Kommodus
06-04-2004, 22:29
Playing as English/Early/Expert, I've felt the sting of the AI's morale bonus in more battles than one. It's endlessly frustrating when my men-at-arms and sergeants are handily defeated by enemy militia and spearmen. One troop type, however, has never truly disappointed me - that bunch of guys named Bill.
Billmen seem to give a good account of themselves against just about everything I send them at, unless, of course, they get flanked. I often place them on the flanks of my army, where they can deal more easily with enemy cavalry. Often, even if my center is broken, these powerful forces on the flanks can destroy their opponents and drive in on enemy troops in the center. They're even more effective against enemy cavalry in the woods; recently, I used a few units of billmen supported by other light troops to destroy the re-emergent Danish by standing my ground in the woods while their huge army of knights charged in after me.
When I played as the Byzantines, I noticed how fierce of an opponent the English billmen were. Now I use them to make short work of my enemies. What fun. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
RedKnight
06-05-2004, 17:55
Eh, I love arrows - why worry about getting your tunic dirty when you can kill'em from afar? So when I play English (which I have often), you know my armies are longbow heavy.
Which, in turn, tends to mean that the unluckiest encounter I'd want to have, would be vs. somebody archer-heavy himself. (They will want to stay at farther range, and often spread out, which means my arrows get poorer kill rates.)
In turn, this means that when I meet such an opponent, I better have big shields for my archer screen. (In truth, of course, I'd want to try to be cav heavy, if I were meeting an archer-heavy army.)
Do bills have any shield at all? No. So they will die pretty fast, in the one situation where longbow-heavy armies aren't a terror to behold.
To make a long story short, I love playing the English, but only find bills useful when facing a serious cavalry army. IOW, I don't find them particularly useful. Due to no shields, they also seem bad to me for storming castles... I'd rather use CMAAs and CSgts.
I guess I don't do the fancy footwork some of you folks do, to slice and dice at close range. Why bother when they'll drop like flies before they can get close? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif
There was one time where I absolutely fell in love with my bills. I once took out the ENTIRE GOLDEN HORDE, mainly with JUST ELEVEN billmen units (silver shields, no iron, 7* general). I had a dozen longbows when the battle first started and a few CSgts, but they quickly got used up (but got the enemy general) and I retreated into a forest in the map corner, where it took twelve hours to take out the whole horde... tediously luring them into the forest, then pincering them. (This was in the one province they appeared in, the very year they appeared... it was probably a medium difficulty game.) All the bills went up 2 to 3 valor when it was all over, and were down to half strength, on average. For that one glorious victory, those guys were simply invincible.
Am I weird to consider bills not that special?
Kommodus
06-05-2004, 18:44
Hm, I've never really tried the truly archer-heavy army before. I'll have to give it a go, although it seems to me that it would take some practice. I have a few questions about it:
1. You have to manually target the bowmen, right? Otherwise they might waste their arrows on the spread-out bowmen that the enemy uses as skirmishers to screen their advance. It seems to me that you'd really want to target the enemy's good melee units.
2. Is it feasible to attack with an archer-heavy army? The enemy in a defensive position would probably choose the high ground, forcing you to get closer to open fire, which exposes you to the risk of a downhill charge that could scatter your archers.
3. On Expert, the AI seems more likely to aggressively charge straight for my archers (if I have them in front of my army), and their high morale bonus keeps their charge intact until it reaches my lines. Isn't it possible that an archer-heavy army could be overrun by even an infantry army in this scenario?
4. Longbowmen in particular run out of arrows very quickly. What's the plan at this point?
I guess I rather like melee fights anyway, so it's partly a matter of preference. I tend to worry that my archers won't perform well when I have to fight in the rain, or in the forest. I like having good units that perform well in all kinds of scenarios, and billmen seem to, well, fit the bill. (Pardon the pun.) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif
Also, I certainly wasn't trying to start a debate about the comparative abilities of various polearm troops. I've also gotten great success from JHI, and I'm sure Swiss Halberdiers are great too. Right now, though, billmen are all I have access to.
Interestingly, people have mentioned that billmen have trouble with swords. I suppose they do, but when I fought the English as the Byzantines on Expert, billmen easily carved up my Byzantine Infantry of comparable valour. That doesn't seem right to me, but polearm troops do get an armor-piercing bonus, and most swordsmen are well-armored. They aren't the best against swords, to be sure, but they seem to hold their own.
I know their stats aren't the best, but for some reason they've always performed well in practice for me.
RedKnight
06-05-2004, 21:35
Hi Kommodus,
Byz Infantry are great early in the game - or an Early game - just because they're available so soon (with high head counts). Otherwise though, they are only mediocre infantry which don't fare as well against solid higher tech units - like billmen usually are. Of course, the relative strength of generals can be real important.
As for playing archer heavy,
1) Yes, I almost always manually target my bows. (Right at first I'll leave them auto, just so I can see when I get in range. Also, if I have some archers off to the side that I'm not watching I will leave them on auto, so I can see from their icon, if somebody's nearing them.) Prioritize your targets where: the more fearsome they are, the slower they are moving, if they are moving away (archers tend to over-shoot more than under-shoot), and the more other troops around them, bring priority up. Also, de-prioritize enemies that are already engaging your archer screen (sargeants, for catholics) - since they're (probably) real close to your archers, few of the archers will be able to shoot over your screeners to hit them.
Every now and then, I won't have a single decent target, even in the thick of a hairy battle... but that soon changes.
Another time I might switch to auto is when a battle is winding down, with good and bad units all mixed up all over (me winning and chasing them down, of course)... in which case it's, WTH, you guys fire if you can find a target.
Another thing is to try to get as many archer units firing on the same enemy unit as possible, all at once - so you can do as much damage as possible, before they spread out.
For any newbies reading: set your archers to H and F, so they won't move around every time you target somebody (or somebody comes close). Of course, your spear screen should be on H&F too, to get the ranks bonus.
2) Yes, it's very easy to attack. If they are on a hill, move along the edge of the map (usually hill) near to them, facing them... if they have archers, they will send some out to greet you... at this point, move all your archers up quickly another inch or so (so they can all fire at once) and once in position - once all your archers have stopped moving - fire them all off, and in a couple of volleys you'll have whittled the enemy archer down to two-thirds, before he spreads out. After that ignore that archer. (Generally I ignore archers at two-thirds strength or less, who are spread out.)
Meanwhile, you will often notice the enemy do an odd thing: He will move a non-archer unit up near his archer, presumably to supply support in case you try to rush his archers. Often, if you just sit there and let him, he will wind up moving tons of people to the very same position, sometimes crammed so close together you can't distinguish the banners apart. LET him crowd them together, and when he has a lot there, quickly move your archers up again, then rain holy hell down on the lot of them. (Don't be moving your archers up OR firing on them in the meantime - they stop just out of your archers range, so if you keep creeping up, their newly-arriving units will keep stopping a little farther back, instead of bunching up.) It's arguably cheesy to exploit this AI flaw(?) but since I choose other things to make the game hard (e.g. Denmark on Expert right now), I don't worry about it.
When you're doing this, you will want to have a fairly closely packed archer screen and archers, hugging the edge of the map but facing the enemy. Your archers can be in front or behind your screen; just be ready to either move the screen up, or fade the archers back, if he rushes you.
If you are very archer heavy, and except in situations where either he has tons of heavy cav (or some other very outmatching high tech unit, like Vrangian Guards) or the map is such that he is still very uphill no matter how much you edge around; well, in all other situations, you will inevitably take him apart.
Note that you're not ever trying to attack his main force head on, per se. He will almost always send little forces out to greet you, which you whittle away. Sometimes if he's not being compliant, esp. if he has little or no archers, I will send a cav close to his force with its back turned to it so that he'll chase it... into the waiting quivers of my massed archers. Note that sometimes, you do not want to fire when making them chase, until the enemy unit gets really close, because they will say omg, we don't really want to be doing this as soon as you start shooting. Sometimes I even egg them on by, if they do start to turn tail, have my cav act like its attacking, until they start chasing again. (Be careful of doing that too much, or the cav will eventually route - they call it the Benny Hill route counter. It's probably meant to stop cheesiness like this, lol.)
Conversely, if I'm attacking and we're BOTH archer heavy (sigh), I will keep stepping up: I run my forces forward a little, pound-to-two-thirds his archers which have just come in range (then ignore them), run forward a little again, rinse and repeat until eventually you are coming in range of his heavier forces behind his archers. And you are probably also so close to some of his archers, that they have started to move away, which is a bonus. At this time, he is liable to start rushing you with his heavier forces, too. In any event, you should be able to slice him up and win the day.
3) I would almost never be run down by infantry on Expert (which is all I play these days). Occasionally, somebody like the Horde or Byz get lucky with all their heavy cav and cause my sarges to route, if they've been smart enough to all charge me directly, immediately. Very often though, they will stop and think about it when you start raining heavy hell on them - which is of course entirely lethal not only to that one unit, but his entire battle. His only hope ever, was to hit me all at once, with everything he had.
When defending, I make a VERY tight grouping of my unit. I will start out with, say, 10 archers, 5 sarges, and the general, and if possible be flat in a corner (making a wedge) or else against the edge, making a bit of a box - one sarge on each corner, one sarge on each side, the rest along the front - and all my archers have been closely packed, using five-man rows. (This makes them more shallow, thus my box has shallow sides.) Yeah, it takes micromanagement to set up... The idea is to present as little surface area as possible, which in turn means your sarges can be as thick as possible, while you're still fielding as many bows as you can. It also means you will be able to target all your archers onto anybody who tries to melee you (see notes above).
Note that I haven't played Early in a while, and always only make Chiv Sargeants. Anything weaker, is liable to be sliced to ribbons by heavy cav or heavy infantry. Perhaps that's what you mean? Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that one should try very archer top-heavy armies, without Chiv Sgts (unless you know they won't have heavies). So, use all my advice with a grain of salt, hehe.
Let me also say, being archer-heavy will sometimes cause you to take heavy sargeant losses (but not archer losses), so make lots of them, with the best armor and morale that you can manage. And try hard to have a high-star general if you are expecting a serious melee.
4) As to running out of arrows: Do lbows run out faster? I wouldn't know since I rarely have lbows AND regular bows (I'm English or not, lol... and it's been forever since I played an Early game). Of course, both of those run out way faster than xbows or arbs. Anyway, when you do run out,
If defending, you should be flat against an edge on your side of the map. So, your reinforcements don't have far to go... just withdraw and reinforce, and shoot some more. Of course this assumes you have a reasonable chance of winning... if the other guy has overwhelming force, consider withdrawing entirely once you run out of arrows, heh. But then, it's often possible to have the enemy be in a position of units routing and/or his general dead by the time your first wave of arrows is used up, which makes the rest of the battle easier. (They'll always have their best guys in their first wave, so unless it's the Horde or something, it usually means the rest of his army will come in piddling waves that can be dealt with... again, unless he simply has overwhelming force; lots more good units still to come.)
Note that withdrawing units (and reinforcements) take a LOT longer to cross over a high mountain than to take lower ground or, best of all, a road. So I will sometimes reposition my withdrawing troops to avoid a mountain, or fiddle with my reinforcement banner, to try to avoid it.
If/when the enemy has committed all his melee forces, consider moving any unused sargeants behind his forces, to surround them. However, you can be sure that even his archers will try to attack sarges from behind. So if you don't (yet) have any cav, only do this if/when you can handle even that. Still, being able to surround his meleers is a very powerful move. (Turn sarges from H&F to E when they do this.) Of course, this is a general concept, regardless of whether you're archer heavy or not.
When attacking with a lot of archers, I will usually fall back when I run out of arrows... all the way back to my edge of the map, if needed (though it's rarely that far). This accomplishes two things: it keeps his arrows off of me, and lets me regroup into my whole reinforced army force, faster. You only need to walk your guys who aren't withdrawing, so they can conserve strength... the AI isn't smart enough to run his archers forward so that they can get shots in while you're walking away. Avoid the temptation to take him out, at the point you run out of arrows, unless he is truly pathetically diminished... you'll be able to hit him a lot harder when you're reinforced; he'll be able to hit you a lot harder if you've only got 5 sarges and a RK general, trying to take on all his scraps.
I will usually have 0 to 3 cav in my first wave, and then they start trickling in, in future waves... to finally take out pesky, decimated enemy archers, more than to press the battle. In my reinforcements, I will try to position all the rest of my cav to appear about the time I expect to have pretty much won, so that they can run down the remnants.
I rarely worry about rain or forests. Forests are a non-issue, because you can always lure them out of the forest on attack (see above), and no map is purely forest, on the defense. As for rain, it just means my arrows are a little less effective... but on defense he's still gotta get in real close (so arrows work good), and on attack, you can almost always either choose a non-rainy day, or not press the attack while it's coming down thick. Also, when defending, don't forget that it affects his arrows too... so feel free to wait for better shots, and don't worry about the fact that he's got archers as much... make him come get you, if he wants it.
For anybody who doesn't know: It's my theory that the best way to see how heavy the rain is, is not to look at the drops, but instead look into the distance... the thickness of the gray fog, I equate to the thickness of the rain. I've never asked about it or seen anybody mention this concept, but it seems a lot more measureable, so I use it, shrug.
One final word about archers: Everybody says to be on a hill, and in theory it makes sense. But in reality, it can sometimes mess up your archers. Specifically, if you're on a nice flat round top, with your sargeants right at the lip of the top of the hill, your archers will have a very hard time hitting not only enemy meleers, but even the first half of their firing range, in a really bad situation. It's because your troops are blocking their shot. For this reason, I will choose a gently sloping hill over a nice tall flat one - as long as everybody's on the same slope, you're only being blocked as much as you normally would, if it were all flat. If you're unsure whether they can shoot, just watch your archers... only the ones who can shoot will do the actual 'firing' animation. (This holds for forest shooting, too.)
***
Wow, that's a whole lotta typing. Hope somebody reads it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Hehe. FWIW, in my hands, an archer heavy army is even better on the attack, than on defense... as long as you're willing to cheesily exploit how the AI does that bunch up thing I mentioned above. As for a discussion of why bridge attacks are some of the easiest battles ever when archer heavy, see the bottom of my first message posted here (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=18264;hl=bridges+and+world). (Spoiler alert)
Bows up, arrows away http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif
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