BI Battle Tactics (without Phalanx)

[Claudius the God]

I had this problem when I got the Viking Invasions expansion pack for Medieval Total War - I was so used to the simple rock/paper/scissors tactics of MTW that I found the imbalance of Viking invasions battles to be a lot more difficult to manage... the same thing has happened with Barbarian Invasions for Rome Total War...

in regular Rome Total War, there was a general battle tactics philosophy:
Phalanx kills cavalry, cavalry kills missile and light infantry, archers kill infantry, javelins kill phalanx, chariots and elephants, etc...

so ever since I've started playing Barbarian Invasions, I've felt out of sorts when trying to effectively kill enemy cavalry without effective spearmen... the game feels like it's playing by a different sort of rules and I'm hoping to gain some tactical insight into how battles have fundamentally changed in Barbarian Invasions...

so a few questions...


1) what good tactics are there for dealing with hordes of enemy cavalry without the old phalanx walls?

2) what sorts of infantry units are brilliant for the battle line? and how can that be disrupted now?

3) is there a rock/paper/scissors method for different types of infantry (light, heavy, armoured, sword, spear, axe, mace, etc...) ?

4) what tactics can anyone highly recommend?

[Conqueror]

1) what good tactics are there for dealing with hordes of enemy cavalry without the old phalanx walls?

2) what sorts of infantry units are brilliant for the battle line? and how can that be disrupted now?

3) is there a rock/paper/scissors method for different types of infantry (light, heavy, armoured, sword, spear, axe, mace, etc...) ?

4) what tactics can anyone highly recommend?

1) Best way is to have tougher cavalry of your own. Beyond that, go for the toughest infantry you can get, deploy them in deep ranks and hope for the best. Also if you happen to be in the east, camel units can be effective - but only use them as flankers, never head-on vs the cavalry.

2) Roman Plumbatarii are very good for line infantry. I'm not that familiar with barb infantry but I'm pretty sure they got some good ones. A good way to disrupt a solid infantry line is with the berserk units (like the hounds of culainn or whatever they're called) Just be careful when using them: they'll be uncontrollable as soon as they're in berserk mode.

3) AFAIK no, but I could be wrong.

4) Outflanking works wonders as usual. Missile units should always fire at the back or the unshielded flank of enemy units. Avoid field battles against hordes, try to get them to attack your high-walled cities when you have a strong army inside. If you must fight on the field, use a general with night battle ability - in a night battle the horde won't benefit from their superior numbers and you can take on their armies one at a time.

[Claudius the God]

thanks - okay, is the shield wall effective against missiles, cavalry and infantry?

and are there any long spears at all in Barbarian Invasions? - I couldn't find any...

[jhhowell]

and are there any long spears at all in Barbarian Invasions? - I couldn't find any...

If by long spears you mean phalanx, then no. But several units are spear armed for purposes of getting a bonus against cavalry, and are not always noted as such on their description. ERE Legio Lanciarii are the top anti-cavalry unit for that faction, for example. Contrary to Conqueror, IMO the comitatenses are the definitive line infantry of BI. Plumbatarii are only marginally better and quite difficult to acquire and retrain (I've won with both Roman factions and never had the chance to build plumbatarii - cavalry and economic buildings always had priority).

Regarding the initial questions - masses of infantry and archers can hold their own against cavalry hordes, though you want a fair bit of your own cav to keep them from outflanking you. Eastern archers can be an effective counter-unit to all the horse archers, but you will take casualties. And you have to rely on the horse archers to engage - not a problem against the AI, though it does mean you stop getting kills as soon as the AI decides to retreat off the battle map. Better to have horse archers of your own but that's not always possible in the numbers you'd like.

(2) Comitatenses as above, though really all the infantry I've seen seems pretty competent. There aren't any total loser units like Town Watch or Eastern Infantry from RTW - limitanei seem sucky in comparison to higher level units, but they get the job done if they're all you have. How to disrupt - horse archer flanking, of course. Horse archers dominate BI, though if playing WRE you can choose to limit your Equites Sagittarii deployment to reflect the flavor text. There are plenty of mercenary horse archers, anyway.

(3) The axe/mace units would be the best bet against comitatenses and variants (plumbatarii, veteranii mercenaries). Note that the Romans absolutely dominate city wall fights just like RTW - a single unit of comitatenses can sweep away several times their own number of lesser infantry.

Elaborating on the last point and Conqueror's advice #4, note that armor values are much higher in BI than in RTW. That's why "effective against armor" units like axe/mace are very valuable, and why the weaker archers are basically wasting their time shooting at most units from the front. Even the good archers probably are better holding fire for a flank rear shot than using ammo on frontal shots. Some of the weaker horde units have pretty weak armor and are worth shooting at any time; Sassanid and ERE clibanarii and cataphractarii are so heavily armored that even flank/rear shots may not do much damage. WRE and mercenary bucellarii are an odd duck here - missiles that are effective against armor, but they have the RTW slinger problem of very flat trajectories. They could probably be quite good in the right hands, but I personally haven't had much success with them.

(4) Horse archers! Flank, attrit the enemy, disrupt them by causing units to move around trying to push you away, thereby exposing sides and rear to some of your other archer units (horse or foot). Basically the same tactics one might use with jav cav in RTW, only even deadlier and with much more ammo.

As a general comment, I would argue that a unit by unit RPS analysis as you are attempting is not ideal, either for RTW or BI. Rather than "this unit beats that unit", think of the overall role of a unit in your army. Infantry pins the enemy, good melee cavalry charges flanks and pursues, bad melee cavalry annoys enemy archers if they can and pursues, archers soften up the enemy and are crucial in set piece defenses (bridge, siege) and horse archers are just all kinds of nasty. Generals are wildly overpowered and can do literally anything you want them to.

[Claudius the God]

thanks jhhowell, quite useful info there...

sometimes I just really miss the phalanx when playing Barbarian invasions, and have yet to find an effective replacement...


the Hounds of Culuan are awesome, but the fact that they can't be controlled once they go into battle makes them something of a tactical liability...

missile cavalry are not really my thing because of the need to micromanage their attacks and retreats... as a way to distract part of an enemy army while the rest attacks my main army I find them a bit useful, but as a major part of my army - or even as an anti-cavalry unit I find them far too unreliable...


I tried attacking enemy cavalry with my celtic/scotti chariots, but even though they appear to have scythes they don't seem to do much damage to enemy cavalry...

for chosen swordsmen or axe heerbann or hearth troops or keel, how effective is the shield wall against different types of attacks (sword/spear/mace/cavalry/missile)?

and is a spear unit with shield wall ability more or less effective against cavalry with or without shield wall activated?



and does anyone know exactly where I can find mercenary Elephants and mercenary Onagers in Barbarian Invasions? (I know that both exist...)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Shieldwall is serious potatos. The best infantry in the game are the Palantine Auxillaries, heavy spearmen in shieldwall. A battle line of just those guys is invincible. It is primarily a defensive formation though, so you get a lower kill rate. Using shieldwall on the flanks between your cav and inf is a good tactic. They'll hold for a long time flanked and surrounded without horrif casualties.

All the heavy Cav in BI are pretty generic. the Sarmation Auxillaries are faster and heavy. As a Roman those are the boys you want, you can just do away with light cav altogether.

[Claudius the God]

thanks for that - I'll try the shield wall with spears... I think one of the north/western barbarian factions has one of these units...

Frank Levy Spearmen
Saxon Keel
Saxon Levy Spearmen

[Afkazar]

For my tactics as sassinids im usually fighting those damn romans.I have quite a large amount of clibanarii (cause they are coolest unit in BI IMO) i usually have levy spearmen get in close combat then just wheel my clibanarii around and its flank charging time!they also have bows and arrows (skimrish mode not avalible so youll really hafta micro if you want to use em as plain horse archers. But they're best charging into the flank of the enemy infantry line.

[Braden]

Guys!

You forgot the German Spears (can't recall the unit name) but they're basically a Phalanx and an immediate build for the Germans in BI.

...or am I getting confused with Vanilla Rome here?? Been a long time since I played an unmodded game.

General anti-cavalry tactics in BI:

Well, quite a lot of infantry units have missiles in BI and are "heavy" so generally you don't really have to worry about Cavalry being an issue until you meet the Horde where there mix of "Heavy cavalry that also has a missile attack" are best defeated by hiding behind the biggest walls you can find!!

So, missles against cavalry, heavy infantry of any sort as a front line. I've found the Saxons one of the best factions to use if converting from Medieval to BI as its almost like playing the Danes with their mix of heavy infantry axemen (who also have a missile attack!), spearmen and heavy swordsmen.

For basic tactics, keep a "thicker" battle formation so that you have reserves to cover your flanks, stack up what missile troops you have behind and in the centre, make sure your missile armed melee troops are on fire at will until melee has started and just concentrate your fire power on a unit of cavalry at a time.

[rich19]

You're getting confused. The Germans appear in vanilla RTW only, and their spear warband is the phalanx one.