Why be tactical in battles?

[Rogerio]

I dont know why everyone goes on about tactics etc - i use the most simple tactics ever for this game and it works every time.

Dont use missile troops they are absoloutely rubbish unless you have lots of them and the enemy wont come and attack you and they allow you to shoot.

I get about 5 or 6 units of cavalry and a few blocks of infantry - basically charge EVERYONE into 1 point of the enemy line and cause a mass panic then rout everyone kill the general and run them down!

I had 404 men on a hill near Nottingham for scotland against 1041 english troops all i did was charge en masse at their generals unit caused a mass panic killed the genereal and sluaghtered everyone who ran.

I lost about 100 men out of my ranks and they lost 1021 troops out of 1041 an absoloutle massacre which crippled the whole of england and allowed me to take the whole place. a very fun battle for me as it is what the game is all about!

fighting the hated enemy who outnumber you more than 2 to 1 and killing them all and taking the whole land! class stuff.

i have taken most of france and all of britain using the cavalry zerg tactics just charge en masse at them basically. i am now in a war with milan and hammer them in every battle - they use hundreds and hundreds of pavise bowmen i just run straight past them to the combat troops and the generals unit and sluaghter them all then roll up all the crosbow guys with cavalry.

am only on about turn 70 and its my first grand campaign but it seems this tactic is unstoppable! if you get alot of spearmen in the enemy army then simply get a couple of crappy infantry units in the army to engage them them smash into them using cavalry and hey presto mass panic everyones dead.

i used this tactic on shogun a few years ago as well basically did the whole thing just using loads and loads of the fast cavalry guys to smash up the enemy army.

Is there anything that can stop this amazing tactic?

[pevergreen]

An army equal on composition with you? VH battle AI?

We use tactics to make it fun. Realism.

I play Rome total Realism as the Selu Empire, and i just back into a corner, around a hill. Charging full length into them takes the fun out of the game.

[Rogerio]

I try to be tactical and use archers and infantry etc but the point it - if you try and rely on archer units you get battered unless they dont charge you. i really dont see the point of missile troops they are just pointless.

The only thing i have seen from missile troops that has really done anything at all was when i fought the milan army in a masivve 1000 of them v 700 of me battle, i tried to sit back for a bit as i had 2 catapults and 2 archer units, 5 infantry units heavy infantry and the rest was just loads of chivalric knights feudal knights etc. i managed to get plastered by their trebuceht for a bit so i just charged en masse into their enormous formation of pavise crossbow guys, and as i chagred down the hill i saw how good a trebuchet can be against a massive charging formation of knights anbd heavy infantry.

1 shot landed took out my Faction leader and 6 bodyguards then another shot landed and killed about 6 more knights! i was a slightly concerened by this so just charged the machines killed them all and rolled up the rest of the army in the usual way.

So warmachines are scary but when you have enough cavalry it dosent matter how many bows they have i say - theyre dead!

[Alcorr]

I completely agree, I think missle units should be much more powerful, particularly gunpowder. Even though it seems everyone on these forums and others thinks that vanilla gunpoweder is too powerful, I completely disagree. By far, armies made up of nothing but 70% hvy cavalry and 30% light cavalry to chase down HA is much better than any other army stack.

Hvy infantry = pointless
Light infantry = pathetic
Missle units = too weak
Pike units = hahaha

Keep in mind I have played total war games since the first medieval and it didn't use to be this way.

[Garnier]

Yeah if I want to win any battle I can do so with about 3 or 4 units of knights. Just charge head on into their line a few times, and they all rout and get destroyed. It takes the fun out of the game for me...

[IrishArmenian]

I use a lot of missile units.
Here is what I do with my two prime factions: The Sicilians (Italo-Normans) and the Russians
Sicily: Muslim Archers and Pavise Crossbowmen for missile units. I use archers and crossbowmen for different tasks. Archers shoot at the charging light infantry/calvary and crossbows take out heavier troops or the general. Then they retreat behind my lines before the enemy gets too close. Norman knights, most dismounted, some dismounted. Pike Militia/Pike Mercenaries, General. This army fares quite well against most armies.
Russia: Dvor, mounted and dismounted, Boyar Sons (always mounted), Berdiche Axemen (with a two handed fix, by the way. Cossack Calvary, Tsar's guard. General.
I use tactics for
A) I play on VH/VH meaning I'm going against good troops and good generals
B) Its fun
C) Being a product of the military, I cannot do anything without thinking of tactics.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Well the short answer to the question is: marginal utility, as always!

I like using combined arms tactics, it's fun! I know that click-and-send battles will work most of the time, even on vh setting. I'm sure just about everyone (at least on the boards here) knows that can work. But if I want click-and-send fun, I can just plug in Starcraft, a very fun click-and-send game even after all these years.

As an aside, I am guessing CA will do well by the game as usual and address bugs first and rebalance second so by 1.4 or 5 I don't want bad habits costing me all my Knights of Santiago either.

[Sheogorath]

I completely agree, I think missle units should be much more powerful, particularly gunpowder. Even though it seems everyone on these forums and others thinks that vanilla gunpoweder is too powerful, I completely disagree. By far, armies made up of nothing but 70% hvy cavalry and 30% light cavalry to chase down HA is much better than any other army stack.

Hvy infantry = pointless
Light infantry = pathetic
Missle units = too weak
Pike units = hahaha

Keep in mind I have played total war games since the first medieval and it didn't use to be this way.

You have clearly never seen the effect experienced musketeers can have on a unit. A volley at close range into most militia = lots of dead guys and a route.
If that doesnt work, cavy' em.
Archers and crossbows have the same effect if used wisely.

And all those units you listed, used correctly, are devastating. Light infantry on the flanks or rear can easily route/destroy better quality units.

Hence, the use of tactics to GET those light infantry to the position where they can exploit a weakness in the enemy lines.

[Dexter]

I really like to take my chances against the AI whit "lesser quality" units.

Now if I have 40.000 panzers and the enemy has 20 .. well it would be strange if you did not win ... panzers in the game are the heawy cav. ... but think a moment .. 90 % of your population are peasants .. not nobles ..

Nights were specially in the early period only nobles .. it was a way, like sayin` only the noble one deserves good armor - rather he is able to pay for it - as the peasant are only there to serve and die. Later they would train an unit of personal bodyguards .. but that is later .. even then these guys were by any standard wealthy ..

In all the Total War games starting whit Shogun it was more fun to have more "weaker units" as it is well know the low can oppress the high.

It depends how you like to play .. win no matter the cost .. meaning here to have an army of the best of the best.. ore be more realistic and have all ..

ok peasants are cannon fodder ... but hey .. 3 units of peasants charging a knight from all sides .. hehe .. the cheap units kill the Nights .. LoL ..

By the way try this ... all cav army ws a balanced army like 4 missile 2 archer 2 crossbow 4 spear 2 militia 2 castle some swordsman like knights 1-2 .. and peasants 5-7 + to balanced really 1-2 cav ... men ratio 1:2 then 1:1 .. meaning 1 horsemen vs 2 infantry .. - for the extreme 3:1 -

I always win with the 2. army ..
only cav. fighting in woods .... aaa ... help us Lord !!!

I would like to know wich units do you use ??? Only cav ? And how you arrange the army ? Do you change the placement before the battle or simply click begin battle ???

[Goofball]

I try to be tactical and use archers and infantry etc but the point it - if you try and rely on archer units you get battered unless they dont charge you. i really dont see the point of missile troops they are just pointless.

Tell me this again after you have faced the Turks or the Mongols...

[Garnier]

Well thats the other problem, their armies are always made up mostly of town militia.. I probably would have problems if their army was equal to mine.

[Carl]

I've noticed that too. Hope somone fixes the AI soon.

[Noir]

Posted by econ21

"I don't know why you say you are not using tactics. You are applying two killer ones: concentration of force and decapitation of enemy command n control."

This is a very good point; however the fact that a single tactic is an all out winner, is the reason why i didn't buy the game (tried it for 2 weeks or so at a friend's).

I appreciate the fact that mods will meddle with that, but as with RTR and EB, the battle game is still less tactical than what it used to be in the older engine. Many realism settings were plainly droped in the new engine and mods cannot restore this (they can however do wonders with the campaign).

it is sad to hear people saying that they "use tactics to make the game fun".
The idea of TW as i understood it and as it was expressed in STW and MTW was to use tactics to win.

I maintain that M2 is better in that aspect than RTW but yet very action oriented for my taste. Which is why i play STW and MTW mods only.

I understand that the community is hugely enlarged and thus the games need to appeal to many to cntinue be viable commercially but perhaps CA can consider making all the imprtant game engine aspects modable, so if some want a necessarily tactical game they can get it out of modding. That doesn't appear to be the case at the moment.

AI army composition was always something fixable on the otherhand as many MTW and RTW mods have showed. I would be much less worried about that.

[Irishman3]

Why be tactical in battles?

Because its funner to play the game (any game) that way. You can find work arounds to "normal" methods of operation in just about any computer game, particularly when your facing its AI as an opponent. But its just not fun to do so IMHO, so I suppose I role play a bit and try to use real world unit compositions and the strategy they'd employ before just bum rushing it with the best units I can get my hands on.

[econ21]

I get about 5 or 6 units of cavalry and a few blocks of infantry - basically charge EVERYONE into 1 point of the enemy line and cause a mass panic then rout everyone kill the general and run them down!

I don't know why you say you are not using tactics. You are applying two killer ones: concentration of force and decapitation of enemy command n control.

And you are being fairly historical: a lot of Medieval European armies do seem to have worked on a battle plan of an irresistable charge; and the Ottomans made a point of zeroing in on the enemy general, knowing that if they killed him, the enemy would be massively disadvantaged.

Is there anything that can stop this amazing tactic?

Maybe nothing the AI can do. In history, the counters would be things like the English stakes and dismounted knights; or perhaps the Ottomon field fortifications and horse archers.

[Kraggenmor]

I dont know why everyone goes on about tactics etc - i use the most simple tactics ever for this game and it works every time.

Can I play you online?

[seneschal.the]

Hordes of peasants supported by cavalry + mercenaries. Peasants are the most cost-effective troops there is, and they don't have a shield (which is a plus in the M2TW world!).

Charge en masse, flank with cavalry. Rinse, repeat.

Hopefully the AI will be fixed/implemented properly in the next patch.

[crpcarrot]

@ Regerio

what difficulty are u playing on?

thi rush tactics only work since rome was released it didnt work in MTW. the very first time i played MTW i tried just that cos i was outnumbered they ran away screaming like women. my army i mean. i stopped playing rome after 1.2 cos of this sort of gameplay. i never tried it in M2TW but i didnt really think it would work and i hate losing men so its not a tactic i try out.

[Carl]

Against anything above spear militia (Armoured sarges especially), such a strategy would be suicadal once they fix the sheild bug as your cav would just disintigrate. Working Sword and Sheild infantry can have a big knock on effect and Longbow/muskets are even more lethal. it's Crossbows that get hurt by rushes because they don't have the fire rate to get decent damage in before the enemy hits.

[leothtang]

Actually, tactic is a the real fun in this game.

You should see that different fractions have different unit combo. While the western European got loads of heavy knights, the Eastern guys have a bunch of mobile missile force. It is all about how to use them effectively

I have completed a game of Turks and a game of Spain. Personally, i used totally different appoarch in the two games. Turks got horse archers, Ottoman infantries, jainsarry archers and musketman. The richness in missile calls for a skimish battle. These game are always long and you are always moving. But seeing the enemy killed by my arrows desending like hell is a sight to watch. This skillful touch of battle NEEDS tactics. The placements of troops, the bearing and the moves are essential to the battle because missile are good mudurers froma distance are idioc in melee (maybe not for ottoman infantry). Advantages of a missile rich army is the great causalties to the enemy and less for you, if u know the tatics.

As in the Spain game, charging knight en masse to the enemy is also my move through most battle. This actually reflect the dominant of heavy knight in medival history battlefield. The charge is the killing force in those day for those europeans. Thats why feudalism florish in middle ages, as the knights are one who determine the fates of war. but we should notice that a few battle are fought with the losing side knight-dominant. Battle of argincourt is one of the example. Also, knight began to lose there dominant position when the Swiss founded the pike formations. The pike absorbing the knight charges and easily kill the horse. This is actually true in M2TW, but either the AI is not advance enough to build pike, or there is not enough. Also, the horse archer dominant factions are killers to knights. Try to battle Byzatium, Mongol or Timurids. Your knight can't charge to them, becasue the retreat and Panthian-shoot you. All this indicate that the charging-en-masse move is not suitable to all place and time. You should always try new tactics and invent some to face different opponents.

When you played long enough to the late peroid, you should see the power of knight declining. the emergence of pike and muskets makes the knight rather an auxiliary . Example are the tercio pikeman+musketman formation. This formations is very good (espeacilly agaisnt knights). My new army are cored with it. Different time and different place and agaisnt different enemy, one should always have in mine: if u do not evolve, you will extict.

[Garnier]

Well, Ive fought 3 full stacks of french in one battle and won losing about 150 men, to their 3000 losses, by doing repeated cavalry charges, with the billmen finishing any survivors off while the horsemen wait for the next wave.

[llewellyn]

why mass attack if you leave your flanks exposed. and if you dont kill the generla asap you are screwed becase your men are surrounded then your men panic. plus if the army is full of units that dont run you tactic would fall apart because heavy cav get cut down when they are bogged down and hit with spear militia. and you tactic dont work on bridges you would get slaughtered

[Monarch]

I've not read the whole thread but battle ai sucks ass, just go online if you want a challenge in battles.

Difficulties are just stupid too, on vh you can route enemy with a poor useless flank.

[Steph]

Hi!

One of the qualities of this game is that it allows to develop one's own tactics!
Personally I use lots of archers and steady infantry (like pikemen). 3 or 4 cavalry units in support.

When the enemy attacks it is always with his missile troops, which get cut down under the heavy rain of arrows my archers throw them. This leaves him no other choice than to charge. If he charges with his infantry, they will be badly reduced before the shock with mine and their morale low. I'll just have to flank them with the cavalry and they are rooted. If he charges with his cavalry its even worse against my archers and pikemen.

I love cavalry but they have an inconvenient: they are expensive and the units are small. I honestly wonder how you can make an army of 1000 cavalry at turn 70. To root one enemy pikemen with cavalry at minimal cost I guess you'd need 3 full units, it is not very cost-effective.

Stéphane

[Steph]

I forgot to add that the tactics on the battle maps depend also on your globat tactics. Some prefer to defend their castle/cities, some prefer encountering the enemy outside their walls, some build forts at crossroads, some race and some build carefully...
Personally I place small armies as described above at key points of the map where they are on high ground. My armies being always limited in number the AI always overnumbers me and attacks me. On the battle map, my archers destroy most of the enemy units before they even reach my first men, and then they root immediately. The next turn the AI will attack me again, and so on... In this position you can win at 1 against 10 with minimal losses. On some maps of high mountain it is even impossible to get contact between the 2 armies LOL.
I am now with the same army for 20 years on the same ground and the holy german empire has exhausted all his forces on this small army.
The holy empire is now on his knees and it cost me nothing (he even sent 2 assassins, one got assassined by me and the other failed).

Stephane

[Alcorr]

Hi!

One of the qualities of this game is that it allows to develop one's own tactics!
Personally I use lots of archers and steady infantry (like pikemen). 3 or 4 cavalry units in support.

When the enemy attacks it is always with his missile troops, which get cut down under the heavy rain of arrows my archers throw them. This leaves him no other choice than to charge. If he charges with his infantry, they will be badly reduced before the shock with mine and their morale low. I'll just have to flank them with the cavalry and they are rooted. If he charges with his cavalry its even worse against my archers and pikemen.

I love cavalry but they have an inconvenient: they are expensive and the units are small. I honestly wonder how you can make an army of 1000 cavalry at turn 70. To root one enemy pikemen with cavalry at minimal cost I guess you'd need 3 full units, it is not very cost-effective.

Stéphane

Ok, we are talking about hvy cavalry on the human side vs. enemy AI. I guarantee you 4 units of my hvy cav will obliterate 4 units of AI pikemen. Why? Because the pikemen are so slow and inflexible that a simple flank from behind will obliterate 90% of them on the charge.

The reason hvy cav is so dominant on the field is because on the initial charge, each and every unit (with the exception of pikemen, but they can easily be flanked) will disintegrate upon impact. Every man will rout and the battle is over in literally 10 seconds. Keep in mind im talking about 10 units of hvy cav vs. 10 units of anything. Of course 2 units of hvy cav won't beat 10 units of anything.

Yes hvy cavalry is expensive, but in late game cost is irrelevant. O and unit size is irrelevant too. A 40 cav unit of chivalric knights will annihilate a 75 man unit of spearmen.

Example 2 was a german cav-heavy army attacking my army of all musketeers, 2 heavy cav, and 2 cannon units. The volume of fire was so high that none of the enemy cav made it within 100 yards of my line; the negative morale effect of the massed gunfire probably had alot to do with that.

As a couple people mentioned already, the use of heavy and light non-missile cavalry cannot defeat a horse archer based army in a full charge, as the skirmishing missile cav will simply sweep around your flank as you charge the center, all the while pouring ranged firepower into your massed cavalry. The use of light cavalry against such a force to "chase down their horse archers" would be disastrous; not only would the horse archers be shooting down your lightly armored light cav while it is chasing them but by the time your light cav makes contact they're usually surrounded and flanked in melee by the more offensively flexible horse archers.

I replied to example one in my previous post, sorry for double posting. If the battle AI were smart enough to actually use stakes then I might agree with you, but since they never do use them that way, thats irrelevant.

As far as example two and your last paragraph (second one in the quote), yes you are correct. However, as far as both of your examples go (all HA vs. light and hvy cav and all gunpowder vs. hvy cav), those aren't realistic comparisons. Online that is true, but as I said in my last post, this is singleplayer we are talking about.

The truth is, I have YET to see an all missle AI gunpowder army like the one you described. If the Campaign AI actually built such armies and used them like effectively you used yours vs. the AI, I might give you some credit. However since they do not use armies like that, hvy cavalry remains the ultimate tactic.

And I still have yet to see an AI HA army approach anywhere above 60%. Even mongols have about half HA, 25% foot archers and 25% hvy cav...

The bottom line I am trying to make is this. Of course if the AI made perfect armies to counter my all hvy cav army...they would win. But the AI in this game is SOOO bad that all cav armies are destined to rule.

[General Zhukov]

...hvy cavalry remains the ultimate tactic.

Good. That was Europe during the Middle Ages. The problem is that the AI is not putting enough knights into each stack, so it can't compete. Somebody write a script where the AI gets one free knight every other turn in each castle.

So packing, say, genoese xbows or longbows INSIDE the pike square (so they can't be charged) with skirmish off wouldn't they hurt the HA?

It would depend on the ratio of archers to HAs. Ten units of strong foot archers might be able to win a shootout with 10 HA. The HA could start circling to reduce casualties, but then their fire against the pike line would be less accurate. And really, in your hypothetical situation, all the HAs are trying to do is collapse one side of the pike square. They could probably achieve that objective before the archers did too much damage. Against armored Scottish pikes, well, it would take more arrows, but with the correspondingly weaker counterfire from the measly Scottish archers, I imagine it would balance out.

Ah, I just had a flash of insight! You're talking about archers intermingled into the ranks of the pikemen. You know, I don't have much experience with sneaky tactics like that. But it seems like the answer in that situation would still be to circle and shoot, trying to disorder or break one of the pike units, and from there the rest would be easy.

[Steph]

Yes hvy cavalry is expensive, but in late game cost is irrelevant. O and unit size is irrelevant too. A 40 cav unit of chivalric knights will annihilate a 75 man unit of spearmen.

You are right, but I must admit that most of the fun I get from this game is from the challenge of the start, when you are surrounded by (potential) enemies and you have to defend your land from all sides and with few money.
With your territories growing and money flowing, it is much less of a challenge. The reason is very simple: the AI, as good as it can be, cannot beat a human player. This means that for a real challenge you have to be overnumbered.
And for those who complain about the AI being stupid and the game being too easy, here is the solution:
Fix yourself rules that you have to follow and which make the game harder. For example, try to win a campain without EVER recruiting heavy infantry.
Who's dare?

Stéphane

[Ulstan]

If you don't find the need for tactics vs the AI (and you won't, unless you deliberately build a smaller balanced force) try fighting human opponents in multiplayer :)

[Stlaind]

While using proper tactics may not be required to win the majority of battles in Singleplayer, they certainly do reduce casualties to the expensive units