Compendium: (under construction)

[Marauder]

The spear miltia guide was great. I'm looking forward to the others. When you get to the missile units, I'd love some info on using longbows/crossbows/javillins/gunpowder. A general pros/cons discussions on them would be useful. For instance, I find turkomans to be more useful than desert cav since the cav's javelins are such short range. Then again, they do a lot of damage... something to clear that up =)

[Askthepizzaguy]

Well theres no reason I can't give you a sneak peek now at the content. This stuff takes forever, but I've been working on it when I should have been doing actual work at my job, so that tells you I am committed. To something, anyway.

Javelins and bows and crossbows are ALL different animals. Here's a quick summary of the uses of each.

Javelins

Ok, you know how annoying it is when the Holy Roman empire, France, Venice, or Hungary spams those heavy knights from their castles? They are a pain in the backside.

You only get a few javelins to toss. You run out of ammo quickly. Using them on basic troops is a waste of time. You can't outrange the enemy archers, and even crossbows have an advantage over you. But javelins...

Throw some spears, pikes, bills, or even peasants between the enemy cavalry and your javelins. Let the idiots charge your line, and impale your weaker troops. Now watch as a hail of javelin rain penetrates the armour of the enemy cavalry, impales their horses, impales the enemy general. The commander of the cavalry unit is dead, and the rest wisely shout the order, in panic, to "RUN AWAY!!!".

Javelins are an armoured foe's worst nightmare. Most of these javelins are armour piercing, and they do serious damage against horses. Horsemen are half the size of an infantry unit or less, so if even a third of the javelins do damage, the cavalry unit is toast on the first volley. Dare they wait around for a second volley, and they will be praying to their God as they gallop away.

Javelin cavalry are among the deadliest units in the game. They can swoop in from a distance, come up close, spam a thunderstorm of death against the enemy's most valuable and capable units, and impale the enemy general to death, launch a few more volleys to make sure everything in the area is dead, and then retreat back to safety. Think of javelins and javelin cavalry as your assassins.

Melee? not so much. Outgunning the enemy? Outranging the enemy? Not so much. But killing valuable troops with less valuable troops.... mmmmmmmm... exquisite! Hit the enemy from the sides or the rear, and you are in business my friend.

There is not a unit alive that can withstand more than one volley of javelins from the rear. There's something about being impaled through the back that makes a person want to give peace a chance.

Crossbows

Think of these guys as a kind of javelin unit... they aren't so great at arching their missiles though. On the walls or behind the front lines, they stink out loud. But! Imagine crossbow spam... an entire line of crossbows. A huge, long line of crossbows. Even better, with spearmen, pikemen, billmen, stakes, or heavy infantry behind them. Add at least 4 units of heavy cavalry. Now, disable skirmish mode and watch the fun begin. The enemy advances... their cavalry, if foolish enough to charge, is immediately annihilated by a wave of pointy death. The crossbowmen reload. The enemy line advances, taking severe casualties from the direct impacts of 500 impaling bolts through the chests of the silly infantry.

Now, the enemy archers take aim... but you've sent your cavalry around to harass them, and they keep fleeing or are now caught in melee.

A line of crossbows. A swarm of heavy cavalry. A few units of melee infantry. Watch the fools die... and die some more. The enemy general chases your horsemen, desperate to win the battle... and he too dies beneath a sickening cloud of flesh-spearing crossbow bolts. Armour won't save you now.

Crossbows are almost like... pikemen with really, really long spears. They can spear infantry and cavalry and anything they please at medium range. But they can be outgunned by the enemy archers, or artillery. Harass the enemy long-ranged units with your cavalry, and impale their entire front line with your crossbows. Impale them some more as they advance. Then retreat back, rush in with some melee infantry, and fire again into the fray.

Oh, the death. The pointy, pointy death.

Crossbows work well as a defensive unit, because they must advance into the range of the enemy before they can fire. Let the enemy come to you, and send your cavalry to harass the enemy missiles so they cannot shoot back. Crossbows don't work so well behind your line, or on your castle walls. However, you know what happens when the enemy breach your gates and start swarming in?

Pin the enemy down with some militia spearmen (or better) and fire your crossbows (at ground level on either side) into the fray. So many heavy infantry and cavalry die... and then the mass routing begins. If they don't rout, keep firing. They are pinned to your infantry and cannot reach your crossbows anyway.

Crossbows... need a clear, direct shot at the enemy. Need time to reload. But the first volley of fire is guaranteed to penetrate their armour, and shake their morale. learn to use them wisely, and do not make the mistake of using them as if they were regular archers. They don't work that way.

These are like rooks, in chess. Your archers are like knights, in chess. Archers can fire over obstacles, and can do a good job targeting crossbowmen. Crossbowmen can only fire with a clear shot (accurately), deal serious damage, and aren't so good versus archers. But if used properly, crossbows can be just as valuable as archers, and can do some things normal archers cannot.

Retinue Longbowmen and other elite archers are better, but crossbowmen are worth more than any peasant/militia/semi-professional archer force. They are better against cavalry and heavy infantry.

Archers

Everyone should be familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of foot archers. Foot archers are generally terrible in melee and severely vulnerable to charges. They fight poorly and break quickly.

Peasant archers and medium-range bowmen of all kinds have their uses. They can wear down an enemy that is huddled in the town square, slowly but surely, no matter how bad their stats are. Set to flaming arrows and watch the enemy (seemingly) take more casualties. (This is disputed, but I swear I see a difference, even in the daytime). Low-level archers don't deal much damage. You can almost march your army directly into their line of fire and weather the storm. You will lose troops, but not nearly as many as other kinds of archers.

Archers also fire arrows, which typically do not have the power to penetrate enemy armour, are easily deflected by shields, and usually fire from the front of the enemy, where the enemy can realistically block the arrows with shields and dodging. Also, units taking arrow fire can simply spread formation and take fewer casualties. So what's the big deal?

Longbows. They can outrange enemy archers, crossbows, javelins, and can realistically avoid artillery fire, get in range, and pepper the artillerymen to death. They fire just as well in spread formation, usually have better stats, some can penetrate enemy armour, and can also light arrows on fire. They are the ultimate wall unit, and have tons and tons of missiles.

If you fire from the sides or the rear, or from two different directions, the enemy takes casualties even quicker. They make great units to put on the flanks of your line, to shower the enemy from two ends. Some longbows can place stakes, and we all know their value.

Javelins and crossbows can deal more damage per shot than the archer or longbowman, however they cannot fire as far or as quickly.

Longbow tactic in seiges:

Use artillery to obliterate the walls and towers on one side. Send in some pikemen or spearmen or other defensive infantry unit to pin the enemy down. Make sure no towers can fire at you, and no enemy archers are on the walls. Now, send in your longbowmen, and fire at the enemy from greater range, with more space to spread out your longbows (outside the destroyed walls) and destroy the enemy with just a few units of infantry and a rain of pointy death. Force the enemy to huddle inside the town square, seal off the city streets with pikemen, heavy knights, or other obstacle, and fire into the huddled masses until they all end up in a bloody, impaled heap of writhing bodies.

Pauses for a moment, so you can appreciate the imagery.

Sighs happily.

As for gunpowder infantry, beats me on how to use them effectively. In my opinion, it's a replacement for the crossbow, as their strengths and weaknesses are the same.

Another hot, steamy slice of battle strategy from your friendly neighborhood pizza warlord.

[Noncommunist]

Thanks for the nice but shorter descriptions of the units, I hope the detailed versions come out soon.

[Marauder]

I'll just keep tossing out ideas: since terrain matters a lot, especially on VH tactical, how do you make sure you're getting the high ground on the campaign map? There are obvious ones, where you're near a mountain or a bridge, but often it will look like an open plain and one side will be much more advantageous than the other. Do I just need to memorize each square of terrain around my key cities, or is there a methodology?

[TevashSzat]

I'll just keep tossing out ideas: since terrain matters a lot, especially on VH tactical, how do you make sure you're getting the high ground on the campaign map? There are obvious ones, where you're near a mountain or a bridge, but often it will look like an open plain and one side will be much more advantageous than the other. Do I just need to memorize each square of terrain around my key cities, or is there a methodology?

Well, I don't think its feasible to memorize the map layouts. It would be just smarter to take a look around in battle deployment and deploy your army so that it would have the most advantageous height advantage

[TheLastPrivate]

Gogo ATPG! You have all my cheers and prayers.

TevashSzat//
Actually for Vanilla I do memorize key tiles that I can always win with extremely minimal forces: One by Zagreb is very notable.

[Marauder]

Well, I don't think its feasible to memorize the map layouts. It would be just smarter to take a look around in battle deployment and deploy your army so that it would have the most advantageous height advantage

My problem comes when I assault an enemy stack and have a couple possible spots and they all look good. Sometimes I attack and find that my entire possible deployment range is below a large hill and I have no choice but to attack uphill. It would be nice to avoid those situations when possible.

[TheDruid]

any idea on when the guide will be ready?

[Lord Preston]

Nice work, I rarely use Jav's but might use them a bit more.

Crossbows

Think of these guys as a kind of javelin unit... they aren't so great at arching their missiles though. On the walls or behind the front lines, they stink out loud. But! Imagine crossbow spam... an entire line of crossbows. A huge, long line of crossbows. Even better, with spearmen, pikemen, billmen, stakes, or heavy infantry behind them. Add at least 4 units of heavy cavalry. Now, disable skirmish mode and watch the fun begin. The enemy advances... their cavalry, if foolish enough to charge, is immediately annihilated by a wave of pointy death. The crossbowmen reload. The enemy line advances, taking severe casualties from the direct impacts of 500 impaling bolts through the chests of the silly infantry.

Now, the enemy archers take aim... but you've sent your cavalry around to harass them, and they keep fleeing or are now caught in melee.

A line of crossbows. A swarm of heavy cavalry. A few units of melee infantry. Watch the fools die... and die some more. The enemy general chases your horsemen, desperate to win the battle... and he too dies beneath a sickening cloud of flesh-spearing crossbow bolts. Armour won't save you now.

Crossbows are almost like... pikemen with really, really long spears. They can spear infantry and cavalry and anything they please at medium range. But they can be outgunned by the enemy archers, or artillery. Harass the enemy long-ranged units with your cavalry, and impale their entire front line with your crossbows. Impale them some more as they advance. Then retreat back, rush in with some melee infantry, and fire again into the fray.

Oh, the death. The pointy, pointy death.

Crossbows work well as a defensive unit, because they must advance into the range of the enemy before they can fire. Let the enemy come to you, and send your cavalry to harass the enemy missiles so they cannot shoot back. Crossbows don't work so well behind your line, or on your castle walls. However, you know what happens when the enemy breach your gates and start swarming in?

Pin the enemy down with some militia spearmen (or better) and fire your crossbows (at ground level on either side) into the fray. So many heavy infantry and cavalry die... and then the mass routing begins. If they don't rout, keep firing. They are pinned to your infantry and cannot reach your crossbows anyway.

Crossbows... need a clear, direct shot at the enemy. Need time to reload. But the first volley of fire is guaranteed to penetrate their armour, and shake their morale. learn to use them wisely, and do not make the mistake of using them as if they were regular archers. They don't work that way.

These are like rooks, in chess. Your archers are like knights, in chess. Archers can fire over obstacles, and can do a good job targeting crossbowmen. Crossbowmen can only fire with a clear shot (accurately), deal serious damage, and aren't so good versus archers. But if used properly, crossbows can be just as valuable as archers, and can do some things normal archers cannot.

Retinue Longbowmen and other elite archers are better, but crossbowmen are worth more than any peasant/militia/semi-professional archer force. They are better against cavalry and heavy infantry.

Maybe its because of factions I typically play I usually only use merc xbows (especially early on) I don't find that I get that crushing impact before cavalry charge them.

What i've done early is against stacks that have minimal archers, is place my spear units from a typical line (4/5/6 men deep) into there special circle formation (name escapes me), then put my xbows behind them in the gaps that naturally appeared so they can shoot through them. This gives the xbows great protection and generally don't lift there aim up while not leaving the infantries flanks open. Maybe its not as effective as what others do but its won me fights I never would of expected to win.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Does everyone remember the first historical battle on M2, the English versus the French?

What deflects the charge, besides the stakes, is before you even approach the enemy, a hail of armour piercing missile fire tears these horsemen to shreds. Granted, those were rather good longbowmen, but good crossbowmen or massed javelins can accomplish the same thing, or better; they usually have much more punch than an arrow, and crossbows in particular seem to be very, very dangerous to charge towards, providing they fire at the correct time.

EDIT: Of course, perhaps any missile troop works better en masse. Don't just use one or two... make a line of these guys and watch the missiles fly!

True, some of your late xbowmen might not be able to retreat behind the line in time, but if you spread crossbows lengthwise (helps them all aim directly anyway, no crossbows in the rear...) they can more easily disappear behind a line of spearmen, who take the rest of the charge. Then they can continue firing at a safe distance, providing your spearmen are in a deep formation which leaves gaps to fire into and helps them keep formation when charged.

Best advice of all:

Try a bunch of custom battles, spearmen and missile units versus a bunch of cavalry and infantry. Play around with the units until you get the hang of them, and learn to cause the most damage. Win the battle!

[Askthepizzaguy]

I clearly will need to put a VanillaMod-only strategy section in the Compendium.

FactionHeir, the modifications you made in the version I downloaded slowed the blitz to a steady advance. I commend you for that.


I actually began producing Dismounted Portugese Knights to assist me in battle. There can be no militia spam blitz under your modified game. Thank you... the game is now fixed.

Diplomacy cannot be abused, but it also seems to be broken now. I would have to sit inside my own territory and never attack anyone to maintain relations it seems, but I prefer it that way. I like hostility.

Portugal, after 60 turns, only managed to take Spain, Africa, Italy, and France. I've never been held back like that before. Granted, I am now at a point where my faction is so strong that I fear neither the Mongol or Timurid empires which have gobbled up most of the eastern map. I could tear each of their stacks apart one at a time, and have a jolly good time of it. Now that I have taken Rome and the rest of Catholicism is on it's last legs, I will soon control the Papacy and I will become the unstoppable crusader.

I chose Portugal because I knew the early game would be insanely hard, and it was. Now, in the late game, Portugal's superior late game forces are easily dominating the battlefield, and the portion of the map I control is both rich and easily defensible.

I give VanillaMod (the version I played) a 9 out of 10 stars!
Can't wait to write the strategy section for it... as soon as I figure out more than one viable strategy!

[FactionHeir]

Glad you like it

Since I will be without internet connection about a week, maybe I will get around to finishing the map

[Lord Preston]

Does everyone remember the first historical battle on M2, the English versus the French?

What deflects the charge, besides the stakes, is before you even approach the enemy, a hail of armour piercing missile fire tears these horsemen to shreds. Granted, those were rather good longbowmen, but good crossbowmen or massed javelins can accomplish the same thing, or better; they usually have much more punch than an arrow, and crossbows in particular seem to be very, very dangerous to charge towards, providing they fire at the correct time.

EDIT: Of course, perhaps any missile troop works better en masse. Don't just use one or two... make a line of these guys and watch the missiles fly!

True, some of your late xbowmen might not be able to retreat behind the line in time, but if you spread crossbows lengthwise (helps them all aim directly anyway, no crossbows in the rear...) they can more easily disappear behind a line of spearmen, who take the rest of the charge. Then they can continue firing at a safe distance, providing your spearmen are in a deep formation which leaves gaps to fire into and helps them keep formation when charged.

Best advice of all:

Try a bunch of custom battles, spearmen and missile units versus a bunch of cavalry and infantry. Play around with the units until you get the hang of them, and learn to cause the most damage. Win the battle!

Guess this was in reply to my post. Took me ages to win that battle

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I wasn't backing away from the spikes to give my archers the extra time to shoot while the enemy troops were slowed moving through the spikes

Typically how many missile units do you use? Early on (say < turn 30) using a european faction I only have 4 X-bow in a stack (usually < 12 units in stack till economy is up and running) as most of my gold goes towards replacing infantry to win seige fights.

Maybe this gets more effective as the ages go on, without looking at unit stats I would suspect the effectivness increases due to:

1. Early on units are typically un-armoured or low-armour so difference between AP and none-AP is minor.
2. Early on I think units are typically quicker so cavalry close quicker giving you less shots.
3. The improvement in missile damage over the ages helps more than the defensive improvements cav/inf get (while also potentially being slower) with AP reducing the armour value, skill not counting leaving only shield upgrades that are fully utilized yet can still be reduced by firing position.
4. Better trained troops so lines last longer (not as much death on contact or quickly routing) so more time to move missiles out to a flank to shoot into the rear of enemy troops. Using militia/early low quality trrops they typically die/rout so quick I don't have time to get missiles onto the flank making high shock better.

I remember some of my first games with England, there famous for longbowmen so I made use of them... i'd have 6 to 10 units in my armies, awesome for field fights but I ended up with most stacks having only 5 so I could do seige fights better.