Why be tactical in battles?

[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.

[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.

[JeromeBaker]

Yeah, I agree, the tactics of charging the middle and routing the army doesnt work at ALL vs timmurids and doesnt really end up with great results against mongols. European armies are the best enemy to use the straight bum rush on the middle of their line/general. I will say though, that while this tactic works almost everytime and is easy, you can save a lot of troops from the casualty list by using a variety of artillary. Why charge the enemy and try to steam roll them when you can find ways of routing the enemy without loosing anyone really. For those that are trying to not just win, but win with as little loss of manpower as possible, artillary is key! (plus its fun to watch).

[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

[Alcorr]

while this works when you have a fully developed army after many turns, just charging your militia units en mass into a bigger army usually doesn't work in the very beginning. Try using your strategy on vhvh while blitzing in four seperate directions as Venice, south to sicily, east to byzantium, north to HRE, and northwest to France and you will see that you will often be outnumbered crazily and are forced to fight strategically.

Well of course it doesn't work very well in early battles. But in mid to late game when you can mass feudal and chivalric knights and [Insert hvy cavalry unit here] there is zero point to tactics.

Note: I am talking about singleplayer

Tactics should be REQUIRED to win, not just be something the player painfully messes around with just to make the battle more "realistic".

Honestly, nobody is a bigger fan of tactics than me. But in the end, its winning battles as fast and efficiently as possible that counts the most. Massing heavy cavalry is the best way to do that.

I should not forgo the stronger strategy (massing hvy cavalry) for the weaker strategy just because its realistic.

And you say: "But its more fun!" No its not. Obliterating the enemy off the field is fun. And the best way to do that is cav massing. Until CA changes this I will continue to do this.

Note: Against HA armies of turkey and mongols, simply mass half light cav and half hvy cav.

[Moah]

Pikemen in a big square. Archers and general in the middle. Now what you gonna do with your pretty horsies?

Actually...would that tactic work with the Mongols?

Might have a flaw with rocket firing Timurid elephants I fear....

[General Zhukov]

Pikemen in a big square. Archers and general in the middle. Now what you gonna do with your pretty horsies?

Actually...would that tactic work with the Mongols?

Mongols? Swoop in with overwhelming sheets of missles on one side of your pike square until it is disordered/routed. Charge heavy cavalry through the breach and engage all other pikes from the inside flanks. If you turn the pikes inward to deal with the cav, you expose them to charges by the HA from the outside.

You die. Turn back to page 47 and try again.

[Marquis of Roland]

Missile troops are important to wear down the enemy so that when it is time for the main assault, their units (either a specific unit you target or their whole army in general) will be weakened in the prospective areas in which you will conduct you attack.

Of course, the importance of missile troops will depend on the faction of your army; if you are using an army that is weak in missile troops, of course you are not going to use them, but will instead use the troops that has an advantage over the types of enemy forces you're facing.

Depending on faction, missile troops are devastating when used correctly, even if you're attacking. It is fairly easy to flank the AI off of any defensive upper ground by maneuvering your entire army, and once they're off the high ground your missile troops will be very effective.

As far as a all-missile army vs. an all-cav army, there are two examples which I would like to bring up. Example 1, an all-knight french stack attacked a reinforcement/replacement army of retinue longbowmen, which my longbowmen simply placed stakes around the entire army (with a farmhouse protecting my right flank) and shot the knights to pieces. Knights attempting to charge through the stakes suffered 90% dead and the ones that made it through were quickly cut down as they were immediately isolated from each other by massed archers. 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.

[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]

Pikemen in a big square. Archers and general in the middle. Now what you gonna do with your pretty horsies?

Actually...would that tactic work with the Mongols?

Might have a flaw with rocket firing Timurid elephants I fear....

1. In case you guys haven't noticed. This forum is the citadel. SINGLEPLAYER.

The AI NEVER does smart things like that or the other example someone gave like putting stakes around the entire army.

I would never get an all hvy cav army against a human player. And of course horse archers/missle cav are useful. In fact im playing a timurid campaign right now and am using mostly HA and little hvy cavalry and its quite fun and effective. But, if I used nothing but hvy cavalry it would be much easier....

The bottom line is, as far as singleplayer goes hvy cavalry owns all, simply because battle AI sucks. Period.

Keep in mind im talking about battles in the field. In sieges you need 1 cannon or catapult unit or such. Just blow a hole in the wall, run all your cav past the enemies guarding the wall, hold the square for 3 mins...game over.

O and by the way, how do I edit posts on this forum? Is it even possible?

[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.

[Moah]

Mongols? Swoop in with overwhelming sheets of missles on one side of your pike square until it is disordered/routed. Charge heavy cavalry through the breach and engage all other pikes from the inside flanks. If you turn the pikes inward to deal with the cav, you expose them to charges by the HA from the outside.

You die. Turn back to page 47 and try again.

Fair Enough - I haven't fought them yet. But I thought other posters were saying foot archers were better than the HA? It was the fact they would just get charged and removed that was the issue.

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?

Admittedly probably wouldn't work with my scots as the archers are pants (although would do better when the square is broken and charged as better in melee. For a few seconds maybe...)

[dopp]

Mongols? Swoop in with overwhelming sheets of missles on one side of your pike square until it is disordered/routed. Charge heavy cavalry through the breach and engage all other pikes from the inside flanks. If you turn the pikes inward to deal with the cav, you expose them to charges by the HA from the outside.

You die. Turn back to page 47 and try again.

Nerf HA. I actually consider M2TW horse archers to be the tanks/dreadnoughts of the battlefield. Firepower and mobility, all in one neat package. Lovely.

[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...

[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.

[Moah]

Re Pikes vs Mongols: Having tried a few more (and against catholic foes) you seriously need to keep the square (or hexagon) or have a few heavy inf/cav behind.

The AI does attack from the rear if he sees it undefended and then you have real problems. So it may seem like a waste of pike (they'll do nothing) but actually it isn't.

I know you guys all know the tactic, just pointing out the AI isn't quite as stupid as I thought (in previous post). Ah well, still a use for all those hospitallers...

(p.s. does everyone know you can get the chapter house in cities too? That is *very* useful...)

[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

[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.

[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

[Censor]

And tactics are certainly part of the fun no? Or is it just a straight rush to that anti-climatic finish for some people?

[Doug-Thompson]

Why get tactical? So you can wipe out all your enemies while suffering no losses.