Favorite Tactics

[discovery1]

Hi. This is a great forum you have here. Many meaningful threads.
I've benn playing MTW for at least 8 months and VI for six, although I'm not very good at it. I was wondering, does anyone have favorite tactics that they wish to share. Mine would be 1)pinning the enemy down with spears while flanking them with calvary and 2)what I call the Chamberland* manuver. Used on defensive battles when my troops are arranged in a semicircle and not all of the front ranks are engaged. An unengaged unit moves foward while turning towards the nearest enemy, thus engaging the enemy from side or rear.

*named after a Union officer who used such a move at the Battle of Gettysburg.

[Papewaio]

In attack I minimise my use of archers and use a frontline of spears which have what I term a slow tempo (tempo being how fast they both kill and die... the battles in MTW are a bit like music... some units provide a fast tempo like swordsmen others are slow for hold).

Now relative to these blocks of spearmen other infantry kill quickly and I use them to go around the sides and attack the rear and flank at the same time.

I keep a few light cavalry for running down archers once the rest of the enemies are about to be engaged.

Now miltia units are good for taking out armoured enemy. Swordsmen are nice against spearmen. But I find the miltia sergeants one of those units that gives me the shivers when trying to decide what to attack them with... proportional they are one of the best units which the AI can use... no inherent weaknesses with which to exploit against them. So in turn I like to field a few of them. They can do everything a swordsman can do while being more effective against cavalry.

So 6 spearmen, 4 miltia units, 1 or 2 light cavalry and fill up with anything else if required.

[Modus]

I usually envelope or flank my opponents. Lately, with my larger army size, I've been stacking my reserves to include primarily light and medium cavalry - including mounted archer units. I attempt to commit my first (inf) line of battle, send my first line heavy cav to break the enemy at the decisive moment, retire the exhausted first line infs as the enemy begins to route, and then bring up the fresh cav to further exploit the enemy retreat into all out slaughter.

While they are mopping, the leftovers of the first line redeploy in new positions and wait for the enemy reinforcements to deploy if the pursueing cav cannot break them, as well.

I presume that's more of an over-all battle strategy, and you may be more interested in particular components of my battle line...

Typically, I arrange the line with an alleged weak end, that I hope my opponent recognizes. In military strategy terms, this is called a refused flank. The idea is to draw the enemy in on what you would consider favorable ground for you to wage the battle on, whilst the majority of your troops reposition themselves to exploit the enemy attack / defense.

1. Use the strengths of your enemy to your advantage. If he has heavy cav, let them overcommit. If his army is infantry and immobile, flank and tire them. If his army is fluid, bog them down in terrain. If his line overextends yours, turn his flank and attack him at your discretion - in turn, do not let his overextension outflank you.

2. Terrain is paramount to success. Holding terrain to your advantage will allow you to win the day. Chamberlain knew this, and took advantage of it.

3. FLANK, FLANK, FLANK. Unless you are fighting peasant rabble with Gothic Knights (or thereabouts) there is no need to directly attack any opponent if another approach is possible, especially one that affords a rear or good flank attack. If the enemy's spears are pointing in the same direction that yours are, there's a good chance he can't poke you quite as much. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif


Anywho.

[desdichado]

milita seargants aren't great against cavalry if they can't win the fight from the outset. Their low morale combined with morale penalties for losing aginst cavalry can be a problem. Learned that the hard way

I still like to have a unit or two in my army - but generally to work in combo with higher morale units.

Discovery1, my favourite tactic is to load up one flank (right flank is I think supposed to be historically where the best troops go anyway), and trying to crush enemy flank while holding on your weak flank. If you can pull it off its great and you can really smash the enemy centre as long as you can get your men to stop chasing and turned around.

Either that or trying to create a gap in the enemy centre and charge a fast unit through, turn them real quick and have them charge rear of nearest enemy or keep going on to the unprotected missile units behind enemy main line.

Anyway welcome to the org and I'm sure there'll be plenty of other suggestions coming along soon. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Papewaio]

The sergs are used for flanking and rear attacks, they do not form the first line. If they do they tend to be flanked by spearmen and if anything offset about a 1/3 of a unit back. They are for a counter charge and the fact that they have a bonus against armoured units makes them great for that.

Morale has never been a problem for my sergs as I use them at points where they outnumber or outclass the enemy. Then again they are used in my attacking armies with my best generals and I have them come from provinces with as many church type improvements as possible so their morale is pretty good.

Spearmen are the best unit florin per florin for just sucking up a charge and I tend to use the latest and greatest variant I can get my hands on. Although urban units tend to die from arrow fire and have a very poor morale so I avoid using them in mass.

Anyhow learn how to best use low morale units and non-elite types. A mix of units is always best. Elite units get morale penalities watching other elites die, they do not worry about the milita units... so mix in a few swordsmen as the second rank units and watch the non-elites wear down your opponents. IF the sergs run the swordsmen should not worry about it and continue the job.

[Gregoshi]

Hello discovery1 and welcome to the Entrance Hall. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I haven't had a favourite tactic since STW - and that was only for online play. Oh, and it never quite worked the way I wanted it to. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Fragony]

I like using lots and lots of horses. If the maps allows it I completely encircle the enemy, and harass them with HA and closing in on units that got cut of. Meanwhile my medium cav sneaks to the flanks (thrue the woods or behind hills to stay out of sight, and give that last final blow to route them. Even when I am on defense I attack, but I have the advantage that I can hide my medium cav before the battle starts. I (almost) never use heavy cav (except Boyars they rock), they tire too easily.

[Paxx]

I use to form the first line with combination of spears and swords, so i can aswer the AI's defending movements. Cavalary at the flanks, and before the charge try to distract archers. Example my cavalary charge enemy archers untill they withdraw, then the cav stops. After enemy archers stepped back usually AI (and human players) march forward their spears to defend my fake cav charge.
So 1. archers lose time on moving than peppering my infantry 2. there is a confusion on enemys first defensive line.
After that (if it works) the cav goes at the flanks again or even behind the enemy and charge from behind where enemy archers usually are(whem almost all units are engaged)
It doesnt work always of course but i like using this tactic.

Some times i manage to divide enemy's forces in 2 lines(side by side,there is almost no conflict in the center) use many infantry on the flanks and send heavy cav (if there is any) at the center. whooooo hell http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[superman]

Sometimes I like to use peasants or something else cheap as a bait then fall upon the enemy on all sides and slaughter them.

Something that I used to take a bridge that the enemy held in one battle was to send a unit across and engage the enemy then tell that group to rout and when the force that had been holding the bridge follows my men accross I hit them in their flanks and annihilate them.

Another Cool idea is to form my battle line in an arrow head then when they are engaged make them invert the arrowhead so that the enemy is trapped in side and I am attacking them on both flanks.

[juststeve]

Lately, I have stopped building archer units, unles they are on a horse. I just do the old Alexander tactic of hold engage from my left flank, and smash the enemy with a cavalry charge from my right. I mix in the sword/axe/polearm units to hack up enemy spear/melee units in support of my own spearmen. I start off feeling that the speamen are simply cannon fodder - they are easy to build, and simple to replace. But after they make it thru a few battles, they can really get some nice stats going for them - and combined with a good general, they get some great morale/valour bonus totals. So it pays to retrain the good, veteran spear units.

Light cav is great for mopping up, but usually Generals are a heavy cav unit. I always make sure my general gets his nose into it, each battle. It hasn't been a problem for me, because I usually rout the enemy missle units.

Of course, I am sure battles wouldn't be so easy if I played multi-player battles on-line. It sounds like I'd have my hands full with a lot of the guys here LOL

[cutepuppy]

On defense: 4 units of pav arbs, 2 catapults, 3 units of heavy cavalry (capturing routing units and attacking archers), 4 spears, 3 sword or polearm units.
When attacking: some horse archers to draw the enemy out of position, every enemy unit that leaves his place attacking with cavalry or swords/polearms. If they have no archers, I include some pavise arbalests. In late era maybe some culverins or serpentines, they can really do great damage.

[Vigi]

A favorite tactic of mine is to a get one my medium calvary positioned to the left or right of the enemy and have a unit of horse archers or mounted x bowmen send a volley into the enemy unit. I send volley after volley until the enemy gets tired of it and there is disorder in their ranks. At that point I charge them with my medium calvary. They of course turn to meet the threat and thats when my horse archers/xbowmen etc charge in, effectively encircling the enemy and causing lots of casualties in the charge. This of course routs all but the bravest units, generally speaking.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Favorite tactics? Hmmm I'm rather partial to winning actually. j/k

If I find myself attacking a force similar in numbers that doesn't match up to my quality troops, I will try and maneuver to high ground on either flank. Often this will cause the enemy to relocate his forces and if I can successfully maneuver to his flanks again this will often lead to him retreating from the map without single arrow loosed. But why? Wouldn't I want to fight him? Of course, but if he leaves he will return with an even larger army and we'll have a much more fun battle. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Russ Mitchell]

Maurician tagmatic tactics... the feigned flight, skirmishing cavalry, and extensive use of archery... I **beg** for my opponent to split his troops and try a flanking attack, and keep reserves specifically for the purpose. Though I'm currently limited to multiplayer. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif Hopefully that changes on Saturday, though...

[MrWhipple]

Don't forget to check out frogbeastegg's Beginers Guide to Total War. It is a great resource on the basics of play as well as some more advanced stuff.

Beginers Guide (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=9203)

[TheSilverKnight]

My favourite strategy as the Germans would be:
Making a wall of spears with cavalry behind it, then finally Feudal Men At Arms on the sides and back forming a square, then archers behind the cavalry. When they charge, the slaughter begins. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[desdichado]

last couple of days my favourite tactic has been to hit the escape key rather than watch my screaming girlie milita units run away from yet another battle. 1 star German generals (loose term) leading (hiding behind) urban milita and spearmen against 5 star french generals - damn its hard.

[lancer63]

One of my favorite tactics is to form scorpion and act like one. My HAs flank and draw out units from the main formation, hurting them until in foot bows range or ready to get chewed up by the following inf. units. Then when full engagement takes place I send ranged units and light cav., when possible, to the flanks as counter bows or to torment unengaged units. Medium and heavy cav. I use to deliver the coup de grace or, if things go badly for my side, to try and serve as my commander´s bodyguards.

[Ikken Hisatsu]

well really it depends on the map. but if we are talking about your average fairly flat map with some trees-

core of infantry, usually some kind of spearmen, backed by archers and my generals unit to hold them together. some kind of fast high attack unit (vikings, highlanders, gallowglasses etc) in the nearest trees, hidden of course. speedy cav units (generally the fastest I can get without being complete sissies in combat) as far to the side of the map as possible, also hidden. the enemy gets drawn in towards the core. usually a little bit of an arrow fest to start then they'll send in the troopers. depending on whether its infantry or cavalry-

If its cavalry ill let them charge my spearmen and once engaged, charge their flanks with the hidden swordsmen

if its footsoldiers, ill charge my swordsmen at their flanks before they reach the spearmen, and shoot arrows at the enemies still exposed center mass. in either case, the cavalry i had hidden earlier usually shows up around now to give their archery line a nice surprise. usually the archers will break, that combined with the flanking swordsmen will usually cause their core to route as well- right into the arms of my cavalry, while the archers who are still quite fresh squash the routing enemy into my cavalry line. lovely.

[kataphraktoi]

For anyone who uses the Byzantines at a regular rate and knows the capabilities of the Byzantine infantry.

I usually have 4-5 units of Byz infantry, at 100 men they are a value for money. I link them up in one line and send them off to engage the bulk of the enemy army. By this they:

a)engage the enemy's infantry
b)draw enemy fire
c) distract the enemy from my real decisive attack

Meanwhile, using a combination of light and heavy cavalry I deploy according to the following situations:

a) light cavalry would try and flank the enemy and attack the archers safely tucked behind their infantry
b) heavy cavalry would do the same if there was opportunity
c) if there is a gap in the enemy lines where my byz infantry has engaged the enemy's main line, I usually charge the gap and try to tear a gap for more cavalry to pass through.

Uusally, the enemy routs from a simultaneous barrage of attacks.

And it helps with an 8-9 star general http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I've used this tactics recently because of my poverty in florins and desperate situation on the frontier against the Arabs and being outnumbered.