When is 'abandon province' a good idea?

First go at MTW with VI installed (VI_201_Patch.exe is still pending)

First go at Expert, prev experience with STW/MTW, mostly on Normal and in need of advice about Byz-specific capabilities but also raises a general discussion.

Byz:Early:Expert

I'm attacked in Trebizond by 1200 Turks, outnumbering me by about 4:1, on turn 10, so I've only cranked out 2 peasants, 2 UMs (which nearly all went elsewhere to boost up loyalty and tax rates) and a measly 2 units of +1 Treb Archers from there, one of which was shipped out. To top it all, I just moved my brand-new 8-star prince into there (instead of the Emperor with his +2 stars when defending) and he will get trapped in a fort+motte which is predicted to fall immediately, if I lose. ~:eek:

At least the game says "the general will choose his best troops to retreat to the castle". I presume that includes himself. This is a real nuisance feature of the game, as it's the general who you want to keep alive and the dross unit types who you want to sit it out in the hope that the attacker's troops die off from disease/arrow towers/boiling oil and stuff....

Fortunately for me, the PC rebooted itself before I could conduct the battle so I get a 'take-two' chance to restore from the gamesave, raise some extra mercs which were available and put up a decent resistance. Their stack has the Sultan's GC, possibly one prince's GC, maybe 4 Horse Archers, 400 spearmen (to only 100 of mine) plus sundry Napthas, ballista, UMs and one lot of pez in the reinforcement queue.

First question is what are my chances with just 2 TrebA's, 1 ByzInf, 1 Spear, 1UM, 80 Szekelys (??? some Merc cav unit, with axes) and 20 Kat'oi against that lot?


This raises the question of what sort of unfavourable battle odds would prompt you to abandon a key development province, so as to counter-attack in greater strength later, knowing that the combined pillage demolition (at least two lots, them and later yourself, IF you manage to get it back) will set your long-term development back severely? I would have thought the valoured TrebArchers are key to the Byz's plan.


Rousing tales of long-odds survival would be of help at this point but if it involves low manpower, high-tech units then save it for later, please. It won't be of help to me at the moment. In my prev go at Byz, I've seen Kat units get badly cut up, but not what it was that killed them. I don't get the feeling of invulnerability that I see others in the forum attribute to them.

I usually decide which provinces will be my home provinces.

For example, If I play

England, I select the island provinces.
Spain, I select the Iberian provinces.

Those are the provinces worth defending, and developing. Should your empire implode, you can fall back onto these to regroup , then expand again.

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First question is what are my chances with just 2 TrebA's, 1 ByzInf, 1 Spear, 1UM, 80 Szekelys (??? some Merc cav unit, with axes) and 20 Kat'oi against that lot?

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depends on their morale/valor. Low valor ByzInf will break when flanked, higher valor might hold a while. So what's the generals command rank? Does he have valor adding virtues? What's the terrain? TBH, it looks bad.

I abandon when doing so doesn't create a strategic problem (like letting a large enemy force have a province that would allow them access to my creamy soft interior provinces, and when the troops I would save are more important than the chance to kill lots of enemy (IMO its easier to kill wagonloads when defending). Or when trying to hold is just plain unreasonable.

ichi :bow:

The merc cav with axes is most likely the Druzhina Cavalry, dismount them and you'll get your odds quite improved with 80 FK on your side.

Veterans: What's he supposed to do against the 4 units of HA???

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Originally Posted by Roark

Veterans: What's he supposed to do against the 4 units of HA???

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Find some tree cover and wait until they run out of ammo.

Also, as the muslim armies are quite cav heavy it would give him a nice terrain bonus.

@ Zarax: Sounds sensible (given the bonuses/penalties), but I find that fighting with your entire army in forested area is just like wearing a blindfold. Just total chaos for a n00b like me... Also, from memory Trebizond doesn't have a wealth of foliage. Correct me if I'm wrong...

@ EatYerGreens: I have to say, all things being equal (valour, command etc), I think you're a dead man... But good luck! Waste them Turks.

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Originally Posted by Roark

@ Zarax: Sounds sensible (given the bonuses/penalties), but I find that fighting with your entire army in forested area is just like wearing a blindfold. Just total chaos for a n00b like me... Also, from memory Trebizond doesn't have a wealth of foliage. Correct me if I'm wrong...

@ EatYerGreens: I have to say, all things being equal (valour, command etc), I think you're a dead man... But good luck! Waste them Turks.

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Place at least part of your inf behind the trees, you have to negate the enemy cav advantage.
The HA will have a limited impact as most Byz units got decent armor.

If you can survive the Ghulams, your dismounted druzhina will cut trough anything else the enemy can throw at you

A tip for horse archers is to attack them with two horse units, mayb your szeselky could do that, as they only retreat from the unit theyre firing at. use dismounted druzhinas (feudal foot knights) against the spearmen and the cats and spears vs the ghulams. The rest of the army ( artillery, naptha, um and peasants will flee if you take out the king and a large chunk of army. Try to stop these fodder units from joining combats and run the napthas and artillery down with the szelkys

As long as you have a good mix of troops, you can win almost any battle.

EDIT: About abandoning, my rule of thumb is NEVER! Battles fought as desperate last stands are way cooler than fair fights

I would suggest that if you r a freshman you let your 8star general earn his money. Even though.....if you dismount the szelkys to intercept enemy inf. and have your BIs and MUs supporting them, use your spears to intercept the GC and your Kats to flank them as your TAs pouring the HRs from an elevated position you could achieve a sound victory.

P.S. I 've experienced the devastating power of TrebArch Vs Turkoman Horse. One TA has routed 2 TurkHors by shooting from an elevated position and took absolutely NO damage.

Hiding in the woods for 30 minutes is pretty much the only effective way to fight a missile heavy army of the same speed or faster. That or you could try my mongol strategy.

Against the Mongols, I ususally like to have a massive amount of Trebizond Archers(more than one stack) and I just rotate them out when they run out of ammo so I have about 30 minutes of sustained missile fire.

However, in that situation. Hide in a forest. Um... And survive, their spearmen won't be a huge problem, its going to be the UMs since they don't get screwed in forests. I'd set up the spearmen to be fodder. Then I'd use the BI and Trebizonds to flank.

If you can kill the King or capture him, it won't be nearly as tough since all his guys are low moral units.

The Skezlys will be one of oyur most valuable units. They are worth exponentially more than Turcomans. Put them really far out and have them harass the enemy(turcomans are a good target). Make them chase your horse archers and then use your HA to charge theirs and rout them because your's are better..

Wouldn't it be better to dismount the szelkys in order to deal with the enemy spears and UMs?

I don't think it would be the best choice...
Szekelys can fight effectively as light cavalry once they run out of ammo plus you can use it to chase most archer units, while by dismounting them you trade combat effectiveness for a slightly better missile attack.

I doubt that the missile ability is oging to do anything to 1200 units.

Besides they're only 40 men strong, that's nothing. However, mounted, they are elite super horse archers that can cut through about anything given you run them around until they're exhausted.

Other things to consider when tempted to abandon:

Is this 8star prince your only heir?
If so it's probably best to submit the province until you have a second.
Having him killed could be drastic, and ransoming him back could cost you the cash you need to muster a larger army to retake the province.

How quickly could you raise a larger army?
When I have lots of units onhand nearby I retreat to the castle (or fort or whatever) and then mount a counter attack before it has time to fall.

Having said that, as it's early in the game just defend and restart if you lose.
as Joshwa says:

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Battles fought as desperate last stands are way cooler than fair fights

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and you are playing to have fun right?

If defending doesn’t work you could try attacking the province they are coming from. Sometimes the best D is a good O.

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Originally Posted by Advocatus Sanctis Sepulchris

Wouldn't it be better to dismount the szelkys in order to deal with the enemy spears and UMs?

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TBH, I never ever considered dismounting my Szeks. They're the best cav archers in the game, and can fight decently. Plus they're fast.

ichi :bow:

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Originally Posted by ichi

TBH, I never ever considered dismounting my Szeks. They're the best cav archers in the game, and can fight decently. Plus they're fast.

ichi :bow:

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Not to be polemic but...
Sure, they are good but stats wise BC, SHC and Boyars looks better.

That said, they are like Hungarian hobilars ~;)

Abandoning a province is GREAT with a large merc army, because it helps you dictate your enemy's momentum.

Come in, smash, burn, earn, move the mercs forward. They're just mercs, leave it to the strategic map. Use them up. Leave just enough to keep the peasants quiet and your pocketbook happy. Then let the enemy retake his own territory, one area at a time (if you've set it up right).

By the time it's done, one of your opponents has been all but neutralized, may have rebellion problems, and you have several turns with your core states producing and building. Meanwhile, your A and B armies are doing their thing where they need to, and if it's a pure one-on-one, are now in a position to beat the heck out of a much weakened enemy by following in the mercs' footsteps. And if not, if your merc train can puncture and deflate one of his core states, you've guaranteed that your units will tend to be better than his for the short-to-midterm.

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Originally Posted by Zarax

The merc cav with axes is most likely the Druzhina Cavalry, dismount them and you'll get your odds quite improved with 80 FK on your side.

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Yes, I got the names muddled, because both were on offer (at the Inn in Trebizond itself, something else I stood to lose by abandoning the territory, but see the footnote below) and it wasn't 80 Druz, it was 60... It certainly wouldn't have occurred to me to dismount them as I'd have wanted to use them to chase off HA attacks. In addition to them, I had 40 Alan's, which the Byz get in Treb at the start plus 40 merc Faris.

Also, it wasn't 4 HAs in the attacking army, more like 6-8!

You'll all be disappointed to learn that I evaded this particular battle completely, by restoring from the last proper gamesave and making a completely different set of moves, with the somehwat cheaty foreknowledge of what might happen. This time, it was me who initiated the war.

I attacked Rum in force, they refuse to engage, pull out and retreat some to the castle. Annoyingly, none of his facilities get demolished, which is what I hoped to achieve. I move my 1.5 stacks to Armenia but their Sultan has gone north to take Georgia off me. I pull mine out of there but win in Armenia, killing a prince. My token siege force in Rum is told to abandon after the predicted sally with backup but I attack them from Armenia the following turn and win. It's then just a couple of defences of Rum, killing about 750 each time before they stop. Their Sultan is confined in Georgia for a few turns before recapturing Armenia. So it's currently 1:1 but I have the richer province of the two exchanged plus his Royal Palace stayed intact. I haven't built one in Constantinople yet but I get to award Chamberlain of the palace (+2 Acumen) to my Gov of Const. Yummmm. :smug:

All the movement and battling kept them from attacking Treb at all, which gave me time to mobilise more troops overall, build maybe a 3/4 stack there with plenty spears to put off their cav, train 4-5 more v1TrebAs, plus Nicaea only had to build a horse farmer to give me HAs of my own, trickling in, without needing to build TownWatch etc as pre-requisite and saving much time. It'll build towards PAs in later years. Anatolia has only got 20% farms and an Inn so far, for yet more mercs but thinly defended.

The Eggy's are allied to the Turks but strangely passive. I have only 2BI and 89 spears in Lesser Armenia but the 4 Ghulams and 1000+ pez in Antioch are staying where they are... for now. The divots...

Trebizond seems to be a natural first target for the Turks - three thinly defended Byz territories can be struck from there, not least the capital itself. Due to troop movements out of it, my garrison there has not grown beyond its state on turn one - 60 archers, 60 VGs and 100 ByzInf. I've no intention of moving the VG's until I've the means to replace them, which won't be for a while yet with my existing building plans.

Besides, in spite of being faction with largest annual income, I'm strapped for cash at the moment, with a mere 3000 in the bank, multiple provinces needing to be developed and maybe 1100-1500 per turn cashflow, if I'm lucky (auto-taxes are ON, for a change). Greece or Crete are candidates for first shipbuilder, since the capital will be preoccupied with troops for a long while yet and the royal palace looks pricey when I need a keep somewhere else first...


I did get to meet all these Turk HAs in the end and they're a real pain in the arse to clear off the battle map, even when the rest of their army has routed off it. My Faris survived one battle completely unscathed but, up against endless HA's they were cut down to about 27, after the second defence of captured Rum. The Druz, unfortunately, got cut down to an 11 and a 12 - which the game refuses to let me merge - after one particular assault.


Footnote about Inns:

I've never properly exploited these in past campaigns, what with costing as much as a fort, I regarded them as either an expensive luxury item for 'just in case' scenarios or just another thing which slows up development in a region.
However, in my false-start as the Byz, I'd had rebellions on Cyprus, then Rhodes. Building a fort risks being trapped and seiged but the temptation to build TownWatch and spear or Archer workshops just means more expense plus temptation to over-garrison to the point of 'uneconomic-ness'. An inn avoids risk of siege entrapment but still allows you to react to announcements of 'XYZ will attack next year'.

Similarly, I like to keep some frontline provinces as 'fighting zones', where I hold back development deliberately, perhaps only improve farms to make it an attractive target. Again the inn allows extra mobilisation where troop moves risk weaking the provinces next door but this time I have to anticipate when attacks are coming as you don't get the advance warning that you do with revolts.

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Originally Posted by Zarax

Not to be polemic but...
Sure, they are good but stats wise BC, SHC and Boyars looks better.

That said, they are like Hungarian hobilars ~;)

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They are the best fast HA in the game. I mean, they are royal, super horse archers that are impetuous like knights. They are a good size for not getting clicpped when turning and can run circles around boyars and knights and can beat all the other fast HA. They aren't built for hitting like Boyars or SHC(which are really good as the shoot, run, ram type of cav). They're built for running around and being insane.

Szekely
Charge 4 Attack 3 Defence 1 Armour 3 Speed 9, 24, 26 Morale 4 Cost 375 Support cost 50

Boyars
Charge 4 Attack 3 Defence 5 Armour 5 Speed 9, 20, 22 Morale 6 Cost 550 Support cost 105

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Originally Posted by squidums

Other things to consider when tempted to abandon:

Is this 8star prince your only heir?
If so it's probably best to submit the province until you have a second.
Having him killed could be drastic, and ransoming him back could cost you the cash you need to muster a larger army to retake the province.

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I think he was the second prince. The first is travelling with the Emperor's army. Three more male heirs waiting to come of age and I really do need these on the map before I'm clumsy enough to get my leader killed.

The temptation is to wait for them to get onto the map before setting out on conquests but I'm really following antisocialmokey's advice to get the Turks finished off very early in the game AND plunge into the Eggy's before they grow out of their peasant fetish. Waiting too long allows them to develop to the point that they become that much more difficult to fight.

Yes, the ransom - had he been captured - would likely have broken the bank, totally disrupting all troop mobilisation and building for long enough for one or more neighbouring factions to take good advantage.

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Originally Posted by squidums

How quickly could you raise a larger army?

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Slowly. The Byz only have Constantinople on turn 1, 4 turns for your first forts (pez), 2 more turns for either horse farmer (HA's) or TownWatch (UMs), 2 more turns for +1TrebArchers in Treb itself. Expert meant starting with only 4000 in the bank, so I went by building only one new fort per turn. Initial cashflow of about 1000 allows for 1 fort (400), 1 BI (200), 1 TA (275) per turn, with 1 HA (250) on top, when ready, leaving you with even less in the pot for the following year unless you back off the forts after maybe three are on the go.

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Originally Posted by squidums

When I have lots of units onhand nearby I retreat to the castle (or fort or whatever) and then mount a counter attack before it has time to fall.

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My reasoning would be to keep the prince on hand for the counter-attack. My problem is that the game chooses which units to put in the fort and I couldn't predict the consequences of that. Then again, if he had gone in, I could make him sally and that would guarantee he leads and his valour bonuses will count for the incoming relief force too.

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Originally Posted by squidums

Having said that, as it's early in the game just defend and restart if you lose.
as Joshwa says:

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LOL, well there is that outlet. As I said, in the end I restored a gamesave which must have been at least a year prior to the attack as it happened the previous time, so I took the initiative, attacked Rum and it paid off in the end.

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Originally Posted by squidums

and you are playing to have fun right?

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I am.

And losing Trebizond on turn 10 was not my idea of it. Not on my first attempt at Expert level, anyway.... You never know, I might have pulled it off, I just didn't fancy the odds. Valour bonus does count for a lot but 4:1 means they could front, flank both sides AND attack the rear of every unit simultaneously. Not good.

Sometimes I'll go into battles I know I can't win and should withdraw. Then return to a previous save. I just like trying to fight a larger force and see how much damage I can do. This is especially satisfying in hilly or forested provences, or when there's a bridge.
Of course the end of the battle is generally not that fulfilling, watching your units rout and scarper to the hills is a bit of a bummer. Still, until that happens, it's great fun, just for fun's sake.

Well, I restarted from gamesave and didn't fight in Trebizond itself but I did find myself in a similar situation to what you described and did fight it out.

2 units of BI plus 40 Merc Khwarazmian cav ('K', hereafter) versus about 6-8 horse archers, either one or two spearmen (NOT Nubians, luckily) and several hundred peasants.

Now I may have this muddled with another one I'm about to describe but, in one of the two, I got the message 'you don't have a spy in the province' and thus the battle screen presented me with only enemy numbers, not what units to expect. I decided to brave it out anyway.

Anyway, the two BI's had a nice ridge-line to stand atop, and this ridge faced into the centre of the battlefield, so they had to come uphill to get to me from every side except my rear. The K's spent some time going hither and yon, getting enemy HA's to run away each time. None of their arrows were hitting home, so I don't understand why the AI even bothered. Of course the K's were too slow to catch any but each time I told them to stop (generally at the tree line), another HA unit was often exposing a flank mere yards away, so they did get to carve up a few.

They were getting tired but by the time I was nestling them back in the tress and giving them a breather, the AI decided it was time to storm the hill with peasants. I thought the K's would cream them. Maybe I missed some spears coming with them, I dunno - difficult to see for the trees. Or maybe it was two lots of pez, not one.Mysteriouly, half the unit was lost very rapidly. Okay, all Cav get penalty in trees but a bit of a stretch for armoured cav versus pez. Either way, they went from 40 down to 18 in seconds and routed. That was the last I saw of them. My inf engaged, using downhill charge and wiping out whatever was there. Turns out there were spearmen in there after all. I disengaged and went back to the hilltop. Ultimately, the HA's started to head off into the distance, evidently out of ammo and the rest of the rabble went with them. So I won that one! General got a promo out of it too, IIRC.

The second one also gave me an elevated start position and some woods, with an unwooded slope down towards the centre of the field. I had 1 BI, 1 Spears, one Treb Archers and maybe 60 peasants. I lined up the archers at the treeline. Annoyingly, the enemy force appeared over to my left and were able to march into the treecover zone from a point where it dipped into a gully between my hill and theirs. There was no time for my archers to get over there in time to do damage as they approached, so they stayed where they were. BIG mistake, as I was to find out later.

There was a clearing behind the woods, in my line of retreat and they got some HA's into it pretty rapidly. I knew better than to attempt to engage. My archers got a few shots at them but I soon switched their target to the prince's Ghulam bodyguards and then his spearmen, coming through the woods. My spears and BI's engaged for a while but before long the whole lot of them were routed.

I normally get 30-50 kills out of each Treb archer unit but couldn't help noticing that the 20 or so had left had virtually full ammunition remaining. We all know that trees protect against archers (the enemy had one plain archer and 60 desert archers with him, also in the woods). Seems the problem was that my archers couldn't fire from within the trees! At least, I'd order them to fire, maybe three or for of them animated to show shooting but then stopped. The rest just sat idle.

Considering that the bow has been used, in the past, to hunt woodland creatures, like deer, for example, it is strange that the game believes that archers can't fire whilst in trees. Maybe they can but at severely limited range?

The casualties were 200+ (me) to 250+ (them), so 40-50 kills by my archers might have swung it. At a pinch, you can get TA's to melee. I could have had them attack his archer units, for instance. I remember sending mine out of the trees, onto the down-slope, to ry and get to the side of or behind his men for a clearer shot but I think his archers spotted them and meleed into mine (I saw some of them running with swords drawn, possibly the DesArchers), so that didn't really work out for me.

So, in summary, it can be fun seeing how well you can do against seemingly insurmountable odds but, with me, it was a case of 'you win some, you lose some'.

I have a campaign with the Hungarians that's exactly that. Eventually I managed to pull it out, even though it was looking very grim for about thirty turns. I'm now the master of the Eastern med, and looking forward to trying to roll up the Almohads...

But I've even enjoyed being the Volga Bulgars when the Mongols showed up. I got flattened, but I took the buggers with me. Mostly. ;)

This is my second go at the Byz (first was pre-VI install and was lost in a hard-drive failure, second is post-VI and at Expert, this time) and both times the Hungarians were very quick to make me an ally. In the first game, the alliance made me neglect my western activities, so they beat me to whomping the rebels in Serbia and I think I ended up at war with them over it. Knowing that, this time around, I made sure I grabbed it as one of my first attacks of any kind and I was lucky in that the gold mine didn't get demolished in the process. Ker-chingggg!!!


"Ngata tsukelan mokwisipiak!"

Ka-D'Argo, I presume? Sounds a bit like him calling up Lolan... ~;)

Pardon me if it's actually Hungarian for something.

I had to withdraw on the turn I played last night. The Turks counter-attacked my one stack, 4-star general with four stacks and a 9-star general, in the desert no less. I saved the game and tried twice to win, just for giggles - but it was impossible for me.