New Tactic for Winning or Old?

[Pompey the Great]

Dear Generals,

Continuing my epic Turkish struggle against Christendom. The French have assailed me yet again on another pesky Crusade in Hungary.

But they have lost the latest battle, mown down by mass Horse Archer fire trapped in a valley of death.

But for the first time I noticed something I had not experienced before in my short time playing MTW.

My Horse Archers pursued their routing forces to the French base line/troop entry point until I could follow no further. The "Running Away" units disappeared over the horizon as usual.

I would normally have moved back to a hill and taken up another defensive position trying to unite my army ready to face the next attack. This time I had no time or hill to do this.

The French then proceeded to march on another 12 units of strong fresh infantry as reinforcements, which I could not attack when they first appeared, although I could fire upon with the remains of my H/A Cav.
My Infantry were struggling to catch up being miles away left behind.

The French then marched past my H/A cav ignoring them for a while then suddenly ran off as soon as my meagre units of Horse Archers engaged with them.

It's unusual for 6 Horse Archers to rout 100 fresh spear men wouldn't you say.

So is this a tactic I can use again?

If I rout the first 12 enemy units that I face, pursue them then quickly push up to their base line and sit there waiting for them to come on. Can the enemy units be routed if attacked before they can deploy at their marker point/flag? Even by small numbers of troops.

Or is it just a moral thing?

Can someone explain this phase of the game.

Thank You in Advance

Cheers

C

[viermaaldomi]

1.The enemy probably just had very low morale because you easily beat their 16 starting units (I'm assuming you beat them easily?).
2. When reinforcements arrive, you can't attack them while they're still on the border of the map (you can see where the border starts:it's where your cursor turns red instead of yellow).
3.It is possible to use this tactic again ,but not all the time.It depends (I think) on the ease with which you beat their starting units and on the level of their troops (e.g. spearmen don't have high morale)

[Dub]

I've noticed that the task of beating an enemy with superior numbers is often easier when you move up to his reinforcements line -- yeah, getting as close as you can to that spot where your cursor turns from yellow to red. Defending or attacking. The enemy is often coming at you in dribs and drabs...and even if there are, say, ten units at once, they'll be suffering from morale penalties due to the loss of their general (whether you've killed him or captured him or just sent him running)...and they'll be out of formation, so can be flanked, etc. Be careful though. Sometimes the fact that they are fresh and your own troops are probably tired or even exhausted means you might have some of your own forces get routed... I've had some situations in fact where the battle has gone back and forth a number of times...right at that spot...with my own (now tired) reinforcements dragging themselves up to the battle just in time (or not!)... Be careful that the enemy doesn't appear on your flank, as well: it seems to me that reinforcements will sometimes arrive from a different spot from where you'd expect. Perhaps the AI makes an adjustment (at times) when you've got your own troops parked on the (usual) reinforcments point. Anyway, hope this might help.

[ajaxfetish]

After annihilating the first wave or two the enemy general sometimes decides to withdraw his reinforcements before they can reach you and pulls out of the battle instead of fighting to the bitter end. Sometimes a wise tactical decision but in the case of crusades that have become surrounded by your territory it often means the immediate dissolution of the enemy's forces--a fun easy way to end the crusade and an opportunity for plenty of cool mercenary troops.

[Etym]

It is possible to use this tactic again ,but not all the time.It depends (I think) on the ease with which you beat their starting units and on the level of their troops (e.g. spearmen don't have high morale)

I'm not certain, either, but my experience indicates that holding a line across the path reinforcements must take to enter the field always results in them routing just after they cross the boundary. It doesn't seem to matter what type of units either side has, or how many men (assuming there are enough for you to make a complete line across their path, at least).

PS - Come to think of it, I never tried this with the Horde, but I will next time. THAT should prove whether or not my theory holds up!

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Hitting troops as they file onto the field is a great tactic, they have no time to respond and if you rout them quickly their friends cannot help them out.

[_Aetius_]

Everytime I face an enemy with hordes of reinforcements, especially when I have few if any! reinforcements myself, I defend against their first attack and instead of staying in my position once the battle starts going my way I go all out attack chase the enemy from the field and line up along the reinforcement line, holding them as they try to arrive on the field.

My best use of this tactic is when I faced the Mongol horde when they arrived in Khazar I had about 4 thousand Byzantines against about 25000 Mongols, I crushed the first attack then blocked the reinforcement entrance, and somehow held out for about 2 hours, my first wave did most of the fighting as only cavalry could hope to reach my army on the other side of the map when I called up reinforcements. Even though my army eventually fled, I decided to withdraw only losing about 1200 men, but killing around 12000 Mongols, and capturing thousands more.

So it clearly works,

[bretwalda]

Again: how can you tell exactly WHERE on the enemy's side the reinforcements will arrive? For me it is hard to tell where they will be arriving and from exactly what point are they ON the map.

Granted it is easy to rout them if they have some junk low-moral troops left, but what if it is a faction reappearance with royal knights and other cool stuff? :wink:

[Dub]

bretwalda, I've found that enemy reinforcements almost always arrive from the same basic area on the battle map: where the first few units arrive from is where (almost always) the next and all the rest will arrive from. I just keep my eyes peeled (if one of my units is close enough, of course) on the horizon behind whatever enemy units are still engaged with my troops...in order to see what they've got coming and WHERE they're coming FROM... I've gotten surprised sometimes, however, especially when I've moved my troops up to the reinforcments point in order to stop them as they're getting into the "yellow" (active) area of the map. In these surprising cases, a handful of enemy units appears off to the side (but not usually too far away: just not right in front of me, as the rest of the enemy reinforcements had done)... I'm not sure if this is a response to my troop placement or if it's random.

[bretwalda]

Awright, so it is not just me that always gets the enemy reinforcements on the other side of the hill/forest/etc :wink: Anyway is it a rule that troops arrive near the middle of the field? Well, if noone now I will save battles and watch the replays to see any pattern :wink: In matter of fact I go check out the old battles... [picks up the axe and chainmail and turns on mtw]