Humbled By The Byz

[juststeve]

I know most guys post about their overwhelmingly successful battles, and we all enjoy that. But I figured I'd post about something that happedned to me the other night. I was playing the Poles/Early/Hard and was doing pretty darn good for myself. I had taken Prussia, Pomerania, Volhynia, Moldavia, and Kiev as well as jumping north and grabbing Sweden and Norway (Viking Huscarles can kick butt). I had also built up a nice amount of barques, so money was rolling in from trade, and I could move armies around pretty easily. So, I build up my infrastructure, amass more troops, and decide that now would be a good time to dogpile on the Byz, who are already at war with the Turks, Egypt, and the Sicilians. The lure of Constantinople and having Greece and/or Serbia (for access to the more centrally located seas) was just too strong for me. I invade Bulgaria and the Byz just split, abandon the province, and I am thinking this will be a walk in the park. I then bring down a large army from Sweden + Norway, with some decent Viking Huscarles (I only had a few FMA units). I bring them into Greece, and I find the Byz will make a stand, with a decent force. I have plenty of reinforcements, but I figure I wont even need them.

Well, the battle takes place - the Byz on one steep hill, my forces atop an opposite steep hill. I send out mounted spearmen and a unit of spearmen to the hard right, planning on sweeping down and hitting an engaed Byz unit on the flank and breaking them. To my surprise, the Byz bring out a unit of Byz Infantry to meet them. They also basically start advancing on me, coming down their hill to meet me.

I start sending down units of Huscarles to engage the Byz Infantry, basically I have them 2-to-1. I only have one unit of archers, and I bring them down into range, with a unit of spearmen ahead of them. I figure the Byz Infantry will get beaten back and I can charge some spearmen at them, regroup the Huscarles and go about smacking more Byz units.

Well, I don't know why, but the Byz Infantry just took apart ALL the Huscarles I threw at them. They were as effective as peasants, basically. And once they started routing, I was in BIG trouble. I NEVER had this happen before, and I was actually getting pretty grumpy with my troops. I selected a few of the shattered Huscarles units and ctrl+w'd them, deciding fresh troops at full strength might break the now tired Byz Infantry units.

No such luck. I got my butt kicked. Bad.

Within the next few turns, the Byz come storming back into Constantinople, and I dont even bother meeting them. I abandon the province, as I really didn't have the troops to hold it. Losing so many troops in Greece was a huge blow. Add all the gained valour the Byz forces gained by slaughtering/routing my numerically superior forces and it gets even uglier.

Oh yeah, after my forward momentum into Byz territory got stalled, the HRE, Nov, and Hungarians decide to jump on ME Gotta love an AI that smells blood in the water.

I nevr heard about the Byz Infantry being so nasty to deal with. The VG units, sure, I have read they can chop you up in melee, but their regular troops just housed me. And they even have a low morale, right? Could have fooled me.

[desdichado]

nice post. its a welcome change to read about a defeat instead of all those massive victories.

Was the Byzantine general in Greece an heir perhaps - they have heaps of 7-9 star heirs and you could have been facing valour 4 or 5 byz infantry. I don't have VI so not sure how good Huscarles are but this could be why they got whipped.

Sounds like your campaign just got a little more interesting. Enjoy

[motorhead]

You don't say what the command levels of the generals were, but typically, if the Byzantines can survive the first 50 years or so without getting overrun they can be trouble. Not unusual for a byz king and his heirs to all be 5-8 star commanders, let a king or two pass and those ex-princes can get a title or two and you can be staring at a faction with 2 or 3 9-star commanders. When I play as the turks, keeping the byzantines from getting too strong (then multiplied by their general's command) is always a top priority.

[juststeve]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I wasn't up against one of the Byz uber-generals. If I remeber correectly, he was just a 3 star gen, and I had a 4 up against him. I do know for sure I had one star on their guy.

And I didn't have the Scandanavian provinces teched up enough for the good Huscarles - sorry about that. I only had the plain Jane basic Housecarle units (the ones that are already there in the provinces when you start the game. I had taken Sweden by force (their units just left for Norway) and then bribed the forces in Norway (that's how I got these guys). I thought they'd be cool for an early stage of the campaign.

[Fragony]

Those are basic vikings, they rock, but only against early troops. The byzantines are VERY advanced in early, and there is nothing that will beat up their infantry untill you reach the high era. If you have to face them, lure them out of formation with mounted crossbows, block them with spears, they will suffer heavy casualties but can hold ground for a very long time, and smash some horse in the flank and the back, and pray they will route.

[Ironside]

Eeeehhh, the starting troops in Sweden and Norway isn't 'real' huscarles but vikings. The vikings (3,0 ap) aren't better than FMAA (3,2) (that are slightly better than byz inf (2,2) but byz inf comes in packs of 100 so they win) and are nothing compared to the real huscarles (4,4 ap) that almost rivals the varangian guards (4,5 ap). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
The files refer the vikings as housecarls witch may have caused this misunderstanding.
Hope this helped http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

And to be 100% sure of that check out the picture when you rightclick on a unit in camp map. If the unit is carrying a shield than it's a viking, not a huscarle.

The number stands for attack and def and ap is armour piercing.

[King John II]

I suffered an unexpecxted setback last night - also in a Polish campaign, although mine is in high.

I had been holding a flank with half a dozen excellent units in Muscovy faced by one rebel province (the one on the top right corner of the map) with three stacks of mainly just spearmen troops but with some fairly decent archer units thrown in.

The rebels had a very good general and when other priorities allowed I was intending to build up enough cash to bribe them over so as to get the general - my princes have tended to have just a couple of stars in this campaign.

But, having sat quietly at home for a number of years, they suddenly invaded Muscovy.

I was complacent about this, thinking that my elite units would entrench themselves, watch their flanks and eventually fight off the inferior rebel troops.

I lost a little comlacency when it turned out that Muscovy doesn't seem to offer any very good defensive ground. But still I did not think I would lose.

But the rebels advanced in good order, prepared themselves with seried ranks of spearmen backed with a long row of archers behind and started up the small hill towards my pikes. Methodically they forced me to commit my small reserve and then methodically they would bring a unit of spears to my left flank, carefully dress their ranks and then drive into my heavily engaged troops there.

I tried driving off the archers with my two units of cavalry but the weaker units retreated well and some armoured pavise arbalesters managed to hold my general's unit of royal knights in melee long enough so that they were gradually shredded by concentrated fire from the other archer units and I had to retreat. The last couple of knights other than the general fell while disengaging so after that I had to tuck my general in behind my pikes and I was reduced to pure defence. My guys would have fought to the end but they were just not going to win and after a while I had to withdraw so that there would be some troops to occupy the citadel.

I do not think I can fault the way the A1 fought the battle.

Of course their good general was a very important asset. Not one of their units routed despite several taking hefty losses. But I rather think that they could have stood a few units routing anyway because, apart from the small disadvantage of fighting on a slight uphill incline, I found no way of otherwise undermining their morale.

They did not exploit the victory by storming my subsequently undermanned citadel so I could scrape together enough troops to recover Muscovy. From a strategic standpoint all I lost was some expensive buildings in one of my most developed provinces.

But I won't feel so complacent again for a while.

[kataphraktoi]

I was playing as the Franks in my Dark Ages mod (still unreleased grrrrr) and was fighting against the Avars.

My army got taken to the cleaners by peasants even though my men's valour were decent.

The excuse: my mum's vacuum cleaner - couldn't concentrate.

[ShadesPanther]

the bad thing about expert is how badly you can lose to crappy units. I hope that mod comes out soon kat as it would rox

[Jacque Schtrapp]

IMO there isn't a better infantry unit in early when considering cost + effectiveness. I've conquered Europe several times with my armies of ByzInf. For some reason your history books fail to reflect that though. Damn conspiracy if you ask me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif


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

[The_Emperor]

The Byzantines always deserve respect on the Battlefield. Their units are some of the best, Trebizond Archers, Byz Infantry can really eat away at you with a drastic one-two combination.

When fighting the Byz you must meet those ultimate troops with superior tactical finesse and some good generals of your own to counter those Byz heirs.

Saying all this if you manage to take Constantinople and the other Byz provinces you tend to knock them back to Militia and Peasantry, which can really turn the war in your favor.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

The main weakness of byz inf is morale, if you can't rout them you are in big trouble to kill them all...

Now I guess that in Greece there were no way out for the byz to retreat. If I remember correctly, there is a morale bonus if you can't retreat (+4/6?).

Conclusion; leave them a way out....

Louis,

PS: actually in my current GH campaign, I made some effort to try to cut a few kingdoms in part and then run the different 'pockets'. I ran into unbreakable troops way too often to my liking. To divide and go after the parts might be very costly on the battlefield, as you face much more 'last stand'.

PS2; also I think you got this bonus when trying to lift a siege.... you might want to use that to your advanatage...

[HopAlongBunny]

Viking can do well vs. Byz; better morale and ap.
Did you count the little flags the units were carrying? Those little flags denote unit valour; a v7 Byz inf is scary indeed with or w/o a general of equal value in the army.

I mention this because I recently suffered an embarassing defeat for much the same reason. My 8star general, with decent troops was merrily throttled by a pile of rubbish led by a 3star king. What I failed to notice was the 3 very high valour units in his vanguard...those units simply chewed through anything in their path...leading to rout...leading to more routing...etc. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Funky Phantom]

Byzantine armies are often made up of poor quality troops, but that small core of Kata's and Byz Infantry combined with the high valour makes them a force to be reckoned with, even the weaker units in their armies can cause upsets with that kind of leadership :/

[kataphraktoi]

In a previous mod as the Seljuk's I sent an army of 1000 men against 1 Byzantine Klibanophoroi...yes 1 one Klibanophoroi and incidentally, the Emperor.

The outcome: I lost http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

My Turkish army was made up of Saracen Infantry...what an embarassment. Took me something 5 years to kill him.

Thats my greatest embarrassment.

Its not like the Klib had god-like stats or something. It was an Emperor with pretty good valour destoying my past attempts to destory his empire.

[Ironside]

Citera[/b] (kataphraktoi @ Okt. 31 2003,22:13)]In a previous mod as the Seljuk's I sent an army of 1000 men against 1 Byzantine Klibanophoroi...yes 1 one Klibanophoroi and incidentally, the Emperor.

The outcome: I lost http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

My Turkish army was made up of Saracen Infantry...what an embarassment. Took me something 5 years to kill him.

Thats my greatest embarrassment.

Its not like the Klib had god-like stats or something. It was an Emperor with pretty good valour destoying my past attempts to destory his empire.

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

Thats bad. But jedi troops usually drop like flies when haveing less than 2 in fatigue, so just keep the pressure up and they eventually die (after slaying half your army http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ). Or keep shooting on them.

[juststeve]

Never attack Jedi units with melee troops - use missle attack units on them. Just a tip I picked up here on the Org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (juststeve @ Nov. 01 2003,22:25)]Never attack Jedi units with melee troops - use missle attack units on them. Just a tip I picked up here on the Org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
But most of the other factions have Horse Archer type units that really help with dealing with those Byz troops from a distance... It takes a lot of micromanagement to pull off.

Of course if you invade with overwelming numbers the Byz enemy will probably retreat and lose on a strategic level...