Attacking Uphills - Need Help!

[Legorreto]

Can anyone suggest the best way to attack uphills? I have tried many ways, but none seems to be real effective. I generaly have a bigger army, but this doesn't seems to be a real advantage.

I AWAIT THY RESPONSES!

[Pericles]

Move your cavalry and HAs to the flanks of the enemy on the hill and approach the enemy either slightly higher than them or at least on the same level. Let your HAs loose against the enemy flanks while your Cav protects them.

Your foot archers should move uphill and should be widely spaced and have them attack the enemy archers.

Use a few troops to apprach from the front (widely spaced) and then move the bulk of your forces obliquely up the hill to the sides of the enemy.

Be warned - you will take lots of casualties.

As an alternative, use HAs and try to lure the enemy down to attack you (so that you can strike them with your archers on a more even footing).

Best of luck.

[Roark]

Yeah, attacking mountainous regions is always expensive. Terrain is a big factor in battle.

As Pericles said, try to draw units out of formation with goading.

[m52nickerson]

Whole sale flank, or at least move to a position of a equal level. Most of the time they will try to move to a new position, hit them while they are moving.

[NodachiSam]

Whole sale flank, or at least move to a position of a equal level. Most of the time they will try to move to a new position, hit them while they are moving.

Exactly, always try to attack from the highest ground possible in relation to your enemies. If they are on a ridge, climb the ridge out of the arrow range and then move in to flank them. If they are on an isolated hill, go up the side with the lowest slope. Attacking from behind or a flank is preferable since your enemy will have to reorganize. Be aware that sometimes if you attack from a very advantageous angle (like from behind and downhill-very rare) the enemy might flee to another hill or away entirely. That might be what you want but if you want to inflict heavy casualties you won't want to scare them too much. Often that isn't the case of course. There is a balance between keeping you enemy in a distadvataged position and actually making use of it if you can kind of get what I am trying to say.

You can also use horce archers or regular archers even to lure them off the hill. I don't usually do it, but you could have a pseudo attack and retreat to attempt to make some of the enemies units chase you off the hill. You always get the unit/s that false strike hit by arrow fire.

When the normans under william the bastard (later to be referred to as william the great/ conqueror) attacked saxon england, the saxons took a hill but parts of their soldiers would chase retreating normans down giving up their defensive position. They'd get surrounded by French knights and killed/captured.

To repeat; always try to get the higher ground or the highest ground possible. Never attack (or defend) from lower ground unless forced to.

[Patron]

I wo uldn't try the william th e conqueror method. I'd split my army in 3 and attack from 2 sides leaving elite shock troops in between to travel uphill between the 2 melees.

Or you could take advantage of an AI stupidity, the aI forms a nice long line regardless of terrain and puts it's general on the highest point. If the enemy is on a ridge, just march your army so that when the enemy reforms the line it's line is perpendicular to the ridge and you have a level playing field, then split your army into 3 etc..

[Mithrandir]

Can anyone suggest the best way to attack uphills? I have tried many ways, but none seems to be real effective. I generaly have a bigger army, but this doesn't seems to be a real advantage.

I AWAIT THY RESPONSES!

Welcome to The Org Legorreto.

When attacking uphill it's important to do some quick maths. Especially the ranged factor comes into play because archers get a big bonus when shooting downhill.

If the enemy has just 2 or 3 archers and you have many more, use one archer to draw the fire of them, sacrifice them. Then when the enemy has got no arrows left anymore, move your archers in to shoot the enemy up.

If the enemy has a lot of ranged units, consider a rush, a shoot-out will be lost anyway. Then, as mentioned above, make sure to minimalize the height difference and exploit the morale factors.

Adjust your army before attacking by having good intell from spies about the enemy army and the terrain.

-Mithrandir.