Cheesy tactics

OK. I just realized a cheesy tactic and wanted to see which ones you use.

1. If you start a crusade and then, as you are besieging the target city, have all of your generals join the crusade, each unit that joined the crusade gets an experience point. This is an easy way to EXP up your forces.

2. Crossbows are extremely powerful when used in direct fire mode. But if a friendly unit is between the target and the shooter, it will use indirect fire, which is not as good. So if you chase the AI xbows behind its spear lines, it will use indirect fire, and be much less effective.

Others??

Cav charges?

Some times in RTW if you are charging at a unit and they are charging at you, and you have your unit stop a little while before they hit, the enemy unit will stop also. Then you can have yours charge again before they have a chance. That doesn't work all the time, but it is sweet when it does. ;)

When defending in R:TW against large armies of worse units, simply line your men up in the corner of the red line! They have to charge into your men front on, no flanking, and, even better, only a small number of them can get to fight you. I once won a battle with one Sacred Band Phalanx against a full stack of Velites. Cheap tactic, but, it works!

BTW, it works best with phalanx units.

I MTW, when the Mongols appear, have a few good, 4-6 valour assassins on hand, along with about 600,000 florins. Assassinate the khaan and bribe the armies. Mongol troops=very good, very inexpensive armies. Mongol troops fighting for me in vast hordes=domination.

have one or 2 units of veleties line up as 'thin' as possible (2 men deep) a little bit infront of your line of hastii/princepies/legionaries, and turn off skirmish. Then use the veleties to 'absorb' the enemy charge, then rain down pila death on the enemy and charge. This works wonders against cav when you have no phalanx/spearmen. You generally lose most of your veleties, but that doesn't bother me.

Lol @ Omanes, winning by red line camping is worse then lossing in my opinion.

Town militia are better and cheaper fodder than skirmishers.

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Originally Posted by mbrasher1

OK. I just realized a cheesy tactic and wanted to see which ones you use.

1. If you start a crusade and then, as you are besieging the target city, have all of your generals join the crusade, each unit that joined the crusade gets an experience point. This is an easy way to EXP up your forces.

2. Crossbows are extremely powerful when used in direct fire mode. But if a friendly unit is between the target and the shooter, it will use indirect fire, which is not as good. So if you chase the AI xbows behind its spear lines, it will use indirect fire, and be much less effective.

Others??

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I don't see how #2 is cheesy...

As far as cheesy goes I think the cheesiest thing to do is reload from a save game when things don't turn out your way. That's like the Big Cheese Granddaddy of All Cheese. I've been guilty of doing it from time to time and it shames me :embarassed:

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Originally Posted by rvg

I don't see how #2 is cheesy...

As far as cheesy goes I think the cheesiest thing to do is reload from a save game when things don't turn out your way. That's like the Big Cheese Granddaddy of All Cheese. I've been guilty of doing it from time to time and it shames me :embarassed:

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I do that all the time... Now I feel bad for it :(

In RTW, you can sally forth against seiges everytime you load your game.

so:

1.Get seiged
2.Sally
3.Save
4.Load
5.Repeat 2-4 until seiging army is defeated.

this works much much better with horsearcher units defending, as you will invariably lose no men while causing huge casualties on the enemies before you retreat into your settlement and quit with the successful sally, every time. and all this is done in the same turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kuni

In RTW, you can sally forth against seiges everytime you load your game.

so:

1.Get seiged
2.Sally
3.Save
4.Load
5.Repeat 2-4 until seiging army is defeated.

this works much much better with horsearcher units defending, as you will invariably lose no men while causing huge casualties on the enemies before you retreat into your settlement and quit with the successful sally, every time. and all this is done in the same turn.

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I did a similar thing (kind-of) when I had a small army of skirmishers I was trying to get to a settlement to increase happiness. I was suddenly faced by a large enemy army, all infantry and no missiles (I was Rome and they were Carthage BTW). They had some bog-standard infantry and a few phalanxes. Anyway, each turn for about 4 turns, I'd get all the skirmishers in loose formation, sorted single line, skirmish mode on, running on, fire at will.

I'd get 1 unit to pepper one of their infantry from the front, and get some more to go round the sides of the army and kill them from the sides or rear (works best against phalanxes). As soon as they were out of ammo, I Withdraw them all until the next turn. I killed 20-25% of the army each time, with minimal casualties, and despite technically losing several battles, managed in effect to wipe one of their stacks out for "free".

hehe I Am Herenow, that's the beauty of my cheese, all of that is done in a single turn, therefore: not allowing the enemy to reduce happiness, actually invade or otherwise impact your city.

Not to mention turning what is supposed to be a devastating loss into a win! who wants a fair fight if you can have several attrition battles instead?

Just remembered one: Dogs and bridges.

Have lots of shooters in your bridge defense army and 2-3 units of dogs.

Race troops up to the bridge in your classic narrow front with the shooters to both sides. Also bring up dogs.

Just as the enemy start across the bridge, release the puppies. They'll meet the enemy half to 2/3s of the way across and -- bless their small pixelated hearts -- stop up the bridge completely.

Now all of your shooters and javelineers can unload shot after shot (I've had slingers shoot out half their ammo) before the enemy can get through the dogs. And who cares if a few pups get skewered? They are, after all, replaced as long as you run the handlers back to safety -- the most powerful missile weapon in the game.

By the time they come to grips with you, you'll have them so far behind on the attrition curve that you should have a very easy time of it -- even more so than usual for a bridge battle.


I once had a battle wherein I used 2 hoplites to stop the bridge, 2 peltasts behind them, 6 archer auxilia (3 to a side), 4 dog units and 3 onagers. Talk about a shooting gallery.....

Nice - I sometimes have custom battles where I have 2 maxed-out phalanxes vs. 2 full enemy infantry stacks (no missiles) on a bridge. Just deploy the phalanxes to form a solid wall, and advance them so that their spear-tips are just on the bridge (that way they keep formation and don't let enemy get off the bridge). Stupid AI suicide-charges infantry and you get a ridiculous victory! :beam:

Oops double post