Heavy vs light

Initial question removed and thread restored. Sorry; this was lost in a clean up of a banned user's posts. Bumped. ~sapi

Depends on faction...
English and French i use mainly heavy armies, with some Mounted Sergeants/Hobilars to beat crossbowmen
Moors don´t have much other choice than light until little later, but i can play with that...
Turkish are mainly cavalry with light archers and heavy charges (well, Muslim charges are what they are...)
As playing Italian, pretty much any of them, Its all out heavy infantry with maybe some weaker cavalry until i get Broken Lances and so on.

Playing as the Russians right now I don't have much choice but I'm enjoying playing with a light, skirmish cavalry army. the problem is that sometimes I have to thin an enemy army out, retreat (so lose the battle even without any casulaties to me) and then attack again. it would be great if you didn't lose command stars for tactical withdrawls. As far as i can see when outmumbered 3 - 1 if I can kill half the enemy army and retreat with almost 0 losses that's great generalship!

Combined arms if possible. I have played Hungary probably 65% of my time on MTW2, and its got decent HA units.

Russia, Turks, hungary you really are limited initially to what you can build so its definately faction specific.

Even though i favor a HA army as my base, heavy infantry will always have a place in my armies, because I like having that mallet. 2-4 units of DFK with the rest say hungarian nobles is quite a deadly army...

And you get the best of both worlds of heavy and light, it does require you to micromanage a bit though but its manageable.

I love the HRE, so it's pretty much always heavy for me.

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Originally Posted by TeutonicKnight

I love the HRE, so it's pretty much always heavy for me.

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It's not going to be HA's and javelinmen really is it :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Don Esteban

Playing as the Russians right now I don't have much choice but I'm enjoying playing with a light, skirmish cavalry army. the problem is that sometimes I have to thin an enemy army out, retreat (so lose the battle even without any casulaties to me) and then attack again. it would be great if you didn't lose command stars for tactical withdrawls. As far as i can see when outmumbered 3 - 1 if I can kill half the enemy army and retreat with almost 0 losses that's great generalship!

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Have you tried having a reinforcement army of your skirmish cav? Withdraw your used up HAs and have the fresh ones move on up.

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Originally Posted by Von Nanega

Have you tried having a reinforcement army of your skirmish cav? Withdraw your used up HAs and have the fresh ones move on up.

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I did use that tactic in MTW but I've never had enough troops to to it MTW2. Does it work as well?

I've got used to a combined arms force (playing as Byz, Russians and Moors, at least). Out in the field, it's just more satisfying scaring and killing large quantities of enemies with lighter, faster troops, but there are times when you just need something heavier and stronger (taking castles, for instance). Then again, tramping across the map with DFK is also satisfying, but in an infinitely less tactical way...

Generally, though, it's about using the right tool for the job, I think.

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Originally Posted by Don Esteban

It's not going to be HA's and javelinmen really is it :laugh4:

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Sorry, but it wasn't readily apparent to me that he was talking about cavalry.

I understood the OP's rather vague question to be about heavy infantry vs. light infantry. Considering his lack of text, it's an easy mistake to make.

Vague title-only posting ftl.

Edit: All I see is a title and some bs about instagibbed. I haven't a clue what that nonsense is about.

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Originally Posted by Midnight

Generally, though, it's about using the right tool for the job,

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I concur.


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Personally I prefer combined arms (but enjoy heavy troops' utilization slightly more than light troops'). Playing as the Moors I enjoy using many crossbowmen and spearmen, a general (or two) and some missile cavalry capable to engage in mêlée if required.

My ideal situation would be to defend a bridge (and this is especially the case in Western Europe). Many crossbows -- and archers with fire arrows -- aimed at it to pepper the foe as he approaches whereafter I catch his troops with my spearmen at my end of the bridge who are on guard to keep formation. My archers and crossbows keep hitting the foe in his flank while my spearmen defend. Fleeing troops will perish as they are shot in the back. There is no way forward -- as they will die by stubborn spears -- and there is hardly a way backwards -- as my many arrows strike hard, swiftly, and deadly ---> maximum destruction of the foe and minimal casualties among own troops.

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Originally Posted by TeutonicKnight

Sorry, but it wasn't readily apparent to me that he was talking about cavalry.

I understood the OP's rather vague question to be about heavy infantry vs. light infantry. Considering his lack of text, it's an easy mistake to make.

Vague title-only posting ftl.

Edit: All I see is a title and some bs about instagibbed. I haven't a clue what that nonsense is about.

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No, I don't think you were wrong - I understood he meant both. I was agreeing with you that the HRE don't exactly have many light troop options.

Heavy.

I use heavy inf, heavy cav and/or horse archers. Light infantry are filler to me.

the point of light infantry is to absorb enemy fire :laugh4:

and the point of light cavalry is to use mobility to strike your opponent where they are weakest.

I think that pretty much sums up the usage of anything light :sweatdrop:

Lately i'v been using mostly light troops, A large army of light troops will often have the advantage
on the open field simply because of there ability to get around the battle fast.
So i always try to avoid Massive sieges, i try to draw as many enemies out and then kill them on the open field so i can take the cities and castles without much resistance. this tactic takes some time but i think its well worth the effort cause I'm just not to fond of siege battles

Well,at first i liked to use massive armies with heavy troops,but now i use light troops cause i can hit the enemy in his weakest points very fast.