Early English Units and Tactics

[GC1CEO]

Being a not-so-novice player of both MTW and RTW, I have picked up MTW2 recently and the English just happen to be who I always played in the original MTW.

I have finally gotten used to some of the differences in the game but have been wondering a couple of times.

1.)What kind of units should I use as a garrison and the what's about the default number I should use? In MTW if I recall I 2-3 and I think for some reason used the milita (or whatever that unit was) that was right above Peasants. However in RTW I used Peasants (or whatever the number of the unit was) and had a firm 3 (sometimes more if I had to deal with more unrest).

2.)There is a big gap apparently in sword-units available to the English at the beginning, should I fill it with town milita for the sole reason of them not being spear-units? (or should I just be using spear/leavied spearman until I can get up to dismounted feudal knights?). I ask that because I'm not sure how MTW2 works with the ole "RPS" system from MTW where sword beat spear, spear beat cav and cav beat sword.

3.)With respect to what family members I utilize as Generals vs Governors, the rule in RTW was to use your older, more experienced members as Generals and to use your younger members as Governors. Does this strategy still hold?

[Rhyfelwyr]

1) For a city, as many as you can for free, ranging from one to six. To see how many you are allowed, click on your wall building. As the English, use Spear Militia as their schiltrom is great for guarding gates, and they have the schiltrom abilities. Once you have a minor city, use your 4th free upkeep slot for Archer Militia.

2) Town Militia have a +4 bonus vs cav, whereas Spear Militia have +8. That anti-cav value is reversed against infantry, so if you want to fight in an RPS style use a mixture of the two militias. Generally, M2TW is not RPS style, cavalry with beat spearmen although they will take some extra casualties. Unless the spearmen are in schiltrom mode, then they win comfortably, althouhg they are less mobile this way and vulnerable to missiles, since many get hit in the back. Get Dis Knights as soon as you can.


3) Its not that simple really. Use Generals with good command in the field. Dread and Chivalry both give morale bonuses on the field and improve happiness in settlements, so are good for any character. However, if you have high chivalry characters you should use them as governors in castles, as the massively increase growth and allow you to get better units much earlier in the campaign. Piety is useful for governors, it act as Acumen, slightly increasing income in their governed settlement. Also look at the characters traits for any hidden effects on morale, or trade/tax income etc.

[Cheetah]

1, Use your highest level of melee militia as garrison, and keep as much as you can with free upkeep.

2, Forget about town militia in open battles. Use spear militia until you can get DFK; or even better hire all the mercenry spearmen you can get your hands on. They are much better than your average spearmen and will be your best troops till you get DFK.

3, Use high chivalry generals as govenors, they increase city/castle growth and that is what you want in the early stages. To get high chiv set taxes to low and build all churches you can.

Also, not all spearmen are defeated by cavs and it very much depends on the charge. If the cav unit cannot get a charge then even your spearmilitia will beat them handily. If it can even the better spears like merc spearmen or italian spear militia will suffer heavy casualties, but at least the better spears will win at the end.

[GC1CEO]

What kind of armies do you try and field with the first couple of battles?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In the beginning I train what I can and which is mainly spear militia from London, levy spearmen from Caen and mailed knights. As soon as I have upgraded my castles, early armies consists of mailed knights, levy spears and basic longbows. This combo can win quite a lot of battles and will be slowly replaced by better units once I can train them.

[Barbarian]

Spearmen/Longbowmen combination can deal easily with almost any army, even with Mongols. But you need at least 2 units of cavalry to guard flanks and do special tasks, like, neutralizing enemy's siege weapons/artillery.

[ReiseReise]

In early game cities where I am expecting an attack, I usually have a general, 3 spear militia and 2 town militia, maybe a couple archers but they are definitely not necessary and not worth the expense to build just for garrison duty. I assume the enemy will have half stack of militia with a general and maybe a few cav units, and will build 1 ram, 1 tower, and 1 ladder. The 2 townies get put on top of the walls, wherever the ladder and tower are deployed. The spears form a 'U' shape around the gate and their main job is to kill the general when he charges through. My own general sits behind the spears and moves in if one of them starts to take heavy losses. I just fought a battle like this as the Portugese against the Moors, I had 2 spears, 3 towns and no general, the enemy had something like 2 light cav, 4 spear militia and 3 desert archers. My odds were 3:1 against (and indeed they would have massacred me on the open field, but this was a siege Outcome = Heroic victory, Troops before/after: Me 371/323 vs Them 566/143. The funny thing is that the survivors came back the next turn and tried it again with only 140 men!

[Old Geezer]

I always have more than the usual number of archers in the early going as England because getting the Woodsman Guild is a priority for the really good stuff. Use them as cannon fodder.