Tactics question

[Marquis de Said]

BTW, I'm currently playing as the Turks (early, expert) as well. It's 1250, the Horde is dead (although their rebel remnants control half the steppes), I'm about 10 years away from getting Janissary Heavy Infantry and raking in a profit of 3000 fl. per turn without any naval trade.

Next I will begin my conquest of Europe!

[ichi]

I probably would have used one TurcoHorse on loose formation to soak up the arrows until the archers ran out, trying as the Marquis said to lure them away from the ByzInf and out into the open where maybe they could be overwhelmed by my entire force. Once the archers were defanged I would have surrounded the ByzInf as much as possible and then shot them up (even in trees they'll take some losses), saving one TurcoHorse with arrows for the final battle (probably the General).

Had this worked I would be facing a somewhat depleted Byz Inf unit and then tried to lure them out - maybe engage them with a depleted TurcoHorse and let them chase that unit out into the open.

At any rate, the key to beating ByzInf is to take advantage of their relatively low morale. In this situation it seems like you could hit them from all sides - units get a morale penalty for beng outnumbered, for having flanks threatened or charged, and most importantly being charged in the rear. Combine those penalties with the one units get for taking arrow fire and those Barnies should fold faster than Superman on laundry day.

You don't say what the valor/morale of the units involved in this scenario are, but my guess is that the ByzInf was probably fairly high valor (3-4 maybe?), which probably made them pretty tough to kill with Turcos straight up.



ichi