Battle accounts and discussion

[Belisario]

I think Turcoman Horse are about my favourites, as they have a bit of punch to them in melee (though benefit from some buffing and a province valour bonus), but are faster than SHCs, very good all-rounders IMHO. For the HRE in early the mounted crossbows are invaluable.

Turcoman Horse are also among my favourite units. They obtain a +2 valour bonus when are trained in Tripoli with a Master Horse Breeder, and have an incredible stamina if you don't give them armour upgrades. When I play with a faction that can train HA I usually deploy a large line of them (six or five units with three ranks deep) in the front of my army both in attack and defense. In defense, especially in a hill, they can rout unarmoured units before these reach my files. If the enemy approach make the HA's position vulnerable I move them fast to the rear of my infantry line. Then they can shoot from a safe position or flank the enemy. In attack I use HA in a similar manner, but against an army with a lot of crossbowmen or arbalesters this can be risky. Only if the enemy don't protect their crossbows/arbalest I usually try to catch them with my own HA. In a Byzantine campaign I used armies which consisted of 6 ByzCav, 5 ArmSp, 4 TrebArch, 1 Kata(BG) with good results (and good fun!).

I have a question about deep ranks, do you use frogbeastegg's advices in this matter (Sp in 4, Sw 2, Arch 2 ...)?

[Martok]

I have a question about deep ranks, do you use frogbeastegg's advices in this matter (Sp in 4, Sw 2, Arch 2 ...)?

With spearmen and pikemen, I do usually place them in 4-5 ranks, yes.

As for sword/polearm infantry, it largely depends on the situation. I tend to place them more in 3 ranks more often than not, but it still varies.

I usually station archers/crossbow units in 3 ranks. FBE is right in that 2 ranks is ideal, but I often find I lack the room, particularly if I have a large number of missile units.

[Innocentius]

Ok, I've just fought my two first battles against the Horde in the same campaign. Luckily, they only appeared in Khazar, so I fought them in Georgia where the terrain was to my advantage.

The first time they invaded with some 5,000 men against my 3,500 (for some reason they didn't attack me until 1233, so I had a few years to send troops from all of my empire).

It might be a good idea to just point out that I've modded the Byz unit roster to their advantage (I prefer seeing a powerful Byzantine Empire than a powerful Fatamid Caliphate). The Byzantines can now recruit Order Foot, which have the same stats and building requirements as Italian Infantry (I originally intended to make a whole new unit like in the Pocket Mod, but found it too complicated and looked up a unit that wasn't already used by some faction), since it would be realistic for them to have superior spearmen to European factions. I've also turned the Latin Auxillaries into good polearm units - like Halberdiers but with somewhat better stats and less armour, still only recruitable in 4 provinces and cost more than Halberdiers though. This usually means the Byzantines fare a lot better when the AI plays them, and makes my own Byz campaigns a walk in the park (I hardly ever play the Byz and only keep them as a worthy opponent though).

Anyway, my Jedi Emperor was on a hill with the traditional "Arbalesters behind spearwall" tactic and with Latin Auxillaries on the flanks. The battle was looong (and rather dull) and ended with 1300 dead Mongols and 500 dead Byzantines. I also managed to pick off their general, a 4-star one which, dissapointingly enough, was the best general the Mongols had. The next year they returned with 6,500 men under a 2-star general. This time I had an amazing terrain advantage in that I, err... it's a lot easier (and funnier) to just draw it up:

The brown is height curves, I guess you can tell where the impassable cliff upon which my army stood was. Green is Arbalesters, Blue is "OrderFoot" (let's call them Hoplitai, like in MedMod, they have the same stats as them) and LA's, Black is the initial position of my cavalry, Red is the later position of my cavalry as more arrived with the reinforcements.
For this battle, I had way too few Arbs, so I ended up with three Katatanks on my right flank, and 4-5 (depending on when) Pronoiai to my left. It was horrible. Initially I had great success in mowing down the general, several units of MHC and MW's, but then reinforcements with endless amounts of MHA's arrived. I used my cavalry to slay the odd MHC and MW that still showed up, but mostly it was sitting there, waiting for time to pass. When I finally got some BC's from my reinforcements, I first used up their arrows and then tried to chase the MHA's off with little success.

In the end the Mongols lost 3,100 men (I killed all the prisoners) and I lost 600. A pretty good casualty rate one would think, if one didn't consider what a huge advantage I had in terrain. 95% of my casualties in both battles were my Hoplitai who could only stand there while being peppered, and I doubt I would have done better if I had had Halberdiers. I recall my Polish campaign in the Pics & History-thread, where I experienced similar situations. They just keep calling in wave after wave of untouchable units. I think there were 10 units in each wave, and I couldn't even count the waves. Next time I'm bringing at least 4x8 units of Arbalesters, to counter the 16x10 enemy MHA's.

[Aldgilles]

You've beaten an army of 6500 mongols with only minor losses, I think that is pretty damn good! Considering the Mongols don't easily panic and are not much influenced by routing troops it's almost as good as you could expect, if you're not in a bridge battle. More missile-types would be helpful, though

[Jxrc]

The thread is a splendid idea.

My only reservation is that, if it stays in its current format, it will become quite difficult to find the information that you are looking for due to lack of coherence cause everyone will submit its own idea on every topic which will lead to duplicata and perhaps errors.

What I find really great with frogbeastegg's guides is that they are an excellent synthese of his original views and the feeback he got from other players (a bit like a wikepedia entry). It was apparently modified from time to time but never lost its coherence and that's really what makes those guides stand out (compared to the factions guides and the subterfuge guide).

My point is thus that perhaps we would be better off if someone could volunteer to some kind of synthesis bout each points discussed. The reward for the person willing to carry out that time consuming task would be, in addition to the gratitude of everyone, the privilege to decide what new comment "deserve" to lead to a modication of his chapter-synthesis.

In practice it could work a bit like the PBM worked with a "Synthesis thread" to whom only a few would have access and a second thread where each and everyone could suggest to the author any modification/update/precision he thinks necessary ...

Just my two cents...

And yes I realise that there is no guarantee that anyone will be able to spare the time required but what the heck it was worth a try ...

[seireikhaan]

Well, I just got my arse handed to me by the Byzantines while playing the Armenians in XL 3.0.

Basically, I set myself up relatively close to a corner, and mostly on a hilltop to try and gain any advantage possible, as the Byzzies had me outgunned by Kats and some valored up Byz infantry, some Dejma, and a varangian guard, while my army consisted mostly of Armenian infantry, catapults, two mounted x-bows, and two Naxarars, my King and one of the princes.



Basically, the Byz took the vanguard of their army, which consisted of several Byz infantry, two units of Kats, and a unit of armored spears, and hauled them ALL the way around my formation, and attempted to take my army from the rear, while a horde of Dejma and the varangian guard continued marching on me from the front.

My catapults(the X's) bombarded the vanguard constantly, but it just wasn't enough to deter them. My two mounted X-bows also let off some bolts on the vanguard before switching fire to the rear guard and tearing up the Varangians. However, I was so surprised that the A.I. would actually attempt to haul all the way around the rear of my army that I didn't ultimately act on it until it was too late. The hill turned out to be my downfall, as my units parked on it couldn't get back in time until my king and prince had been routed by Kats and byz infantry, whereupon the Byz now had the hill advantage, crushed my catapults, and soon, the rest of my army.

[Innocentius]

Jxrc: A good idea as well, although like you said it might be a bit hard to go through with. We already have a few very good guides to units and I am, like I said, planning on writing somewhat of a complementary essay/a second opinion to what MeglaGnome has already provided us with. If someone who is an expert at dealing with and using horse archers and feel like writing a page or two about it, please step forward!

kamikhaan: Ouch. Ouch, particularly considering how important every single battle is to the Armenians, at least early on. I don't think I've ever seen such a complete outflanking and by so many units before, you are playing on Expert I guess? And how did they manage to get behind you if you were in a corner?

Personally I don't like using siege equipment in battles unless it's a bridge battle. The morale penalty for the enemy is lessened by the fact that you bring fewer troops to the field, which means that you risk a morale penalty on your own men if you bring too many siege engines and the crews get routed really easily, possibly creating mass routs as the AI counts routing units, not routing men. On top of that, I find them to be really useless at killing enemies. Even in bridge battles I've never seen a Culverin Crew kill more than 70-80 men, and that was a one-time occasion, whereas your average unit of Arbalesters will kill somewhere around 100 men in a standard bridge battle.

[BAD]

Personally I don't like using siege equipment in battles unless it's a bridge battle. The morale penalty for the enemy is lessened by the fact that you bring fewer troops to the field, which means that you risk a morale penalty on your own men if you bring too many siege engines and the crews get routed really easily, possibly creating mass routs as the AI counts routing units, not routing men. On top of that, I find them to be really useless at killing enemies. Even in bridge battles I've never seen a Culverin Crew kill more than 70-80 men, and that was a one-time occasion, whereas your average unit of Arbalesters will kill somewhere around 100 men in a standard bridge battle.

I just had a Demi-Culverin kill the Turkish Sultan, at extreme long range and I was attacking. Well worth it. It's valour went up too. I think Serpentines are the best at killing guys though at long range. not sure though. I know organ guns rip it up on defending bridge battles and defending castles.

[seireikhaan]

kamikhaan: Ouch. Ouch, particularly considering how important every single battle is to the Armenians, at least early on. I don't think I've ever seen such a complete outflanking and by so many units before, you are playing on Expert I guess? And how did they manage to get behind you if you were in a corner?

Personally I don't like using siege equipment in battles unless it's a bridge battle. The morale penalty for the enemy is lessened by the fact that you bring fewer troops to the field, which means that you risk a morale penalty on your own men if you bring too many siege engines and the crews get routed really easily, possibly creating mass routs as the AI counts routing units, not routing men. On top of that, I find them to be really useless at killing enemies. Even in bridge battles I've never seen a Culverin Crew kill more than 70-80 men, and that was a one-time occasion, whereas your average unit of Arbalesters will kill somewhere around 100 men in a standard bridge battle.

Well, I was sorta in a corner. I was very, very close, but there was a gap of about what would translate to in real life of about 50 yards or so that the AI basically wedged it Katsa against my troops from that 50 yards or so, and then the whole thing went kablooy on me. As for the catapults, I was kinda investigating as to the effectiveness of using them in defensive field battles, to see what kind of damage massed catapult shots would do. As you can see, it didn't quite work as I had hoped. The real problem became that a bunch of my troops, infantry, were in the front or sides, on hillside, which ironically prevented me from recovering enough to turn my army to face them before they steamrolled my somewhat meager rearguard and collapsed the whole thing.

Rather unfortunately, that pretty severely crippled my campaign, as my king got trapped in the fort, and his perverted, moron brother took the throne, and my whole situation just disheartened my to the point of stopping the campaign.

[ArtistofWarfare]

The thread is a splendid idea.

My only reservation is that, if it stays in its current format, it will become quite difficult to find the information that you are looking for due to lack of coherence cause everyone will submit its own idea on every topic which will lead to duplicata and perhaps errors.

What I find really great with frogbeastegg's guides is that they are an excellent synthese of his original views and the feeback he got from other players (a bit like a wikepedia entry). It was apparently modified from time to time but never lost its coherence and that's really what makes those guides stand out (compared to the factions guides and the subterfuge guide).

My point is thus that perhaps we would be better off if someone could volunteer to some kind of synthesis bout each points discussed. The reward for the person willing to carry out that time consuming task would be, in addition to the gratitude of everyone, the privilege to decide what new comment "deserve" to lead to a modication of his chapter-synthesis.

In practice it could work a bit like the PBM worked with a "Synthesis thread" to whom only a few would have access and a second thread where each and everyone could suggest to the author any modification/update/precision he thinks necessary ...

Just my two cents...

And yes I realise that there is no guarantee that anyone will be able to spare the time required but what the heck it was worth a try ...

I'd have to slam my vote down on just reviving a new sub-forum under this MTW forum's directory.

In it, we could break all strategic discussion down by topic and keep things nice and organized.

My only difference is that I'd be voting for open access...at least viewable. Beyond that point, the more contributions...I'd say the better.

[Lokiss]

I have a question about deep ranks, do you use frogbeastegg's advices in this matter (Sp in 4, Sw 2, Arch 2 ...)?

I just read that guide and have gotten a chance to put it into play a few times, I find the 4-spear to be solid, but I prefer 3 for the other two. My archers have a habit of getting flanked but not retreating in 2 lines, and 2 lines makes my sword units unwieldy on everything but the flattest of maps.