Results 1 to 14 of 14

Thread: pesky musketeers

  1. #1
    Senior Member Senior Member BlackWatch McKenna's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    So.Cal.
    Posts
    734

    Default

    Me and my newbie buddy decided to get into a game on line.

    We saw a four player game and joined! The guys in there were defending. The map they chose had a big mesa / plateu in the corner - one side was a steep ravine and the other was a forest on top of a hill. They stood there with millions of muskets.

    My buddy and i marched on the right flank - no way to get up that ravine without getting shot to pieces, so we decided to counter-march and go thru the forest.

    Needless to say, we ended up being shot to pieces anyways by the musketeers.

    So, my question is this: What is the best way to counter muskets? (aside from your own muskets or bad weather).

    Side Note: Seems like kind of a boring way to play a game, lined up with muskets on a steep hill. But it was competitive - maybe they just wanted the points?

    Karma Note: Oh- it was our first on-line competitve game - so I hope they enjoyed shooting the newbies to pieces! hah.

    ------------------
    // Black
    // "Did we win?"
    // Black

    // "Did we win?"

  2. #2
    Senior Member Senior Member LordTed's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Norfolk, Great Britain
    Posts
    932

    Default

    well............................
    them people are somewhat sad but imagine the blood bath u would of had if it was wet.

    to absorb muskets get an armoured unit of bad unit like ashis to absorb the firing, but u would still lose as guns casue fear. U wanna do some sort of sincronized attack on all sides which would keep the concentrated fire power off u. the people on the plateau sound like newbies so they would have fallen for it


    ------------------
    I will beat ya on green and totomi but i am afraid of heights so no hill campers plz

  3. #3
    Member Member Dunhill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    Tasmania, Australia
    Posts
    173

    Default

    too bad this was your first adventure in multiplayer STW. It is quite a shock to encounter muskets in such numbers and campers as well. There isn't much you can do really. The odds are heavily stacked against you. Muskest never seem to run out of ammo, and there will always be the units behind them, which were probably monks.

    It would take a well cordinated attack to dislodge such campers and I think you would have to be very lucky as well.

    Hope you meet some more interesting gamers later, they do exsist.

    Cheers,


  4. #4
    Guest 's Avatar

    Default

    ok here is the solution:

    even if ur losing the musket battle make sure that the enemy's musks are firing on your will-be-dead-soon musks. In the meantime take your shock troops to the sides and then prepare a coordinated attack to flank the enemy.

    In a single sentence...avoid being fired upon by muskets especially low honour troops.

    That's the most efficient way to destroy musks because as soon as the battle is inclined to a win on your side, due to the guns low morale value, they would rout easily.

    I am against attacking frontally musks with any unit because a good player would concenrate the gun fire on the charging unit and 1) reduce him to pieces 2) rout him.

    Also if ur defending but have a missiles disadvantage act as an attacker swiftly...don't let the enemy kill you.



    ------------------
    Honour to Clan No Fear.

    Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

  5. #5
    karoshi Senior Member solypsist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    New York New York
    Posts
    9,020

    Default

    well you mentioned you were in a multiplayer with partners. My first adivce upon seeing an all-musket army is to simply drop out and not play the guy. But if you're taking musket fire from a reasonably balanced army (or two) then here's some stuff:
    talk your strategy over with your partner. Usually one player has the "shooty guys" - which should include one unit of cav archer, for flanking maneuvers, while the other spends his allotment on hand-to-hand troops like monks and maybe a unit of yari cav.
    so your friend ties up the other players' shooty-guys while you are free to concentrate on moving your men into combat, or vice-versa. it beats having to switch back and forth to see how your muskets are doing and then checking to see how your combat troops are moving...

  6. #6
    Naughty Little Hippy Senior Member Tachikaze's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    San Diego, California, USA
    Posts
    3,417

    Default

    Cavalry up the front, melee on both flanks, simultaneously. Or the reverse. This prevents concentrated fire. But this only works if you can choose your army beforehand.

    If you have no idea what your opponent has in store for you, and you use a balanced army, some of your troops, like yari samurai, are basically useless, except as decoys. Archers can outrange teppo, but not uphill, and only until they run out of arrows.

    But the teppo's main enemy are fast units. Use your cavalry and melee (No-Dachi and Monks).

    If your opponent is a novice, you can also draw their teppo down the hill a ways. March your decoy YS units forward until you're under fire, then back off. If your opponent targeted your troops, the teppo will move forward to get back in range. If your opponent is not skilled at micro-management, you can hit wayward teppo units with archers and your own teppo. Concentrate fire.

    Another tactic, one I use in any camper situation, is to find an angle of attack where the camper can bring to bare the smallest number of missile units. The main disadvantage of camping is the camper usually has restricted space, and poor mobility. Also, you are free to surround you opponent on three sides.

    Concentrate fire on the closest missile unit. Usually, your opponent will have only a couple of missile units in range. Often, you can bring twice as many units to bare. Keep fast units on the opposite side in case the camper tries to re-organize the missile units towards your missile units. If too few teppo are left to face your fast troops, charge from that flank. Then charge your "useless" troops up the middle immediately afterwards.

    You will lose a lot of soldiers, but you can win the battle.

    I love messing with campers.

    ------------------
    The best thing about TV is, you can turn it off!


    Screw luxury; resist convenience.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Senior Member Vanya's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Posts
    3,151

    Default

    To beat muskets, the best tactic is:

    1. MOBILITY -- Stay moving, and NEVER move directly towards the bastards. Angles will win the day.

    2. Use several vectors, if possible. A frontal charge alone is the fastest one-way ticket to the grave. A frontal assault combined with a flank feign or 2 can result in some gunnies being sandwiched between your warriors --> make 1 rout, the rest will follow if they are close by.

    3. Make him run for his mama. Threaten the general somehow, and you will see him disregard his frontline to challenge your kamikaze unit. While he is distracted, pounce on him... hehehe

    4. Pray for Buddha's compassion. It may help. Helps more if you have holy men in your own army to deliver the teachings of Buddha to the heretic enemy. For best effect, dress up like Buddha yourself, and threaten the enemy with a lack of compassion for them unless they surrender.

    5. Lotsa guns --> few melee/shock troops. Combined with the 4 above, you have a recipe for disaster for the enemy.

    Using the above teachings of Vanya Tzu, I have managed to not only win vs bafoons with 10 muskets in their army on a sunny day, but also win bridge attacks vs enemies with loads of guns. The latter requires a tad more trickery, though, as well as brute force....

    Of course is NOTHING else works, find some sap unit to absorb the gunfire until the bastards run out of ammo. Just be ready to stick around quite bored for a looong time... and take several fodder units... one wont do...

    Against a GOOD gunny general, though, you may lose anyway despite the best strategy in the world...


    [Sips sake, eats popcorn]

  8. #8
    Member Member smeegol's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    56

    Default

    i LOVE doing battles like this. i got into the game b/c of the realism and how awesome and epic and real it looked. so i really played this type of scenario a lot.

    i don't know whats so hard about it. put low honor troops in the back. front lines should ALWAYS be medium - high honor troops, they will keep the moral of your army as a whole to keep from dropping. (if say you have ashrigus on the front lines and they rout quickly, they run through your tenitre army dropping the army's moral.
    so this explains: don't put low honor troops in the front lines in any suicide charge.

    always mix up your army. w/o good balance your army has a good chance of failing. you need troops w/ good army, FAST troops ::HINT::, missile troops, high honor troops. high honor is a big issue. i have won battles where i was outnumbered atleast 2-1 and it was easy. Why? My high honor troops don't rout and theirs do. My army is also well balanced and missile units help demoralize their troops.
    So what does this tell us so far? High honor troops with good armor should laed any suicide charge to get your army as far up as possible.

    all it takes is a couple units to get up to their lines of muskets and get them to have to push back or go melee. If they fall back than your whole army gets in close and you have a much better chance. if not, they end up going right into melee and HOPEFULLY you got units on reserve (i'll explain later) to keep your army from routing and you should be able to win.

    units on reserve? this is a chunk of your army waiting back away from danger (even though they could get hit from stray bullets in this case) waiting to reinforce your army if necessary. This is a GREAT tactic. They don't loose moral like their ENTIRE army will, and when your army starts getting tired and moral starts dropping you send these guys in and youll really start kicking some ass.
    anyways back on topic: the reserve army waits back until your charging force pushes back the muskets so you can move your reserve up (who will be fresh and ready for battle) to fight and than you can pull out your tired men and use them to flank.

    Cavalry is a GREAT thing for fighting off muskets. If you don't have much cavalry do not charge into them just yet. Use them to flank. Keep them away from gunfire while they flank and than charge them in on a bad angle for their men.
    This brings up another point: don't spread out all of your army so that you give EVERY one of their units to fire on you. Try and Attack one side of their army if possible. Do it fast and efficently. The side your army attacks, is the side you maneuver your calvalry on. Than you can try and flank them and take out their army that way. Lone calvalry units taking heavy fire will rout quickly, and they will also rout if they are fighting a few units, but have the whole army in front of them that they have to fight.

    Finally i come to the last point: LOOSE FORMATION and MARCHING QUICKLY

    with all this said, don't give up just yet when you are face to face with an army of muskets.


  9. #9
    Guest 's Avatar

    Default

    smee,

    every decent player would change the angle of fire and shoot at charging cavs and also i think that if the players sees a cav charge he would counter-attack to it.

    As I repeat; the best way against musks is to evade their power and keep them firing against ur *useless* units while ur best troops attack.

    ------------------
    Honour to Clan No Fear.

    Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

    [This message has been edited by Terazawa Tokugawa (edited 05-07-2001).]

  10. #10
    Member Member smeegol's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    56

    Default

    when they cahgne direction you send the reserve in. they can't counter the cavalry with ALL muskets (i thought thats what we're talking about) and as i said you have to keep them away from fire. when they change the angle (i know this would happen) the obvious is to send in your reserve force. than the forces divide. if you let your *worthelss units die* than your other units have to die right after them.

  11. #11
    Member Member Dunhill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    Tasmania, Australia
    Posts
    173

    Default

    I agree that cavalry are probably the best units to use when going after a force composed of large numbers of guns. The opponent quite often has to respond with muskets or they rout, and when reponding almost always has to turn a flank to the previous target unit.

  12. #12
    Member Member RageFury's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Southampton, UK
    Posts
    183

    Default

    Everyone offering a lot of advice here but from wot he says about a plateua and the fact that is was 2v2...i would rather frontal cvharge some musks that try and evade them and charge uphill...

    It is a difficult post to answer to be honest...i think in this situation Cavalry r useless....2 units of musks firin on a cav unit will make it rout before they even get there..and as tera says any good player would concentrate at least some fire on the chargin unit..

    I really don't like this sort of battle anyway..i get bored...but i have a fair amount of success with monks and no dachi...but the key is not to just charge...if u charge and the player pulls their musks back behind their lines then u r screwed


    To counter this sort of thing...if i have enough room.. i get more archers than musks...this way u can hopefully sdecimate his musks much quicker than his muks r killin u...u lose minimum H2H trops but ur enemy has less musks.....then i normally charge the centre with my monks [4 or 5] backed up by no-dachi and yari sam...then two units of No dachi at flank in order to flank enemy and get at his guns...or to stop him flankinm u... then i normally sen a fast no dachi or [occasionaly yari cav around back to get his guns or his gen..

    In this situation speed is the key...and the most effective way to get rid of em is once u r engaged...the main weakness of guns is low morale and low rate of fire..that is what u must takle advantage of if circumstances permit..

    But to do it u need plenty of room and is easier on flat maps or in 1v1


    -Fury
    "The only certainties in life are that we are born and we die. The rest is just a sea of complexity"

  13. #13
    Member Member Dunhill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    Tasmania, Australia
    Posts
    173

    Default

    If you are going to use the speed of cavalry to charge straight at the muskets uphill you deserve to have them rout.

    I was suggesting the the cavalry speed be used to get to the flank and turn the guns to allow the troops in front a flank to attack. The cavarly speed also permits the unit to get into h2h much quicker, whiich will decimate muskets better than anyhting else.

    I don't use cavalry to do anything uphill, unless I got nothing else.


  14. #14
    leoknite Member KenchiKnite's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Chula Vista, Ca, USA
    Posts
    58

    Default

    Well in my opinion, and someone may have said this, get a naginata unit, raise their honour, and let them walk slowly up the hill with you behind at a safe distance, or get ashis, and archers, let the ashis take damage, and the archers blow em away, or you can send heavy armored troops on one side, then charge cavalry on the opposite side, when the fire is drawn on to you armored men, send in the cav to flank em dead!

    ------------------
    Within a handful of ashes lies the birth of a new age, with the traditions of GOLDEN AGE, Honour to Clan Kenchikuka!
    Within a handful of ashes lies the birth of a new age, with the traditions of the GOLDEN AGE, Honour to Clan Kenchikuka!

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Single Sign On provided by vBSSO