too costly, and I have to get to constantinople and beyond to rid myself of Byz once and for all. Plus I need to get some sort of trade one day. These 20% farms can only go so far. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

Oh well, atleast their army in Egypt has become very very small. Maybe in a couple years Byz will run out of steam.

Sorry for the self indulgent posts, I need an outlet for this sort of stuff. My friends simply wouldn't understand. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif

By the way, loompah, you were right. The Almohads smashed that crusade to smithereens