Things you just never do in battles.

[caravel]

Gah, that's half the fun: 5,000 Turks vs 50,000 Mongols - those were the days!

[naut]

Never underestimate hilly terrain. Lost too many battles that way.

Also never chase after the Picts.

[Roark]

Things I never do in battle:

- Let my horses go anywhere near Chivalric Foot Knights.
- Leave javelins on skirmish.
- Manage to capture the Pope on the field (in 4 years of gaming!!!).
- Frontal charge Granadian Almohad Urban Militia.
- Use siege engines to attack.
- Send my archers charging in.
- Engage Huscarles units that have more than half-strength numbers.
- Chase missile cavalry with infantry.
- Hold mercs back in reserve.

[Lokiss]

- Use siege engines to attack.

Ballistas can be useful for an accurate shot into a mass, providing your patient and can seize on the morale hit they take.

[bozewolf]

I think he meant he doesn't use siege engines in a battle where he's the attacker since they're fixed and will almost never be able to get close enough to the enemy.

That is something I never do as well. I even limit my missile troops severely or bring none at all if I'm attacking.

[Ironsword]

Never, ever, trust the pope.

[Caliburn]

Never, ever trust anyone.

[Vantek]

Never believe it when the prebattle screen tells you that you need to defeat the neutral forces if you are to win as well, and endanger your king with the good runner vice when trying to kill them despite clearly not having enough time to do finish the job anyway.

[m52nickerson]

Never forget to account for all your enemies forces.


....hey, what is that coming out of the trees?

[jadast]

Never forget your general when you redploy your defensive army. Especially if this is your 5 star general and he happens to be a foot unit. Especially if the opponent is the Cummans who brought apparently every heavy horse unit they had.

Yes I lost him.

[Kamakazi]

Gah, that's half the fun: 5,000 Turks vs 50,000 Mongols - those were the days!

well if u look in other posts i once faced a force that outnumbered me at leas 10-1 i think and i won lol then again it was 1v1v1v1vme lol it was crazy i stayed on the hill and watched for tyhe most part... beat back everyone with my good mix of archers and used my cavs to their peak effectiveness

thje good old days.... i remember them well

and Ironsword i agree.. the pope is a back stabbin @%@#%(* many times i had to kill that old fool for gettin lippy and over confident

[Lokiss]

Never forget to shower an 'allied' force with heaps of arrows as they try to put down a mutual opponent, before you finish the job after all their men are dead or routed. ;)

[m52nickerson]

Never forget to shower an 'allied' force with heaps of arrows as they try to put down a mutual opponent, before you finish the job after all their men are dead or routed. ;)

Noted to be used later!

[bamff]

Never forget to leave your skirmishing mounted missile unit plenty of room to manouevre when you go back to manage another of your units.....

[Turbosatan]

Never forget to account for all your enemies forces.


....hey, what is that coming out of the trees?

An interesting variation on this that I have employed many times is what I like to call the "Massively overconfident marching headlong thru' the trees toward the main enemy force at the back of the map and walking smack straight into an ambush" gambit.

For best results, make sure you have your heavy horse (even better, your general/emperor/whatever) leading the advance. This works especially well when the dudes hiding are people with big sharp axes...

"****! Where did those Druzhina infantry come from?"

Shortly followed by:

"****! Where did my heavy cav go...?"

[naut]

Underestimate the Vikings.

[caravel]

Underestimate the Vikings.

Expecially Huscarles. As a general rule send an army at least 50 times the size, then you may have a chance of winning...

Huscarles are one of those "speed slider units". you simply point them in the general direction of the enemy and then crank up the speed slider to full and watch them devour the enemy as a shoal of piranhas strips a carcass.

[Knight of the Rose]

Never bring a gun to a swordfight...

I whish I never rushed up the hill because I got bored and wouldn't go the long way round. But I do.

I never bring siege, and I never user peasants. I never engage vanilla HA in melee.

/KotR

[Vantek]

:O Engaging vanilla Horse Archers in melee has won me battles! Then again, it has lost me battles as well...

[Roark]

Enagaging vanilla HAs in melee is delicious, if you can catch them. They die in droves!

Using YOUR vanilla HAs to engage others in melee combat is usually an expensive and bad idea, though, unless the enemy units are infantry archers or infantry javelins.

...Or is that what you guys meant?

[caravel]

The "engaging HA's in melee" thing might refer to the futility of chasing them about the field with infantry or slower cavalry? I can't think what else...

[Lokiss]

Using YOUR vanilla HAs to engage others in melee combat is usually an expensive and bad idea, though, unless the enemy units are infantry archers or infantry javelins.

Yeah, but it's a cheap unit and sometimes turning the tide of the battle with the morale hit for a successful flank outweighs the couple 100 (if that) gold it costs to train another unit. Plus they're speedy, in case the battle gets away form your main force and (like me) you're ADHD and don't follow.

[Knight of the Rose]

This is what I meant: I almost always play on Expert. One of the bad things about this, is that the wonderful morale system is a little wasted: If flanked, or attacked in the rear, wavering units should rout, but not on expert, where the AI gets a heap of bonuses. What I have found is that charging with your own HA much more often costs them their life than winning the battle. They are über weak in melee. On other difficulty settings, sorrounding your enemy and charging with HA can very well be worth it. Sorry for this lack of elaboration

And the other way around, I too, do not try to catch HA with footmen.

/KotR

[bamff]

Never ever think "This is my time - why with one glorious charge, my already exhausted troops will chase the enemy entirely from the field, and thus their hordes of still available reinforcements will also waver and flee."

They won't, and your guys are now too tired to even run away.....carnage ensues, accompanied only by the sobs of a virtual general, and the gentle thudding as said general's head pounds the desk next to his/her keyboard.........

[oz_wwjd]

About the heavy calvary VS arbalesters thing,yeah ,never do that if you value your calvary. The mongols tried this tactic vs the combined fire of 5 of my arbs and the result was many many dead horses..

[caravel]

How many times have I done that? It takes a lot of restraint and forsight to know when the rout is for real. I have often had my exhausted heavy cav surprised by rallying units and/or reinforcements at the other side of the field and utterly destroyed. When in critical defensive battles I tend to avoid pursuing routers all together and set my whole infantry formation to hold position, preferably perched atop a hill. This prevents them from following enemies of their own accord. My cavalry I hold in reserve to protect the flanks and briefly hit routers, but not pursue them.

[Lokiss]

Ugh. Likewise. Mostly trying to suppress revolting provinces with heaps of heavy cavalry (they really **** those peasants up).

[The Lizard Pope]

Fight fair with Mongols. Into the woods or over the bridge ye come....

[m52nickerson]

Underestimate the Vikings.

.....and never ever underestimate the Polish Vikings!

[Don Esteban]

Never ever think "This is my time - why with one glorious charge, my already exhausted troops will chase the enemy entirely from the field, and thus their hordes of still available reinforcements will also waver and flee."

They won't, and your guys are now too tired to even run away.....carnage ensues, accompanied only by the sobs of a virtual general, and the gentle thudding as said general's head pounds the desk next to his/her keyboard.........

Such good advice - which is usually forgotten especially when playing drunk.

Never think - I'll let my heavy armoured untis rest in the sun in the desert to recover their strength - oops, why are they getting even more tired?