Almohad problem : unable to win vs them after 30y of play

[Draksen]

I have a little problem ...
mmm, correction, a big problem, perhpas u can help me :

FACTS :
I play as France, played approx 30 years and conquered actual France, GB and Navarre (north Spain).

THE PROBLEM :
I decided to attack Castille (controled by Almohad), and won the first battle.
The next year, Almohad attacked me with 300 men, I had 900 : I lost the game (ARRRRRGHHH)
Next battle : the attacked Navarre with 350-400 and I defend with 1200 and lost the battle once more ! (ARRRGHHH ARGHHHH ARGHHHH)
They have spear units and archers and I use Militia+archers+cav+italian inf (merc). I should win with this force, but nothing ! nothing!

I know that I am not a very good player but ... there must eb another problem somewhere else.
Please help. I really dont understand.

TIP : when I say that I lost, I mean that after 1 min of fighting my men ran away like cowrads, and of course ... aRGGGGhhh !
Help !!

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http://www.saosnois.com/blasons/blason-normand.gif
"De gueules aux deux léopards d'or, armés et lampassés d'azur, passant l'un sur l'autre."

[Jagger]

What was the valor difference between the troops?

Also check the vices of your general. He may be a coward which typically inspires your troops to run faster and sooner.

[Soapyfrog]

Almohads are REALLY GOOD in the early game. They are not unbeatable, but the Almohad Urban Militia make them extremely hard to deal with.

They pushed my powerhouse France right out of Spain and into Southern France.

I was eventually able to beat them with High Royal Knights and Feudal Sergeants/Men-at-Arms + Archers/Crossbowmen... but it was touch and go... basically if you are relying on spearmen and hobilars they will roast you.

Tech up!!!

[Vanya]

GAH!

In Spain, Vanya faced at attack by the Elmos... their general was RANK EIGHT!!!!!!

Fortunately for Vanya, He had noticed the fat rank on the bastid and brought over a brand new just developed and carted off the assembly line... a nice 5 star general of His own.

The previous army that faced that pig ran for their mamas the moment the melee started... and it was lucky at that, as the Elmos really chopped through my uber units.

It seems the Elmos get some really high-ranked generals from their lineage.

BTW, Vanya's 5-star gen WAS just produced, was NOT an heir... He was a Feudal Man-at-arms... Produced in a barebones 'dojo'... LOL

GAH!

When facing another Elmo uber general, Vanya got lucky when his bombards flattened his head. Easy pickin's from there on out in that battle...

[Xiahou]

Im in a real pickle with the elmo heads...

Im playing as the Danes and control all of Northern Europe's coastal provinces and hold sea supremecy over the same areas. France, my ally, has just been completely obliterated by the elmo heads in less than 10yrs and now they are trying to chip away at my provinces. They have large stacks of men led by 6, 7, and 8 command generals- My best general is 4 and Im also vastly outnumbered. Ive been trying to weigh my options- but I dont like how it looks.

Any advice on how to defeat a numerically superior elmo army with high-command generals? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

[Chromebender]

I don't remember having many problems vs the elmo-heads. One key problem with their territory is that it is long and narrow, so you can rampage through it fighting on just one front (in contrast to france which took me 4x as many men along 4 province borders). I started attacking them with about 3000 men and I controlled the battles myself. Since I kept my pikemen out front and held my cavalry in reserve I was able t deal with their camel warriors rather easily. The main problem I had with them was that the elmo heads deployed TONS of assassins. Fortunately most of my generals were rank 2 or higher by then so I was able to evade most of them.

Maybe I was just lucky though; I left the north almost completely undefended so my 3 armies of 5+ star generals could sweep through Egypt and the Almohad lands.

[takkran]

If you control the seas Almos will be a piece of cake You caa attack the affrican coast and destroy their buildings first if you do not have a big enought army, then you should try to eliminate their best generals by killing them in battle or assasination, if you have some good assasins, then they will fall for sure.

[RTKLamorak]

The problem u describe does not lie with the almohads... but basically combat experience. U say even when outnumbering them 2-1 u still lose, u just need more pratice m8. mtw was designed for ppl to pick up the moral side of the game quicker with the on screen info. U can see ur men are happy when flanks are protected and/or when u are on a hill for example. Ennsure you always have the height advantage over them/ ensure ur men are close enough together to benefit from moral advantage and you should be vicorious. Also you must also decrease enemy moral as much as possible, an attack into an enemies flank provides a considerable combat bonus (not sure of figure in mtw) and from the rear an even greater one.

Sorry to go so much but after the 1st posts most ppl went off topic telling stories e.t.c (which i enjoyed reading), and i thought this info would be more useful to ur question. So practice draksen.. and soon u shall be winning when YOU are outnumbered 2-1. My most fun games vs ai is when i have between half.. to two thirds of their army numbers. gl m8

RTK7Lamorak

[This message has been edited by RTKLamorak (edited 09-16-2002).]

[Kalt]

Quote Originally posted by Draksen:
I have a little problem ...
mmm, correction, a big problem, perhpas u can help me :

FACTS :
I play as France, played approx 30 years and conquered actual France, GB and Navarre (north Spain).

THE PROBLEM :
I decided to attack Castille (controled by Almohad), and won the first battle.
The next year, Almohad attacked me with 300 men, I had 900 : I lost the game (ARRRRRGHHH)
Next battle : the attacked Navarre with 350-400 and I defend with 1200 and lost the battle once more ! (ARRRGHHH ARGHHHH ARGHHHH)
They have spear units and archers and I use Militia+archers+cav+italian inf (merc). I should win with this force, but nothing ! nothing!

I know that I am not a very good player but ... there must eb another problem somewhere else.
Please help. I really dont understand.

TIP : when I say that I lost, I mean that after 1 min of fighting my men ran away like cowrads, and of course ... aRGGGGhhh !
Help !!

[/QUOTE]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh my....... HAHAHA

Sorry, couldn't help it. Do you have ANY IDEA how ironic this post is in the light of the pro-france flaming you were doing on the other thread?? It is history repeating itself my friend! A poor French commander losing against an inferior foe!

[Nightweb]

I finally BEAT those bastages back bad in my latest ongoing game. Playing the danes (as always, would play the Swedes since I'm swedish, but I guess I'll settle for the danes, harumph), I managed to do a little isolationist game, I took Sweden, followed by Norway, and then the area just south of Denmark from Germany, praying that they wouldn't bother since they were at war with France and Poland allready.. Sure enough, I got the land, and managed to build a trade route from Denmark all the way to the Black sea and Egypt!! It was close though, almost ran out of money as I was building the last ship to finisht the line (love those 450 florin a piece longships =p).

After just 5 more turns, I had 90000 florins in the bank which I spent on upgrading and buying troops, both Poland, France and England were at each other throats and loosing troops, and here comes the Danish wave of fierce norsemen, fully equipped with knights and arb's, with a cannon for a cannons sake.. ok.. So, I just wanted to see what the cannon looked like.. =p

Basically, I wiped out Germany, France, and England in a few turns, not stopping for anything, just building peasant to garrison, then I moved down through Spain that allready had been erradicated by the elmo's, and faced off south of Gibraltar with the Elmo's king (7 star general with 3 full armies). I don't really know how, but I mopped the floor with him (and my also 7 star king with nothing but good virtues), then it was a easy thing of just waiting in that land there for the Elmo's next wave they moved up from Egypt, took on about 8 more full armies, but as Defending with various missile troops and spearmen, I chewed through them pretty easily.. =p

By the time I had the new army up and going to move onwards towars Palestine, I had 200k florins, most of Europe, apart from Italy, and sicily, for trade's sake. and I didn't meet a single full army before I got to the holy city, which fell quickly to my 4 full army troopage of howling crazies from Denmark..

It felt good! Finally smacked those elmo's all over the place and got their King, who didn't have anymore heirs, in Egypt...

Now, I just have to wait for the Mongols.. =p

[dancho]

Got to hit the Elmos early and often. Find out what they are up to at the very start of the game. As soon as they go to war with the Spanish, launch a crusage to Granada or Morocco. If they get up steam, you'll be in trouble. You have to intervene and aid the Spanish right away. Of course, as the Danes you can't crusade-- so it's amazing you managed to whip 'em.

[shokaku76]

try delay action... trade space for time.. continue to tech up, cause their Urban Militia is tough early on, but becomes obsolte... question is will you survive until then?

Personally guys, I simply mod the map, so Elmo land is physically separate from Africa, and Elmos need to build boats and float over the strait of gibratar. I really love that mod map, made by one of the guys in the Guild. Let's get real! England was NOT CONNECTED TO EUROPE!!! SO was Spain to Africa...

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[shokaku76]

Kudos to spmetla for coming up with the Mod map! Since being comverted to your map, I've had little to fear formt he Elmo heads.... and that's not cheating.... it just... being historically accurate!!!

[andrewt]

I have played 2 games. The first, w/ England was the 2 of us eliminating the Spanish together. He betrayed our alliance, I attacked him on 2 fronts. He retreated on one and destroyed my numerically superior forces in the other. He then attacked the province I just conquered and it happened to be a bridge battle. I lost because I chased what I thought were his last troops but he had more reinforcements. I lost 900 to his 1800 and he had so few troops afterwards that I just ran over him.

My second game was as Egypt and it is now nearly 100 years and they have not attacked anybody yet. They have 3 stacks in Cordoba and could take down the Spanish but haven't. I'm guessing that they think that I would attack the moment they have a war with the Spanish since thay a stack in Cyrenecia. It's their fault for not accepting an alliance. I'm now conquering Northeastern Europe and will proceed with Poland next. The French annoyed me by declaring a crusade and refusing to accept a ceasefire even when we never fought so I destroyed them by sea. They have Aragon too which is a plus.

Even on normal, enemy generals are much better than yours. I checked in on England and their hero generals have better stats and in some cases 1 or 2 higher command than mine when I played England and had better V&V's too. Mine had sucky ones at the onset. Hero generals are random high ranking normal troops. I have 4 but one of them got alcoholic which gave him -3 to command.

[This message has been edited by andrewt (edited 09-17-2002).]

[BertrandDuGuesclin]

Try defending ur own teritories untill you have enough advanced troups to deal with them. I always try to manage giving away titles to my diff generals to improve their abilities (the number of starts they got).
http://ecole.sables.free.fr/Personnage/Duguesclin/duguesclin6.jpg

[This message has been edited by BertrandDuGuesclin (edited 09-17-2002).]

[fubi]

i had the similar program with playing france... you can reclaim the english parts of france in the 3 years and then invade britain in another 10 and probably take aragon if you wanted (although i decided not to after the first time because the slow the almohads down a tiny bit) it seems that france is the only real defence against the almohads after spain...

lately i have been trying a strategy of early intervention and have been sending crusades to the iberian all the time and being good allies to the spanish and stuff but its still hard then...

[Lord of the Isles]

I've had problems with the Almohads too, as Byzantium, Early, Hard. After 20 years of war I think I'm getting the upper hand, so perhaps some of the following tips might be useful.

I've been fighting between Egypt to Tripoli and have lost as many battles as I've won. And when I've won, I've usually suffered as many casualties as the enemy. My major problem has been fatigue: my Byzantine Infantry, Varangians, Pavise Arbalesters, Byzantine Cavalry, Kataphraktoi and Pronoiai Allagion troops really seem to suffer in the desert. Trebizond Archers don't seem so bad, perhaps because they are unarmoured.

I often get into a good position but my troops are all (or almost all) exhausted and cannot charge. Therefore I cannot hunt down enemy troops running away, so they rally and come back again. When defending I can wait till the time limit expires, when attacking I have been in trouble because I cannot clear the map of enemy (though hunting down the enemy general and killing him sometimes causes them to flee the field).

Another problem is the good quality of Almohad generals: they often have 6 or 7 commanders against my 3-5. But fatigue seems to be the worst, and resting armoured troops doesn't seem to help. I guess the heat keeps them tired even when standing.

What has helped is taking reserves. I never used to bother past the 16 unit barrier in Shogun single player, since I could almost always win without reserves. Same in my first few MTW games but not in this war. I find I need to swap out exhausted troops. I also intend to try taking some unarmoured units in, though I haven't tried that yet. Maybe Spearmen, Trebizond Archers and Mercenary light cavalry are the way to go but I worry that they will struggle against Almohad Urban Militia, Muwahid Foot, Murabbitin Infantry and Berber Camels.

My best advice though, is use strategy. Since I have control of the Seas, now that my FireGalleys have destroyed the Almohad's weaker ships, I've been sending raiding armies to distract them. They control Spain, France and Britain but that's a lot of territory to guard. I took a full army through Portugal, Cordoba and Valencia and then took off as the Almohad army units arrived. Then Flanders, Wessex and Mercia.
Just destroy buildings as you invade then hop to the next province after destroying other stuff if you are able to. Of course, if you end up surrounded with no Port left in the province you cannot leave but the damage done, as well as the plunder taken, should make up for the loss of the army.

Having to regroup to meet these threats has caused the Almohad's front line army to go down from more than 4000 to 1400 or so. I've just defeated it in Tripoli (a costly victory mind you) but my Emmisaries tell me the rest of North Africa is lightly guarded for now.

So a combination of seaborne raids and economic attrition (I started with a 150,000 florin war chest after raking in 7-9 thousand florins a year for a while) has worked for me. When you do fight, best to be the defender so take a province of theirs and try to hold it. And don't chase down routing enemy units: reform and conserve your energy. And try not to fight in the desert where the Almohads have the advantage: take them on elsewhere.

Good Luck!

[Alrowan]

ROFLMAO

sorry, that is really quite weak not being able to beat them, ive done it on hard and expert most times

there are a few tricks to this, one of the first is to remain allied with em as long as possible, build up a large force arround them and try to hit it in one strike, lost of spear/pike units are good as starting troops, and use your cavalry to join the field later. As for thier high and mighty generals against your lower ones there are a few tricks... one, which isnt so fun, is to use the automatic calculator for the battles with them, youll find that if your force is superior, then generals ability wont matter so much apart from troops lost/captured. Usually winning these battles should see your generals gain a few stars quickly, so you can fight them easier in the battle engine.

the alamos are easy... even when you have them re-appear in force in 12 proviences like i did

[Draksen]

thank you all for help/advices ! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
My campaign gets better now, and I just tech a little more. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

PS for Kalt : pssssst. I't a game, not real life. aaaahh, children ...
I can prove it : In the game, you are a good player, and in real life quite stupid. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
But you already know it, Kalt, it's not a problem : you can be stupid, arrogant and ignorant, we accept you like you are.
From your friend : Draksen.
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http://www.saosnois.com/blasons/blason-normand.gif
"De gueules aux deux léopards d'or, armés et lampassés d'azur, passant l'un sur l'autre."


[This message has been edited by Draksen (edited 09-17-2002).]