“Hunters all their lives*”: Core principles for Missile Cavalry

[Doug-Thompson]

I let the Missile Cavalry Tactic Guide (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72725) grow into a tome. Here are the boiled-down useful points:

1. Get to high ground.
2. Know the enemy’s weak spots. Exploit them.
3. Create cross fire.
4. You own the battlefield. The enemy's trespassing.
5. Attack morale at least as much as units.
6. Attack or neutralize the biggest threats first.
7. If enemies aren’t dying, get closer.

Now, thumbnail explanations of what those mean:

1. Get to high ground. That’s self-evident. If there’s a hill you can get to and fire from, get there first with the most men. If the enemy holds high ground, find the gentlest slope and go up it instead of riding directly at them. Missile cavalry are among the fastest units in the game. Use that.

============

2. Know the enemy’s weak spots. Exploit them. These spots are, in priority order:

a. From the back.
b. On the enemy’s “weapon hand,” his right flank. This matters less with units that have no shield, like peasants, but most units have shields.
c. The other side, “shield side.”
d. In front, from the “weapon” or right end. If you are in the enemy’s “2 o’clock” position, you get at least some of the raking effect.
e. In front, “shield” end.
f. Dead ahead.

(See the link to enfilade fire below)

Note that the ability of missile cavalry to get to those spots is its greatest advantage over missile infantry.

=============

3. Create cross fire. Shields can only face one direction at a time. Even shieldless, unarmored units present a smaller target when facing you. This is particularly true of horses and camels. This level of detail is apparently present in the game. Give units more than one direction to face. You will find that horses and camels make particularly inviting targets from the side. Also, see the tactics guide or this thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74874)for an opinion on enfilade fire.

===========

4. You own the battlefield. The enemy's trespassing. Rush out and keep him in the middle and make him pay for any ground gained. Make him pay for any ground lost. Make the only part of the battlefield he controls the poor, low ground he's standing upon and make him pay rent in lives for that. Don’t get pinned. Battle map corners and sides are almost as big a threat as the enemy. Those borders are the anvil. The enemy is the hammer. Don’t get close to the anvil without a compelling reason, and keep a way of escape in mind. Also beware of getting one of your units surrounded and terrain obstacles like rivers or structures. See the main tactics thread.

=============

5. Attack morale at least as much as units. Nothing helps win a battle like a dead enemy general. Javelin cavalry are the best general-killers available. Also, note that having your missile cavalry behind and flanking units create big morale penalties for your opposition. Use it. If your melee units can rout one unit, the rest may soon follow.

==========

6. Attack or neutralize the biggest threats first. A set of spear infantry that can't catch you and can be easily shot up later are not the biggest threat. Cavalry that might catch your units or enemy missile units that reach you are. Kill them as soon as you can, especially if you can goad them out and destroy them in detail with your melee cav and javelins. In Sinan's juicy expression: "An army without missile or cavalry against an all cavalry army is the best meat you can buy."

Foot archers are a threat, but they cannot fire on the move. Get them moving with treats of charges from melee cav or even your HA, if they have decent melee stats, then shoot them to bits.

"It is natural to target first fast missile cavaly, fast cavalry, and ranged units, but not all seem to do it," notes Oleander Ardens.

==============

7. If enemies aren’t dying, get closer. Self-explanatory.



*”Hunters all their lives” comes from Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. The last “chapter opening” in the Mongol campaign starts: “Hunter’s all their lives, old wolves …”

[FactionHeir]

A few things you should add:

- Do not let your missile cav trail behind each other in fire at will mode. You will cause unnecessary friendly fire casualties.

- When cross firing, let your units stand a fair distance away from the target each. Otherwise missiles not hitting the target will hit your own troops on the other side.

[Doug-Thompson]

A few things you should add:


The "overlap" issue is in the big guide, at length. Not shooting at each other is the kind of mistake that should only happen once.

[Oleander Ardens]

Hm perhaps a "4. Gain and use space" would be a good core principle, having a more general meaning than "Don't get pinned". I mean it contains deploying your MC far forward, riding around a flank to a hill, or all moves which ultimatly allow MC to gain more space and thus time to manouver and to spend their missiles.

Also something along the line of "Kill first what may kill you" might a good addition. It is natural to target first fast missile cavaly, fast cavalry, and ranged units, but not all seem to do it. So a general rule for targeting might be fitting.

"Pluck the eagle's feathers" for eliminating the mobile part of an opponent or something other sounding like a steppe saying would be great.

Cheers
OA

[Shahed]

Nice post Doug. You've done a great deal to help people understand how to use all missile cavalry with this post and many others, and you've done a great job !

I'd agree with OE, I'm sure a lot of people don't know that or don't do that.

I always target the enemy's mobility first, before anything else. Naturally missile and artillery units came right after cavalry. An army without missile or cavalry against an all cavalry army is the best meat you can buy.

Once his faster units are weakened or destroyed, his missile units are weakened or destroyed, then the real game begins. The game of picking off his units one by one as he hopelessly watches in dismay. Swarming all over the map with clouds of death high above the enemy.

I have a question, I always used 2 row formations for my HAs. Have you done any tests which show that boxed loose formation works best ? OR what is the logic behind that. I'm using it as well now that I've read your guides. I think it is better but I'd like to know what the reasoning is.

It's harder to maneuver I find, takes up more space than close formation.

[ScrapTower]

For the people who play factions with no missile cavalry and face cavalry heavy armies in MP:

1) Trying to chase down and pin missile cavalry with heavy or even light cavalry is futile unless the player with the missile cav makes a mistake.

2) Get at least one unit of missiles for each missile cavalry you think you are going to face. (If you face an army of mainly missile cavalry, no less then 8)

3) Keep your army with your missiles. You must kill alot of their missile cavalry before you can go on the offencive.

4) Let him come to you. Stand still, turn fire at will off and let his missile cav start to circle and shoot at you.

5) Turn on flaming arrows and begin to focus fire his HA. One or two large flaming vollies will really take his HA unit down to uneffective levels.

6) If your opponent complains that you are not attacking, explain to him that to counter an HA heavy army with no HA of your own, this is your only option and take no shame in it.

[katank]

@ Sinan, box formation is best for HAs since they can then maneuver in any direction easily. Loose because this minimizes casualties from enemy missiles. Catabrian circle is virtually a death sentence as it's really hard to pull them out of it when being charged by cav.

One of the biggest key to an all HA army is to adopt a Zen sense of liquidity. Retreat when the enemy advances, advance when the enemy retreats and always keep them under your arrow shower of death. At the same time, seek out weaknesses in their lines and exploit it ruthlessly due to your advantage in mobility.

If commanding capable melee HAs like Siphais or Dvors, luring enemy cav out and then crushing them in melee is a very viable option as well.

[Vladimir]

6) If your opponent complains that you are not attacking, explain to him that to counter an HA heavy army with no HA of your own, this is your only option and take no shame in it.

So this actually happens huh? :inquisitive:

:bigcry: "You're not doing what I want you to!" :bigcry:

[ScrapTower]

Some people will start to complain when they see that you are not foolish enough to expose yourself to their HA spamming tactics. Flaming arrows are your best friend in this situation. Keep a tight formation and dont wonder far from your own missiles.

[Doug-Thompson]

Thanks, Sinan. High praise indeed. Also, since you and OA agree, I'll add targeting priorities.



I always used 2 row formations for my HAs. Have you done any tests which show that boxed loose formation works best ? OR what is the logic behind that. I'm using it as well now that I've read your guides. I think it is better but I'd like to know what the reasoning is.

It's harder to maneuver I find, takes up more space than close formation.

This got started after RTW came out. Forum members were trying to solve the mysteries of friendly fire. HA were put into squares only as a demonstration technique to show that freindly fire within the same unit was no threat.

We had the good luck to rouse the curiousity of both Frogbeastegg and Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe (I hope I'm recalling this correctly) with this discussion, and with the discussion of why foot archers couldn't hit HA in a circle. They engaged in a series of good tests. I'd provide a link, but I'm not even sure I could find the thread again, unfortunately. It was first-rate work on those tests.

After the friendly fire issue was proven and the circling issue was explored, something dawned on a number of people simultaneously. A square could fire with equal potency in all directions. There were no dangling ends to get caught by melee units, either. Several of us MTW1 HA nuts also noticed that the unit leader didn't have to get out in front any more to skirmish away, either. That was a severe disadvantage to a deep formation MTW1.

People who have already perfected their two-rank line micro in MTW1 or Shogun do not benefit much from squares, if at all. People without that skill set seem to benefit greatly.

As for the loose vs. close question, people playing with squares quickly found that a square skirmishing away from the enemy faced a serious risk of colliding with neighboring HA. There's also greater danger from friendly fire. HA in loose formation weave through each other. Also, as Katank says, vulnerability to enemy missiles is a large factor.

[Doug-Thompson]

For the people who play factions with no missile cavalry and face cavalry heavy armies in MP:

1) Trying to chase down and pin missile cavalry with heavy or even light cavalry is futile unless the player with the missile cav makes a mistake.

2) Get at least one unit of missiles for each missile cavalry you think you are going to face. (If you face an army of mainly missile cavalry, no less then 8)

3) Keep your army with your missiles. You must kill alot of their missile cavalry before you can go on the offencive.

4) Let him come to you. Stand still, turn fire at will off and let his missile cav start to circle and shoot at you.

5) Turn on flaming arrows and begin to focus fire his HA. One or two large flaming vollies will really take his HA unit down to uneffective levels.

6) If your opponent complains that you are not attacking, explain to him that to counter an HA heavy army with no HA of your own, this is your only option and take no shame in it.(emphasis added)

This is all excellent advice, but the last point deserves special mention.

Chasing a unit you can't catch -- particularly if it means leaving foot archers behind or moving your foot archers, which cannot fire on the move -- is playing the horse archer's game. Ignore taunts. The best come-back is to still be standing when the battle's over.

As a horse archer nut I can assure you that attacking is exactly what a horse archer jockey wants you to do. I'd go so far as to add that you should put your archers on "defend position" stance or turn skirmish off so they will keep firing.

Not all foot archers are weak skirmish units. They can't withstand a knight's charge, but they can effectively fight many weak-melee HA units, especially if spear or cavalry support is close by.

The only other thing I'd explicitly add is something already obvious to everybody, but we might as well say it: If you can deploy on high ground or get to some before the HA can get to you, do so.

[ScrapTower]

Yes putting your archers on defend and turning of skirmish is one of the more important things that I forgot to mention. A good HA player will test to see if your skirmish mode is on. If it is, "DOH! turn it off! reform! reform!"... and by then, its too late and the damage is done.

[Shahed]

Is this kind of getting derailed Doug from being about HA tactics and going towards anti-HA tactics?

I think that deserves its own topic (one of many already existing on the subject). It also risks this thread getting moved to the MP section.

Anyway I would if you don't mind, like to share some experiences with you on an MP situation, the one under discussion. I am speaking mostly from MTW experience, as RTW went out the window pretty fast for me. More so I am speaking from being in good and close contact with people who invested many hours into developing great cavalry armies for MTW (the best contact being wiht myself ofc lol). I did learn some things from the Wolves, as well as many others (Louis, Kanuni, Mag...etc). I hope some of this is still relevant. I did not pay attention to developments in RTW so thanks very much for filling me in.

One of the best times I ever had was with this guy called Kanuni, with mostly cavalry Turk armies, complementing each other in a team (many other good times too ofc). Both armies moving as one, striking as one, and the best part, winning as one. It requires even more presence to pull of a good team game with all cavalry armies. I also had some fantastic battles with ex-clannie Sjakihata...CBR and the Mizus, the FFs and many others. Had a great time in MTW MP.

Most people see all cavalry armies to be a bane because these people have a slow reaction time, coupled with a lack of understanding on how to compose an army. Then ofc lack of patience and various emotional and psychological maturity factors come into play as well, being a sore loser is one of them. Typically these people will start calling YOU n00bs, lamers, cheaters etc. Typically it's the cavalry player who gets the abuse, because (at least in MTW) you need a high sense of alertness and presence to constantly hit in and out, here and there, back and forth, sideways... you name it.

As you surely know, a good cavalry army will also have lances, in addition to mounted archers. I get the impression that lances are left out of the above equation. While you are tying own his horse archers with your missile units, he must be thinking something. he must have a plan too.

The horse archers may (or may not) be very low value with minimal experience upgrade. If they are, then the majority of florin is invested in the lancers.

No experienced player will send HA without charge support.

I do this even in the SP campaign, always some supporting heavy cavalry behind the Turcomen.

Some units will always be expendable and will be deployed as such. It is up to you to determine which units those are and stay away from them. They are a distraction.

It was common for me (and many others) to use my general to freak the opponent into removing the passive AI from his cerebral installation. The passive AI bug strikes many fearful players. It's a bit like a deer on a dark forest road when it suddenly looks into your headlights and stops cold. But it's easy enough to wake people up and that is ofc our objective.

The presence of lancers (I use the term generically to denote any cavalry which has an effective charge and carry long pointy sticks), means that a skirmish can quickly be turned into a local attack, which can quickly be turned into a general attack. It also means that other units are present which can take the pressure off by attracting attention to them.

The cavalry commander's primary objectives for the battle are usually:

1. Destroy the enemy's mobility.
2. Destroy the enemy's range.
3. Isolate, lure and destroy individual units.

Tying up the enemy's missile is a good thing, it forces movement, and as we know that's what a cavalry army exploits. It can work for you and/or against you. The more still you are the safer you are (of course). However with experience and courage most players can can completely annihilate an all cavalry army, while moving, using infantry alone. The sitting duck is often associated with newer players who don't know what to do and are too scared to do anything at all. You have to remember one thing as well, a battle is a mind game. You unnerve the opponent, push him on the defensive, determine what his strategy is. That means YOU, the cavalry commander, are in control, YOU have the initiative. How you play in game matters a lot less after that. You have already won the battle psychologically. It is only when you've met an opponent who is deciding what YOUR strategy is that you better run away or do something real quick.

Once the enemy archers are engaged in a defensive fight, the enemy will commit his cavalry to tie down your HA, then he will support this attack with spears or (in the good old MTW days) with JHI, Bill men, or any other anti-cavalry unit.

From here the skill with which the cavalry army attacks will determine the victor. It is by no means assured that the cavalry commander will not capitalise on this commitment of resource by his enemy. The cavalry commander has many choices once the enemy's missile are engaged (which as we already discussed is a prime objective), better still if you can commit his missile and mobility at the same place, even better, it can be.

-He can pull out and strike elsewhere in your formation.
-He can use a partial withdrawal sacrificing a unit or two, or least giving you the impression that he is going to lose a unit or two to make you hungry. To give you that sense of exhilaration that you are about to gain control, and now you will push because you want that control that bad.
-He can perform a complete withdrawal, reorganize and reassess. (this is the case when he's been caught off guard, and he needs to think)

The options depend on the specific situation. In the situation where the enemy's missile is committed as well as cavalry and infantry support, usually the typical choice will be to mount a general attack elsewhere. Basically he will try to make the enemy make mistakes and rely on the speed of his movement to disrupt the enemy army, to pull it apart.

I'm not challenging the advice to put skirmish off, I'm offering some more advice to those who don’t now how they could use this to their advantage.

Well ... time to play... coming back on topic, to the other points on box formation later.

[Doug-Thompson]

I absolutely agree that combined-arms tactics with lancers is both crucial and a neglected topic. I'm greatly pleased that the subject's finally been broached for MTW2. The two reasons I'd left combined tactics out of this thread so far are:

1. Missile cavalry tactics simply don't seem to come naturally to as many people as melee tactics do. People know how to use melee cavalry -- but do not know how to use them in conjunction with mobile missile calvary. They can't until somebody takes the mystery out of using missile cavalry. Once people learn that, using combos with melee seems to come much easier and more naturally.

I'm lost as far as things like the "College of Cardinals" and such stuff are concerned. We're all ignorant about different things. The question is, how much are we willing to share what knowledge we have?

2. Combined arm tactics with other cavalry is a very deep subject -- which I'd love to swim in. It's rich and largely unexplored on the forum. For instance, do you deploy melee cavalry on the wings behind your HA line or in the center? I can give three different answers to that either/or question and debate pro or con on any of them. The only way to decide is with experience, which I lack in multi-player.

I don't think there's any danger of getting the thread moved to multi-player, and don't care if it does.

As for anti-HA tactics, that's all part of the same topic as far as I'm concerned. Action-reaction, synthesis-antithesis, so forth. Unchallenged discussion of missile cavalry tactics leads to dogma.

:charge: :charge: :charge: :charge: :charge:

[Azi Tohak]

I have not played MTW as much as it deserved. I got it when I got RTW (computer limitations)... and the strat map, even with the problems, was simply more entertaining, especially the RTR mod.

However, it is fun to jump in with everyone else for M2TW. I have had a great time with my Byzantines, especially their superb Vardar HA. Thank you all for your input on this, both using and fighting HA armies. I have even learned something about the square. I'm going to have to try that! I just figured the line would work better since I like it better for my infantry archer (does it impact the infantry archers?).

Oh, and Doug, ever since STW I have deployed my HC, and most of the time my light melee cav (Alans for example) behind the center of the line. They have always seemed fast enough to move to a critical point when I need them to reinforce my usually strong infantry forces. But, sometimes, when I'm heavy in cav and especially when my foe has a lot of LC/HA himself, I like to deploy teams of 2 HA and 1 LC on the flanks. HA in loose formation in front, and then the LC in tight formation behind. So long as I can keep alert with everything going on, I have found that those teams are fantastic for smashing enemy LC/HA.

Azi

[Shahed]

Sorry I keep assuming missile cavalry will have lancers escort, I also tend to assume the rst of the army is cavalry as well. The last post is entirely from a MP perspective.

Yeah for M2TW it has'nt been covered. I could wirte about this for hours. I'll be back tomorrow and post before the patch is out (hopefully). I hope to complete....a ... few... more turns tonight. So where would you like to start ?

I've always been and still am, open to share everything.

I've written on this topic a lot in MTW days. It's much better now IMO, M2TW has much better potential. In SP it's fantastic. Only problem is the replays don't work. They did'nt for MTW in the start as well. I did post all cavalry "guides" in the form of replays, they were a success and everyone loved em. I think people learnt a lot about using Turk missile cav, and all cav armies from those replays. I wonder if you watched any of them ?

Tell you what Doug, I've been thinking about your guides last night. I think they're great and thing is you seem to be willing to dedicate the time, which is something I don't have much of.

I have a good idea, but it is also an expensive idea in terms of time. Have a look at these following videos and let me know what you think, and also if you can tell what I am thinking.

I'm really proud to say that my online squadron was involved in supporting these videos (xvid to view.. www.xvid.com), and one of my friends in Canada designed this website. These are video tutorials for a combat flight simulator.

http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/Video/Pop-Up_Dive-Toss.zip

http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/Video/Dive-Toss_Bombing-Ironhand.zip

edit: website is: http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/index.html

[Doug-Thompson]

Oh, I know what you're thinking before seeing the videos, Sinan. You're thinking that a picture is worth 1,000 words and that moving pictures are worth a whole bookshelf.~:cool:

Putting together videos would be great. I've never worked on that, however, and only have a phone line connection. I've also never played multiplayer. Your MTW videos and thoughts were cited as sources every time cav archer tactics were discussed in the forums. I assure you that my bad Internet connection was the only reason I didn't watch them. Now that I have a cd-burner at work, I'll burn your videos and watch them on my machine at home.


I could write about this for hours.

I could read it for hours.


I'll be back tomorrow and post before the patch is out (hopefully). I hope to complete....a ... few... more turns tonight. So where would you like to start ?

With the most-neglected topic: combined arms tactics between missile cavalry, light cavalry and heavier units. Javelins are part of all that mix, too, but that's still an unexplored region with these better javelins. So are gunpowder cavalry tactics, but at least there you and Musashi have made a good start with camel gunners.

The best way might be to start with the Turks. You've already mentioned about having to hire Alan mercs because of a lack of decent in-roster light cav.

[ScrapTower]

Is this kind of getting derailed Doug from being about HA tactics and going towards anti-HA tactics?

Im sorry Doug, that was not my intentions, but surely an anti-HA strat would provide valuable info to help create other HA strats and vice versa. I do hate that if not carefull people run the risk of getting their thread thrown in the MP forum. Not cool because if you want to get serious about MTW tactics, you cant be seriously talking about vs the AI...

[Doug-Thompson]

@ScrapTower

Hey, no problem. As I said earlier:


I don't think there's any danger of getting the thread moved to multi-player, and don't care if it does.

As for anti-HA tactics, that's all part of the same topic as far as I'm concerned. Action-reaction, synthesis-antithesis, so forth. Unchallenged discussion of missile cavalry tactics leads to dogma.

Keep it coming. The more infantry players and opposing views, the better. That's the only thing that might stop the thread from becoming something only read by horse fanatics. It might even lead to meaningful discussion of combined arms tactics between infantry and cavalry, missile and melee and artillery. Creating "perfect combos" is an anathema to me, but figuring out ways to use the troops you have together is what tactics are all about.

As you can see, I like to take what's learned and revise the topic essay as we go. No matter long the thread gets, best of it should not sink. The full-blown Missile Cavalry Tactics thread will have a whole chaper on countermeasures. So far, your suggestions will be the core of it.

[katank]

As for lancer/HA combo, I typically like to concentrate my lancers while my HAs are surrounding the enemy in a circle. Lancers are simply used to achieve local numerical superioty to quickly smash an enemy cav wing.

As for hiring Alans, I never found the need. Siphais are quite capable in melee and Turkomans are fast enough to chase down anything. Combined Siphai/Turkoman force is enough to fill any light cav roles. The bonus is that they can shoot too.

[Oleander Ardens]

Great discussion here. I just wanted to add:

a) The Lancer support. Most historic HA heavy armys (Sarmantians, Parthians, Alans, Mongols) had various sorts of lancers in their army, some of them light, some heavy, some with shields. But almost all of them also had bows - CA does usually differentiate between lancers and archers.

Heavy cavalry is of course a great additon because it is able to open up a range of options:

- countercharging enemy cavalry chasing your MC ( Given that enemy chases your MC it will find himself most likely outpositioned and outnumbered - countercharged from high ground to which the MC fled, attacked in the flanks and the rear from your MC and so on)

- breaking parts of the enemy army by achieving local superiority through speed and your MC preparation, spreading panic through their ranks

- shying the AI your human opponent into using dense formation and bunching up, making it a better target for your MC.

However it might reduce your speed on the strategy map and increase the logistic burden, and the overall campaign speed as they are harder to replace...

Important: MTWII is troubled by the mighty formed_charged which enables light cavalry, even lightest MC to defeat even heavy, non-pike infantry units by charging, retreating, charging and so on. MC stacks are thus not only able to outshoot almost all opposition they can also charge down most heavies -->

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74417&highlight=Hobilars
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74131&highlight=Hobilars

[Doug-Thompson]

Adding some links I want to save:

Waypoint method for HA: here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74313)

Camel gunners are the BOMB (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74941)

[Doug-Thompson]

Important: MTWII is troubled by the mighty formed_charged which enables light cavalry, even lightest MC to defeat even heavy, non-pike infantry units by charging, retreating, charging and so on. MC stacks are thus not only able to outshoot almost all opposition they can also charge down most heavies -->

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74417&highlight=Hobilars
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74131&highlight=Hobilars


Agreed. Even with patch morale improvementments, all that means is that decent HA suffer more losses. No enough losses to make things cost-prohibative, though.

All cavalry armies have huge advantages on the new-style RTW map. Infantry armies just can't catch them, while HA destroy them piecemeal. This is compounded if infantry are tacticly outmatched, too.

On the battlefield, I'm anxious to see if the February patch makes a difference, particularly if it helps billmen and such polearm types.

Patched cavalry charges are supposed to be toned down, but easier to acheive. That could well result in a net increase in cavalry effectiveness.