Medieval is BS

[rspete]

I was playing as the French of expert in the late period and decided to get a jump on annihilating the English before they got the chance to do anything. I attacked the only English held province in France (forget the name) with troops from surrounding territories with my total forces including a unit of chivalric knights, a unit of mounted sergeants, two units of urban militia, a unit of archers, and a unit of crossbowmen. I also used titles to promote my general from level 3 to level 6; the enemy commander started at 4 stars and was promoted to 7. The opposing army consisted of two units of longbow men and one unit of chivalric men at arms. When the battle began I had my mounted sergeants and a unit of urban militia charge a unit of longbows and another unit of urban militia charged the men at arms (both units contained the commanders), the chivalric knights charged the men at arms down a hill in the rear of the unit. The longbowmen wiped out both the urban militia and mounted sergeants, causing them to flee, and proceeded to fire into the combat other major combat involving the two generals. The single unit of men at arms withstood the charge by both the knights and militia, destroying both units to a man and chased after the unit of crossbowmen who had joined the combat after wards by charging the men at arms in the flank but fleeing a little before their leader died. After this ill-fated battle I was attacked by virtually every neighboring faction including the: English, Italians, Germans, and Swiss. This axis of evil (all of the factions were allied with each other) managed to destroy most of my armies in similarly unfair battles and corner my king into a castle in Flanders, where he and his only heir died of starvation and disease. This is complete crap Why do 60 stupid, smelly Englishmen with bows defeat 40 French mounted horsemen and a unit of militia? Their bloody Bowmen How does do 60 guys with swords defeat 3 units, with at least a quarter of those casualties being caused when they were down to six men? Why do 3 major powers (including the Swiss, who are not a major power) ally against one other legitimate nation and greedily divide its provinces between themselves? This is BS

[Lord Romulous]

i imagine sadam is saying exactly the same thing in Baghdad right now.

he is asking himself

Why those smelly US marines defeat his elite republican guard ?

Why America and Britain have decided to gang up on him

Why is the battle of Sadamm airport lost when i have a brigadier general defending and the US force is being led by a colonel.

Dont worry rspete you will soon get the hang of MTW. We all got our asses handed to us in the begining.
once you learn more about strategic and battle field tactics you will be able to not only win your battles but keep allies and begin to bring europe under you banner.

all it takes is practice and reading the forum for insights into succusful strategies. check out the table of contents stickyed at the top of the forum. lots of good tips there.

[Hakonarson]

This is a game.

If you want to play the actual history then you're rather out of luck, 'cos games is all we have thse days.

As Romulous says - learn the game - did you really expect to be completely proficient at it at your first try?

Have you done the tutorials? Did you read the unit descriptions? Do you know the effects of valour? Armour and weapon upgrades?

[Husar]

Why do you begin your first game on expert-level???
I´m playing Medieval for a long time now, but I always play on normal, because on expert the enemy´s units get a combat bonus
So try it again on normal, because thats should be much easier for you, if you are a beginner.
And it woldn´t be wrong to follow Hakonarson´s tips, too.

[ShadesWolf]

This is something I have found also as playing as a number of nation, the best tactic is wipe France out early.

They are in a very weak position, and when a combined force attacks it is usually a route, the only problem is who get the best land

[Swamp Thing]

You lost as the French you say?

How odd.

*coughs*














Seriously, avoid the game like the plague on hard. I posted earlier on a similar topic, the game massacares you on expert even if you are using superior units.

Trust me, play the game on normal and enjoy yourself.

[spmetla]

Or try build up some defenses also. And Alliances with your neigbors also help.

And you only named a single battle. In 10 years I'm quite sure you had quite a few more.

[Brutal DLX]

Indeed, what did you expect? You are playing on expert. That requires you to take any advantage you can get to beat the enemy units. You just can't run in there and beat the hell out of them using any unit like you would do on normal...

[Morten viking]

I suppose those longbows were shooting Patriot arrows...

(Refering to the movie "Robin Hood, men in tights)

MV

[Papewaio]

Quote[/b] (rspete @ April 06 2003,19:17)]This is complete crap Why do 60 stupid, smelly Englishmen with bows defeat 40 French mounted horsemen and a unit of militia? Their bloody Bowmen How does do 60 guys with swords defeat 3 units, with at least a quarter of those casualties being caused when they were down to six men? Why do 3 major powers (including the Swiss, who are not a major power) ally against one other legitimate nation and greedily divide its provinces between themselves? This is BS

Not really complete crap.

60 Englishmen defeat 40 horsemen... must have been only firing with one arm behind their backs.

Real-life worst case scenario:
The English force of about 6,000 men, for the most part lightly equipped archers, was intercepted by d'Albret, whose army of about 25,000 men consisted chiefly of armoured cavalry and infantry contingents.
...
D'Albret, several dukes and counts, and about 500 other members of the French nobility were killed; about 5,000 French soldiers died. English losses numbered fewer than 200 men
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

So you managed to recreate History well done

French are considered one higher difficulty in most eras. Also once you are seen as an easy beat the vultures will circle and attack. On the other hand if you are seen as a powerful country then they will just as soon turn and attack someone else.

It comes down to strategy eventually and knowing which forces you can stand and fight to the end knowing it will disembowl the opponents strategic strength or when to run knowing that you can always replace a hesistant general but not a third of your troops in a pryhic victory.

[rspete]

First of all, this is not my first game. I have been playing Medieval for months now mainly on hard difficulty, though not as much on expert. I simply don’t understand why the game has to be so goofy. My general was only one star lower than the enemy commander when my unit of 37 mounted sergeants charged those 60 longbowmen (they killed 3 on my march to their position). As I understand it, cavalry with lances are supposed to be able to defeat the supposedly weaker archers, not to mention the fact there was a unit of militia supporting the charge. It simply irks me that the game has to “cheat” so much on the higher difficulty levels as to give the computer such a massive combat (valor?) bonus that this unrealistic situation had to occur. I understand that there were battles in history were mounted knights were defeated by archers, but I would assume this is because the majority of the cavalrymen were shot down (although I am no historian so feel free to correct me). What I am addressing is a situation in which 60 guys with bows are charged by about 100 guys who technically should have the advantage, and come out with about 20 men left and 2 units of my men fleeing for their lives. Can someone please justify?

[NewJeffCT]

You’re right, the computer does get a good advantage on Expert. I started in early as the English and grabbed Switzerland early on... meanwhile, the Spanish conquered the Almos, the Egyptians, the French and most of the HRE, as well as chunks of Poland and Hungary. (I got some Byz territory via Crusade...)

I decided to launch a huge strike on the Spanish forces in Hungary, as their king and at least two princes were there. I had about 4,500 quality men, including some of the infamous Swiss Pikemen and Swiss Armored Pikemen, as well as some Chivalric Knights, royal knights, feudal knights, longbowmen, chivalric men-at-arms, plenty of fast and medium cavalry, as well as billmen and more. The Spanish had several groups of Royal Knights, but mostly peasants, urban militia, archers and crossbowmen in their mix of about 4,300 troops. No chivalric knights, or even feudal knights, no chivalric sergeants, no arbalesters or pavise arbalesters.

Despite being the attacker, I was placed up a pretty good hill, while the defending Spanish were at the bottom of the hill. The Spanish king came up the hill after me and died pretty quickly against the Swiss Armored Pikemen, as did the other royal knights. The rest of the initial wave died pretty easily, too. I would guess at least a 85:15 kill ratio. However, in subsequent waves, my SAPs, SPs, and others just got whipped by urban militia, feudal sergeants and more going up hill at my men. And, my guys didn’t have bad valor, either. And, my general did not have any bad vices... I know there is some fatigue involved... but, SAPs uphill against urban militia & peasants and losing?

[pyhhricvictory]

You also have to remeber that the Longbowmen have AP weapons and a fairly equal attack aw compared to the Medium Cavs. The Cavalry would do most of its damage on the intial charge but if they hung around and stayed in the H2H combat, they would eventually be beaten , especially since they are outnumbered almost 2:1

[Praylak]

LMAO

[Hamburglar]

If you want to play this game you're going to have to understand that not everything is cut and dry. It's called ODDS. Nothing will ever ALWAYS beat something else. Even if peasants have only a one in a million chance of beating Gothic Knights, if you send them against each other a million times it may happen.

You're talking about ONE BATTLE where the bowmen beat your sergeants. ONE BATTLE. If you said that in 50 battles the bowmen consistently won then I'd say we have a problem, but this happened once. Besides, those Longbowmen might have had high valor, along with weapons and armor upgrades. They might have a had a unit commander (not army commander) that gives them crazy bonuses.

And anyway, don't underestimate Longbowmen. They do a lot better in hand to hand combat than you'd expect. Same thing with Trebizond Archers and Jannisary Bowmen. Just because they're archers doesn't mean they will always lose. Sometimes they get lucky. And Mounted Sergeants and any militia units aren't exactly spectacular.


But sometimes really good elite units can be beaten by seemingly inferior foes. It happens in what we call Real Life as well - take a look at Afganistan and Vietnam during the Cold War.


As for ganging up on each other, that happens too. It's a lot easier to beat somebody up if they're already wrestling with somebody else. Don't act like it doesn't happen. If you look at the WWII figures you'll see tons of nations on that Allied side just jumped in to be on the "winning team" when the fight was more than half over. And how much of a "legitmate nation" are you when the first thing you do when gaining power is to try and annhilate the English. And don't act like you as the player have ever invaded someone that's already at war. It may seem like a normal war to you invading the HRE on their western front but they could be struggling with the Italians to the South and the Polish to the East at the very same time and call it unfair.


As for getting wiped out so early, if you can do it, it can happen to you. You state right away that you wanted to annhilate the English before they could do anything. They're gonna do it right back.

[Hamburglar]

And about the Chivalric men at arms, just think about them beating the Knights. The knights power is in the charge - after that the Chivlaric men at arms have a decent chance of killing the knights.

As for killing your militia and crossbowmen, that's to be expected. Urban Militiamen and Crossbowmen are both practically garbage in hand to hand, ESPECIALLY when facing hand to hand experts like Chivalric Men At Arms.

[Divine Wind]

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ April 07 2003,18:09)]But sometimes really good elite units can be beaten by seemingly inferior foes. It happens in what we call Real Life as well - take a look at Afganistan and Vietnam during the Cold War.

Ohhh no no. Vietnamese and afghanistan were much better armies than most american documentaries make out Both armies had much experience of fighting many wars before the "superpowers" even invaded there countries. The French for example were massacred in Vietnam many years before the USA became embroiled in there war with them. Contary to what most people believe the army commanders had excellent experience and knew extremely well how to use the terrain to there advantage over the aggressors. These troops were very well equipped..by the Russian army with many of there latest guns and anti tank weapons. If you compare both average soldier...many of the troops sent in by russia and the USA were "green" themselves. The average Vietnamese soldier had 1 years training which is half a year more training than the basic training of US troops at that time.

Sorry for the thread hijack

[econ21]

I agree, Divine Wind - I remember seeing estimates of Russian and Chinese military aid to North Vietnam and it rivalled US military aid to the South. Similarly, the supply of US Stinger missiles to Afghanistan was very important in neutralising Russian helicopters.

But back on topic - just want to echo what was said about longbowmen. AP and melee capable, they are not to sneered at in MTW as in real life. At Agincourt, they killed a fair number of French men-at-arms in hand to hand combat. Research suggests they had to be pretty beefy blokes to draw their bows and in HYW, they were pretty close to professionals.

But basically I agree with the original poster, I don't like the skewed odds on expert or even hard. I like the combat results to "feel" right and generally find they do on normal, but not higher difficulty.

[Papewaio]

With experience you will find that the kill ratio is typically 3 to 5:1 in your favour playing at expert.

Sure sometimes you will get slaughtered but that happens through a misread of the foe or not having enough types of troops to counter act the variety that the foe has fielded.

[Nowake]

I played both STW and MTW only on expert, first games were always tight but after that i find all quite too easy ... I don't understand your defeat, even if sending UM to fight CMA is not the best solution ... Maybe they had armour upgrades and that's why they resisted CK's charge ...

Try to never attack the enemy, instead lure him with a fast cavalry unit in front of your positions.

[Teutonic Knight]

Quote[/b] (Praylak @ April 07 2003,18:00)]LMAO

is something really funny or is that just spam? *spam*

[lonewolf371]

This is EXACTLY how the French felt during the Hundred Years' War.

I know someone who knows someone who did a test with Longbowmen, and he found that with maxed out valour and weapons a single unit of Longbowmen could route any enemy foot soldiers coming to it, including Gothic Foot Knights. My guess is just that, High valour and/or weapons. I believe that at this point you'd just started with France, and I've found the hard way that attacking in the first few turns to gain an advantage or eliminate a threat is an unwise decision. Your armies haven't been truly developed and are most likely small and un-balanced. It's best simply to wait. Try and take more advantage of your provinces next time, a.k.a. developing a true late-age army with Chivilric Knights from Ile de France (Dismount in battle), Chivilric Knights from Toulouse (for basic knight charging), Chivilric Sergeants from another province, I use Champagne (For basic foot soldiery and stopping power) and, finally, Pavise Arbalesters from another province, I use Anjou. Develop an army consisting of these base units and slap an excellent general on top. Then you should have much less trouble taking Aquitaine, even if it took you awhile the game will be more secure in your hands rather than attacking with the Early Age units you start with.

[Hamburglar]

Quote[/b] (Divine Wind @ April 09 2003,05:57)]

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ April 07 2003,18:09)]But sometimes really good elite units can be beaten by seemingly inferior foes. It happens in what we call Real Life as well - take a look at Afganistan and Vietnam during the Cold War.

Ohhh no no. Vietnamese and afghanistan were much better armies than most american documentaries make out Both armies had much experience of fighting many wars before the "superpowers" even invaded there countries. The French for example were massacred in Vietnam many years before the USA became embroiled in there war with them. Contary to what most people believe the army commanders had excellent experience and knew extremely well how to use the terrain to there advantage over the aggressors. These troops were very well equipped..by the Russian army with many of there latest guns and anti tank weapons. If you compare both average soldier...many of the troops sent in by russia and the USA were "green" themselves. The average Vietnamese soldier had 1 years training which is half a year more training than the basic training of US troops at that time.

Sorry for the thread hijack

That was kind of my point. He didn't really make mention of the valor of his own units or the enemies. He could have 0 valor troops attacking 5 valor longbowmen or something like that.

The Vietnamese had a lot more experience (valor) than the green Yanks

[ShadesPanther]

most of the americans were conscripts and didnt want to be there but the vietcong were fighting for freedom ( well you know what i mean

same with this 0val dont want to fight and have poor morale (except JHI but they are fanatical and ghazis)

[cugel]

Jeezus Most experienced players think this game is TOO EASY ON EXPERT Not TOO HARD Many of us play the MedMod or other mods to try to improve the AI's chances. If you have a hard time, play on hard or normal. Instead of getting mad, I thought it was funny the first few times I saw enemy urban militia whip my chivalric footknights Then, instead of bitching, I set out to learn WHY and take corrective action. Turned out they had higher valor and their general had a +3 morale bonus. Add the +3 morale bonus to the (what is it +6?) morale bonus for expert and the enemy had something like +9 morale That basically means I'm going to rout before they will. I learned to pick my battles more carefully after that



Now I make sure that my generals are ones with "natural leader" or other morale building V & V's. Like everyone else, I learned how important it is to build church, plus monestary, plus reliquary (plus cathedral in your home province). Especially if you're using non-elite troops like urban militia, spearmen, halbrediers or pikemen you NEED those morale bonuses Otherwise your men will all too often run away "screaming like a girl" (as the description of the "not too brave" V & V puts it ). Remember that valor bonuses also impart morale bonuses. Those archers could easily have had fanatical morale

BTW: In real life longbowmen were armed with swords and could give a good account of themselves in hand to hand combat. I'm looking right now at a picture of The Battle of Auray, 1364, an illustration from Froissart's Chronicles, which prominently depicts in the foreground english longbowmen cutting the throats of French halbrediers. The lonbbowmen are all armed with swords which they seem to be using quite well. The fight doesn't always go the way you would suppose

[lonewolf371]

Try not to get over-reactive.

As per the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were overrated. The Americans actualy did quite well in the war, considering it was right after WWII. For instance, the Vietnam War suffered roughly 60,000 in about 10 years, so that's about 6,000 men a year. The Korean War suffered 30,000 casualties in 3 years, that's 10,000 CASUALTIES A YEAR. The big daddy of war itself (WWII) suffered about 400,000 CASUALTIES in THREE YEARS (US portion). THAT'S ABOUT 130,000 CASUALTIES PER YEAR. See how drastically rates have changed? Now we're what, below 100? The only battles that the Viet Cong and NVA ever won were when the American forces were vastly outnumbered to the point that they didn't have a chance. Almost all the time, Americans won, but feeling at home was against the war, along with the fact that casualties added up. Mind you, 60,000 was still a huge number. All statistics are for the US unless otherwise noted. Some interesting casualty and death numbers...

US Civil War: 500,000
USSR WWII: 13.6 million (Dead and missing)
Germany and Austria WWII: 3.5 million (dead and missing)
China WWII: 1.5 million (dead and missing)
Japan WWII: 2.6 million (dead and missing)
Total WWII: 23,959,000 (dead and missing)
US Gulf War: 292

Amazing how much we've done to decrease casualties isn't it?

[Hamburglar]

Yeah but the Vietnamese did pretty well for having almost no heavy weapons. Most of the NVA dead were caused from artillery/airstrikes etc. They did pretty well in the firefights themselves.

[pdoan8]

Quote[/b] (ShadesPanther @ April 10 2003,15:25)]most of the americans were conscripts and didnt want to be there but the vietcong were fighting for freedom ( well you know what i mean

Not exactly because there is no freedom under the communist goverment. Things that enable the North VN/VC fight better: a) They were brain washed about the evil American. b) They were highly motivated. c) They had nothing to lose. d) They know their land and that allowed them to use guerilla warfare effectively. e) There were more of them. f) The North VNese didn't protest against the war. Instead, they join the war.

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ April 07 2003,18:09)]But sometimes really good elite units can be beaten by seemingly inferior foes. It happens in what we call Real Life as well - take a look at Afganistan and Vietnam during the Cold War.

The NVN and the VC weren't inferior in some terms. They had AK47 while US Marine still used M1. Even the first series of M16 couldn't match the performance of the AK47. I would say that the NVN/VC were lighter equiped but not inferior. NVN anti-aircraft system was sophisticated enough to cause trouble to American warplanes. Anyone want to compare US M48 (even the A3 series) with Russian T54/T55? M113 with PT76/PT78 (the more powerful Chinese variant Type 63)?

Quote[/b] (lonewolf371 @ April 10 2003,17:24)]As per the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were overrated.

Yeah. They were overrated in some of the TV series that I watched. May be just to cover up the "not so bold" withdrawal of the American and why the American lost so many men there.

If I am going to compare the NVN/VC with the US troops, it would be:
NVN/VC: Urban Militia (Valour 9, no upgrade, 1 star utterly fearless general) vs US: Chiv Foot Knight (valour 0, full upgrade, 3 stars well educated general). The CFK have to fight uphill because they don't know the terrain well.

------------------------------------------------

OK. Enough of that stuffs.

IICR, in expert mode, the AI gets 30% combat bonus and +4 morale. I learned this the hard way after my JHI got beaten consistenly by Byz Inf and my Khawarazmian Cav got beaten by Tribizond Archer in H2H combat. I lost the first three expert campaigns despite of the fact that I have played the game for months and was nearly undefeatable in normal and hard. In the fourth campaign, I only had around 30 provinces by the end of the game. Currently in my fifth expert campaign (the year is 1232), I've lost around a dozen battles and only control 15 provinces.

[Hakonarson]

Most VC didnt' have AK-47's - they had whatever was handy - often as not WW2 vintage Japanese or French bolt-action rifles.

The T55 and M47/48 were probably very comparable, but het M113 was a personnel carrier whereas the PT-76 was a light tank - so comparing the 2 doesn't really give any useful information

I don't think there's any need to give the VC or NVA 9 valour either - the VC would be peasants IMO, basic valour of zero and modified by the dread, zeal and accumen of the local commander, which could vary highly - some commanders could get very high dread and zeal combined.

NVA should be urban militia, and again with the modifiers but probably fewer very high dread ratings.

Similarly the US forces, although their commanders always get low dread, and never more than moderate zeal.

[DthB4Dishonor]

Hail,

Well seems like Pete lost for a couple of reasons. First off he seemed to have more units but not as good units. Better to have waited and gotten better and/or more units. Secondly you seemed to have used bad tactics. A smarter thing would've been to put crossbow on loose and try and make those LongBows waste there ammo on them. And/or while they are shooting it out get a flank or rear position for your Cav on the Longbows. You rushed 2 units of LongBows with a light cavalry unit and expect to win? Plus when equal valor militia and cmaa fight cmaa will win every time even without AI bonuses for playing on expert. On top of that the cmaa probably had supporting fire which also hurt your militia morale not to mention the penalty for seeing the mounted sergs die and rout.

Also it makes sense for other factions to jump on you now since u are weakened by the defeat. You obviously sent in your best gen and units plus those French farmlands are tempting. Without fear of serious military reprisal it makes sense for them to take what they can.

Please dont post that AI is too hard or they will make another easy to beat AI for RTW. AI really isnt competitive even at expert level. Like Sun Tzu said know thy enemy and know yourself and you will not be in danger even in a thousand battles.

RTKPaul