Methods of attacking in SP?

[afroide]

I find that much of the time when I attack, the AI army will end up camped on a hillside at the far corner of the map (making flaking moves difficult or impossible depending on the terrain).

No don't get me wrong, the Lancer/CS/CMAA combination with 4 armor/4 attack will still win. The problem is that I invariably take higher casualties than I would like. SOO.... I'm looking for ideas on the best way to either attack them in place or draw them out.

[Brutal DLX]

Attacking campers often leads to more losses than one would like, but it still is the AI and not another human so there are a couple of ways to reduce this.
First, you can put a few skirmishing units in your army, use them as bait to cause the AI to break its formation and send units to engage/chase you. Horse archers or fast javelin troops come to mind here. If that succeeds (and it often does) you can either defeat them in portions or cause them to come down the hill altogether when the chasing unit(s) are engaged in melee. If you are prepared for them, you should suffer less casualties compared to an uphill attack.

The second possibility that comes to my mind now would be to take at least 4 missile troops, pavise arbalesters or xbows or archers, depending on era. Sending these in front and shooting at the enemy army will make them suffer casualties as well, but missile troops are easily retrained, plus you could use a cheap unit like peasant to send in front of your archers to soak up enemy missile fire. Normally, your missile troops should prevail in the shootout and then are free to decimate the other enemy troops. This will either force the AI to leave its camping position or soften them up considerably so that your uphill attack will break them easily.

[MuseRulez]

try using some ranged units or some fast, light cav tolure them off the hill. Then pinn them down with CS, charge the rear with lancers and flank with CMAA

[somethingbrite]

I move my entire force in battle line AROUND them, If they are camping on a hill which you too can climb to reduce the height advantage then try doing so to the side and some distance from them. Then you are BOTH on the hill and they will turn their line to face you, if they are camping AI they will often displace and retreat to another similar position, however keep MOVING them until you have an advantage, or you see a hole open up in their lines as they move. some units dont move as fast to their line may become drawn out and you can pick off stragglers with faster moving unit types.
I find that an archery duel from the bottom of a hill leaves me at some disadvantage to try to avoid this, however sometimes you must make sacrifices to win the day and if you have fewer mouths to feed on the way home then so be it.

[makkyo]

Quote[/b] ]I move my entire force in battle line AROUND them
It works. If you have a lot of calvary, you should attack their rear as you now suddenly have a height advantage with the rest of the army not too far behind to attack the side flanks and/or the front. Causes the enemy to retreat fast. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[afroide]

I was actually referring to situations where you can't move around them (i.e., they are backed into the corner of the map, where you cannot move your units)

Ijust thought of something though... if you would move your faster mounted units out beyond the left and right flank of your infantry force, then it wouldn't be too hard to send them around to the enemies rear. I suppose if your timing was off, your infantry runs the risk of taking horrendous casualties.