Italian infantry kicking my butt

[Crayno]

First of all my compliments for the forum and the helpfull people in it and a special thanks to Frogbeastegg and all the others that made the guides,they've been most helpfull sofar.
I've only recently bought Medieval total war and I'm loving every inch of it
As for my post: I would like to ask you some advice.
I'm playing as the Danes and everything is going fine and dandy sofar(Although I restarted a couple of times after learning more).
However at this time I have control of Morocco and I'm being invaded by those evil Italians
At first I used my standard defense formation:
6 Chivalric sergeants
2 Pavise Arbalester
3 Archers
Some royal cavalry since my royal line seems to be very furtile and I have to do something with all those princes ~:p
The Italians have 6 regiments of Italian infantry and boy was I surprised when I thought I would win easily being on top of a steep hill.
Even going up a steep hill the Italian infantry slaughered my CS.
So I got rid of the CS (Heavy armoured troops IS a bad idea in the desert)and replaced them with some Feudal sergeants,got rid of the PA and added 2 more archery units and 2 viking units.
And they still kick my booty
My general has 2 command and the enemy general 3 command,almost all troops on the battlefield have 2 valor so all that is pretty much evenly matched.
I hope you veterans can help me out here because I'm at a loss,thanks

P.S. Love the smileys

[Khan of ED]

You should use sword units if you have any and outflank outflank out flank.
Make them run after your cav. Tell what else do italians have

[ThijsP]

MAybe with the lightly armoured FS run around a bit and get those armoured italian infantry tired. During the running keep your archers shooting if possible. OR just use some swords with sergeants holding the line and swords flanking it would'nt be a big problem.

And welcome

[Blodrast]

Hi Crayno, and welcome to the Org !
Yes, you obviously like the smileys ~:p

Well, there are lots of things you can do to kick the Italians' butt in response.

Good thing you've noticed that high armor troops tire faster in the desert.

One thing would be to deploy your troops as far back as possible. This will make the Italians to have a long march to you, and they will get tired in the process. Don't worry, Italian Infantry isn't particularly happy in the desert, either !

Another thing: it is true that heavily armoured troops get tired faster in the desert; however, if your CS will just stand at the top of a dune, they will not get that tired, so you can still use them if you like, and if the battle won't take a long time.
However, some people aren't big fans of CS because of their crappy morale. Seeing as your general doesn't have too many stars, this will affect you too in this particular battle. So you can use some FS just to hold your line for a while.

Of course it is a good thing to bring some missiles to pepper them for a long time; you can also deploy the bulk of your troops as far behind as possible, but deploy some archers as far in the front as possible, to pepper the Italian Infantry all the way to the bulk of your troops, retreating continuously with your archers. Of course, for this you'd use some fast archers: bulgarian brigands, desert archers, etc, but NOT pavise troops.
You can still get pavise if you want to engage in a missile duel with them, but from what I understand that is not the case here. And do use _archers_, not arbs or crossbows. You don't need AP for Italian Infantry, and you wanna drop as many missiles in as short a time as possible on them.

Last, but not least, probably one of the best things you could do is use Horse Archers.
You will certainly manage to attract at least a few of the Italian Infantry to chase you around, all the while peppering them with arrows and getting them exhausted.
You can also use foot missile troops in combination with this.
But, in general, using HA is a good idea.

hth

[maestro]

I'd use Chivalric Men-at-Arms instead of chivalric seargents. You don't get the spear bonus for ranks but you get armour piercing, heavy armour and good morale. And you can use thinner lines to wrap around the enemy for that flanking bonus. Watch the Itis die horribly with a smile on your face :D

[Ludens]

I agree with Blodrast completily: set-up far away from them, have them march towards you and pepper them with arrows. The problem is that II have a large shield and are not particulary impressed by ranged weapons, so you need to get behind their back. That's why I recommend horse archers, preferebly mounted crosbowmen. If you can pin them and get javelin troops in their back, that's great, but javelins do require some skill.
Chivalric men-at-arms probably work better than sergeants, but they are armoured and do NOT have armour piercing. Use them in a thin formation to wrap around the enemy.

Lastly: you are playing the Danes and you don't use Vikings? Standard Vikings are some of the best early infantry and they are available real early. And I won't mention the VI Viking units...