Campaigns to teach tactics

[CherryDanish]

What faction/era combos would you veterans recommend to tech how to fight specific types of wars and use specific types of units?

Here are a few examples of what I would consider good training combos:

Turks on Early - I would consider this the best way to get aquainted with Horse Archer tactics. The obligatory rush requires you to fight a variety of superior units with inferior numbers and only really have strength in HA or Turcoman Horse. It also teaches you when to use non-knight heavy cav such as AHC.

All campaigns here assume Early/Hard.
Almos - good starter campaign, beating fast mounted missle troops, the value of camels, strengths of swordsmen in combination with fast flanking axe/spear, desert warfare, how to cope without princesses.
Aragon - diplomacy, patience and the strategic use of agents
Byz - impact of quality over quantity, using low mobility units in battle against high mobility units, strategic land holding (ie: being close to the GH when they arrive and being in a choke point where crusades pass to Antioch), the value of building a strong economy, and the impact a jedi general can have on a battle. Good intermediate campaign.
Danes - good beginer campaign. Building an economy, bribery, how aggression rewards players and the flooding the enemy with low cost quality troops. Some basic battle field management.
Egyptians - beating heavy troops with light mobile forces, desert warfare, fast tracking a trade emipire, resisting crusades
English - rather unique campaign that offers a good historical perspective in England's relation to the sea. Good campaign for teaching how to hold off superior foes until you get quality troops in the high period and then the use of deploying foot troops (longbowmen and billmen) in formation (very few factions depend so heavily on foot troops), managing a conquered rebellious people and a somewhat intermediate excersise in building a trade empire.
French - never played em
Germans - Crissis management, surviving, diplomacy, managing provinces and beating rebellions.
Hungarians - never played em
Italians - never played em
Polish - Never played em
Russians - never played em
Sicily - never played em
Turks - use and deployment of fast light HAs, use of light missle intensive infantry, mobility and strategic use of geography in combat, good advanced campaign, teaches aggression, managing superior foes (ie: horde)

[Ash]

All campaigns here assume Early/Hard.
English - rather unique campaign that offers a good historical perspective in England's relation to the sea. Good campaign for teaching how to hold off superior foes until you get quality troops in the high period and then the use of deploying foot troops (longbowmen and billmen) in formation (very few factions depend so heavily on foot troops), managing a conquered rebellious people and a somewhat intermediate excersise in building a trade empire.

I really have to disagree.

1) Building ships and traderoutes in Early is very expensive. There's not much there in English (or surrounding) lands so teching up to build barques is very expensive.
Barques cost 750 and are expensive to upkeep. Maybe it's just me but I find turtleing highly expensive with England's meager holdings.

2) Superior foes? The vast peasant armies of HRE and France? Peasant crap their pants at everything they see, people shouldn't have problems defeating France and HRE even at impossible odds.

3) England gets quality troops in Early. If you have VI you get Fyrdmen. They're expensive but at least they don't soil their codpieces if the enemy sneezes in their general direction. They so much better then spearman you should by able to hold your own against everything as long as you don't get flanked.
The only ones to threaten Fyrdmen one-on-one are Alamohad Urban Militia. They eat Fyrdmen for breakfast...:(
Englands also gets to build archers cheaper. Although archers are crap they excell at killing peasants and UMs.
England's biggest asset early on are Hobilers. They're pretty crap but against spearmen, UMs and peasants they're battlewinning. Couple units of Hobbies are 10x better then a dozen units of spearmen/UMs/peasants.
They loose their usefulness around 1150 though. But that's still 50 years of conquest where England will rule supreme...:)

And this is not even mentioning the "barbarian" units you get from the British Isles. Or Spanish Jinites which you can get if you go into Iberia.

4) It's perfectly possible to conquer western Europe before 1150. If you start at Early France and Spain are doable with Fyrdmen, spearmen, archers, hobbies and a few RKs...:)

[_Aetius_]

England's biggest asset early on are Hobilers. They're pretty crap but against spearmen, UMs and peasants they're battlewinning. Couple units of Hobbies are 10x better then a dozen units of spearmen/UMs/peasants

Agreed almost entirely with you until you said that.

Personally Id rather have a dozen units of Spearmen than a couple of units of light cavalry, how exactly is 80 hobilars meant to rout over 1000 spearmen?

with England's meager holdings.

England has some very good holdings especially in France. Normandy is a rich farming province, Aquitaine is a strong trade power in southern France and even Anjou is fairly profitable. Later on Northumbria and Mercia can dominate North sea trade with a good base of income in Wessex. It costs alot of money but you have to spend money to make money as they say. Besides England often recieves subsidies from the Papacy early on those gifts of 1000 florins can be very useful.

As England I suggest aggression early if Flanders can be taken and held Englands economy is secured, then taking Brittany and Champagne will almost certainly send France into civil war. I attack Flanders with FMAA's and Frydmen with a top general then let the French counter attack wiht their UM and peasant heavy armies.

Englands position is far more favourable than most people give it credit for financially, France is one of the richest parts of the entire map. Despite Englands territorial expansion in the high period I still prefer to play them in the Early period as later on Englands enemies are far more advanced than in early times.

[sir_schwick]

England's biggest asset early on are Hobilers. They're pretty crap but against spearmen, UMs and peasants they're battlewinning. Couple units of Hobbies are 10x better then a dozen units of spearmen/UMs/peasants.
They loose their usefulness around 1150 though. But that's still 50 years of conquest where England will rule supreme...:)

To be safe I always assume other factions will have Mounted Sargeants by 1130. Anyway you are correct. Hobilars give you the tactical options of medium cavalry for 40 turns. The AI France almost never builds them, although the Spanish love the Jinettes(I love them too). When I get MS rolling, I usually disband everything but 2+ valour Hobs.

And this is not even mentioning the "barbarian" units you get from the British Isles. Or Spanish Jinites which you can get if you go into Iberia.

Do you ever use Kerns? I know most people say they are crap, but Ireland is producing nothing while its waiting for a Swordsmith. Although their morale is low, they give you an okay infantry javelin. You'll have 8 or so units of them by the time you get to build Gallowglasses. Know those units kick arse like none other. Flank them into a royal unit and watch some kings die. They have the same charge as Knights.

(very few factions depend so heavily on foot troops)

Although you should have Jinettes very shortly, you are right that English infantry troops really shine. This is true in both Early and High period. Gallowglasses and Highland Clansmen are just incredible units, especially in tandem. Kerns give you a decent anti-general option. Fyrdmen give you an edge similair(but not equal to) that which Saracean Infantry give the Turks. In high they get Longbowmen, which are the best archer types in the game. I still use Arbalesters and Crossbows, but a lot less than with other factions. Billmen give you a truly powerful halbeird type.

[Zarax]

Fyrdmen are the copy of feudal sergeants stat wise and disappear in high IIRC.
You can use them for flavour but they aren't the wisest choice in a long term perspective...
I'm not 100% sure since i'm only playing my own mod (i found MTW unit distribution a bit plain, most factions plays exactly the same save for a few units... Now at least you get some variety and extra game balance) and i changed the ages for many stuff (Fyrdmen now replaces the feudal sarges for english and sicilians) but this one should be right...

[Procrustes]

Fyrdmen are the copy of feudal sergeants stat wise and disappear in high IIRC. You can use them for flavour but they aren't the wisest choice in a long term perspective...

The thing is Frydmen are cheaper than FS, and the build requirements are less so you can get them a lot sooner. Gives the English quite an early advantage.

[Zarax]

Do the English get a discount for them?
If so things would be much more logical.

[sir_schwick]

I would say the key to English success to taking out the French starting the 1st or 2nd turn. From their you can wait 10 turns if you are the slow kind to take out Spain. Once you get rid of France/Spain, you can consolidate your borders and prepare your economy for real war in about 20 turns.

True on the quality troops in early, although I disagree on the hobilars.

Hobilars can best be described as early Mounted Sargeants. The term Early is very operative when using them. They fill the role a good 30-40 turns before most other factions can field the light/medium cavalry role. This means you have tactical options which lower the number of troops needed against weak infantry heavy armies until the 1140s. So Fyrdmen/Hobs can allow you to pull off really amazing rushes before others catch up in tech. It turns an okay start into a very good start. English may be one of the easiest campaigns in the game.

[Procrustes]

Do the English get a discount for them?
If so things would be much more logical.

I believe that Frydmen are cheaper to build and maintain than Feudal Sgts, but I may be wrong. I know that they have identical stats, and that you can build Frdymen with only a fort and a spearmaker while you need a keep and a spearmaker's workshop to build FS.

I agree with the qualified positive comments about hobilars - they are an early boon to both the French and the English. They are easy and cheap to build have have the same attack/defense stats as Mounted Sgts, but with significantly poorer moral. Once you can replace them with MS it's worth doing, but they give you a real advantage before that.

[CherryDanish]

I really have to disagree.

1) Building ships and traderoutes in Early is very expensive. There's not much there in English (or surrounding) lands so teching up to build barques is very expensive.
Barques cost 750 and are expensive to upkeep. Maybe it's just me but I find turtleing highly expensive with England's meager holdings.

I agree that building ships early is a mostly losing proposition. Before you build ships though it's important to attempt to broaden your borders by taking flanders and also begining to build an infrastructure. Trading posts generate marginal returns and can be built in 2 years. Improved farming is a great idea in some of the starting provinces and also can generate some good V&V's that increase happiness and agricultural returns. By 1120 or so I'm popping off ships like gas on all you can eat buritto night and I can pop off some improved clansman and frydman.

2) Superior foes? The vast peasant armies of HRE and France? Peasant crap their pants at everything they see, people shouldn't have problems defeating France and HRE even at impossible odds.

While in high-late, this is true, in the begining the never ending flow of low quality troops the French build can overwhelm English units, especially through attrition. This is compounded should Aragon and Spain decide to hit you in the South. Don't forget, you take morale hits for being badly outnumbered. I've had hobilar units look at the French and route (luckily I still won, because I had diverted their spears and isolated their archers, UM and peasants. Boosting morale requires building churches and whatnot, which makes for infrastructure I can't afford until I start building my economic infrastructure. Later when I get to building a navy, it allows me to concentrate my forces in flanders because I know England will be safe from marine assault not to mention working towards making improvements to those quality troops.

3) England gets quality troops in Early. If you have VI you get Fyrdmen. They're expensive but at least they don't soil their codpieces if the enemy sneezes in their general direction. They so much better then spearman you should by able to hold your own against everything as long as you don't get flanked.
The only ones to threaten Fyrdmen one-on-one are Alamohad Urban Militia. They eat Fyrdmen for breakfast...:(
Englands also gets to build archers cheaper. Although archers are crap they excell at killing peasants and UMs.
England's biggest asset early on are Hobilers. They're pretty crap but against spearmen, UMs and peasants they're battlewinning. Couple units of Hobbies are 10x better then a dozen units of spearmen/UMs/peasants.
They loose their usefulness around 1150 though. But that's still 50 years of conquest where England will rule supreme...:)

And this is not even mentioning the "barbarian" units you get from the British Isles. Or Spanish Jinites which you can get if you go into Iberia.

True on the quality troops in early, although I disagree on the hobilars. They are expensive, they have horrible morale and they are vulnerable. Their only real use is mopping up lowest quality units and chasing routers. I'd sooner have two units of clansman in early and draw French cav into the woods, decimating all other French units in open fields. Frydmen are an excellent buy in early.

All this said, going all offensive without propping up your infrastructure is going to get you into one of several scenarios: a) rapid growth which will likely make you more enemies, force you to fight more rebellions, get you excommed and not leave you with the capital you need to grow and win if you fail your bid on world domination by 1150, which is possible, but I have never done it. b) 1205 rolls around and you don't get all the improvements you need to make full use of the two new units that should make up the cornerstone of English military supremecy. Together the longbowmen and billmen built in bonus provinces are so lethal that they have no weakness when fielded against a like sized force.

[Ash]

All this said, going all offensive without propping up your infrastructure is going to get you into one of several scenarios: a) rapid growth which will likely make you more enemies, force you to fight more rebellions, get you excommed and not leave you with the capital you need to grow and win if you fail your bid on world domination by 1150, which is possible, but I have never done it. b) 1205 rolls around and you don't get all the improvements you need to make full use of the two new units that should make up the cornerstone of English military supremecy. Together the longbowmen and billmen built in bonus provinces are so lethal that they have no weakness when fielded against a like sized force.

You are correct.

I do have problems teching up in time for 1205.

And yes, my tactics won't work on expert probably. Then again I'm not 1337 enough for expert, plus I really dislike the fact that enemy troops recieve a bonus to morale.

In my current game however I got 'lucky' and got a lot of nations attacking me from the start. I was at war with 3 nations and got excomminicated by 1100.
Yet I eventually persevered (because the war was fought in France which didn't have much there to begin with - England was safe and teching up), and I only grew stronger from it.
Everything went real fast and around 1160 I had France, western-HRE, British Isles and Spain.
I'm making 10000 gp with only minimal trade (the AI sinks ships regardless if I place them far from my holdings - I know this from experience - so I don't bother). I'm teching up like mad to make it in time for Billmen, Feudal Knights and Longbowmen. I think I'm going to succeed at that.

The biggest battle I had was with the HRE. I occupied Bourgondy when they sallied forth (reinforced from neighbouring provinces). HRE outnumbered me 2:1, they had many spearmen, UM and peasants.
Yet I beat them using archers, hobbies and a few spearmen and RKs. Hobbies were the key of my succes, flanking the spearmen and causing downright terror to crap morale units.

So aggressive tactics can work and you can have all the toys in time as well.