Battle Tactics Questions

[Seth Infinite]

In another thread (Strange Game...)I've described my situation. New subject so a new thread. I'm fairly new to the tatics side of things and could use some suggestions.

Early / Hard / Conquest / Spanish / Year 1360

Currently the French and I own the known world split about 55/45 in their favor. There are huge armies all over the map but I think it's time to initiate combat, so.

Naval:
Should navies be stacked for attacking or defending? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif
Should stacks be a mix of vessel types or just one kind? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif
If not stacked and I attack with 6 vessels against his stack or single vessel how is the battle resolved? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Armies:
I let the AI resolve large battles involving 4000 or more soldiers. Does changing the order of the Replacement Units effect the battle? Is there anything I can do to effect the outcome of the battle? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif
Does having your main General as a Replacement Unit effect your army? Can I start off with a 4 star general then bring my 8 star general in later? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-book2.gif
If I have to assault a castle without siege equipment, what units should attack the gates/walls? Spearmen with shilds...Woodsmen with axes? Close Formation? Wedge? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-lost.gif
Some of the siege equipment cannot be moved. What happens if they are a replacement unit? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-party2.gif
If you owned Navarre and Arragon and had Fortresses in them would you keep a small garrison of archers and spearmen there and let the French beat their heads against the wall or would you try to keep a 4000 man army in each region? Note to self: I haven't seen any French cannons yet. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[Doug-Thompson]

Whoa. That's a lot of topics for one thread. Let's start with the naval.

One of your ships and an enemy ship are in the same sea. Lets say two ships have the same speed. One's attacking and the other's trying to leave the sea. There's a 50 percent chance of an intercept and a battle.

Now let's say that there's two of your ships and one of the enemy's ships in the same sea. You stack your ships. The speed of the whole stack is used for calculating the chance of an intercept. The chance of an intercept is still the same -- 50 percent.

Now let's say you don't stack your ships, You launch separate attacks with each ship. Now you're chances are 50 percent for each ship. Your chances of forcing a battle go up to 75 percent.

========

Suppose you stack ships of different speeds. The speed of the slowest ship sets the speed for the whole stack for purposes of calculating an intercept.

Faster ships have a better chance of catching slower ships when the slower ships are moving to avoid battle.

=========

I think all naval battles are resolved by a simple odds dice-roll for each ship in the sea involved. Things like the valor of the commander make a big difference.

If a ship or stack is trying to escape and is caught, I think all the ships in the starting sea get into the fight, not just the ship that caught the stack.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Seth Infinite @ May 03 2004,16:49)]I let the AI resolve large battles involving 4000 or more soldiers. Does changing the order of the Replacement Units effect the battle? Is there anything I can do to effect the outcome of the battle?
Hmm. Don't know. I've always either resolved or fought.


Quote[/b] ]Does having your main General as a Replacement Unit effect your army?

You bet -- you start with a lower valor general and, therefore, a lower-valor army, though.


Quote[/b] ]Can I start off with a 4 star general then bring my 8 star general in later?

Yes, but his effectiveness will be less (only one unit, the one he's in), and that will probably be offset by the morale penalty of routing troops.


Quote[/b] ]If I have to assault a castle without siege equipment, what units should attack the gates/walls?

Anything made of stone should be attacked with siege equipment.


Quote[/b] ]Some of the siege equipment cannot be moved. What happens if they are a replacement unit?

They're stuck. You can never get them to move up onto the map.


Quote[/b] ]If you owned Navarre and Arragon and had Fortresses in them would you keep a small garrison of archers and spearmen there and let the French beat their heads against the wall or would you try to keep a 4000 man army in each region?

Well, that depends on what the French are doing, but I'd probably hold each with a garrison and counter-attack the French with a 7,000-man army.

[son of spam]

Oh boy, that IS a lot of questions. I will try to answer the land based ones, as Doug-Thompson has pretty much covered the naval aspect.

Unfortunately, you can't change the order of the replacements to get a different auto-calc result. In fact, it will always be same once you hit enter no matter what you do during the battle resolution turns. However, auto-calc does have a random seed, so it is possible to generate different auto-calc results by doing something significantly different, like attacking more provinces, or attacking less provinces.

EX. Say you are attacking lithuania with 5000 men, and the AI defends with 4000 men. Autocalcing gives you, at first 2300:1700 in your favor. However if you want it to be even better (or perhaps it will be worse - it's random) you can reload and also simultaneously attack volhynia with 200 men from poland. The autocalc random seed will now change, and you may get a 3000:1900 kill ratio in lithuania....or you may get a 2000:1999 kill ratio http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

My advice though is just to avoid autocalc and fight it out yourself. The AI can't have more than 16 units on the field, so once you kill their general, the rest of the waves of reinforcement are easy to beat off. I think autocalc assumes that all of the units can appear at the same time though, and certainly doesn't factor in deaths of generals. (i've never once seen a general in charge of a decent sized army and BG unit die in autocalcing)


No- you cannot bring in an 8 star general as a reinforcement and make him take over as general. The game has no second-in-command feature like that. The 8 star will just come in as a regular unit, and in fact the enemy can now kill him more easily, as he no longer gets the +5 hp bonus for being a general.


The short answer to your question about castle assault is: don't. Always auto-calc, you'll get better results since auto-calc doesn't factor in the +8 morale the enemy gets for not being able to retreat. That +8 to morale makes even enemy spearmen a b**** to kill.


All siege equipment can't be moved, and if they are a reinforcement unit, they simply don't show up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif. Lazy gunners can't be bothered to drag guns around http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif


Depends on how many men the french have along their borders. If they have a couple thousand, I would bring a couple thousand. If they have maybe a thousand or so, then I would put in ~300 men. The important thing is that the French can still move from Navarre and Aragon into your richer lands, like Castile and Leon, so it's good to have large armies in castile or leon at least.

Finally, good luck on your game. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[son of spam]

lol, i spent so long typing my post that Doug-Thompson answered most of your questions first http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[nick_maxell]

Quote
If you owned Navarre and Arragon and had Fortresses in them would you keep a small garrison of archers and spearmen there and let the French beat their heads against the wall or would you try to keep a 4000 man army in each region?

depends on difficulty level - on easy/normal they seldom attack and just starve you out. On hard they will storm if they have siege equippment depending on size of castle and add ons like cat towers etc

Quote
If I have to assault a castle without siege equipment, what units should attack the gates/walls?


walls if timber - any unit will chew through it faster than gates but will take losses so use cheap units (or obsolete ones) for that and use them up on gate if timber/rock castle and then move in your assault troops to get the defenders and use the cheap ones as shields. In wooden castles I always ignore the gate and go for the stockades.

For rock only castles you will pay and pay dearly - lots of cheap troops dying to open the gates help but if there is a significant force inside it is often better to wait it out and move siege engines in (that +8 morale bonus really kicks butt with a lot of troops inside)

For the core of your question about efficiency - my guess is that attack rating is used - but thats just observation no fact so woodsmen would be a perfect assault force as they are dirt cheap and have decent attack (or Gazis for muslim) - anybody else a comment on that good question?


http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

nick

[Seth Infinite]

Did some testing with my Spanish / French game.

Naval: I think this is a perfect example of pure randomness. Playing the same turn 4 times (exact same naval battles) I counted the difference in losses. Worst case I lost 14 more ships than he did, best case he lost 3 more than I did. One time I lost a Carrack, 2 Caravells and 2 Barques to 2 Caravells. Tonight I'll go back and break that group apart and attack 4 more times. Could be interesting.

Armies: I don't think I'll ever attack a stone fort without siege equipment. I wasn't aware of the +8 valor but I saw it in action last night.

One example is where my 313 held out against 16K. At the gate, 32 Chiv Srgts. Behind them 10 Pav Xbows, 8 handgunners, 14 Arbs and 22 archers. The French had to assault the gates. Once they broke it down the slaughter started. My Srgnts tried retreating a couple of times but only went 1 step back then returned to the battle. Put them up there 5 wide and x deep, they are like a granite wall. I eventually replaced them with 31 new Srgts and brought up my 15 Steppe Heavy Cav. BTW, how do you have the cav dismount for a castle def.

Another battle was 40 v 1000. They had a siege engine off to one side and I convinced 3 fanatics to go destroy it. They were run down by 20 Royal Guards and slaughtered. The stupid Guards then stood there, 100 feet away from the castle and slowly died from arrows. It was then that I noticed the entire French Army had moved into arrow range and stopped. By the time they assualted and tore down the gates they had nothing left to fight with.

I don't know which is more fun, castles or bridges.

[Don Corleone]

I think the game is actually a little forgiving in this regard. Can you really imagine anyone being able to do anything to a stone wall WITHOUT siege equipment. Look at some of the ruins of keeps and castles in Europe. Do you think YOU could go through it with a spear, a sword or an axe? With guys up on the walls shooting arrows and dropping rocks on you?

From a realism standpoint, I think the only thing that makes even remote sense would be units with large shields being able to batter the gates down. Even then, without some kind of artillery support (not arrows) I would imagine they'd get chewed up into mincemeat.

If anyone's doing any mods and needs ideas for a new unit, I think sappers would be cool. You send these guys up to the wall and they dig a hole and collapse part of it. I'd think they'd have to be a specialty unit though, you couldn't go ask your peasants or your footmen to do it, because I would imagine it's a pretty tough thing to do right, and not have the wall collapse on you. Just my 2 cents.

I have a question about trebuchets, while we're on the siege question. My trebuchet crews SUCK. They can't hit the broadside of a barn (or a castle for that matter). It's really disheartening to see them miss a castle WALL 3 out of 4 shots. Is there any way to train them to improve their efficiency? What is their value if they can't hit anything? Also, I haven't built any mangonels yet, but will these at least rotate? Are they more accurate?

[nick_maxell]

Don Corleone,

the higher the non powder seigeengines go the smaller the angel of fire (rotation) they have - eg with a cat you cab aim at the gate and will be able to hit both towers on either side too - the Treb will hit the gate and only one tower and so on (I only use cats in seiges and if castle too big for them, spies as I got frustrated using higher equippment although the damage they can do is impressive - if they actually hit .
Valor is said to help accuracy so a high command gen will help although you are not alone in your frustration - I read a thread where they tested accuracy and somebody reported only 3 hits on target out of 28 shots http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

for angel of fire for cannons - I have no idea maybe somebody else can help here.

sappers is a good idea as a new unit but unrealistic to use in siege as they took a long time and it wasn t possible at all everywhere - if you look at the castles in Europe you will either find that they are built on solid rock or have a moat , both making sappers useless.

For attacking with troops - I think it simulates using a battering ram not actually hacking away with axes etc - it is just my observation (and I can be wrong here) that units with higher attack value get the gate broken down faster as say peasents - I never use them to break down castles - but any mounted unit should not be able to break gates down unless dismounted beforehands.

To Seth:

Up to Castle level you can do that easily - I once stormed a citadel without seige equippment after my lonely cat was taken out after the first shot (had no time to get more there in time) but only because I had enough man - they were only lightly armored and I took a whooping +1000 casulties and nearly ran out of time.
And the +8 is morale which is even worse than valor (I think it is similar to the eager to fight - no way to go bonus).

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

nick

[Xiphias]

General valour doesn't seem to count for siege equipment but valour gained from killing troops does improve accuracy.

That's assuming you can get them to hit the troops in the first place.

[katank]

building up to a master engineer isn't so hard and V1 cats are respectable killers if trained a bit.

see bridge attack thread for catapult training.

note: for naval combat, engine favors losers on land and tries for balance.

therefore, send half dead peasant or ballista units to attack overwhelming forces and autocalc to get them slaguhtered miserably and thy navies shall be victorious

lone 0* curragh took out 3 viking snekjjas led by 3* admiral through sacrifice of a peasant.

moral of the story: lose the 50 florin peasant and not several 600-700 florin ships.

note: use more dead peasants and more naval battles in the same turn for even sweeter deal http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Seth Infinite @ May 04 2004,16:18)]BTW, how do you have the cav dismount for a castle def
When you place the troops on the battle map, you can click on the unit banners or on the units themselves and select mount/dismount. Sometimes this can give you units you cannot get otherwise. For example: saharan cavalry can dismount during sieges and turn into murabitin infantry, which is normally only available to the Almohads. Better still is the Druzhina cavalry. This can be turned into feudal footknight at all times

[Seth Infinite]

Naval Battles

I took 4 of my naval battles and did them 8 times, 4 with stacks and 4 non-stacked attacking stacks. All of the units were pretty much equal. There was:

Spanish attacking French
1 barque V 1 caravell
4 caravells V 4 barques
1 Cog, 3 caravells V 4 caravells
1 cog, 3 caravells, 2 barques V 4 caravells, 2 barques

Result: It just doesn't matter.

At least once, in each of the battles under both conditions, it was a all lost/none lost defeat or none lost/all lost victory. I know that 8 battles isn't much of a data base but seeing the battles go from one extreme to the other doesn't make any sense.



http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif and http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif should be http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[katank]

@ ludens

druzhina dismount in open battle into feudal foot knights.

this means something that can chew through hordes of enemy spears using that single unit and merc druzhina are real battle winners in early.

BTW, a Russian start that rushes toward Const. is quite doable and silver armored druzhina and boyars in early are just about unstoppable.

it's funny how some troops like saharan cav and druzhina actually become better troops when dismounted, at least morale wise.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 05 2004,17:21)]druzhina dismount in open battle into feudal foot knights
Katank, you are absolutly right. I have edited out the mistake.

[klarion]

On the subject of seige art. acuracy:

One way to make up this shortfall, is to increase the number of units you're using (up to 10 for me). Also, to aim these units in such a way, so that a miss on a target may produce a hit on a different structure or unit.

I like separating the artilery into several smaller groups; bombard and storm the castle from different angles, so it's over quickly.

When the artillery runs out of ammo, I bring the rest of my troops for the assault.

I think you should not autocalc unless you have a significant advantage in numbers. In battles where I'm outnumbered, I always command the attack.



http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif Do the castle defenders get a negative morale modifer for being under fire from gunpowder units?

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (klarion @ May 09 2004,18:38)]Do the castle defenders get a negative morale modifer for being under fire from gunpowder units?
If they get hit, yes. But castle defenders get a cannot retreat morale bonus to their morale.
Added to this: inside the castle they will not rout but fight to the death. Outside the castle, defenders can rout but they will flee to the castle and then recover. This feature is giving me headaches in the quick battles, when there usually is a large force of defenders outside the castle.

So morale sapping techniques are less useful for castle battles. You will have to resort to meat grinder tactics. But castle assault is not very well implemented, I am afraid.

[katank]

the +8 morale is just crazy.

on expert, the +4 on top of that just means even peasants are next to unroutable.

that combined with siege defense means that they can attrit even your elite troops quite a bit and result in horrible kill/loss ratios for you.