Hunters All Their Lives: A Missile Cavalry Guide

[Gray Beard]

It works well for me because I have a numb hand from being run over by a drunk several years ago. Thus I need to see the keyboard when typing or working the controls because otherwise my left hand gets lost. This tactic slows the battle down because the spearmen don't move much. I also don't have to plan on the run provided that one of the paired HA & Spear units don't get overwhelmed by several enemy units. It can get quite scary to do this because it works best when you spread your army out encourage to the computer to spread it's army out. HA have problems against a disciplined army that with lots of foot archers and spearmen who refuse to charge.

On timed battles I can also occasionally get the entire opposition force to chase three or four groups of HA around the board until the time runs out. If I am defending a draw is sometimes enough because I have more forces coming.

Dart in shoot a volley of arrows run away until they stop chasing you and then repeat. You have be very conscious of the edge of the map but if you fighting an all infantry or army or one with slow cavalry you can normally not get trapped by having units come from different directions which will pull the opponent back and forth across the center of the board. This is difficult because most HA units have a low moral and you have to keep them from breaking

The object isn't to win but not to lose and to kill more of them than they kill of me. The AI doesn't seem to understand this concept.

[Doug-Thompson]

It works well for me because I have a numb hand from being run over by a drunk several years ago. Thus I need to see the keyboard when typing or working the controls because otherwise my left hand gets lost. This tactic slows the battle down because the spearmen don't move much. I also don't have to plan on the run provided that one of the paired HA & Spear units don't get overwhelmed by several enemy units. It can get quite scary to do this because it works best when you spread your army out encourage the computer to spread it's army out.

Gray Beard, the next time somebody complains to me that HA take too much micro, I'm going to quote this post. I continue to be amazed at how many people say that HA are too much of a hassle to manage.

On timed battles I can also occasionally get the entire opposition force to chase three or four groups of HA around the board until the time runs out. If I am defending a draw is sometimes enough because I have more forces coming.

Done the same thing myself many times, although I don't play timed battles much anymore. I just run around until I'm out of arrows, then withdraw.

I remember one game where the AI had Antioch and it was a cash cow. I wanted to know what kind of garrison it had, so I besieged the city -- with two under-strength HA units.

It took the AI a full turn to figure out how week the "besiegers" were. The garrrison sallied, and I got a complete view of their make up. I shot away all my arrows and left.

Dart in shot a volley of arrows run away until they stop chasing you and then repeat. You have be very conscious of the edge of the map but if you fighting an all infantry or army or one with slow cavalry you can normally not get trapped by having units come from different directions which will pull the opponent back and forth across the center of the board. This is difficult because most HA units have a low morale and you have to keep them from breaking.

Classic HA stuff, correctly applied.

The object isn't to win but not to lose and to kill more of them than they kill of me. The AI doesn't seem to understand this concept.

Exactly. I remember one battle in Rome: Total War where a huge Selucid army, mostly of phanlanxes, came at me. I was the Parthians. I killed Selucids until I literally ran out of arrows. Instead of charging the rest in melee and losing valuable Persian Cav, I simply withdrew. So techincally I "lost" the battle. I wiped out the remaining Selucids the next turn.

[Vladimir]

Someone remind me if northern Italians get mounted x-bows. I’m having a hell of a time on VH/VH and need to start using raids instead of siege defenses.

[Doug-Thompson]

Someone remind me if northern Italians get mounted x-bows. I’m having a hell of a time on VH/VH and need to start using raids instead of siege defenses.

Yes, in the high era but you need a marksman's range IIRC. Will check and send a PM.

[Tambarskjelve]

Wow, I just became aware of this guide, and promptly read it.
Thank you Doug-thompson, I take off all my hats and bow deep.

[Doug-Thompson]

Thanks, Tambarskjelve, but this really is a collection of the ideas of a lot of people on the forum. I did a lot more reading than writing on this guide.

After all:

Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research

[Shahed]

HAHAHA HAHAHAHAH ! Good quote... LMAO.

[Vladimir]

Doug! You're a genius. It took 15 turns to get 4 units of Turcopolines but I got them. Two for the Dodge and two for the heir. I used them in a battle and they flow like water. You just to exercise exterme caution when using them because there are no replacements.

Now I just have to wait for everyone to attack. If you have missile superiority in the field the enemy will always attack letting you choose the terrain. That will make it a lot easier to use the horse archers. I just wish their range wasn't so short.

[Doug-Thompson]

@ Vladimir: I'm glad (and quite relieved) that it worked.

=======

@ everyone else

What Vladimir is referring to here is a strategy option for Venice that could be posted on the guide to that faction if it works.

Vladimir needed some HA support since everybody anywhere near north Italy kept attacking him on his VH/VH campaign with infantry-heavy armies. He asked by private message if any were available.

Well, Venice owns Crete. They could send a general by ship from there to the relatively remote, bandit-controlled provinces of southern Asia Minor and recruit some HA mercenaries there. Bringing them all the way back to Italy must have taken a while, but the spear militia armies of Europe are their food of choice. Got to be careful against those milita bowmen, though.

[Doug-Thompson]

Incredibly, I wrote this monstrous guide and never once mentioned shield use. I also got tired of seeing my four or five different spellings of "Mamluk" in this guide, so fixed that finally.

I rewrote Section 13 to include shields. To spare anybody from having to search through the guide again, here's the revised part for those interested.

13. CIRCLING, FRIENDLY FIRE, SHIELD USE AND STRAGGLING


CIRCLING

Cantabrian circle goes clockwise for a reason. This way, the units’ shields (assuming there are any) are on the outside of the circle. The unit members closest to the enemy and taking fire always have their shields turned toward that fire. That, and the constant movement, make circling units less vulnerable to enemy missiles. An HA unit will defeat a foot archer unit of equal quality when the horses are circling, generally speaking.

The bad news is that maneuver tires your horses and reduces the accuracy of your own fire. 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 HA than lose a lot more men in melee to units that survived your missed arrows....

SHIELD USE

Turning your shield toward the enemy seems like a no-brainer, especially for missile cavalry with no armor. However, it’s not as simple as that. Remember, the side of a horse is a very big target compared to its front. What you gain in shield protection you can easily lose by presenting a bigger target.

There’s no simple rule of thumb other than this: Get in a good firing position first, then worry about shield protection if you have time. Most often the shield facing will work itself out. For instance, if you’re approaching an enemy missile unit from behind — the ideal firing position — and just a bit on his weapon side, your shield will be in the right place.

One warning: If you are in a running fight with another missile cavalry unit and both of you are headed in the same direction, the unit on the right will have shield protection (if they have shields) and the other won’t.

Note how autoskirmish will turn your unit's backside to the enemy and leave it there, negating any shield benefit. How much you do about that depends greatly on how much micromanagement you’re willing to commit.

[Gray Beard]

To turn this thread around a little bit.

I have defended against large numbers of HA using cheap spearmen and Trebizond archers.

Trebizond archers have a longer range with their bows, and better armor and melee stats. While not the equals of a top notch sword or spear unit the can easily overcome the poorly armored and low moral HA unit. If you put a cheap Town militia or Peasant unit between them and the HA's the computer will often times attack the the spear unit which waste arrows on weaker units instead of reducing the the truly dangerous units shooting at them. If the computer gets close enough to shoot at th Treibzond archers have the spears charge. Town Militias can stand toe to tow with many HA units, especially if the HA unit is depleted


Incidentally. I only normally control battles in the Custom Battle mode. In the Campaign game the the armies get too big for my numb hands to keep up with.

[Shahed]

I made some sigs for this guide, 2 of them edited by the legendary Crypel (TWC) they are not 100% ready yet.

In this one the red is blood, meant to emulate post/during battle conditions.






If you like the guide you could use the sigs...
What do you guys think ? If they are appreciated I'll resize and rehost.

[Doug-Thompson]

Beautiful work as usual, Sinan, but I still like the original sig picture you made. I've grown more fond of it daily.

[Shahed]

Great ! :D Glad you like that one.

Wait till you see some cinematic editor shots of those guys. Now those will be pretty. BTW I meant if others who read the guide and like it, they can use these sigs, if they want. the idea is to havesome standard signature image for the guide which anyone can pick up. I don't know if you've seen this before, it's a standard for most projects. For example if that cav video mentioned earlier was ever made I'd make a banner for it too (hehe!!).

Here's the original image for those signatures (my desktop!):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Doug-Thompson]

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.

[Goalie]

Very nice guide guys, I actually read all of it. Although I almost always play multiplayer, I was actually inspired to play single player just to use HA. Also, very nice picture you just posted Sinan, its now my background as well.

[Doug-Thompson]

Thanks, Goalie.

[Shahed]

Glad you like it goalie.

That image has raised the bar for image editing in the M2:TW world. I've helped create a monster. Now everyone who likes image editing wantys to create images like that. OTOH we should now see more Eastern cavalry pics from others... HEHE !

[McIwoo]

An exellent guide for my favorite units.

Thx a bunch for the guide!

[Doug-Thompson]

You're quite welcome. Thanks for the kind words, McIwoo.

P.S. Added something to the section on chasing routers:

"HA are generally quite fast. There are 20 fast cavalry units in this game, the very fastest units of all. Of those, 16 are missile cavalry. Obviously, being fast helps in a chase. So does good stamina, something most missile cavalry has."

[Doug-Thompson]

Added a link to Sinan's video that demonstrates how this is supposed to be done.

Also noted that autoskirmish does not turn off when you order a melee attack if and only if the missile cavalry unit you order into the attack is your general's (commanding captain) unit. I think this is new to 1.2.

Finally, I owe an apology to a previous poster who couldn't get waypointing to work with groups. He was right, it doesn't work with groups. I should have known

[Shahed]

Oh, I'm not sure how long that video will be up. Might need to find it a permanent home. Sendspace has 14 days limit IIRC.
Also would the 1.20 Timurids vs Egypt replay be useful to include in the guide ?

[Doug-Thompson]

Oh, I'm not sure how long that video will be up. Might need to find it a permanent home. Sendspace has 14 days limit IIRC.
Also would the 1.20 Timurids vs Egypt replay be useful to include in the guide ?

I'll update it when it has a permanent home, or delete the reference if there's not one. I don't want you to go to any expense for this, Sinan.

Also, a 1.2, Timurids vs. Egypt would be great.

[Rebellious Waffle]

Hello, all! Just read this excellent guide while fishing for ideas to use in a Byzantine Empire campaign. (The last heirs of the Roman Empire, facing enemies on all sides, slowly becoming obsolete in the face of onrushing barbarian hordes, yet dreaming of a new birth for old glory... with horse archers! What can I say, I love 'em to death.)

Anyhoo, maybe I missed it the first time around, but I think there's an important part of how to use all-cavalry armies that could be added to this guide. It's more of a strategic thing, but it's brought me great success:


FLEEING THE FIELD
Or, the Wicked Art of Losing with Style

So many targets, so little time. Occasionally you'll run into an army that keeps on ticking, even after you shoot them full of holes and run out of arrows. When that happens, it turns into a melee fight -- and chances are the enemy has much better melee units than you do. Don't like the look of those spearmen? Not eager for a tangle with the Templars? Take a deep breath, relax, and run like a little girl.

Unlike when you use infantry armies, the withdraw button is your friend. There's no sense in letting a battle turn into the sort of fight your enemy understands; your missile cavalry are faster than pretty much everything on the field, so you can flee with negligible losses if you suffer them at all. Take them on again in the next turn, when you've got a new set of arrows burning a hole in your quiver. Even if you're pursued, your enemy is playing straight into your hands; you begin the next battle with new arrows. Since you minimized your own casualties, you essentially get to replay the last battle except with fewer enemies to kill on the second time around. If you paid attention to the advice Gray Beard has collated about cavalry tactics, the enemy should have a much-reduced compliment of missile units. Trash the survivors on the second time around and lay into the defenseless melee fighters.

An example of this principle at work: on H/H I had whittled Venice down to only Irakalion. This was a problem, because I hadn't laid any pressure on Crete during the whole campaign, and they'd managed to put two full-stack armies in the region. All but three groups of Skythikons, two Byzantine Cavalry and two Vardariotai were tied up fighting Turkey and Hungary, so I sent them out with a general and recruited mercenary horse archers on site at Irakalion. Their crossbowmen and peasant archers were a problem, meaning that during each engagement I lost about ten to twenty-five percent of my forces; the Venetians lost a like proportion, but that added up to more soldiers because their force was about four times larger. Over six turns or so, I kept sending in the horses and wreaking as much havoc as possible, reinforcing my cavalry group with new units by boat as the casualties mounted. After half a dozen turns the Venetians were down to thirty percent of their starting forces, almost none of whom were professional soldiers because they had no castles at which to retrain. My casualty rates dropped as they lost archers; theirs rose as the ratio of my force compliment to theirs approached parity. By the time I reinforced the assault force with two new Vardariotai on turn four, Venice was in a bind. Two turns later they had lost their general, their armies, and had nothing but a skeleton crew manning the walls of the city. Claiming the last bastion, even though I had started at a massive numerical disadvantage, became simple.

This seems like it should be fairly uncommon, because you don't always have turns to throw away harrying the foe. But you do, if your enemy is marching into your land and you want to make his life a misery before he lays siege. Why let him bring his full force compliment to bear if you can shave some of it off before the real fighting starts? Remember how the Russians beat Napoleon, and how Arminius beat Varrus. There's no sense in letting your opponent have an open battle if he does best under those conditions. Make him pay for every step. He'll miss those soldiers dearly when you counterattack.

[Shahed]

Welcome Waffle ! That's a good post !

I'll update it when it has a permanent home, or delete the reference if there's not one. I don't want you to go to any expense for this, Sinan.

Also, a 1.2, Timurids vs. Egypt would be great.

That's no problem mate. I already posted a replay here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=85870

That is the one I was referrring to, is it any use for the guide ?

[Doug-Thompson]

@ Rebellious Waffle

Actually, your plowing some new ground here. Guerilla tactics worked in Rome: Total War, but nobody had really confirmed it for MTW2.

So congratulations are in order. You've confirmed something important.

I'll expand the "Strategy Map Considerations" section to include some of this. Thanks.

[Rebellious Waffle]

A second part that got lost from the original post 'cos I took too long writing and my cookie was reset:


CAVALRY SIEGES
Or, They Want it When?

Horse archers are my favorite siege engines.

Send a few groups over to bother a heavily fortified enemy city. Doesn't even have to be a full-stack army with a general, just enough to do some damage without looking scary. Chances are that they'll laugh at your pathetic display and come marching out the gates to teach you a thing or two about how real men do a siege. As long as you were smart and didn't pick a city with lots of ranged units in the militia, it won't be long before they realize how much nicer it would have been to stay indoors.

Remember that you win a city by default if the garrison are all killed. In all-missile cavalry sieges, my experience is that this happens a lot. Pour arrows into the foe as he leaves the gates; when sallying, he's got the same problems you do when you enter the gates during a siege. It's pretty much impossible to overshoot or undershoot the mark, since the enemy soldiers are in one long, densely-packed line. Using the naval analogy from the guide, you've effectively crossed their T before the fight even started. As they deploy, melt into the surrounding hills to get them away from any nasty archer and ballista towers they might have on the city walls and treat the engagement like any other missile-cavalry fight.

Best-case scenario: you slaughter the opponent as they run for the safety of the walls, ravaging their garrison forces and possibly even taking the gates. Gates open for routing soldiers, and having your cavalry in amongst the stragglers gives you gate control just as if you'd taken the walls with a battering ram. From there you can pick apart the vastly reduced garrison force in house-to-house fighting, presuming they didn't all die in the initial sally. Defeating the enemy this way means you start the next turn with control of the city, just as if you'd blown the gates open with a trebuchet, except that your army moved into position with the speed of a cavalry force! Yay blitzkrieg!

Even if everything doesn't pan out perfectly, don't sweat it. Every casualty you inflict in the sally is a soldier they don't have during your assault on the walls. Just turn the conflict into a hit-and-run battle and run down the timer until the enemy gets bored and returns to the town square. Once that happens, pop open a soda and pull up your favorite book -- the battle timer doesn't call "draw" by itself, and can take a while even with time running at triple speed. No sense in making the fight into a melee engagement if you don't have to. If you need to flee the field and lift the siege, that's fine too; capturing the place was icing on the cake, not a do-or-die proposition. Your opponent can only retrain units so fast, and every retraining he does is a kick to the bankroll. Put the place back under siege next turn.

This strategy doesn't just work on border towns. One of my favorite techniques against the Turks with Byzantium is to run past their frontier cities and strike a juicy interior target, take it over, raze the buildings for cash and bug out before the enemy sends a large retaliatory force. When they take the (vastly reduced) city, bring back your cavalry contingent and lay siege again. Even if you don't massacre the retaliatory force you keep it pinned for a few turns while your main assault group mops up the frontier provinces. They likely pulled troops from the frontier to get at your cavalry, which makes your life that much easier when you conquer their now-vulnerable settlements. Plus, if you draw your cavalry back to the main force the enemy has to spend lots of money to rebuild the city you razed before you take it again. Savage the army, break the bank and steal the initiative at the same time!

[Shahed]

LOL I've been saying the very thing above about siegs for ages, but nobody gets it. I keep seeing posts about how inadequate an all cavalry army is in sieges (ridiculous as it sounds). I realise though that I never phrased it as eloquently as you. Thanks !

BRILLIANT.

BTW what I always do even with short posts, is copy paste into notepad as I go. Can save a lot of time.

[Rebellious Waffle]

Just did some experimenting with guerilla tactics in a H/H Russian campaign. Poland went down quickly, but I'd managed to leave Iasi undergarrisoned when the Hungarians sent a full-stack army to lay siege. Not coolness.

Hence the guerilla tactics. I sent my kazaks out to harry to foe, following a defensive version of what I said earlier about cavalry sieges. I lost about ten percent of my force, while the Hungarian general lost about a third. Meanwhile, I sent five units of kazaks and one unit of Boyar Sons to the Hungarian starting settlement just north of Sofia, catching two units of Feudal Knights that were on their way to reinforce the Hungarian force at Iasi. Following one of my personal guerilla doctrines (Thou Shalt Not use Troops with Mixed Firing Distances in a Hit and Run Attack) I sent in the kazaks first; inflicted fifty-five percent casualties, losing two men myself. Using the one unit of Boyar Sons next, I inflicted fifty percent casualties on the survivors and lost none. The end result: the Hungarians' compliment of Feudal Knights was cut to a quarter of its starting size in one turn, after which I re-united my stack and laid siege to the Hungarian town to tick off the garrison.

The general besieging Iasi broke off to deal with the rear-area raid, allowing me to retrain my garrison there and send reinforcements from Kiev and Vilinus. Dropping my own siege, I whittled down another Hungarian stack (Feudal Knights, Dismounted Feudal Knights, Spear Militia) to the Northwest.

Hungary put Iasi back under siege, and I made life inconvenient by sally-sniping and starting my siege again. The result was the same, except that their general's invasion force was down to less than half a stack, lots of expensive units were dead, Iasi's garrison was at full strength, and the silly buggers tried to sally on my siege, which meant their city garrison was down to half strength too. Result: Hungary's military power is emasculated, at next to no cost to myself.

Conclusion: guerilla tactics definitely work in Medieval 2.

[DeathBUA]

First post on here.....but I've lurked since R:TW, anyways, I've found guerilla tactics work quite well in M2:TW, actually I'm surprised some of you don't use them more often.

What I usually do is something modified from Rebellious Waffle, in that with the Turkish campaign I just finished on M/M I've use Sipahis or Turkomans to rush up to the enemy under cover of long range archers usually in the early game, Turkish Archers, then later Jannissary or Ottoman Archer/Infantry. With Jannissary HI to cover and maybe a naffatun or two to really break their morale

Harass the enemy with your horse archer, get them to chase, commit and get spread apart slowly retreating towards your infantry archers, at some point they'll be under fire from 2 different sources. You might lose a few HA's to friendly fire but thats ok. By the time your HA's reach your line of infantry the enemy will be tired, beaten down in number and probably have low morale, then I'd simply rush in with any and all infantry. 95% of the time worked like a charm with minimal losses on my side, usually 5-10%.

This can actually work in the late game as well with factions that don't necessarily have HA's. Use mounted X-bow men or anything mounted that shoots missles really, Jinetes, Reiters whatever.

Or if you are really feeling guerilla, just follow Waffle's lead.