What to Pack?

[Lord Rom]

Before packing my war chest before a battle, I have to decide what to bring. Do I bring 4 pav's or 2? Should I go heavy on the heavy cav or load up on swords? How do you decide what units to bring to the field?

[Balamir]

This question you are asking cannot be answered mate, because it includes all the elements of MTW multiplayer and its not possible to fit them in a single post. However i will try my best to help you.

Always check which faction your opponent has chosen. remember that you can estimate your opponent by looking at the color he/she has chosen. The values are like this

the value is determined by alphabetical order. So almohads are the highest valued and turks are the least.

the player with the highest color value will setup in the center. The second highest value would be right flank (i dont remember the order in 4v4 anymore) and the one with least value will be on the left flank. So we can say that turks will always be on the left and almohads will always be on the center.

Now depending on this you will know who you will fight against. So look at his faction. If he has turks, expect hybrids and remember that hybrids are weak against cavalry charge (knights the best option) remember that he will have lots of shooters so get a few baits they can shoot and waste their ammo on. Try xbows with lots of armor on them.

Swiss of course minimize cav and maximize shooters and swords.

hugarians, be ready against some szekely.

English, get some baits and expect longbows. the best option is to choose english when fighting against english but thats my style of play of course.

Almohads, watch out for camels, dont take many cav.

mongols, anti cav and good shooters, fast ones preferably.

if the enemy is neither of the ones i mentioned and you cant decide if you want 4 pavs or 2, just take 3 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

If you can be more specific i ensure you i will try to help more. For the moment this is the best i can give you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Orda Khan]

The most important factor to consider is the florin level. If it's 15k expect to see swords ( yawn ) swords ( sigh )and more swords http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif At low florin levels you could just pick a nice balanced army

.......Orda

[Jochi Khan]

hmmmmmm

[Kongamato]

I've got a little system for building balanced armies, but it works only as a rough guide and operates on my personal beliefs on balance, which I've never really discussed with anyone. I dont really know if this will be helpful or not.

First off, in my opinion, perfect balance would mean that the three methods of doing things, which are Cavalry, Infantry, and Missiles, would all have equal potency. Therefore, if you want a balanced army, you would have to prepare for each threat equally. I accomplish that by dedicating five units to countering cav, inf, and missiles. The sixteenth unit can be your general, or a "dump unit" like Fanatics, a unit that really just spends the little amount of cash you have left.

I read in the Art of War that there are two types of forces, normal and extraordinary. The normal distracts or engages, and the extraordinary flanks, depletes, or just plain overpowers to win the battle. Also, any unit that is not countered by the enemy is an extraordinary force, too. It is a fairly basic concept in the AOW, you can find it under the "Energy" section. Anyways, I apply this to the three groups of five units I divided the army into earlier. I design them to work together as normal and extraordinary forces, one holding or tying up, and the other flanking, charging, or firing missiles. I prefer to take three normal and two extraordinary, but that ratio is only a preference. You can take 4/1 or something else if you want. You should try to keep in mind how offensive or defensive you want the systems to be; for example, you could have an offensive anti-cavalry system with something like 3 Alans and 2 JHI, or go very defensive with Order Foot and CFK. It's up to you.

Imbalances in the game tend to result in one method being superior, like the missiles of STW or the cavalry of 1.1. When that happens, you really need to dedicate more than five units to countering that method. You need a bit of experience to learn just how many units you should dedicate to stopping infantry, cavalry, or missiles. Anyway, I'm sure that if you like this game enough, you'll find out what to bring and you will not need any of my hypothetical guides to build your armies. Remember, this only works with ideals.

I built a 10k Aragon army for the Early period based on this, and it has worked quite admirably except for when InDa and Kansuke routed it down the small hill in Agincourt. Here's what it consists of:
General:
Unupgraded Knights
Anti-Missile:
3 Archers(normal)
2 Spanish Jinetes(x)
Anti-Infantry:
3 FMAA(normal)
2 Feudal Knights(x)
Anti-Cavalry:
3 Feudal Sergeants(normal)
2 Almughavars(x)

Anyway, the above is just a result of my little thought process on building armies. It is an unproven concept, and should not be strongly adhered to, only used as a rough guide. I write too much sometimes.

[Mithrandir]

Just get whatever suits you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif.

However, few things to keep in mind :
-TERRAIN (dont pick heavily armoured units in desert)

-SEASON (dont pick heavily armoured units in winter)

-Enemy faction (dont pick lots of cav when facing egyptians&almohads -ignore the post about the swiss imho -you'll hardly ever see more than 3 swiss halberdiers anyway).

-Florin level (low florins : get units like ghazi infantry,swiss halberdiers, any unit which can do a decent job without valour upgrades [too expensive perhaps], medium fl get a nicely balanced army, dont go overboard on upgrades but make sure the morale is decent [-as always] high fl. seek whatever imbalance there's to find and exploit it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif.

-Allies : (got a lot of noob allies, either pick lots of cav to help them, or pick an army which can handle itself-preferrably a rush army so you dont have to wait till your ally is dead),(if you know your ally will rush, dont bother with much pavs since the game will be over one way or the other soon).

-Map : (usually get more swords on plains-maps than on
steppe etc.)

[Brutal DLX]

Hehe. Our last steppe experience wasn't so memorable other than for it's shortness and confusion, right? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Basically I agree with Mithrandir, but there is also the fun factor, meaning whether you want to play competitively (or you know your opponent wants to) or just pick an army and faction you really like. For instance I sometimes do winter battles with heavy armour units, knights just didn't throw their armour away during winter. Also while that benifts the defender (if equally armoured), it can still be great fun, especially when playing team games, which compensate those effects a bit.

[Lord Rom]

How about I narrow the question down a bit? How do you decide how many pav arb's to bring? How do you use them once the rush comes?

[Mithrandir]

Quote[/b] (Lord Rom @ Nov. 07 2003,09:17)]How about I narrow the question down a bit? How do you decide how many pav arb's to bring? How do you use them once the rush comes?
If you know your enemy will rush, bring just 1 pav arb, or one.

If you expect your enemy to rush, but you arent sure, bring 2 or 3.

If you havent got a clue, vring 3 or 4 upgraded pav arbs.

It depends on your pay style, I usually bring 3 or 4 pav arbs, because I dont like to be forced into a charge.

If you got 3 pav arbs and the enemy rushes,
put your pav arbs on hold&stand, and make sure your melee units engage just in front of your pav arbs. This way the enemy still gets shot&still get the morale penalty from the arrows, and they also get the morale penalty from the enemy unit proximity.

If a unit starts to waver, send in a pav to reinforce the melee.
This ownt break the enemy, but it'll certainly hold the line for another minute.

I ALWAYS make suremy pavs/archers have at least 1 valour, so they can reinforce the line and wont rout as fast when a cav unit charges at them....

[MizuKokami]

also...never forget to know the terraine...the scrolling map in the pre army selection lobby gives you a fairly good idea of what to expect. you don't want to take a heavy cav army to a land with 90% trees.
in most cases, your own style of play will dictate the type of army you decide. if you like quick attacks, or expect to move around alot, you may want to just stick with regular arbs, as they move faster. defensive battles, wether on attack or defense, are more suitable for pavs. also, if you prefer to have a shoot out first, pavs also are widely used.
one last thing, if you fight online regularly, or near reg., get to know the people you battle against. after all, you aren't fighting against just other armies, but against the generals controlling those armies. (now everyone knows why i never post in those.."what's your favorite army?" topics) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif