Turk formations, strategy, etc.

[Boyar Son]

Hi,

I want to start a Turkish campaign soon after I beat my almost impossible HRE campaign. Turkey has some awesome high and late units, and I want to know how Turks used their troops.

In a long battle line with Cavalry at flank? (such as Armenian cav) or double line infantry with horse arcers? oh this is the Ottoman part of course.

How 'bout the early Turk troops? all horse archers? no infantry? How many generals?

And how many troops of each would the Turks have in an army? 5,000? 10,000?

Basically, I'm asking any knowledgable Person here or Turk enthusiast to tell me what type of troops to use, how many, and when should I change army composition ( no more horse archer now switch to Ottoman style).

Thank you, any Info even the slightest would be appreciated.

[Furious Mental]

Well at Nicopolis they put their light cavalry at the front, the janissaries in the middle behind stakes and the heavy cavalry at the back.

[Shahed]

Great.

This should be fun.

I need a few hours to finish some stuff first. Be back with army compositions for you, hopefully they will still be interesting.

BTW you're playing 1.20, no mods right ?

[Shahed]

Just going to add some...

It's not that easy but you can come across informatioin on how the Turks used their troops. There is a distinction between the early Seljuk armies and the later Ottoman armies. Generally, the Seljuk relied on missile cavalry to a great degree, whereas Ottoman armies diversified as the Turkish state settled in.

I would recommend small all cavalry armies at the beginning. Picking up infantry to garrison newly conquered settlements.

If you want to play an interesting game give the Byzantines and/or Egyptians everything except one Easternmost castle. Then start from there.

Sadly the Rumelian Turks, Armenians, Georgians are not factions or it would be even more interesting.

The later armies can be more balanced, but if your missile cavalry tactics were successful you will still have gold chevron Turcomans to use in your later armies as well.

[Boyar Son]

I am not play 1.20... I could never have gotten the patches to work. Not as easy as RTW.

Seljuks are represented in MTW2 as the city of Ceasaria right?, thats the reason for not having the Turks united in the begining. The other side was the Ottoman?

When should the Turks be joined in their territory to represent unification. Also the map in google say they began their empire in the west and espanded into europe and asia minor before going into the east.

[Shahed]

Well yes, I guess all those rebels could be other factios only they don't behave like factions.
I'm not sure I understand the second question. Which map is that ? Can I have a link ?

Here's a very simple Early Turk army:

• 1 Bodyguard
• 3 Turcomans
• 6 Turkish Horse Archers

or

• 1 Bodyguard
• 3 Sipahi
• 6 Turcomans

If you're going to play all cavalry this might be of limited use, though you have only 5 cav types to choose from as Turks. (sorry for image quality):

[Boyar Son]

Finally!

And the map is normal MTW2. The Turks start with Ceasaria (one tribe) and Yerevan (another Turk tribe). Like that isnt it? these two regions are not connected to represent the seljuks and another Turk tribe.

Turks used no lancers? how do high and late period looks? feel free to, um "proportion" units like 100 ottoman infantry= 1 unit of ottoman infantry.

Also thanks for the help, i hope i dont sound like im issuing demands

[Shahed]

Not at all. I understand what you meant now. Well I guess that's a way to do it. You can have Lancers, only in the beginning it's easier to use missile cavalry. It takes a while to get to Sipahi Lancers (your first lancer).

Could try this when you have lancers:

• 1 Bodyguard
• 3 Sipahi Lancers
• 3 Turcomans
• 3 Sipahi

Here's an image I have uploaded since a while now, 2 examples of later armies here, 1 is all cavalry, 2nd is heavy infantry:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Btw if you check the sig thread I've done your request.

[Boyar Son]

Janissary troops are divided into archers and gunpowder. I'm guessing that gunpowder should be used later instead of both appearing.

Jannisery's are a small elite corp so there should be 1 or 2 units of them, unless im mistaken. Later armies used almost no cav?

[Shahed]

You want to play historically correct ?

[Boyar Son]

Yes I do please.

and...this is a real n00b question but how do I get that pic in my sig, I tried practicing to do this and i still dont know

[Shahed]

In that case you'll limit a lot of your Janissaries, Quapakulu, and all elites in high and late. In early game you'll limit yourself to a minimun number of Sipahi (which will be your elite), and the rest will be Turkish Horse Archers and Turcomans.
The early armies I posted earlier will be fine.

[Boyar Son]

Thank for the help Sinan!

I'll be away in Brazil for the summer, so u can let this thread die. but ill still want to play the awesome yeni ceri as the turks!

[human_male]

I just had a crack at playing the Turks. They were always my favorite faction to play from Medieval 1. It took me about seventy turns to really get on my feet and start thinking about expansion. Things were going well until the Mongols show up and ruined the whole thing.

The problem with the Mongols, and the Byzantines for that matter, is all the horse archers they use. I find it impossible to fight horse archers because they won't engage infantry, they just run away. So you chase them all over the field and they just keep running away and peppering you with arrows. The only thing you can do is chase them away with heavy cav. So you need one lot of heavy cav to cancel out each horse archer they have. And here's the kicker... the Turks don't seem to have heavy cav (except for general's bodyguard). I'm not 100% sure about that, but all I seemed to be able to make was about four varietys of horse archers!

So then I figured I'd just let the computer handle the battle, and I got thrashed. I lost about 600 spearmen to about 90 of theirs. So that's obviously not going to work.

I quit the campaign because of that. I gave up too easily but I just couldn't see how I could crack them with no heavy cav. I'd like whoever came up with the idea of the Mongol Invasion to tell me what to do. How the heck are you supposed to have enough forces in place to stop them? You'd need about five full armies just sitting there ready for them, and given that any army that's left outside a settlement without a general just get's bribed, I don't see how that's possible, AND fight the Byzantines or the Egyptians or both.

[Shahed]

Hi HM, what game version are you using ?

[human_male]

Hi HM, what game version are you using ?

Hi. 1.02

[mrpants]

I am playing Venice and I use Light Cavalry to defeat the horse archers. They chase them till then can't run anymore. Then will win the melee. Take some losses but just make sure you have reserves waiting.

[Furious Mental]

So the late game light cavalry like stradiots and hussars are actually good for something?

[Kobal2fr]

I never understood the purpose of Stradiots. They come super late, they're weaker than, say, Hobilars, don't have a spear so their charges must suck, and they're not armored nor have shields so HAs must pincushion them easily.

Oh, and sure, they have maces. Like they're ever going to survive against knights.
Am I missing something ?