The feint is a perfectly acceptable military tatic...

... so why does MTW penalize you for it?

Situation #1: I take a stack and make a feint for a province to draw off ( or pin down ) some enemy stacks while my real attack goes for another province nearby. The stack that's doing the feint then retreats without fighting. It's likely that the general in charge will get a "hesitant" vice, even if only done once. I disagree with this penalty. However, at least I can put a 0 level commander in charge of the stack, so that one of my good generals does not risk getting this vice.

Situation #2: I use horse archers or other mounted missile troops to harass the enemy. After some time, they tend to rout ( and cannot be rallied ) due to being "disheartend by constant retreat". I've had this happen to full strength units that have taken no casualties, still have 1 or 2 fatigue bars, and have a very good general. Why does the game do this?

Robert

You know, what's curious about this is that while I use the same tactic with horse archers as you do, and sometimes call off attacks, I've never had either of those things happen to me. I've never seen the "hesitant" vice, and my horse archers only rout for valid reasons, like losing a fight with the enemy.

With regard to the "hesitant" vice, it's probably just a luck thing; you've probably been unlucky up to this point. As for horse archers, maybe you need to work on pulling them back a little less often. Let them get off a few volleys before pulling them back, and only retreat when it's really necessary. Unless you retreat a LOT with them, they should stay on the field until driven off by enemy troops, even if you have a bad general.

Ahh yes the "Benny Hill" code.

Ultimately this has been put in to prevent people from winning battles just by running around the field all day until the timer ran out.

Its mainly included for Multi Play balance among other things.

At any rate if you look at history armies that did use horse archers never completely relied upon that tactic... Even the Mongols who famously used their feigned retreats lured their enemies to an ambush site where they would massacre them.

You can still do that in MTW, but you cannot do it forever. Besides in real life if your men spend too long running away from the enemy sooner or later they will decide 'enough is enough' and will melt away from battle.

It is frustrating, I've had horse units do this in battles where I attempt that tactic. I can see where CA is coming from programming it this way -- unfortunately there's no "Intention Indicator" we can use to say, "Yes, I planned to do that!"

I find that as long as you're inflicting casualties on the enemies side and don't retreat too often but wait until the last moment to set the units back a ways from the enemy you don't have that problem.

Do you put your HA on skirmish or control them yourself?

A good tactic is to use your HA as a team. Use one to try and draw out enemy units while, the other hits their flank, within a few seconds even CKs can be decimated. A unit of v2 Szekely can be very powerful using this method. By using two HA and, having them switch roles it minimizes the effect of "constantly retreating" and, it's a good tactic in MP.

I usually micromanage them. Also, if you tend not to march quick when redeploying, but just regular march, it does not happen as much.

If you leave the units on skirmish and don't keep an eye on them, they'll tend to retreat into a map corner, then switch to "attack at will" automatically, usually with not so good results.

Robert

I usually switch the HA's that are firing at slower units onto skirmish (if I can't micro them at the time). But the best thing I found was keep firing volleys at the enemy unit with HA's on Hold Position, then right before the enemy crashes into your HA's you click the Skirmish button, effectively retreating your HA's - I find that clicking behind the HA's to retreat makes them reform and the get slaughetered or you have to not fire one or two volleys in favour of retreating. I favour firing those volleys as the closer the enemy gets usually the more damage you'll do.

I very often use the horse archer tactic for winning battles that I shouldn't win, and although it's unfair, it works and saves time when you rule half the world, and some far away, backwater province rebels, you don't want to have to bring any armies ALL the way back to take the province back, so I often train a unit of horse archers or any cavalry that's quick in fact, and keep on running araound until the time runs out, but only ever get hobilars retreating because of the "disheartened by constant retreat" thing. As for the Hesitant trait - I also always get it, especially later on in the game, when the AI is just looking for a reason to pile bad vices on your generals and heirs.

I suffer from the whimpy HA syndrome as well.

It doesn't make sense from a real life perspective. All they've got to do is ride around on their horses a bit, and making sure they don't get entangled in an actual fight. Then when the real battle begins they get to watch from a safe distance how all the poor chumps on foot get to take the enemy's punch.


It has always annoyed me, but I'll try some off the tips here next time.

I hate it when my enemy is the defender and runs around the entire field even when they have a good defensive position. Once I seem to have a set up a good attack position, they run and run. It gets pretty annoying. So I bring in culverins and serpentines to punish them.

By the way, do better horse archers, say Byzantine Cavalry or Boyers, reduce the chance of being disheartened by constant retreat?

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Originally Posted by eadeater

I also always get it, especially later on in the game, when the AI is just looking for a reason to pile bad vices on your generals and heirs.

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To prevent bad vices which lead to bad morale keep your governers out of stacks.

I've never had a unit of Szekely become disheartened due to constant retreat. I think alot depends on the units valor and discipline. Constantly retreating your HA isn't the best tactic unless their being chased by a unit of Knights, using them as a team is far more effective.

Alot of people are unwilling to accept heavy losses to their HA, IMHO these losses should be accepted, if 2 units of HA manage to destroy a unit of Knights (or Pavs) and suffer 20-30 casualties a piece then the price was worth it.

I have a different play style as I have limited time to play.

Yes I play with the timer on... but it tends never to get much beyond 1/4 and rarely to one half and I often slide the time up to 100%... particularly when marching into the battle formation at the start of the game.

Mind you I played WesW Mod for MTW 1.1 for the first time last night and the first battle with about three armies and a total of 5k troops took me a whole 30 minutes... made my night PC wise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mercian billman

To prevent bad vices which lead to bad morale keep your governers out of stacks.

I've never had a unit of Szekely become disheartened due to constant retreat. I think alot depends on the units valor and discipline. Constantly retreating your HA isn't the best tactic unless their being chased by a unit of Knights, using them as a team is far more effective.

Alot of people are unwilling to accept heavy losses to their HA, IMHO these losses should be accepted, if 2 units of HA manage to destroy a unit of Knights (or Pavs) and suffer 20-30 casualties a piece then the price was worth it.

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I'm currently playing around with a tactic of combining a unit of Steppe Heavy Cavalry with a couple of Turcopoles - I'm English so I don't have access to anything better than the TPs unless I luck out with mercenaries or bribed troops ~:(.

The lighter TPs do the majority of the running around, luring & turning the enemy, with their lower armour causing them to fatigue less despite their frequent running. I try to keep them out of melee anyway so it doesn't matter so much if they're exhausted at the end of the battle.

The SHC provide me with another unit of HAs to whittle the enemy unit down and are to provide the final charge to destroy the enemy survivors. If I mess up and my TPs get caught, the SHC are the rescue team that goes dig them out.

I also have a couple of Spanish Jinetes in my reserves and they roam the battlefield looking to aid my SHC/TP teams fighting heavily armoured opponents, waiting until the SHC engages the enemy in melee, then coming up behind for a quick javelin barrage. They're also fast and still generally fresh at the end of the battle, so are great for mopping up routers.

My heavy horse don't really have a fixed role so far, sometimes I use them to hold enemy troops, other times they replace or aid the SHCs in crushing units decimated by my HAs, sometimes I send them on a wide flanking sweep & then hammer straight into the rear of the enemy - aiming to kill the general or units I know hold a royal, more than to rout or destroy the enemy as whole - finally they've been my triarii when the going gets really tough.

I've managed to build up my New Paradigm Army ~:) to one Royal Bodyguard in command, 2 CKs (built in Toulouse, yey me! ~D ), 5 SHC, 10 TPs & 2 SJs, with a SHC & 2 TPs plus a SJ the usual choice as reinforcements instead of being in the starting lineup. Plus I have a spare for each of the CKs, SHCs, TPs & SJs in a trailing stack so that I can immediately replace losses and continue campaigning with my horse army. I'm planning to add an artillery train as well, replacing one or 2 of my SHC/TP groups in the starting lineup, bringing them on as reinforcements once the artillery have run out of ammo or available targets.

My current fad is for theme armies and this one nicely compliements my standard Billmen/Longbow armies and specialist castle assault/siege (merc heavy) and desert (armour 5 or less) armies. I'm thinking of a Celtic madmen army next, made up only of Gallowglasses, Highlanders, Kerns & a few Longbows (Welsh only, of course! ~;)) Unfortunately no cavalry, so I'll have to be sneaky with them.