Reinforcement Blues

[tellapan]

I'm in a rather protracted war with the Danes (who reneged on our alliance so its execute prisoners after every battle and hang the consequences) They've moved a very tasty full stack next to my city of Antwerp which has remnants of a field army as its garisson. To play safe I placed a powerful stack of units next to the city incase of an attack.

Sure enough, next turn the Danes besiege Antwerp which I dont see as a problem because of the garrison plus my stack outside. I ordered my garisson to sally relying on the strength of my adjecent stack to provide overwhelming reinforcement muscle.

Now, here comes the rub. My archers eventually loosed off all their arrows and became useless. In a field battle I would hit the withdraw button and let them go to be replaced by fresh units. In a siege scenario you cannot do so and as such I was stuck with archers with virtually no combat use. Similarly as my Billmen turned out to be less than effective against the AI Norse Axemen, these too became rapidly depleted resulting in units of a handfull of men which again could not be replaced until totally wiped out. It seemed that no matter what suicide mission I'd send them on (to get destroyed so i could introduce fresh troops) one or two kept surviving. Eventually I just said ok, have the city to the Danes and laid siege the next turn with what were supposed to be the reinforcements.

[FactionHeir]

Why did you bother sallying rather than just attacking with your reinforcements stack?

Oh, and to reliably get your units killed, walk them behind the enemy formation and then attack from behind so they need to rout through the entire enemy formation - i.e. noone survives.

[tellapan]

Thats a very good question, the sensible option would have been to attack with my reinforcement stack. Thanks for the tip about marching them behind the enemy lines. Up to now (about 70 moves into the game) my Billmen have been my backbone line infantry but it appears they are no longer a match for other units; what units would you suggest I base my armies around?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Since you are playing England I would suggest Armored Swordsmen. They are very good all round infantry and very cost effective.

A typical English stack should have 6 - 8 longbows (you are playing England ), some AS, some levy spears and some cavalry.

[Prussian to the Iron]

armoured seargants are my favorite staple unit. i dont know if vanilla has them for england, but retrofit does.

also: do you have kingdoms? kingdoms lets you give a reinforcement army very basic orders.

[Sebastian Seth]

I use the archers whitout arrows to bind the enemy units to battle and then charge their backside with heaviest cavarly I can get. Or just fill the street with them and have general standing behind them. (I'm not a fan of the western archers in general.)

As for breaktrought/shock infantry I use the 2 handed sword mercenteries from scotland and ireland. (Cant write their name Gallogulach or something like that.)

For backbone of the infantry I just use the basic spearmen that I can find or mercenery ones. Somewhere around 4-6 in half circle on the inside of the gate is nice looking brawl. While the enemy is lining to get inside you can go outside with your cavarly and say hello to their archers or general.

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But you are fighting Danes at 70 turn is a problem. Norse Archers are melee fighters as well. Huscarles are really good and they come mounted too. Their church produce morale boosting heavy cavarly. And their navy is the best around. They are pretty bad enemy to have around. Their weak point is that they only have one big town: Aarhus. I usually try to hit that as fast as I can collect two armies. One to defend it after you take it and one to kill the huscarles that want inside after. (Remember to bribe the pope continiously.)

[Prussian to the Iron]

Galloglaich you mean?

i remember the OP said the city stack was just 'remnants'. do you know how to merge your units OP? that helps; its much better to have 3 full units of spearmen than 12 units of spearmen at 1/4 strength. then you can fit more troops in as well.

[tellapan]

Galloglaich you mean?

i remember the OP said the city stack was just 'remnants'. do you know how to merge your units OP? that helps; its much better to have 3 full units of spearmen than 12 units of spearmen at 1/4 strength. then you can fit more troops in as well.

Hi Prussion Iron; thanks for the advice, I had the half depleted uints there as I was going to circulate them back to Caen for re-training but you are right I should have merged them into fewer but stronger units.

As for the Danes, their armies are certainly pretty strong and currently they control most of North East Europe so I guess I'm going to have a fight on my hands.

I'm being offered "Heavy Billmen" since my last upgrade, are these these significantly better than ordinary billmen?

[Prussian to the Iron]

I'm not sure. Doesn't it say the stats in-game though when you right-click on it?

BTW: If you do not know how to merge, then here:

Simply drag a daplleted units unit card onto another depleted units unit card (provided they are the same unit; you cannot merge seargeant spearmen and levy spearmen, nor billmen and heavy billmen) and their numbers will come together. do this until you have as full units as you can get, then send the remnant non-full strength units back for a quick retraining.

Of course, you can use auto-merge (Ctrl+M), but I find it better to merge myself.

[FactionHeir]

Billmen of any type are fairly weak due to bugged 2H anims. You can try getting my fixed 2H anims (works with running campaign) and your billmen are likely to perform better (though obviously not as well as anims+VM balance, but still).

Heavies will hold their ground longer than their normal bill counterparts but Dismounted English Knights are yet better (though obviously more costly).

Generally, I'd recommend dismounted feudals, levy spears and longbows for early and upgrade to armored swordsmen, merc spearmen and retinue longbows by late game.

In terms of cavalry, mailed knights are very good throughout due to their speed. Use the English Knights for breaking more heavily armored units later and for cav vs cav combat. Hospitallers are nice as well, though somewhat more difficult to obtain.

In terms of building strategy, try to get an archery range as your first priority to get longbows and yeomanry. Then go for your infantry line. Cavalry last, as mailed really do beat jsut about anything up until late era.

[Prussian to the Iron]

do you know if the 2H animations come with stainless steel, or do i have to download it and put it in?

[FactionHeir]

Considering I was the one who made the 2H anims in the first place and was never contacted by SS for permission to use it in their mod, I doubt SS has em.

[Prussian to the Iron]

do you know if it is compatible?

[tellapan]

I'm not sure. Doesn't it say the stats in-game though when you right-click on it?

BTW: If you do not know how to merge, then here:

Simply drag a daplleted units unit card onto another depleted units unit card (provided they are the same unit; you cannot merge seargeant spearmen and levy spearmen, nor billmen and heavy billmen) and their numbers will come together. do this until you have as full units as you can get, then send the remnant non-full strength units back for a quick retraining.

Of course, you can use auto-merge (Ctrl+M), but I find it better to merge myself.

I get what your saying here Prussian but I try to avoid merging depleted armies unless I have to. Unlike previous Total Wars M2 seems to allow you to retrain and keep the experience level of the original unit. Consequently if you merge two depleted units you get one experienced unit but if you re-train them you get two experienced units

[Prussian to the Iron]

yes, but sometimes it ownt let you retrain higher level units, and even in a citadel it can take 7 turns to retrain a full stack (provided, of course, it lets you train each one without quarrel)