Newbie Really Needs Help

I'm a little embarrassed to post this since everyone here seems to really enjoy RTW. I have read countless posts and tips/tricks and guides. But I just can't get the hang of controlling my troops. I have tried everything including grouping w/cmptr control etc. But I just can't organize anything nor can I keep up with the AI. It all just becomes a mess and I get wiped out UNLESS I just throw everybody into a big pile. Then I win but lose a lot of men. Its to the point were the game just isn't very much fun. I'm trying to learn on the custom battles but nothing seems to work. If anyone can help (and i don't know how, i think i've read every pointer written) I would sure appreciate it before I put this thing back in the box. I really had high expectations when I first started playing, now I'm cussing more than smiling. Thanx for any help

Use the pause key (press P). R:TW is faster than previous games in the series and it's only reasonable to expect that new players have difficulty adjusting to the speed. I've played both Shogun and Medieval before and still use pause anyway as I'm not terribly fast and like to have fine control over my units. There are more than a few veteran players here (mostly those who do multiplayer) who don't need to use pause/don't use it much, but IMHO it's better to use pause first and hone your tactics in deciding what actually works for new players.

The scissors/rock/paper analogy is appropriate for describing general counters to various troops:
Counter slow moving infantry with archers and ranged troops
Counter ranged troops by attacking them with fast moving cavalry
Counter fast cavalry with spear infantry

Play on Normal battle difficulty if you are still having trouble. That way no side gets attack bonuses and the stats for each unit can be interpreted as is.

I'm no battle expert but if you could give an example of a particular battle with details of units on both sides and general terrain, I'm sure the vets here could help you out further.

Hello:

May I simplify my own experiences into one principle: create "local advantage".

From your post I know you have be doing that, by throwing everything as a bunch. You can win because the AI doesn't do that often. So when you charge everything in, the AI gets outnumbered by you.

What you need is a little refinement of "throwing the bunch". A face-to-face combat is always hard. The TW series stress the value of flanking a lot, which makes it such a revolutionary wonderful game.

The most common practice is: when you see one enemy unit coming angrily at you:

(1) You face it with a defensive "sponge" troop, such as your infantry. If you just leave them there they will probably get wiped out, though. Even better is to send in 2 units of infantry to face one charging foe, at a slightly different angle.

(2) Almost at the same time of the melee starts, you charge in a "shock" troop. That shock troop will first run forward a bit, so by the time the enemy crossed the line of your shock troop, they have their back exposed to you. You know what to do next - charge in and wait for their flag turning white.

Once the routing starts you are not far from victory. Just keep the momentum going, free up your troops and do the same to other charging units.

Some troops have high morale and doesn't rout that easily, for example, general's bodyguard. You might need to have 3, 4... even more units focusing on this single unit, charging from left, right and back, and left, and again right to rout them.

There are also certain types of paper-rock-scissors relationship that will optimize your result.

Enemy use:

Regular spear infantry (triarii, eastern infantry, etc.) -> block it with your short-weapon infantry (they have bonus against spears). Be careful not to charge your cavalry in unless you are certain they will break soon after your charge. Or, they will just turn around and massacre your cavalry.

Phalanx -> the easiest. Don't bother melee. Instead always surround it and shoot it from the sides and back. They are too slow to touch you and will rout before any melee starts.

Missle infantry (pelsates, archers) -> you will need to watch out for those turbo archers (the chosen archers) because they should be treated as melee infantry, too. (So you need to carefully surround them.) For regular lv 1 archers & pelsates, almost anything can massacre them in melee. Just 1 cavalry works well but you might want to pull them out of melee as soon as they get stuck.

Melee Cavalry (incl. general's bodyguards) -> spearman is the best. If you don't have any, then use other infantry plus your own melee cav. is good.

Horse archers -> never chase them because the riders will turn back on the horse and shoot you in the face. Duel it with your own archers and see which side dies more. When they charge in face it with your melee troops.

***

I found everytime when I face a large AI army, I suffer from big casaulty if I also extend the melee line as long as the AI's formation. Because by making my lines long, I can't really create a lot of local advantage to rout AI quickly. So I always try to run to one side and cripple the AI army from there. If you have a lot of cavalry (esp. archery) this can be made rather easily. However, if you are slower than the AI army then you will take the passive stance... which is not easy, indeed.

Hope this helps. ~;) ~:) ~:)

Yes, the rock-scissors-paper analogy that zhuge mentions is key. The thing I always do when starting any game is do enough 2v2 unit battles to know what units beat what units, how to use terrain (hills and tree cover), and the other things that zhuge mentioned.

Having only two units to control also helps you learn the basics of strategy, which is how you will win battles. For example, if you have foot soldiers, archers, and cavalry in an army, then every time, put your archers in a line slightly ahead of your foot soldiers (who also need to be in a line, or maybe two if you have lots), and put your cavalry out to either side.

That position alone will help you win 50% of your battles. Using that setup and then moving your cavalry around the enemy's flank, on the other, will help you win 90% of your battles against the computer AI.

Something that helps me: do not move/target foot units individually; select with cntl and paint the units at the destination. Everything just shifts around too quickly and orders to units will have them going in several directions at once.

Cavalry is a little different. Needs huge micro-management imho. Try to flank with them and work them in pairs. Charge one, as soon as it hits target dbl-click away, have partner charging to hit home as first disengages.

Pay attention to what your skirmishers are doing. That unit you ordered them to fire on may be moving back...and your skirmishers are following ~;) Always back them up with something that can take a charge; if enemy cav charges skirmishers, run them behind their buddies (you may need to click "skirmish" mode off to get them to do anything)

One thing I have noticed. If you "group" units it is harder to move them: if you cntl select instead, you can both right-click/drag better and they will show up when you hit space-bar. (spacebar shows how units will look at the end of their move) Pause as often as needed and make adjustments.

I hope some of this helps (or is understandable...sometimes i babble ~:) )

With RTW, pause is mandatory for 95% of us. Once you learn to work around the speed and interface problems of RTW you can have more satisfctory battles. Once you start to understand how to use the controls and set up (and apparently not as it was intended by the programmers) you can start fighting battles as less of crazed mish mash.

When to use pause: 1. For initial set up and grouping for march 2. For initial engagement of the lines in melee. 3. Too counter the insane friendly fire/fire at will and skirmish behaviour. 4. To respond to any super fast developing part of the battle. 5. To go from 2x or 3x back to normal speed--the other keys often don't work when you try to "press" them, but pause does.

One of the problems with RTW is that if you try to order a bunch of individual attacks by units as the lines close, all the units seem to go into a criss cross mess. This is caused by the lead computing. Everyone tries to "plot an intercept" course and you get either a furball mob fight, or a disjointed set of clusters racing apart. The AI is real bad about crossing its own lines as the battle lines close. I use the drag control approach to counter this. I will click on the unit cards I want (holding CTRL to select them) and then use a mouse drag to align them as desired (the little pink arrows show how they will be positioned.) This works well for organizing a battle line and I often do it in "pause." Actual grouping can be a bit buggy so I use it sparingly. I wait for the lines to be very close before pausing and ordering individual charge or attack (usually a countercharge) vs. the facing enemy units. I can often use CTRL-A to group my army when I have it arranged like I want, then use the drag approach to march it into the location and facing I need somewhere on the field.

Phalanx units are a bit different. There is a good thread to be found in the index about using them. I use a grouped line and order them as a group to "march past" the enemy line (with guard mode disabled.) They seem to engage well like this. (Works some for other sword or spear melee as well--although you need to charge at the end with individual units.) If I order individual attack too soon the phalanx units will turn and twist and expose their flanks instead. Often I don't even order the individual attacks since they will engage on their own. The AI is clueless when it employs phalangites and rarely organizes them into a proper line, and never maintains one if it does. March them with phalanx off. Turn it on just before lines engage. Charge does nothing other than work as "attack" while in phalanx, regular attack works fine.

Keep skirmishers missiles out in front or else friendly casualties will be really bad. Often some AI unit will charge them (all to often the AI general...oh well.) When that happens hit pause, turn off fire at will, hit "stop", then order them to run behind your line. Otherwise they will stand somewhere back in your own formation or behind and pepper your own troops. Fire-at-will is borked at the moment.

Cav works best on the wings and usually in pairs or more.

Maltz has given a nice list of particular unit types and their appropriate counters. I'll include a few more here for fun.

Chariot Archers/Light Chariots:
These are irritating units to deal with. Cavalry doesn't work too well on them even though they have a better chance of catching up with them. If you can lure them and get them to charge, surrounding them with infantry appears to be best. Keep your distance and pepper them with arrows, keeping your own archers in loose formation and on higher ground if possible. In any case, expect some casualties.

Heavy Chariots/General's Bodyguard:
Bodyguards have 5 hps so they'll take some time to kill but without much armor they are vulnerable to ranged attacks all the same. Soften them up first before using your infantry on them.

Elephants:
Uhm...3 words: run like hell. ~D
Ok, not really. I suppose you can counter with your own elephants if you have them of course but I like to deal with these 1 at a time. A charge by those enemy pachyderm Panzers followed by a cavalry charge followed by an infantry rush can be absolutely lethal. Therefore I usually park my units a mile away and only get fast cavalry to try to lure the elephants. In the case where this succeeds, back off your cav and get your archers to use flaming arrows on them. Any javelin throwers can join in the fun as well. Once the elephants tire, you can then start to consider using regular infantry on them. Be prepared to take losses and bear in mind that even if they rout/run amok and you get to kill them, their death may still cause casualties by crushing nearby units.
You can use other units to lure but bear in mind that the elephants are significantly faster than regular foot soldiers. A fast foot unit might buy more time but supportive melee units should be close by. In the case that you get caught, still continue running - for some reason, the elephants don't cause many casualties if you keep running straight. Turning around to fight or staying still however is asking to be trampled.
If they are routing, MAKE SURE they leave the battlefield. I made the mistake of leaving them alive to deal with another fast advancing troop of enemy reinforcements with a general and when the elephants rallied and returned they caused more damage than that entire troop of reinforcements. :furious3:
If you have special units like incendiary pigs or onagers to act as more appropriate counters against elephants, well now that's a different story of course. ~;)

I also like the standard formation quite a few like to use: with cavalry far off on the wings/flanks and in front, skirmishers/archers in front of infantry or on the immediate flanks and main mass of infantry in the center. Some like to put their general behind the infantry so that you don't risk him and he can commit to the fight anywhere when needed. That way the entire army gets the morale bonus as well (there's a radius for it as mentioned by a CA dev). However I usually like to use my general as a regular cav unit out in front for luring and decimating any light troops if there's an opening. A bit riskier but there's a potential payoff involved.

In R:TW, both cavalry and ranged units are very useful (and in the eyes of some players a tad overpowered in particular scenarios) so make a balanced army as that entails you more tactical options and flexibility.
In the case where all else fails, pay a visit to Evilmen's corner for the really "naughty" tips: ~D ~:cool:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=39971

WoW....what a difference a day makes. Thanks to all who took time to respond. First, I've been doing custom battles for practice and ALLOWING the computer to set my formations. Second, I've been reading BUT not listening. Third, I'm using a laptop and finally figured out how to get some of the "keys" to work, especially for viewing. I just played a custom with the Gauls on their countryside. I picked more cav w/general and skipped the archers, scorpions etc. I put the hvy cav w/gen out on the wings and then I reformed my infantry with hastati in front w/ velites supporting. Then principes on the next line with triarii on each flank with one in the center for reserve. I made the gauls cross the entire field chasing my cav auxilia with some cat and mouse. The gaul cav chased my cav on the right wing which i pulled back and then turned to hit me flanks w/infantry but ran into my positioned triarii. I hit them from behind with the cav on that side and they all broke. In the center the hastati engaged his infantry with velite support and just about the time they were going to break I committed the principes with my left wing cav hitting their flanks. Finally I committed my triarii reserve and then let my general run around and kill isolated gauls. All in all, what a kick in the pants ~:) Then I saved it for re-play and watched it all over again. (I think the "p" key is going to get worn out but if thats what it takes to keep everything under control so be it) The only aggravating thing though, if you don't watch out some units take off chasing only to get isolated themselves and wiped out (ouch!) Now I battle (with a little too much micro managing) but save it and then view it. This thing is a blast...and the best thing...if your not careful...you might just learn something. Thanx ~:cheers:

one little piece of advice just for general strategy. Focus fire. Sometimes you don't have to beat the entire army facing you too win, if his army is seperated a little then pick on the weaker section, kill it off and make it rout before turning to the big one. The routing soldiers from the first section affect the moral of the rest of the army and make the battle alot easier. You'll find yourself doing it by default with cavalry ie. bait a unit away from the main army and then surround it with cav and rout it. But the principle works on a larger scale as well.
ps:- some of us who don't use pause aren't die hard vets, we are simply people who have been playing the Total War series of games since the shogun demo days and didn't discover that the series had a "pause" key until embarrisingly recently. Old habits and all that. :p