Dealing With Cav. As England

[ArtistofWarfare]

I've been using the French for days in custom battle scenarios and kind of falling into a different style of play than I found myself comfortable with in previous TW's...either way, I'll try to offer my own suggestion here:

Envelopment.

The English are going to get flanked when facing an army that is formed primarily around Heavy Cavalry. It's just going to happen. Either you are going to be so short on cavalry that you just don't have enough to match up with the enemy's and negate their cavalry on your flanks, or your cavalry is going to get banged around quick by the enemy's superior cavalry and you'll find yourself in the shortage department early regardless.

My suggestion is to simply accept that your flanks are going to drown within the first few minutes of the main infantry clash in the middle of the battlefield. You should analyze your formation and determine where the enemy cavalry will just break through the lines early- determine your weak points and predict where the enemy will be able to punch a hole. Once you've done this, you should have a rearguard comprised of at least one unit of your own heavy cavalry and several units of the best spearman (or best anti cav you can field) you can put back there. Position these units in the best possible position to react to the enemy cavalry that will break through your lines. Further, assess where these units will meet the enemy flankers/line breakers and then position missile units that will be able to direct fire onto this position.

The idea here is to be able to have strongpoints on your lines that do NOT break (England's infantry lineup is quite fine for this) and then have the ability to immediately close up and seal off any portions of the lines (or flanks) that do break. Once you've sealed these positions up and reacted to them during the battle, focus that missile fire on them. Hold up cav with spears, focus missle/artillery fire on the position and then punch this position with your own heavy cavalry you had in the rear.

Again- just concede immediately that you don't have the horses to out run or out flank the enemy, nor do you have the horses to even prevent them from flanking you. That's not England's thing.

What IS England's thing is their heavy infantry and missile fire. Again, to utilize this to your advantage you need to make the focus of the battle the middle of both armies, not the flanks. The most effective way to go about doing this is as described above and to layer your army on the battlefield. One long line or even two long lines is just asking to be flanked.

You need a vanguard that will not break and will own the middle of the field, pushing the enemy back. You need a 2nd line of spears that can immediately react to any cavalry that break through your lines or flank you and pin them down. You then need your heavy cavalry and missile units to hit these units with everything they have before they start causing your lines to collapse/route.

Think about the old game where people put their hand on top of the other person's hand on a baseball bat. Over and over until someone reaches the top of the handle. This is the similar idea here. You drive down middle of field with offensive infantry so the enemy flanks you. You seal that flank off from the rear and now - it doesn't exist anymore- flanks are closed again. Meanwhile, your heavy inf keeps pushing down the middle of the field. Over time, the enemy is forced to either stop focusing on the flanks and focus on the middle of the field (which is what you want him to do) or they will just wear themselves out by thinning their lines out...gradually pulling more and more of their cav and other units from the main bulk of your army, to your flanks.

Regarding envelopment: You also don't want a dead straight line. You want to position your army in a way that it folds/collapses (at the weak points) the way you want it to- and into a good position to get sealed off by your spearmen. If you prepare this properly, you should be able to not only hold the middle of the field EASILY, but after the enemy's first flanking attempt, you should hold the flanks pretty easily as well.

It's just a matter of forcing the enemy's hand and negating their strengths while accentuating your own.

Still- the bottom line is that if your enemy has a significant heavy cavalry advantage, they have a significant overall advantage. There's only so much you can do if you're own heavy cav are outmatched 3-1. Even when your infantry vanguard takes the middle of the field, they will get rear ended by whatever cavalry the enemy has left on the flank after it overwhelms your second line that reacts to it.

This is why I don't use England. I feel that there are other armies in the game that are just better overall and have strengths that the English army simply can't negate reliably enough every fight.

I'm using the French because in the entire scenario I just detailed: I still don't see what you would be able to do if I have a 3-1 heavy cav advantage (and a better class of cavalry) and better field artillery than yours- targeting your missile units. The coordinated shock of heavy artillery and heavy cavalry hitting infantry at it's weak points should usually be enough to just break the enemy's fighting capacity over time. It's just too much.

This is why the English army is at it's best when on the defensive. Prepared positions along treelines and buildings etc, are the best way to protect your flanks. Combine this with stakes and limited spearman and you can force the enemy into frontal cavalry attacks- and once they're pinned down, just pick them apart with your longbows and punch them with your heavy infantry. Other than these sort of defensive battles though- Yes...the English army has some issues when dealing with heavy cavalry.

p.s.- Look at the Battle of Agincourt. You have those heavy trees lining both sides of the battlefield...and this is what really prevents the French Knights from flanking the English army- not the stakes in front of the archers. In that same battle, if the French don't attack frontally, I don't think the English have a prayer...no matter how "unorganized" that army was that day. That battle resulted in such huge French losses because they could not flank...period. They were pinned down in the middle by a superior infantry and then were at the mercy of longbow fire. Attaining this same situation in every battle is giving your English army the best chances at victory. When that's physically impossible? Don't fight the battle imo. You're asking for huge losses.