Need strategy help.

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Arnald

Regular
Hello everyone!
I am having a hard time with this last beta, i keep losing  25-50% of my army everytime, it dosent matter if i play strategically or just stupidly order everyone to charge because it seems i get pretty much the same results, here is my army composition:
Infantry - around 25-30 norwegian sergeants, 10-15 landbor for shock infantry, various other infantry
Arhers - Welsh veteran longbowmen around 35-40 of them
Cavalry - Mostly composed of my companions mixed with a few other horsemen, in total i think my cav is around 10-15 men
What i usually do is make the sergeants form the 1st line since they have shields than place the shock infantry behind them so they are protected from enemy fire and can easily deal with any eventual breach in the 1st line, my cav stays on whatever flank the enemy is trying to attack, and archers behind the shock infantry, in a previous beta with this army i could win battles even while outnumbered 3 to 1 (usually by kings) and end up with only a couple wounded, i really cant tell what changed, AI uses the same strategies, archers even if slightly nerfed (their archery prof was at around 200 if i am not wrong now it's 175) should still do tons of dmg.
Now fighting for Norway i came across these  danish armies composed of over 80% of cavalry, they are stuck running in place, probably since the beggining of the game so now a typical 120 men army has like 82 horsemen 10 knights and a few infantry, how can i beat such an army ? my cav even with help by infantry stil loses badly in melee even while supported by a considerable amount of "best" archers in the game, i tried placing my army on a hill it didnt work, i tried using a river to slow them down and thus giving my inf a huge advantage but still nothing, how can i beat these armies ? i welcome any help and suggestion, except that of spaming knights/horsemen myself.

Thank you!

 
IMO having a mixed army archers/infantry/cavalry is a tricky thing. I usually go for the combo of two: inf/arch with much more simple strategy. When you get all top tier units, which is something you should always go for rather than numbers, and a companion with high surgery skill (7+ preferably), you will loose less soldiers. Also retreat to the mountains and forrests and fight there. Trust me I have single-handedly imprisoned all of Sicilian lords with infantry/archery. To make things even more simple bulgarian/hungarian troop tree have some horse archers that have shields and are good at melee and with the option to dismount them and have them hold fire any-time you want, those are pretty much best units. Solution no.1 for you would be to play archers/horsemen. If the enemy doesnt charge straigh away, archers can kill lots of men and especially horses and and make lots of enemies rout. The rest will be taken care of easily by a mid-high cavalry.

my cav even with help by infantry stil loses badly in melee even while supported by a considerable amount of "best" archers in the game, i tried placing my army on a hill it didnt work, i tried using a river to slow them down and thus giving my inf a huge advantage but still nothing, how can i beat these armies ? i welcome any help and suggestion, except that of spaming knights/horsemen myself.

The problem with spamming cavalry is that having noble cavalry is ubber-expensive, even if you have more then 800k like me. Other cavalry won't get you the same benefits. In real life, i'd choose lighter cavalry everytime (i'm probably biased cuz that's the only famous type of unit my people had  :mad:) but in warband it's very difficult to feign retreats and do other tricks so solution no.2 get Knight Errants, almost just as good as nobles, but cheaper.

Edit: BTW I use Albanian Marksmen with proficiency of 155 and Luftetar (meele with possible javelins) with proficiency of 170. Not top notch guys by any means, mail armor as best equipment that a quarter of them possibly gets, and I play at highest difficulty setting. Just gotta figure out what works for you.
 
If the enemy doesnt charge straigh away, archers can kill lots of men and especially horses and and make lots of enemies rout. The rest will be taken care of easily by a mid-high cavalry.

and that's exactly what used to happen back when i was playing beta 5, archers could inflict tremendous damage when in big numbers and combined with cavalry harassment would easily cause a mass rout, now however when enemy reaches my army they are literally intact, well now speaking about beta 5 i think i still have that savegame  :grin:

anyway thx a lot for tips man
 
Black_Scythe said:
IMO having a mixed army archers/infantry/cavalry is a tricky thing. I usually go for the combo of two: inf/arch with much more simple strategy. When you get all top tier units, which is something you should always go for rather than numbers, and a companion with high surgery skill (7+ preferably), you will loose less soldiers. Also retreat to the mountains and forrests and fight there. Trust me I have single-handedly imprisoned all of Sicilian lords with infantry/archery. To make things even more simple bulgarian/hungarian troop tree have some horse archers that have shields and are good at melee and with the option to dismount them and have them hold fire any-time you want, those are pretty much best units. Solution no.1 for you would be to play archers/horsemen. If the enemy doesnt charge straigh away, archers can kill lots of men and especially horses and and make lots of enemies rout. The rest will be taken care of easily by a mid-high cavalry.

my cav even with help by infantry stil loses badly in melee even while supported by a considerable amount of "best" archers in the game, i tried placing my army on a hill it didnt work, i tried using a river to slow them down and thus giving my inf a huge advantage but still nothing, how can i beat these armies ? i welcome any help and suggestion, except that of spaming knights/horsemen myself.

The problem with spamming cavalry is that having noble cavalry is ubber-expensive, even if you have more then 800k like me. Other cavalry won't get you the same benefits. In real life, i'd choose lighter cavalry everytime (i'm probably biased cuz that's the only famous type of unit my people had  :mad:) but in warband it's very difficult to feign retreats and do other tricks so solution no.2 get Knight Errants, almost just as good as nobles, but cheaper.

Edit: BTW I use Albanian Marksmen with proficiency of 155 and Luftetar (meele with possible javelins) with proficiency of 170. Not top notch guys by any means, mail armor as best equipment that a quarter of them possibly gets, and I play at highest difficulty setting. Just gotta figure out what works for you.

tried again inf/arch as you said but it just dosent work, all lords i meet have like atleast 60 tenants +10 knights and some other horsemen, i use top tier archers and their damage is... actually there isnt any damage, they keep shoting and shooting yet nobody goes down, not even 1!!! damn enemy horse dies, so when they engage my inf they are still at full strength and easily overwhelm me
tried an army made of cav, i had mostly squires, a few bachelors and pages, did a battle against a scottish lord with 98 men, the result is 27 dead and 30+ wounded, i was left speechless,

at this point thought i must really suck at this game now, so i download beta 5 grabed a few infantry and some welsh archers, had 59 men in total, did a battle against an english lord with more than 90 men, i got like 1-2 casualties and 2-4 wounded, i had no companions, i was lvl 1 so no surgery, tactics or anything, there is INDEED a damn huge diference
so either shields strength is on steroids or archers are complete crap (most likely this one), curently i have very many enterprises earning around 27k denars a week (wages included) +6 leadership so i think i can afford an army full of knights but... i particularily loved this mod because infantry with archers were effective, now with all those lords spaming cav pretty much everything is bosolete  :cry:, i feel very disapointed and frustrated, and it seems all i can do is just play a previous version,  :mad:
 
so when they engage my inf they are still at full strength and easily overwhelm me
That's how it was AFAIK up until the 14th century, the mod is historically accurate. Cavalry still had way too much importance in warfare, the heavier the better. I play with one faction that has no cavalry, and that worked for me.

tried an army made of cav, i had mostly squires, a few bachelors and pages, did a battle against a scottish lord with 98 men, the result is 27 dead and 30+ wounded, i was left speechless,

at this point thought i must really suck at this game now, so i download beta 5 grabed a few infantry and some welsh archers, had 59 men in total, did a battle against an english lord with more than 90 men, i got like 1-2 casualties and 2-4 wounded, i had no companions, i was lvl 1 so no surgery, tactics or anything, there is INDEED a damn huge diference

Well, I guess game had some changes, maybe Korinov can tell us. But the i like difficult games in warband. And at least yuo won this battle, casualities seem fair if the enemy lord has higher quality and quantity of troops, no?

so either shields strength is on steroids or archers are complete crap (most likely this one)
Well wierd cuz welsh and english lonbowman should be creme de la creme in this period. Or maybe i'm just rambling cuz i'm way too high and i have no idea how i managed to type all this ****. Anyways if you can afford and entire armsy of Knights/Bannerets go for it, but dont go fighting lords right away, but invest some points in training for you and your companions cuz it's cumulative (is that the word?) and train your army without being a lord, fighting bandits, starting with looters and fighting brigands when youre almost there. Then if that doesnt work, something is wrong with your game, might be aliens  :mrgreen:
 
Black_Scythe said:
so when they engage my inf they are still at full strength and easily overwhelm me
That's how it was AFAIK up until the 14th century, the mod is historically accurate. Cavalry still had way too much importance in warfare, the heavier the better. I play with one faction that has no cavalry, and that worked for me.

tried an army made of cav, i had mostly squires, a few bachelors and pages, did a battle against a scottish lord with 98 men, the result is 27 dead and 30+ wounded, i was left speechless,

at this point thought i must really suck at this game now, so i download beta 5 grabed a few infantry and some welsh archers, had 59 men in total, did a battle against an english lord with more than 90 men, i got like 1-2 casualties and 2-4 wounded, i had no companions, i was lvl 1 so no surgery, tactics or anything, there is INDEED a damn huge diference

Well, I guess game had some changes, maybe Korinov can tell us. But the i like difficult games in warband. And at least yuo won this battle, casualities seem fair if the enemy lord has higher quality and quantity of troops, no?

so either shields strength is on steroids or archers are complete crap (most likely this one)
Well wierd cuz welsh and english lonbowman should be creme de la creme in this period. Or maybe i'm just rambling cuz i'm way too high and i have no idea how i managed to type all this ****. Anyways if you can afford and entire armsy of Knights/Bannerets go for it, but dont go fighting lords right away, but invest some points in training for you and your companions cuz it's cumulative (is that the word?) and train your army without being a lord, fighting bandits, starting with looters and fighting brigands when youre almost there. Then if that doesnt work, something is wrong with your game, might be aliens  :mrgreen:

did a battle in beta 7, again with 59 men of wich 21 were WLongbows rest was various mixed infantry, against an english lord with an army of 120 men, result: 3 dead 3 wounded , at lvl 1 :razz:

there's only 1 reasonable answer to the question "WHAT IS GOING ON???!!"
120i8mw.jpg

 
All warfare is based on deception.
  So draw the attention of the enemy infantry i.e. make them to turn away from your archers (provoke them to attack you), the same is true for cavalry.
 
Arsaces said:
All warfare is based on deception.
  So draw the attention of the enemy infantry i.e. make them to turn away from your archers (provoke them to attack you), the same is true for cavalry.

it's not possible to draw the attention of 80 horsemen and than keep them on me all of them, and the sad things is that they dont even need all of them to beat my army, atleast 30 of them are enouth to completly overwhelm my army
it just feels like a battle between stats/attributes, the army with higher stats/attributes wins no matter what
 
Firstly, one question: How do you use the companions?

Then, when enemy cavalry pursuits, you should be experienced enough to kill their horses.
Try to fight on flat terrain to use your archers in full effect and at great distance.
There are many way, for example put your infantry in the halfway, and your archers about 20 - 30m backward and when the part of their cavalry will be engaged with your infantry and the rest will be chasing you (i.e. you character), your archers will do the rest.
Anyway you must break their spine before they have the chance to do the same to your army, believe me it is really possible, I myself never use cavalry only archers and good infantry.
 
Important changes form 5 to 7 if I remember correctly were:

1: Horses got more speed and dramatically increased charge damage; this makes for devastating heavy cavalry that will inflict lots of casualties if allowed to charge en mass.
2: Spears were improved bcuz they were crap and no one used them, not even the AI (but this doesn't seem to be smth that affects you judging by your story)

If your archers aren't doing damage my guess is you're playing against a faction with lots of units that have shields and good shield skill, that's generally what causes archers to be ineffective. If the enemy has lots of two handed weapon units or many ranged units that tend to not use their shields much then your archers will do damage.

I suspect that what's getting you is the increased speed and damage of horses, they get to your lines quicker when charging so your archers don't get a chance to take down their horses.


I myself prefer to use heavy cavalry as my primary force. If you can get most or all companions in the mod and equip them with heavy armor, good weapons and horses you'll get a pretty sizable force that can only get wounded, not killed, so even if you take some heavy losses it won't be such a crippling setback. Just remember to keep your surgery and medical companion or companions away from the fighting, this will ensure you take even fewer losses and are ready to fight again sooner.
 
Arsaces said:
Firstly, one question: How do you use the companions?

Then, when enemy cavalry pursuits, you should be experienced enough to kill their horses.
Try to fight on flat terrain to use your archers in full effect and at great distance.
There are many way, for example put your infantry in the halfway, and your archers about 20 - 30m backward and when the part of their cavalry will be engaged with your infantry and the rest will be chasing you (i.e. you character), your archers will do the rest.
Anyway you must break their spine before they have the chance to do the same to your army, believe me it is really possible, I myself never use cavalry only archers and good infantry.

my companions make the cavalry force together with some other few (donzel, squires), they are fairly equiped, with gear from raiders mostly,
it's not possible to use archers well on flat terrain since the infantry in front will block their sight, i always try to place them atleast a bit above infantry so they can see the enemy,
in one of the battles whrere the enemy didnt not charge right away they kept trying to flank me til they got almost all their army stuck on map border, at that point i started skirmishing behind their inf, they turned their shields to me and archers STILL were unable to cause any good damage, not to mention that their cav once again were almost intact when reached my inf althrough they've been staying on place for big amount of time, my archers should have killed atleast half of them or tleast unhorse most,
i'd say my archers are usually at a balanced disance from inf, around 20m(more or less), if i placed them further their already crap accuracy would be even worse,
well.. i dont know now, if you read my previous posts, i could break even the spines of kings with inf/archers
 
Alex_S said:
Important changes form 5 to 7 if I remember correctly were:

1: Horses got more speed and dramatically increased charge damage; this makes for devastating heavy cavalry that will inflict lots of casualties if allowed to charge en mass.
2: Spears were improved bcuz they were crap and no one used them, not even the AI (but this doesn't seem to be smth that affects you judging by your story)

If your archers aren't doing damage my guess is you're playing against a faction with lots of units that have shields and good shield skill, that's generally what causes archers to be ineffective. If the enemy has lots of two handed weapon units or many ranged units that tend to not use their shields much then your archers will do damage.

I suspect that what's getting you is the increased speed and damage of horses, they get to your lines quicker when charging so your archers don't get a chance to take down their horses.


I myself prefer to use heavy cavalry as my primary force. If you can get most or all companions in the mod and equip them with heavy armor, good weapons and horses you'll get a pretty sizable force that can only get wounded, not killed, so even if you take some heavy losses it won't be such a crippling setback. Just remember to keep your surgery and medical companion or companions away from the fighting, this will ensure you take even fewer losses and are ready to fight again sooner.

yeah i looked more at lords armies and i see they have only top units (wtf?) their infantry is ALL tennants, their cav usually 8-10+ knights and some 3-4 insignificant skirmishers or inf, bust stil if you look at my reply above, archers cant take down even stationary cavalry
i tried heavy cav as main force, had around 50 knights rest were hrosemen, squires..etc, i charged with knight in front and lighter can behind, the outcome was atleast 10 knight killed and many wounded, much more dead among light cav(surgery is at 4-5 i think), no matter what i do i just keep losing lots of soldiers, it's like autoresolving lol (and this game has the WORST autoresolve ever), althrough i win almost always it's pain getting the army back in shape, it's time consuming to the point of killing all the fun
 
(Note: I've not noticed a significant change in gameplay with the last update, certainly I haven't noticed an issue with archers being less effective. Am I being dense?)

OP your problem (by the look of it) might be too few spears.
High end infantry (such as sgts) tend to have significantly fewer spears than low end, so try to keep ½ your infantry in the low end for dealing with the cavalry. Combine with mirco-managing your formations you should get on better.

OBVIOUS POINTS WHICH ARE ALWAYS  WORTH RE-ITERATION:
At low level, with few (or no) companions you need to be very careful about when to engage. I wouldn't recommend going into battle alone until you have a good few levels and companions, unless you greatly outnumber the enemy.
I also recommend not joining a faction strait out and going hunting for those valuable customisable fellows, well equipped companions are worth their weight in gold.
...And don't feel bad about importing a character. The whole levelling mechanic is hardly realistic anyway :grin:

Still having trouble?
Here's a step by step strategy for a combined arms force (I've used it with single nation forces from  England, Wales, France and Denmark with no difficulty, and it holds up in the current version of Europe 1200 fine).

Force Composition:
I try to model my tactics on the conventional tactics of the period, i.e. strong use of combined arms, with shock cavalry.

Divide the force into 6 sections

1: Shieldwall (spear & shield armed infantry)
2: Heavy Infantry (armour and a few two handers)
3: Archers (bows and crossbows)
4: Cavalry
5: Cavalry
6: Bodyguard*

Each section contains at least 2 companions equipped either as a banner-man (heraldic lance) or the same as the troops they lead. Section size has room for variance but I generally find that every group being even save the Shieldwall which benefits from being roughly half again as large, if your faction has good archers a few extra of those can be well worth taking as well.

Both cavalry units contain a mix of lances, swords and one or two mounted archers.

*This optional section is made up of a small core of heavily armoured, mounted troops given the “follow me” order at the start of the battle then ignored. I like to have one bannerman, one archer, one lancer, and one two-hander. All with shields.
Battle Order:
A field battle is divided into three phases:
1. Opening: Form up to receive the initial cavalry charge.
2. Harassing: Cavalry and archers break up the enemy formation as it advances.
3. Repelling: Infantry meets infantry.

With multiple waves; stage 2 and 3 cycle.

Stage 1: Opening
Immediately place the infantry sections into three rows close together, with the Shieldwall at the front and Archers at the back. The lines should be close enough that a horseman hitting the front rank is engaged by the men of the second rank. Tell any throwing weapons in the front two ranks to hold fire, and spam the 'close ranks' order till the infantry is in a nice dense block.

Meanwhile your own cavalry will have engaged the enemy and knocked the corners off them. As soon as your infantry are formed up, pull the cavalry back and place them with one group just behind each flank.

The enemy cavalry will now normally pile into your line, impaling themselves on the spears and be wiped out in a few seconds.

Stage 2: Harassing
As soon as the first wave of enemy cavalry have been killed, phase 2 begins. Send one group of cavalry forward (charge), and move your infantry to a strong 'anchor point'.

Anchor Points- The basic theory of an 'anchor point' is that you use the terrain to strengthen your line in some way. This can be by placing the line behind a river of steep slope, so that the enemy are slowed in reaching them, or by placing a large rock, cops of trees, or similar obstruction on one flank to reduce the enemy's ability to flank.

Form you infantry up again, this time ordered Archers, Shieldwall, Heavy. You may want to spread out the troops a little to make stage 3 faster. Give orders for all to throw/loose at will.

Throughout this stage cycle your two cavalry sections, sending one to charge while the other retreats. You can even use the minimap to order them from way-point to way-point, criss-crossing the enemy.

Stage 3: Repelling
When the enemy infantry get close (roughly throwing weapon range) pull the archers back to behind the other infantry (leave a slight gap) and order all of the infantry to close up ranks again.

Pull one cavalry section behind the most exposed flank of the infantry, and send the other out FAR to the flank on the most open side (you want them to have room to reach a full charge later).

The enemy should now arrive in a thoroughly broken state rather than a big mass. Many will be felled by arrows and javelins before they get into touch. If the enemy are standing off with spears tell the heavy infantry to charge, but do not let them get too far. The infantry work best as a big unified formation. Once the two lines are solidly stuck into each-other charge your (far) flanking Cavalry unit into the hostile Archers.
The other cavalry are to bolster the line if it starts to buckle, or else to be used held back for harassing enemy routers and the next wave.

Once the enemy infantry are thinning out, and the archers dealt with, clear the last few off with the heavies and both lots of cavalry then reform for Phase 2. If your archers are running short on missiles don't bother changing the infantry formation this time.

Fundaments of the strategy:
Local superiority- The whole point of stage 1 and 2 is to break up the enemy and ensure that when they arrive at your line it is in small groups. This means that every one of them will be met with a greater number of defenders.

Shieldwall- Dense bunches of infantry are very tough in melee, especially when fronted with spears to keep horses at bay. Having the front rank of the force made up entirely of shielded spearmen the force is made very sturdy against archers and the initial charge, while the damage in a sustained fight is dealt by the second rankers.

Combined arms- By cycling your cavalry, you keep casualties low, for maximum disruption. The circling horses also encorage the enemy to turn their shields away from your archers. By then pulling your archers back to a few paces behind the shield-wall they can keep loosing at enemy flankers (and horsemen), but will step in and kill enemy horsemen or heavy infantry who punch through the front lines, this leaves the enemy surrounded and quickly dispatched.

Micro-Management- By keeping very close control of your formations you can reform and react before the enemy. You won't be doing much fighting yourself, instead thundering back and for keeping an eye on progress and throwing about commands, while your bodyguard keep you safe. You are a general first, a warrior second. Focus on skills which give your men advantages (such as Surgery or Tactics) and keep your force large (Leadership, Persuade) with personal skills being limited to those which keep you alive and mobile.

Flexability- This force is designed to do as well in seiges as in open battle. In such situations your two cavalry sections (and your body-guards) become your specialist teams for holding choke points while re-enforcments move into possition, the archers greatly help them in this role.

Note: If anyone wants a hand with a detailed siege-assault strategy for this style of force I would be happy to comply.



Hope that helped, either directly, or by aiding in reflecting upon your own tactics.
 
Your tips are sound, but giving this many commands with the MB interface, especially since there's no pre-battle orders menu yet, must be hell; I myself can only manage the most basic of commands  :oops:
 
Alex_S said:
Your tips are sound, but giving this many commands with the MB interface, especially since there's no pre-battle orders menu yet, must be hell; I myself can only manage the most basic of commands  :oops:

Muscle memory :p
 
Bohemond Chesne said:
(Note: I've not noticed a significant change in gameplay with the last update, certainly I haven't noticed an issue with archers being less effective. Am I being dense?)

OP your problem (by the look of it) might be too few spears.
High end infantry (such as sgts) tend to have significantly fewer spears than low end, so try to keep ½ your infantry in the low end for dealing with the cavalry. Combine with mirco-managing your formations you should get on better.

OBVIOUS POINTS WHICH ARE ALWAYS  WORTH RE-ITERATION:
At low level, with few (or no) companions you need to be very careful about when to engage. I wouldn't recommend going into battle alone until you have a good few levels and companions, unless you greatly outnumber the enemy.
I also recommend not joining a faction strait out and going hunting for those valuable customisable fellows, well equipped companions are worth their weight in gold.
...And don't feel bad about importing a character. The whole levelling mechanic is hardly realistic anyway :grin:

Still having trouble?
Here's a step by step strategy for a combined arms force (I've used it with single nation forces from  England, Wales, France and Denmark with no difficulty, and it holds up in the current version of Europe 1200 fine).

Force Composition:
I try to model my tactics on the conventional tactics of the period, i.e. strong use of combined arms, with shock cavalry.

Divide the force into 6 sections

1: Shieldwall (spear & shield armed infantry)
2: Heavy Infantry (armour and a few two handers)
3: Archers (bows and crossbows)
4: Cavalry
5: Cavalry
6: Bodyguard*

Each section contains at least 2 companions equipped either as a banner-man (heraldic lance) or the same as the troops they lead. Section size has room for variance but I generally find that every group being even save the Shieldwall which benefits from being roughly half again as large, if your faction has good archers a few extra of those can be well worth taking as well.

Both cavalry units contain a mix of lances, swords and one or two mounted archers.

*This optional section is made up of a small core of heavily armoured, mounted troops given the “follow me” order at the start of the battle then ignored. I like to have one bannerman, one archer, one lancer, and one two-hander. All with shields.
Battle Order:
A field battle is divided into three phases:
1. Opening: Form up to receive the initial cavalry charge.
2. Harassing: Cavalry and archers break up the enemy formation as it advances.
3. Repelling: Infantry meets infantry.

With multiple waves; stage 2 and 3 cycle.

Stage 1: Opening
Immediately place the infantry sections into three rows close together, with the Shieldwall at the front and Archers at the back. The lines should be close enough that a horseman hitting the front rank is engaged by the men of the second rank. Tell any throwing weapons in the front two ranks to hold fire, and spam the 'close ranks' order till the infantry is in a nice dense block.

Meanwhile your own cavalry will have engaged the enemy and knocked the corners off them. As soon as your infantry are formed up, pull the cavalry back and place them with one group just behind each flank.

The enemy cavalry will now normally pile into your line, impaling themselves on the spears and be wiped out in a few seconds.

Stage 2: Harassing
As soon as the first wave of enemy cavalry have been killed, phase 2 begins. Send one group of cavalry forward (charge), and move your infantry to a strong 'anchor point'.

Anchor Points- The basic theory of an 'anchor point' is that you use the terrain to strengthen your line in some way. This can be by placing the line behind a river of steep slope, so that the enemy are slowed in reaching them, or by placing a large rock, cops of trees, or similar obstruction on one flank to reduce the enemy's ability to flank.

Form you infantry up again, this time ordered Archers, Shieldwall, Heavy. You may want to spread out the troops a little to make stage 3 faster. Give orders for all to throw/loose at will.

Throughout this stage cycle your two cavalry sections, sending one to charge while the other retreats. You can even use the minimap to order them from way-point to way-point, criss-crossing the enemy.

Stage 3: Repelling
When the enemy infantry get close (roughly throwing weapon range) pull the archers back to behind the other infantry (leave a slight gap) and order all of the infantry to close up ranks again.

Pull one cavalry section behind the most exposed flank of the infantry, and send the other out FAR to the flank on the most open side (you want them to have room to reach a full charge later).

The enemy should now arrive in a thoroughly broken state rather than a big mass. Many will be felled by arrows and javelins before they get into touch. If the enemy are standing off with spears tell the heavy infantry to charge, but do not let them get too far. The infantry work best as a big unified formation. Once the two lines are solidly stuck into each-other charge your (far) flanking Cavalry unit into the hostile Archers.
The other cavalry are to bolster the line if it starts to buckle, or else to be used held back for harassing enemy routers and the next wave.

Once the enemy infantry are thinning out, and the archers dealt with, clear the last few off with the heavies and both lots of cavalry then reform for Phase 2. If your archers are running short on missiles don't bother changing the infantry formation this time.

Fundaments of the strategy:
Local superiority- The whole point of stage 1 and 2 is to break up the enemy and ensure that when they arrive at your line it is in small groups. This means that every one of them will be met with a greater number of defenders.

Shieldwall- Dense bunches of infantry are very tough in melee, especially when fronted with spears to keep horses at bay. Having the front rank of the force made up entirely of shielded spearmen the force is made very sturdy against archers and the initial charge, while the damage in a sustained fight is dealt by the second rankers.

Combined arms- By cycling your cavalry, you keep casualties low, for maximum disruption. The circling horses also encorage the enemy to turn their shields away from your archers. By then pulling your archers back to a few paces behind the shield-wall they can keep loosing at enemy flankers (and horsemen), but will step in and kill enemy horsemen or heavy infantry who punch through the front lines, this leaves the enemy surrounded and quickly dispatched.

Micro-Management- By keeping very close control of your formations you can reform and react before the enemy. You won't be doing much fighting yourself, instead thundering back and for keeping an eye on progress and throwing about commands, while your bodyguard keep you safe. You are a general first, a warrior second. Focus on skills which give your men advantages (such as Surgery or Tactics) and keep your force large (Leadership, Persuade) with personal skills being limited to those which keep you alive and mobile.

Flexability- This force is designed to do as well in seiges as in open battle. In such situations your two cavalry sections (and your body-guards) become your specialist teams for holding choke points while re-enforcments move into possition, the archers greatly help them in this role.

Note: If anyone wants a hand with a detailed siege-assault strategy for this style of force I would be happy to comply.



Hope that helped, either directly, or by aiding in reflecting upon your own tactics.

Thx a lot for all the time and effort put in this, really nice tips, but i just cant beat those armies without tremendous casualties no matter what i do, i don't know, i suppose i am just bad and that's it, i wanted to roleplay as a viking (lol) raiding the english and scottish and using an army as close to a viking warband as possible but those damn tennants just roflstomp anything in melee xD they can also easily absorb all archers damage, and when a lord has like 60-70 of them.. i feel helpless
 
I'm afraid the classic Viking tactics are over a hundred years out of date. A solid deep stacked shield wall with a few archers sprinkled about it, simply doesn't 'cut it' any more. Long-shields (kiteshields) provide better individual cover against arrows. Developments in agriculture and industry make it easier to supply an large army (even one with many horses) in the field, as well as significantly increasing the availability of arms, armour and ammunition [indeed at about this time, forges in Germany begin 'mass producing' swords for the first time].
By 1200 even Norway, Wales and the Highlands have adopted combined arms tactics with cavalry and significant numbers of archers operating as a unit (rather than skirmishing amongst the shield-wall). 

That said... you can probably still make the all infantry force work:
Again focus on Surgery as your most important skill(and stay alive so it's working) followed by tactics(to ensure you have numerical superiority on the field) and the other support skills.
You might essentially want to follow the Combined Arms structure but with the 'Cavalry' groups replaced with 'flying columns'/tactical squads. These core force works more or less the same, but the 'cavalry' stay in their support positions on the flank, only leaving to run down archers (before returning) or to be amalgamated into the main wall if you are taking casualties. You can also work these groups out to the flanks far enough so that their archers are firing into the sides/back of the enemy fighting with the main line.
Without cavalry to break up the enemy force you'll need to rely on missile weapons and terrain, especially to receive the initial cavalry charge.

If you're still having difficulty, you could always just jack the difficulty sliders down a tad. Sometimes the satisfaction of that nice high difficulty percentage just isn’t worth the frustration.
 
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