help with a quick battle please

[Razor1952]

One of the quick battles I'm having trouble with

It features the Muslims with mamlukarchers, ghulam cavalry and bedouin cavalry with a command of Kwariz cavalry versus French Fanatics, xbows,order soldiers and knights.

The map has a single big oasis otherwise desert.

I've played and replayed this one still loose.

got 900 casualties for the french versus 250 for myself and valour >4000 versus ~1500 and still lost ,


any help on tactics please.

[noramis]

Somewhat difficult to respond to your specific problem ... but make sure that you have your mounted units chase broken enemies, and to keep your foot soldiers / ranged soldiers close to each other.

Keep your army together in other words.

Muslim factions will break, run, scatter, regroup and pick off all your units if you don't keep them together.

[Brutal DLX]

I don't recall that specific battle, I'll try to take a look at it tonight. Just some general tips for now:

Since it is a desert battle, your Muslim forces should have the advantage. Try to skirmish with your mounted archer units, spread out the enemy forces, especially the knights.
Make them tired by chasing you all over the map and then isolate and destroy them in portions. Heavily armoured units tire more quickly in the desert, thus decreasing their combat skills. Use the camels and ghulams to kill the knights, pick off the fanatics with archers and try to avoid the order foot until last, they are a fairly tough unit, but armoured, so the longer they stay in this environment, the weaker they get. Xbows can be run down with your own cav, deal with them either at the start or after you finished the knights.

[HopAlongBunny]

If you are the Muslims, time is on your side.

HA's can run almost any unit into the ground in the desert.

Skirmish Skirmish Skirmish

Most of the units you face tire just from standing; get them chasing you and they are done for.

Camels tire very slowly, and can regain fatigue in the desert. I would tend to save them as the mop-up force. They can really do well against cavalry anytime...but they do better against exhausted cavalry http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Remember your Ghulams and Kwariz will have the same problems as the knights. Save them for flank attacks.

Good luck http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Leet Eriksson]

you did'nt mention any muslim foot?is it an all cavalry army?

it gets hard without them,now on the cavs,bediouns in the desert can defeat order knights,or chivalrics.Mameluke horse archers are pretty versatile,against heavier knights skirmish and let them chase you until they are tired,then use your khawariz cav to destroy them,or any heavy cavalry,usually you'd engage the knight with khawariz front on and use the ghulams to flank or rear.

To handle spears,pelt them with arrows and skirmish,let them run after you until they tire,use a sacrifical unit against the spears(orderfoot)and use another unit to flank from the rear,make sure its the rear,to reduce casualties and defeat the unit fast.

the rest can be killed off with Mameluke HA's if you know how to use them,HA should not be used against archers especially Xbows,usually use the HA's alternative attack and run them down.

Fanatics can be taken care of easily,any heavy cav can run them down.

[Razor1952]

Thanks for the tips. It seems to be common quick battle that comes up regularly and no foot soldiers. You're heavily outnumbered, but I guess your mobility in the desert must be the key.

The ML Horse archers best target is the fanatics first?.

[Leet Eriksson]

you can use your mamelukes against the fanatics,but they are best reserved to skirmish the knights until the tire,i'd send other heavy cav to run them down.Ghulams should do the job,since fanatics are peasants armed with clubs basically.

[Brutal DLX]

Hey, I played that battle yesterday, lost 142 men though, but a good old flanking maneuver won the day and sent the whole Frankish crusader army packing.
To be more detailed, at the start the French army moved to the left (from my point of view) and camped on the hill.
I shifted left too, but send all my camels to the right in an advance position, but still too far away to bother the AI. Now I advanced with my Mam. Archers and fired at the fanatics, the AI sent order foot to attack, I retreated, but the order foot foolishly halted way ahead of the rest of their forces, so they came under fire too. Subsequently the AI sent two more order foot as well as two units of knights to reinfoce that position but didn't attack.
Once I expended my arrows on them, I let my archers assume a flanking position at the far left, then I charged the order foot position frontally with two mameluk cavalries, while flanking with the other plus my general unit. At the same time the mameluk archers charged the flank of the fanatics as they raced downhill to help out, and kept them from helping. Now while all this happened, my 4 camels quietly assumed a position at the back of the hill where the French forces initially camped, and charged the general, the xbows, and the rest of the forces that were running downhill to help out the beleaguered order foot and knights.
Right at this time, my mameluk cav and my general came through, routing the enemy, and that along with the camel presence at the back of their army caused a general rout. I just gave chase and swept them off the battlefield.

[Razor1952]

Good one Brutal

I havn't had much trouble with most of the quick battles except this one.

[Brutal DLX]

Glad to help, razor. I hope you are able to formulate a somewhat similar strategy now that enables you to win this one as well
Of course this battle would hardly be winnable if you faced another human player instead of the AI..but that goes for most of these random battles. They are a good training for SP and a basic training for MP. If you can win all of them in one try that means you have understood how the combat system works and are fit to try your hand at MP. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif