Redux: Battle & Tactics

[Axalon]

Hi guys,

William: Thanks for answering Rick. No attrition...

Obliqueattack: Ok, so our little tactical discussion/debate focused on Spain continues much to my delight.

”I’ve often gone into battle without paying attention to enemy valor; a sometimes fatal mistake as I’ve finally realized!! Weapon, morale and armor bonuses need careful consideration too.”

Playing Spain set on “Expert” you really don’t have the margins to ignore that. That is generally true for all factions in redux, but it is obvious in that particular case. Redux is far more unforgiving in that sense compared with the original.

”I mean in a single battle.”

Yes… My answer was directed towards that end. You can’t expect to outnumber the Moors as Spain. Heavy odds are the usual standard here. Attack or defense it does not matter really.

”Spanish have are in blocks of 40 or 60 which find it difficult to compete with Moorish blocks of 100. The Moors have lots of these early one, and tend to crush these smaller 40/60 man units.”

A fairly adequate description I think and definitely part of the problem for Spain. You simply will have to get used to that or be destroyed. The Moors and Spain got different tech-trees hence different troops and style in their armies. The Moors may appear to be stronger initially but if Spain can survive long enough it will have everything it needs to counter the Moors successfully.

”…but I’m not sure how I could do this when defending except to run away all over the battlefield.”

Static defense is not the way to go if you’re outnumbered and short of a castle. Use the terrain, choose you’re killing-ground carefully and be sure to use your cavalry to take out other isolated cavalry and archer-units. If you will encounter some Moorish archers you simply can’t ignore them or you will probably loose. Spanish lancers are excellent units for that end, especially against archers. Also, make sure not to concentrate all the fighting to a single place, thus allowing the enemy to use the full force of its army all at once. See my example above (post:1)…

”Perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve never been too impressed with missiles in MTW* in general."

No that goes for me too, so I devised an entirely new system for that in redux. No bow or crossbow are the same as in the original (or any other version for that matter). This is one of the more blatant traits of reduxed battle. Everything is more lethal and by comparison with the original, more extreme (personally I prefer “explicit” thou).

“…vanilla and other mods; you see its sometimes necessary to talk about other versions; they shape our experience and perceptions and pre-conceived ideas; and so I can’t help bringing that to Redux.”

It is a reasonable argument, no doubt. I however think that many people are assuming too much because of such ideas. It is understandable, but hardly advisable when facing a very different battle-system such as the one found in redux. Everything is far more diverse, less standardized and more unforgiving. Because of that fact old MTW tactics don’t work well in redux, there is too many parameters there that simply can’t be ignored in the same way it can be in the original. The original is by comparison quite forgiving where as redux is not.

I would imagine that it is quite possible that some people loose their battles and may believe that there might be some bad balance in the game because of it. When in fact it is a question of poor tactics or rather usage of wrong tactics. I have no idea how many that have been scared off from redux that way but my guess is that it is far more than one. People seem to often assume that everything is designed in accordance with the CA template. Again an understandable notion since most versions seems to comply very well with that template (MTW-XL for instance), redux however does not, the reduxed projectile system for instance is a blatant example of that fact. Thus reduxed battle is very different and far more lethal (that’s why I set up this thread because most other versions combat-systems are based on the CA template and that is hardly similar to or valid for reduxed battle).

Many people seem to be used to blitzing all over Europe in style in the original game, but that will hardly happen in redux because they will be destroyed and loose their battles because they have not prepared their armies for the tasks that await them. There are too many variables and to much diversity in reduxed battles and that forces you to adapt accordingly, it’s either that or you probably get destroyed. Reduxed battle demands a lot more attention from the player and people might not be prepared for that fact and get healthy wake up calls, as in loosing their battles or even worse get wiped out from the map. Several such cases have actually been reported in, so it’s very possible indeed with redux. As for peoples reactions to all that, I don’t have a clue.

”Two units of Spanish Feudal archers don’t have much effect on Moorish spear blocks, especially when most of the Moorish army are these dudes. I’ve noticed Moorish armies have few or no missile units and are almost solely 100 man sword and spears throughout – another reason why they are hard to beat imho.”

If you doubled that up to 4 units I believe that you would get a drastic difference, especially if you use concentrated fire tactics (all directed towards one single target). Reduxed armies are a lot harder than the peasants that the Moors usually have in the original, no doubts there. As for cavalry and archers they usually have some of those as well making things even harder and diverse opposition to deal with. There is no doubt that Moorish warrior and infantry formations are very frequent in Moorish armies, but if look upon it from “their” perspective it is very understandable. Moorish infantry is one of the best units they got to deal with knights so that’s probably one of the reasons why the AI uses them. As for enemy infantry, same thing applies again for the Moors. Also it is a matter of development and available buildings. They also got the Black guard and those units are good but limited in numbers (thus they are not that popular with the AI).


Ok, I leave the floor open to all others… Obliqueattack?

- Cheers
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In the interest of topicality, building-issues are not part of this dedicated thread and should be discussed elsewhere. This place is all about tactics, battles and battle reports and stuff like that. You will find your answers over at the regular thread instead, Obliqueattack.