Barbarossa Campaign - Help!

I am relatively new to Medieval Total War and I am stuck on the second battle of the Barbarossa campaign - sorry, I am at work and have forgotten its' name. it is where you have split forces - 1 mainly knights and the other infantry and you face 2 Milanese armies - 1 being besieged and 1 relief force.

I have tried every form of strategy - attack with your knights , while your infantry move to support them or fend of 1 army with some knights and attack with the rest to support your infantry. All seem to get quite close, then I loose, normally on the loosing too many Knights condition.

Any ideas, clues etc ~:confused:

Welcome to the Org King Kurt ~:wave:

Can you remind me which battle it is with a bit more detail? It has been a while since I played them.
There is one where your objective is to get a number of troops into a village... that one has split troops.
Or another where you have a couple of groups of siege weapons and a group of cav / inf. and two seperate attacking forces, and you have to stop them capturing your siege weapons.

It is the 2nd 1 in the campaign.It is the 1 where the army is split into 2 halves - a pile of knights and a unit of foot knights who are faced by a Milanese army consisting of some spears, Italian Infantry and missles and the other half is a unit of feudal knights, a unit of Italian infantry and about 3 missle units - they are facing some Hobilars, and a pile of infantry including a 100 strong foot knight unit.

You have to defeat both armies, keep Barbarossa alive and not lose too many knights. So the best approach seems to be the knights smashing into the army facing them - they are virtually on top of them any way - while the other army attempts to move over to the knight army. What seems to happen is that the knights rout the facing army with some losses and then has to come to the rescue of the infantry. This is going quite well, when the loss of knights becomes too high and you lose.

The only thing that might be a factor is that I tend to stick the knights in wedge. this seems to helpbreak the army facing them, but maybe they might do as well in line.

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Originally Posted by King Kurt

The only thing that might be a factor is that I tend to stick the knights in wedge. this seems to helpbreak the army facing them, but maybe they might do as well in line.

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Hi,

I haven't played that battle, but try it again without the wedge. Wedge supposedly gives you a charge bonus, but it also gives you a defense penalty - I've found I most often do better without it. (That or switch to close formation soon after the wedge hits.)

Just a guess - hope it helps some.

P.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by King Kurt

You have to defeat both armies, keep Barbarossa alive and not lose too many knights. So the best approach seems to be the knights smashing into the army facing them - they are virtually on top of them any way - while the other army attempts to move over to the knight army. What seems to happen is that the knights rout the facing army with some losses and then has to come to the rescue of the infantry. This is going quite well, when the loss of knights becomes too high and you lose.

The only thing that might be a factor is that I tend to stick the knights in wedge. this seems to helpbreak the army facing them, but maybe they might do as well in line.

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Never put the unit with the king (or overall General in any battle) into wedge, because the leader will be the King, and you put him in peril of being killed early on.
I had trouble with this battle for a while. I used to make the mistake of immediately sending one lot of knights after the archers behind you and another lot way over to the other separate battle. I didn't think the army of largely missile troops could survive against all the foot and cavalry without a distraction.
As soon as you 'Start Battle' - hit pause and give out commands to your units in the Knight's army.
If I can remember rightly I sent the small unit of foot against the archers to the rear - this scatters them. Form all the knights into wedges EXCEPT the king's unit and just go straight at the enemy units. Try and send some knights against the unit containing that army's leader. Do all these preliminary commands with the game in pause.
I found if you don't do ANYTHING with the other battle at first, nothing much happens - but keep your eye on it and be ready. Also keep your eye on the foot soldiers you initially sent after the archers. If left unchecked they just rout the first lot of archers off the field and you forget about them hanging about on the edge of the game. You need them to come back and set about the second lot of archers to the side, and help with the rest of battle thereafter.
Hopefully the other battle won't start too soon, but a group of enemy spearmen come out of the woods and head over to your crossbowmen, so you have to turn these troops and fire. As soon as you can release some knights from battle 1, charge them over to attack from the side or rear. Again as early as possible, try to target the unit with the General. Now it is just a question of skillful deployment of missile troops, using skirmish command or hold position. ( More seasoned gamers, please correct me if I am wrong! I am quite new to these games myself!)
Eventually I found both enemy forces deciding to flee and I had won.

Now can someone help ME with San Romano? This is a timed battle where you have to prevent a single enemy soldier into a ring of markers with your baggage train in it. I have tried it three times and get nowhere close. ~:confused:

Wallace ~:)

Thanks for the advice - I will give it a go tonight. If I get past this battle and on to San Romano, I might be able to return the favour!

Currently I do a couple of battles to hone my skills then play the campaign for a bit. I auto resolve all the battles as I play it as a pure campaign game. I will fight out the battles in the future when I get more proficient with handling the troops. My current campaign is as the Poles with a Mid period start. My empire is most of northen Europe from Northumberland through scandanavia to Russia. I have knocked out the HRE, Denmark and virtually all of France and I am currently settting about Russia.
~:cheers:

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Originally Posted by wallace

Now can someone help ME with San Romano? This is a timed battle where you have to prevent a single enemy soldier into a ring of markers with your baggage train in it. I have tried it three times and get nowhere close. ~:confused:

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Edit: sorry, was thinking wrong battle. The hint bellow applies to another barbarossa mission:

Ok, played this ages ago, so may not be acccurate:

I've won this battle more than once by out-manouvering the enemy. Send your general and 1 more knight unit to the "ring" as soon as battle starts, taking care to not get trapped in the enemy's right flank (your left). Make a defensive formation out of your left flank, and let your right flank idle until the enemy's left flank crosses the forest.

When they're done crossing the forest, use your cavalry in the right flank to out-manouver their left flank (just keep running away in circles, but keep them interested in your right flank's cavalry). This will give you proper time to achieve the time goal of this mission.

Also regarding you left flank, try to stay in a missile-to-missile combat as much as possible. This will make the enemy's right flank interested on this part of the battle, so they won't go back to the ring.

I tried the advice last night - I got close, but didn't quite make it - I will just have to perservere - sadly I was attracted away to the computer during the 2nd half of the football - Liverpool will never pull a 3-0 deficit back I thought - having lost narrowly twice as Barbarossa, I came back to the TV to find Liverpool at 3-3!! :furious3: - there must be a moral there I think!! ~:cheers:

Yes... the moral is that Liverpool are Champions!