Compendium: (under construction)

[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.