I just started a game as the Ruskies. I spend a few turns ransacking the meek rebel provinces throughout the region, concentrating on working eastward. Livonia(? - western province with dock that the russians start with) acts as a halbred factory and is quickly moving it's musters out to prevent rebellions in my newly conqured lands - chancing that the neighboring rebel provinces will remain neutral. A few turns into the game I incidently check the status of my neighbors and find that every single rebel province around me is now my enemy. So I leave my new halbreds rather than move them out and I muster another halbred unit. I also halt my advacne and decide to wait a few turns for provicne loyalty to stabalize.
That very turn my two halbreds are attacked by rebels with one boyar, one heavy cavalary and a spear unit. The map had two relatively small patches of forest, so I stretch my two units out along the entire back line of the forest.
Now I'ed like to mention here that I mostly sucked at battle as I always did autocalc. So for the past few weeks I've been doing all the battles and still sucked but was getting better at monitoring what was going on - I just didn't know what I could take advantage of. Then last week I read the wonderful guides by Frogbeastegg. From his guides I've learned how to use flanking to sap the moral from the enemy and that the basic key to victory is to sap the moral from each enemy unit one by one. I've tried to apply this new knowledge but haven't been very successful nor could I see it really working as I tried using it in an existing campaign with 2-3 stack battles. The large armies are beyond my current technical capability, preventing me from really applying the new tatics.
But the battle in Lithuania was just right, said goldy locks
The dumb rebel general heavy cavalry charged into the forest with the spears and boyers hanging far behind. One halbred took the distorted charge and I sent my other halbred unit around behind. The rebels then took massive massive casualties, I ended up losing one (ONE) man from the unit that received the charge while the rebel general fled after he was brought down to 2 (TWO) men That is a 38:1 ratio SO FRIGGING AWESOME I've never had anything like it
Then the boyers made an attempt at the same thing... why the boyers would charge I dont know... They took 20 losses before they fled, I in turn didn't lose a single man. Once they boyers routed the spear routed.
Wonderful victory. It really demonstrated to me the power of flanking a unit (in addition to the bonus halbreds receive aginst cavalary and the penalty cavalry receive in woods). Final tally: 63 to 1
Next turn I couldn't afford to move any units around as I was skirting the edge of rebellion. So I mustered a unit of woodsmen in lithuania. That turn the province was attacked again by nearly every rebel in the region. A total of 560 troops (3 spear; 2 boyers; 1 archer; 2 woodsmen). I had only my two halbred units and a woodsman unit.
Similar scenario, but this time the only available forest put me on a downhill, giving the enemy an up hill advantage.
First thing the enemy did was to charge with one spear unit and his archers (why with the archers melee I don't know...). I charged the spear with my woodsmen and then flanked them with one halbred while the other halbred duked it out with the archers. The spears routed after they were unable to make any formation within the forest with my woodsmen penetrated deep into there rankes and the halbreds hacking away from behind. I then regrouped the woodsmen and charged the back of the archers, routing them immedately.
I had time to regroup before a boyer, woodsmen, and second spear unit all advanced into the woods charging. My only option with the woodsmen was to charge the boyers, even tho I really wanted to charge the spears with them. I pulled back one halbred unit just in time to cause the enemy woodsmen charge to halt, letting my men skirt them and flank the boyers. The enemy spear and my other halbred unit started duking it out in rabble formation. My halbred unit was attacked from behind by the enemy woodsmen just as the boyers began to rout. That allowed me to attack the woodsmen directly with the halbred and regroup with my woodsmen. I charged the flank of the enemy woodsmen. They were slaughtered in the charge and routed after a few moments. With both units open I then surrounded and mopped up the spear unit that had been struggling aginst my other halbred unit.
As I was mopping up, the enemy's final spear unit charged into the fray. I disengaged one halbred unit and flanked the new spear unit. It only took a few seconds before they routed too.
Final tally: over 400 kills/captures to my 69 deaths
I was so proud of myself, finally using terrain, flanking, and disengagement to my full advantage. I managed to pay attention to the woodsmen's poor staying ability after the initial powerful charge. I kept the enemy disorganized and out of formation - especially mindful of the spear units. I finally feel that I've really gotten a grasp of how to play this game.
