sepulchar
Regular
Greetings and Salutations forumites
After reading a thread where people where complaining about having a hard time i have decided to reveal the secret... unlikely my secret alone. With the exception of lord parties you can beat almost any group with a horse, shield, long pointy stick, and some archers. This should be called the robin hood mod
step 1 Begin game, if you start as a noble you will get a decent horse, shield, and long pointy stick if not you will need to obtain these things. following the merchant will net you 100 schillingas as well. with what you already have thats more then enough money to hire 10 peasants, and thats all you need in most circumstance.
Ideally you should get briton peasants - they have a 2nd archer upgrade in the tree. they are deadly.
step 2 Go beat up a few weak theow groups until your merry men have moved up to archer status. once you have 10 archers you are golden.
Step 3 The game uses alot of shields and shield walls, but the AI has a weakness to archers, here's how its done - Start the battle by rideing out to meet them, typically the enemy will be moving toward your forces haphazardly - without any formation. Attack the leading enemy's and proceed to circle the enemy party untill they form a shield wall. Once you have their attention fixed on you it tends to stay there. The AI isnt smart enough to pick a new target for the whole shield wall - Lead them to the archers and make them follow you in circles in front of your firing squad. Your archers cant penetrate thier shields but once they turn their backs on them, as the enemy shield wall will be following you optimistically yelling and screaming, menacingly- they start to die.
After a while even the fiercest dena pirates will lose morale and break, running for the map edge.
step 4 Ride them down. The second flaw in the AI is they run headlong for the map edge, in a straight line. They wont try to avoid you when you get near and never try to defend themselves - just a bee line to map edge.
Now there are a few wrinkles in the cream here, they are as follows -
A) dont get the enemy to close to your archers or some may peel off to attack them.
B) If the enemy have ranged weapons, be it javilins or bows a few may peel off to return fire. Your job is to keep them in a herd as much as possible.
C) None of this will work on enemy cavalry, they come to fast and their AI is different, so always look at what kind of deserters you are about to engage. Avoid cavalry.
D) With very large well armored groups more archers may be needed. you dont want your squad of longbow assassins to run out of arrows in the middle of the fight Its hard to face a group of dena pirates with nothing but a horse, shield, and a long pointy stick!
E) Larger groups of enemy archers can be a pain as well, the easy way to deal with them is to distact them with an attack from behind while your troops rush from the other direction, then wade into them.
F) This wont work on lord parties because they generally have cavalry.
Archers are cheap to maintain, between the loot and the prisoners you dont need to do any trading if you dont want to. Practice makes perfect, beware the enemy's long pointy sticks! Buy the longest pointiest stick you can find.
If the modders are reading this maybe you can adjust the AI a bit?
After reading a thread where people where complaining about having a hard time i have decided to reveal the secret... unlikely my secret alone. With the exception of lord parties you can beat almost any group with a horse, shield, long pointy stick, and some archers. This should be called the robin hood mod
step 1 Begin game, if you start as a noble you will get a decent horse, shield, and long pointy stick if not you will need to obtain these things. following the merchant will net you 100 schillingas as well. with what you already have thats more then enough money to hire 10 peasants, and thats all you need in most circumstance.
Ideally you should get briton peasants - they have a 2nd archer upgrade in the tree. they are deadly.
step 2 Go beat up a few weak theow groups until your merry men have moved up to archer status. once you have 10 archers you are golden.
Step 3 The game uses alot of shields and shield walls, but the AI has a weakness to archers, here's how its done - Start the battle by rideing out to meet them, typically the enemy will be moving toward your forces haphazardly - without any formation. Attack the leading enemy's and proceed to circle the enemy party untill they form a shield wall. Once you have their attention fixed on you it tends to stay there. The AI isnt smart enough to pick a new target for the whole shield wall - Lead them to the archers and make them follow you in circles in front of your firing squad. Your archers cant penetrate thier shields but once they turn their backs on them, as the enemy shield wall will be following you optimistically yelling and screaming, menacingly- they start to die.
After a while even the fiercest dena pirates will lose morale and break, running for the map edge.
step 4 Ride them down. The second flaw in the AI is they run headlong for the map edge, in a straight line. They wont try to avoid you when you get near and never try to defend themselves - just a bee line to map edge.
Now there are a few wrinkles in the cream here, they are as follows -
A) dont get the enemy to close to your archers or some may peel off to attack them.
B) If the enemy have ranged weapons, be it javilins or bows a few may peel off to return fire. Your job is to keep them in a herd as much as possible.
C) None of this will work on enemy cavalry, they come to fast and their AI is different, so always look at what kind of deserters you are about to engage. Avoid cavalry.
D) With very large well armored groups more archers may be needed. you dont want your squad of longbow assassins to run out of arrows in the middle of the fight Its hard to face a group of dena pirates with nothing but a horse, shield, and a long pointy stick!
E) Larger groups of enemy archers can be a pain as well, the easy way to deal with them is to distact them with an attack from behind while your troops rush from the other direction, then wade into them.
F) This wont work on lord parties because they generally have cavalry.
Archers are cheap to maintain, between the loot and the prisoners you dont need to do any trading if you dont want to. Practice makes perfect, beware the enemy's long pointy sticks! Buy the longest pointiest stick you can find.
If the modders are reading this maybe you can adjust the AI a bit?