As Pahlava (or Saka) how do you fight foot archers? They have very long range so even staying on a hill does not help. Also the Persians seem to stay quite well against Dahae riders charge. What would you suggest?
As Pahlava (or Saka) how do you fight foot archers? They have very long range so even staying on a hill does not help. Also the Persians seem to stay quite well against Dahae riders charge. What would you suggest?
Manuevering and the proper implementation of light or medium cavalry in strength. You have to have enough to be able to take some casualties when closing and still be able to break them. They should be fairly cheap with a wide AOR to quickly replace the inevitable losses they will take.
When i was playing as Pahlava and facing enemies with large numbers of archers i simply put my cavalry in a super loose formation and went about my business as usual. When an opportunity to attack the archers safely opens up, do so with your general. Your generals cavalry is extremely slow so it takes quite a long time to get to the archers, but once you do it's game over for them.
And if you're feeling real daring, charge with the normal HAs. The computer will always try and back archers up so you can generally charge in quickly and keep them from firing. Even better, you can actually briefly engage them in melee then withdraw thus allowing you to back off just enough so that you are not actually melee-ing but the computer still tries.
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As Pahlava, I usually just charge with the medium horse archer/ med cav cross (Asabaran-i-Dehbed) or Dahae nobles, reg HAs target infantry, riders chase enemy HAs (if there are any, if not they double as regular HAs), and FM's/ Catas go for the General/ other Cav. As Saka, I usually send the Noble HAs after them, they can stand up to arrow fire a bit better than the light HAs and have pretty good stamina. I like using the Asabaran best for this because they are faster than the Dahae or Early Saka nobles.
cantabrian circle!!
worked well for me. sometimes (when there´s no enemycav) i let them shot some arrows and then stop shooting - effect: the cantabrian cricle is still rotating and the enemy archers fire there amo with little effect to zero.
after that: ...breakfast...
Last edited by Tartaros; 12-22-2008 at 13:22.
Yes, the cantabrian circle is like a magic charm against arrows. Even more effective is a cavalry charge once the little gits are already engaged however. This is because the first unit to engage will often not get the charge to impact due to the archers skirmishing, but the second (and subsequent) units always will. If you time it right then there will be very little time spent in actual melee and casualties should be light.
That's why I like the Asabaran-i-Dehbed, they are fast enough to charge THROUGH an archer unit. I then turn them around to face the now disorganized archers while charging a second unit (can be riders, FM, whatever- as long as it has a decent charge) in. The archers are now in the unenviable position of running toward either of 2 charging units of cavalry (all of which double as horsearchers-so they are firing on the archers during the approach).
The Eastern FMs can be used as arrow soaks if you want to. It's not going to kill them.
Fighting isn't about winning, it's about depriving your enemy of all options except to lose.
"Hi, Billy Mays Here!" 1958-2009
You can also use the widely popular tactic of charging the archers with 3 or 4 units of cavalry at one time, doesn't matter if they are heavy, medium or light. And if you can do this from different direction, front and back at the same time for example, that's even better.
I believe the ancient, cavalry heavy people of the time called this tactic "The cavalry buttrush".
When all else fails, charge a single unit with absolutely everything you have left and hope for the best!
Last edited by Dayve; 12-22-2008 at 20:37.
A fine tactic, that "The cavalry buttrush" of yours, but I never have enough mounted troops to have a 3x cavalry superiority over those fullstacks of nomad horse-archers.
What I am currently doing with the Sauromatae in my Romani campaign, is hiring the Bosphoran Heavy Archers to face their HAs and Hoplitai (Greek Classical Hoplites) to finish them off, especially to finish off that heavy cavalryand bodyguards the Sauromatae have. I also have a couple of Cohortes Reformata to deal with their infantry and to hopefully soak up some missiles while in testudo formation. (Although I've noticed AI is smart enough not to attack high-armour units with missiles, when it knows it cannot damage that unit - the AI only attacks the medium and lighter armoured men). So I basically have no cavalry of my own, save for a general's bodyguard and a unit of Thracian auxilia.
BTW, it is really annoying (but historically accurate) how every nomadic mounted unit has a bow in addition to a lance.
I think you have it backwards. We want to defeat foot archers with horse archers.
Fighting isn't about winning, it's about depriving your enemy of all options except to lose.
"Hi, Billy Mays Here!" 1958-2009
My tactic:
CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!
Well, when fighting horse archers i have no tactics other than put your ranged units (whether they be mounted or not) in loose formation and let them expend all their ammunition, then assess the situation and act accordingly.
If i'm fighting horse archers it's usually in an area where you can hire them as mercenaries. Wherever i can, i hire as many as i can and hope for the best.
If i can't hire any horse archers and don't have any with me, i don't bother to fight because i just won't win. If i have to, i just do what i said. Let me missile troops expend all their ammunition, assess the situation and act accordingly.
Charge them, Foot archers can't fire while moving horse archers can so if you don't want to melee stop, charge,stop.
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