Perfect formation?

I was just wondering what formations people use when they attack or defend. Personally, I will almost always set up my infantry in the middle, alternating spears and non-spears. Archers or whatever else ranged in front of them (loose formation if there are any ranged units in the enemy army) and cavalry flanking all these jolly fellows. I would quiet like to know if anybody has any other ideas, and also if anyone ever uses those army formations you can use when setting your troops up for battle.

Usually i have missles infront of the main force. There is a spear wall behind them, the sword/axe/polearms are positioned behind the spears. When the fight begins and the enemy is engaged with the spears the sword units can move around the spears ( through if the particular spear unit is not fighting ) to quickly flank the enemy. Cavalry is at the flanks to intercept enemy movement or to move behind the enemy. General is at the back "commanding" or serving as the last hope unit.

The tactic may sound very usual, but it works against the AI and i don't ever intend to play MP. Internet is for FPS games only :knight:

Depends on the situation at hand. But normally I try to pin the enemy forces using infantry (archery is for sissies ~:smoking: ), and then strike with the heavy cavalry, while I try and engage the enemies archers with my light cavalry, alternetivly screen the enemies cavalry if he has all to much of it.

The perfect formation is the one that works against the other army. ~:joker:

Spears in front of archers with flankers behind the archers and cavalry off to either side will get you a long ways, but not against someone who knows that formation like the back of their hands. When the enemy's mounted knights wrap around your back at the same time that the enemy's foot knights hit your spears, you'll know that was the wrong formation to use.

Playing STW taught me to respect Sun Tzu -- if you are an unknowable enemy then you will be invincible. Change things around and see what happens. I get crushed experimenting all the time but it always helps the next battle (where I get crushed again ~:wacko: )

Tamur

I will use the "Cavalry Charge" formation sometimes for attack. When the enemy comes at you with their spears, break your cavalry to the flanks and let the men-at-arms play with their spears. For defense, find a steep hill and fortify it. I suggest you read, "Beginners Guide by Frogbeastegg." The guide has alot of tips.

IMO there is no perfect formation, it all dpeends on your personla playing sytle and the availability of specific troops. as naopleon said "No battle plan survives an encounter with the enemy" th best generals often improvise with what they have.

Missiles/skirmishers up front, some cav behind them, followed by the main infantry line (all sword/polearm/axe as I don't play single player anymore), followed by what remains of my cav. Sometimes I'll break the infantry into a couple of lines if I'm especially overloaded with foot troops, which tends to happen in early era games.

Hammerhead. I designed it myself, that is, I didn't copy it from anywhere, even if it exists.
The strongest melee men to the centre, ok. Mediums to their both sides. Archers behind the heavies. The light inf behind the archers and the cavalry behind the lights. Now you got T or hammerhead. I once threw this formation onto a 40 degree uphill and still managed to break them. It is because somehow I always outflank my enemies with it.

Hi all,

I would agree that there's no 'perfect' formation. Circumstances will dictate your initial layout, depending if you're attacking or defending, to begin with.

Partly it will be arranged according to what you want to do with your forces, what you want the enemy to do in response and partly to account for what you don't want the enemy to be able to do against you. Against STW(1.11) AI, I often don't have any useful data on opposing forces until I'm in the thick of it, so some rearrangement is required according to what I find once I'm on the field. I wouldn't leave archers up-front for long if there was cavalry waiting for them, for instance.

Then there's terrain to take account of. If you're on flat, wide-open ground, you'd want to spread as wide as possible, to prevent out-flanking but not so thin that your front line can be broken up. Or, if attacking, you'd want to stay compact, for 'punch' yet have strength at the sides, to take on the inevitable flanking which you expect and, perhaps, want as part of the plan.

Among the hills, you have to maneuvre in gradual stages, to ensure that the different marching speeds of your units up differing degrees of slope don't leave any too far forward and vulnerable nor the heavily armoured ones lagging too far behind to help if you do get caught out. Stop as often as necessary to maintain overall formation.

Anyway, when on the attack, I tend to stick with the preset formations which STW provides for you, sometimes making minor rearrangements before marching up to the enemy. I can't say I've found a use for all of them yet, so one of three I can think of gets used over and over... :bow:

The perfect formation all really depends on what faction you are, or what game. As said before, there is no perfect formation that will take on everybody, but I have been doing some testing using an Echlon formation, reversed arrow head, cresent shape and arrow head. here are some rough examples.

In:Infantry
Ca:Cavalry
S:Elite sword/heavy Infantry


Echelon:

...In.S....
.
.........In
.CA
................In
.CA
.........................In
............................................In..In..In
..................................................CA..S...

This will work well when th enemy is in a long line formation, allowing Cav to sweep around the side being attacked while other units anchor the flank.

Reversed Arrow head:

..CA...........................................................................CA..
In..................................................................................In
.......In....................................................................In
.................S...................................................S
..........................In...................................In
......................................S.............S
..............................................In
This allows you to overtake the flanks while the center is still coming up with the more elit units, if you lay it right, you should totaly encircle the enemy, but it is risky because there are many things that can go wrong, which is why you have the strike the flanks hard and fast using either Cav or Heavy Infantry.

it takes alot of practice to get really good with these and bear in mind that they dont always work, but if you can manage to play the cards right, they will crush the enemy formation.

The horns of the bull formation, Zulu style!

Great if you've got the advantage of numbers over the enemy - but that's a given if you're the one attacking... ~;)

It's more than likely that the defender will have its strongest units in the centre, to resist an arrowhead-formation attack so it follows that the extremities of their line will be lower quality units, whose main purpose is to act as support and enable the centre units to engage without being outflanked.

However, as your front-most units are on either side, the effect that will have (against AI at least) is to draw the missile units (presumably set in skirmish + fire at will mode) to wheel about and fire diagonally outwards. Your central units arrive at the defence line late and are the last to come into missile range. If they're undermanned in terms of archers or just over-eager with sending the arrows into your flank units, they may be beginning to run out of ammo by this point, so your centre arrives more or less unmolested.

As a bonus, if the units at the ends of the defence line fancy their chances against your flank units they may forget what they're in place to do and, instead, turn outwards, leaving the centre units exposed at the sides. Ready made gaps in the line to be exploited and units presenting the side of their formation to your best troops. Nice.


The only counter I can think of at present, short of complete withdrawal due to being outnumbered ~:doh: , would be to abandon plans to hold the defensive position and maneuvre the entire defence force sideways for a quick munch on one of the flanks, before the centre or the other flank have time to cross the field to where the action is. I'll lose the downhill advantage, of course, but envelopment will only work if the defending force obliges you by, or just rigidly insists on, sticking to the 'best' spot on the field.

If it doesn't keep still and it can march about at least as fast as your forces, you'll have a hard time pulling it off. If it can do a smaller-scale envelopment of one end of your formation, it can pick off units one by one and at least do some damage before they're finally overwhelmed by attrition.

Actually, I should refine that a bit. It would have to be a case of hit & run and keep moving as any prolonged standstill for fighting will allow your unengaged units to reposition and pull off the envelopment. As long as the defender can keep moving towards the outer edge of your flank, you will have to keep rearranging your units or wheeling your entire formation around without it losing shape. The latter is not as easy as it sounds. Think of that trick where a line of ice-skaters are spinning around - the ends have to move faster than the middle and half of them have to go backwards...

I mostly play defense. Early on I concentrate on building up my economy. Therefore I put a cheap army on a hill. I've done well playing Italians with urban militia and militia sergents holding the slopes, with plain vanilla archers on the crests firing over their heads into the oncoming enemy. You do need a high valor general nearby to keep the boys on the line happy. As Byznatines (my favorite), I use the Byz Inf and Trebizond Archers in the same way with even better results. In fact, that is almost all I ever use. No Varangians, Kataphrakts, Byz Cav, etc. The Byz Inf and Treb servs me just fine.
On Offense, I usually attack with archers in front and Infantry bringing up the rear. I hardly ever use cavalry (too expesive, and I am too cheap).

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Originally Posted by eadeater

I was just wondering what formations people use when they attack or defend. Personally, I will almost always set up my infantry in the middle, alternating spears and non-spears. Archers or whatever else ranged in front of them (loose formation if there are any ranged units in the enemy army) and cavalry flanking all these jolly fellows. I would quiet like to know if anybody has any other ideas, and also if anyone ever uses those army formations you can use when setting your troops up for battle.

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It's hard to call a paticular setup the correct one, or not, as there is no 100% answer. All I would say, is to pick a well balanced army and pray for the best(depending on what your opponent has). I usally play as the English, & what works well for me is......

5 Infantry [sword]
6 Cavalry [Incl. General - 4 good units of cav, Templers or Chiv. plus one unit of cav for skirmish, to protect your archers if needs be]
5 Archery [2 Pavs of some kind & 3 Longbows]

From my setup in the previous post, -Formation -

X = Cavalry
Y= Infantry
G= General
P = Pavs
L = Lonbow


[A]----G------[B]------G
-----XXXX----------YYYYY
----XYYYYY---------XXXXX
------LLL-------------LLL
------PP--------------PP

Setup [A] is set for when using infantry units decent fighting against enemy Cavalry(FeudalMAA or CMAA). Setup [B] is for using Infanty very vunerable to enemy cavalry(Vikings or Asb Guards). Ofcourse, this is a standard setup, but depending on how the opposition is lined up, you can move them around as required.

Hail to ye all.

To be honest my battle formation often varies considerable based upon the units I have availible to me, the terrain, the weather, and the units I am facing.

On a flat plain, with the army of my choice, I would have archers in front, spears behind with light infantry on the wings, medium and heavy infantry behind the spear wall, along with another unit or two of spears to plug holes or spoil flanking cavalry. I'd also have a unit or two of archers behind the spear wall, in order to continue laying down fire while my front line archers retreat behind the wall. As for cavalry... I'd have a unit or two of light cavalry for dispersing isolated missile troops and for pursuing broken foes.

I have found one useful manouever to use with this type of formation: If enemy spears or light infantry engages my spears on the front of my line, I will place my engages spear unit on loose formation, charge my medium or heavy infantry through my spears, and as soon as they open up a pocket in front of the line, return my spears to close formation. Sure, my spears take increased casualties for a moment or two, but it's faster than marching my swords around my flank, especially if the enemy heavy hitters or cavalry are on the flank. This way, I can break the enemy center and watch the foe crumble from the center outward, especially if I can get two or three units through my line at the same time.