Why be tactical in battles?

[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.

[TevashSzat]

I think the problem here isn't just about the ai on the battlefield but also on the campaign map. If the ai would field some serious armies with feudal and dismounted knights, you would actually have to come up with a strategy if you don't want to lose much me. In most of my campaigns, all i see are full stack militia army which i can destroy easily with less than a half a stack of half decent troops.

[Alcorr]

I think the problem here isn't just about the ai on the battlefield but also on the campaign map. If the ai would field some serious armies with feudal and dismounted knights, you would actually have to come up with a strategy if you don't want to lose much me. In most of my campaigns, all i see are full stack militia army which i can destroy easily with less than a half a stack of half decent troops.

Agree 100%. That is exactly what im getting at.

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.

Once again, agree 100%.

[Moah]

Actually the Pike Square does work against the Mongols - at least the AI on custom battle.

All battles as Scots (as that's what i'm going to be facing them with this time)

Test 1: 4 hvy pike militia, 4 noble pikes. 4 noble archers. 4 highland archers.

Mongols: 8 HA (4 of each), 6 bodyguard Heavy cav (both armies 10,000fl).

Tactics: Pike in a square, guard mode off - PIKE FIX (switching to swords would be suicide). All archers inside, skirmish off. Hit start battle, 3x speed, do nothing. I didn't touch a single unit once the battle had begun.

Result: Scots win. 20% losses overall (fewer pike, more archers). The HA harass but take quite a battering from the scots archers. Many switch to CC doing less damage. The armour of the pikes holds well and when the heavy cav eventually charge they're obliterated by the not very weakened Pikes. Eventually the HA run out of ammo and charge. And die.

Notes: The AI didn't even scratch my rear. Most of the attacks seemed centred on the NW and NE corners of the square. The 4 Units there lost around 10-15 men. The other 4 are almost untouched. The archers suffer more. Worse armour but also, I suspect, because they're in a random mass they're taking rear and flank penalties. The Pikes aren't.

Test 2: Ok was that a fluke?

4 Pike militia (the cheapest, 150 fl), 4 highland pikemen. 4 NA 4 Highland A as above. Note this army is now 4,000 florins less than the Mongol one.

Mongols: 8 HA as above. 2 Bodyguard Heavy cav. 3 heavy cav. 3 light cav.

Tactics: Identical.

Results: Scots win. 40% losses. Similar story to above but the Pikes suffer more from arrows (armour 1 vs armour 10 makes a difference I guess). But they hold. Front Pike militia around 33% strength but still held the cavalry charges with little loss. Archers pretty cut up. Rear pikes barely touched.

Test 3: Ok, how far can we go. Seeing the the AI never got as far as the rear, only flank I went cheap.

4 pike militia. 3 noble archers, 3 highland archers.

Mongols: 8 HA, 2 Bodyguard Heavy cav. 3 heavy cav. 3 light cav.

Tactics: The pikes are in a V shape, with the archers again packed inside. The Scots army cost less than a 1/3rd the Mongol one.

Results: Oops. Mongols win. Pikes slaughtered by archers (scots return fire weakened, the Pikes were armour 1 and fewer to soak it up, and I suspect in the V formation they took a bit more flank penalty) and when the cavalry charge 1 unit breaks (well, wiped out actually!). Slaughter.


Test 4: Ok, now the mongol hordes also have foot archers yes? And the heavy cav is a waste of money against the pike so let's mix it up a bit.

Scots: 4 hvy pike mil, 4 noble pike - all with armour upgrades. 4 High A, 4 Noble A.

Mongols: 8 HA. 4 Foot archers. 2 hvy cav bodyguard. 4 light cav.

Tactics: Same as 1 and 2 above.

Results: Scots victory. 50% losses. Ok I admit I intervened in this one. Again the AI ignored the rear and my front pike was getting slaughtered by arrows. I sent the 2 rear pikes up as reinforcements and bent the SW and SE corners back to cover. Now almost all my losses came from the arrows and my archers took a pasting. Even heavy armour couldn't save my front rank pike but when they eventually charged they were still slaughtered. Then when the HA ran out of ammo (I assume) so were they. Admittedly this one felt more touch and go, if just one pike unit had collapsed (none did, but 1 was almost wiped out, and had to be reinforced) I think I would have been a goner. But I was vastly outnumbered in archers, and their foot guys were better than my scots..


Overall: Sorry for the long post. What's my point? Well assuming the horde AI follows the same tactic as custom AI, this strategy should work. Just make sure your pike have armour and pack that army with archers. I might even go as high as 6 pike ( i reckon a hexagon might work), 3 cav (for emergencies and chasing down routers - because the flaw with this tactic is all their routers will survive, and you'll just have to face them again) and 10 archers (all noble or xbow mercs!).

For other factions with better bowmen and heavy pike it should work even better than for me. Although my tests didn't face an 8* general and 3 x 3 chevron stacks.....

Hope that was useful, or at least interesting...

[dismal]

I think the problem here isn't just about the ai on the battlefield but also on the campaign map. If the ai would field some serious armies with feudal and dismounted knights, you would actually have to come up with a strategy if you don't want to lose much me. In most of my campaigns, all i see are full stack militia army which i can destroy easily with less than a half a stack of half decent troops.

I agree. The two problems feed on each other. Then, at some point, I have a big empire and can field whole stack armies of mounted/dismounted knights that the AI is never going to beat.

Perhaps the fix is to make Heavy Cav (and dismounted knights) significantly more expensive than they are now to maintain. The problem is not so much that they are powerful, but that I can afford to have too many of them. And maybe give the AI a cost break on higher difficulty levels.

I would also like to see the AI learn from its scouting/losses to me and make appropriate adjustments to its stacks (for example, if it sees me making all sorts of Horse Archers, it should make light cav) but this feels a bit overoptimistic given the basic limitations the current AI has.

[Steph]

Perhaps the fix is to make Heavy Cav (and dismounted knights) significantly more expensive than they are now to maintain. The problem is not so much that they are powerful, but that I can afford to have too many of them. And maybe give the AI a cost break on higher difficulty levels.

I support this idea!

Stéphane