What Battle Tactics work for you?

[Fisherking]

I think I find light infantry more useful than many of you seem to. They would be more useful still if skirmish actually worked.

I usually use three and once the line closes up with them I send them off to do a job on the flanking units. Now they don’t need to outflank them with their added range. They usually route a battalion or two in short order.

The enemy does not seem to close on them if you have a troop of cavalry behind them. That is a little odd as they will chase cavalry around the field. I guess if they can’t use a square then they don’t want to play.

[rvg]

Artillery is king, man. All other units merely exist to make sure that artillery lives long enough to do its job.

[Prussian to the Iron]

yeah, just yesterday i had a battle against a stack of 17, and my arty consisted of: 3 mortars, 1 rocket, 2 howitzers, 2 horse arty. my mortars took out aotn of guys, and the howitzers destroyed the enemy cannons and, being on the flank, tore through infantry. my horse arty shrpaneled the hell out of the enemy cavalry charges; venetians had 4 cavalry, none reached my lines.

[Slaists]

Early Ottoman battle: musselims (peasants) all the way!... Mob them!

[Fisherking]

Early Ottoman battle: musselims (peasants) all the way!... Mob them!

Why not, Poland seems to mostly use the Pandour “Garden Gnomes”.

[Prussian to the Iron]

"Dude! Austria just Smurfed the Smurf out of my Smurfing army! How the Smurf did those Smurfing Smurf-holes Smurfing Smurf the Smurf with their Smurfing Smurf army?!?!"

i now have a compelling urge to go online and pick a Smurf army as Austria, then say that whole line of dialogue, from the other side.

and then create a power-point stop-motion presentation where Smurfs and keebler elves fight.

[Xipe Totec]

Why not, Poland seems to mostly use the Pandour “Garden Gnomes”.

I just finished off Poland in a long Austrian campaign, whilst at war with Prussia, Poland, Russia and the Ottomans. Almost every Polish unit I faced was line infantry. I did not see a single Polish Pandour in the entire campaign! I know! Amazed!

Maybe they were helping Santa pack the sleigh! When I have faced big pandour mobs in earlier campaigns I have always used the tactic of suddenly advancing the whole infantry line with the forward arrow icon. They never back off despite their longer range, but soon start running away when under volley fire. My usual gang of howitzers with exploding or carcass can often find them when they are hiding by targetting a likely spot near the general. The only good gnome is a dead gnome after all.

[Didz]

Actually I think they look like a horde of little red riding hoods.

[antisocialmunky]

Thanks for putting the image of gunning down 1000 retarded children huddled in a ball into my brainz...



But I guess the wolves were going to eat them anyways if I recall how the story goes originally.

[Prussian to the Iron]

Thanks for putting the image of gunning down 1000 retarded children huddled in a ball into my brainz...



But I guess the wolves were going to eat them anyways if I recall how the story goes originally.

smurfs dont appreciate being called retarded children.

[Xipe Totec]

Stop this thread now - you guys are killing me!

Seriously this light infantry 'clumping' behaviour is totally whacked! I attacked Lisbon as Spain without artillery, and was a bit worried by their light infantry line -up with the long range post-patch muskets. Hardly suffered a scratch as the whole stack spent the whole battle trying to fit into a Mini Cooper instead of shooting at my army. They're acting like a herd of startled goats. CA really need to look at improving the battle AI.

Wish I'd had some howitzers though.

[antisocialmunky]

I suffered 15 casualties, mostly due to crossfire.

[Fisherking]

If you had had a cannon two volleys with round shot would have given you three stripes per gun.

[Prussian to the Iron]

LOL inorite?

beter yet would have been quicklime and shrapnel shot:

quicklime+hundeds of men dying+tons of little shrapnel pieces falling= uber lag.

[Fisherking]

No! only round shot would have gotten a hit. Maybe canister at 40m. Everything else is just wishing. Shrapnel is always too high. That is why it does a good job on cavalry but you always miss the infantry.

[antisocialmunky]

What about the weird incendary shot? Has anyone figured out how to use that?

[Skott]

My battle plans are not very original since the AI isnt all that smart. A typical stack of mine is..

1 General
4 Howitzers
11-13 LI
2 Heavy Cavalry

I line all but 4 of my LI in a long line 3 rows deep. In the middle of that line and behind I line up my Howitzers. Behind the Howitzers I have 4 LI to guard against enemy cavalry attacks. If I use Cavalry, which most times I dont, I'll line them up either on the end flanks or in the rear to counter enemy cavalry attacks.

This is a very simple and basic formation that can beat anything the AI throws at me. The enemy AI usually launches cavalry attacks right away to my rear to get at my artillery. Once I have taken out the enemy cavalry I'm free to advance my LI and artillery forward without worrying about my cannons getting hit from behind.

In the beginning my Howitzers will pound the enemy artillery into submission and if I cannot achieve that then I send in one or two LI to kill the enemy artillery. I like to use a 3 row set up for my LI. Once you have Fire By Rank this set up works well because your units will fire three times. With the unit set up in 3 rows they can also deal with any charging enemy units in melee.

Like I said it is not very imaginative but its quite simple to execute and use and it'll deal with anything the game AI will throw at you.

In a fortress assault I use the same units, but no cavalry. I'll have 3 LI go around back of the fortress to assault there and 3 units on the left and 3 on the right side of the enemy fortress and assult the walls. The remaining LI and artillery attack the front. I'll let my Howitzers blow a hole in the front wall in one or maybe two places and then order all my LI to begin assault on the walls. Basically its an assault on all four sides. If the enemy has cavalry they will usually come out to attack my LI but putting them into squares will beat them off. Again its a simple battle plan but it does the trick every time.

Also on a side note in my campaigns I make sure to give all the other factions, major and minor, the same techs I have. The game AI doesnt tech up that well so by giving them all the abilities my units have adds a extra level of difficulty to the battles. I still beat them but it just takes a bit more time and effort on my part.

[KHPike]

My usual full-stack setup...

1 General
2 Light Inf
1 Grenadier
4 Arty (usually howitzers)
4 Cav (usually Lance-based)
8 Line Inf

Occasionally I substitue the Light Inf for Line Inf.

4 units of LI make the center of my line. 2 units are placed at the flanks, slightly 'staggered' behind to respond to any cav attacks or as mobile reserves to divert to the center when necessary.

My artillery is spread out along the center although I occasionally concentrate them in the center if I am able to find good ground to deploy my army on.

I keep my Grenadiers as my shock troops/elite reserves while my 2 units of Light Inf are either placed at the flanks or center to provide harassing/supporting fire.

Naturally, my cavalry are at the flanks.

Early on, the enemy will throw his cav at my flanks unsupported, running into the line of fire of 3-4 of my line inf. Naturally, theyt are cut down very fast. With that done, my artillery can proceed to pound the remainder of his army, and this usually forces the AI to throw everything in a disorganised manner at you.

Some semblance of tactical competence the AI has displayed to me is that it has successfully created a gap in my center before by concentrating its attack against one or two Line inf units of mine and breaking them...before my flanks show up and crush them.

Once the center is engaged, my flanks of light inf and 3-4 units of line inf are free to wheel around and blast the enemy from the rear.

During siege assaults it sub my howitzers for mortars. For some inexplicable reason, the AI will abandon the entire fort and attempt to attack you directly in a very disorganised manner once you start barraging them. Add the observation that the AI loves to gather everything in the center of the fort before it assaults you and you get a big massacre in the middle. As units stream out from the fort towards you in a long column, its no wonder they are routed back not long after.

If I must assault I shell sections of the fort, forcing the AI to vacate these sections. Following this I move in my troops to scale these sections and regroup.

[Maleficus]

My armies typically have a bit of everything, but with a heavy bias on infantry. This was pretty much my style in M2 and, if anything, it works even better in Empire. Let the infantry actually fight the battle, they're poor people anyway, so who cares if they die?

Then the cavalry can charge in to the rear to cause the enemy to rout, and also chase down routing enemies.

It's what I like to think of as a 'Death and Glory' approach: death to the peasants, glory to the noble cavalryman

I suppose it's also quite a typically British approach, as opposed to the French who traditionally always favoured cavalry.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

cavalry can run away faster, you see