Advance or defense?

[Lord Fluffy]

When fighting a battle, how aggresive are you? Do you pick a good spot on the field and wait for the AI to come to you or do you advance immediately and meet the AI? Assuming of course an even force going into the battle.

[Andrei]

The best defense is an offense...i meet them head on never retreat never surrender..

[Martok]

If I'm the defender, I usually pick a spot and let the enemy come to me -- no sense in wearying my troops unnecessarily.

When attacking, I enjoy employing guile and trickery. One of my favorite things is to draw the enemy away from their initial defensive position -- I find 1-2 fast cavalry units works well for this task -- and (if possible) make them come after me instead. I especially like using this tactic if my opponent's army: 1.) has a lot of missile troops and/or 2.) is parked on a mountain or steep hill.

[PBI]

It depends on the terrain. If the enemy is coming to me anyway, I will usually just wait for him so that my missiles get the advantage of the first volley. But if he's not, it can be quite fun to maneuveur the enemy army from the top of a hill to the bottom of a valley without firing a shot (although rather cheap).

I probably should be a bit more aggressive considering that I fight a lot of night battles, wherein I believe the defender starts with a morale malus which gradually returns to normal throughout the battle, thus supposedly making a headlong charge likely to rout the enemy if done immediately.

[Old Geezer]

If you really have even forces, can get the AI to advance upon you, and you have even a little high ground, it should be better to wait until the AI commits its troops because it is slow to respond. It is especially vulnerable when sending archers forward. You can easily run them down with light cavalry before they can get off a shot or run away. If the AI has artillery, however, I prefer to flank them with my cavalry, if I have such, and charge it as soon as possible and then attack the AI from the rear. (I really hate to have pikemen who can't disperse stand at attention and be blasted by artillery. What would I tell the mothers?) When the AI has some artillery it seems to be overly confident which leads to it making some silly errors.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Defense, since 80% of the time the AI will come to you regardless of who is the attacker. Also moving troops en masse seems to muck up their formations quite a lot, and your line often ends up pretty squint.

I probably should be a bit more aggressive considering that I fight a lot of night battles, wherein I believe the defender starts with a morale malus which gradually returns to normal throughout the battle, thus supposedly making a headlong charge likely to rout the enemy if done immediately.

Thats interesting, I thought the only bonus was te +1 Command the night fighting General got. Do you know if the morale handicap you describe still applies if the enemy General is a night fighter as well?

[PBI]

No idea, I just remember the manual for BI said something about this being an advantage of using night battles. No idea if it was implemented in M2TW, it's certainly not a dramatic enough effect that it affects my tactics (as I said, I tend to forget I'm fighting a night battle and fight exactly as I would during the day.)

EDIT: Just searched this, and the consensus seems to be that there is no such bonus. Which is a little disappointing, there really is no reason to fight differently at night.

[Yaropolk]

Do you know if the morale handicap you describe still applies if the enemy General is a night fighter as well?

Yes, you will see night fight's effect on the enemy General on the prefight matchup screen. If he's a night fighter clicking on the night fight checkbox increases the enemy's command rating.