Reinforcements

I am by no means a master of Medieval: Total War--still playing on Normal after 6 months, use plenty of pause, etc.--but feel I at least have a pretty good understanding of most tactical principles and how to employ them. One thing I am still far from mastering, though, is reinforcements.

I do alright with them on defense, where I can sit near the edge of the map and switch units on and off quickly, or hold a bridge while I do the switching. It also works okay with swapping out depleted archers, but I can't do much more with them. On offence I'll take out my opponent's first wave and usually chase him to the edge of the map, but then when more of his troops come on I have to stick with the units I've already got because there's no time to replace just the weak ones and if I try a general retreat to a better position to make any exchanges I'll usually get my slow units overtaken while trying to pull back and end up just committing all my tired troops anyway to prevent my army from disintegrating.

Also, sometimes I misjudge which types of units I'll need to replace the most and the ones I've got waiting to come on will be in the wrong order. So I either stick with a depleted or tired unit that's what I need or get a fresh one I can't use or withdraw several units of reinforcements without even committing them to get to the ones I actually need.

Do any of our true veterans have some wisdom to share with me on using my reinforcements more wisely or are there no real solutions to these problems?
Look forward to hearing your advice

Ajax

I am by no means a "true veteran" but you might find my suggestions useful.

I think your problems are not with reinforcements but with battle organization. Even in an attacking battle you should halt your slow chasing troops in the middle and let your cavarly chase. First, slow troops only exhaust themselves and won't kill/capture many of the enemy. Second: they won't be able to get back to defensive positions.

It is very hard to organize reinforcements anyway. If you can predict the battle more or less you will win with your initial troops so you don't really need your reinforcements.

If you need them, you are desperate anyway. So I put the lets say four first reinf. troops as I planned the initial setup and the rest is mixed (cav, miss, melee)

Also if the oncoming reinforcement is completely useless in the given situation I don't hesitate to rout it (ctrl+w) - this way I only lose a few sec and the next troop maybe more useful. That is only if there are plenty of reinforcements... Hope that helps...

Hey Ajaxfetish,

You just need a better mix of troops. You have to have archers, spears, shock and cavs. Here's an good mix: 4 archers, 5-6 spears, 2 urban militia, 2 militia sergeants, 1-2 steppe cavalry, 1 royal knight general.

- Like bretwalda said, use the cavalry to chase
- coordinate your army as a whole, don't break them up.
- most importantly, lower your troop fatalities so you won't need reinforcements at all. Always aim for the "instant rout", meaning when you pin an enemy unit, you must flank immediately. Once you get used to it, you won't need reinforcements at all.

Lastly, use archers to reduce enemy numbers but that's it. Say you want to rout an Almohad urban militia. Shoot them until they are down to ~80 soldiers. Pin with a spear, then flank with a cavalry on wedge at the back. That AUM unit is done. Halt your spear, chase with cav, then pick another unit.

Going a little offtopic... How do you do the instant rout...? I mean if the enemy is bringing 16 units you usually don't have an extra unit to flank.

I agree that if you have more troops and you pick it to match the enemy it is not so hard to kill / capture everyone without a casualty but in a big battle where there are multiple reinforcements on both side how do you keep your casualties low?

In a large scale battle the key to keeping your casualties low is firepower.
Archers, crossbows, horse archers and siege weaponry should all be able to fire at the same time, and if possible at the same unit. Your archers should be on a hilltop behind your spears, in line or multiple lines, with or ahead of the seige weapons. Horse archers or light (fast) cavalry should be behind or flanking the enemy, engaging/teasing the enemy first and breaking their formation by causing one or another units to chase them. The enemy should come under fire of multiple units and be at breaking point when they reach the spearwall. Taking out the enemy general, or routing a unit will often dishearten the enemy enough for total rout.


mfberg

That sounds good if you are defending but what is you are attacking? The enemy most likely won't come off the hilltop where it is sitting... Probably you have to go there and get him

If you are attacking and he's on a good hill its tough, you might have to split your army into the anvil and hammer, the major part (anvil) goes up on one side of his army, with the archers in a large wedge behind the spears (more archer units on top, still in three or four deep lines). And the HA (if you have them) behind or flanking, with Heavy Cav (hammer) moving to get behind the enemy. If you can kill off his archer units before you move your anvil against his army you will do much better, then charge with your ha/hc into the rear of his army, preferrably into one of his decent units that are ready to break.

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You may want to send out a bait force to encourage some of his more impetuous units to chase them back to your lines.

mfberg

I like a lot of the ideas mentioned by bretwalda .

The secret is to get a strong army up against the back edge so that you can rout units as they enter.

Since you are attacking you should be able to choose the army that you want to use.

The best way to get a strong army up against the back edge begins with the basic build strategy - I prefer cav archers as my first wave in the biggest battles - so I build lots of cav archers.

In VI one can organize easily the order in which the units appear. For the biggest battles I place a lot of cav archers - maybe up to 15 units - as the first wave. I use these to harass and deplete - but not rout - enemy units. Withdraw the cav archers en masse when their ammo is gone.

Second wave is mostly heavy inf with some cav for flanking. Slowly approach the depleted and hopefully tired enemy and hit em hard, as they rout chase with the cav. If the heavy inf is still intact follow with them. Withdraw any tired or depleted unit.

Third wave is heavy cav. Quickly bring the heavy cav third wave up to reinforce the heavy inf and cav on the far edge. If it looks like the enemy is going to be able to bring on more fresh troops than you can handle, fall back and regroup and try again.

The secret is not to chase with depleted tired units. By using the cav archers first you get the advantage (unless you start to rout enemy units then its a waste of time). By using heavy cav as a third wave you can quickly reinforce the second wave.

There's lots of variations and different situations, and I'm no expert, but I have found that using cav archers to soften up those huge armies is a nice solution to the problem you describe.

ichi

Originally Posted by bretwalda

Going a little offtopic... How do you do the instant rout...? I mean if the enemy is bringing 16 units you usually don't have an extra unit to flank.

You have to favor one side on the onset. Meaning you stack your best troops on one side. During the battles you do a sweep beginning from that side. Spears can soak multiple units so you don't have to worry about them. Spear and Archer go tandem. If the AI goes for the archer, you move your spear forward, then you flank, that's basically it. Of course if the AI uses cavalry, spears will slaughter them with little help.

Personally, I use my right side for defense and I flank from the left. When I say defense, most of the archers and spears and the general. It's like domino. You start from one side and you go all the way.

Originally Posted by bretwalda

I agree that if you have more troops and you pick it to match the enemy it is not so hard to kill / capture everyone without a casualty but in a big battle where there are multiple reinforcements on both side how do you keep your casualties low?

Once you rout the first army, just wait near the enemy reinforcement side. Just create a spear wall opposite the entering units (w/ archers behind the spears) and box them in with your shock troops from the left and right. What you get is mass rout.

Just don't let the incoming horsearchers slip past you, those will drag you all over the place and take away your much needed fast cavalry.

Very good ideas, I am happy to hear and learn them! Keep on going - I am going to implement them!

When it comes to reinforcements as the attacking force, you can change the place were the reinforcment are coming form by setting the reinforcement flag very close to an edge of the map. Doesn't always work though.
You can also replace units quicker by move them very close to the edge of the map and rout them. AFAIK withdrawing units always make them move towards your back of the map.

The taking out units as they show up technique has an anoying tendency to exhaust your troops.

I always wondered when I press ctrl w (rout) does the unit take a moral hit compared to moving it to the same direction but without routing? Or is any other adverse effect sustained?

Also It would be great to know where the enemy reinforcement are going to go to field - or is it intentionaly random?

Other question: do my troops take a straight line towards my flag from the very edge of map or they march in a perpendicular path relative to "my" edge of the map?