Demo Battles

Hello,

I'm a little curious what other peoples' experience with the two battles in the demo has been. While both are easy to win, I always seem to lose large numbers of men in them - half my armies or more.

At Pavia, my pikemen seem to stop the cavalry charge at first, but when a second unit of cavalry slam into the front of my already-engaged pikemen, the break through the pike wall and immediately inflict huge casualties. I've tried using halberdiers to help out the pikemen, but they move slowly and seem reluctant to engage. When I give the order to attack, they just stand there for a long time before getting involved in the fight. Meanwhile the pikemen get reduced to less than half their original number by the knights.

At Agincourt, my men initially do well at beating back the French attacks, but inevitably a wave of dismounted chivalric knights overwhelms the defenses on one flank and starts slaughtering my archers. My infantry are simply too few to handle them all. Eventually I win the battle through attrition, but not before I've lost half my men.

What am I missing here?

Well, not much IMO. ~;)

I tend to lose lots of men too in both battles. At Pavia I usualy lose almost all of my pikes, most of my halbs and one of my zweihanders. At Agincourt I usualy lose almost all of my dismounted knights and billmen, perpahs a dozen remians from both. In both case I have the king's/general bodyguards more than half strength.

At Pavia the second cavalry is the King's bodyguard so that is hard to kill, charging into slightly disorganised pikes helps him too. You can counter-charge it with your own general's bodyguard or try to send him around the flank. Though when I tried that (send him around) the french cavs pulled out and retreated to the guns! (Of course I help the pikes with the halbs.)

At Agincourt which flank you have problems with? There is a dismounted french knight that tries to go through the stakes on the right but you have a billmen nearby that should be enough to stop it. Otherwise the french always attack the center where you have your dismounted knights (and your king).

Pavia.

I think the trick is to destroy the french cavalry as much as possible on their first charge by flanking with both halberdiers(I start them forward immediately before the engagement.) and flank with your cavalry , if you can destroy these guys , then send the haberdiers to take care of the scots asap.

AS the battle starts I moove both Zweis together on the hill back a bit to avoid culverin fire then attack their dismounted nobles and flank with cavalry and your lands.

Finally take out the culverins with your cavalry( I'm usually down to 30 in this unit by then but as little as 7 will do the job



I found Agincourt much easier, making sure the appopriate units were put on defense and flanking as possible

One of Sith fellows had some free time:

https://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8132/twplpicyp7.png


The game is more of a slide show for me on the normal size, so I can't really tell you..

Last time i tried Pavia, i left my pikes and spanish arquebusiers deal with the knights and crossbowmen and i ran to help the spanish on the other side. (It didn't help the spanish troops lasting any longer than usual as their behavior is probably scripted)

After having killed everyone easily there, i came back on the main side and took the last remaining cannons with not much loses, sacrifying pikes in order to keep most of my halberds, firing troops and Zweis.

But i guess, with more fatigue involved, this strategy wouldn't be appropriate.

At Agincourt I usually don't lose any archers and lose about half my billmen and maybe a little over half of the rest. I have been leaving my billmen in the rear waiting for the cavalry attack and once that's taken care of then I charge them to the front to help hold against the last of the infantry. My king's unit is the trouble shooter and is used to fill the holes and to take care of any units that get thru the stakes. I have only played the battle twice though and with some practice I would assume that it would be easy to minimize losses further.