Nothing can withstand a modern army (in theory)

[geala]

"In theory" in this case means in custom battles. I finished some testing yesterday with my "New Model Army" against different compositions of enemies.

What I did not like with MTW was the weakness of true late era armies especially concerning the firearms. I feared the same for M2TW because of some bad experience in campaign battles but it was only me who was bad player. M2TW has it done very well indeed. An army of 1500 should beat every medieval army of before and so it is.

Many people don't like firearms and think they are way too powerful in M2TW. I think it would have been better if firearms were never invented in the real world but they were and gave huge advantages. In MTW, RTW and M2TW it was/is for the most time my first goal to develop my country and get hightech units. I don't like RTW that much because "nothing" happened in technical development in the ancient times (beware: some exaggeration possible). One reason is that my interest in the medieval age lay mainly at its very end in the time from 1450 till 1525.

Enough blabla. My army is composed of 3 serpentines, 6 Landsknechts (difficult in campaign as only available as mercenaries), 4 Zweihänder, 4 Arquebusiers, 2 Reiters and 1 general. I gave the very best units to my enemies and tried to compose the armies in a senseful way. My best victory was against the Aztecs (who first gave me hard times during campaign), loosing only 70 men, the most bad was against the Timurids (with 3 elephant musketeer units and lot of elite cavalry) when I lost over 700.

What are your experiences?

I hope the addon will deal with the time after 1530 (but I don't think it will do) and the development of even more modern armies. Meanwhile I will go far back and play Europa Barbarorum 0.8.

[dopp]

Frankly speaking, modern armies in M2TW can win but take very heavy losses due to the lack of armor. Even when they have the same armor as feudal units, the lack of shields and lower defense skill really makes them suffer. They also generally have lower attack and morale.

IMHO, pikemen should get bonuses for their formation against arrow fire, musketeers should stay the way they are (some people want to nerf them in favor of bows) and all professional troops should have attack and defense values comparable to feudal troops. They should also have comparable or higher morale.

For Spain (longtime favorite) I use 2 generals (in case an inquisitor happens by), 4 musketeers, 6 pikes and 4 gendarmes or Knights of Santiago. No swordsmen, unless I'm lucky enough to get to the New World. No artillery, because I can't get serpentines and basilisks are too slow.

I like modern armies too. Crushing opponents with a pike and shot army in 1250 is fun. But currently I can achieve almost the same results with a feudal army and suffer fewer losses as well. The biggest weakness of a modern army is the pikemen, who tend to lose formation and die in droves, even if they win.

[Kagemusha]

Try fighting a all horse (Mix of Lancers 1/3 and HA 2/3) Mongol army with that army composition on open terrain.Defeat is pretty much guaranteed.

[supadodo]

Well the reason why I play Med 2 is to build high tech(for that time period) armies. Sure musketeers kinda suck due to a bug but I love them anyways cause they look cool. Also artillery will fire in a slightly straight line so any units in front may get hit (I still remember one of my cannon loader stood stupidly in front of the cannon and got pounded. it was HILARIOUS

I doubt bayonets were invented back then so musketeers still die at cavalry. I only use musketeers if the enemy brings a full infantry army where I let the passive AI do its job wakakaka!!!

[Ludivico Sforza]

Pikemen are surprisingly good, even against sword armed heavy infantry if used in long lines (3-4 ranks) and with Guard Mode off.

One of my favourite custom battle set-ups is to pit two pike and musket armies against each other. The 'push of pike' can be quite awe inspiring.

[Shahed]

Geala It's a good army, should inflict very heavy casualties. Keep in mind though that it is going to perform better against an infantry army than against a cavalry army. Naturally against AI it should perform well in most cases.

I like it. Makes me want to start up an HRE campaign.

[dopp]

Try fighting a all horse (Mix of Lancers 1/3 and HA 2/3) Mongol army with that army composition on open terrain.Defeat is pretty much guaranteed.

Guaranteed? I have fought the vaunted Mongol horde and won (against AI, of course, which is ridiculously stupid at times). With very heavy casualties, but that's normal for late armies. No shields = pincushions. Since 2+4+6+4 leaves 4 slots open, I can take other units to compensate for the strengths of my opponents. Artillery, horse archers, jinetes, swords for sieges, more heavy cav, elephants, cannon fodder, plenty of options there.

[Kagemusha]

Guaranteed? I have fought the vaunted Mongol horde and won (against AI, of course, which is ridiculously stupid at times). With very heavy casualties, but that's normal for late armies. No shields = pincushions. Since 2+4+6+4 leaves 4 slots open, I can take other units to compensate for the strengths of my opponents. Artillery, horse archers, jinetes, swords for sieges, more heavy cav, elephants, cannon fodder, plenty of options there.

I battled against a full Mongol stack on grassy plain map.Here is the composition of Mongol army:

1 General
2 Khans Guards
2 Mongol Heavy Lancers
2 Mongol Light Lancers
6 Mongol Heavy archers
7 Mongol horse archers

And my HRE late army:

1 General
5 Landsknecht
2 Zwei Händers
4 Arquebusiers
2 Gothic Knights
2 Imperial Knights
4 Serpentines

In second variation i replaced the Arquebusiers with 4 Reiters to get more cavalry combined with firepower.
On first battle the mongols aproached carefully and it almost seemed pretty harmless at first i got few salvos from my Arq´s and Serpentines to hit the Mongols. The Mongol Center stopped in the range of their bows and started slaughtering my Arq´s with missile fire.Then their lancers hitted my cavalry on both flanks followed by some horse archers that started shooting of my artillery men. With combination of Landsknechts and Knights i was able to fend of the Mongol Lancers. But at that time the Horse archers in the center had practicly wiped out my Arq´s and Landsknecht line with their bows.Now my depleted Cavalry got their share and ofcourse the Mongols didnt engage.Just ran away if i tryed to charge them continuosly shooting my men. So only thing i could do was to hammer them with my serpentines,but that wasnt enough.Once my cavalry forces were depleted enough the Mongol horse archers wiped them with backing of some the lancers they still had and after that ran over the few remaining Landsknechts artillery and my General. The arrow storm that 13 units of Horse archers deployed against my forces was just too much. I think that an European commander would have had just the same frustration.I couldnt catch the Mongols and my firearms rate of fire wasnt enough to shoot them down.

After the first battle i decided to reinforce my cavalry by replacing the Arquebusiers with Reiters who are pistol armed cavalry.I still held the other troops the same as my army was supposed to be mainstream European late army.
This didnt help me either at the second battle the Mongols decided to start a shooting match with Reiters and riding in circles in front of my pike line obliterating both with missile fire. Ofcourse again the rate of fire of the Reiters wasnt enough and the Mongols killed them.After that they started shooting down my Heavy cavalry and once weakened enough they charged and broke my cavalry with their lancers. The rest is pretty much history. One significant finding i made was that the Mongols didnt attack my pike line with their lancers from front at any point of those two battles,when my pikes still had enough men to talk about anykind of formation.

I would like to hear about experiences of other people how to win a cavalry based Mongol army with combined arms on plains.From my experience im not going to fight the buggers anywhere else then good terrain,behind a wall or in a river choke point from now on with European troops. I bet Orda will be proud of his boys,if he reads this post.

[IsItStillThere]

I like modern armies too. Crushing opponents with a pike and shot army in 1250 is fun.

Some of us have a major problem with this...gunpowder units shouldn't be available until much later...kindof ruins the historical immersion factor for me. Sure, let's change history...but we should at least be able to do it in a realistic context.

[dopp]

The computer doesn't build musketeers and pikes until a lot later (bombards a bit earlier), so if you don't build them yourself then you can have time progress "realistically" and have fun with knights and longbowmen. Calling for late-era troops to be nerfed (and submitting it to CA as a 'bug') so that feudal troops are equal to them ruins the game for those who actually like the late-era and want returns on their investment. 15 additional turns and 27k florins for buggy musketeers is no joke atm. The same effort for buggy and nerfed musketeers that get shot to bits by any decent archers is even less fun.

@Kagemusha: Landsknechts sux, sorry. Good stats but no armor. Arquebusiers have poor range compared to muskets. Serpentines not so good against horses in open formation. No wonder you got shot to pieces. Even late-period armies must be flexible in the kind of forces they field. Get some horse archers yourself to replace the 2-handers and artillery, especially since Mongol HA are weaker than the mercs you can hire (no armor).

[Marius Dynamite]

Those Serpentines are really good aren't they? I was playing a 1v1 practice with a fellow clan member. I ript him apart with 2 Serpentines. The next battle he took catapults and went behind his infantry. His tactic was obviously to protect them with inf and get close and destroy me with them. My serpentines accuracy was phenomenal.. they ripped through his inf and destroyed the catapults.

Arquebusiers aren't much good to me. For Gun troops, It's all about how many volleys I get into the enemy as they charge or killing enemy archers. Arquebusiers are not good for either. Mainly I use them to shoot the sides of the enemy.

Pikemen have low stats but the seem to get an awesome boost from their formation. The stats are misleading. They are still like Phalanx and Phalangists in RTW though, not good enough against heavy Infantry. Although with some clever tactic Phalangists armies could beat Roman Infantry.

I don't want Musketeer reduced in strength at all. I think they are perfect the way they are. They are strong in Multi, but they arebeatable if you use some initiative, which people seem to lack because they want to fight battles their way instead of overcoming their enemies army.

Modern armies should be more powerful. It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

@Kagemusha: The army you used against Mongols on grassy plain is a good one. Important thing to remember is its an army which can beat any army in good condition. A General would know that army would be successful on a river for example. Therefore your army is good in the sense of campaign and has the ability and balance to beat all others.That is this army:

And my HRE late army:

1 General
5 Landsknecht
2 Zwei Händers
4 Arquebusiers
2 Gothic Knights
2 Imperial Knights
4 Serpentines

I think its only modern armies which offer a good variation like that.

[BigTex]

and all professional troops should have attack and defense values comparable to feudal troops. They should also have comparable or higher morale.

No no no and no. Attack strength of a unit is measured by the speed and lethality of its animation. The attack stat is mearly there to support the animation. The halberdiers and pikemen have simply the fastest, simplest and most lethal animation. Raising their attack would turn them into supermen. Most late troops, except mercenarys, get excellent armor once they've been upgraded. Militia pikemen end up with plate armor.

The main advantage of late units is truly their speed to mass produce and their low upkeep. France alone has the ability to pour out pikemen from both cities and castles with upkeep at only 155. They may have low armor, but you can get 2 units of pikemen for the price of one unit of armored sergeants.

The general change to late units is to change into more of a successor state army of RTW. More of a imobile machine that will decimate anything in front of it. But it becomes very vulnerable to quick and manueverable armies, like the mongols. Best bet to kill the mongols in the late period is to hole up in your castles and cities. That will give pikes near invulnerability in the streets, and little worry of arrows.

[dopp]

Pikemen have no armor. The armor upgrades are not working and half-plate pikemen have less armor than troops with padded (3 vs 4).

I actually have no complaints with pikemen when they work correctly. The first time I used completely unarmored Tercios in open battle they saw off dismounted Norman knights with three silver chevrons. I now use modded Tercios with armor set to approximate what they should be getting (heavy mail = 7, mine are modded to 6) and they work fine. They just bug a whole lot and it's impossible to attack with them.

One thing, take them off guard mode unless expecting the enemy to charge, otherwise they don't fight properly half the time.

[lars573]

Some of us have a major problem with this...gunpowder units shouldn't be available until much later...kindof ruins the historical immersion factor for me. Sure, let's change history...but we should at least be able to do it in a realistic context.

Yes because you areable to build them means you of course have too.

[dopp]

Yes because you areable to build them means you of course have too.

Control, you must learn control.

[Cheetah]

It is not exactly a modern army in a sense that there are lots of xbow units in it but it works (Milanese):

1 standard
4 knights hospitaller
4 pikemen militia
4 genoese xbowmen
4 musketeers
3 mounted xbowmen

since that mongol army costs around 18k, if you want to play on even ground you have plenty of money to upgrade your troops. I bought armour for each unit and valour (2 and 4 respectively) for the hospitallers and the pikemen. There is still some money left use it as you wish.
The strategy is very simple: shoot them up. Genoese xbows can withstand lots of punishment, deploy them on the front in lose formation. Muskets behind them, pikes behind muskets. Knights protecting flanks, mounted xbows protecting knights from HA.

[dopp]

A few things I learned using a 'modern' army on VH/VH:

Always get armor upgrades for your troops. Ribbed tunics look cool but don't stop arrows.

If you find a nice bit of sloping ground you can deploy musketeers to shoot over the heads of the pikemen.

Take your pikemen off guard mode unless you expect cavalry charges. They fight infantry better without it.

Be aggressive with your cavalry and pikemen against slower armies (ie mostly infantry). If you hit them with a few musket volleys and then engage them with pikemen while the musketeers continue to fire, they will fight poorly and rout soon after. Attacking with your pikemen also forces the enemy missile troops to waste time running away as you approach.

Against heavy cavalry just put them on guard mode and let them charge you.

Keep some heavy cavalry (general) in reserve and charge them at any places where the enemy are pushing through the pike formations. This will often cause them to rout.

[geala]

Kagemusha, I saw that you dare to contradict my ingenious TILEAM (Theory of the Invincibility of Late Era Armies in M2TW)!?

So I called my Grand Army mentioned before and sent it against the Mongol losers composed of a general, 2 Khan Guards, 2 heavy and 1 light Mongol Lancer, rest were heavy and normal HAs. As before it was "Hard" on a grasy plain without any improvements of the troops.

Öhmm, I lost every time in three trials.

My theory seems to be deeply in need of some refinement.

I had won some battles against a Timurid army (a third of it being HAs), so I might become a bit too caulty. In earnest I don't know how to win against such a HA rich army with my normal late era army now.

But when I think about it I find that the results might even be not totally unrealistic. A western European army of 1500 could maybe have had big problems against these HAs. Less armour than 50 years before (in case of the Landsknechts f.e.) and not that great firepower to cope with the elusive riders compared to later western armies (which smacked HA armies).

I don't know real battles of that time with a similar composition of armies. Does anybody have an example? In the battle of Mohawk 1526 the Hungarians lost against the Turks but I don't know wether the Turks used so many HAs (I don't think so).


After these defeats I tried an army as followed: 1 general, 1 Teutonic Knights, 1 Mounted Crossbowmen, 5 Armoured Sergeants, 6 Pavise Crossbowmen, 3 dismonted Knights, 1 Ballista and 2 Catapults. Not so much fun for the Mongols who were defeated with relative ease. An English army with 8 units Retinue Longbowmen did it quite well either.

My lust for developing my countries and fielding late era armies has a bit decreased after this. Especially annoying for me is the fact that Ballistae and Catapults are much better killers than every powder artillery. Strange...

[Blademun]

I made a army using Sicily's troops that easily withstood a mongol fight. I might have crippled the Mongol unit selection by leaving the custom battle to the standard 10K florens.

At the 10K mark, I made a army of 4 Arqs, 4 Muslim Archers, 3 PaviseXbow, 2 HCmilita, and 4 Mounted Seargents and GeneralBG. Yep, no pikes, none, notta. Nothing but overwhelming missile power. Every unit that got close was obliterated in seconds. I kid not, I watched a unit of Horse archers go from full to routing in under a minute.

The enemy had a nice line up of 3 Heavy Lancers, some horse archers, some mongol infantry, generalsBG, and artilley consisting of a rocket launcher and a trebuchet.

The way the battle played out, the Mongols tried doing their shooting circles but ended up losing all of their Horse archers. THe main body moved up but then they just stopped and started shuffling stupidly. Within a few minutes the hail of arrows and bullets had killed all but a handfull, who routed. A hail of arrows killed the general even.

To give them credit, they did charge on of their HL, which was met by my HC and routed. they took down one of my Xbows tho.

Here are screenies:

http://www.geocities.com/mia_zikorsky/Carnage.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/mia_zikorsky/Victory.jpg

[geala]

Of course you can fight with armies of a rather special compositon. Perhaps you even must do it in MP battles. But I would prefer more historically based armies with a diversity of troops for the different battle situations (ranged and close quarter combat, mobility with cavalry etc.).

Imagine you would meet an army of rebelling Knights on your way to battle the Mongols.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

I tried a custom battle against a full stack of Mongols. I gave them 6 heavy lancers, 7 heavy archers and the rest horse archers. A nice historical mix. I played as the Russians. 1 general, 5 tsar's guard, 6 dvor, 6 dismounted dvor, 2 Cossack musketeers. I think. It was actually proposed by lusted as the ultimate mongol killing army. The sheer amount of missile units guarantee that you can kill the mongols at least as fast at they kill you. Plus those dismounted dvor are quite good at melee. I gave it a try and although it was not accustomed to such an army and did not use it to its max potential i defeated the Mongols. Casualties were heavy...about half my army i believe. Those heavy lancers charged one unit of dismounted dvor each. First time I saw such a perfect charge by the AI.

[dopp]

Some of us have a major problem with this...gunpowder units shouldn't be available until much later...kindof ruins the historical immersion factor for me. Sure, let's change history...but we should at least be able to do it in a realistic context.

Check out the blog for update 2 and see how CA will shaft late armies:

As a teaser for Update 2, we’re currently playing with some of the fixes and tweaks and have to say, you will absolutely love the more aggressive Scotland and Mongol campaign AI, more naval assaults, an even more consistent less powerful cavalry charge, less devastating gunpowder units and last but not least, stronger 2-handed axe men and billmen.

Love? I think not. 27k and 15 turns per city for nerfed musketeers (retinue longbows and other elite archers only require level 5 barracks in castle). As I recall, the suggestion was for musketeers etc. to be more expensive in multiplayer and be available later in campaign game, so they decide to nerf them instead...

[Musashi]

I tried a custom battle against a full stack of Mongols. I gave them 6 heavy lancers, 7 heavy archers and the rest horse archers. A nice historical mix. I played as the Russians. 1 general, 5 tsar's guard, 6 dvor, 6 dismounted dvor, 2 Cossack musketeers. I think. It was actually proposed by lusted as the ultimate mongol killing army. The sheer amount of missile units guarantee that you can kill the mongols at least as fast at they kill you. Plus those dismounted dvor are quite good at melee. I gave it a try and although it was not accustomed to such an army and did not use it to its max potential i defeated the Mongols. Casualties were heavy...about half my army i believe. Those heavy lancers charged one unit of dismounted dvor each. First time I saw such a perfect charge by the AI.

Heh, I'm actually playing a Russian campaign at the moment... My preparations for the mongol invasion involve training several full stack all-Dvor armies. Not dismounted Dvor, Dvor.

Super heavy armored archer cavalry trumps the Mongols' mixed force easily.

[IsItStillThere]

As I recall, the suggestion was for musketeers etc. to be more expensive in multiplayer and be available later in campaign game, so they decide to nerf them instead

They may mean they are adjusting the power of gunpowder artillary rather than handguns. Definitely they don't need to nerf them, just make them balanced and available approximately around the time they were historically available.

They have until Febuary so I don't think anything is set in stone for update 2 yet anyhow.

[ScrapTower]

When I think medieval, I dont think gunpowder. IMO gunpowder kinda detracts from the whole medieval setting. Its more like napolion total war er something...

[ChewieTobbacca]

But gunpowder was exactly one of the causes of the end of the Medieval era, so it wouldn't be very medieval if we didn't see it's end as well

[ScrapTower]

But gunpowder was exactly one of the causes of the end of the Medieval era, so it wouldn't be very medieval if we didn't see it's end as well

The first canon (bombards) were used in siege warfare no earlier than 1314, and the first muskets entered battle around 1550. Lances, pikes, and swords were still the weapons of choice at the beginning of the Thirty Years War... (1618).
Not to mention the first muskets were heavy, slow to reload and and could not be fired without a rest.

[IsItStillThere]

The first canon (bombards) were used in siege warfare no earlier than 1314,

...and I don't think they really caught on until the last half of the 1300's. IIRC, they fired stones or solid iron balls as ammunition. Very effective against walls, but practically useless against soldiers on a battlefield.

[dopp]

"Gunpowder units" rather than "artillery" in this case, since the cannon are no more accurate than catapults, ballistas. They mean firearms, since the 'bug' submitted to CA was "musketeers are overpowered in multiplayer". What I don't understand is why they feel nerfing them is the right course of action. Unlike in multiplayer, getting musketeers in campaign is painfully slow and retards your settlement development. Retinue longbows are built from an armory, pavise crossbows from one level lower. Musketeers are built from a royal barracks, two levels above the armory. This translates into 27k and 15 precious turns to build musketeers per city. If they wanted to include additional events that gradually unlock higher levels of barracks to slow down the development further (i.e. you can't jump to muskets immediately in turn 80) that I might understand, but nerfing their already questionable effectiveness just so that cheaper and older units can somehow keep up?

How they nerf it is also a concern. MTW gunpowder units couldn't kill anything and had incredibly short effective range. No point in building them over arbalesters. Are they nerfing the morale damage, range or the kill rate? Range is only marginally better than the best bows. Considering that range alone is enough to distinguish arquebusiers as "merely okay" and muskets as "pretty good", nerfing it will hit firearms hard. Kill rate is no better than crossbows atm (attack is 14 vs 11-12 for crossbows). Morale damage is more troublesome but it's offset by their reload time so they need their volleys to have a greater impact.

I'm going to see what update 1 does tomorrow and whether fixing the reforming bug for firearms makes them overpowered due to the (presumably) increased rate of fire. However as it is they are hardly an 'I Win' button and I'm a little disappointed that they are getting patch resources instead of things like enabling the armor system, fixing broken trait triggers etc.