How to use missile cavalry — archer and javelin — in MTW II
This is an ongoing project, where tips and advice are gleaned from all sources, checked, debunked and collected here. Contributions are very appreciated. For readers, whether you are a novice or a pro, here's hoping you find useful information here.
Specifics on each faction's missile cavalry are to be found here
[Note: the italicized remarks in color are the most recently additions.]
Strategy map considerations
All-cavalry armies move farther in a given turn than armies with at least one foot unit. This can be a very important consideration when facing multiple enemies or intercepting fast-moving Crusades or Jihads.
Deployment
Generally, best way to use horse archers is to put them into big squares in loose formation. This allows them to move easily while firing in any direction, and also reduces their vulnerability to missile fire.
Somebody better at computers than me can explain how to change a unit's default deployment depth. The deployment method I usually follow before a battle is to stretch HA in a long, thin single line, then push the "-" key until the individual units are in squares.
Notice that this leaves large gaps between units. This is no problem. Anything that marches through those gaps will be shot to mincemeat by crossfire. The gaps are also handy avenues for your own counter-charging melee units. I also used to leave the "run" button pushed once the enemy's in range. If you're going to skirmish away, skirmish quickly. However, that makes the problem of "straggling" worse. (See below.) HA generally have very good stamina and also stop once they've skirmished away far enough, so tiring your units out is not generally a problem. It can happen, but fatigue is manageable with a little light checking.
Sometimes, however, units skirmish too far. A little micromanagement can pay big dividends by halting the skirmishing before it goes too far, or walking the unit back to a closer range.
Tactics and maneuver
The idea is to "bag" your opponents, to surround them. Also, be sure to take advantage of any high ground you can find, particularly when engaging other missile units.
The secret to long life and health as a horse archer is to recongnize when you're getting cornered and know how to either avoid it or get out of it. The borders of the battlefield map are your worst enemy. Stay away from them as a general rule. Sometimes, you'll have to turn skirmish mode off to do that. If you don't, sometimes you'll click on the ground to get away but the HA will "skirmish" away from an approaching enemy unit, cancelling your order.
Also, it is possible for an HA unit to get caught in the open if two different units are approaching it from different directions so that it can't skirmish away from both.
Circling
The special ability to circle's only true useful function is to reduce your cavalry's vulnerability to archers. An HA unit will defeat a foot archer unit of equal quality when the horses are circling, generally speaking. The maneuver tires your horses and reduces accuracy, though. If the enemy is short on missile troops, deadlier fire from units that aren't circling will result in less wasted ammo and more kills, at the cost of a few more casualties. Better to kill all the enemy spears and lose a couple of more HA than lose a lot more men in melee to units that survived your circling HA.
Getting units to circle has been a problem. Sometimes, the AI decides it's better off standing still. If you strongly disagree — for instance, if your general is an HA unit that's under fire — use the trick in described by "Question/Answer" in this thread.
Circling does not automaticly turn off skirmish. However, circling around reduces the effectiveness of skirmishing. It takes longer to stop circling and then skirmish away, as opposed to just skirmishing away. Also, a few brave stragglers can mess your whole circle up.
Shooting to kill
ENFILADE
Enfilade fire is something that veteran gamers forget to talk about. However, it's probably the most important tactical principle for missile cavalry in the Total War series. One of the key advantages of missile cavalry is that they acheive enfilade much more easily than foot units.
"Enfilade" a fancy name for a simple concept: Shoot down the widest or longest part of the enemy formation.
If you are directly in front of a unit of infantry and it's charging at you, you might think you have a nice, broad target. If you watch your battle closely however, you will clearly see most of your missiles flying right over the enemy's heads, especially if the target unit is running and even if the range is short. You will also notice many missiles striking the ground in front, especially if your unit's accuracy is hurt by having to skirmish away.
By far, most misses — especially on stationary targets — are NOT, repeat, NOT wide to the right or left. They are overshoots and undershoots.
If you are "raking" the target down the wide side, your overshoots hit more men farther from the middle and the undershoots hit men closer too you. This is especially true if you have a height advantage. "Undershoots" still have a chance of hitting and "overshoots" can still land on an enemy instead of plowing into the hillside.
If a spear unit is four ranks deep and has 75 men, for instance, it's about 19 men wide. Get on the flank and shoot down the side of the unit. (You may need another unit to "pin" the target and keep it facing the same direction.)
It is perfectly possible for an archer to miss it's target unit completely but hit some other nearby unit. Obviously, if you are firing down the enemy's line you stand a much better chance of killing something, either in the unit you are firing at or in the next unit in line.
Many horse archers, particularly javelin troops, have a short range and a firing arc like a rainbow. The arrow or javelin lands on or near the target unless range is close. One reason close-range fire is deadly is because the trajectory is closer to being flat, resulting in more enfilade.
Camel gunners have long range and relatively flat trajectories, as far as I can tell. This can create enfilade fire at its finest. Reiters and mounted crossbowmen are also "straight shooters" compared to HA.
THE SOFT SPOT
Whenever possible, get behind or at least to the open, shieldless "weason side" of an enemy unit. Arrow fire is MUCH more effective from an unprotected side. Getting a unit in a crossfire of two or more directions is particularly deadly. Even if you only have only one HA unit, keep riding around a target unit, which will have to turn to face you. This compromises their shield bonus while turning, while you keep maneuvering to their right side. You fire on the move, so this is more effective than just pouring direct fire into their shields (assuming they have shields. Against peasants and such, the finer points don't matter so much.)
Also, note that the effectiveness of your missile fire improves with unit experience. Bandit killing is a rich souce of experience for missile fire. Remember that cavalry-only units move farther on the strategy map than foot units. They cover lots of ground, meaning that they can engage scattered bands of rebels rather effectively. Experienced units can then join the main army.
Straggling
One annoyance is that units straggle a lot more in MTW2 than they ever did in other TW games. I've had one HA dally about and get killed by a slow-moving pike unit while another from the same HA formation was out of range.
Click on the sloppy formation and quickly tap the "c" key twice. It orders the unit to close formation and then quickly orders it to disperse again. They'll move into place. If that doesn't work, hit "c" and wait for those stragglers to start moving. Then you can hit "c" again.
Pursuit
HA can make outstanding chasers for routed units. Hit alt-attack and run. Not only are HA the fastest units in the game, but they will fire at a unit while closing to melee range if they have the ammo. If the routers are good melee units, expect to take some loses if you pursue with HA, however. They will resist capture and fight back.
Unfortunately, you turn your back to other units that are still firing on the routers. If you are not careful, this will lead to a painful number of friendly fire casualties.
Furthermore, note that skirmish is not triggered by routing units. Therefore, a routing unit will run through a unit that is in its way and the blocking unit will not, repeat, not skirmish away. Those routers will kill people who are in their way. Beware large clumps of panicked troops.
Friendly fire
HA units don't seem to suffer friendly fire from archers that are behind them but in the same unit. Fire from a different unit, however, can be deadly. Also, your cooperating melee units can suffer more deaths and wounds from your own cavalry than from chasing a fleeing enemy.
To get an HA unit to stop shooting, you must turn fire-at-will OFF, then hit the HALT button. This is true of any missile unit. Even then, it will take a few seconds. Notice that you have to do something similar to get any archer unit to target one specific unit when other, more vulnerable or closer targets are in range. You have to have fire-at-will off, then target the unit you want. I don't believe that clicking "halt" then giving an attack order is necessary, but it doesn't hurt.
Rather self-evidently, if you have two units firing at the same enemy and they get too close, it is possible for your archers to hit each other.
New Developments in MTW2
Range for javelins is greater than it was in previous games. They now also fire on the move, as Kobal2fr pointed out in another thread. This makes them so effective that some players contend that Jinetes, for example, are overpowered when used correctly.
In general, infantry is better armored in MTW2 than it was in RTW. Horse archers who encircled a unit in RTW quickly wiped it out, because the shield was most of the armor for most infantry. That may still be true in the early rounds of MTW2 and against factions that can't afford well-armored infantry, but well-equipped infantry is much harder to kill.
Quillan's skirmish discovery
This checks out:Horse ArchersI've been using mounted archers extensively in my Byzantine campaign, and while I noticed it a while back, the significance didn't dawn on me until yesterday: YOU DON'T HAVE TO TURN SKIRMISH OFF WHEN YOU TELL THEM TO CHARGE! Back in RTW, if you told your toxic hippos to charge a unit and forgot to switch off skirmish, they'd run in, maybe fight a bit, run back out, all in a very haphazard manner. I think one of the patches changed it to where if you alt-clicked to charge in melee, skirmish would switch off automatically. It doesn't now. I tell to charge, they charge in and fight well. I pull them out of combat, and they go right back to regular skirmish behavior.
Tactics and mechanics here are largely unchanged from RTW. The big difference is availability. You can get Mameluke HA almost immediately if you play Egypt, for instance.
This change is offset somewhat by siege-prone opening moves, where HA don't exactly shine.
HA can still beat early, primitive foot archers, especially if the HA use cantabrian circle. Units such as Pavaise crossbowmen are tougher targets, but their rate of fire is very slow. Get them to move by threatening a melee attack and they're quite vulnerable. Also, javelins work well against them if there are no better armored targets. The longer-ranged javelin infantry and cavalry is another HA countermeasure option. In RTW, I had to be very careful. HA did not skirmish away from javelin throwers until they were well within javelin range in RTW. Now javelin range appears much greater in MTW II.
The AI has a noticably greater reluctance to leave formation. This hurts one of the HA's favorite old tactics: Using HA to spread units out and defeat them piecemeal. On the other hand, using HA now appears to require much less micromanagement.
Horse Javelins
The new, deadly unit. Old MTW I hands with the knack and some practice became very good with Jinetes in that game. Well, they'll faint when they get a look at these new Jinettes. Muslim factions will have that power, too, with their new units.
Generally, I like putting jav-cav in squares like HA, but the point is very debatable. Some jav-cav are also excellent melee units. Polish Nobles and Boyar's sons are notable examples. Jinetes aren't half-bad either. Leaving those units in thin lines that can quickly close formation might be the more effective option, allowing them to shift between roles. The Desert Cavalry I like to use are not so good in melee, so I prefer squares to make getting away much easier. Jinetes could probably go either way, depending on the opposition.
I prefer to wait until a high-value unit is pinned in melee, then throw javelins. There are too few javelins to waste on a fast-moving target. Jav-cav working in close cooperation with good melee cavalry is particularly deadly and versatile. All the height and flank advantages of regular HA apply.
Although it seems like a waste to throw javelins at targets that aren't armored, it is also sometimes true that the biggest threat can be a unit of cheap spears. Throwing javelins to kill 10 or 12 infantrymen who are trying to kill your general can often be a better investment than throwing an equal number and missing the few remaining members of a routed knight unit. Jav-cav can effectively engage spear units from range, even cheap ones. So save the javelins for high value units, but don't get tunnel-vision about it..
Here's a tip: Turn "fire at will" off in the deployment phase for most battles. There are too few javelins to waste, and too many opportunites to throw them with this better range and firing on the move. If you leave "fire at will" on, you could find yourself out of javelins when you reach the hard-armored target you were hoping for.
Horse Crossbowmen
The improvements of RTW for all HA catch up with the mounted crossboman, making the unit much, much more effective than it was in MTW I.
The ability of this unit to fire on the move means that skirmishing is effective despite then agonizingly slow rate of fire. Also, the armor-piercing bonus of the crossbow is still in effect. Some generic German MXBs, with a unit strength of 41, killed all but eight of 75 French armored sergeants on my first try with this unit, then charged and killed the rest.
Gunpowder Cavalry
The units here are so different, each one could use its own guide.
MOORISH CAMEL GUNNERS
These have very long range — so long that experienced players recommend turning off "fire at will" during deployment. Otherwise, they'd never stop firing because something would always be in range.
Musashi's preferred tactics are given below, by quote, using long-range fire. I started out preferring volley fire from closer range but am coming around to Musashi's way of thinking. After all, the gunners fire on the move. It's no trifle to work your way into a good volley fire position from behind. Even if you do, you have ample ammo if you don't waste it. Why not hurt the target unit while closing to volley range? The unit will probably be so shot up by the time you get there, you can spend the volley on some other, healthier and more deadly enemy unit close by, or put the volley into a unit that's turned to face you.
Better yet, here's Musashi's description:
Notably, any disadvantage from long-range is compensated by cross-fire opportunities. Some unit's vulnerable side is usually in range of this unit.Originally Posted by Musashi
Working on the others.
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