How strategic are you when preparing for a battle?

[Durango]

When a battle is launched in the SP campaign, there are some things that can influence the outcome but can get overlooked from time to time.

Everybody who play MTW probably matches up the reinforcement queue and checks the valor for units. Also, armor and weapon upgrades are
accounted for. But what about using the historical tactic of lining up your units according to morale? Filling in gaps with high morale units and
placing low morale ones in support roles. During ex. the Roman times, commanders would carefully construct their lines thinking about the
experience and training of their units.

Just how many parameters do you watch for when going to battle?

If everybody except me already does all this, then I must commit Seppuku to restore my honor


Also...... something else.

I have created a new campaign map for MTW XL. You can download it here, and see what the differences are:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...or-Medieval-XL

I'd be happy if you posted a comment in that thread

[gollum]

Good job Durango!

One of the things i do is intersperse high morale swords with low morale spears in the battle line. It works miracles as the spears protect the swords from cavalry charges and the swords fight enemy swords as they get entagle with the spears. A strong arrangement that also gives an advantage in flexibility in certain cases versus the more standard spears front, swords behind because it minimises the time one needs to respond to enemy threats as all melee infantry is at the front (as opposed to say to swords having to cross through the spears to deal with an enemy sword heavy battle line and vice versa).

[Prince Cobra]

I remember when I made the blunder to use halberdier mercenaries and varangians in my High era campaign (Hard) as the Byzantines against the Horde. My biggest mistake is that I planned to press the Mongols in their corner of the map in order to redeuce maneuvrability of their horse archers. It was in Georgia but it stilled tired my men and finally they broke. It was only the bunch of crap spearmen and various archer units that saved the day. I had to bear my amry being decimated by the enemy arrows. Finally, his reinforcement also ended and after I managed to hold the key position. I won by time since the enemy simply stood on his position and did not dare to attack me either. I find it fair. The casualties were 3:1 so it was OK. My general won -6 morale and made him useless. I have already won a previous battle against the Horde so it was the end of the strength of the Horde. I managed to bring additional reinforcements during the next turn and the situation was patched. But from this moment on, I won't try to press the Horde. I must wait for them and slaughter them.

I have saved some pictures in a heroic battle against the Almohads. It was really dramatic one and I could never forget the Berber camels. I plan to post in the pictures of your Empire in the near future.

Basically, I always pull in the most distant edge of the map on a hill. Then wait for the enemy to come. Basically, it takes me a lot of time to sort out my reinforcement, though I don't rely too much on them. I love when the enemy routs to send all the cavalry and the Bulgarian brigands to finish him off. With the valour bonus the Bulgarians can be good fighters.

About the valour units. it depends. Usually when I face an enemy full with archers (Horde is an exception), I tend to put lower valoured units on the field with the hope I can save the higher valoured.

Spanish are also awesome but I don't have much time recently. :P

[Durango]

One of the things i do is intersperse high morale swords with low morale spears in the battle line. It works miracles as the spears protect the swords from cavalry charges and the swords fight enemy swords as they get entagle with the spears.

Nice! I have also thought about using such setups in battle, especially if real historical formations can be employed. How about the Spanish
Tercio, where the pikemen are (like you suggest) paired with arquebusiers and moved together dynamically on the battlefield? Once in a
custom battle, I recreated this by having one unit of swiss pikemen follow a unit of arqs and demoralizing the enemy before charging.
Worked pretty well.

I will try your combination in my new campaign

I remember when I made the blunder to use halberdier mercenaries and varangians in my High era campaign (Hard) as the Byzantines against the Horde. My biggest mistake is that I planned to press the Mongols in their corner of the map in order to redeuce maneuvrability of their horse archers. It was in Georgia but it stilled tired my men and finally they broke. It was only the bunch of crap spearmen and various archer units that saved the day. I had to bear my amry being decimated by the enemy arrows. Finally, his reinforcement also ended and after I managed to hold the key position. I won by time since the enemy simply stood on his position and did not dare to attack me either. I find it fair. The casualties were 3:1 so it was OK. My general won -6 morale and made him useless. I have already won a previous battle against the Horde so it was the end of the strength of the Horde. I managed to bring additional reinforcements during the next turn and the situation was patched. But from this moment on, I won't try to press the Horde. I must wait for them and slaughter them.

Sounds epic, man. But Väringar (Varangians) against HAs? Ouch. Mongols have one big weakness in my view, and that is missiles. Shoot the
HAs any way you can, and blast the Khan with a cannonball in his head! Also, as you said, spearmen should not be underestimated. They are
great as fodder units due to their longevity.

The difficulty of this game (along with Shogun) puts it a notch above the rest of the series, indeed. Losing is a possibility, as it should be.

Basically, I always pull in the most distant edge of the map on a hill. Then wait for the enemy to come. Basically, it takes me a lot of time to sort out my reinforcement, though I don't rely too much on them. I love when the enemy routs to send all the cavalry and the Bulgarian brigands to finish him off. With the valour bonus the Bulgarians can be good fighters.

Good tactic with the Bulgarian Inf. However, the valour bonus in map regions hurts the campaign AI. It will only try to tech up to the bonus unit
and then stop. Disabling these bonuses will help the AI build more and better troops. Besides, with strong incentives to build only certain units
in certain regions, why would anyone want to train anything else there?

About the valour units. it depends. Usually when I face an enemy full with archers (Horde is an exception), I tend to put lower valoured units on the field with the hope I can save the higher valoured.

I do this as well. Peasants work the best though, if you are ruthless like me....hehehe.....

"-But Sire, won't we hit our own troops?"

"-Yes....but we'll hit theirs as well......arrows cost money. Attack."

Braveheart

Spanish are also awesome but I don't have much time recently. :P

Time is a luxury. That's why it's so annoying to wait 70.000 turns to get the possibility that an Armored Almughavar will crawl out of
the hole in the ground when the planets align and show up in the Inn....

[Prince Cobra]

Sounds epic, man. But Väringar (Varangians) against HAs? Ouch. Mongols have one big weakness in my view, and that is missiles. Shoot the
HAs any way you can, and blast the Khan with a cannonball in his head! Also, as you said, spearmen should not be underestimated. They are
great as fodder units due to their longevity.

It was. My general was lucky enough to survive the battle and despite his bad repuation to conquer some islands and to spend his old days there. I simply could not disband him. He was the one who stopped the Mongols (literally!) but others get the glory. He got stripped off his titles and only his wife, the Emperor's daughter kept him strongly loyal to the family. I liked him. He later became governor of Cyprus. His family managed to conquer Crete later on. Emperor's favourites. I also tend to have a weakness for the governors of Naples in the Early once they manage to cope with the hopeless situation with their own resources.

Hey, I did not have cannons. I had just beaten the Turks and I would not risk with the Bombards.

Well, I used the Varangians, spear and the Halberds against the Golden Horde Cavalry. I must admit I have overstated it. The battle also went terribly bad since and many of my original archer units lost too many men or were too far from the rest of the army.

The difficulty of this game (along with Shogun) puts it a notch above the rest of the series, indeed. Losing is a possibility, as it should be.

Although, I try to avoid it.

Good tactic with the Bulgarian Inf. However, the valour bonus in map regions hurts the campaign AI. It will only try to tech up to the bonus unit
and then stop. Disabling these bonuses will help the AI build more and better troops. Besides, with strong incentives to build only certain units
in certain regions, why would anyone want to train anything else there?

I think the Byzantines benefit from the valour bonuses especially in Late. Without valour bonuses the Bulgarians will be compltely replaced by the Trebizond archers. At least this is my point of view. On a different issue, I do tend to build my provinces so that it can produce two types of units. It often helps me to compensate the abundance of infantry in my Byz campaigns (I love to play with the Byz, really; slow and defensive game; in Late I can be slightly aggressive, though). In fact I have noticed that most of my troops came from my homelands ans Switzerland, once I take it.

And planets seem not to like the Almughavars.

[Durango]

I think the Byzantines benefit from the valour bonuses especially in Late. Without valour bonuses the Bulgarians will be compltely replaced by the Trebizond archers. At least this is my point of view. On a different issue, I do tend to build my provinces so that it can produce two types of units. It often helps me to compensate the abundance of infantry in my Byz campaigns (I love to play with the Byz, really; slow and defensive game; in Late I can be slightly aggressive, though). In fact I have noticed that most of my troops came from my homelands ans Switzerland, once I take it.

What I meant was that for ex. the Byz, Constantinople needs to be developed more but isn't since there is a valour bonus for
Katanks there.

On that note, I have never, nor will I ever, not in Early, High or Late, not in the stone age nor the space age, not for 5 minutes
or 0.4 nanoseconds.....


....play as the Byzantines. Ever.

I loath taking the reins of an established empire where history decides what additional provinces I start with.
80% of the time I start with 1 province factions such as the Bohemians, Scots, Aragonese etc. Small, dirty and a rising
star, that's my style

[gollum]

I do something similar as you suggest Durango with pikemen and arqs, usually it involves 2-4 arqs in line with 3-4 in a pike-gap line. I tend to leave the arqs in front to release volleys at incoming enemies (or appraoch swiftly the whole formation to the enemy and quickly volley) while ardering the pikes to take place at the front when the enemy appraoches. Sometimes this can be made locally ie a single pike can move forth of an arq in order to deal with a cavalry charge say - sometimes the whole of the pike line needs odering forth as the enemy has moved his own pike line. This is where the gaps between the pikes comes in; the make shooting by the arqs behind more effective as it lands on the rear/flank of enemy engaged units. However the same maneuver can be made with a solid pike line. Even in that case its worth leaving the arqs shooting, as if they make a single kill in an enemy unit they effect morale penalties.

If the pikes are reliable, like say swiss and swiss arm. pikes in vanilla its a solid combination, especially when coupled with light charger cavalry (hobilars, mounted seargets) and mounted crossbows. The light cavalry can harass, charge, mop, accompany to the exit etc. operating around the solid arq/pike base.

[I of the Storm]

My level of pre-battle planning usually depends on the type of battle. For siege assaults I usually create a specialist stack consisting of siege weaponry and strong melee infantry, usually a mix of swords, some polearms, some spears. When I attack in the field, I try to pack as much punch in the first line as possible. The aim here is to drive the enemy off the field and convince him to withdraw his reinforcements immediately, thus abandoning the field. With regards to that aim, my own reinforcements are negligible, since should the need for them really arise, I have failed to achieve my main goal: hitting the enemy as hard and as fast as possible and throw him off the field. That happens from time to time and the battle is usually costly then or even lost.
When defending, I aim for bloodshed. That's where reinforcements come into play and here I organize them too. First line of reinforcements usually are surplus archers/other missiles. Once the first set of archers has emptied their quivers, I call in the second set. Once their empty the battle has usually progressed to a point where the casualty ratio is significantly in my favour, I therefore have achieved my tactical goal. I might call in the next line of reinforcements, which is usually light cav to enhance my pursueing/capturing ability.

[Madoushi]

Typically in Medieval 1 I abused the Super Peasants (Woodcutters, Highlanders, Speppe Cavalry), Eight-Star Generals, and high amounts of missiles.
My strategy is usually attrition.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

Re battle strategy, the initial deployments, both the player's and the AI's, are THE most critical elements of the battles IMHO. This is why I am so concerned about 1) the AI not rebuilding units, hence fielding lots of fragments from the off, and 2) the AI deploying lots of (wholly unsuitable) artillery. If some genius could sort these two issues out and stop the kamikaze tendency of generals I would die a happy man.

I think long and hard about the opening phases off the battle and how I want things to develop. Some of these plans (well, quite a few actually) end up in the dustbin within seconds of the engagement commencing. Others get carried out almost perfectly. In one battle I knew I was going to be defending against lots of archers and longbows backed by decent cav. I studied the panning map view and noticed there seemed to be a clump of trees close to the middle of the battlefield. This determined my strategy and initial deployment. Rather than doing my usual 'just sit far away as possible', I set up half a dozen Numidian axe mothers as far forward as possible in the clump of trees. As soon as the whistle blew these guys charged out and laid into the archers and longbow men - the hashish must have been doing the rounds that dawn 'cos they killed or routed off the field more than double their own number before the enemy cav cut them down to a man. But they'd done their duty. The rest of my rag bag army managed to hold off the cav, plus some infantry reinforcements, on a ridge. If all those archers had been raining death on us it would have been a massacre.

Regards
Victor

[gollum]

Fewer, more relevant role-wise units in faction rosters may go some way towards solving 1) victor. In that case the AI would be building up less unit types, so merging will work better, i would have thought.

For the artillery bit its best to reduce the art pieces available for recruitment (say ballistas and bombarbs that are for all intents and purposes useless can be taken out), and also distribute them over eras (say catapults in early) without them reappiring (ie catapults in early only).

This happens with the units as well - i mean the fact that older, obsolete units remain recruitable and charm the AI with their low recruiting cost.

Its more difficult to sort the generals' problem. Usually high end general units with lots of valor attack without fear because the AI feels that they can take on anyone, the same used to happen in RTW, prior to 1.5. I think that a combo of mingling with the unit battle parameter behaviour and with the stats of the general units (royal knights and the like) may yield some results. In Samurai Warlords the custom Daimyo units behave very reasonably in many instances.