My Russian Horse-Archer Blues

Having tryed the longbow civ (England), the infantry civ (Denmark), I thought I'd see how HAs perform in MTW and it's not good. I'm trying to recruit and fight the way I did with the RTW HA civs with the Russians and I'm not getting anywhere with them. In RTW HAs could whitttle away anything except Praetorians and here they're not effevtive against anything other than mudsill level militiamen. Take away the HAs effectiveness from Rusiia and what do you have left? Horrible infantry, underperforming heavy cav and horrible foot archers. Oh yes, and all their cities are like 2000 miles apart from one another. Anyone else experience my pain with Russia. This isnt any fun at all. :wall:

What kind of HAs are you using? Still in the Kazak phase?

I haven't found HAs as a whole to be wrose in MTW2 than in RTW but maybe that's because I only play RTW mods. The balance could be quite different from vanilla.

If used improperly, yes HA units are next to worthless.

Not real familiar with the Russian HA units, however take a look at this in-depth HA guide made by Doug-Thompson -

Hunters All Their Lives: A Missile Cavalry Guide

It outlines everything from unit details through to tactics for every faction. Quite a long read but very useful in learning the basics with your HA.

Russians spend much of the early game (especially if they stay near their home territory where settlements aren't so well developed) with only Kazakhs. Very weak horsearchers, but they get the job done, especially if fire is concentrated into the rear or right, shieldless flank of the enemy.

Later on Cossacks are great light horsearchers, while Dvor are great heavy ones (with ap axes as a secondary, I believe).

Doug's guide is great. :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Galain_Ironhide

If used improperly, yes HA units are next to worthless.

Not real familiar with the Russian HA units, however take a look at this in-depth HA guide made by Doug-Thompson -

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I'm still using the Kazaks. In RTW vanilla, facing wasn't that important. I'll try parking my Druz and Boyars sons in front of the enemy like scarecrows and taking the HAs arouind the flanks and rear, maybe that'll help. thanks

edit-I'll check out the guide too, he used to be known as "Mongol Doug" back in the AOK days. It's interesting to see that he made his way over here

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Originally Posted by Galain_Ironhide

If used improperly, yes HA units are next to worthless.

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Of course, like if you try using them against musket units. I believe they will get massarce after an few volleys, am I right?

at the start, you should just be fighting disorganized rebels, so you dont need a solid army. later on however, once oyu unlock the top-tier units, you can contend with just about anything short of retinue longbowmen and armoured swordsmen. can anyone say berdiche axemen and dismounted boyar sons?

plus they get the best vanilla gunpowder unit: cossack musketeers.

i'm russian :-)
very nice game

If you don't like the Russian city spacing either don't conquer anything east of Moscow, Kiev, and the Crimean, or use Turkey. Their selection, in my opinion, is much better, and the excellent Siphas make good medium calvary too. Egypt has a good HA too: Mamuluk Archers. But Turkey's a better alternative to Russia.

Anyway... yeah a better use for your jav cav is to sneak behind the enemy lines and "assassinate" the general. HA's work best from the back or non shield side, and they can dominate the battlefield once you upgrade from Kazacks.

The challange with Russian HA's is that like all Russian units -- you will remain a step behind in technology until Russia takes ground from the Catholics. The problem is less with any particular unit than it is with settlement population levels. Kiev can help revenue in the short run, but Thorn or the Hungarian castle will be needed as a first step to keep pace with the west for castle wall levels. Once the Russians are uncorked heading west, your problems will be solved.

If you dont like the Russians, you can always try theIslamic factions, Eastern Europe, Byzantium and the Iberian factions. They laso have HA and make for interesting battles.

Indeed I think Byzantium has one of the best Ha's in the game,Vardariotai,if my spelling is correct. Jinettes are also fun to use as spain/portugal.

I allways tought turkey has the best horse archers. I played them 30 turns and the whole army is pretty much archers. (2/3 siphanis and turkomans, 1/3 turkish archers) I declared few jihads and got some ghazis and mutawahattas(?), witch I can use as cannon food. Then I found out that I can get saracen spear men and recruit afgan javellinmen and I didnt have the need to build anything else than archerbuild2, knightbuild3 and townguard3 to get full armies. For lancers I use both armenian and berber merceneries.

(Really sucks that you cant dissmount siphanis on battle. Would save lots of money if they where able to push the rams.)

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With russians I found that the biggest problem was the fact that theres no population/income in the area that would match the west but still the units are expencive as in west.

I pretty much whent 3 directions on the start. 1 trought skandinavia to Arhus, 1 trought moskow and the desert to Kiev and then Caffa. One on the border of poland competing of the land with them.

When the game whent on from that I took out the english and the scots with the 1 army group. I got all the lands with the 2nd army group and hoarded some provinces around the black sea. But then the general died and there wasnt too much money to go against turks or bysantines. 3rd army was fighting losing battle agaist polish and hungarians. They pushed me to Vilna and drive me out of two castles. (Killing two waste of space adoptees on the process.)

The polish and hungarians seem to be anti-russian weapons. I could only hear the song "anything you can do I can do better" when their polish nobels and hungarian heavy archers came to crush the thin spine of my forces. (shock troops i had where woodsmen, defencive troops where spearmen, most of the army was kazaks with few higher HA's and the heavy cavarly was pretty much my general + alain mercenery cavarly.)

I calculated that I need way more income to crush them with force and I made an error when I took the desert provinces. My second army should have gone Moscow - Kiev - Caffa - Costantinopole - Rest of greek. This way I would be able to affort good armies and fight the catholics with my best. But that really doest make me invisible to mongols and I would have to fight them off with turkish. (Mission impossible with that income.)

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I have serious problems getting decent results in mediaval 2 tw. Where as in rome tw: bi I was relying in cavarly and got insane results with them.

I'm pretty sure that this is because there is no physics (no momentum, no weight) in the game. Because of this my super heavy sock charge cavarly doesnt charge trought the enemy town guards leaving body parts after. It just charges and kills some with the bonus and then begins brawl and isnt able to come out whitout heavy casualties.

Another thing is that the cavarly units have turning rate and they get stuck between each other. So they act like they where on horse first time and keep on brawling since there no way out. Where as trained horse unit would just turn right, keep shield to left and give out overhead punishment with weapon.

The horse units seem to walk instead of run most of the time too. You really dont do that when theres someone hanging from ur horses tail and another hanging from your shield.

i like to play the russians, as more of a challenge, to utilize HA, and as an alternative to the muslim factions.

if you are using too light of a HA(low attack), they are obviously not going to be as effective vs heavy infantry.
its really a matter of math.
from my understanding you are trying to use some of the cheapest, crappiest HA, and expect them to tear up good units.
try getting more advanced HA with a higher attack(or AP) vs the heavier armored units.

Kazaks are terrible. Do not use them. Use only Boyar's sons and better for HA's.

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Originally Posted by Sebastian Seth

I have serious problems getting decent results in mediaval 2 tw. Where as in rome tw: bi I was relying in cavarly and got insane results with them.

I'm pretty sure that this is because there is no physics (no momentum, no weight) in the game. Because of this my super heavy sock charge cavarly doesnt charge trought the enemy town guards leaving body parts after. It just charges and kills some with the bonus and then begins brawl and isnt able to come out whitout heavy casualties.

Another thing is that the cavarly units have turning rate and they get stuck between each other. So they act like they where on horse first time and keep on brawling since there no way out. Where as trained horse unit would just turn right, keep shield to left and give out overhead punishment with weapon.

The horse units seem to walk instead of run most of the time too. You really dont do that when theres someone hanging from ur horses tail and another hanging from your shield.

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Mostly agree with the above post, only the quoted part wants refutation. Cavalry charges are absolutely devastating if done right. You can basically expect to obliterate any single unit in your tech class when you pull off a full charge with heavy cav/knights, even head on. Obvious exceptions are pike units, of course.

On physics: Rome was the game with no (realistic) physics, whereas Medieval II has it all: mass, momentum, acceleration, and so on. Regardless of obstacles, Rome always let you run your horse full speed, meaning it was basically impossible to stop them once they were at "cruise speed". Even Triarii couldn't easily catch and hold an enemy horse unit. Generals were impossible to stop with infantry - with the exception of phalanx units, naturally.

In Medieval II, many things can stop your horses cold, and it is a little bit harder to pull out of (not to mention through, as was all too common in Rome) engaged enemy units. This means you must carefully maneuver your cavalry. They can win the battle for you, but they're not the "I win" button they were in Rome. In Medieval II, you need a more balanced army than the typical all cavalry armies of Rome. Hell, in Rome I conquered the map with Roundshield Cavalry. You won't see me doing the same using Mounted Sergeants in Medieval II. This is as it should be IMO.

The recipe for pulling off a successful charge is as follows:

0. Don't charge up a steep hill, or in areas with lots of obstacles, or against a pike unit.
1. Walk or run up your heavy cav/knights, then wait. Let them reform before charging.
2. Make sure your heavy cav/knights is aligned as parallel or as much at right angles to the target unit as possible. Make sure you have sufficient space to reach full gallop (ca. 100 meters or so).
3. Order the charge with a single right click. Lean back and watch the carnage.

Obviously it can be a little hard to pull this off perfectly in a big involved fight. Still, try to be as close as you come to this ideal charge, and you'll see much better results. Try it in small rebel clearing battles at first, to get the hang of it. Also, cavalry is very good for running down missile troops and attacking an enemy's rear (even without charging, which is often difficult against a unit already engaged in melee). They have a tactical role, but they're not unstoppable behemoths.

And forget all Rome supposedly taught you about the "physics" of heavy horse.

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Originally Posted by Empirate

The recipe for pulling off a successful charge is as follows:

0. Don't charge up a steep hill, or in areas with lots of obstacles, or against a pike unit.
1. Walk or run up your heavy cav/knights, then wait. Let them reform before charging.
2. Make sure your heavy cav/knights is aligned as parallel or as much at right angles to the target unit as possible. Make sure you have sufficient space to reach full gallop (ca. 100 meters or so).
3. Order the charge with a single right click. Lean back and watch the carnage.

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Not much to add to this

0 - Perfectly right.
1 - Depends whether or not you cav starts aligned and facing your desired target. If so do not bother with this.
2 - Works better but even at 45° angle you should obtain good results. Might be particularly useful if your targeting the captain/general unit as he will bear the brunt of the charge.
3 - Order the charge with a signle right click. Then type "R" for run and watch the carnage. Gains time.

I'll add a 4 - When using heavy cav against the enemy line, if the enemy has missile units arrayed in front of his infantry, target the infantry unit directly behind the missile one as per (3) and watch as the missileers are trampled to death while the charge scores against the infantry.

I often managed to kill one unit of missiles (leaving often less than 10 soldiers) and maim severely either one of spears or foot knights (killing about half of them) in a single charge done as above.

I got little better results now with the heavy lancers. (I followed the instructions in posts above. Thank you.) The units where so expencive so I used them to take out enemy archers at first. (By making a big half circle and then hitting them form sides.) But then they got some silver marks on them and I started charging the enemy infantry quite freely. Even italian spear militias seemed to go down nicely.

I still havent found way to use unarmored horse archers in any good way. I tought I play bysantines next and see if I can come up with some use to them. In open battles I manage to pull some use out of them but in sieges they are suffering 100% casualty rate at my hands.

I agree that Russia is perhaps the most difficult faction primarily because of the position and the widely spaced settlements with relatively poor economic potential. If I ever try to play as them again I will increase unit movement points and move west and south asap (i.e. Kiev and the Baltic). Why bother going for Bulgar, Sarkel, or Helsinki? Well, Helsinki can be used to get some troops some experience and maybe if you convert it to a city it will eventually make a little money.