English Invincible

[Vikingmad]

As the title says, I have been finding the English to be invincible. I form a stack of 1 General, 2 Spear, 2 Fast Cavelry and the rest Longbows of some sort or another. I put the longbows in a line not too long about 6 units wide, the spear in a schinton at their sides and the cav at the back waiting for the rout.

Every single AI army I face is utter toast with me taking usually less than 50 casualties. The stakes make the english invincible. OFC with 15 units the AI is always going to attack. Even up against 2 or 3 full stacks of Mongols whom I consider the most overpowered in the game I win. I just sit there shooting all my opposition to death. Their is absolutely no tactics at all. Anyone else discovered this?

Right now I have an army sitting outside Constantinople - they have been on 3 crusades never lost a battle and each unit is 3 gold chevrons. The speech the general gives is briliant because he says something along the lines of "your bravery gentleman but the enemy to shame, they must fear your superiority."

I decided not to attack the portuguese or spain and let them get Citadels and full stacks of troops. Well to cut a long story short this unit of longbows cuts down 2 stacks of Aventurors, knights, templors, canons, etc with the loss of 15 men.

At first I just enjoyed mowing down the opposition, but now I am thinking are longbows overpowered?

[CynicalP]

I find the english very strong near invincible when defending, but less so when in the role as an attacker especially against a highly mobile army of calvary / calvary missiles. The longbows themselves are not overpowered but the denfensive stakes they deploy can be considered overpowered.

[Vikingmad]

I find the english very strong near invincible when defending, but less so when in the role as an attacker especially against a highly mobile army of calvary / calvary missiles. The longbows themselves are not overpowered but the denfensive stakes they deploy can be considered overpowered.

The AI will always attack you if you outnumber it by 1.2 to 1 with archers. Trust me with 15 archers - there is never a situation where you need to attack the AI. So the AI has to charge a barrage of highly lethal long range arrows just to get into melee range with the enemy. Once it gets there it the takes a huge hit from the Longbowmen and Yeoman AP maces. 1 on 1 Yeoman archers will take out any unit in the game in a fontal attack. take 60 knights and 60 yeomen for example on an open plain. By the time they reach the Yeoman they will be at 40/50% of their original numbers. As soon as the maces hit they rout.

[spud_u_like]

The AI will always attack you if you outnumber it by 1.2 to 1 with archers. Trust me with 15 archers - there is never a situation where you need to attack the AI.

This actually makes sense in terms of the AI tweaks that were made. A problem in the past was the cheese tactic of exploiting a passive AI when you had plenty of archers.

Basically when you were on the attack and had plenty of archers you could shot the enemy to pieces without them responding. This was one of the bug 'fixes' and so it seems that if the ai realises it's outnumbered in terms of archers (1.2 to 1 as you say) it will automatically go on the offensive.

Now against non stake deploying archers this would probably be a reasonable tactic, especially if the ai army was cavalry heavy, but against longbows it's pretty suicidal. Especially considering the ai's general inability to attack well.

In this case then I think the English are overpowered. I can only suggest you impose some house rules on your game to the effect that your army is more balanced, and contains fewer longbows.

Frankly though I find having to impose house rules to counteract game balance issues a little frustrating...

[Henry707]

Invincible, the English? Just like true life :o)

Henri

[Yaropolk]

The AI will always attack you if you outnumber it by 1.2 to 1 with archers.

How do you ensure that you don't outnumber them by higher than 1.2? I am fielding almost all archer armies in my welsh campaign right now, and I can hardly get the AI to go after me. I've resorted to keeping extra spearmen in the stack to act as my movable stakes!

Yesterday fought a battle: 5 units of welsh longbows, 2 spears + general vs 2 english generals, 1 feudal knights, 4 hobilars, 2 units of peasants, and 4 spears and 1 longbow.

I had to march my longbows up just out of shooting range and then bait the enemy with my general to have them come into range.

[Lord Fluffy]

This had happened to me also when I have superior number of archers. In the pre battle screen what kind of odds was the computer giving you? If the odds are heavy on your favor, then the AI will probably go on the defense.

Do stakes at least slow down elephants? or do they just trample right through it? I would think that they need to at least go to a slow walk, the stakes are long enough to hurt them if they run through it.

[Zild]

My current English army must be invincible beacuse so far nobody has dared attack me!

[PBI]

England aren't especially overpowered; if you fight against them as another faction, you'll find them easy enough to beat. And you'll probably find it's possible to get similar results against the AI playing as any faction.

The English do have a unique advantage against the Mongols, though, since they are the only faction which can field plentiful, powerful, stake-equipped foot archers. These are pretty much the worst nightmare of horse archer/heavy cavalry factions. I find they don't tend to fare so well against the Timurids; elephants don't care about stakes!

So I wouldn't say they are overpowered, merely powerful. They will be beaten by the heavily armoured genoese crossbows after all, and I suspect also by musketeers. In fact considering that England has only mediocre cavalry and its infantry are mostly of the bugged 2-hander variety, longbows are really the only thing England has going for it.

[ataribaby]

So I wouldn't say [longbowmen] are overpowered, merely powerful. They will be beaten by the heavily armoured genoese crossbows after all, and I suspect also by musketeers.

That's what I thought before running tests; i.e. that Milan had the SAS of missile units with her Genoese Crossbows. Pitted against each other one-on-one however, Longbowmen will massacre the Genoese simply by their devastating shooting rate.

Having seen this in effect I get really irritated when fielding my own crossbow units because of how long it takes them to reload. Crossbows are accurate and highly damaging, yes; but when it comes down to brass tacks you need a unit that'll actually have the speed to loose off the majority of its ammo, cutting the enemy down before they can shoot back. That's why I love longbow units.

In fact considering that England has only mediocre cavalry and its infantry are mostly of the bugged 2-hander variety, longbows are really the only thing England has going for it.

Don't forget Armoured Swordsmen - 1/3 cheaper upkeep and slightly better armoured than DFKs. Aggressive sieges are much easier to execute when you can afford enough decent heavy infantry to do the job properly.

The AI will always attack you if you outnumber it by 1.2 to 1 with archers. Trust me with 15 archers - there is never a situation where you need to attack the AI.

That's a very interesting piece of information. I've always read players' accounts of how devastating stakes can be. But I've found the AI is hardly ever on the attacking stance in battles - probably because my armies are cavalry and infantry heavy. I'll try this tactic out.

[Old Geezer]

It seems to me that to make the longbowmen effective you need to take them off of skirmish mode and micromanage their targets, concentrating fire on certain threatening AI units. Otherwise, I have found that they will run out of arrows. The ones that can use fire arrows should be useful at making elephants rum amok, but I can't remember doing such because it has been so long that I had such a battle, if ever, because it is so easy for England to win way before the Timurids show up.

[PBI]

I seem to remember them being depressingly ineffective against elephants, generally I find that unless I have something that is causing casualties to the elephants they will never panic. The only thing I find that really works well is javelin cavalry, with artillery a very distant second.

Though, I should point out that I did my England campaign when I first got the game, before patching at all. Thus, I mostly remember fuming at the screen as a single unit of Mongol bodyguard chewed its way through three units of "good against cavalry" heavy billmen without a single casualty. England might have improved a bit since then.

[Old Geezer]

I can't imagine using billmen against the Mongols. Perhaps peasants would be less effective. Elephants really, really hate flaming ballista bolts. Most artillery is so inaccurate that using it against elephants just becomes a matter of luck. I so vividly remember having 2 of my rented elephant units go amok in about 20 seconds of combat when they go too close to ballistas. I've never had much luck with cannons hitting elephants. The culverin and serpentine do get some hits at times. I once got them to go nuts by charging into their posteriors with some Hospitalers who were able to kill a few.