Light Cavalry seige tactic

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-05-2008, 19:07

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

Using Border Horse, especially if they have experience, is an exploit. The AI just can't seem to do anything right against Border Horse except try to pin them by charging with spears, which will backfire when othe Border Horse charge them from behind. The light cavalry is too quick for the AI to counter it, if one is careful to micromanage their movement. I am not at all surprised by your results in view of your skill and experience. Was your general's bodyguard equal to the AI's?

Yes, none of my units had any armour, chevrons, or upgrades of any kind.

In fact, my general charged their general and fought for a little bit without any assistance, and routed the other one. They were exactly equal.

However, I completely SHAMED the Ai in my next battle, where I had one unit of Scouts, one unit of Huscarls, and one unit of infantry, and they had some of their finest troops imaginable. Not bloody bad, if I do say so myself. Not to mention I didn't do the "take the city center and hold it for 3 minutes" trick. I slew them all. Did I mention I slew them all? I think I mentioned I slew them alllllllll.

This is the only way to demonstrate how insane I am.

EDIT: P.s I don't consider using chevrons and armour because that wouldn't be much of an accomplishment if you defeat weak, weak troops with great ones.

**ataribaby** · 03-07-2008, 02:56

I love your battle replays ATPG. I've still got the Zipper, the Triple Hammer, etc. that you posted a while back.

It's a shame the M2TW engine doesn't allow you to save campaign battle replays: I bet there's been a few epics including proper stars and bars generals and real world settlements.

The Denmark vs HRE one... blimey, those HRE spearmen were a bit limp. I was expecting your cavalry to come a cropper on some of those Armoured Sarges. But nope. Only one unit of Spear Militia managed enough nouse to form a schiltrom.

I'm really not getting as good performance from the Huscarls in my Danish game. The Scouts I love - they're dreamy - but Huscarls always seem to get creamed on their first contact. I'm playing the Retrofit mod because I really liked the Kingdoms rebalance. I'd fully recommend it as it breathes new life into vanilla.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-07-2008, 03:10

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Some info on the 2 horsemen versus the HRE replay:

In a real seige battle, the enemy captain or general would have sallied as well, and I would have played the "catch me if you can" game that I did with the Scotland V England "4 horsemen" replay and caught their general outside the main formation, slaughtered him, and then routed the rest.

For the 2 horsemen battle, the captain was too far away to make a difference to the morale of the troops, so it was as if the captain was already killed. The reason the HRE troops attacked my lone infantry unit and chased them till their own deaths was because I would have lost that seige battle without anyone to operate the ram. It would have been a draw.

So they tried to force a draw at the very least by destroying the ram infantry first, who intelligently ran away.

Had they not done that, they would have gone after my Captain's unit, and my other unit, the Huscarls, would have done exactly the same thing as before, picking off troops like the Genoese crossbowmen first, then the archers (those two are the only actual threats to my horsemen), followed by town militias, spearmen, (to gain more experience) and finally the exhausted and shaken Imperial knights, who by then would not stand a chance to my then silver-chevron scouts or Huscarls.

I probably could have won that battle without the Huscarls, in fact. If you notice, there are several points where I only use one horseman to attack, and the other one is just mopping up routers. One horse unit could systematically do both.

One light horse and one infantry unit are all that it takes to beat a non-cavalry army.

Remember, Huscarls don't have lances. They are primarily flanking cavalry and router destroyers. Use them also to slay other cavalry. But attacking spear formations with Huscarls is not recommended except from the side or rear. Even scouts have "lances", long spears. The Huscarls don't.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-07-2008, 03:15

PS- you still got those old replays?

I'd love it if you'd send me a link so I can have them back. I erased them a while ago.

**ataribaby** · 03-07-2008, 17:59

Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

PS- you still got those old replays?

I'd love it if you'd send me a link so I can have them back. I erased them a while ago.

Sure. Here you are:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/sikqmv

http://www.sendspace.com/file/nucnif

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5shro0

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4mnry2

http://www.sendspace.com/file/69z6rf

http://www.sendspace.com/file/dox2ya

http://www.sendspace.com/file/d6iijw

http://www.sendspace.com/file/i2kfb9

**cassu** · 03-09-2008, 00:19

Watched the 2 first ones and impressed how you slaughtered the enemy army but must have been annoying to loose the general in the 2nd battle

.

When you charged the routing enemy infantry wouldnt it been better to click in front of them so the horses would just run trough them? because they always run halfway into the enemy and stop

but still impressive handling with the horses

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-09-2008, 01:48

Was version 1.02 and not LTC where the cavalry automatically destroys routers properly. So I had to manually destroy them. And was juggling 3 separate units simultaneously.