How do I go about fighting a Byzantine army?

[Simovek]

Hey guys, just started playing multiplayer again and my first game I came across one of the things that really ticked me off.

Its a 3vs3, me attacking and directly in front of my is a byzantine army, with most of it hidden in the woods. I just can't beat Byzantine, its just not possible for me. They have to many good units. Byzantine Infantry, Varangian Guard, Kataphraktoi. I started a shooting duel with him, then marched my army towards his. While this happens our cavalry (well, my cav and his spanish allies) mix it up with each other. Then finally my army reaches his lines. I send my FMAA (I upgraded atleast +2 valour though it may be higher) to attack his Byzantine Infantry. Once they are engaged I send me spearmen into the battle too. I charge my cavalry at his flanks and then in about all of 10 seconds my army is completely destroyed and is running like there is no tommorow.
So how do I defeat the Byzantine with all their great units??

[t1master]

did my army cave in on your flank first, causing you to rout??? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif stay away from uglys if they try and line up next to you, move away...

seriously though, in a 3v3 it was very likely that your opponents managed to get some angles on ya as you charged, and that you morale was not as high as it could be. it's hard to coordinate attacks with new or unkown allies, especially the first time around.

[ichi]

Ah, the Byz. Strongest units but very vulnerable.

If you look at Byz stats they are tough, especially VG and Byz Inf. The cav is actually not better than Catholic Cav, for example Szeks are better than Byz Cav and Chiv Knights better than Pronoiai. Kataphraktoi are slow and expensive, but with good defense.

But they suffer from low morale, especially Byz Inf (which are not spears, BTW)

If you try to go toe-to-toe slugfest with the Byz, you may be in for a tough fight. Try to isolate units and pile on the morale penalties. Once they rout, try to run them into other Byz units and away they all go.

Some things that try to do:

1) work on the end of the line. Pick an unit with an open flank and tie it up with a sword unit or two. Then hit it in the flank with a cav unit, try to pour missile fire on it. Plowing a bunch of cav into a single unit from the side also is quite effective. Flank+outnumbered plus missile fire = rout. Once it routs, try to direct it into other Byz Inf and switch the focus of your guys at the same time. This leads to a chain rout.

2) try to lure units out alone. If you see that you opponent will send his units to attack, then send in a unit of inf and when that Byz Inf charges, stop and turn around and run back to your lines. If the Byz Inf follows, use the techniques above on it.

3) use cav archers on Kataphraktoi. They are slow and a good Szek or Fari unit, even vanilla cav arcehr or Mounted Xbow, can hurt em badly, or at least take them away from the fight and wear em out.

4) it seems to me that the Byz are the best at rallying once they leave the fight. This is unproven, but sure seems like the Byz can rally. Once I get a few units to run I chase with cav then try to back my other units away from the remaining standing Byz, when the routers are off the map then regroup and start in again.

You mention a couple of other things in your post. First, I prefer V3 FMAA over V2 CMAA against the Byz VG. Whatever, ensure that your infantry in morale 8 or higher (=V2 CMAA and V3 FMAA). also you said something about spears. Don't take spears into MP. Maybe on defense in high florin games or for castles or bridges, but spears that work cost too much.

Feudal Knights and Pronoiai Allagion are essentially similar, so I try to use Chiv Knights against the Byzantine horses.

ichi

[Crazed Rabbit]

Also, the Byz do very well in the woods. Spearmen lose much of their rank bonuses in the woods, becuase the lines get broken up. Also, calvary do poorly in the woods. This allows the byz inf to beat the crap out of these units (spears and horse) in the the woods. They do well against swords because there's so many of them for cheap. Their main weakness is low morale, which you must exploite, as said above. In early, I like to use Almohad urban militia (cheap and good :) )

Good luck,
Crazed Rabbit

[ElmarkOFear]

Militia Sgts at val 4 fight well vs Varangian and Byz Inf but you have to protect their flank due to their low base morale. What you will find is that as the Byzantine Inf get fatigued they become easy prey for a cav unit. The longer you can avoid hand-to-hand vs the byz army will make them easier to kill. Arrows and missile units are good to use to soften em up a bit as well. If you get rushed and know you will lose, you can save whatever units you can and run to your teammate if you are in a 2v2 and up game. Let the byz infantry and varangian fight a few of your high morale units which will fatigue them to where a chain rout is quite possible. You can also try to kill the byz general to reduce the entire army's morale.

Good luck,

It seems the veteran players have worked on and found a particular anti-byz army that can consistently win vs a byz army rush. Just find a faction, play around with upgrading etc. until you find one right for you.

[tgi01]

Well I posted this on the .net a while ago ( when I still posted on the.net http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif ) :

A lot of people are afraid of entering early games as they will come up against all those byz armies ( which give TGI fewer ppl to kill as TGI plays 90% of his games in early ) ...., so here come some tips ...

I am not trying to say that byz are not owerpowered in early , and yes a really good player using byz will beat any faction ( unless its desert ) but on the other hand a really good player will not pick byz in a 1 vs 1 against a nonbyz faction ....

1. The most important thing to remember is to avoid engaging h2h early in the game thats basically unwinnable .... trying to camp is also hopeless ... ( going up against byz is good and educational for campers )

2. Play in desert, use a desert faction , with desert desert friendly units ( skip the saracens ,heavy cavs , almo urbans milis etc... ) use arab inf , nizari etc... use camels and horse archers , if defending keep marching around if attacking try to flank and force the byz to move ... after 20 minutes of desert marching the arab inf will beat the byz ....

3. Concentrate on the cav battle the 4 byz + 4 varang ppl will have weak cav , camels or a 4 feudal + 4 mted searg army will beat them ...
Dont be cheap use val4 mounted searg and/or val 2 feud knights...

4. In larger battles like 3 vs3 use all cav when facing byz on the flank then simply switch to the other flank , while the byz are marching you are calmly doubling the dude on the other flank ... then its 2 armies against the byz ...

5. Some ppl are showing up with val2 or even val3 varangs if they rush with them early in the game charge with a cheaper cav unit - val3 mounted searg or val1 feud knight will of course loose but they kill some on impact ... and if byzguy bought those and the usual val4 byz inf then the rest of his army will be crap ... so rout their cav then dbl the inf one by one ...

6. Militia seargs at val4 will hold for a while against byz , and a milisearg at val 4 w1 will do quite well against them ( val 4 byz inf costs 1666 val 4 w 1 milisearg cost 1670 and the chiv faction will have better cav )

7. Almo urbans at val 4 are like a mini byz inf with an added +2 morale and +1 att so they will hold decently and if you have some naphta behind those almo urbans ....

8. Remember that anyone who needs to use byz in a norules game doesnt have a lot of selfconfidence so they will usually react badly to surprises ....

Generally early is much more fun with max 2 and a lower florin level but dont avoid all those early games just becaouse the byz ...

TGI

[Vanya]

GAH

Why face this feller at all, asks Vanya? Instead, line up half of your army in front of the Byz in woods, but keep at safe distance. Put pavs in front in case they get near. Use rest to go help allies fight one of the other foes. If they stay in the woods, you just successfully gangbanged his allies, and soon all heck shall descend upon his campy arse.

Just because its 3v3 or 4v4 does NOT mean each playa has to face the guy in front of him. The best TEAM wins these battles. This allows for sacrifices, diversions, wild goose chases, etc. Make them byz infantry walk 10 miles in your shoes before closing for battle.

GAH