Frankish Campaign - Dealing with Hordes

How do you deal with hordes?

Playing as the Franks, my Alamanni allies have conquered half of France and offer me a good stable east flank. But the HUns came, and the Vandals came, and the Suebians came. :knight:

The Huns - too many of them! The only way I managed to defeat them was in a clear siege battle where they had no chance against my spearmen - but in clear flatland, I stand no chance. Given that the Franks have few cavalry, and not top notch except those Frankish Lancers, any ideas how to deal with them? Spearmen and archers don't really work well when a unit of Nokkors destroys pretty easily what it charges into.

Suebians and Vandals are easier to deal with, but they're not helping either with their invasions.

Thoughts? :book:

I didn't play the Franks in the main Attila campaign, but I did play the Geats, which are infantry focused. My strategy against the Huns was a solid line of armoured spearmen and armoured sword infantry. I would then have giant ballistas which would first try to take out their ballistas and then prioritize their elite infantry and thereafter their melee cavalry. I'd use my archers against their cavalry archers and have about 2-4 units of light or medium cavalry to protect flanks and hopefully later attack their melee archers.

This isn't an army that is sure to win against a Hunnic army of equal size, but it has a chance. It becomes really important to choose your battles wisely, try to bring more troops than they, tempt them to attack you in settlement battles and so forth. Training champions to harass armies is also of extreme value. My champions followed their armies all the time, trying to reduce their numbers. My armies would then follow at a safe distance, waiting for the right time to attack, which was often when they had suffered so many harassment casualties that they'd camp up to recover.

Didn't think of champions - good point.

Problem is, you can't fight with them on an open field. Those Hunnic Horse Archers are absolute havoc, and Nokkors can destroy an entire unit of axemen / warband if caught in open ground. And the Franks depend on axemen and spearmen. Furthermore, the allies don't really help either because they deal on two fronts at least as well. (Alemmani at least)

First thing, CA likes to put a "final boss end game" in the campaign. And the Hunnic hordes of Atilla are that final boss end game. You don't beat the Huns, you out last them. Every army you destroy, more spawn at the eastern edge. But once Atilla dies the Huns literally evaporate.

That said you're making a few mistakes
1. NEVER confront a Hunnic army in the open field with only one army of your own you need at least 3. 2 fight the main battle and one mop up the remains immediately after.

2. Auto-calc the battles. Mass casualties yes, but the advantages that Hun units have in tactical battles are lessened.

To beat back the Huns and survive them you have to be willing to see thousands of your soldiers massacred and you out lying towns and cities burned.

More armies spawn? Woah...

The problem is that you beat them, you beat them back, but they still come and attack in huge waves. So the only thing would be to either find a way and destroy 3-4 armies or just... I dunno, make more alliances and win this. Auto-calc literally destroys your entire army, and the Franks don't make much money from commerce to offset the losses.

That's why you use cheap and expendable levy armies to back up one field army. Levy armies for Germanic factions are simplicity itself. 8-10 Germanic pikes, 4-6 slingers, and some kind of cheapo cav units (ex. 2 Germanic lancers). Padded out with merc cav or elite merc inf where convenient. These can be raised quickly and if annihilated who cares. The point of them is to grind down the Hunnic units so that your proper army can finish them off. And since you can maintain 3-4 pike units for every 1 sword or axe heerban you can have say 4 armies instead of two. 1 of proper units and 3 of levies. To fight the hordes of Atilla you have to meet unit spam with unit spam.

And the thing is these levies don't need to be maintained on a permanent basis. Beyond say one of 6 pikes and 4 slingers to hold down a disrupted province.


I use this strategic plan for all Germanic factions in Atilla. Especially the migrators.

Levies are cheap and plentiful yes, but you raise the army, you take care of it, then it gets utterly destroyed and then you start again. The Franks are not an economic powerhouse, and I managed to reasonably develop to over 10.000 per turn profit, but it's still difficult to rinse and repeat over and over again because they aren't that powerful. (Franks)

That being said, I always make sure to have superiority when engaging the Huns, otherwise no chance. Pikemen are very useful against cav, but I need a counter for those Hunnic cavalry bowmen. Those wreak absolute havoc.

How useful are spies and doing some guerilla ambush tactics? Any other way to restrict those Nokkors and bows?