Turnaround for pav arb duel if Turks in high/late

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Here we go...

I play Turk nearly all the time and eventually (took me soem times) noticed that Turks are completly deprived of pav arb, those quintessential instrument of boredom in at least the first 15 mn of MTW MP.

There are a few topics on ; 'how to play the turk?' and 'what do you cook during a pav arb duel?'. I feel the need to put all that together in this topic that could have been named 'what do you cook during a pav arb duel when you don't have pav arb cause you play turk?' if I had the room to do so.

Of course, some of those cooking recipe can be used by non turk choosing on purpose not to use arb/pavarb (those fools are not too many, but welcome to contribute).

So let's see what turks can do during a pav arb duel;

1/ get killed; so you put a few units of whatever-as-long-as-it-is-cheap, put them in range of the pav arb and wait for them to die. If you are in the pretending business you can even use missile troops and go for a fake pav arb duel you won't win.

2/ rush; the good news with pav arb is that their melee suck. Your hatred pav arb user opponent, with 3/4 pav arb has less schock/sword/cav units than you. Use this opportunity to rush him.

3/ stay out of reach; (if more than 1v1) that's very dumb but if your opponent is camping, you can just stay out of reach while your allies are having fun with their pav arb. Your direct opponent faces a choice; he can either sends his pavarb to help his allies, but then he has none, and you can come back with your normal missile guys, or he can advance on you disrupting your opposition line, or even maybe stay there and do nothing

4/ use obstacle; stay in the woods Move throught the woods A forest is worth an ally
A small hill can go a long way in stopping arbs. Steppe is your doom.

5/ light cav charge. 1 cav charge is not likely to be enough, unless your opponent is really cooking. But after a first fake charge, a second charge can be surprisingly effective. Most of the time I don't really care if the charge is effective or not, I like light cav charge, because it increases your opponenent nervosity, it distracts him from other tactics (like ally being doubled...) and let you have some fun while your ally are pav arbing... What matters in team play is cohesion and timing. One can't attack alone, so do something, and mesmerize your opponent with a dumb cav and wait for end of pav arb duel. His cav will be tired by chasing yours.
Suicidal alternative; the ghazy charge.

There are others way of dealing with pav arb, but I want to let my fellow turks general express their finding, and just gave a few here to 'get started'.

Final note; when come the time of hand to hand attack, target those nasty pav arb, their low morale makes them a good target to trigger mass rout, and you have a sweet sweet revenge

Louis,

[Vanya]

GAH

Vanya sez...

If Turks, use guns

Culvies... 'busiers... Oh my

Culvies have great range, and you can laugh while your bombard his hapless pavs into oblivion

GAH

[Kongamato]

I suggested this earlier...

Try stormtroopers. Valor up some Ghazis(but keep them cheap), put them in thin lines, and charge them at the pavs. Do not expect them to survive.

This ought to at least stop the pavs from firing. Move your missile shower in range and start firing as much as you can. Try not to fire on elite troops, but troops that will actually take damage from the arrows(you already know this).

[Tempiic]

When possible... depends on your allies or the status of the game... also takes into account you are fielding lots of archer-warriors hybrids

6) Move closer... closer. Get far within pav arb range... Start shooting at his valuable combat troops. Your archer warriors will kill them off faster than his pav arbs can kill yours. Somewhere during your march up, or when you started to shoot back, preferbly when his pav arbs are reloading... Launch cav to take out his pav arbs... Though most of time he has withdrawn his pav arbs to the back of his army cos most of times he thinks hes being rushed.... *shrugs* im not so handy in writing down tactics as you can say. This feigned rush attack and following shoot out, often forces your opponent to attack you. Though some tend to withdraw from you, which can be a bliss or a curse (pav arbs are useless on the move, while archers not... has to do with reloading) / (due to position of enemy allies/own allies you cannot follow)

Can simply switch to option 2 or 5 (even when using only heavy cav), due to closeness of armies.

And before ppl start to nag, no this is not a rush tactic, its a feigned rush tactic

[shingenmitch2]

LOUIS my man

We all know what to cook... goose

[ErikJansen]

Hehe some very good suggestions here. I'll play the Turks some more and look at adding my own ideas, though you've covered the most usual ways of countering the Pavs Louis

Tempiic.. that tactic of yours is actually quite viable, though it can be refined a bit to avoid some of the incoming fire during your approach phase. I used to call it the Saracen hammer, lol and it usually ends with your opponent counter rushing.... Unless your opponent likes to play very wide, its possible you'll get to herd him into your JI/Gazi.

Off to the lobby

[Tempiic]

mmm hmmm its just a basic idea... all of these suggestions can be refined to fit personal tastes, maps, opponents etc etc. But the basic idea remains the same

now, you've faced my turks a few times before dear.... you know i hardly use ghazi for them

[Major Robert Dump]

some good pointers.

HEres another: use crossbows. They are cheaper so you can armor them up more to counter the slower rate of fire. IF, and only IF, I plan on humoring the person for a missle dual, I will take some xbows complimented by archers, preferaably futts or jan infantry, as they can also melee.

Note that cav charges dont work as well if the person put a lot of money into their arbs. I palyed a guy who did v4 a4 w4 and was surprised when my horses seemd to run into brick walls. I routed two, when I was expecting to rout all 5, and my poor 2 horsies got eaten to shreds. Most people wont spend so much money on them, though, and the rest of the guys army fell like a chump.

[Postino]

DIVIDE AND FALLBACK...of "the cock tease":
make your 2 lines look weak and open to attack, then keep falling back as soon as the first pav volley is released. it helps to have a ally that is just far away enough to look like no threat.

the turcoman foot shuffle:
take 4 turcoman foot, say 1 val 2 armor. 2 up front and 2 in reserve. when the missiles are depleated from the first group(or they are dead) move up the second. keep them far infront and be ready with the light cav.

toasted PB+J sandwich:
move halfway downfeild, put bread into toaster. adjust line and then make sandwich. pour milk and eat sandwich. come back to game and everyone should be at about half missile load for the pav's.

[LadyAnn]

MajorDump: If I see someone spent so much money on his pav arb (yes, I can count those little flags), I would try to rush him (15k-20k army, not 99999 army of course). The other units probably are disgrunted and would take the first excuse to go home. Why try to harash pav.arb. when you could route his army altogether?

[EDIT: take it back: I'll let me pav.arb./xbow, etc. do the deed first. They got killed but so what? Each val4 pav.arb. worth gold. Then I attack as usual]

Annie

[Alrowan]

all are good ideas. i tend to use tempiics one myself.. it really puts them off as turks can march very fast. Ive seen a few surprised epole when my army halts halfways and my archers shoot them to bits.. after vikings i hear pav arbs are late only, meaning turk will own high era

[ErikJansen]

Another more exotic option to rid your enemy of some pavs and hopefully some cav as well is the creative use of Hashishin and upgraded Alans.

Just yesterday 2 Hashihsin and one Alan rid the european general of 2 1/2 units of Pav and one Chiv sent into the fray to stop the slaughter.

Not very cost effective perhaps, but you won't get any better laughs

Beware; the run-of-the-mill european general will CHARGE you when his pavs are gone and the JI starts pouring missile into his ranks

[Aelwyn]

My personal favorite at the moment, is putting a cav archer behind a unit of Alans. Rush the arbs with the alans and follow with the cav archer. Start shooting up whatever unit the person uses to counter your Alans. That way, they'll lose some arbs, and part of another unit.

[ErikJansen]

Quote[/b] (Aelwyn @ April 12 2003,12:35)]My personal favorite at the moment, is putting a cav archer behind a unit of Alans. Rush the arbs with the alans and follow with the cav archer. Start shooting up whatever unit the person uses to counter your Alans. That way, they'll lose some arbs, and part of another unit.

Hehe, one of my all time favorites. If I feel like being really mobile I mix up 2 Turcoman (Turcopoles if playing cath.. ie. French) and 2 Alans. Its a good anti pav measure too

[Kongamato]

Quote[/b] (Aelwyn @ April 12 2003,12:35)]My personal favorite at the moment, is putting a cav archer behind a unit of Alans. Rush the arbs with the alans and follow with the cav archer. Start shooting up whatever unit the person uses to counter your Alans. That way, they'll lose some arbs, and part of another unit.

I had the idea that one could supercharge this by taking 4 v4 Woodsmen w/Boyar support as part of a Russian rush. Would be cheaper than pavs and mean as hell on the enemy's pavs or any unit unfortunate enough to get in the way. The Woodsmen would rout, but they could take with them numbers equal to pavs(well, not exactly but some melee units would be crippled).