Golden Horde! [Archive]

Loucipher

02-19-2006, 22:01

Yes, the Horde invariably arrives in 1230, so that your first battles with them shall be fought in 1231.
Volga-Bulgaria is the original province from the vanilla MTW. Located north of Khazar, east of Ryazan and south of Muscovy.
Back in vanilla MTW times they were pitiful - just two stacks of units, and no more than 16 MHA units. Now, things have changed drastically - 10 stacks full of assorted troops (composition as noted by Knight Templar and Haruchai) is a minimum; if you see nothing more than this, consider yourself lucky.
Where they strike is actually a mystery for me. Sometimes they go south, wreaking havoc amongst the Asia Minor and Levant provinces. Other times they go straight west, painting half of the Europe with that damn mustard-brownish colour...
Have a mix of heavy cavalry, armour piercing troops (Halberdiers preferably), foot missiles, solid spears and fast cavalry. And have lots of it. Use them accordingly against each of the Horde units (refer to Frogbeastegg's TW Unit Guide for more info). Use bribery whenever possible - a lot of Horde lesser khans are loyal only to the highest bidder, and since you start on Early, money is not an issue in High anymore, unless you totally screwed up your economics - in which case you'd be dead already by then. Your armies should be massed at least some 2 provinces away, ideally in coastal provinces; with your fleet in place, you can then throw anything including the kitchen sink at the Mongols (except Volga-Bulgaria, all provinces usually invaded are coastal).
Good luck and have fun repelling the Horde ~:)

tigger_on_vrb

02-20-2006, 09:29

I had an interesting experience with the Mongols playing the turks on high, expert. I has been kicking the Byzantines of the mainland and had taken Bulgaria, Constantinople and relieved the byzs of all their provinces except Khazar and the one to the south of it (Georgia?). Their back was broken, but they had a few decent troops left. As I was fighting off Italian, German and English crusades to Bulgaria and Constantinople I decided to leave the Byzs as a buffer between me an the Mongol invasion buying me a few turns extra to balance my troops defending east and west.
The turn in which the mongols arrived the byz emperor died whithout an heir and their provinces went straight over to the Mongols! I've seen "a number of rebel provinces have joined them", but never a faction dying out in the same turn going over. They gained a whole bunch of horse archers and byz cav, assorted infantry and even some VG.
I was looking forward to a good fight but, unfortunately, the golden horde made their usual mistake of spreading their forces too thin attcking the Russians, Poles and me and they were easily wiped out in about 15 years :no:

OliverWKim

03-01-2007, 14:31

Playing as the Brits, I have the Isles, France, Northern Germany, Denmark, Spain and North Italy, which adds up to 43 regions. The Pope commissioned a crusade for Jerusalem, and, recognizing my luck, quickly fielded a 20-unit army of crusader sergeants, armored swordsmen and Hospitaller knights, then set off for Jerusalem. I planned to conquer Antioch then head south and take Jerusalem, as Antioch was very lightly defended. I conquered Antioch with ease and prepared to move on to Jerusalem. Then, suddenly, 6 Golden Horde units invaded Antioch region and besieged the city. Even when my general turned on night mode, I was still outnumbered around 5 to 1. Obviously, my outmatched and outnumbered troops were completely massacred (though I did manage to inflict around 900 casualties). Just an account on how :furious3: annoying the GH is. TWO REGIONS AWAY FROM VICTORY!!! :furious3: :furious3: :skull:

Adrian II

03-01-2007, 14:37

Big armies are fun to manipulate into fighting the enemy.Totally off topic: I love the smileys in your sig, antisocialmunky. ~;)

Don Esteban

03-01-2007, 19:59

Thanks, ill guess ill put a huge army in Khazar in about 1225 just to be safe :)

I'd suggest letting them take Khazar , let them spread out and then counterattack - unless you can field an immense army you'll lose anyway.

seireikhaan

03-02-2007, 05:41

Depending on who you are, I would advise completely forfeiting Khazar and pulling back to Kiev. Invading Kiev from the east results in a bridge battle, essentially nullifying the Mongol's greatest strength, pure mobility.

To defend, use lots and lots of halberds and arbs. Halberds can hold the bridge(especially helps if you can get them extra morale) and the arbs waste the mongols as they're stuck on the bridge. If you don't have halberds, than a good spear like saracens or chiv. seargeants will do the job. If you don't have arbs, well that tough, regular archers just aren't nearly as good for this situation. If you are the bizz or someone who conquered the bizz(like Egypt or Turkey) then you're just going to whittle them down in attrition, or hopefully kill off the Khaan early in an early battle. Just make sure to have lots of anticav units handy and also some light cav of your own to deal w/ the mongol warriors.

Bregil the Bowman

03-03-2007, 23:14

you can expect al least 10 full stacks in Khazar.
Their armies are composed of Mongol heavy cav, Mongol horse archers, Urban militia, Mongol warriors (foot archers with good melee stats), Spearmen and catapults.

I'm playing in VI and the Horde also has several mortars and an organ gun :skull:

I'm all for letting other factions spread out in the far east and having them deal with the Horde (or vice versa) to begin with. If you are having problems with a powerful Byzantine, Turkish or Egyptian faction, just gear yourself for the changes that 1230 will bring to the map of Europe.

Check out the thread titled "How does one deal with the Mongols" for various strategies once you are at war with them.

Lord Cazaric

03-04-2007, 00:17

Lord Cazaric

03-04-2007, 00:25

Of course, I'd been building my war-machine for about 30 years, with every steppe province training soldiers.

Actually, if I recall, I had about three hundred kataphraktoi as well, brought up from Constantinople about 10 years before the Horde hit. They were definitely important in the defeat of Batu Khan.

caravel

03-05-2007, 10:13

The Horde always take Khazar and keep their main army there when they do. They'll also occasionally attack Georgia, Volga-Bulgaria and Armenia. For me, they once attacked in 1227, with, if I recall correctly, 4000 soldiers in Volga-Bulgaria and 12,000 in Khazar.
The horde cannot appear before or after 1230, it is a hardcoded event.

I purposely had 1 byzantine infantryman stationed in Volga-Bulgaria at the time. When the Horde appeared, I made him withdraw into the fort. Meanwhile, in Khazar, I almost entirely destroyed the invading army with a defending force of 8000 steppe cavalry, byzantine infantry and a range of peasants.
An unusual force. In my experience the Horde would steamroll such an army with ease. Byzantine Infanty being a basic sword infantry that are vulberable to cavarly charges and partially vulnerable to missiles, as well as peasants that are really a none entity. Steppe Cavalry wouldn't be a match for Mongol Heavy Cavalry, and would be vulnerable to the missiles of the Mongol Horse Archers. Besides an army of light cavalry, with no polearms, spears or missiles of any kind is extremely poor defensively.

I defeated them in a matter of three years.
With Byzantine Infantry, Peasants and Steppe Cavalry - oh and your 300 Kataphraktoi vs the Horde's 10,000 MHC?

This reminds me of that time when I faced and utterly defeated the 50,000 strong Horde with 2,000 camels in one year... oh and I did bring along 200 peasants as well, I almost forgot. :wink3:

Caerfanan

03-05-2007, 14:53

This reminds me of that time when I faced and utterly defeated the 50,000 strong Horde with 2,000 camels in one year... oh and I did bring along 200 peasants as well, I almost forgot. :wink3:
Now we see what's all about those camels! :laugh4:

Martok

03-05-2007, 17:55

Lord Cazaric, I apologize for sounding skeptical, but how *did* you manage to defeat the Mongols with an army made up of mostly SHC, Byz Infantry, and peasants? I have a hard time seeing how that would be possible, unless you auto-calced the battle (and even then I don't think one could win). On what difficulty level were you playing?

caravel

03-05-2007, 18:09

Now we see what's all about those camels! :laugh4:
Don't laugh, it was an epic battle! :inquisitive:

Until I was "rudely awakened by the dust man" that is... :shame:

On a more serious note, it is possible that Lord Cazaric managed to pull it off. He may have hidden his entire force in the woods and waited for the time to run out?

Ok I'll get my coat... :shame:

Caerfanan

03-06-2007, 11:34

On a more serious note, it is possible that Lord Cazaric managed to pull it off. He may have hidden his entire force in the woods and waited for the time to run out?

OK, this makes me think. Has anyone has had a battle with, let's say, you have one cavalry unit and your opponent has two or three good anticav infantry units. Meaning you couldn't really fight them, but... could run around them long enough a time to win with the clock?
Just being curious, I never tried that, but I wonder if someone did?

Sorry for the slight off-topic stuff!!! :oops:

caravel

03-06-2007, 14:06

After a time, the constant retreat would probably cause them to rout.

The Unknown Guy

03-06-2007, 14:12

AAGH (posting problems). What I was saying. I tried it in Vanilla with three mercenary Turcoman to see if the Parthian shot worked. After a fashion it did, but like Cambyses said, eventually they routed BADLY. Into an enemy armenian heavy cavalry

Caerfanan

03-06-2007, 14:48

Kavhan Isbul

03-06-2007, 17:50

OK, this makes me think. Has anyone has had a battle with, let's say, you have one cavalry unit and your opponent has two or three good anticav infantry units. Meaning you couldn't really fight them, but... could run around them long enough a time to win with the clock?
Just being curious, I never tried that, but I wonder if someone did?

Sorry for the slight off-topic stuff!!! :oops:

I do not think you run around all battle long, but I have done it for half a battle with a depleted unit of RKs. It was a bridge battle, the enemy managed to make it through the bridge as it outnumbered me badly but only had slow heavy spear infantry (Rus Spearmen I think) and I just marched from one end of the map to another. It worked because my unit had high morale - it was the general and I think he had developped captured or some such vice that actually helped a lot in this case. Their units were completely exhausted too, so they could not "march quickly", which gave me enough time. But it felt like an AI exploit at the end and quite unfair. At the same time I have had time running out on me when attacking through bridges, so it tends to even out.

Martok

03-07-2007, 00:15

After a time, the constant retreat would probably cause them to rout.

AAGH (posting problems). What I was saying. I tried it in Vanilla with three mercenary Turcoman to see if the Parthian shot worked. After a fashion it did, but like Cambyses said, eventually they routed BADLY. Into an enemy armenian heavy cavalry
Yeah, a unit can usually retreat for only so long before the Benny Hill code kicks in and causes them to flee. It's kind of a pity in a way, but it does admittedly help in preventing the player from exploiting that sort of tactic.

Caerfanan

03-07-2007, 13:49

Yeah, a unit can usually retreat for only so long before the Benny Hill code kicks in and causes them to flee. It's kind of a pity in a way, but it does admittedly help in preventing the player from exploiting that sort of tactic.
Yes, you have a point there. It would be "too easy" and turn some battles into some sort of pacman game...

caravel

03-07-2007, 14:09

If you periodically order them to attack then just continue running around it resets the Benny Hill code and prevents them routing. Personally though I would just withdraw from such a battle.

Caerfanan

03-07-2007, 14:41

If you periodically order them to attack then just continue running around it resets the Benny Hill code and prevents them routing. Personally though I would just withdraw from such a battle.
Yes, who wants to wait that long for such a smell battle... I wonder because I started something like this once (with kerns rushed by two huscarles), but I got bored... The only case where I see some use to it is if you make some mistake and are attacked in a vital province (the on producing your best unit or something like this...) you need to keep

Don Esteban

03-07-2007, 17:47

gunslinger

03-08-2007, 00:22

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense. Plus, I'm such a slow attacker that it really hurts me on offense.

Lord Cazaric

03-08-2007, 00:40

I managed to destroy the Mongol army by hitting them with the hundred Byzantine cavalry I commanded and then withdrawing, hitting then withdrawing etc. as the Horde approached my force.

After that I charged some kataphraktoi forward, devastating their foot soldiers and waited for them to reach me. When they did, I got my woodsmen and urban militia to fight them (remember their anti-armour bonus)while steppe cavalry and kataphraktoi flanked their force and cut them down. After that, bringing down their reinforcements was a simple task, and so the Byzantine Empire managed to hold Khazar against the Mongols.

In Volga-Bulgaria, the lone defender (for the purpose of this post, we'll call him Harold Bunshwun-Nobvaikulingson) was not so fortunate and Volga-Bulgaria was lost for a very short time!

Martok

03-08-2007, 02:20

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense.
My sentiments exactly. :bow: I've said it before and I'll say it again: Any battle that I win by running out the clock just doesn't feel like a true victory. I'm by no means criticizing those that do play with the clock on; I myself just prefer to do without it.

Oh, and I also don't care for the time limit on offensive battles, either. It's very frustrating to lose simply because I couldn't locate the enemy's last two men that are hiding in the woods somewhere. :wall:

Don Esteban

03-08-2007, 10:03

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense. Plus, I'm such a slow attacker that it really hurts me on offense.

For the sake of marriage if nothing else i have to use the timer otherwise I can't imagine how much time I'd spend playing! At least now I can say i'll be finished in an hour.......I agree that epic no-timer battles are more enjoyable but sometimes real life does get in the way.

caravel

03-08-2007, 10:15

For the sake of marriage if nothing else i have to use the timer otherwise I can't imagine how much time I'd spend playing! At least now I can say i'll be finished in an hour.......I agree that epic no-timer battles are more enjoyable but sometimes real life does get in the way.
I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:

"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"

I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden... :no:

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time. :dizzy2:

Don Esteban

03-08-2007, 11:00

I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:

"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"

I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden... :no:

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time. :dizzy2:

you were very lucky to get away with that one :laugh4:

As my wife is Spanish and has a typically Latin disposition I think the computer would have been thrown out of the window as well.......my next game would have been DIVORCE: TOTAL WAR

Caerfanan

03-08-2007, 11:23

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense. Plus, I'm such a slow attacker that it really hurts me on offense.
I'm actually considering puting the timer off myself. Because I won't play any attacking battles involving reinforcements because I fear that I would loose a battle because I'm not rushing enough...

Caerfanan

03-08-2007, 11:30

I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:

"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"

I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden... :no:

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time. :dizzy2:
Outch... Well, you could still pause the game and resume it later? My girl descending from the vikings, I wouldn't try such things to check if I get a two handed battleaxe through my skull or not. But she finds it funny to see me all excited about ordering little computer thinggies into disembowelling each other. As long as there's a balance between computer games and real life, it's no problem.

caravel

03-08-2007, 11:54

Outch... Well, you could still pause the game and resume it later? My girl descending from the vikings, I wouldn't try such things to check if I get a two handed battleaxe through my skull or not. But she finds it funny to see me all excited about ordering little computer thinggies into disembowelling each other. As long as there's a balance between computer games and real life, it's no problem.
Well I am in the same (latin disposition) situation as the Don above. I may find myself, and the PC, outside rather too quickly... :sweatdrop:

I cannot recommend enough disabling the timer, there are many more pros than cons, for example. Aside from Martok's primary points about winning cheaply on time when defending and losing when attacking trying to hunt down two men in a wood, realism is another, though lesser, factor in this. You can hardly imagine a battle in those days, stopping because it ran out of time?!

"I'm afraid that's all the slaughter we've got time for today! :beam: "

Caerfanan

03-08-2007, 12:10

Well I am in the same (latin disposition) situation as the Don above. I may find myself, and the PC, outside rather too quickly... :sweatdrop:
Being french and having a part of italian blood, I'm the latin disposed there! :laugh4:

I cannot recommend enough disabling the timer, there are many more pros than cons, for example. Aside from Martok's primary points about winning cheaply on time when defending and losing when attacking trying to hunt down two men in a wood, realism is another, though lesser, factor in this. You can hardly imagine a battle in those days, stopping because it ran out of time?!

"I'm afraid that's all the slaughter we've got time for today! :beam: "
Well, yes, and no. I'm not that sure about it, but didn't the medieval battles stop at night? I'm not certain about this, but I'm certain that loosing a battle because of thre peasant hidden trembling in a wood is not fair....

This last "gaming argument" associated with the "run to win on defense" one incite me to toggle the timer off...

Ooooh, wasn't I supposed to start a VI campaign tonight? Time to test this!!! :beam:

caravel

03-08-2007, 14:53

Well, yes, and no. I'm not that sure about it, but didn't the medieval battles stop at night?
Both sides would often withdraw to avoid fighting in the dark. They would then camp out and presumably resume when it was light enough.

Caerfanan

03-08-2007, 17:10

Both sides would often withdraw to avoid fighting in the dark. They would then camp out and presumably resume when it was light enough.
Yup, that's what I was thinking....

...

...

What about a battle system representing this. After a time out, all units withdraw, but the battle restarts, with "fresher" troops (I'll say that they should start with one less bar), deployment, change of weather and all, with the oportunity for the attacker to withdraw?

Martok

03-08-2007, 21:36

Sheesh, guys. You and your women.... ~D

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time. :dizzy2:
I do this as well. I usually auto-calc the larger battles if I'm reasonably confident of victory; otherwise I'll just save the game if it's getting close to my bedtime. I generally enjoy the longer battles that MTW offers, but I don't care to stay up until dawn fighting them. :sweatdrop:

caravel

03-08-2007, 22:07

Sheesh, guys. You and your women.... ~D
I remember once trying to explain to my wife that you cannot save during a battle, so it was absolutely impossible for me to leave it. She just didn't get it, so I went over it again in a very patronising tone... the spare room was pretty cold that night if IIRC. :embarassed:

drone

03-08-2007, 22:53

Caerfanan

03-09-2007, 11:49

I remember once trying to explain to my wife that you cannot save during a battle, so it was absolutely impossible for me to leave it. She just didn't get it, so I went over it again in a very patronising tone... the spare room was pretty cold that night if IIRC. :embarassed:
Well, hopefully, if you have the VI extension, you can quick-save before each battle, now! :beam:

(now being the devil: if the spareroom is cold, why not heat it up with, say, a computer with MTW:VI installed? :sweatdrop: )

The Unknown Guy

03-09-2007, 15:01

Doesn´t warm up çuickly enough. tried it

Roark

03-14-2007, 04:12

My sentiments exactly. :bow: I've said it before and I'll say it again: Any battle that I win by running out the clock just doesn't feel like a true victory.

Agreed.

Everyone should be playing with the green_generals tag too.

Caerfanan

03-14-2007, 10:25

Agreed.

Everyone should be playing with the green_generals tag too.
What does this tag do?

caravel

03-14-2007, 10:54

What does this tag do?
Basically with green_generals, when your generals die of old age, they aren't replaced by a clone but with a general of lesser stats. Personally I don't use it as I find that it hurts the AI more than it hurts me. In about 50 years the AI end up with virtually no decent generals at all (the Ai has a tendency to send it's generals to their deaths - the player takes greater care of his), whereas I can still turn out my 4 and 5 star generals and beat the AI quite easily. I rarely train up 6/7/8/9 star generals anyway and tend to make use of a very wide range of 2 - 4 star and a few 5 and 6 star generals than to use one or two 8 or 9 stars to fight most battles.

The same goes for expert difficulty - I hate that with a vengeance though. All it does is give the AI a big morale bonus, which means that you get situations where you can score massive numbers of kills against the enemy's low quality armies without them routing too soon (this valours up your men a lot more than killing routers) or you have the other scenario where you just cannot rout the enemy, even in a stupid situation where they should be running for their lives. This results in many more AI Jedi generals in my experience, as well as frustrating battles where you know in the back of your mind that the AI is simply cheating.

Caerfanan

03-14-2007, 13:31

Basically with green_generals, when your generals die of old age, they aren't replaced by a clone but with a general of lesser stats. Personally I don't use it as I find that it hurts the AI more than it hurts me. In about 50 years the AI end up with virtually no decent generals at all (the Ai has a tendency to send it's generals to their deaths - the player takes greater care of his), whereas I can still turn out my 4 and 5 star generals and beat the AI quite easily. I rarely train up 6/7/8/9 star generals anyway and tend to make use of a very wide range of 2 - 4 star and a few 5 and 6 star generals than to use one or two 8 or 9 stars to fight most battles.
Ok thank you! I was a few trains late (english expression?) on this. I was actually surprised to see those 'your general is dead' messages and never seing my good generals disappear (the "good general" being "this stack with 6 stars over there"): as I don't keep track of the names of all the guys, I didn't knew what happened when one was dying: will he be replaced by another guy with just the same stats and vice/virtues, but another name? Oh, I'm a bit like you regarding the generals, a lot of 2-4 stars and 3-4 better generals (5+ stars).

The same goes for expert difficulty - I hate that with a vengeance though. All it does is give the AI a big morale bonus, which means that you get situations where you can score massive numbers of kills against the enemy's low quality armies without them routing too soon (this valours up your men a lot more than killing routers) or you have the other scenario where you just cannot rout the enemy, even in a stupid situation where they should be running for their lives. This results in many more AI Jedi generals in my experience, as well as frustrating battles where you know in the back of your mind that the AI is simply cheating.
Yup, looks anoying. I was glad to see that with the "hard" level, the AI starts to think a bit on the field (tries to flank efficiently, hides from arrows, etc...), but the cheating part can make people angry: how can we know up to which point it will cheat? So we can't really measure the risks...

caravel

03-14-2007, 14:11

I was actually surprised to see those 'your general is dead' messages and never seing my good generals disappear (the "good general" being "this stack with 6 stars over there"): as I don't keep track of the names of all the guys, I didn't knew what happened when one was dying: will he be replaced by another guy with just the same stats and vice/virtues, but another name?
Yes when a general dies he is simply renamed, and that's it. Nothing else to it. With green_generals he is replaced by a general with lower stats.

You mentioned all of the messages showing generals dying? It seems like you may have "Display non critical messages" enabled. This suits some players and not others, though I reccomend turning it off. To do this you need to click the slide out menu at the top of the screen, the right border of the minimap, and uncheck that option. With this disabled you will no longer see the "you have finished building the <whatever>" messages, or the "your assassin failed in his mission and was killed" followed by the now infamous "whip - whip -whip - *frying sound* ARGHHHHHH". Eventually it gets rather dull clicking all of those off after every turn, and disabling "Display non critical messages" is the way to fix it. With this disabled you will only see a list of agents and whether or not they succeeded in their missions, and a list of the buildings you've built, not a separate parchment for each one. Alot cleaner. Some of the other options I disable are "follow AI movement", "autosave" and "tooltips", though you may want to leave some of these enabled.

Caerfanan

03-14-2007, 14:35

Yes when a general dies he is simply renamed, and that's it. Nothing else to it. With green_generals he is replaced by a general with lower stats.

You mentioned all of the messages showing generals dying? It seems like you may have "Display non critical messages" enabled. This suits some players and not others, though I reccomend turning it off. To do this you need to click the slide out menu at the top of the screen, the right border of the minimap, and uncheck that option. With this disabled you will no longer see the "you have finished building the <whatever>" messages, or the "your assassin failed in his mission and was killed" followed by the now infamous "whip - whip -whip - *frying sound* ARGHHHHHH". Eventually it gets rather dull clicking all of those off after every turn, and disabling "Display non critical messages" is the way to fix it. With this disabled you will only see a list of agents and whether or not they succeeded in their missions, and a list of the buildings you've built, not a separate parchment for each one. Alot cleaner. Some of the other options I disable are "follow AI movement", "autosave" and "tooltips", though you may want to leave some of these enabled.
Oooooo. Having just a list for buildings and agents is a very good idea! I'll do that very soon. Those parchments were taking so long that I usually click very quickly without really paying attention! :sweatdrop:

caravel

03-14-2007, 17:47

Oooooo. Having just a list for buildings and agents is a very good idea! I'll do that very soon. Those parchments were taking so long that I usually click very quickly without really paying attention! :sweatdrop:
That's the most annoying thing about them. You get good at it though after a while and only hear the first millisecond of the sound effect. :laugh4:

Martok

03-14-2007, 22:38

Yup, looks anoying. I was glad to see that with the "hard" level, the AI starts to think a bit on the field (tries to flank efficiently, hides from arrows, etc...), but the cheating part can make people angry: how can we know up to which point it will cheat? So we can't really measure the risks...
Caravel or someone else will correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC the AI gets the following penalties/bonuses (numbers may not be exact):

Easy: Human player's troops get a +4 morale bonus in battles. AI tactics are minimal & simplistic: doesn't skirmish or flank very well, does not scout for hidden units, etc.

Normal: No bonuses for human or AI, so both sides are even stat-wise. The AI employs intermediate tactics: scouting for hidden units, setting up ambushes in woods, standard flanking maneuvers, etc.

Hard: AI's troops get a slight valour bonus (+0.3 valour?? best not to quote me on that). AI employs advanced tactics: improved flanking & envelopment, feigned retreats, etc.

Expert: Essentially the same as on Hard, except that the AI's soldiers also receive a +4 morale bonus.

There's a more extensive list of all the differences somewhere, but those are it in a nutshell.

caravel

03-14-2007, 22:46

Hard: AI's troops get a slight valour bonus (+0.3 valour?? best not to quote me on that).
It's a morale bonus and not a valour bonus, and there is no morale bonus whatsoever for either the player or the AI on the hard difficulty setting. Expert enables the +4 morale bonus for the AI which makes a big difference as far as AI units routing is concerned, but doesn't make them any more effective as fighters.

There are supposed to be very small AI valour increases for each difficulty level but i have never noticed it myself nor seen it confirmed anywhere. There could well be.

:bow:

seireikhaan

03-17-2007, 05:08

I've never had the AI fight better on hard as opposed to medium in concern to the actual combat. Of course, I also almost never fight battles I don't think I have a pretty good chance of winning, so I've never actually tried being vastly outnumbered and outcommanded(statwise).

Peasant Phill

03-17-2007, 13:13

I can relate, I hate losing to but where is the challenge? Doesn't it just get boring if you know you're going to win? Besides you'll never get better if you don't make it hard on yourself.

EatYerGreens

03-18-2007, 19:34

I can relate, I hate losing to but where is the challenge? Doesn't it just get boring if you know you're going to win?

Put simply: No.

Not that I've actually read any Sun Tzu but, I gather, one of his sayings is that, if you don't think you're going to win, you shouldn't be attacking in the first place. Or, if defending and outnumbered, then withdraw, concede the territory, come back later with enough men to win. Otherwise you'll lose a lot of lives unnecessarily and the territory and will have to wait even longer to win it back, in any case.

In short, no-one in their right mind goes to war unless they think they can win beforehand.

If you, personally, find it that gets boring, perhaps set about winning stylishly or pride yourself on inflicting/suffering minimal casualties in the process of winning. The ultimate victory is a bloodless one (Sun Tzu, again).

Besides you'll never get better if you don't make it hard on yourself.

Put yourself in the footsoldier's place, for a second. If you heard your general using talk like that (your life, for his 'practice'), how would your morale be?

Peasant Phill

03-19-2007, 09:58

First, great to have you back EYG. Your opinion was and is very respected around here.

About your comment: I'm aware of Sun Tzu's teachings and I more or less use them. For some reason I thought that greaterkhaan auto-calced the battles he taught he would lose. Reading his post again I can see that that was probably not what he mend.

Like I said before, I'm somewhat familiar with a few of Sun Tzu's teachings. And again, I use them quite extensively but more than not I find that I don't want to give up a province without fighting. I'm a turtler so I don't steamroll my neighbors. This means that most of the time, every province I own is priceless to me. Losing a province means a halt to my development for dozens of years, be it economical, military or other. It's not that hard to see that in such cases a general/king/khan/emperor won't just give up a region without a fight if their is a chance, even the littlest, to stop the enemy.
Besides even when an invaded province is not crucial, I still tend to try to kill some invaders before 'legging it'. See it as the Welsh harassing the English on their march to fight the Welsh army. I position my troops where they can get some decent kills but can flee before they get bogged down.

If you, personally, find it that gets boring, perhaps set about winning stylishly or pride yourself on inflicting/suffering minimal casualties in the process of winning. The ultimate victory is a bloodless one (Sun Tzu, again).

This is always my goal once I go into battle, with changing results BTW, I'm rather a perfectionist when it comes to games. (Besides, MTW is the first game I could live with my mistakes without wanting to do it again)

Put yourself in the footsoldier's place, for a second. If you heard your general using talk like that (your life, for his 'practice'), how would your morale be?

The truth is, my footsoldiers will never hear me say those words as they are just made up of 1's and 0's. MTW is a game and so is supposed to be fun (not a responsibility of some sort). IMO, a challenge and successfully dealing with this challenge is the biggest source of this fun.

Caerfanan

03-19-2007, 10:47

I sometimes did defend a province on a battle which I sure to loose, for two reasons

1/ Staying in the province and loosing "soldier's lives" will usually lead to a siege, during which the enemy will not benefit from the province
2/ I try to give the AI a "pyrrhic victory" (EDITED: if I understand the term, it is a victory for which you had many LESS (that's the edit) casualties than your foe ). and I usually save the game, autocalc it, to see what the computer would bring, and then my challenge appears: to do better.

I did that while playing mercians agaisnt the saxons at the beginning of a viking campaign: killng 500 and loosing 200 instead of killinge 350 and loosing 350 did change the outcoming of the war, the armies being not so big: this led the saxon into a fast civil war!

But of course, EYG, you're right, what's the point of attacking, if your defeat is certain? If an attack turns bad (loads of reinforcments), I usually withdraw.

Deus ret.

03-19-2007, 11:49

EDITED: if I understand the term, it is a victory for which you had many LESS (that's the edit) casualties than your foe .

A Pyrrhic victory has its name after king Pyrrhus of Epirus who fought against the Romans in Southern Italy at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. He managed to inflict several defeats on the already renowned Roman army, but his own losses were so catastrophic that he allegedly remarked himself: "One more such victory, and we are done for." Thus, a Pyrrhic victory is one in which the enemy has been beaten, yes, but at a horrible and strategically significant cost.

Caerfanan

03-19-2007, 15:34

A Pyrrhic victory has its name after king Pyrrhus of Epirus who fought against the Romans in Southern Italy at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. He managed to inflict several defeats on the already renowned Roman army, but his own losses were so catastrophic that he allegedly remarked himself: "One more such victory, and we are done for." Thus, a Pyrrhic victory is one in which the enemy has been beaten, yes, but at a horrible and strategically significant cost.
Thanks Deus Ret! :2thumbsup: Now, I Know!!!

EatYerGreens

03-26-2007, 02:12

In general conversation, the terms "Pyrrhic victory" and "hollow victory" are taken to be equivalent - summed up as "winning the battle but losing the war".

In politics, for instance, it could be that group A wins a particular battle of rhetoric against group B but this does nothing to change their overall standing in the greater scheme of things. Such as where group B are the currently elected people in power and group A are the opposition. If the rhetorical argument itself does not succeed in swaying the electorate at the next election, then winning it achieved little.

This aspect of actually being set back by the victory itself is new to me (so I'm glad Deus Ret answered before I did, his knowledge of the history being more thourough than mine) and, when people use the phrase "Pyrrhic victory", they probably don't intend this part of the meaning. Just the part about a victory which had no long-term significance.

EatYerGreens

03-26-2007, 02:48

First, great to have you back EYG. Your opinion was and is very respected around here.

Hi Phill. Glad to be back, thanks.

Actually, I must admit that I'm just as much of a turtle-er and equally as protective of my holdings as yourself. I'm still kicking myself for letting go of Burgundy without a fight, a few sessions ago and it now has 8 stacks of HRE in it, pinning me in four, understaffed, provinces. That'll teach me. <g> (This isn't even a mod, either!)

The thing is, I'm even more cautious of the fact that, if I fall back AND have lost a big chunk of what was defending the lost province, then I'm at immediate risk of losing the next one in line as well, not to mention more time and expense in recruiting replacements and the take-back force. Perhaps I'm forgetting that the whole point of the sieges is to stop excessively rapid expansions of this kind?

The truth is, my footsoldiers will never hear me say those words as they are just made up of 1's and 0's. MTW is a game and so is supposed to be fun (not a responsibility of some sort). IMO, a challenge and successfully dealing with this challenge is the biggest source of this fun.

I find that a certain level of 'role-play' actually adds to the immersion factor. I still realise that it's only a game and still have fun but I'm probably more of a fantasist than most and the 'responsibility' is part and parcel of that.

There may even have been some double meaning in what I was saying in that post. I probably had the TV on in the background while I was typing and one ear was subconsciously taking in news about Iraq...

:oops: :focus:

General Dazza

03-26-2007, 03:27

If I know I'm going to lose a battle, most of the time I'll retreat to the stronghold so I can attack next turn in greater numbers and not lose any improvements. But if I'm on the back foot against an enemy and need every man, I might 'fall back' to pool my forces in a province further back.

Last night I had a tricky scenario while fighting the Spanish as the HRE. I attacked them in Anjou where their main force was. Their strength suprised me though and I got walloped :embarassed:. That turn they created a crusade in Brittany (iirc) - I pulled all my troops out of Normandy to avoid them getting rounded up, so they then strolled in and my 200 leftovers retreated to the castle.

The next turn I've attacked Anjou and imposed a Pyrrhic victory on them - they held on but lost 880 against my 80. With those losses and with the men they've lost to their own crusade, I should now be able to take back Normandy and take Anjou too... :2thumbsup: The only sad thing is that I might lose those sacrificial lambs in the Normandy castle if I can't get there this turn due to crusade evasion :no:

caravel

03-26-2007, 13:23

I think that what EYG was getting at here, was that a pyrrhic victory, that is a victorious battle when you're losing the war is often not worth it. Retreating to the castle or even abandoning the province can be a better move, allowing your forces to regroup, come back and hit the enemy hard another day. This all depends on the situation of course and a desperate slast stand is not always a matter of choice, it is more so a matter of necessity.

A tactical victory, that is a victory whereby you lose the battle but seriously damage the enemy in the process inflicting many more losses on them than they inflict on your forces, can be a very viable strategy, but the MTW game engine doesn't allow for it.

For me, I don't observe Sun Tzu's art of war, when playing Medieval battles. When playing Shogun I do try to stick to it. With Medieval (engaging in a bit of role play here!) I try to put myself in the position of a King, Sultan, Khalifa, Khan or Emperor. These people are not often totally in touch with the man on the ground. They make decisions based on things such as wealth, religion, precieved slights or grievances. So both on the campaign map and within battles I observe this type of strategy. As a Catholic faction, I tend to be much more rash and "chivalrous", often taking risks. I will fight out many last stands, and take on those risky attacks. As the Muslims and Orthodox I opt for a much more methodical approach, only attacking when ready and not overstretching too much.

:bow:

Noir

03-26-2007, 16:36

Originally posted by Caravel
A tactical victory, that is a victory whereby you lose the battle but seriously damage the enemy in the process inflicting many more losses on them than they inflict on your forces, can be a very viable strategy, but the MTW game engine doesn't allow for it.

I think that part of the problem is found on the way the logistic/financial model of the game works in the vanilla version as well as in various mods.

To explain my self, it is far too easy to:

1.Conquer a province without creating too much contempt in the people for the change in leadership (low rebelliousness)
2.Conquer a province without creating contempt in the people for the change in religion (as religion change rates are very high IMO)
3.The absence of home provinces (even in the mods that this is provided they are generally more than 10 provinces per faction, be it empires like HRE or Byzantium or smaller kingdoms)
4.The very high margin of profits that can be made of naval trade. I made some experiments on that, and my results show that even with boat maintenance set to 4droupled almost all factions that have access to naval trade routes can still make decent profits.
5.The fact that the main trade routes are not separated by deep sea regions. Thus if someone starts dominatingthe seas and the trade its nigh to impossible to alter the situation.
6.The heavy maintenance cost of bodyguard units that the Ai factions cannot balance since they cannot disband and they get them without their will.

All these lead to the very first 30-40 challenging turns and subsequently, once you conquer your local opponent the game is blown out of proportion: rich factions get much richer and poor factions get eliminated. To keep up, the player is forced to expand as much as he/she can in order to avoid fighting with a superempire forming somewhere ie he tries to be himself superempire (20 provinces +).

This has a detrimental effect on battle gameplay as you are either forced to fight against superior troops and numbers or with superior troops and numbers. Conversely you either win or lose on the logistics past the early stage as much (if not more) that you win or lose on the battlefield.

Tactical victories like the one described in Caravel's post matter little if the opponents or yourself can top up losses in no time or if they cannot top up at all.

The Horde however is an exceptional case as it packs a huge punch till it is exausted and later on its not even half as dangerous as that.

There are ways to balance out the game in those terms by fiddling with certain values, but i am not sure how popular these will be among players who wish to conquer half the map eventually.

The limiting number of provinces also contributes to reducing tactical victories of this sort - Conquering Denmark amounts to taking a single province out that can be done very quickly as the vanilla game and most mods currently stand.

Deus ret.

03-26-2007, 16:56

You mentioned some good points, although I don't quite agree with all of them.

This has a detrimental effect on battle gameplay as you are either forced to fight against superior troops and numbers or with superior troops and numbers. Conversely you either win or lose on the logistics past the early stage as much (if not more) that you win or lose on the battlefield.

Of course the situation doesn't stay like in the early stages for most of the game - that's because it evolves. As empires grow, other factors have to be taken in, you already mentioned logistics as one of the most important. Well - why not? The action on the battlefield remains pretty decisive as well. Besides, shifting the focus away from the pivotal battles in the early stages of a campaign (where almost every battle is such a pivotal one) may add more value to the game for players who usually aren't that great on the tactical map - like myself - and instead are more skilled in marshalling other than the immediate military aspects of the game.

In addition, the later stages of a campaign most often are exactly the ones where you can decide most freely what kind of battle you'd like to fight - whether you want to overpower your opponent as you described or you don't bring everything you have in order to make the battle more tantalizing. Of course, provided your position is more or less secure, but that's something I definitely like about MTW: Its ability to initiate a compete wrap-around on the strategic map even far into the game. In RTW (and most other strat games), empires never collapse on their own, instead they have to be ground into the dust stack by stack, city by city. MTW has civil wars and reappearances which may cause serious trouble to an already more than well-established empire, turning the time back if you want. The Horde also is such a device in its essence, "rejuvenating" and shaking up part of the map upon its arrival.

Edit: Oh my, I suppose this was completely off-topic....sorry!

Noir

03-26-2007, 17:24

To start with, thanks for disagreeing, i can only wonder how boring everything would be if we'd all agree on everything. In any case this is the way i enjoy the game better and it doesn't have to please everyone else as well.

Originally posted by Deus ret.

Of course the situation doesn't stay like in the early stages for most of the game - that's because it evolves. As empires grow, other factors have to be taken in, you already mentioned logistics as one of the most important. Well - why not? The action on the battlefield remains pretty decisive as well.

In addition, the later stages of a campaign most often are exactly the ones where you can decide most freely what kind of battle you'd like to fight - whether you want to overpower your opponent as you described or you don't bring everything you have in order to make the battle more tantalizing.

Because as you say you can choose your fights, this actually means that you are in a position of strength and thus you can do so. Loss is a very unlikely option once that stage is reached. You are stable as a rock and sooner or later bound to deny anyone. At that point the game loses interest for me which is why i play a personal - let's say alteration - of MedMod IV which incorporates the features i mention above.

This came as a result of campaigns i played some time ago now in which i've let the AI to control all builds and taxes and i was just managing troops and agents i was given and getting on the battlefield. I had the chance to observe first hand how and why the AI is "digging his grave" if you like, and what can be done to provide a more competitive course of development for him, without turning him into a superempire that gulps down the remains of everyone else.

The result was a situation that reaches the middle game - that is you can get well established (about 10 provinces) but much slower than in every other version of the game i've played, but you can just as easily slide down from that point resulting to lost battles, much like in the early game.

The late phase is almost denied as the other factions fill up their resources almost always at a reasonable pace remaining competive and dangerous at almost all times resulting in a constant war making of forces of equal magnitude over vital trade routes and provinces. Establishing survival is counted as success and most factions either stay to the end or reappear repeatedly.

Strict home provinces and relaying of the trade routes also help with that.

Reappearances, rebelions and civil wars happen much more often as i've incresed the rebelliousness and decreased loyalties and the conversion rates: it now takes about 30 turns to get an ex Muslim province to 60% catholic with a bunch of priests, in my alteration. In those you are bound to get a religious saracen army or two at your door.

I have quit playing RTW after almost a year and a half of playing various mods and i don't plan to play it again - for me the MTW/STW map/engine is more than satisfactory.

Please accept my apologies too as this is as OT as the above i guess

General Dazza

03-27-2007, 00:29

All these lead to the very first 30-40 challenging turns and subsequently, once you conquer your local opponent the game is blown out of proportion: rich factions get much richer and poor factions get eliminated.

This for me is what makes the difference between a strategy game and a great strategy game - how it handles this inherent challenge.

I'm not sure if everyone here remembers the 80s and the first computer games well, but I remember playing this game that, at the time, blew my mind. It was 20 white dots on a black screen with numbers next to them. The numbers were the number of troops you had, and one of the dots was your planet. The goal was to take over the universe (the other 19 dots). It was brilliant because I hadn't seen anything like that before.

But it had the same challenge as every other strategy game I've seen since - how does it maintain gameplay once the human gets to the point Noir described above.

IMO MTW does this better than anything I've played. Reappearances, rebellions, civil wars and the likelihood of another superpower maintain the gameplay for quite a while. Also, there's enough value in the diplomacy side to make it more than just pushing numbers around the screen.

And this IMO is what makes it the best strategy I've played - there's enough flexibility for you to be able to play a wide range of game styles depending on your idea of gameplay. And by and large it's comparitively very well balanced. Most problems I've seen in MTW can be overcome by self-imposed rules. Now I'll also apologise for my part in taking this further OT. :shame:

Caerfanan

03-27-2007, 12:58

Not even mentioning the thril of a battle when you face an army of better troops and now that it's possible, with very god tactics, to win this batle and change the issue of the campaign, by provocating a civil war or something similar: I'm not sure, but loosing a battle when you had the numbers, the iron and the quality costs you a lot. I did throw a great enemy into civil war thanks to two battles only, and on the campaign map, I could've been seen as the looser (less money, less troops, but approximately the same quality)

caravel

03-27-2007, 15:16

6.The heavy maintenance cost of bodyguard units that the Ai factions cannot balance since they cannot disband and they get them without their will.
A crippler for the small and poor income factions. There is nothing worse than struggling to boost your income only to see an heir come of age the next year and wipe it all out again. For the player it's an annoyance at best, for the AI it's a killer. This is why you see bankrupted Danes and Aragonese.

The solution would be to have very low support costs for bodyguard units. This would work well for the Catholic and Muslim factions but would soup up the Byzantines and Russians/Novgorod somewhat. The answer to this would be to make "Royal" Boyars, "Royal" Sipahi of the Porte and "Royal" Kataphraktoi in smaller 20 man units (possibly scalable to improve game balance and survivability on the larger units size settings) also with the low support costs. These would be non retrainable, raising extra units or retraining them would be impossible. The AI doesn't retrain it's bodyguard units, so the player shouldn't be able to either.

Not even mentioning the thril of a battle when you face an army of better troops and now that it's possible, with very god tactics, to win this batle and change the issue of the campaign, by provocating a civil war or something similar: I'm not sure, but loosing a battle when you had the numbers, the iron and the quality costs you a lot. I did throw a great enemy into civil war thanks to two battles only, and on the campaign map, I could've been seen as the looser (less money, less troops, but approximately the same quality)
Troop losses effect loyalty within the army (generals). If you win a battle but lose thousands more men than the AI, and your faction leader is not the most influential of men, then civil war is possible.

Caerfanan

03-28-2007, 16:19

Troop losses effect loyalty within the army (generals). If you win a battle but lose thousands more men than the AI, and your faction leader is not the most influential of men, then civil war is possible.
Interesting. Do you know if it only affects the general, or the unit leaders (generals to be) as well? does it affect all your generals, or only the ones involved (or all but the ones involved)... I'll try to look at this closely when I start my next campaign!!! (I'm piling 125 things to look after...)

Deus ret.

03-28-2007, 17:24

Troop losses effect loyalty within the army (generals). If you win a battle but lose thousands more men than the AI, and your faction leader is not the most influential of men, then civil war is possible.

Are you sure? I thought what counted was the outcome of the battle - i.e. who wins and who loses, and not the margins involved therein.

If it is as you stated, the game would actually allow for indirect 'tactical victories': by killing off large amounts of enemy troops before retreating, the antagonist faction would plunge into civil war sooner or later despite winning almost all battles....would be quite weird but that's the way it would be!

Thinking about it, the gain in influence for all those territories acquired through this series of battles would probably outweigh the loss inflicted by Pyrrhic victories.

Voivode of Romania

03-29-2007, 00:57

General Dazza

03-29-2007, 03:08

The Golden Horde usually attack the provinces of Khazar, Volga-Bulgaria, and Georgia (when they first appear). Once, I was playing with the Russians (MTW1 on high period). I had built up armies of boyars, halbrediers, and steppe cavalry. When the GH first attacked, I sent an army about 4500 strong to Volg-Bulgaria.

Then, I sent an army of about 9000 cavalry (mostly boyars and steppe cavalry) to Khazar. Since they only had about 5000 Mongol cavalry in Khazar, it was fairly easy to win it.

That year they also attacked Georgia, but only a few thousand strong. It only took about 2500 infantry to win Georgia.

In about 2-3 years I had killed the Khan.

My experience playing Russia and facing the Horde was a happy one too. I held the provinces in which they appeared, and when they did I consolidated the majority of my troops in, iirc, Georgia. I expected them to attack my less-defended provinces, but to my surprise/delight, they attacked Georgia. Not only that, but it was a bridge battle and I had archers/catapults to spare. Not only that - but they sent their king on a raid and he was surrounded and killed.

1 year - horde turned to rebels.

Next year they attacked as rebels. But this battle was not a bridge battle, and although heavily outnumbered I managed to wipe out most of their army. I used HA/steppe cav/boyar combos to good effect in drawing individual units out of the line and then destroying them. :beam:

caravel

03-29-2007, 10:46

The Golden Horde usually attack the provinces of Khazar, Volga-Bulgaria, and Georgia (when they first appear).
They can also appear in Armenia. In fact it can be a good thing to have them appear in Armenia and Khazar but not Georgia. If you can win the defence of Georgia outright to prevent them linking up with the main force in Khazar, the army will be cut off and offered in it's entirety for ransom. It is important to hold Georgia though because if that goes under siege, their armies can push onward to link up with the Armenian Horde and then spread out into your central provinces such as Rum and Syria, causing a lot of damage.

My experience playing Russia and facing the Horde was a happy one too. I held the provinces in which they appeared, and when they did I consolidated the majority of my troops in, iirc, Georgia. I expected them to attack my less-defended provinces, but to my surprise/delight, they attacked Georgia. Not only that, but it was a bridge battle and I had archers/catapults to spare. Not only that - but they sent their king on a raid and he was surrounded and killed.

1 year - horde turned to rebels.

Next year they attacked as rebels. But this battle was not a bridge battle, and although heavily outnumbered I managed to wipe out most of their army. I used HA/steppe cav/boyar combos to good effect in drawing individual units out of the line and then destroying them. :beam:
I'd say you're either mistaken about the province being Georgia or the battle being a bridge battle. There are no waterways between Georgia/Trebizond, Georgia/Armenia or Georgia/Khazar (where I assume the battle took place?).

Georgia is probably the best province to defend against the Khanate of the Golden Horde particularly when you're playing Byzantine, Egyptians or Turks and haven't yet expanded into the Steppes. The Horde will quite often go for Georgia regardless of the defensive garrison you have in place there.

EatYerGreens

03-30-2007, 07:32

caravel

03-30-2007, 08:59

I am curious about the effect that having custom MP maps (like "mappack3") installed on your system might have on the game.

The thing is, I can't find anything in the SetBorderInfo: entries which defines the "armies meeting here" message (as opposed to border-crossing), on the province info parchment, comes from.

Could it be that the game selects a map at random, on these occasions?

I'm not sure what you're asking, but I'll have a shot at answering?

SetBorderInfo:: ID_AFRICA ID_TUNISIA 0 0 0 ROCK_DESERT AT_ISLAMIC INLAND HILLY NO_RIVER
SetBorderInfo:: ID_TUNISIA ID_AFRICA 0 0 0 SAND_DESERT AT_ISLAMIC INLAND FLAT NO_RIVER

This sets the type of terrain and the presence of any waterways for the border crossing. Armies attacking from the Sahara into Tunisia will encounter hills, armies attacking from the other direction will not.

To get your custom maps used they have to be named correctly. It is the naming of the map that gives it a chance of being selected by the game engine. I can't remember the exact naming convention for the maps, but the name generally signifies the type of terrain. Specific maps for provinces tend to be the castle maps only IIRC. You can't set a specific map for a particular border crossing.

caravel

03-30-2007, 11:30

Are you sure? I thought what counted was the outcome of the battle - i.e. who wins and who loses, and not the margins involved therein.

If it is as you stated, the game would actually allow for indirect 'tactical victories': by killing off large amounts of enemy troops before retreating, the antagonist faction would plunge into civil war sooner or later despite winning almost all battles....would be quite weird but that's the way it would be!

Thinking about it, the gain in influence for all those territories acquired through this series of battles would probably outweigh the loss inflicted by Pyrrhic victories.
Pretty much 99% certain. I've actually won battles a few times in the past where I've taken far more casualties than the enemy, as soon as the battle finished I was taken straight to the civil war parchment. The win usually counterbalances the effects. Also the provinces get upset by many troop losses. Happiness can plummet in such cases. It doesn't allow for a tactical victory of any kind, it allows for a kind of a pyrrhic victory whereby you lose but cause the enemy all kinds of problems.

EatYerGreens

03-31-2007, 07:52

I'm not sure what you're asking, but I'll have a shot at answering?

What I was getting at is that, in addition to the terrain being determined by which border you cross, there is also a terrain report when you hover your cursor over the centre of a province. It says "armies meeting here can expect to find the following terrain: ".

I take this to be the determining factor for battles caused by rebellions, re-emergences and civil wars.

I just can't work out where this property is set.

Similarly, there's nothing editable to set deep-sea regions. I've vague recollections that this was done by a colour-change on the LukMap.LBMs or something like that.

It would be interesting to learn that the land colours were also controlling aspects of land terrain (eg lush/arid/desert/steppe, hills, river etc.) but that's probably not the case.

General Dazza

04-02-2007, 00:54

I'd say you're either mistaken about the province being Georgia or the battle being a bridge battle. There are no waterways between Georgia/Trebizond, Georgia/Armenia or Georgia/Khazar (where I assume the battle took place?).

Probably am Caravel - I remember it was a bridge battle but am hazy on the exact whereabouts. I'm pretty sure it was next to where a province they appeared in, just not sure which one exactly.

caravel

04-02-2007, 08:33

What I was getting at is that, in addition to the terrain being determined by which border you cross, there is also a terrain report when you hover your cursor over the centre of a province. It says "armies meeting here can expect to find the following terrain: ".

I take this to be the determining factor for battles caused by rebellions, re-emergences and civil wars.

I just can't work out where this property is set.

It would be interesting to learn that the land colours were also controlling aspects of land terrain (eg lush/arid/desert/steppe, hills, river etc.) but that's probably not the case.
In the startpos file, set region attriubutes. It's like you say, the terrain for battles fought within the province, such as revolts.

Similarly, there's nothing editable to set deep-sea regions. I've vague recollections that this was done by a colour-change on the LukMap.LBMs or something like that.
I can't remember about this, I'll look into it later.

:bow:

Deus ret.

04-02-2007, 11:42

I remember it was a bridge battle but am hazy on the exact whereabouts. I'm pretty sure it was next to where a province they appeared in, just not sure which one exactly.

Most likely it was the crossing from Khazar into Levidia...sorry Kiev (in vanilla MTW) where there is a bridge. Excellent spot for stopping the horde ~D

EatYerGreens

04-02-2007, 14:33

In the startpos file, set region attriubutes. It's like you say, the terrain for battles fought within the province, such as revolts.

Gah! Staring me in the face, it was. As usual... :clown:

I can't remember about this, I'll look into it later.

I did download the LukMap editor, many moons ago but I don't think I've ever got around to using it. Not much cause to either (yet). Anyway, if I stopped to check the ReadMe, that was probably where I got this from.

There is also a very substantial forum thread about this program, so I might have seen it in there. I can find it again, if I ever need it, so only go chasing after it if it would be useful to you, personally.

Someone had the bright idea of locking off the Med by making the straits of Gibraltar deep sea (I forget which mod). That deprives the Med factions of two ports and access to the "escape zone" of Atlantic Coast (where you can park your fleets, in order to bring naval-only wars to an end).

For that reason, I'd rather switch Gulf of Cadiz to deep-sea mode, since there's no port there.

General Dazza

04-03-2007, 00:57

Most likely it was the crossing from Khazar into Levidia...sorry Kiev (in vanilla MTW) where there is a bridge. Excellent spot for stopping the horde ~D

Just checked a map I have and I'm pretty sure it was Kiev (was a vanilla game). I couldn't believe my luck - they could have attacked me in a number of provinces but they chose that one!

Thanks Deus ret. - and yes it is an excellent spot. Always makes it easier when they try to send their tens of thousands of rampaging horde through the eye of a needle and into a wall of spears and arrows. :beam:

Caliburn

04-03-2007, 14:24

About the Horde appearing in Khazar and Armenia.

As the Turks and the Egyptians, I usually have Armenia as my main cavalry producing region because of the +1 valour. So, when the Horde appears, they often have their cavalry upgraded to the gold level, not to mention churches giving morale bonuses, which makes things more interesting. Of course a lot of the troops facing are the same quality as yours, but probably not too many anyway.

I used to do the same with Khazar (with Byzantines) for the Steppe and Steppe Heavy Cavalry.

There are two sides to this:

1.) the initial battles tend to be much more interesting, if you don't have Arbalests - Golden Golden Horde Horse Archers aren't too easily countered with missiles.

2.) It's always painful to lose a well developed province, especially if it's a money-churning one like Khazar.

So, it can be a great thing if you want a bit more challenge, but it also might turn monotonous. Breaking the HA with +3 (from the churches) and +5 (or something like it? from VH difficulty) morale bonuses for the fifth time on the sixth battle might start to feel like work - not as annoying as doing the same to peasants, though. Using bridges will of course stop all this pretty quickly.

I guess this is quice a common way to give the Golden Horde an edge.

Glyndwr in the Soke

04-11-2007, 10:18

caravel

04-11-2007, 11:38

Just playing a campaign as Egypt, and it is 1229, so the balloon is about to go up. I have the Turks sitting in Khazar, Volga-Bulgaria and Georgia, but am a bit worried about Armenia, which I grabbed for the AHC. My main provinces outside Asia Minor are Kiev, the Crimea, and everything beyond that, plus Irkutsk, which I took to teach a Christian neighbour a lesson, and to fool around with Jihads.

Since I am not too familiar with the details: What would happen if the GH took the Crimea and then went for Kiev? Or is the AI not able to execute such a side-step?I'm not sure if you're playing the modded or vanilla game, but if a province borders another province is can be invaded directly, otherwise not unless it is a coastal province, in which case a seaborne invasion may be possible.

Now, the GH battles are battles where I guess the timer could play a role, since I have had them come on and on at me in Khazar before. But IMO even when it timed out, I felt like a deserving winner, since I had withstood wave after wave after wave of attacks, with not only the aforementioned units, but also SHC (will have to check that in my current campaign). After having butchered the entire first wave of GHHC and the complete second of assorted heavy hitters, and weathered the arrow storm from the foot soldiers in the 3rd (I basically had formed a battle line in a large patch of forest with four units of "enforcers" doing the killing under the trees), and this whole business lasting for more than an hour in real time, it just had to be enough. Think about it: If you were a horde, and half of your guys just got slaughtered in a battle with the enemy still very much ensconced in his position, would you not call it a day?
And I am also married, so it is good to keep the peace. ~;)
I can see your point with the timer, but even with the timer I sometimes find the battles to be either too long or not long enough. Too long when my men have been holding out for ages are completely exhausted but have slaughtered many of the enemy, yet cannot hope to hold on for any longer. Not long enough, when my forces are massacring the enemy and hunting them off the field in droves, yet the time has run out robbing me of extra kills and prisoners. So all in all I just keep it disabled and if I don't have the time to play a battle I save the game and come back to it later or if it's getting late and I've won one or more big battles but been presented with yet another, I will save it, autocalc it, and save it again from the menu and exit just to be sure. In the past I once won 3 consecutive "epic" battles against the horde then quicksaved before the 4th battle and exited the game. The next day I was faced with a corrupted save and those 3 battles and a lot of progress wasted.

:bow:

Glyndwr in the Soke

04-11-2007, 20:33

I'm not sure if you're playing the modded or vanilla game, but if a province borders another province is can be invaded directly, otherwise not unless it is a coastal province, in which case a seaborne invasion may be possible.

The next day I was faced with a corrupted save and those 3 battles and a lot of progress wasted.

:bow:

a) Standard MTW/VI, no mod. My Question was: What are the experiences of ppl in the know? Does the GH actually go sideways into Kiev or attack directly? Seaborne? The Horde? You kiddin' me? :inquisitive: I have seen a Horde ship before, I believe, but maybe it is just a figment of my imagination. But anyway, I am ruling from sea to shining sea, as far as navies are concerned, even though those new-fangled cogs of the Frenchies and Germans are giving me a bit of grief, now and then.

b) I have had several corrupted saves with the Quicksave function, so I do not bother any more.

caravel

04-11-2007, 22:18

Standard MTW/VI, no mod. My Question was: What are the experiences of ppl in the know? Does the GH actually go sideways into Kiev or attack directly?
Where the AI decides to attack is partly random, though the Horde being more aggressive will spread out and attack any surrounding provinces. Crimea borders with Kiev - the Horde will probably invade it.

Seaborne? The Horde? You kiddin' me? :inquisitive: I have seen a Horde ship before, I believe, but maybe it is just a figment of my imagination. But anyway, I am ruling from sea to shining sea, as far as navies are concerned, even though those new-fangled cogs of the Frenchies and Germans are giving me a bit of grief, now and then.
The Horde can build ships if they capture a shipbuilder intact. They build muslim style vessels. I was merely explaining in my post as to how a province can be invaded.

:bow:

EatYerGreens

04-12-2007, 20:47

I think what Glyndwr was getting at is that Crimea to Kiev doesn't involve a bridge battle and was asking whether the AI is smart enough to make a point of using this route?

Given the number of threads I've read where the Horde gets itself turned into dogmeat trying - and failing - to take Kiev via the bridge route, I would say that it isn't.

I'm wondering if the Horde get any more interesting when you play a faction on the western edge of the map and the Horde are out of your reach when they first arrive. For instance, I'm still playing English and they've reached as far as Brandenburg.

So, rather than one monumental (but potentially tedious) battle where I can get close to eliminating them in a single turn, I will be faced with several dozen individual battles against manageable-sized armies, most of which are less than one full stack. Since you can't catch cavalry with foot troops and my cavalry will mostly get shot down before they can engage hand-to-hand properly, then these could be equally tedious affairs, not to mention repetitious.

The worst part of it is that, if they have spread out this far, then you need to be in a position to lose them as a trading partner before you can even begin to take them on.

Killing them off completely, in two turns, is certainly a laudable achievement but it also removes a large chunk of 'politicking' (sp?) from the game, whereby they are a long-lasting, inconvenient, presence and you may have to set aside wars with your various neighbours and make a joint effort at getting rid of them. (Not easy to arrange, the way the diplomatic AI works).

Glyndwr in the Soke

04-20-2007, 16:55

I think what Glyndwr was getting at is that Crimea to Kiev doesn't involve a bridge battle and was asking whether the AI is smart enough to make a point of using this route?

Precisely.

Thanks for that feedback. Unfortunately, I may never finish this Eggy campaign now, since my new computer is taking over.

Will have to start a completely new one. :rtwyes:

Martok

04-20-2007, 19:28

I know the feeling, Glyndwr. Having finally gotten my new computer this past weekend, I've had the happy experience of starting up a new campaign as the Spanish. :bounce:

But back to topic: Unfortunately, EatYerGreens is most probably correct. I don't know that I've ever seen the Mongols invade by sea, and the fact that they always seem to attack Kiev over that bridge supports this theory.

Vantek

10-16-2009, 17:23

Sorry to bump a 2 year old thread but,

Back in vanilla MTW times they were pitiful - just two stacks of units, and no more than 16 MHA units.

What??? I distinctly remember a moment back when I first got vanilla MTW (perhaps even unpatched) where I played the Turks, knew nothing about the Horde, and was dismayed by the appearance of about fifteen stacks of high quality Mongol troops right at my doorstep! So could someone please elaborate on this comment?

On a related note, I have hated the Horde ever since. Epic battles that take many hours are not my style, nor is being at the disposal of a retarded giant, who clearly has the power to tear me apart, but fails to follow through due to having the intellect of a drooling braindead cretin.

So is there a quick way to reduce the number of forces they bring? I would like to be able to limit it to 4-6 stacks with the standard composition.

oz_wwjd

10-18-2009, 07:36

As the byzantines I've always left the turks holding Georgia for that exact reason,so they can be the first one to run into the horde,while I have extremely large garrisons in rum and Trezibond. That way I can control where they can hit,and it also works in my favour,as they soften up what's left of the turks.

Vantek

10-18-2009, 10:51

Well... What do you do as the Turks? :P

Haccapelite

10-18-2009, 19:43

@Vantek

When I played as the Turks I decided to approach the Golden Horde with a straight-forward attitude: I started teching up armenia to produce Janissary Heavy Infantry right from the beginning to make sure I would have them coming by the time Golden Horde would appear knocking on my gates. I conquered Georgia and started gathering troops there in the 1220's. By the time Golden Horde appeared in Lesser Khazar (or greater, I can't remember which one is the easternmost of those two) I had a capable army waiting for Khan and his nomads. A good amount of Saracen Infantry, Armenian Heavies, Turcoman HA's, JHI and Turcoman Foot Soldiers. With those men and the mountaineous (gosh, that's propably not even a word!) terrain in Georgia I succeeded to fend them off maybe 4-5 times before Khan decided Asia minor wasn't all that appealing after all..

The point of this rambling is that you should start preparing for the GH well in advance and secure good defensive positions in order to minimize the threat of the GH.

The best way to defeat the Horde is by taking the fight to places where they are not capable of using their own advantages, eg. thick woods. I was playing as the Swedes and ignored the horde untill they had conquered the entire eastern steppes. After that they attacked the baltic coast provinces under my rule. I had a couple of huge battles in Lithuania, where I defeated the horde with a small number of Chivalric Foot Knights deployed in a forest. Needless to say, my boys made minced meat out of those poor mongols charging foolishly into the forest.. After destroying the backbone of their armies, I swiped them out of the face of the earth within a few decades.

Knight of the Rose

10-19-2009, 14:36

Well, I should know better that to support this thread necromancy, yet some of the topics raised are relevant and kinda new(ish). So why don't you Vantek post a new thread about defeating the Horde, or technically lower their numbers if that's your call.

:bow:

/KotR

Vantek

10-19-2009, 20:12

What's wrong with thread necromancy?! Better keep all inquiries about the same subject in one thread... This thread, even if 4 years old, is, after all, about the Golden Horde!

chris34au

10-20-2009, 21:31

i don't see why it's an issue either but it seems to be frowned upon around here. there's some really great threads in archives but i found out a few months ago that bumping older threads is considered rude or something. still not sure why. it's not like there's a ton of new posts/threads that are being bumped by the older ones. i'm happy when i check this forum after a couple of days and there's one or two new posts to read.

btw, sorry for going OT.

Vantek

10-20-2009, 22:47

It's bad when the thread is not about a concise topic, or is truly outdated, but this thread is informative and about a specific topic, so indeed I do not see what would be the point of making a new thread just to ask a couple of questions about the horde.

In more offtopic kind of forums it is sometimes a form of spam when people bump old threads, either as deliberate spam, or just in a "hey remember this cool thread" sort of way. But this is nothing like that.

caravel

10-21-2009, 09:17

What's wrong with thread necromancy?! Better keep all inquiries about the same subject in one thread... This thread, even if 4 years old, is, after all, about the Golden Horde!
This would lead to huge multipage threads that would be a chore to read through, plus you're replying to a post from 2006 (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1071419&postcount=7) and a member that has not been active for approx 14 months.

There are many, many threads about the Golden Horde, a good proportion of which are more recent than this one.

i don't see why it's an issue either but it seems to be frowned upon around here. there's some really great threads in archives but i found out a few months ago that bumping older threads is considered rude or something. still not sure why. it's not like there's a ton of new posts/threads that are being bumped by the older ones. i'm happy when i check this forum after a couple of days and there's one or two new posts to read.

btw, sorry for going OT.
It's known as forum etiquette. It is not just on this forum that it is frowned upon. Personally I have less of a problem with it, but I would draw the line at any thread over 12 months old. In such cases it is better to start anew with your own thread. It's hard to explain it, but older threads are seen as archives and it is undesirable to have more information appended to them. You can start your own thread and link to the older thread for reference if needed.

It's bad when the thread is not about a concise topic, or is truly outdated, but this thread is informative and about a specific topic, so indeed I do not see what would be the point of making a new thread just to ask a couple of questions about the horde.
We encourage you to make your own threads so that separate issues do not become confused. It is often the case that one person jumps into the thread of another person and "hijacks" that thread taking it away from it's original subject/purpose. If the thread is an older thread then it's necroposting and many of the opinions and/or information posted therein may now be outdated or disproved.

In more offtopic kind of forums it is sometimes a form of spam when people bump old threads, either as deliberate spam, or just in a "hey remember this cool thread" sort of way. But this is nothing like that.
Yes, this is certainly not spam as you raise valid points and contribute well to the thread - but as Knight of the Rose has said it is a better idea to make your own thread and a clean start.

This thread is now drifting well off topic (and after my contributions more so).

So what about the Mongols?

:bow:

Vantek

10-21-2009, 10:08

I still don't see why, but fair enough, if it's etiquette, then it must have good reasons. I'll try to not do it again.

This time, I'm actually posting because a post in this thread got my attention. Is even that wrong? Should I have posted a new thread, and linked to this thread, quoting that post?? :dizzy2:

So what about the Mongols?
Yes :) As I said I am a little tired of the humongous battles which I don't really have the time to play (I won't really take command of any battle where I'd have to use more than two full stacks), as well as constantly facing the same type of soldiers... Almohads are too easy, Egyptians are too easy, and Turks have to face the Horde... Urgh I want to play a muslim faction!!!

caravel

10-21-2009, 12:54

Have you tried any of the various mods available?

If you want a good challenge and you liked STW there is always the Samurai Warlords mod.

:bow:

Vantek

10-21-2009, 14:56

Well, technically, they are Japanese, not Muslim :P

caravel

10-21-2009, 17:16

Well, technically, they are Japanese, not Muslim :P

Indeed but we've run out of muslim factions and the SW mod is a very good and challenging mod... :beam:

I'm trying to think of the mods that actually have extra muslim factions and the one that seems to spring to mind is the BKB Super Mod. I'm not sure if XL or Medmod have any extra muslim factions? I'm sure BKB's mod had at least two Maghreb factions though...

I seem to remember that the Volga Bulgars in XL were a muslim faction, so that's potentially one extra one. They were small and challenging as well - but of course deep in Mongol territory.

Good luck.

:bow:

Vantek

10-21-2009, 20:46

I seem to remember that the Volga Bulgars in XL were a muslim faction, so that's potentially one extra one.
=)

They were small and challenging as well
=D

- but of course deep in Mongol territory.
>:(

sharpshooter

11-10-2009, 20:14

Thread necromancy rules! Heh. This one has a lot of interesting stuff - with a lot off topic, but interesting nonetheless. I do appreciate the reasons for archiving, and agree with forums doing it. The pity is that then lots of info gets buried, and there isn't a gradual adding to the pile, so to speak.

Oh, fighting the Mongols - as the Turks, in particular. My method is for MTW/VI vanilla (no mod).

If the Turks started on Early it's easy, coz you'll have JHI, masses of resources, and the choice of where to fight - the Kiev bridge being an obvious place.

The fun comes with the High campaign. My method is a very low scale response to the invasion, which, I will say, I have done several times and it has never failed me. The same method works for the Poles and Hungarians. It's a micro tit for tat method of fighting them. If you don't have a large army in Armenia or Rum they shouldn't appear there, unless you'll already very successful. I think the likelihood of an Armenian invasion increases if you've already wiped out the Crusader States and the Egyptians, and got Constantinople. So a slower expansion prior to the Horde's arrival is how I play it.

The key is Georgia. I take Georgia early, and start building ships out of it. Time any building to finish before the Horde arrives.

When the Horde arrives I break the watchtowers there (so he can't see what my armies are when he takes it). I'll also take Khazar to break any watchtowers if they have them. I then place an army, single stack, in Trebizond, composed of Saracen Inf, XBows and Armenian Heavy Cavalry (+2 V from Armenian MHB). I also place a decent garrison in Armenia. Don't put a massive army in Trebizond or Armenia.

In Georgia I leave a single Saracen Inf with the Keep.

First the GH will probe with a single MHC. Autocalc gives victory to the SI. A second probe follows, with 2 MHC. Autocalc also gives victory. Meanwhile the main horde army is moving around beating up the Russians. Failure to take Georgia brings them back, and this time they're serious.

They invade with around 6 or 7 units of mixed MHC, MHA and MI. I retreat the SI to the Keep. The next bit is critical. Despite any huge numbers that may be in Khazar only counter-attack with enough to beat the GH army in Georgia. No more. Watch out for the GH jumping into Armenia when you counter-attack, which is why it gets a decent garrison after the Horde arrives. If they do take Armenia they are liable to then bring reinforcements into Georgia, or attack it again in numbers, so reinforce Armenia.

This is also the reason for not having a massive army in Trebizond or Armenia. If the Horde sees kinda similar numbers to it's own army it won't reinforce. If it sees several stacks, although it doesn't know the composition it is liable to reinforce.

Counter-attacking into Georgia with a few SI, XBows and Armenian Heavies will produce victory. If you take a larger army in they are liable to massively reinforce from Khazar when you counter-attack.

Immediately withdraw everyone except a single Saracen Inf again - change the one with 1 or 2 stars if you like him, or he may get Eager to Retreat if you have to withdraw again.

At this point the GH may start to lose interest in Georgia, as it is such a poor province. If not, repeat the cycle exactly. You will keep Georgia, even though the GH may occupy it once or twice.

This tit for tat strategy also works for the Hungarians in Moldavia, and the Polish in Volhynia. A single Slav Warrior in Moldavia will autocalc beat the MHC first probe. The key is the counter-attack with just enough troops for victory, so avoiding an immediate massive reinforcement from the GH. It is also essential to remove the counter-attack force immediately, or the GH will attack it with vastly increased numbers.

Rinse and repeat.

The next challenge for the Turks on High is what to do after you've taken Khazar, say around 1240. Mongol numbers in the adjoining provinces will outnumber them - fine for a single pitched battle (which they don't do), but suddenly it's very hard to see what to do next. You could bring a much larger army in, tying up lots of resources. Unpicking the region can be done in a certain order and a certain way - but that for another thread if anyone is interested, and might be a spoiler for newer players.

Off-topic bits from the post above are interesting, but I guess should be separate threads. I did find a way to keep the challenge of MTW fresh, but this obviously isn't the place for it.

Vantek

11-10-2009, 20:47

You speak as if Golden Horde has close to the intellect of a human being! :dizzy2: In my experience, their behaviour is completely void of reason...

Knight of the Rose

11-12-2009, 15:29

It is called immersion. Some of the older games have it, but a couple of years back it was replaced with graphics in the great paradigme shift in gaming.

/KotR

Heidrek

11-16-2009, 00:28

the Horde!

I love the Golden Horde. When I first encountered them I thought I had the game pretty well sewn up, then suddenly a butt load of stacks appear out of nowhere in my weakest areas! I nearly crapped myself!

Proceeded to lose a string of territories to their predations, then figured out the best ways to bleed them.

In a nutshell, Halbardiers + Forests > Golden Horde.

Even their toughest cavalry get shredded if they try and engane your Halb's while in a forest, it's pure suicide. If you have a few units of halb's so you can prevent yourself getting flanked the horde will eb forced to either charge into a mincer with their cav. or hold back and fire arrows at you all day. to very effective against halb's at the best times and nearly pointless if you're in a forest as well.

gollum

11-16-2009, 18:05

The best units against the horde for me are actually spears of reliable morale and medium armour, backing up arbalasters, with the arbalasters doing all the killing and the spears doing the pinning and protection.

Halberdiers are terribly slow, have a lot of armor and they have very low morale; all these are big minuses against the Horde that usually makes up for very long battles with reinforcements having to march over to wherever you are camped that can make you take the Halbardiers right out as soon as they reach your main army due to fatigue. In addition Halbardiers fare not as good as spears against Heavy cavalry charges because despite their anti-cavalry bonus their polearms do not negate the charge bonus.

Ideally for me its a good number of feudal seargents or equivalent interspersed in waves of reinforcements with lots of arbalesters and if available Billmen or Varangians as back up to help out those times that the Mongol heavy horse waves are intense with a compliment of light horse (steppe cavalry, alans or equivalent) to chase Mongol Warriors everytime one of the attack waves brakes. A few bow units to fill in the reload times of the arbs and some heavy cavalry to deal with any MHC that managed to reach the arbs dont hurt either.

Its also optimal to let teh Horde have khazar and make a stand against it in Georgia and Kiev that they have to deal with the bridge and hilly terrain respectively rather than facing them in the open steppe. Even if you use forests the Horde can still achieve encirclements there, while in hilly terrain or bridges they are at a severe disadvantage. This helps to take the brunt of the attack before taking the fight to them and kick them back to wherever they came from.

Vantek

11-16-2009, 20:51

Halberds are monsters and a little overpowered TBH. Any kind of spearmen are strictly worse in my experience. Spearmen might last a little longer, but there will be more of the enemy horsemen standing as well. Unless I'm missing something it's not so easy to do the killing with arbalesters once the enemy has already engaged. Arbalesters will be useful for killing HA/foot soldiers and the general, not engaged MHC per se.

gollum

11-16-2009, 20:58

Originally posted by Vantek
Halberds are monsters and a little overpowered TBH.

The only halberdier that is overpowered is the Billman. He has (in addition to the standard +3/+1 anticavalry bonus polearms get) 2 morale and decent attack (2) with armor-piercing bonus, armor(3) and speed to win against almost anything if properly supported.

The vanilla halberder has 0 morale and a (relatively) small attack value(1), but a lot of armor(5) and is very slow. The ratio of speed/armor=stamina in MTW. Halberdiers are the easiest units to rout and they are an absolute pain to attack with, and in comparison to other units they are practically useless, all the more against cavalry because they dont deny the charge and cannot force engagement.

Spears no matter how slow they kill, always deny the charge, which is a key property in SP.

With arbalesters you can obliterate the MHC if in hilly terrain with a favorable slope. You can use widely spaced spear units in front of them that pin the MHC while the arbalesters shoot through the gaps. In addition if the slope is good enough you can rout the MHC without even the need f spears other than occasionally because you can deploy the arbalesters in depth, even if the MHC reach the first line the get volleys from behind.

The most key aspect in their use though is to coordinate the volleys. Group all thearbalesters so you can command them with one click and toggle fire at will off while you set them in hold position/hold formation. Then wait until the enemy is at the range of your choosing and then selsect the arbs group and toggle fire at will on. If teh MHC units are less than 3-4 they rout instantly as they receive 30% to 40% casualties at once.

:bow:

caravel

11-16-2009, 21:09

Halberdiers suffer from pathetic morale, very slow speed and are useless in the desert IMHO. Which is why I almost never train them. The best anti cavalry flankers available to the catholics are Chivalric Foot Knights. You can get these simply by dismounting Chivalric Knights on the battlefield. I'm sure that some of the various Crusading Order Knights dismount to CFKs as well, I'm sure Hospitallers are the only exception as they dismount to HFKs.

Arbalests or Pavise Arbalests are still the best missile units to field against armoured units.

The best catholic faction for anti mongol defence are the English. Billmen and Longbows are pretty much designed to take down heavy cavalry and when combined with Arbs and CFKs the enemy doesn't have much of a chance.

gollum

11-16-2009, 21:13

Originally posted By Asai Nagamasa
The best catholic faction for anti mongol defence are the English.

Bingo.

Jxrc

11-17-2009, 11:34

:whip:
Halberdiers suffer from pathetic morale, very slow speed and are useless in the desert IMHO. Which is why I almost never train them.

Indeed, unless they are build in a city with a reliquary or cathedral, Halberdiers are pretty much a liability IMHO. They cannot absorb charges at all and are quite likely to rout if charged head on or flanked.

The best anti cavalry flankers available to the catholics are Chivalric Foot Knights. You can get these simply by dismounting Chivalric Knights on the battlefield. I'm sure that some of the various Crusading Order Knights dismount to CFKs as well, I'm sure Hospitallers are the only exception as they dismount to HFKs.

A bit too slow to be used as flankers but fair enough. Would say that Swiss halberdiers are the best for other catholic factions than the English though. Knights of Santiago, Teutonic Knights and Knights Templar can dismount into CFK. Nice to get in the early period (and the only reason to use Knights Templars who are not that impressive while mounted) but I find it hard to use them as I should because those units cannot be replenished ... They kind of become parade units for me ....

Arbalests or Pavise Arbalests are still the best missile units to field against armoured units.

Indeed

The best catholic faction for anti mongol defence are the English. Billmen and Longbows are pretty much designed to take down heavy cavalry and when combined with Arbs and CFKs the enemy doesn't have much of a chance.

Would not use longbowmen against the GH. Not enough anti-armor and they run out of amo too quickly. They are fine against "normal" size armies but not against an "early" GH. Any catholic faction can deal effectively with the GH if you get enough time to prepare. Started an early campaign with Poland on sunday afternoon. Took Moldovia, Kiev, Crimea, Lithuania, Prussia, Pomerania and Volhynia through a round-trip with my first king and consolidated (just took what I could grab without starting a war during the following 100 years - Livonia, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Rhodes and Malta). Money was very tight until I managed to have fleets coming from the Black Sea and the Baltic connected. Due to delay in development, I was only able to build arbs and CS from Poland and Kiev in 1210. Managed to muster something like 24 abrs and 15 CS in Kiev, let Crimea with a garrison of one CS and one X-bow. The Gh showed up with about 10,000 men in Khazar (plus something in Volga but I could not see). Next turn they attack Kiev (going for Crimea first would have spare them the bridge battle but the GH is silly). No big suspense there since they lost more than 3,000 men before pulling out. Next turn, the GH became even sillier since the Khan with one single stack (my two units duly retreated to the castle) attacked Crimea while the bulk of its forces attacked Georgia (held by the Byz). I split my army located in Kiev into two, a big stack for Crimea, the rest for Khazar. THe GH retreated from Khazar while the can was routed and captured (14,000 florins well earned) after a bridge battle for Crimea ... The GH tried twice to retake Khazar but many of the MHC had already been killed and my general was five stars so that it was no challenge at all (lost 1,500 men twice ...) it just took time. Then it was 7 a.m and I had to go to work (not a great idea tio spend the night killing MHA all night but got carried away :whip:)

Vantek

11-17-2009, 15:25

Hmm... I've never had problems with Halberdiers' morale... I mean even if I did, exactly who am I supposed to replace them with?

You can use widely spaced spear units in front of them that pin the MHC while the arbalesters shoot through the gaps.
:S this sounds absolutely impossible!! Pics?

drone

11-17-2009, 15:39

Would say that Swiss halberdiers are the best for other catholic factions than the English though.

:yes:

Faster, better attack, and much better morale. Get them some extra armor, and you are good to go. The only downside is the logistics of their supply chain...

caravel

11-17-2009, 15:39

Hmm... I've never had problems with Halberdiers' morale... I mean even if I did, exactly who am I supposed to replace them with?

Good question - if Halberdiers are that bad, then what units are best for flanking pinned cavalry units? Forget Swiss Halberdiers, if you don't happen to control Switzerland, they're not an option.

Personally I favour CFK, dismounted from either CK or crusading order Knights, but if those are not available I make do with the significantly cheaper Militia Sergeants. Faster and better in the desert as well (I also seem to remember that they have better morale?).

:bow:

gollum

11-17-2009, 18:30

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
Faster and better in the desert as well (I also seem to remember that they have better morale?).

IIRC they have also 0 morale, its just that they have much less armor and fatigue accumulates much slower on them (fatigue affects morale).

:bow:

Vantek

11-17-2009, 21:55

what units are best for flanking pinned cavalry units?
The more important question is, what are you going to pin them with in the first place?

gollum

11-17-2009, 22:03

Eeerm... spears?

caravel

11-17-2009, 22:14

Chivalric Sergeants, Saracen Infantry,Feudal Sergeants (and Fyrdmen and Italian Infantry for the English and Italians respectively) are some of the best and readily available spearmen at your disposal. All spears have a large anti cavalry defence bonus. Polearms such as JHI, Halbs and CFK have a larger anti cavalry attack bonus. The trick is getting this to work in harmony and not wasting your expensive units by duelling it out on the field. This is especially important for those long drawn out battles where you have fatigue and enemy reinforcements to consider.

Spears fight best if simply placed in lines about 3 or 4 ranks deep (I tend to go deeper depending on how many units I have in a given battle - and to make their formation a bit tougher) on hold formation.

The trick is not to actually attack but leave the spears in place and let them do their work. Once the enemy becomes engaged with the spears, flanking units can be brought in to make short work of their opponents. This has a few advantages:

- Spears are usually cheaper than other units such as CFK or JHI and take fewer losses in this situation/role.

- The spears defend your missile units (and cavalry) from harm.

- This frees up your flanking units to do what they do best: destroying and breaking the enemy, which means they are not actually duelling with the enemy and can be pulled out once the enemy rout and directed at another target.

:bow:

bondovic

11-18-2009, 01:52

IIRC they have also 0 morale, its just that they have much less armor and fatigue accumulates much slower on them (fatigue affects morale).

Are we talking desert only now, or do you suggest that fatigue is caused by armor even in non-desert climates?

Personally I have no worries about sacrificing my halbs against flanking cavalry. MS are faster and make for better flankers, granted, but halbs are flank cover, not flankers. Better than MS for that role, but not versatile at all. Depends on what kind of battle you want wether you go MS or halb.

gollum

11-18-2009, 02:06

Originally posted by Bondovic
Are we talking desert only now, or do you suggest that fatigue is caused by armor even in non-desert climates?

Fatigue is caused indeed by armor in any terrain type, but at different rates. Desert rates are faster while in other terrains slower. However in any case after 25 minutes (or was it 20?) of battle all units drop to 2 bars (from 4) and return to that after having lost some. This impacts even more, in terms of fatigue induced morale penalties, heavily armored units with low morale in very long battles, like halberdiers against the horde.

Depends on what kind of battle you want wether you go MS or halb.

:bow:

gollum

11-18-2009, 02:48

Originally posted by Vantek
:S this sounds absolutely impossible!! Pics? Sorry for the late reply Vantek, but because you didnt quote me i missed the question. Its actually very easy, and although i have not the game installed at the moment to make example screenshots i'll try to describe and demonstrate diagramatically with a plan (top down) perspective:

cav cav

sp sp

arb arb arb

As the enemy approaches you can engage him and rotate the spears for a few degrees either way (just prior or just after engagement); this will make them "turn" the enemy in such a way that they'll expose their flank to your arbalesters.

If you are afraid that the rotation will make your spear units vulnerable to rear charges in turn, you can use them in pairs, like so:

cav cav

spsp

arb arb

and do reverse rotations with each spear so that they protect their partners back while exposing the enemy's rear/flank to arbalester fire.

This formation works with decent/good morale spears against heavy cavalry heavy enemies and particularly well against the horde, especially in those instances that a lot of Mongol heavy cavalry enters the scene at once. Obviously its a bad idea against sword heavy armies as your spears will be routed.

Although it works in flat ground too, it works even better if the ground slopes in your favor, say from the top of the page towadrs the bottom in the above diagrams.

Buildings or clusters of building or forests can aid such a deployment as you can anchor the end of your battle line (that make it easier to guard against flanking or picking up your line progressively from there), or even deploy a bit behind them if you are facing heavy cavalry armies with sword and bow armies; this will slow down the enemy in order to reach you giving your bows and swords a fighting chance. If no such features are available you might want to choose a slope that is adjacent to the side edge of the map, and so this will provide a natural guard against flanking from that direction.

:bow:

PS The gap between spears in the first diagram is about the width of 2 full units, while the arbalesters should be space staggered with the spears and with a clear view to the gaps that form between them. Naturally you may want to seek to actively engage the incoming cavalry with your spears, seeking to protect the arbs and pin them in place, and let the bolts do the killing. Also dont neglect to have some distance between the arbs and the spears, if too close the heavy cavalry willpartially engage the missiles and if too far the arbs wont get enough punch and clear shot to deal lots of casualties as they should.

Vantek

11-18-2009, 09:18

That's absolutely crazy. I cannot imagine how it's possible to use that in the middle of an actual chaotic battle...

Chivalric Sergeants, Saracen Infantry,Feudal Sergeants (and Fyrdmen and Italian Infantry for the English and Italians respectively) are some of the best and readily available spearmen at your disposal.
I guess what I have been getting at this whole time is how everyone is saying Halberdiers are expensive and have poor morale, yet the only reasonable alternative - Chivalric Sergeants - have similar cost, have the exact same morale, and all in all similar melee performance.

Whenever I've used spearmen I have been disappointed. Spearmen might last a little longer in melee, but they also lack killing power completely. I already find MTW battles often a bit too long, so out of two rouhgly equal options, I will go for the one that die faster but kill faster.

caravel

11-18-2009, 12:11

That's absolutely crazy. I cannot imagine how it's possible to use that in the middle of an actual chaotic battle...
It's simply enough in fact. In essence changing your army's facing causes the AI to change it's approach, this in turn causes them to expose their flanks.

I guess what I have been getting at this whole time is how everyone is saying Halberdiers are expensive and have poor morale, yet the only reasonable alternative - Chivalric Sergeants - have similar cost, have the exact same morale, and all in all similar melee performance.

OK some stats are needed:

Polearms

JHI:

Elite
Charge 4
Attack 5
Defense 3
Armour 3
Morale 8
AP
Anti Cav Attack 3
Anti Cav Defence 1
(Disciplined)
60 men

Halb:

Non elite
Charge 2
Attack 1
Defense 6
Armour 5
Morale 0
AP
Anti Cav Attack 3
Anti Cav Defence 1
60 men

Billmen:

Non elite
Charge 2
Attack 2
Defense 4
Armour 3
Morale 2
AP
Anti Cav Attack 3
Anti Cav Defence 1
60 men

CFK:

Elite
Charge 2
Attack 4
Defense 6
Armour 5
Morale 8
AP
Anti Cav Attack 3
Anti Cav Defence 1
20-40 men

Spears

Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry

Non elite
Charge 5
Attack -1
Defense 3
Armour 3
Morale 0
non AP
Anti Cav Attack 1
Anti Cav Defence 4
Large Shield
100 men

My memory is fuzzy on the stats for shields, but CS/SI get the full bonus from their large shields which should aquate to 2 points of armour and 2 points of defence at least. (I think the large shield gives 2 points and the small shield 1. The shield modifier value is then used to halve these on some units where the shield is only cosmetic and the unit already has enough armour anyway.)

This, combined with the larger unit size, makes CS/SI much better defenders than halberdiers, but weaker attackers.

The real downside to Halberdiers though is their morale and speed. They, along with CFK, are a full 2 points slower than CS/SI, walking/running/charging. CFK, even in smaller units, can be forgiven this as they have insanely high morale, elite status and an attack bonus of 4. Halberdiers' morale is such that by the time they've finished running (slowly) around in their armour they will be exhausted enough to rout. Exhaustion morale modifiers are serious for a unit that has no morale to start with:

"Very Tired" = -3 Morale
"Exhausted" = -6 Morale
"Completely Exhausted" = -8 Morale

To conclude, halberdiers would be better with 2 points take off their defence and amour and added to their morale. I would have taken another point from their defence and transferred it to attack also. This would have balanced them out into a worthwhile unit. As they are, Halberdiers are not really fitting their true role (anti cavalry polearms / shock troops) - in terms of raw stats they are far too defensively oriented which is their achilles heel.

Whenever I've used spearmen I have been disappointed. Spearmen might last a little longer in melee, but they also lack killing power completely. I already find MTW battles often a bit too long, so out of two rouhgly equal options, I will go for the one that die faster but kill faster.
The whole idea of spearmen is that they lack killing power but make up for this in defensive capability. It is better to have 4 units of CS and one unit of Halberdiers on stand by, than having 4 units of halberdiers. This way the Halbs can make flank and rear attacks instead of doing all the fighting - to the point of exhaustion.

It's all down to personal choice of course.

:bow:

gollum

11-18-2009, 12:30

Originally posted by Vantek
That's absolutely crazy. I cannot imagine how it's possible to use that in the middle of an actual chaotic battle...

Its actually easy and can be done routinely - the spears screen your arbalesters when there is too much H.cavalry charging at once and the arbs do the killing. Add some armor piercing units to the plot when all enemy cavalry is engaged and there is no danger for you to be counterflanked and you are up for great results.

If you do not leave space in between the spears your arbs cannot be brought to bear on the engaged enemy - then it becomes a battle of attrition that the HC of the Horde may win. The gaps in the formation allow the arbs to get rid of them quickly and safely. Its either that or throw in ap units that can kill off the Hcavalry, however his costs casualties and has the added risk of exposing your ap units to counterflanking in mass Hcavalry charges.

I've used this formation a great number of times - its not the only way to play but one of the ways to play against the horde (or others). If willing, just try it out andsee if it may work for you.

Chivalric Sergeants - have similar cost, have the exact same morale, and all in all similar melee performance.

Cost and morale yes, performance no - CS, are spears and halbds no, CS get a +1/+4 rank bonus for every fighting rank and deny the charge, while at the same time they have decent enough armor to withstand bombardments and enhance their defence. Halbs do not cancel the charge but have great defence (6) low ap attack (1) and the anticavalry bonus of +3/+1.

In any case CS are faster than Halberdiers and receive less fatigue (and so morale) punishment in long battles. I'd go with Billmen, Varangians and upgraded Milititia Seargents if i were you that run faster and can play the flanker better than the slow halberdier.

Against the Horde i'd go for Feudal Seargents that have morale=2 and less armor and so can cope better with fatigue. Its good actually to have one CS (or armored spear) and 2-3 Feudal Seargents.

Whenever I've used spearmen I have been disappointed. Spearmen might last a little longer in melee, but they also lack killing power completely.

That's because they are pining units as it has been mentioned, for armor piercing units to do the killing. No one said that you shouldn't bring armor piercing units, just that a combo of pinners and ap flankers might work better than vanilla halberds alone. If you ignore spears you are risking your ap units to be routed off the field by cavalry charges that the Horde does aplenty.

I already find MTW battles often a bit too long, so out of two rouhgly equal options, I will go for the one that die faster but kill faster.

Again, you are assuming that someone suggested spears as cavalry killers, but they have been suggested and acknowledged as cavalry pinners. The duration of the battles is down to the maps, that are larger than the optimal maps of STW around which the battle engine was designed and also due to how many stacks a faction can support.

In 60 man units these can be many - play with 120men units and you'll find that the average battle duration shortens because stacks cost more in maintenance and factions can maintain less of them around.

:bow:

Jxrc

11-18-2009, 12:47

The previous post says it all.
Only things to add are IMHO:

- you of course need to take into account the morale bonus granted by your general. If you have a 4 stars generals, halberdiers should be able to be used as flanker thanks to the +2 morale bonus. With a 0 morale bonus, they will probably start wavering as soon as they have a horse units on their flank ...
- CS have a poor morale to but are not be used in the same way. You just make a nice and tidy wall and wait for the enemy to charge. If done properly (trickier if you are the attacker), they should not get a morale penalty for having their flank threatened.

Personnally, I do not think that halberdiers are a bad unit, they are just not flankers. I usually leave them a bit behind my spearmen and when those have been engaged, I move the halberdiers in the small space between the spear units, once they halbs get in contact with the engaged horses they will slaughter them. A bit slower and far less spectacular than a charge from the rear but it minimise the risk that the halbs will be charged head on or flanked. Of course I am far from being the most adventurous player ever so that it might seem a bit too dull and safe to some other players. Fair enough:laugh4:

gollum

11-18-2009, 12:55

I in fact think that vanilla Halberds are bad units - i guess the concept is that they were kind of MTW Naginata, however with Heavy Cavalry being as strong as it is, they would have work much better if they were a scaling down of Chivalric Knights in stats, ie units that make up for their slow speed and high fatigue rate, by good morale and attack. As they are they can win battles of attrition, since they have low attack and high defence, however fighting for long and hard is also not their forte due to the tones of armor and low base morale.

its true of course that upgrades and a good general can make up for these but when you have provinces that can churn out highly upgraded troops i'd still go for Militia Seargents. Its down of course to style and all styles are good.

:bow:

caravel

11-18-2009, 13:16

Jxrc raises a good point that flankers do indeed have to expose their own flanks, which makes Halbs with their low morale poor flankers.

:bow:

drone

11-18-2009, 16:28

The slow speed of vanilla Halberdiers just makes them frustrating to use, and pretty much worthless in attacks. In defense, especially against the Horde, they can be useful as arrow sponges, and may be useful if you can camp them in woods and lure in the heavy cav. In the open, they will likely get crushed.

Award for Best Performance by vanilla Halbs in a MTW campaign - In my Swiss campaign, fighting against the Hungarians on defense. Pretty chaotic, the enemy flanked and my 1 unit of dog-slow Halbs got left behind when the line rotated. I sent them to engage some small infantry unit (maybe militia sergeants, can't remember) and the Hungarians sent a unit of Szekely to help out. The Halbs routed the MS, took the arrows and a charge from the Szekely, and routed them as well after decimating them. All this happened miles away from the main battle and my general. I think the unit ended up with about 20 men left, but stood firm. I was amazed, and have never managed to get any unit of Halbs to come close to this ever after. I can only imagine I built this unit in the province with the Cathedral.

Vantek

11-18-2009, 19:06

Since everyone seems to disagree with me, I guess I must wrong. I will try out CS next time. I have always assumed that they're not worth it, I guess it must have been the basic human thinking mistake that caused me to see proof to this where none existed.

its true of course that upgrades and a good general can make up for these but when you have provinces that can churn out highly upgraded troops i'd still go for Militia Seargents.
Militia Sergeants, out of all units? That is a peculiar choice. When you have provinces that can churn out highly upgraded troops, isn't that exactly the reason why NOT use Militia Sergeants? If you need true flankers, why not just use the heavy cavalry of your faction? If you need some on-foot killing power, why not the stronger elite CMAA? If you need something to kill heavy cavalry, won't indeed Halberdiers do a better job?

Vladimir

11-18-2009, 19:21

Jxrc

11-18-2009, 20:08

Halbs in woods with a couple church upgrades. A decent general is a bonus. If you're loosing defensive battles against the horde with them, you're wrong. Very little fancy footwork is required. They're cheap units; use 'em up.

Sensible approach indeed but almost any infantry unit fighting in woods will defeat the Horde. Perhaps not missiles vanilla spearmen and peasants but pretty much anything else. My favorite units to fight mongols in the woods would be huscarls or swabian swordmen but almost anything (halbs, FMAA, CMAA, vikings, CS, FS, MS etc.) will do the trick.

caravel

11-18-2009, 20:14

Believe it or not Woodsmen are quite good in the woods...

Ok I'll get my coat.

:eeeek:

drone

11-18-2009, 20:39

Militia Sergeants get the AP attack, but they don't get the polearm +3/+1 bonus against cavalry. I would tend to go with something a little more hard-hitting as my flankers.

Jxrc

11-18-2009, 20:53

Believe it or not Woodsmen are quite good in the woods...

Ok I'll get my coat.

:eeeek:

:laugh4:

Vantek

11-18-2009, 21:51

Just had a battle where I saw how Billmen own MHC so hard it's not even funny. It takes like 10 seconds to halve a unit after head-on impact holding moderate high ground.
Halberdiers have just 1 less attack, and 2 more defense and armour each. I just don't understand the need for spearmen after this. You don't need to pin a cavalry unit when you have Halberdiers. You crush it head-on. Why bother with holding the line when you can just directly decimate?

caravel

11-18-2009, 22:04

Just had a battle where I saw how Billmen own MHC so hard it's not even funny. It takes like 10 seconds to halve a unit after head-on impact holding moderate high ground.
Halberdiers have just 1 less attack, and 2 more defense and armour each.
Halberdiers also have 2 less morale and are two points slower. I believe you are underestimating the importance of morale in your assessment. Also that 1 point extra attack bonus makes all the difference (their attack bonus is doubled). Billmen are simply superior.

I just don't understand the need for spearmen after this. You don't need to pin a cavalry unit when you have Halberdiers. You crush it head-on. Why bother with holding the line when you can just directly decimate?

Each to their own...

:bow:

drone

11-18-2009, 22:32

Battles with the Horde usually take forever to fight. So any unit that is susceptible to morale issues is iffy. In a custom battle, charging a unit of Halbies into a charging unit of MHC leads to the Halbies winning, IIRC. But take that same unit of Halberdiers, walk them around a bunch to get them into position, have them peppered by the Mongol Warriors/Horse Archers, repel a couple of charges from MHC and lose half their unit, then you have a problem. Fatigue + losses from missiles + casualties = start of chain rout. They are also too slow to retire from the field properly, so your replacement rates suffer. Meanwhile, the Horde has 6 stacks of reinforcements lined up waiting to have a go.

Staying power is a lot more important than kills. If you can guarantee that your halberdiers are going to be in woods, they work great (spears lose a lot of bonuses in the trees). But if the only patch of forest is in the middle or sides of the map, it's a long, slow slog for the tin cans against the GH.

Vantek

11-19-2009, 00:04

Staying power is used to let the Arbalesters empty their quivers, right? I guess this indeed comes down to playstyle then... First of all I hate long drawn-out battles and avoid them in the first place, and secondly, perhaps as a result of that I often find myself incapable of using Arbalesters on less than mountainous terrain.

So any unit that is susceptible to morale issues is iffy.
Well... Once again, which unit do you have in mind that doesn't?

drone

11-19-2009, 16:39

Staying power is used to let the Arbalesters empty their quivers, right?Not necessarily, though it's nice. You need units that can hold the line, not take too many casualties, and can recover from fatigue. They need to be able to stand in for at least 2-3 waves. The Arbalests will work through their quivers regardless, as long as they get protection.

I guess this indeed comes down to playstyle then... First of all I hate long drawn-out battles and avoid them in the first place, and secondly, perhaps as a result of that I often find myself incapable of using Arbalesters on less than mountainous terrain.This is true, if you find something that matches your play style and works, great. I find myself incapable of controlling large numbers of archers, and can't use HA to save my life. So I get around it by using different tactics.

Well... Once again, which unit do you have in mind that doesn't?Chivalric or Feudal(w/ armor upgrades) Sergeants or Armoured Spearmen on the lines. It's not sexy, but they will retain their numbers and energy levels longer, thus maintaining morale.

Vantek

11-19-2009, 17:31

Not necessarily
Hang on... then what else could we be holding the line for if it's not necessarily arbalesters?

The Arbalests will work through their quivers regardless
If the line is broken and Arbalesters get charged into, they won't...

drone

11-19-2009, 18:03

Hang on... then what else could we be holding the line for if it's not necessarily arbalesters?Flankers.

Vantek

11-19-2009, 19:16

And who are they?

caravel

11-19-2009, 20:30

A lot of questions...

Staying power is used to let the Arbalesters empty their quivers, right? I guess this indeed comes down to playstyle then... First of all I hate long drawn-out battles and avoid them in the first place, and secondly, perhaps as a result of that I often find myself incapable of using Arbalesters on less than mountainous terrain.
I'm not sure what you mean by "staying power". Staying power could be defined in many ways. Any unit with decent stats has decent staying power, but units with good morale would also have better staying power than those with lower morale. Several other factors affect this however...

Taking Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry for example. They have 0 morale but make up for this in their defensive capability and armour (also it's assumed they they would be lead by a decent general). Feudal Sergeants have 2 points morale, 1 point more attack but 2 points less armour and 4 points less defence. This means that despite having better morale and attack, they break sooner once they come under fire from the Mongol Horse Archers and start taking heavy losses. So in a nutshell, despite the lower morale, CS/SI are stronger due to other factors.

Well... Once again, which unit do you have in mind that doesn't?
Any unit that has a decent morale and balanced stats. A unit that doesn't tire or die too easily.

Hang on... then what else could we be holding the line for if it's not necessarily arbalesters?
Holding the line is part of both defensive and offensive strategies, but mostly defensive. Spears protect your missile troops and those troops you've brought along for a specific pupose such as any flanking troops, sword infantry, cavalry or artillery units from enemy cavalry. As the mongol forces tend to be made up of about 85% cavalry, it is obvious as to why spears are important. Spears also protect each others' flanks and if used correctly form a solid wall (or a chessboard layout if you prefer) that the enemy must face. This removes the morale penalty for unprotected flanks. The flanking units, sword infantry and polearms work around this and can be brought in at the right time, to different parts of the battleline to break the enemy.

Also Saracen/Chivalric Sergeants can kill Heavy Cavalry, but they do it slowly. If you have a battle like line this:

--CK-CK-CK-----------------RK*----
CFK---ARB---ARB---ARB---HALB-HALB
CS----CS----CS----CS----CS----CS
________________^MHC
^
NAP----MHC---MHC----MHC----MHA
MHA--MHA--MHA--MHA--MHA--MHA
MHC-----MW---MW--MHC-----MHC*

You would let the CS deal with that one MHC that has charged the centre of your lines. If you were to bring the Halbs in on their flanks they would be sitting ducks. Once the bulk of the MHC meets your battle lines, you can then deploy the flanking units without fear of them being flanked themselves.

If the line is broken and Arbalesters get charged into, they won't...
The whole idea is that the lines don't get broken and that the MHC do not reach the Arbalests. If you deploy swords/axes/polarms head on against cavalry they will duel it out and take heavy losses. Spears in held formation, can absorb charge after charge and don't tire as easily (because they stand still). Also as swords/axes/polarms need to fight freely in "engage at will" mode, they will bunch up and expose your missile troops to enemy cavalry and are themselves vulnerable to enemy cavalry charges. Your missiles will then have to go it alone without the protection of a line of e.g. CS or Saracens keeping them safe.

And who are they?
Flankers are any units with good attack, very good charge, decent morale (though not always) and usually AP though not always. Flankers tend to have poor defence and once they start duelling they will start to lose. Flankers can be cavalry, infantry or hybrid archers. The trick with flankers is to send them in at the right time (i.e. when the enemy are already starting to break or the unit has been worn down by your archers/arbalesters).

:bow:

drone

11-19-2009, 20:37

Well, that depends on your faction. As the Danes, I usually save up on Huscarles just for the Horde, Vikings are OK, but you will lose a lot of them. The English should be using Billmen, full stop. The Germans can build up Swabians in Early, they work well. Other Catholic factions can use CFK, slow and expensive but very hard-hitting, CMAA, or (gulp) MS. Gallowglasses and Swiss Halbies are situational, both will perform well but require some strategic forethought.

Vanilla Halberdiers will work, but not "on the flanks". Sometimes I will put them in the middle, just back off the front line in a gap between spear units, and send them through after the enemy cav hits the spears. This way they are not taking charges, are surrounded by friendly units, and are near the general. But they are too expensive and vulnerable to be used as the front liners, and too slow and vulnerable to be used as true flankers.

HopAlongBunny

11-19-2009, 23:00

A cpl additions to what has already been said.

I used to believe that FS were it. +2morale over CS=no choice...right?
Ok. They can tolerate more casualties before becoming useless, but they will almost always accumulate casualties faster than CS. By the time you are even thinking about the horde, all units are being produced from a place with a reliquary anyhow; CS should stand firm.

Flankers cause casualties; striking into the flank or rear. They also attract attention.
The AI likes to play overlap: you charge a flank=>free enemy units charges your flank; flankers with higher morale will stand for this...at least until the cavalry arrives. That said...I usually use MS as flankers when playing as a christian faction :p

Halbs work nicely (for me) as filler. Just behind the spears to plug up the line if needed.

Final note

If you go after the Horde instead of waiting for them to dissipate their numbers; often unavoidable as Turks or BYZ; you will probably get at least one battle that will last "forever!" I usually patiently fight these out wave after endless wave; I have been known to set the spears on "hold", arbs to "fire at will" and go eat, or read, or anything to fill the time. Sometimes it works :)

Vantek

11-19-2009, 23:40

This thing is getting very confusing so I'll try to make a summary of what is going on. I have been asking what I assumed to be very sharp questions, but instead they have only misled people to write long explanations... Sorry :P

I think it all started when I suggested that Halberdiers are pretty much the perfect backbone unit against (Golden Horde) cavalry-heavy armies and make spearmen redundant. This incited the following responses.

A) Halberdiers have moral issues. I then proceeded to inquiry as to which unit people have in mind that doesn't. What I meant here is simply that the *only* other *standard* option would be Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen, who have the exact same morale. Suggesting CFK, JHI, the Swiss or other of this kind wouldn't make sense as they are infinitely harder to build and cannot typically be massed for a backbone. Nevertheless, in the end some truth was revealed in that Halberdiers get exhausted more quickly and have fewer numbers than Chivalric Sergeants (or equivalents). This is a valid point. I have personally never had moral issues with Halberdiers, but if you say there are situations where Chivalric Sergeants are superior because they do not get exhausted as quickly, and have higher numbers, I have no problem accepting that.

B) Spearmen have better staying power to hold the line. My response was, why waste time on holding the line when you can just crush the enemy directly, suffering more losses but also causing more casualties. In the end you need to kill the enemy and holding the line alone does not achieve that. The only thing that I could imagine that would fit the need for staying power was Arbalesters. This led to another good point being made - playstyle. I will admit I am not very experienced with Arbalesters, and in that case it might be best to rely on crushing the cavalry directly with Halberdiers, whereas someone more proficient with missiles might have better success holding the line with longer-lasting Chivalric Sergeants and doing the killing with Arbalesters instead. However, I remain sceptic as to wether holding the line could here be very synergistic with a flanking maneuver. After all a flanking maneuver ends up being still essentially a melee battle. Halberdiers have surely enough staying power to wait for the maneuver, and the purpose of the maneuver is to kill enemy in melee anyway, so why not start with the killing earlier by using Halberdiers in the first place.

C) There have been a lot of suggestions to use very complicated or specific tactics, for which Halberdiers are not suitable. I would like everyone to understand that this was never what I wanted to talk about. What I had in mind was the very crude basic effective tactics that could always be resorted to in most situations and serve as a foundation to any advanced tactics. Using a 8 Halberdiers/CS 8 Arbalesters hexagon is a crude tactic which I had in mind. Hiding someone in the woods, flanking with a faction-specific monster unit, massing CFK, these are not the crude basic idea that I had in mind.

I'm not sure what you mean by "staying power".
There are two measures to a unit's performance. One - how fast it kills. Two - how long it lasts. At least against cavalry, Halberdiers emphasise one at the cost of two. Chivalric Sergeants, on the other hand, emphasise two at the cost of one. The discussion was about when to prefer killing power and when to prefer staying power. I say holding the line is only useful if there is something behind the line that cannot come in contact with enemy soldiers and needs to stay that way for a long time, namely Arbalesters. I say if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then holding the line becomes meaningless, as you ultimately need to kill the enemy in melee, so better start with it sooner rather than later.

Well... Once again, which unit do you have in mind that doesn't?
Any unit that has a decent morale and balanced stats. A unit that doesn't tire or die too easily.
My point here was that only comparable alternative to Halberdiers is Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen. So instead of saying "Halberdiers have flaw x", people should be saying "Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen are better because y".

So to quickly summarise what has been going on in the past few pages in this thread:
1) I claimed that when facing a cavalry-heavy army, Halberdiers are the way to go and Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen are redundant compared to Halberdiers
2) I was proven wrong as CS/SI/AS were shown to have more staying power vs cavalry, due to slower exhaustion, better defense vs. cavalry, and higher numbers
3) I still insist that this staying power can only be used meaningfully to protect Arbalesters, and if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then Halberdiers are better.

PershsNhpios

11-19-2009, 23:43

Any thread which passes the second page in the Main Hall invariably includes two or more sideshow discussions (often followed to their conclusions and offering very useful information!).

I have never fought against the Mongols, and I have never wanted to.
This is because I have no confidence in my ability to survive them, so that my Early/High faction choices become limited somewhat! I usually wish to be no further east than Poland.

It is frustrating and horrible enough battling against Turks, let alone ten stacks of horse!

Yet this strategy involving Kiev may be my gracious hope! Perhaps I will attempt a slavic campaign once more.

On another subject attached to this thread, I believe that I will also now play all campaigns on Hard.
I did not realise that AI tactics improved so much with this one step higher in difficulty and without an absurd advantage in AI morale also! (RTW taught me to distrust higher difficulty levels in Total War).

I am glad to see so many here still involved in discussion!

HopAlongBunny

11-20-2009, 00:39

So to quickly summarise what has been going on in the past few pages in this thread:
1) I claimed that when facing a cavalry-heavy army, Halberdiers are the way to go and Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen are redundant compared to Halberdiers
2) I was proven wrong as CS/SI/AS were shown to have more staying power vs cavalry, due to slower exhaustion, better defense vs. cavalry, and higher numbers
3) I still insist that this staying power can only be used meaningfully to protect Arbalesters, and if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then Halberdiers are better.

Okies.

Provided the Horde engages you (defending) and does not sit back and pepper you with arrows, a Halb set up might work; I have never tried that since it doesn't fit my style. Backed up with cav, it might work as long as you have a means to make the MHA rout/retreat. You could use cav to herd the Skirmishing MHA and infantry into the Halbs.

Much the same on attack; but difficult to do w/o exhausting your forces.

So they kill faster...do they kill fast enough to cause a rout before they break? Will they exit the battlefield fast enough to have fresh ones for the next wave?

ps: wb Glenn!

bondovic

11-20-2009, 00:47

3) I still insist that this staying power can only be used meaningfully to protect Arbalesters, and if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then Halberdiers are better.

Even so, I think one has to define "better". I do believe you may be right in that an open defensive battle, where the horde comes to your campsite, may favor a strictly halb approach. However, this, I believe, is only in terms of speed, not in kill/death -ratio efficiency. An approach with only melee units should still involve spears, IMO, and the standard tactics of pinning/flanking in order to maximize the kill/death ratio in ones favor.

It depends, thus, on wether you look for sheer killing speed on the one hand, or cost effectiveness on the other, what 'better' means. Even so, I'd say a strictly halb affair is very dangerous, due to their morale. They will lose numbers when recieving charges, spears won't. A unit with low numbers that is battling it out for some time (losing stamina) will begin wavering.

I realize that halbs with armor upgrades and morale boosts will do the job, and probably stay. Still, that doesn't make it the cost effective approach.

bondovic

11-20-2009, 00:55

And, BTW. Even if you have control of your own setup of troops, I've never seen a meaningful GH battle without droves of mounted archers. Only halbs against that? Forget that they have lots of armor, it's the morale penalty that counts here and that applies even with a single casualty IIRC. Eating charges when under morale penalty from arrow fire is not good. And how about a drawn out battle?

Bottom line:

You need missile units against the horde. And if you sport missile units you're gonna need spears to cover them. Otherwise you have to fight in the woods, but this discussion is not about that, since no horde army can ever win a woody.

Vantek

11-20-2009, 08:40

Jxrc

11-20-2009, 13:39

No, I do not mean JUST Halberdiers, I would bring some Arbalesters, but just enough to kill most of enemy archers (say 4 per army). When you use spearmen, Arbalesters will have to do almost ALL of the killing. If you use Halberdiers, they only need to kill missile units..

Fair enough if you face just one stack of Mongols but if you face the GH when it shows up, you will end up facing an army made exclusively of MHA and MW since your halbs will kill MHC much faster than your arbs will deal with the missile units. Then your only option is probably to run for cover in whatever woods you can find. Chasing MHA and MW out of the map is tedious, and rather risky if you have enough cavalry, but it's just not possible with halbs

The thing with missile units is that for each missile unit you bring, there will be one less foot unit you bring. If you bring a lot of missile units, then you need to use the infantry with absolute most staying power (spearmen), since there won't be as many of infantry. If you bring just a few Arbalesters though, you have enough slots left for infantry to keep the Arbalesters safe even with less sturdy (but more lethal) units, like Halberdiers. If you use 8 Arbalesters and 8 infantry, I have no problem accepting that you need to use spearmen in order to keep the Arbalesters safe. If you use 4 Arbalesters 12 infantry though, Halberdiers will be able to keep them safe just fine. They will be safe from the MHC but probably not from MHA and MW (unless you keep them in the woods to but then they become pretty useless themselves)

This could be true on offense. This could be true on defense on very flat terrain - I don't have a lot of experience there. Defending on even slightly hilly terrain (typical against the Golden Horde), I do not agree. Flankers would need to attack uphill and the ones recieving the charge hold the high ground, so it's better to just crush the enemy directly from the high ground without maneuvers. Aprat from Georgia, I do not recall hilly terrain as being typical of fights against the Golden Horde. Khazar, Kiev, Crimea and all the Russian provinces seem pretty flat to me.

Facing an unweakened GH with infantry and a few missile units is quite doable but I do not see how it makes the battle shorter. After your infantry has dealt with the HMC, you do not have enough missile to keep the same killing rate for Mongol Missile units and you are sure to end up with a pretty un-balance Mongol army that you will have nothing to counter. If you can find some woods, you will prevail but most of the time the AI will not be dumb enough to attack with MHA and MW in the woods and will just pepper your troops with arrows for ages. You will not take a lot of casualties but you can be sure that the battle will only end once the time has run out. I encountered this once with an army of almost entirely made of vikings. Battle took place in Lithuania so there was quite enough forest. MHC attacked the vikings in the woods, got slaughtered and then I could do nothing but wait for the GH to run out of arrows and time. Must have been my most boring battle against the GH ever (and battles against the GH are always boring IMHO) especially since the next year the GH came back with an army made of the survivor of the previous battle .... thus MHA and MW only :wall: They kept coming back for four years in a row before givin up as a result of a civil war ... Even with the possibility to accelerate the clock, that makes three hours of boredom (after the few fun minutes during which the vikings made horsemeat out of the MHC).

Most efficient option I found is 7 arbs, 7 CS and 2 units of cavalry to chase routing MW. If I am waiting for the GH in Khazar or Kiev I off course keep reinforcement available, more or less 2/3 arbs, 1/3 CS since after a while all you really have to replace are the arbs that have run out of bolts. I sometimes change the line-up a bit for the fun of it or as a result of the circumstances but I have not found anything that would make battles with the appearing GH faster or more entertaining.

Just an opinion of course
Bye for now,

Trapped in Samsara

11-20-2009, 14:16

Hi

Can I join this party?

OK, I reckon I must have fought initial Horde Tsunamis at least twenty times in open field battles. I cannot recall losing any of those engagements - which could be selective memory, of course - but I can bring to mind some awesome battles (20,000 bloodthirsty Mongols screaming for my head! Well that's how I like to imagine it, anyway.) that warped away a whole day, transporting me to the Russian steppe/Caucusus/Black Sea coast in the process.

None of which makes me an expert, but here's my ha'penny worth.

I'm firmly in the spears + arbs/xbows camp. Fighting the Horde requires patience. I've normally found that leaving the laager is when I suffer stupid casualties. So I force myself to stick to the plan: sit behind the spearwall (SIs or FS do nicely) and have a plentiful supply of missile unit reinforcements - maybe in the sequence missile, spear, missile, cav.

It helps to be able to roll a cigarette when the urge to go after those badboys from the East strikes.

Mind you, having a couple of MS or even HA is useful to round up fleeing routers - just watch the captured counter rack up.

I'm not a big fan of fighting in forests: I tend to lose control of the action and sometimes find my front has been infiltrated by an enemy unit slipping through a gap I didn't notice.

I do find archers useful, 'cos they're quick, have a better rate of fire, and can sit behind the spears. I usually (and this is not just against the Horde) select 3 or 4 archers in my initial deployment and group them in a 2 x 2 block set back from the main battle line, fire at will off. Their job is to take out the enemy general when he foolishly comes within range. Bit of an exploit, I know, but the fate of the civilized world - not to mention Christendom/the Jama'ah - is at stake, so the gloves are off. :skull:

Regards
Victor

Vantek

11-20-2009, 17:20

Oh goodie, here we go again.

1) I claimed that when facing a cavalry-heavy army, Halberdiers are the way to go and Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen are redundant compared to Halberdiers
2) I was proven wrong as CS/SI/AS were shown to have more staying power vs cavalry, due to slower exhaustion, better defense vs. cavalry, and higher numbers
3) I still insist that this staying power can only be used meaningfully to protect Arbalesters, and if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then Halberdiers are better.
4) People then thought I was claiming that being low on Arbalesters is optimal. I assure you I never meant to claim this. I merely meant to point out that when you use CS/SI/AS over Halberdiers, then it must be for the protection of Arbalesters and nothing else. People have somehow been very reluctant to let this simple fact see daylight, which confused the hell out of me and resulted in this long discussion getting drawn out even further. It might have been obvious to everyone else, but I honestly did not realise for the longest time that everyone had in mind that we are necessarily talking about Arbalester-heavy armies. It might well be that Arbalester-heavy armies are the most effective thing ever. I never argued *against* that, I just didn't realise that people even had this in mind.

Fair enough if you face just one stack of Mongols but if you face the GH when it shows up, you will end up facing an army made exclusively of MHA and MW since your halbs will kill MHC much faster than your arbs will deal with the missile units.
Good point. The thing is, I personally never take personal command of a battle where I would need to use more than two full stacks, hence my comment.

This coupled with my low patience and bad micromanagement also explains why I would ever want to be low on Arbalesters even in the case that properly managed Arbalester-heavy armies are more effective in the long run. In the kind of short battles vs the Horde that I most typically have, crushing the first wave of heavy cavalry is the core issue, and Halberdiers are by far the easiest solution to this issue. I don't mind pushing the slider right and waiting for remaining enemy archers to empty their quivers as long as I don't have to pay any further attention.

caravel

11-20-2009, 17:50

3) I still insist that this staying power can only be used meaningfully to protect Arbalesters, and if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then Halberdiers are better.

As I said before, "staying power" is different depending on conditions and the enemy you are facing. In terms of spears, the staying power is not just for protecting alrbalesters, but all other units that might be vulnerable to a cavalry charge. Also well armoured spears such as Saracens up front draw the enemies fire and protect your not so heavily armoured units and your cavalry from MHA.

drone

11-20-2009, 18:37

4) People then thought I was claiming that being low on Arbalesters is optimal. I assure you I never meant to claim this. I merely meant to point out that when you use CS/SI/AS over Halberdiers, then it must be for the protection of Arbalesters and nothing else.

Spearmen will maintain the cohesiveness your lines. When your lines get jumbled with an all attack-at-will strategy, your individual units will be susceptible to flank and rear charges, as well as morale penalties for unprotected flanks. Against a mobile enemy like the Horde, this is dangerous.

So the spear units are not necessarily there to protect missile units, they also give your army a solid backbone and axis of defense.

Concerning arbalester heavy armies, I think there is a code trigger in the battle AI, so that if you field too many (more than 4-5) infantry missile units, the enemy will rush you before you can set up. I've been the victim of this several times, so I limit my missile units to 4 max. Since I can't really use more than 4 effectively anyway, no big deal. I just set up the reinforcement queue to handle expected missile replacements when the ammo runs out.

And about the discussion, the Main Hall has been pretty dead lately. We are all just happy to talk about something. :bow:

Vantek

11-20-2009, 19:15

When your lines are jumbled, then so are the enemy's... I would consider myself better at taking advantage of this than the AI.

I limit my missile units to 4 max
Oh goodie! No need for spearmen then :)

And about the discussion, the Main Hall has been pretty dead lately. We are all just happy to talk about something.
Maybe I should use my expert Necromancer skills yet again to revive the battlestory thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=98785)... I am still shocked by how young that thread is and how little attention it got... It should have been an ancient thousand post thread I tell you!

gollum

11-20-2009, 19:30

Originally posted by Vantek
Good point. The thing is, I personally never take personal command of a battle where I would need to use more than two full stacks, hence my comment.

Well if that's the case many of your arguments are in the wrong thread, it seems to me. Fighting the Horde, gives out notoriously long battles with far more than two stacks on the part of player in many cases.

It just seems to me that your arguments and questions are going in circles, because primarily you are not willing to consider other styles of play. Opinions and suggestions of other players are there to let us all draw knowledge from each other and enhance our playstyles and so enjoy the game more. They are not there to make you feel right or wrong - just try out the suggestions if you will or not. If not there is no reason to pursue this debate with the same questions and arguments, because you will most likely receive the same answers.

:bow:

PS One good way to be more adaptable in your ideas is to play multiplayer. Try that, and it will teach you many things. There is a small but highly friendly and experienced cluster of players playing VI on friday evenings, Central European time. Just drop in and enjoy. This guide will tell you how and many other useful info:https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=32936

Vantek

11-20-2009, 20:15

:S

More recent portion of the discussion has been mostly people saying that MY playstyle sucks... I already admitted that I was totally in the wrong once, I thought that would have cleared suspicion towards my motives...

They are not there to make you feel right or wrong
Ah, but often using the aggressive argumentative approach results in fastest progress. Of course I am noone to say what's right or wrong - but making people feel a bit... confronted leads them to analyse and express their thoughts more clearly :)

gollum

11-20-2009, 20:31

Originally posted by Vantek
More recent portion of the discussion has been mostly people saying that MY playstyle sucks...

It seems to me that this is how you took it, as far as i can tell everyone has been friendly and open, and furthermore it has been stated over and over by various posters that playstyle is something to be respected. Its most likely due to the circular nature of your questions that seem to me like springing from the need to defend your current playstyle that you got the same answer multiple times from multiple posters.

I already admitted that I was totally in the wrong once...

Nobody asked you to admit anything, this is a friendly sub-forum with longtime knowledgeable and friendly members, there is no need to apologise, i'm sure everyone is glad to help; no reason for you to feel this way.

I thought that would have cleared suspicion towards my motives...

Nobody questioned your motives which was why the same questions were answered again and again in a friendly, consisted and informed manner if you ask me.

Ah, but often using the aggressive argumentative approach results in fastest progress.

I hope you mean that you used such a style because as far as i can tell no one else did. In any case it is (once more) not a matter of style but of argumentation and being able to accept suggestions without feeling the need to prove yourself right.

Of course I am noone to say what's right or wrong - but making people feel a bit... confronted leads them to analyse and express their thoughts more thoroughly

It sounds like what happens when someone has fixed ideas that he is not prepared to give easily up. I understand that the more he is prompted to, the more he will react, but when the reaction subsides, dont neglect to put them into the test after a while and see if they work for you. Like everything new they'll be strangers at first, but if they do work, they'll be eventually ingrained in you and become part of your game hopefully.

This process is key in improving in TWmp and in anything for that matter. Pride and the need to be correct have to be thrown out of the window because often they are the greatest impediment in learning and so improving.

:bow:

Vantek

11-20-2009, 20:42

Now-now, don't you worry about me... I haven't taken anything personally and I have no problem accepting other ideas. If I continue the "argument" it's because I genuinely don't understand the other side, not because I have an infantile need to prove everyone wrong.

I hope you mean that you used such a style
Yes, that's what I meant.

Nobody questioned your motives
You are questioning them still. You think I'm "arguing" just for the sake of argument, because I'm dying to prove I'm right. Well, if there's anything I'm dying to prove, it's the fact that I'm only "arguing" because I'm interested in understanding what other people think :P

Nobody asked you to admit anything.
They should have. I was in the wrong. Being respectful is one thing. Paving the way for genuinely erroneous ideas is another.

Its most likely due to the circular nature of your questions that seem to me like springing from the need to defend your current playstyle that you got the same answer multiple times from multiple posters.
How are my questions circular? There has been considerable progress in the discussion. I now know things I didn't know before. The only problem has been a lot of misunderstanding and misplaced emphasis, not circularity.

gollum

11-20-2009, 20:51

:bow:

Vantek

11-20-2009, 20:55

:daisy:

caravel

11-20-2009, 20:59

On behalf of our Main Hall forum Taishos Mithrandir and bamff, may their camels never falter: Back to topic if you please gentlemen.

It's been a very good thread so far (one of the best thread necromancies ever in fact).

:bow:

gollum

11-20-2009, 21:10

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
...(one of the best thread necromancies ever in fact)

Indeed, by far the most succesful i've seen... it seems we all felt its... magic :laugh4:

Vantek

11-20-2009, 21:38

gollum

11-20-2009, 22:10

Originally posted by Vantek
How can you create gaps in your formation when there's cavalry around...

You dont create gaps but have a loose front.

high ground
.........LightC......................................HC*............................................ ..........LightC
.....................................arbs...........arbs..........arbs.............................. .....
.................elites........................................................................elite s......
..........flankers.......arbs...........arbs..........arbs..............arbs.....flankers
................spears........................................................................spears ...
....................................spears..............................spears.....................
low ground

If your front line is solid (as i've written previously) the arbalasters won't do much damage when the MHC is pinned and most vulnerable (because the MTW engine gives a penalty to accuracy for missiles that shoot at moving targets) since all missiles target enemy units when the projectile path does not intersect with friendly units (in fire at will), unless you specifically instruct them to shoot at a target. If you do so however while the arbalasters are sitting behind your solid front line, you'll be hiting your own troops at the back, making them very likely to turn tail and run.

Such a deployment gives opportunities to put with ap flankers to good use that can deal a lot of casualties when all enemy horse engages (as i've written previously). This saves your flankers being counterflanked by incoming MHC. Another way to do it is to send them after a pinned MHC while a spear protects their rear from more incoming MHC.

Its best to leave elites, like Varangians and Chivalric Foot kanighits close to the arbs and not move them around too much to deal with any MHC that comes up to the arbs or to act as a last resort that can keep the MHC at bay for the rest of your army to rally if you are overun.

Its also best (as i've written previously) to deploy the arbs in depth; that is 3 in one level and 3 in a level above them up the slope. This depth of missiles makes their formation more resilient and easier to safeguard when you have a slope. It does not work on flat ground however, because obviously the front guys impede that back guys to shoot. In a slope situation even if the MHC reach the arbs, they will be shot by the arbs behind them or you can rotate one of your own arbs next to the one that is engaged and have a clear volley of death against the MHC. You can rotate units or gruops of units with alt+right click towards the direction you want their new facing to be.

The idea is simple; to deny space to the MHC that charges you, while allowing space to your missiles and ap flankers to do teh job.

In the context of such a formation, halberdiers would work as last trench guards, pretty much like the elites i described above, as they are too slow to flank and cannot pin. They are poor for that too though, because they aern't elite, have low morale and tire lots that brings their morale down (as i've writen previously).

Make sure you use a 5-6 ranks depth for the spears if you try this as they become unyieldy if they are stretched too long and they also close the "gaps" the arbs can shoot through.

Obvoiusly the mix proportions may be adjusted, you can bring more flankers and less elites, or more arbalasters and less spears etc.

Keep in mind that one of the great disavdantages of this formation (and any other that involves missiles lined up) is the risk that the line can be "rolled up" from the flank, ie if an enemy HC reaches the edge arb and engage him long enough to rout him, then you may be in for a chain or even mass rout. This is because the other arbs cannot shoot any cavalry that approaches from the side - this is actually very much used in mp. That's why the flanks are strongly guarded with spears, flankers and the elites. If the enemy changes their approach to avoid your main line of fire, you should redeploy accordingly
to move it to target the new enemy approach to your line. This is why slopes that are at the side edge of the map are pure gold; one of your flanks is covered.

:bow:

caravel

11-20-2009, 22:23

I am honored by the approval of my act of necromancy :laugh4: Perhaps indeed I should use my skills on that battlestories thread as well...

To get back on topic...

What strategies do you guys use to:
1) defend against Golden Horde on FLAT terrain
2) attack Golden Horde on flat terrain?
It very much depends on the faction you're playing. I would go archer/arbalest and spear heavy and try a very much defensive approach. Horse archers and any cavalry have the advantage on flat open terrain. If there are lots of woods, i.e. Lithuania, the battle can go in your favour by drawing the enemy into it. Almost any intantry unit with an AP attack, such as woodsmen, MS, Ghazi, Vikings or better still, the polearms units such as CFK, JHI and yes even halberdiers can do well in the woods against cavalry. The trick is to not let the enemy draw you out of the woods or waste energy chasing the MHA. The most important trick is to save ammo. Keep your missiles on hold fire and only let them fire at will when you know that they will have devastating effect. Arbalest bolts should be saved for the MHC and any archers you bring should concentrate their fire on the MHA. Dion't waste arrows on the warrirors, have some light cavalry to sneak in on their flanks, rout them and then get back to your lines.

When we are attacking, is AI stupid enough to let their missile units be massacred by Arbalesters in a missile duel without charging? In that case, attacking could paradoxally be easier than defending... As when the AI is attacking, he will definitely charge cavalry WHILE using missile units, making it difficult to use missile units of your own on flat ground.
No, but the AI has to approach your battle lines in order to charge, and that's when most of the damage is dealt. Also during the melee, you will have to designate the horde units further from your lines in order to avoid hitting your own men.

Am I correct in that cavalry is much more valuable on flat ground? As your front line cannot have height advantage, and flank/rear attacks won't be uphill either, making flanking much more effective.
Absolutely. Flat, open terrain gives cavalry the advantage.

So the best I can come up with is simply something crude like, 6 Halberdiers (:P), 6 Arbalesters, 4 heavy cavalry, and just have a very long Halberdier+Arbalester line, moving Arbalesters in front during a missile duel and moving Halberdiers in front to deal with melee charge, while using heavy cavalry to deal rear charges and chase routers...

Does everyone use that change-facing-of-spears-and-shoot-through-the-gaps approach on flat ground? That still feels mind-boggling to me!! How can you create gaps in your formation when there's cavalry around... Oh well...
Heavy Cavalry are for destroying heavy infantry. They are there for shock effect. Deploying them against the horde would be a waste as they would either get worn down by arrows or forced to duel it out with the MHC. Also they would not be that useful in pursuing routers. The best approach is to to let the enemy throw himself at your spears and then deal the killer blow with your flanking units. When the MHC begin to rout, chase them down with light cavalry. You arbalesters and archers should ensure that the MHC are worn down when they reach your lines. Though try to have your archers target selected MHA units. Again using the woods is a good idea if they are available. You can often position your main army defensively adjacent to a wood and hide your flankers inside. When attacking from woods: select the unit and then click on the target unit [i]once[i]. Let the unit go to it's target unhindered. If you click again, the "surprise" factor will be lost.

:bow:

bondovic

11-21-2009, 01:15

PershsNhpios

11-21-2009, 02:33

That boat has not only left, Bondovic, it is also long since sunk beneath the waves of wise censorship!

Forgive me if I have not understood your formation description clearly enough, Gollum s'ah, but I believe I would have some difficulty in maintaining a defence with what you have described in post 174.

This is not to say that I doubt the efficiency of that formation, but rather that I have no experience in the use of it, nor with Mongolian assaults, nor do I know the power of arbalesters.

If such a wave of bolts can really and totally prevent heavy horse from approaching the front of the army, and if one unit of spears and one of elites and flankers are truly capable of quickly disarming a flanking attack, then it is a most valuable tactic.

But even in western European battles against conventional troops, I find that unless terrain features permit, a static defense is simply too stubborn and predisposed.

If however this formation is meant to be more manipular and improvised, can you explain which units would exchange places with each other in order to protect the missile units and how a chain rout can be prevented?

Surely you can't be leaving so much to chance! With this formation appearing otherwise to be a rotten tooth...

HopAlongBunny

11-21-2009, 03:47

This is a standard set up

..................................................arb...arb...arb...arb

..........................................................spr...spr...
...................................................spr..................spr
.............................................halb/ms...halb......halb/ms
....................................cav........cav......gen.........cav.......cav

On offence it is compact enough to be easily adjusted and tweaked on the move; on defence the centre is solid and flanks easily reinforced.

Its flexibility is why I use it on attack or defence. Flank attacks can be countered or created by wheeling the components; the arbs/missile can withdraw to the flank if rushed where they can set up for flank rear attacks. The cav allows for flank/rear attacks on engaged units or quick support.

Patience against the Horde super-stacks is key. I have lost engagements when down to their routers by: ctl-a >select annoying MHA > charge! and doing it repeatedly until their gone or my army routs :p

On attack the Horde often does what it is supposed to do: feign engagement; retreat; all while peppering your units with arrows. I have chased to Horde to all 4 corners of the map before getting them to stand and fight.

There is no magic bullet to making these fights fast; or at least none that I have found outside the usual => kill general => corner and kill army

gollum

11-21-2009, 16:29

Dear Glenn,

this formation works first and foremost in defending against the Horde. In such battles you are typically heavily outnumbered hence why a static defence is preferable. Also i refer you to my post #128 in this very thread in which it is stated that this formation would not work against sword infantry heavy armies.

It is also mantioned by myself and Asai Nagamasa throughout this thread, that the arbalasters need to befiring mass coordiated volleys that you control and order, by grouping them and toggling fire at will off and then on when the enemy has moved at an appropraite range, because otherwise you are waisting your ammo in suboptimal use. Typically new players neglect to use them this way, hence each arb is firing in his own time, scaling down significantly their effectiveness and wasting away their ammo, which is probably why you are in disbelief.

First try out to fight the Horde in person (something that as you have recently written you have not attempted yet) and then you will understand why different tactics than those using in Western Europe are needed; tactics based around being static, and that furthermore are economical in terms of casualties and movement of your troops because as ive said you are heavily outnumbered and have only so many soldiers against a sea of Mongols. These are battles that you have prepared two-three stacks to deny landing to 15 or more Mongol Stacks.

All a Mongol army wants you to do is go after him and spread out; then they can set up their greatest advantages into play: mobility, shock and firepower. Mongol AI armies are masters of counterflanking, envelopping and grinding down. They have patience, cunning and play to their strengths , which is why battles against the Horde tend to be boring once you get the hang of it; you learn not to go and engage them as this brings outright disaster or results in so many casualties that you risk losing the battle by being overwhelmed.

You need to become steady as a mountain and still as a wood in order to deny them their strengths and allow your fewer troops to last to the end of the battle.

The formation can be adapted in terms of composition and geometry (it doesnt have to be exactly symmetrical; you can adapt according to the terrain and the deployment of teh enemy), but the basic aim is the same: take space from your opponent (so he can't charge you), give space to yourself (so you can shoot him, pin him and flank him). The above depiction is diagramatic only, the formation becomes fluid from the positions shown according to the deployment of the enemy during attack. No description from me will ever substitute you trying out things in battle. First try what your instinct tells you and if that proves no good start picking up hints.

It is not a panachy nor the one i always use, even against the Horde. It is really effective though against it (the Horde), and very very safe in that it economises in fatigue and casulties, because your primary killers are the missiles.

:bow:

Vantek

11-21-2009, 20:50

Thanks for taking the time to write a long explanation gollum. I am still having trouble understanding what is going on though :dizzy2:

You dont create gaps but have a loose front.
Erm, what is the difference? Are the spears stretched into very thin lines? That doesn't sound right. Aren't there gaps in your front line? Won't enemy cavalry come through those gaps to attack the Arbalesters?

Absolutely. Flat, open terrain gives cavalry the advantage.
For once I am right about something :D

Heavy Cavalry are for destroying heavy infantry. They are there for shock effect. Deploying them against the horde would be a waste as they would either get worn down by arrows or forced to duel it out with the MHC. Also they would not be that useful in pursuing routers. The best approach is to to let the enemy throw himself at your spears and then deal the killer blow with your flanking units.
But who do you use as flankers then to deal that killer blow if it's not heavy cavalry? As heavy cavalry is exactly the ideal flanking unit! Heavy cavalry has "killer blow" written all over it! No other unit possesses as high attack + charge.

Perhaps this wasn't directed at me, but I believe I argued my point quite proficiently. That point was that: Spears are not ONLY (!) for arb protection. Seen? NOT only for arb protection. It's almost as if you're completely in the dark about the fundamentals of flanking. This point sticks regardless of wether you sport nothing but halbs or mix in 2 cavs and 3-4 arbs. Killing speed vs. kill/death ratio effectiveness is the issue.

Try not to get snippy now, I'm just using confrontationalism to get you sharper.
Not at all, very good :)

Do you here mean that you use cavalry as flankers? Is this only on flat ground?

In my experience, Halberdiers survive the first charge very well and proceed to turn any cavalry into ground meat very quickly. Chivalric Sergeants and equivalents survive a lot of charges but also cause very little damage. So the way I feel is, using CS/SI/AS is just prolonging the battle and making things unnecessarily complicated, when you can just use Halberdiers to directly crush the charging cavalry without any fancy maneuvers. It would make sense if there was a true monster killer unit available that when charging into anyone's rear would tear through enemy lines like paper and guarantee a snap-rout. The only thing that comes close to that effect is heavy cavalry, but compared to Halberdiers, is the difference really so strong to warrant making things so complicated?

It's genuinely hard for me to imagine how trying to flank MHC like that could be preferable when defending on hills (as the units recieving the charge will be holding the high ground and I'd really want to use that power to kill, whereas flankers will need to fight uphill, making the whole maneuver much less effective). Will you at least give me that? On flat ground, as you see from my new question, I am not at all as confident in my knowledge :P Still, even so it's hard for me to imagine how you could flank very well with anything but cavalry.

It's almost as if you're completely in the dark about the fundamentals of flanking.
To me the fundamentals of flanking surface when we are facing infantry-heavy armies. You have an infantry line (I guess against *infantry* I would use mostly CMAA, not spears or Halberdiers... Though I guess typically enemy also has some cavalry, so a mix of CMAA&Halbs is best) and cavalry. You engage your infantry line with enemy infantry line. Then you run cavalry behind enemy infantry line and charge the rear to deal a devastating blow.

When facing cavalry though, in the form of Halberdiers you already have the perfect anti-cavalry unit that can both withstand charges as well as massacre the charging cavalry directly without the need for complicated maneuvers. The units that possess highest killing power against cavalry (Halbs, CFK) themselves are too slow to be used for flanking, otherwise I would use them to flank as well. If there existed a "mounted halberdier" or "supercamel" unit, and if Halberdiers were truly bad at withstanding cavalry charges, I would be flanking MHC exactly the way you describe. Thing is though, Halberdiers can take a charge pretty damn well, and proceed to massacre cavalry right afterwards. No need to bother with the even slower-dying but almost pacifist CS/SI/AS.

caravel

11-21-2009, 20:58

My standard anti-horde formations are pretty unimaginitive and boil down to something like this:

---------GEN------BOW-----BOW-----BOW---CAV-CAV

--MS/CFK/BILL---SPR----SPR----SPR----SPR---MS/CFK/BILL
-----------ARB^------ARB^-------ARB^-------ARB^

When it comes to the Turks in early/high:

--GEN--TF/FUT--TF/FUT--TF/FUT--TF/FUT---TH-TH

--GHAZI---SRC----SRC----SRC----SRC---GHAZI
-----------------CRB^------CRB^

And once Janissaries are available (high/late):

---GEN----------JI------JI------JI----------TH-TH

--JHI-JHI---SRC----SRC----SRC----SRC---JHI-JHI
-----------------CRB^------CRB^

The Byzantines are an interesting faction with which to take on the Horde as they have no decent spears available. It would be interesting to know which units/tactics/formations people use?

:bow:

bondovic

11-21-2009, 21:58

So the way I feel is, using CS/SI/AS is just prolonging the battle and making things unnecessarily complicated, when you can just use Halberdiers to directly crush the charging cavalry without any fancy maneuvers.

I think I gave you the benefit of the doubt in my very first post regarding this. And as I emphasized in my latest - the issue is killing speed vs. kill/death ratio effectiveness. (But maybe you're not questioning the use of spears per se, as much as simply arguing in favor of the speed-kill-doctrine? Because it's more fun? Granted, I can see that.)

Regarding the flanking, I don't do halbs. Of course. They're too slow, as we all know. Being a Turk player I favor Ghazis. Charge + atk + armor piercing makes them better than any cavalry available for that purpose. Add in their speed and morale and you see why they excel. AAMOF, I prefer infantry flankers for some reason. I think it has to do with them being easier to control. They don't take up so much space and they turn smoother than cavalry. This is defensive flanking, though. When I have to come way around on the offense I go with cavalry.

It's genuinely hard for me to imagine how trying to flank MHC like that could be preferable when defending on hills (as the units recieving the charge will be holding the high ground and I'd really want to use that power to kill, whereas flankers will need to fight uphill, making the whole maneuver much less effective). Will you at least give me that? On flat ground, as you see from my new question, I am not at all as confident in my knowledge :P Still, even so it's hard for me to imagine how you could flank very well with anything but cavalry.

Well. When defending the high ground, you can maybe start to discount the effect of pinning/flanking. But only because the halbs will have better staying power, not because the flanking manouver would be less effective. Sure, they'd be fighting uphill, but that only impacts negatively on their charge. They'd still afflict the flankees with the morale drop and would still get the atk bonus for fighting into an enemy's rear. Also, if done properly, you'd tilt your spears' heading so they'd be 'half facing' your flanking unit. This opens up the rear of the unit charging your spears to your flankers. At this point they wont be charging uphill, even. It's kind of tricky, and not the sort of thing you'd be interested in, judging by your preference for speedy, nothing-fancy killing. :yes:

Soooo... the point remains - speed vs effectiveness (but with a smaller gap). Going balls out can get you some entertaining and spectacular victories, but that style is so much more vulnerable to x-factors and small mistakes.

:sweatdrop:

PershsNhpios

11-21-2009, 22:25

Thank you Gollum!

And allow me to answer Vantek's primary question:

He may have gaps in his front line, but the enemy cannot possibly filter through them for very weight of firepower.
Thus they are not gaps, but contours of a staggered or 'loose' formation.

Please note that I have in fact fought battles east of the Danuvio, in fact I have fought against every faction except the Horde, but I don't expect them to be similar to fighting Turks.

Is it better to be Turkic in 1230A.D.?

Judging by Nagamasa's Turkic formation, it appears that the Turcoman foot, and especially the Janissary infantry would be excellent matches for the horde, and far more suitable than any western selection.

Is this agreed?

Vantek

11-21-2009, 23:16

bondovic, I think we are starting to approach mutual understanding :) I would summarise at this point that I might be underestimating the effectiveness of a rear attack and paying too little attention to battles on flat ground, and you might be underestimating the difference between uphill vs downhill.

But maybe you're not questioning the use of spears per se, as much as simply arguing in favor of the speed-kill-doctrine? Because it's more fun? Granted, I can see that.
It's certainly a strong reason why I would use this approach even if it was less effective, but as I'll explain below I am not yet sure it is less effective.

When defending the high ground, you can maybe start to discount the effect of pinning/flanking. But only because the halbs will have better staying power, not because the flanking manouver would be less effective. Sure, they'd be fighting uphill, but that only impacts negatively on their charge.
According to all my knowledge and experience, this is not true. Fighting uphill reduces attack in standard melee after the charge, and the effect can be very large. I remember reading it from the game numbers (effective attack factor in actual soldier vs soldier after the charge is dependent on height difference). And long before reading that I had developed an intuition in the game that a battle between units of equal power level can result in one absolutely decimating the other because of height difference, disregarding the charge.

I always, always, ALWAYS want to hold the high ground. Always always ALWAYS. High ground is the "most key" factor in MTW in my mind. If I have Halberdiers on decent slope, and they get charged into from below by MHC, I expect the fight to go heavily in my favour considering unit values, maybe 3:1. Versus MHC, I do not expect to achieve such a kill ratio by the best possible uphill rear charge. Can you really beat that with spearmen + flanking maneuver on hills? Or does Halberdiers getting charged into result in a worse kill ratio in your experience?

It's kind of tricky, and not the sort of thing you'd be interested in, judging by your preference for speedy, nothing-fancy killing.
My main concern with that move would be not the slowness or fanciness, but abandoning high ground, the risk of leaving gaps in the line, leaving the tilted unit's flank exposed, in short greatly increasing the x-factor you yourself do not seem to appreciate :P It is possible that the x-factor would not be increased if I had better skill, but the extent to which you discount the negative effect of fighting uphill for a rear charge sounds like a more important factor in our disagreement.

If I think about it, on flat ground however I would not feel nearly as confident getting Halberdiers charged into. Do you fight a lot on flat ground? Maybe the thing is that you fight more on flat ground than me, and spear+flankers works very well there, while direct halberdier crush is better when you hold high ground, which is the only place where I feel comfortable :P

And allow me to answer Vantek's primary question:

He may have gaps in his front line, but the enemy cannot possibly filter through them for very weight of firepower.
Thus they are not gaps, but contours of a staggered or 'loose' formation.
You mean tight, loose, wedge, THAT kind of loose formation? :S Doesn't that strip spearmen of all rank bonuses and some of their already low morale??

gollum

11-22-2009, 00:09

Originally posted by Vantek
Erm, what is the difference? Are the spears stretched into very thin lines? That doesn't sound right. Aren't there gaps in your front line? Won't enemy cavalry come through those gaps to attack the Arbalesters?

Not as many as if you had no spears in front. Then its up to the arbs to punish them with mass fire volleys and if required bring the elites to back them up, although this is hardly necessary especially if you deploy them in depth.

You seem to think that water can either fully pass if there is no fence or fully be stoped if there is a solid fence.

What this formations allows for is a partial fence that lets little water to pass in turn so you can gulp it down. There is a world of difference between 4-5 MHC charging the arbs simultaneously and one or two passing through the spears in each wave. This is precisely the strength of the formation. Put in the depth of the arbs and the good work of flankers and you are in for some serious piles of dead horsies.

It seems to me that you cannot imagine a more cooperative play between ap flankers, spears and arbs, because so far you were dealing with this with mass melee troops and few missiles. This also indicates that you are lacking in using the controls and the grouping features, typically this leads to less coordinative styles between unit types and more unicoloured armies like your heavy preference in Halberdiers.

My advice is to check out the relevant available guides on the org and become better in using the interface and controls - this in turn will enable you to try playstyles that require a higher degree of coordination of unit types.

:bow:

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
The Byzantines are an interesting faction with which to take on the Horde as they have no decent spears available. It would be interesting to know which units/tactics/formations people use?

Exactly the same tactics with morale upgraded vanilla spears and a few mercenary spears if available like Saracens, Russians, Armored Spears, FeudalSs, ChivCs - whatever avialable. Works every time. Just dont bother with Promoia Cavalry, Byz Cavalry and Kats, other than for the general's unit, as they are vastly more expensive and less able than Mongol Cav. Alans, Byz lancers and even vanilla horse archers on the other hand and steppe cav. (light) are what you are after. Varangians as elites and flankers; they are far too good units and can do anything required really, although a little expensive but they are undoubtedlt worth it. The odd Billman if available.

In my opinion eastern factions shouldn't be allowed arbs and crossbows - but should be having vastly more capable "composite" bow units instead that could be an antidote to bolts in terms of lethality and armor penetration. Bows are far too weak in MTW especially as the eras go by and more armor comes into play. IIRC the Horde gets ap arrows in the MedMod; this makes them quite more dangerous than vanilla.

:bow:

Vantek

11-22-2009, 00:31

OK, I think it's starting to dawn on me :) Thanks for being so patient as to explain it to a tinhead like me :) A very clever strategy you've got there!

Will any horses ever actually reach the Arbalesters? Do they typically rout instantly? Can the elites really reach the cavalry that has come through in time? Do you just switch Arbalesters on Fire on Will at the exact moment that the 1-2 units of MHC step beyond the gapped wall of spears?

gollum

11-22-2009, 00:46

Originally posted by Vantek
OK, I think it's starting to dawn on me :) Thanks for being so patient as to explain it to a tinhead like me :) A very clever strategy you've got there!

It isn't really clever, just safe and economical. It raises considerably your chances of winning these very long drawn intial battles with the Horde because it lets the bolts do the killing, so your foot units are enough even when heavily outnumbered.

Obviously you will need reinforcements: arbs, light cavalry, spears and flankers. Since arbs and spears are by far the highest proportion you can adjust the reinforcements in such a way that waves or arbs are followed by smaller waves of spears with the occasional flanker or light cavalry interspersed. Get the elites in from the beginning as often the first waves may be quite severe (say almost 16 units of MHC!) - so they might be necessary off the bat.

Will any horses ever actually reach the Arbalesters? Do they typically rout instantly? Can the elites really reach the cavalry that has come through in time?

Occasionaly, yes someone will reach them, although your mass volleys should be delivered just before this happens that will drive them off with very high casualties.

There are many ways to deal with the eventuality.

Set the arbs in hold formation: this allows them to shoot even if parially engaged. This means that if a MHC has partially engaged an arb, the rest of the unit's facing will deliver a "in your face" volley in the MHC. Usually this is enough.

At the same time, set the arbs in hold position; this takes attack points and turns them in defense points, which basically means taht teh arb can take quite some time of grinding engagement before it routs that allow you to either bring a flanker or elite back up or to rotate an adjacent arb and deliver a volley in their naked rear. WHichever of these will do the job.

In time as your coordination and familiarity with such tactics increases you'll cover any "suspect" MHC well before he manages to do any harm. Just give it some time and effort if willing and able.

:bow:

PS One of the most dangerous times that the Horde can catch you "off guard" is when you are retreating units and bringing in reinforcements to replenish your ranks. If the Horde happens to attack with a severe wave of MHC while your reinforcements haven't come in yet and your substituted units are on their way out, youmay be caught outnumbered and routed off the field. This may be severe enough to lose you the battle, because too many units may be wasted in the rout.

In order to avoid such an unpleasant event, always deploy no more than half the distance to the enemy edge, always deploy with having in mind the route your reinforcements will have to take to reach your main army andmake sure this is safe, and always choose to exchange units when the Horde has been just routed or when it is one of these phases that it is simply shooting you with MHA and it does not have too many MHCs that can sweep you out.

This is another reason why i dislike halbs against the Horde and why i also dislike Pavise Arbs - at least in great numbers.

PPS You should set the arbs in hold form/hold pos from the start and keep them this way not just when they are engaged by enemy troops.

:bow:

bondovic

11-22-2009, 04:28

Att: Vantek.

I don't know what else to tell you, man. I think there's a smaller gap between the two approaches when you compare them in an uphill battle situation (I'll go out on a limb and say: considerably smaller gap, so there's no question anymore). However, I do belive that I have a pretty good assesment of the ratios involved and so am not underestimating the importance of holding the high ground. That being said, I can only speak from my own experience, of course. And that tells me that there's no problem whatsoever with flanking in hilly battles. It might not have the same pzazz to it, but it sure gets the job done with very satisfying ratios still.

I almost always welcome the GH in Khazar. Flat ground it is. I have done it in Georgia on the odd occassion, but with the same approach. I tend to get something like 10:1 ratios in hillies and 7:2 on flat (wild estimates, but fairly educated). Turk style, that is.

William the Silent

11-22-2009, 11:01

First thing I always do with arbs is kill the enemy general. That's weakens the whole attack. I've actually been succesful with that with art too.
And if you end up killing the Khan in battle of the Hordes first appearance you'll have some great units to recruit for cheap.

Vantek

11-22-2009, 19:45

Fair enough bondovic. Flanking when holding high ground really doesn't fit well into my intuition of the game, but I suppose I must be underestimating it. Thanks for the discussion!

gollum, how do you control the Arbalesters? IIRC you use Fire on Will button? Do you just switch Arbalesters on Fire on Will at the exact moment that the 1-2 units of MHC step beyond the line of spears?

gollum

11-22-2009, 20:11

Yes, and it really works when the arbs have a clear target whether the MHC has passed the spears or is approaching the spears (its good to give them one good volley then too). In cases however that you want some arbalater(s) to target a particularly vulnerable MHC (preferably stationary) its best to toggle fire at will off and then give them the order to target the one you want. You can stop them shooting at it by simply pressing backspace that is the shortcut for cancelling orders (otherwise they'll foloow it in order to shoot it).

This is standard missile tactics in mp in order to get a really good shot at enemy HC units; if in addition their numbers have been whitled down and they have been fatigued they are most likely to turn tail and run on the spot. You can hit pretty high instant casualties on the enemy this way.

The same missile tactics work for arquebusiers too, however they dont have the range of the arbs and so its best to use them tigether with arbs and not alone. They can be just behind the first line of arbs and they add really some extra punch in the volleys. If lucky you can have some of them against the Horde if you pay attention in the mercenary pools; this is because all gunpoweder units are designated high but they are not linked directly to the gunpoweder event; the buildings that produce them are. So sometimes you can find them as mercenaries well before the gunpoweder event.

:bow:

Vantek

11-22-2009, 20:42

You can stop them shooting at it by simply pressing backspace that is the shortcut for cancelling orders (otherwise they'll foloow it in order to shoot it).
I think on hold position they will actually just stop shooting at a target you gave them if it exits their line of sight. If you tell them to shoot at a target that is out of their LOS, they will follow it and keep following it, but if there is a unit well in their LOS and you tell them to shoot it when they're on hold position, if that target now exits their LOS, they will just stop firing at it instead of pursuing it. Though actually I remember having situations where this didn't work as expected >_< So maybe it's too risky to rely on it.

In any case, thanks for all the input! You've given me some very nice ideas to try out.

Trapped in Samsara

11-22-2009, 21:05

Hi

Happy to see that this party is still rocking. As someone said earlier, jousts like this have been few and far between 'round here for quite a while.

We're all in a position to learn something from these exchanges, even if it is only that our personal ideas/strategies are tested in the Coliseum of open debate.

Gollum wrote, "One of the most dangerous times that the Horde can catch you "off guard" is when you are retreating units and bringing in reinforcements to replenish your ranks."

A tip (apologies if you find this blindingly obvious): with few exceptions you should actively prevent your troops from killing off enemy units in their entirety. Once they're down to 20% to 25% or so of their initial complement let them escape. This means that they will rout/retreat back to their starting edge before their replacement can appear. You can use the time to rest/reform/replace.

Also, someone asked about how to go about attacking the Horde. Must admit, I don't think I've ever done this unless I felt I had a significantly superior force - more so than when taking on any other faction - because of the Mongols' combination of firepower, mobility and shock effect.

On those occaisions where I have attacked a big-ish Mongol force, say 3 to 4 stacks, if I don't have enough decent melee cav (e.g., masses of FKs and MS which would almost be an alternative Horde in effect) to simply smash the MHC and MW units and 'round up' the MHAs, I have always been missile cav heavy, e.g., 1/3 SHC or equivalent. (Seem to remember recruiting loads of 2 valour Turcoman Horse after a successful crusade to Antioch(?) in anticipation of a big face-off with the Khan one campaign.) But I would still field 4 or 5 decent spear companies with which to 'hold the line' to shelter my missile infantry and function as a refuge for my cav who would 'raid' the Mongols and NOT get involved in isolated, stand up melee or missile fights.

I formed my spears (4/5 ranks deep) into a line then group them and order them into wedge. I then have 3/4 arbs/xbows grouped and 'offset' in wedges. The basic idea is that the arbs/xbows (and missile cav) lure the Mongols onto the spears then form wedge and fall back through the gaps with the spear wall reforming behind them. Your arbs/xbows then have to pick their targets carefully.

Masses of micromanagement involved, of course, and (I'm afraid I have to confess) a lot of use of the pause key a times. :shame: You're then looking to attrition the Mongols till they leave the field. Be prepared to fall back, replace, re-engage. Or even lose pretty much your entire initial deployment, keeping your general safe, whilst your reinforcements build a defensive line close to your edge of the map prior to making another attrition run. If you're not the patient sort this strategy simply will not work.

Killing off their general early on is often essential to stand any chance of winning in these circumstances. And I wouldn't even think about employing this tactic unless I had a couple of valour advantage, say via a much higher star general.

Thinking about it, halbs might do a good job here, but I've always considered them a very defensive troop because of their relative slowness. Perhaps I need to revisit this... :idea:

Regards
Victor

caravel

11-22-2009, 21:30

A tip (apologies if you find this blindingly obvious): with few exceptions you should actively prevent your troops from killing off enemy units in their entirety. Once they're down to 20% to 25% or so of their initial complement let them escape. This means that they will rout/retreat back to their starting edge before their replacement can appear. You can use the time to rest/reform/replace.

That is one of my favoured tactics. It's also why you should leave the mongol warriors or any siege equipment alone if it's not in range/in small enough units. A mass rout/kill of mongol units can herald the arrival of several MHC all at once. If this is at a time when your replacement spears are still coming on, you're in trouble.

:bow:

HopAlongBunny

11-22-2009, 22:14

Forgot about the siege equipment :)

When the Mongols deploy 4 catapults its kind of a blessing and a curse.

4 less "real" units to worry about, but the mongols will not leave until they cycle through their entire roster...after all they still hold the field.

Wonderful when you want to kill as many as you can; a pain when you want the battle over quickly.
OTOH eliminating the siege equipment does not guarantee they will leave any sooner, just that they might.

Prince Cobra

11-22-2009, 22:51

PershsNhpios

11-22-2009, 23:04

I can't advise you Stephen Asen, but please let me know how the Horde invades!

I would have thought Armenia and Georgia to have been two of the most easily defensible provinces in Asia to be defended from the Horde.

Someone in this thread did mention attacking the Horde, but more importantly they also mentioned a more offensive strategy even in defense.

This was something along the lines of cornering and smashing the Horde army, but they did not elaborate further.

Is this really a possible strategy given the number of their reinforcements?

EDIT: After my English campaign, I will immediately start as the Teutonics or Polish in High - just for the sake of experience in this area! (I am not valiant enough to try Volga Bulgaria [or the Bulga Vulgars, as Gollum calls them!])

caravel

11-22-2009, 23:58

Normal level, Early Byz Campaign. This time I am not an aggressive person. How do you usually avoid Golden Horde in MTW/VI? As the Byzantines, I hold Georgia and Armenia but Khazar is in posession in the huuge Novgorod Empire that reaches Bavaria. In fact the Russians are the only people that now bother me. How perfect, it would have been if any divine wind comes and takes the Russians away?
That sounds ideal. The Novgorod will act as a buffer zone and take the brunt of the invasion. Georgia is a better province, defensively than Khazaar IMHO, so you have a good chance of holding out.

So I control the Balkan peninsula, Naples, Sardinia, Corsica, the Minor Asia + Edessa and Antioch, Iberia (without Leon (rebels), Portugal (Spanish), Aragon and Navarra (also rebel)) and Marocco.

Novgorod rules everything from Khazar to Bavaria. The common border is the lightly defended Georgia/Khazar only. At least for now.
If you were staying and defending, the Georgia/Khazar border would have to be your main Horde frontier. You will need a massive force there to hold off wave after wave of GH.

Hungary (my friendly dynasty died ), half of Germany and France are rebels (a result of the crumbling Spanish Empire).

Northern Africa and Asia is patched with the remnants of the Almos, Spains, the Eggys and the Turks (stranded in Syria and the only faction I am at war with now).
As to avoiding... you have a few options, You can abandon most of Asia minor (except Constantinople, Nicaea and maybe Anatolia) and leave it to the Turks/rebels/Novgorod and work your way further west into the Balkans, Italy and eastern europe at the same time.

With 31 000 florins (in 1185 they were 59 000, about 1200 they were near 20 000), 16 000 income (trade&normal taxes) and 11 000 expenditure, three provinces specialised into Varangian guards (Constantinople, Nicaea and Greece), 3 and 4 star assassins, full control on the Mediterranean. I can make Proniai and the Byz Lancers in Nicaea, though I still rely on my royal line for the Kataphraktoi. I am also very pious person and prefer to build churches (and monasteries and even reliquery) than armourers. :prays:
It seems to me that they you have florins and troops to take the horde on - you just need to get moving training units. The morale bonuses from the churches etc, should help you turn out some upgraded vanilla spearmen to take on those MHC. Your trebizond archers, arbalesters and Varangian Guard* will also be invaluable. Just don't take too many Byzantine Infantry, as they're not as useful vs the GH units.

*You will need these in number because your vanilla spears will not be able to hold enemy cavalry for long. Morale, valour and armour upgrades for the vanilla spears are a must.

P.S. I hesitate whether I should abandon Armenia or not... and if yes, when to do that. Poor people, they love me! (200 loyalty)
Armenia is one of the Horde invasion targets. The Horde can appear in only a few provinces - IIRC those are: Volga Bulgaria, Khazar, Georgia and Armenia. Personally I would fortify Armenia and fight it out with the aim of defeating the invasion force in the first turn, cutting off their retreat and ransoming them back/executing them. Otherwise if you go under siege or abandon you've effectively lost the whole region anyway. For this to work you also have to successfully defend Georgia. I've done this countless times playing as the Egyptians, Turks, Byzantines and once as the English so it is very doable. You just have to be prepared to fight some very lengthy battles.

:bow:

gollum

11-23-2009, 00:48

Few times, the Horde does appear in Armenia too. Prepare for this eventuality, not in the fullest but keep in mind that it might happen. And whatever you do dont get khazar and have a large army in it (or in Georgia). Keep your defensive stacks in Trebizond and once the Horde lands move them in Georgia. Otherwise the large number of your troops will make the Horde landing quite bigger.

Good luck Stephen Asen

:bow:

caravel

11-23-2009, 01:42

And whatever you do dont get khazar and have a large army in it (or in Georgia). Keep your defensive stacks in Trebizond and once the Horde lands move them in Georgia. Otherwise the large number of your troops will make the Horde landing quite bigger.

Wise words, I actually keep my stacks in Georgia and Armenia. It's rare that the horde actually land in Georgia in my experience. They usually land in Khazar and Volga Bulgaria, or you have that more challenging scenario where they land in Khazar and Armenia. Whatever happens, in my experience, they always land the main force in Khazar, so that's the province to avoid. Keeping your troops in Trebizond and landing them in Georgia once they Horde land, doesn't hurt of course and is wise if you don't want to face a huge invasion.

Unless of course you have a few hundred thousand turks at your disposal and a lot of time on your hands...

:bow:

gollum

11-23-2009, 01:54

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
Unless of course you have a few hundred thousand turks at your disposal and a lot of time on your hands...

Yes i did it once with the Turks and once with the Byz. I think the first battle in Khazar took about 6 hours in both cases and i've lost in one and won in the other. In any case, in both campaigns the Mongols were soon on the defensive and in a while longer extinguished and the russian steppe was mine. Then i proceeded happily to do what the Mongols would have done had they beaten me, ie drive my armies all the way to Paris :2thumbsup:

Prince Cobra

11-23-2009, 22:57

Thanks for the advices. Greece, Constantinople, occasionally Nicaea and soon Rum work for the Varangian guards. Bulgaria is producing arbalests, Trebizond: Trebizond archers. It's 1215. Nagamasa-sama said something about spearmen. What is the perfect ratio between the Varangians and Spearmen? (perhaps I should devout Constantinople to their making since they get +1 valour (Master Spearmaker) +1 armour (soon +2) +1 morale (Church) there).

Second, I am training Pronoiai in Nicaea. Now they get +1 valour +1 armour, I hope in ten years I will start producing them with +2 valour (Master Horse Breeder). They also should get +1 morale for church, +1 for monastery +2 for reliquery (I hope it stacks). I think my excellent 7-8 star commanders will get them enough strength to make them a fast and effective Horde killing machines. Personally, I like them more than the Kataphraktoi.

And the last but not the least. Whilst fighting large stacks (I had some nice meetings with the Jinettes while conquering Spain), I have constant problems with my archers running out of ammos.

I think my anti-horde army should be something like that. 15-20 Varangian guards, about 15 Pronoiars, 8-10 Kataphraktoi, 15 arbalests, 3 crossbows (made them by mistake), 10 Trebizond archers (some of them with +1 armour), about 10 spears, 1-2 Naptha (1v; with the generals bonus it raises up to 5v) perhaps?

I have also two Light Italian infantry as mercenaries + 1 Kwarazmian cavalry.Perhaps these can help? Antiochia is deliberately left with a fort so that I can hire mercenaries. Any precious troops against the Horde?

On the battlefield, I plan things like that: 4 Varangians, 3 Kataphraktoi, 3 Pronoiars, 2 arbalests, 2 Trabizond archers, 2 Spears. I am not a fan of low morale javelins, though.

Any advices?

On a more exotic point of view, I also smashed the rebels in a bridge battle for Aragon (lost some Varangians, though) and bribed the garrison. The province is now intact with +2 armours and castle (and now I'm building a metalsmith). I view it as another source of spearmen, though I'll be able to improve them with only +1 morale (these people should be taught to some Orthodox rituals). Perhaps.

About the fortifications: basically, I left Armenia and Georgia quite undeveloped. I've only upgraded them with keeps and they have quite low variety of units. No churches, nothing. I do not plan to change that but is it a good idea to upgrade them to castles?

P.S. Ahhh, yes. The Hungarians made a glorious return. We will see if they will be willing to become my friends again.

caravel

11-23-2009, 23:40

Prince Cobra

11-24-2009, 00:37

I hope I am not obsessing the thead with my stupid comments. Thanks.

I would advise against taking on the horde with a mainly cavalry army. Pronoia cav are expensive and you will take heavy losses in cav vs cav battles against the horde. They're certainly better than Kataphraktoi, but the best cavalry to suit are the Byzantine Lancers, in smaller numbers for chasing routers. Personally I like to use a combination of Byzantine Lancers and the Byzantine Cavalry as the latter can unleash their arrows and then chase routers before you withdraw them.

:bow:

If you are concerned about money, my treasure continues to grow. I can't really get on with the Byz cavalry. These are too slow for horse archers and not that devastating as the normal cavalry. I remember when fighting the Spanish (their army was a crap, though): I did not make any attempt to pursue them. I just kill them and leave them flee out of the battlefield. My purpose is to push the Horde back, not really to kill all of their armies. I am bad at pursuing the enemy since I prefer not to leave my hill.

I am also quite rusty, so I doubt I will afford the luxury to keep a unit for the sole purpose of chasing routers. But I will change my plans for big cavalry force.

I would have a unit of Varangians for every three units of spears.

Perhaps I underestimate the spears but their relatively low morale (esp. the morale) and humble fighting abilities are scaring me. Surprising as it may be, I have 3 provinces specialised in Varangians and only 1-2 that can make valoured (Constantinople) or high morale (Nicaea; in the others I have only church and monastery) spears. 1:1 (1:2 at best) ratio can work fine in my case. And perhaps some mercenaries to improve the quality at least in the first row of defenders.

What about the missiles? Is 1/4 of the stack a good ratio?

And the cavalry about 1/5 of the stack (3-4 units; Pronoiai and Kataphraktoi;)?

gollum

11-24-2009, 11:55

Originally posted by Stephen Asen
These are too slow for horse archers and not that devastating as the normal cavalry.

Byzantine cavalry are support units. You can keep them beside your melee line pre and during engagement as well as the missile line. Think of them as mounted heavy infantry that are fast and have bows and then you'll see their uses. They are not to be used for charges and pursuit too much as their considerable armor wears them out.

Instead they should guard flanks, and give a hand here and there; release a volley when your arbs are reloading, participate in the flanking of an isolated enemy unit; deal with an enemy heavy infantry or cavalry that made it to your missiles; plug the gap in the melee line to hold it or tip the enemy to rout if they seem to waver; flank the enemy line occasionally (if you notice that while you are guarding your flank with BC that the enemy flank is unguarded and all his units are far off or engaged); support other cavalry that have a strong charge and better speed/stamina. Similar in use are the Mameluk Horse Archers and the Faris; none of these units is a horse archer unit and their names are misleading; they are medium multitask cavalry that have a "libero" (for those that like football) role on the battle field.

They also make good general units.

Perhaps I underestimate the spears but their relatively low morale (esp. the morale) and humble fighting abilities are scaring me.

Any spear that has reached morale 2 is reliable if properly placed and supported. You will need some of them to pin the enemy. Of course an all Varangian army is better and easier if you can manage it financially, however it will cost you an arm and a leg. Asai's ratio sounds good to me.

I would bring a bit less than half a stack arbs and keep them in that proportion; (6-7).

:bow:

PershsNhpios

11-24-2009, 12:07

May I request a description of a typical Horde battle on Hard (XL or vanilla, any really!)?

So that I may understand what units are employed by the Horde for what purpose, what units in the players army take which roles, and why they have those roles for certain phases of the fight.
A description of the beginning, pitch, and endgame would be marvellous - please!

I would like to know how swordsmen cope in a fight with these MHC (Providing they don't receive a charge), and the specific reasons why some units are best and others only create weaknesses.

(I ask for Hard because the AI is considerably more capable than on Normal)

gollum

11-24-2009, 12:18

You can save your game before you engage the Horde and have a go at it to see what its like. As i said before no description will substitute the real thing. Most battles against the Horde are coloured from the fact that you are fighting generally outnumbered. Hence you want to be taking a very defensive stance while you're shooting at the Horde and trying to cull wave after wave of MHC and MHAs and MWs.

As it had been stated multiple times already in this thread heavy sword infantry won't work againt a mobile and heavy cavalry heavy army as the Horde. You need some armor piercing units like Billmen to kill the heavy cav. some spears to pin the heavy cav and lots of missiles to shoot the hc and the MHAs. You also need some light cavalry to chase off MWs so taht you economise in bolts on them in those instances that are alone in the field or their army is routing.

Just give it a try and then come and read this thread again.

:bow:

Mithrandir

11-24-2009, 12:48

It's a shame....

it's a shame that some people forget that the Org is a civil place for friendly discussion. Please leave your horses, weapons and negative comments at the door and enjoy a glass of Camelmilk in the Main Hall.

Also, it's a shame almost no one mentions camels... what is this thread coming to... To balance things a bit...

http://lisanewman.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/camels-camel.jpg

http://seshdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/camel_head.jpg

http://www.solarnavigator.net/animal_kingdom/animal_images/Camel_Jordanian_Desert.jpg

PershsNhpios

11-24-2009, 12:59

This thread now causes a -3 penalty to the morale of horses.

gollum

11-24-2009, 13:38

...horses however (unlike camels) give +6 morale to us...

https://img130.imageshack.us/img130/308/horse1o.jpg

https://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4219/horse2n.jpg

https://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9782/horse3.jpg

https://img504.imageshack.us/img504/820/horse4.jpg

Mithrandir

11-24-2009, 14:02

If only they were camels, those pictures would be much sexier...

we should also include waterbuffolo's in the next TW game..

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3595/3313826979_c369d9462d_o.jpg.

Anyway, back on topic please gents....

gollum

11-24-2009, 14:06

Originally posted by Mithrandir
If only they were camels, those pictures would be much sexier...

The beasts or the riders?

caravel

11-24-2009, 14:53

Hotlinked images, Mr gollum.

:whip:

gollum

11-24-2009, 15:01

Like breadies out of the oven... even you camel freaks can appreciate a fine cavalry unit.

Vantek

11-24-2009, 19:10

If only they were camels, those pictures would be much sexier...

https://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m21/Vantek/beastgirl.jpg

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

*runs away and hides while laughing hysterically*

Prince Cobra

11-24-2009, 19:55

https://img504.imageshack.us/img504/820/horse4.jpg

Perhaps with -4 armour, -4 morale for the enemy troops on the battlefield (yours are not affected because they had their pleasure the previous night)

Ahhh, the camels. Don't blame me. In the Egyptian stack in Tripoli I bribed years ago, there was no camels. It's all the fault of the Egyptians, not mine!

gollum

11-24-2009, 20:03

More like - all armor, +8 morale and -8 fatigue :laugh4:

Prince Cobra

11-24-2009, 20:14

More like - all armor, +8 morale and -8 fatigue :laugh4:

The actual combat will be interesting I think. Impetuous (Happy that the female horsemen are near; can attack without orders). :laugh4:

Medieval Total Love

gollum

11-24-2009, 20:46

Make Love not War :laugh4:

caravel

11-24-2009, 20:53

The actual combat will be interesting I think. Impetuous (Happy that the female horsemen are near; can attack without orders). :laugh4:

Medieval Total Love

https://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4655/knightsj.jpg

drone

11-24-2009, 21:27

:laugh4:

gollum

11-24-2009, 21:40

"In war and in love all means are permited" :laugh4:

PershsNhpios

11-25-2009, 01:05

gollum

11-25-2009, 01:12

Usually the Horde gets up until Kiev/Lithuania, and sometimes it manages even better by taking Anatolia and/or the Middle East too. In those instances and under a high influence khan it can be quite an empire, getting Constantinople too and raging on in Hungary and poland while its boats dominate the seas.

:bow:

PershsNhpios

11-25-2009, 01:52

Ship, Mr. Gollum, ship!

gollum

11-25-2009, 01:57

Something's the matter with you Glenn? Are you ill? You seem to speak somewhat strange...?!

PershsNhpios

11-25-2009, 02:02

I was commenting on the political incorrectness of the term 'boat' for a naval vessel.

At any one time, something will always be the matter with me and I generally speak strangely.

I was unfortunately born without the capacity to generalise.

Page 8 of this thread has become rather a shambles!

gollum

11-25-2009, 02:06

Oh right i see now. Becoming even wittier this year Glenn - good for you. Dont worry about the thread it will pick up again on the right track (or we're all going to get a few warnings :laugh4:).

:bow:

Prince Cobra

11-25-2009, 19:08

Tsk! Call me mongolian but I would rather have the horses than some overpaid birthday suit model.

(Really! Who knew the Main Hall could become so randy! And after Mithrandir spoke of it's civility too!)

Which faction in Vanilla or XL is best suited for defending against the Mongols and how far will the invasion usually penetrate (if the player is not involved in the eastern defence)?

MTW/VI not moded

You watch the Horde attacking everything it reaches until it finally stops growing. It seems I have overestimated the threat in Armenia since on the battlefield I was full with Varangian guards, some silver armoured spearmen and arbalests. Then it turned out I had to do something urgent (RL) and autocalc it since I had numerical superiority. I always consider carefully the things when I have numerical superiority. Usually, I fight battles, in which I have an inferior force. So anyway, the AI ransomed about 4 000 captives and filled my pockets with money. The auto cease fire led to me being neutral to the Horde (though I still have four stacks with many Varangians on Georgia) and now I sit and watch the Horde in action. It literally wiped out the Russians out of Khazar and now borders Hungary, which is also attacked. Btw, my relations with the Hungarians soured (there were series of dramatic battles in Serbia; that Szekely turned out to be quite powerful if valoured well but my Varangians (aka the Immortals in history) saved my army).

So at least now, I expect that the Horde will bring chaos in Hungary and Novgorod whilst I am trying to stabilise my economy (I am about 0 income with 18 000 florins in my pocket). Basically, I have the feeling the Horde attacks anything it encounters until it stops exhausted.

gollum

11-25-2009, 19:13

More or less yes, its AI is set to barbarian_raider, but you can alter how the Horde behaves by changing that to another available AI "personality".

:bow:

sharpshooter

11-26-2009, 02:03

Wow, what a thread!

So many points to respond to! (Love the horsewomen units. Thanks Gollum ;D).

So for this post I'm going to restrict my comments to MTW/Vanilla Expert - for offence and defence on the flat. I think all are agreed that it's easy to kill the Khan on the bridge at Kiev, whatever faction.

(I've done the XL and BKB mods - and would say the BKB Georgians were the hardest start postion I ever encountered. The XL mod, one grumble about an excellent mod, is that the Volgo-Bulgar set up seems to trap the Horde in the Khazar region. This last round, though, I've just been playing vanilla.

I'm interested in the tactical options expressed by Gollum and Asai, and shall try these out. I can see that I'm missing quite a bit from never having done multi-player, and doubtless have much to learn there.)

However, I am going to jump in on the side of Vantek's original tactics - Halbs, Arbs, and CK when Catholic, whether on offence or defence. This has never failed me, and I would always use it if I wanted a guaranteed result. I do usually keep a CS in reserve for the flanking MHC, which I'll pin and charge flank or rear with the CK, which seems to do the trick.

With the Russians - Halbs, Arbs, and Boyars, but not going 1:1 Boyar vs MHC, as can be done with CK.

With the Turks, if played from Early, then JHI, Xbows, and Khwarzi and Armenian HC. Usually a Camel unit, which I find a versatile anti-flank unit. The MHC seem to try to go around it.

I do take into account the tactics Gollum and Asai have expressed, and really will try these out. I have tried Varangians as the Byz, but suffer a much higher casualty rate. Like others, I'll look to hire merc heavy spears to make up for their vanilla spears, which just don't seem to do the trick.

Playstyle
My personal play style is to go for hard hitting opening engagement, and rout or kill the Mongol general quickly. For this I find the Halbs/Arbs the best. The JHI/Xbows are as good for this if Turk. Then I'll slowly advance up the field, keeping the line of Halbs with Arbs behind intact.

Again, as many say, I do find the Mongol battles easy and repetitive, if needing concentration and micro-management, i.e. using the pause button a lot. I have done the head to head in Khazar a couple of times, but simply find that the battle takes too long (once 14 hours) for me to easily find time and motivation for it.

Offence tactics
For offence mine go like this. I'm assuming it's a 2 stack powered up army attacking 6 - 8 stacks of Mongols in the first 10 years of the Horde invasion. I advance the Halb/Arb line slowly. The Mongols advance and the MHC charge the Halb line, are battered, and recoil. A tricky bit happens to catch the MHC unit that gets around it, but I'm ready for him with the CS and CK. The Mongol general gets special attention from the Arbs until he melees. Once they are retreating I go after the MW with the heavy cavalry, and roll them up. The Arbs at this point are firing at the MHA, who are otherwise ignored.

I don't let the heavy cav go to the horizon chasing routers, and are careful to keep the Halb/Arb line straight, bringing the cav back to the flanks. As I slowly advance I spread the line out, with gaps, as the reinforcements don't come as one group, and spread more widely. I herd/outshoot the MHA.

Starting in High
The challenge comes with the Poles, Hungarians, Russians and Turks starting in High. There's less money, and the troops are not as powered up - no time to develop JHI for the Turks, for instance. This is where the strategic decisions come in. I will still use the bridge at Kiev if that is my mood. Otherwise I use the tit for tat tactics I described in my earlier post, i.e. for the Turks posting one Saracen Infantry in Georgia, with the main army of one stack transported into Trebizond when the Horde arrives, and I know if it's appearing in Armenia or not.

If playing the Hungarians or Poles I do the same, i.e. one unit of spear, in Moldavia and/or Volhynia. I've used Slav Warriors here with success.

It then goes one MHC probe, which is defeated. Then a 2 MHC probe, which is defeated by the spear unit. This is followed by a one stack invasion from the Mongols, so the garrison of 1 retreats to the castle This is then counter-attacked with a less than one stack army, and the 1 spear garrison restored.

The AI responds to player tactics. If you have a big stack in Georgia the Horde will attack with a bigger stack, usually around a ratio of 3:1. For that reason I usually have only a 2 stack army in Kiev if using the bridge defence, and expect around 6 - 8 stacks of Mongols, including the Khan, to attack it.

When using the tit for tat tactics it is important to keep one's nerve, and resist the temptation to heavily reinforce Georgia/Moldavia/Volhynia. The main Horde army goes to Volga-Bulgaria while their probes are defeated. Then it comes back - maybe 8 stacks. I resist the reinforcement urge, and the invasion is one stack or less. It is important to have Armenia defended, because the Horde definitely will try to take it if it looks weak, and then heavily reinforce Georgia.

After this time the Horde have usually lost momentum, around 1238 - 1240, and can be taken in a more leisurely way.

I know this brings the argument back to the beginning, i.e. Vantek's original tactics. Nonetheless, I find nothing as effective as the Halb/Arb/CK composition for offence or defence.

Gratuitous screenshots - stats Turks vs Mongols
I'm attaching a screenshot of the stats following a battle where the Turks invaded Mongol rebel held Khazar in 1236, to finally finish the Horde. (Sorry I don't know how to do the Spoiler button, which I much admire. Sorry also, don't have any Catholic screenshots).

In this battle the Turks had to force a bridge (with JHI), and then push the Mongol rebels from the field. (Yes, they had earlier killed the Khan at Kiev.)The total Mongol army was around 8,500, of which half were killed or captured. The rest routed.

Tactics were that the JHI took the bridge, under supporting fire from the Xbows. The MHC were repelled and routed by the JHI. The infantry formed up just over the bridge. First 2 units of JHI a bit out, under arrow fire. An Xbow unit is run across the bridge to line up behind them. Then another JHI, then another Xbow etc. Meanwhile the heavy cavalry were crossing the second bridge, and attacking the MW.

The JHI lined up in front with Xbows behind, and then advanced. The Kwazis and Armenians had crossed the second bridge, and routed the MW. The Mongol second wave repeated this scenario - the MHC defeated by JHI. The MW were rolled up again by the Armenian/Khwarzi HC. The Xbows outshot the MHA. Once on the flat the Camel unit was used as anti-flank.

The minimap shows the final disposition of the Turks in a bow shape following taking the bridge. The Turk vs Mongol kill ratio was 5:1, or 12:1 if captured routers are also counted. The Turks have MA (gold armour) but no Metalsmith enhancement (which I haven't used for years).

I believe the Turks used no more than 5 or 6 reinforcements to the original invasion stack. I'm embarrassed to see I had 38 units of reinforcements waiting. Sun Tzu forgive me.

Oh, and the Turks built the Citadels in Crimea and Khazar, unafraid as their prophets told them that if these were lost they would shortly be regained ... (and I must learn how to use that spoiler button :D)

Subutai's apprentice

05-09-2010, 01:22

https://img576.imageshack.us/img576/291/goldenhorde1.jpg

Something like this? :oops:

gollum

05-09-2010, 01:41

Welcome to the org subutai's apprentice, enjoy your stay
:bow:

It seems that the Seljuks are ready to invade Central Asia, Mongolia and China in your game ;)

What difficulty/mod/version are you playing by the way?

Subutai's apprentice

05-09-2010, 11:32

Hi,
tnx for the welcoming, its nice to find an org like this.
Started new campaign after some years after i found org with all these mod goodies.

Concerning the version, expert/xl/think latest.

Sorry if it sounded pretentious, I just found new vigor for the game, so I got carried away.

caravel

05-09-2010, 12:35

gollum

05-09-2010, 16:51

Didn't sounded pretensious at all subatai's apprentice - no need to feel apologetic - sharing, companionship and enthusiasm for MTW is what the main hall is all about ;)

Please grace us with your campaigns - for XL there is also the Tiberious popular add-on/minimod that has great graphics, new units etc. Graphically it is really superb and improves the mod greatly - just have a go, if you will at some point, i'm sure you will enjoy it.

:bow:

Subutai's apprentice

05-09-2010, 23:01

Yeah, I was planing to give a try to Tiberius and Redux as well.
Anyway this is bit of topic.

Back to the Golden Horde.
I was always a bit disappointed by lack of possibility to play as a great Khan in vanilla, after all as a Subutai's apprentice I should be.
I do greatly admire Subutai and his achievements in the field.
But I was always better Gengis. Much better in grand strategy than tactics. Rather looking for big numbers than a specialized units.
Find a cheap unit with good defense and producing in millions (and some archer units of course).
Next campaign is going to be awesome.

gollum

05-09-2010, 23:43

I think at least one mod enables you to play as the Mongols. Iirc this was the Medmod. Can't remember if this is an option in XL. In theMedMod the Horde is pretty tough as an opponent. It has ap arrows and good infantry support.

Subutai's apprentice

05-10-2010, 10:29

Welcome Subutai's apprentice,

You are in a superb position for some epic battles. If you can win the first engagement in Georgia, you should be fairly safe and be able to hold your borders. Very nice campaign. It reminds me of one I played years ago. I will try to find the screenshot if possible.

:bow:

Hey Nagamasa-san,
Epic battle indeed, draged some more stacks from spain, it took me 5 hours. Lots of dead saracen infantry but overwhelming force was to much for overwhelming Horde :).
Thought I was going to loose, but those Ghulams realy saved my back. If I only called them early in the battle, there would be much less saracen mothers in grief :(.
Looking forward for screenshot.

Ameretat

10-04-2010, 07:22

Hey there, I just had to share this.

I've started playing medieval again (with Viking Invasion installed) and had a very nice time with the Golden Horde. I played as the Russians, on hard difficulty, starting in the High Era - so as you can imagine, it got pretty though. I stopped the Golden Horde single-handedly, in just 1 year! I couldn't believe it! I used an army composed exclusively of Steppe Heavy Cavalry and Boyars - 8 units of boyars, 8 SHC - and 6 units of SHC as reinforcements. That's all I managed to train and/or bribe in the 24 years from the beginning of the game until the Devil's horsemen arrived. And they came in with about 10.000 troops in Khazar - and God knows how many in Asia Minor. Well, Asia Minor was not my problem - I let the Turks and Egyptians worry about that. But in Khazar, I prepared for a battle against all odds.

When I saw the unit raster, I just couldn't believe my luck: The initial wave was composed of just 4 or 5 units of MHC and the rest were just plain Mongol Warriors - which means foot soldiers. And that's when I knew I could wreak havoc among them. Maybe even win, even though I was outnumbered more than 10 to 1. Sure enough, using an army composed of just boyars and SHC allowed me to use the Mongols' own tactics against them. I harrassed and shot at them, feigned retreats, flanked and surrounded them. I annihilated the initial wave with minimal casualties - I lost less than 10% of my force. I couldn't believe it - it could actually win this thing! The second wave was mostly steppe cavalry and MHA - I surrounded and slaughtered them. After that, I pressed on to the Mongol side of the battlefield - were the reinforcements would appear... Well, you can imagine how that went. I took advantage of the way the MTW reinforcement system works and beat several waves of attackers using this. But I also made some mistakes - charged to early on some occasions and took casualties that could have been avoided. The fact that the enemy general was in my hands helped a lot, making the mongol units rout much faster than normally. After breaking countless waves of attackers, I saw that I could not win after all - more than half my force was gone and my ranks were thinning. So I decided to call it a day and retreat, so I could organise another line of defense. The taste of defeat was bitter - but I had sent more than 3000 mongols to hell. That's including the 1800 prisoners, which I butchered without thinking twice about it, just before withdrawing. I closed the battle-report...

...and couldn't believe my luck (again). The Khan either had no heirs, or any heirs were also butchered in Khazar. Either way, the Golden Horde was no more! Sure, Khazar was lost to the remaining mongols - more than 7000 of them - but what did it matter? I had beaten the GH, in ONE battle! The next turn, I lost Chernigov, Peryavlasl, Rhyazan and Volga-Bulgaria to the "Khazars", as the mongols now styled themselves, but I met their main force in two battles and more than 2000 of their men were massacred on the bridges of Kiev.

So there were now roughly 5000 of them left - most of them in Khazar and some in the provinces they took from me - but only in Rhyazan had they left a large army, the rest were manned minimally. I had just started my counter-offensive, reclaiming Chernigov and Peryavlasl, when the impossible happened: The Horde reappeared! This time in Volga-Bulgaria, with two stacks of troops. And all the Khazars joined them, of course... well great... Luckily, I had bribed the Khazar army in Rhyazan just prior and had much more SHC than before, so in a few battles, I threw them out of Europe - this time for good. Or so I thought... Later in the game - it was in the early 1290's - the egyptian Sultan, who had expanded his realm to include everything from Egypt to Constantinople, died without an heir. And guess who reappeared in Armenia...? Those damn Mongols again! But this time, they were more an annoyance than a real threat. Two stacks, mostly archers and handgunners, with only a few mongol unique units.

Well, I just had to share that one here. I just can't forget that initial battle in 1231 - it was absolutely... glorious! If I find out how to post battle replays, I'll share that too, if anyone is interested...

drone

10-04-2010, 16:13

Well done! Playing the Russians in High is always difficult, you just don't have enough time to build up a sufficient anti-Horde force.

Welcome to the .Org, Ameretat! ~:wave:

Ameretat

10-04-2010, 17:55

Thanks, drone.

I've been reading the forums for some time now, especially for frogbeastegg's excellent guides, but this is that was the first time of actually posting. I was curious if anyone has ever been crazy enough to take on 10.000 mongols with less than a thousand men. Needless to say, that was the hardest battle I've ever thought - I don't remember ever pausing the game so many times during a battle before... :) Anyway, I'm wondering what exactly influences how many mongols parachute into Khazar in 1230. This time they came, numerous as the blades of grass on the russian steppes - but I've seen them invade with just a couple of stacks in every province - no matter what difficulty level. Does anyone have any idea what determines the size of the mongol force? It sure ain't garrison size of the invaded provinces, as I had just one rider in Khazar at the time of the onslaught. Is it just random or wtf?

I am absolutely thrilled by steppe heavy cavalry. This unit kinda turns *you* into the Mongols, which is the next best thing to actually playing the GH-Faction. The only reason I've started playing the Russians anyway, is for this unit - 'cause I wanted to play the mongols :) And I'm wondering how one could stop an army SHC, except bridge battles or heavily forested areas, of course... They absolutely rock, if you have the patience to pause the game a lot. Which makes me wonder, why is the skirmish AI so much better when used by a non-player army, and so excruciatingly crappy for a human army? Units on skirmish will only run away from their targeted unit, if my observations are correct - but horse archers controlled by the computer don't seem to have that problem. It's been a pain chasing those mongol horse archers around, as they are faster than SHC. I finally gave up and duelled it out with bows and arrows, if my forces where not large enough to surround the whole enemy army early on...

Ok, I'm off editing the game, so I can play the Russians on Early... :)