Military strategies

[ZZuluZ]

Hi,

I registered initially so I could think frogbeasty for her great guides, but I guess I can't post in the higher forums. But if he/she sees this: THANKS

I've been lurking a lot and have yet to find any particular strategy that seems unbeatable which is a testament to how well the game was made. Has anyone come up with such general strategies, or does everyone have their own little strats that work for them?

Anyway, I was wondering if one could construct any army based primarily on exploiting the moral of the enemy? I found the tip of having hand gunners fire a single time then charge very useful. Naptha's are also great for causing enemies to rout as are flanking charges by heavy cavalry. But should this be only a small part of your overall plan, or can it be exploited to the full? Is it possible to construct an army primarily of napthas, skirmishers, arrows/crossbows, heavy cavalry, fodder units and use it effectively? Would it be impossible/futile against certain opponents?

While I'm at it, 3 more questions:

1.) How do you guys coordinate so many things at once on the battlefield? Luring, ambushes, rock paper scissor combinations, the high ground. I take it the pause button is a must? Nobody here uses group formations?

2.) In terms of optimizing an army (considering the cost, is it better to build only 16 units/960 men) at a time? Suppose you're attacking. You can only have that many men on the battlefield at once. The rest will arrive piecemeal and will not be nearly as effective or coordinated.

3.) I see people conduct battle tests with very conflicting results. How is that possible? In the very same attack there are huge discrepancies in losses/kills.

Thanks guys,

-Zulu

[Ludens]

Hello ZZuluZ, welcome to the Org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Everyone has his own strategies, but there always are general similarities: the basic tactics are obvious to anyone. Some people are better at micromanagement: they are deadly skirmishers. Other people aren't, so they fight mostly with the heavy catholic armies. The most important tactic is Defeat in Detail: try to kill your enemies one by one, concentrating your full force against a small part of their army. Any unit will succumb if he taken from three sides at once.

As for a anti-morale army: a lot of these units are specialists and need support from other troops. If you can't give it, they can only be used as cannonfodder. A few of them can be enough to cripple enemy morale, while a lot of them will result in inadequate protection: or mass slaughter. And remember: the most scary thing on the battlefield are high valour / honour troops.

As for your questions:
1) Practice makes perfect, but don't try to use too much units at once. Try to train yourself in custom battles. Anyway, small, elite armies are a lot more fun than throwing loads of peasants at your opponent. As for pause, it is usefull, but don't get addicted to it (like I was http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-embarassed.gif , I'm stilling feeling the effects of the cold turkey). You can't use pause in multiplayer, and not using it in single player makes the game more challenging.
As for deployment: you might want to download the Shogun Acedemy Handbook from the downloadsection of the org. It covers things about deployment that are not mentioned in the manual (I believe that everything in it also applies to Medieval). The best way to learn is join up multiplayer and ask for help. You will get thrashed anyway http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-grin2.gif , but that is all part of the learning process.
2) I prefer small armies, and I play STW in which 16+ armies are rare and not as effective as in MTW. From the accounts I've gotten, I think reinforcements in MTW are quite useful if you fight against large enemies armies (for example if your archers run out of ammo). Of course, if your entire army is running by then, it won't matter much anyway.
3) In the battle test I did the results were always reasonably consistent. The battles are calculated with a chance-to-kill-factor, so it is part chance and you might just have the misfortune of your general going down fast. That kind of think can screw up the results.

Regarding Frogbeastegg, SHE will read this because SHE comes by here every day. You can see the gender of a patron by clicking on the most left of the symbols below the post of the patron, the list left of the mail.
It is one of the great mysteries of the org how a woman can write the best primers to a wargame, but I think the male population of the org has dealt with this rather well. We just pretend it is normal http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-grin.gif .

[jagmaster]

i've never tried to fight a battle with the pure intention of routing the enemy asap, except in those cases where u are outnumbered.

as to ur point 3, i done a test of a battle test as it were. two identical units eg 2 v0 pesents face up on flat ground on easy level and u click attack. ur unit will march to theres and charge and u will win. try that on expert and u will loose. so thats a small inconsistancy in peoples tests most likey.

and no 2, well if u invade with more than 16 units, depending on what they have u might scare them out the province by shear numbers. then if they do stand and fight u can pick ur starting army out of more unit choice and customise it to that battle so to speak.

*~Scott~*

[ZZuluZ]

Hey guys,


Quote[/b] ]Everyone has his own strategies, but there always are general similarities: the basic tactics are obvious to anyone. Some people are better at micromanagement: they are deadly skirmishers. Other people aren't, so they fight mostly with the heavy catholic armies. The most important tactic is Defeat in Detail: try to kill your enemies one by one, concentrating your full force against a small part of their army. Any unit will succumb if he taken from three sides at once.


Won't the enemy flank you at that point. I can see why this would be a good idea, but I don't see how I could make it work.


As for a anti-morale army: a lot of these units are specialists and need support from other troops. If you can't give it, they can only be used as cannonfodder. A few of them can be enough to cripple enemy morale, while a lot of them will result in inadequate protection: or mass slaughter. And remember: the most scary thing on the battlefield are high valour / honour troops.

Picture this on defense (I haven't thought of offense yet):

A straight line of cheap spearmen. Right behind are several units of Napthas. Behind that are units of archers. Perhaps several cavalry hidden for quick charges against the general. Would this work well? (Against the AI?)

1.) Thanks, I'll look in the d/l section. I think I'd rather master the computer before playing online. I'm sure at that point it becomes insanely difficult. It probably requires some gambling/guessing/quick thinking, etc.

[ichi]

Quote[/b] ]A straight line of cheap spearmen. Right behind are several units of Napthas. Behind that are units of archers. Perhaps several cavalry hidden for quick charges against the general. Would this work well? (Against the AI?)


Remember that there is a friendly fire factor. Using morale damaging troops in conjunction with vanilla spears or other low valor troops can result in friendly fire reducing the morale of your own guys to the point that they rout.

Some of the morale busters, like Naptha Throwers, Handgunners, artillery, even archers, are vulnerable to strong cav or infantry charge. So you must keep them protected. In a balanced army you need to ensure that you have enough fighters, so that limits the number of morale busters you can take.

There are other ways to bust morale. Flanking, outnumbering, exhausting, and charging are the most common.

I am most successful when I get a few units to hold on one end of the line (say 4 defensive units holding 5 or 6 enemy units). Then engage the unit on the other end with a unit, then charge into its rear, all the while hitting it with arrow fire. When it routs, immediately turn to the next enemy unit, and so on down the line.

I learned this from having it done to me.

ichi

[ZZuluZ]

ichi,

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that...I will try that.

You're right about moral busters potentially affecting your own men. That would certainly put a dent in my strategy. I suppose it boils down to how often it would happen. Obviously if your fodder troops rout, your not only going to lose but take huge losses even on the defensive.

If the strategy does work tho, it is extremely powerful because it is dirt cheap. Anyway, I'm just throwing it out there for the experts to criticize http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-beam.gif

Some of the morale busters, like Naptha Throwers, Handgunners, artillery, even archers, are vulnerable to strong cav or infantry charge. So you must keep them protected.

In what I described they are protected by the spearmen right in front. I suppose I should have 2 cav units on either side to charge death upon the enemy if they try to elude the spear men and go for the archers/napthas directly.

It would be interesting to see the results of this in a multiplayer game. The offending unit has anything they want (except artillery, perhaps) and the defense has 5 fodder units, 4 napthas, 5 archers, 2 heavy cav (or something similar). On high ground, I don't really see how it could fail. On flat terrain, I think as the attacker I would circle the defender perhaps which would spell doom, I think.

[johnnybrigante]

some time ago i did a test with a morale-buster-gunpowder-only army (4 arqs, 4 organ guns, 4 serpentines and 4 culverins) against 8 units of chivalric knights, plus 8 units of chivalric men-at-arms, in a flat map (and i mean FLAAAAAT). i don't remember exactly the valour upgrades - i gave both sides 10000 florins (or 5000? doh) and upgraded both armies as best as i could. i didn't give ranged units to the attacking army because i was expecting my 240 arquebuisers plus siege crews to be trampled over by 320 knights plus i-dont-know-how-many CMAA, so archers would be a luxury - and maybe would hit their own troops more than mine.

to my surprise, even the culverins missing everything until the enemy was at serpentine range (and by then it would be better if i had 8 serp's instead of 4 and 4), and even being (obviously) flanked in both sides (forcing me to put a unit of arqs on each flank, and having therefore a very thin line of 4 2-deep units of arqs protecting my artillery, with the organs between the arqs, 2 at the centre, one standing between the 1st and 2nd units of arqs, and the other between the 3rd and the 4th), and even with the enemy general NOT being hit by anything and not attacking early, and even with the left flank crumbling as soon as the melee started, AND even (phew) having the two leftmost organ guns destroyed before they could fire a single shot (these things aren't only slow to reload, they're slow to TURN too), the right flank and the front line scared off anyone that got close, so i could bring one more unit of arquebuisers to the melee, and, with a counter-flanking attack by some of the destroyed guns' crews () i routed the knights that had breached through the left flank and were about to reach my general's unit (a culverin crew). from that point things were easier: the enemy general tried to charge my remaing troops but a single volley from one of the organs killed more than a half of his unit and he routed immediately - victory was mine.

so, there you have it - a somewhat heavily out-numbered, rout-prone 100%-morale-buster army winning a battle against a theorically more capable one. probably if i fought the same battle over and over the sucess rate would fall somewhere near 50% - i'll surely try it again to see what happens - but you can count on morale busters, specially gunpowder units (serpentines and arquebuisers being the best ones), to turn the tables when you're outnumbered/out-teched, or even out-commanded (unless the enemy general has some brave beyond belief virtue....).

[Ikken Hisatsu]

sometimes i load up a battle between a horde of peasants and 16 guns, just for sh*ts and giggles.

[ZZuluZ]

johnny,

Cool testing. Make sure to update me with any further things you happen to find. I think to apply this strategy would also require cheap fodder units so you can keep your moral busters in place. Perhaps you could try with a few less moral busters and a few units of spears. If it is a profitable strategy I don't know if 2 units of (crummy) spears is better or worse than 5 units of peasants for this purpose.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] ]Won't the enemy flank you at that point. I can see why this would be a good idea, but I don't see how I could make it work
Yes, that is indeed the problem. Defeat in detail is more a general principle than a tactic: the point is to bring your strenght to bear on a small part of his army. You should take them one by one. Of course you cannot do this easily if they are all together, since they will attack and have all THEIR strenght at one point (it IS possible, but you need to be good to pull that one of).
The trick is to divide their units. You can do this by skirmishing and fake retreats (you can try to manually rout the units which serve as bait, but his usually has disastrous effects).
Defeat in Detail can best be demonstrated at a bridge battle without ranged units: let one unit of theirs get ALMOST of the bridge before the melee starts. This means you have the space to attack him from 2 or 3 sides, while the enemy cannot flank you because all his units are queueing behind the first. The first will be routed quickly because it will be attacked from three sides (penalties). Do NOT follow it, but let the second unit get almost of the bridge and then attack it from three sides. This one will rout even faster, and sofort. You can take out much larger armies that way, provided you replace tired / depleted troops with new ones regulary. The presence of archers makes this tactic less easy to pull of, but it still works.

[Selborne]

I don't think there's any one strategy that will work all the time. That said, the enemy's morale is always foremost in my thoughts when I'm running a battle. The more enemy units you can get to rout, the fewer you have to fight, and the easier they are to kill.

Fortunately, the game does a good job of telling us what is affecting a unit's morale at any point in time. I try to focus on those things that cause uncertainty: break up their formation so that they worry about their flanks; position your units so that you're uphill from them; try to encircle them so they feel surrounded; attack them from their flanks and rear; and above all, try to take out the general whenever possible.

Conversely, I try to make sure that the enemy can't do these things to me, so that my troops remain steady.

Getting an enemy unit to rout is really a tripple whammy: (1) it removes the unit from combat, (2) it degrades the morale of other enemy units, and (3) it encourages your own troops. I love it when I see enemy unit rout back through their own forces, causing other units to rout before they've even entered combat yet. To me, that's the epitome of a well-fought battle.

[ZZuluZ]

I did some custom battle testing and I'm somewhat dissapointed. I tried on easy (and I screwed up a lot) but still beat a 10k florin force with 5k of defenders. However, I found several problems. 4 Naptha throws is simply too little. Without valor, they do little good. I did have a few units rout exclusively due to Naptha's which was nice, but in the great scheme of things, they let me down.

Hand gunners were also a problem. I thought of shooting once, inflicting the -6 moral penalty then storming down but here's the rub: They only get time to shoot once And very often they hit NOTHING at all which ruins the plan in its totality.

So with that said, I'm starting to think that several units of archers (intead of Napthas and gunners) would probably be far more worth it on the defensive. At least they'd inflict actual casualties with far less friendly fire.

What do you guys think? Seems Napthas and gunners should be reserved for when they have high valor. But for the gunners...once they get high valor and you can accomplish the aforementioned plan, they're probably going to get slaughtered when they charge down.

Also, interestingly, while hundreds of their units routed due to gun fire/Napthas, they all bloody rallied At that point I was out of ammo and I had to send in my fodder troops to do a lot of fighting.

[LestaT]

Honestly i prefer large battles than small skirmishes. Usually in the early part of the campaign i use auto resolve many times. My tactis is simple usingold soviet doctrin where more is might. Of course i dont fill up my armies with peasants. Usualy i tried to find provinces that have iron so i can built better armies with better equiptment and armour.

Attacking few provinces at once with greater number usualy makes the enemy runs n hide in their castles. Once i got hold of their territory then no matter how many troops they send is of no consequences becauce my troops composition mean better at defending because of their heave armour and weapons.

Well.. any one understand what I'm trying to say ? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-furious3.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (ZZuluZ @ Jan. 14 2004,20:13)]I registered initially so I could think frogbeasty for her great guides, but I guess I can't post in the higher forums. But if he/she sees this: THANKS
No problem, glad to be of assistance http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Chaffers]

Well handgunners only have an accuracy of .05, though I assume that this increases markedly with valour. I found that defending the top of a hill with two units of spears and a long double line of handgunners was the answer. Get all 60 to fire at once, at very short range, and then retreat behind the spears. Often the unit being shot at will rout on the spot, provided they've been under arrow fire, taken casualties (from the volley and the arrows) and are fighting uphill. If so you might get a second shot but otherwise simply march them to a hole between the spears in 6 ranks and have them fire through the hole at the melee in turn. If someone comes through the hole then the Handgunners can take care of themselves, else they cause horrible penalties, provided they hit anything, to the troops who are already engaged to your other forces. Enemy forces routing in the centre affect everyone, which tends to have a nice ripple effect.

Similar tactic works well if the oppo General is a nice impetuous horsey type. Again two units of spears, 5 deep with a decent sized hole between them. They often get chewed up but spears are utterly useless other than for being chewed up slowly. Station your own Horsey General well behind the hole with a couple of units of arbs on hold / hold on either side and a handgunner / halberd unit loitering nearby.

As the oppo forces get close simply charge your General towards the oppo general. Oppo General being a mad impetuous type thinks a gentlemanly duel is in order and charges too, which when you stop your Gen in his tracks tends to leave him exposed, charging through spears with arbs targetting him and gunpowder / anti-horsey units to ream him a new posterior. Be well worth trying this with a Serp hidden behind the hole too, bit evil that would be.

[makkyo]

I see that many of you guys play around w/ custom battles as to tast well.... a ton of things. I like to use real-life situations to test my stragies (or at least the campaign mode, not REAL life http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )

To most sound stragy is to out manuver the enemy army as to take the most favorable ground. If your defending the thats not a big issue. Use the terian. Get to the high ground so you look down on the enemy. Try to break up enemy formations by unsing trees and/or building and send in units that are excelent in meele. Flanking and attacking the enemy's rear is extremely important if you want to break the moral of the enemy. In real battles (and in TW) the majority of casualties come from when the army routs and is killed trying to run away.

[HopAlongBunny]

(these things aren't only slow to reload, they're slow to TURN too): johnnybrigante

If you target an incoming enemy, while still out of range, and order the unit to fire it will turn to face; still don't get a shot 'til they're on top of you but at least you'll be looking at them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif