How to fight huge battles without getting all my men killed?

[BarnardStar]

I just fought a battle with ~600 men per side and it was the same story as all of the huge battles I've been involved in. At first it goes fine. But over time, all my good units take too much damage and get killed. This happens every time I fight a huge battle. This one was even worse since the Enemy camped right by their spawn point, so my reinforcements had to run across the whole map to get into the fight while theirs were right there. The end result was a close victory, with most of my high-level troops wiped out.

Does anyone have any tips for these big battles, I tend to avoid them at the moment since it seems like I lose tons of men through no fault of my own. I guess I could retreat and then come back, but it feels a bit cheesy.

 

[dphilostrate]

What faction are you playing as?

 

[BarnardStar]

What faction are you playing as?

Empire at the moment. I can win smaller battles fine. It's just the attrition in the bigger battles that causes most of the problems.

 

[LEEKING2005]

Gotta use some strategy in commanding your troop, usually my casualty vs them would be 1 for 3-5 depends on terrain.

The AI is very easy to cheese.

 

[brognar]

are you commanding them effectively? You need to hold your forces together or they'll spread out and be slaughtered. The AI can be formidable to fight against now because they use more advanced strategy than in warband.

Also note that the shield wall formation in Bannerlord is not a fighting formation, it's only effective to shield your infantry from missiles. Before they engage in melee you need to move them to line formation for them to fight properly.

 

[CalenLoki]

First of all never join an army. That will give control over your troops to AI, which leads to a lot of casualties. Especially in sieges. Help them once the battle start, but as separate party.

Second: infantry and cavalry is very suicidal if you just order them to charge. Archers are the safest way of dealing damage.
Use infantry to protect them from enemy frontal infantry charge,
Cav is useful for flankng enemy archers, preventing enemy cav from doing the same or charging from the side/back into enemy infantry the moment they meet with your line.

Although I use those in smaller battles mostly. Dunno if it's as effective in huge ones.

 

[daishi5]

I just fought a battle with ~600 men per side and it was the same story as all of the huge battles I've been involved in. At first it goes fine. But over time, all my good units take too much damage and get killed. This happens every time I fight a huge battle. This one was even worse since the Enemy camped right by their spawn point, so my reinforcements had to run across the whole map to get into the fight while theirs were right there. The end result was a close victory, with most of my high-level troops wiped out.

Does anyone have any tips for these big battles, I tend to avoid them at the moment since it seems like I lose tons of men through no fault of my own. I guess I could retreat and then come back, but it feels a bit cheesy.

I find that I start losing a lot of troops about 2/3 of the way into a battle with reinforcements. The problem often is that their infantry are dying but their archers are staying safe, and eventually they have a horde of archers. Then, my infantry formation decides that a random pack of cavalry are the main target so their formation turns their back on the enemy archers and the archers tear them apart.

My solution for this is I start by ordering my infantry to attack in formation (f1-f4), and then once the enemy starts to retreat I order my cavalry onto the enemy archers position and I give them the attack in formation command as well this gets the cavalry to attack the archers, but keeps them together. After that I give my infantry the charge command (f1-f3) followed by ordering my archers to charge as well.

The important thing is that the f1-f4 command keeps all the infantry together and works really well at the start of the battle, but towards the end that formation has a hard time deciding where they should be advancing too. If I just order the infantry to charge, they break up formation and go all different directions which lets the enemy archers do a bunch of damage. By getting the cavalry into the archers before I order the infantry charge I distract the archers, which lets enough random infantry get to the archers to kill them without horrible losses.

 

[BarnardStar]

I find that I start losing a lot of troops about 2/3 of the way into a battle with reinforcements. The problem often is that their infantry are dying but their archers are staying safe, and eventually they have a horde of archers. Then, my infantry formation decides that a random pack of cavalry are the main target so their formation turns their back on the enemy archers and the archers tear them apart.

My solution for this is I start by ordering my infantry to attack in formation (f1-f4), and then once the enemy starts to retreat I order my cavalry onto the enemy archers position and I give them the attack in formation command as well this gets the cavalry to attack the archers, but keeps them together. After that I give my infantry the charge command (f1-f3) followed by ordering my archers to charge as well.

The important thing is that the f1-f4 command keeps all the infantry together and works really well at the start of the battle, but towards the end that formation has a hard time deciding where they should be advancing too. If I just order the infantry to charge, they break up formation and go all different directions which lets the enemy archers do a bunch of damage. By getting the cavalry into the archers before I order the infantry charge I distract the archers, which lets enough random infantry get to the archers to kill them without horrible losses.

I tend to keep my troops holding position and let my archers do most of the fighting. I like the idea of using the cavalry tie up the archers while the infantry advance. I'll try that. I'm also going to try gradually pulling my men back toward my side of the battlefield.

 

[Dalla1]

I found myself in the same situation easiest way is to find ur tactinc as empire is easy becouse u got lots of archers from the first ranks of troops basicly u always gonna have lots of infantry and its useless unless enemy dont have 100% horsemens in armie.

So the tactic is to put your archers (and horse archers, imperial bucaneli or something like that) in front that way they can shoot. Your infantry needs to be either covering a flank or be behind (personaly i prefer then on flank with option to face enemy, F2 F2, so when the cavalery of the enemy is charging you and they come through archers can still take them out) after enemys foot soldiers come close u go all charge on your troops (you still may keep your archers in place). After that enemy probably will fall back. You just go F1 F1 so your troops back out and you can keep your distance to regroup your troops.

After that just do the same thing wait them to come close and charge again (watch a movie King its on Netflix there is that one battle where you can see what archers can do in middle ages).

But i also find that even my best troops are sometimes worse than enemies first tiers. I find that game is balanced differently than warband so its not that good.

PS. Bannerlord can say its 1000 something age there but use some historical knowledge and use tactics from late 1300 of our time.

 

[daishi5]

I tend to keep my troops holding position and let my archers do most of the fighting. I like the idea of using the cavalry tie up the archers while the infantry advance. I'll try that. I'm also going to try gradually pulling my men back toward my side of the battlefield.

One of the keys I found was learning how the different commands affect different units. For melee, both cavalry and infantry, f1-f3 they all split up and go after whatever they can. F1-f4 they all stick together and go towards the closest "group" (?) of enemies. The sticking together part works great, but they can get some weird ideas about which enemy to approach. It is awesome against that incoming infantry charge, or for sending your cavalry against that incoming group of horse archers, but it almost never sends your infantry against the enemy archers. It also allows you to order infantry to advance in their shield wall formation if you can get them to choose the right enemy.

However, for archers both on and off horses, the f1-f4 has them advance to a long-distance and shoot arrows, retreating to keep that distance long. This might work great for Fian champions with their 250 archery skill, but it's too far for most archers with their 130. F1-f3 will send the horse archers into a beautiful circle strafe, but when they run out of arrows they charge into melee, so don't just order them to charge and forget about them. Finally the charge order for archers has them approaching enemies while still shooting their bows, until they either run out of arrows or get really close. This order works great for archers that are behind a melee that is beginning to devolve into a brawl. Most archer units are pretty decent melee fighter and they really help a lot more than you would expect, at least a lot more than standing around doing nothing because they don't have any shots available.

 

[Fionn153]

Right now there are some serious balance issues with the game, especially with units.
In Warband, proficiency in a skill made you swing faster, and skills had actual purpose, (Max power strike gave +80% damage).
So far in bannerlord, I don't notice any benefit to increased skill points in a skill, and perks are pitiful in comparison (+12% damage with most 1 handed perks).
Also some other players have mentioned that it doesn't seem like perks apply to NPCs correctly.
This can be pretty easily seen in tournaments, when I am often fighting a low level enemy in the finals and semifinals.

As far as I can tell, the main difference between troops in the current state of the game is their armor...

 

[Schoulayer]

In the early to mid game, I run with nothing but archers and my companions (who are horse archers). When I engage in large army vs army field battles, I make sure to keep my entire archer force well behind my allied infantry. My allies take all the damage, while my archers rack up kills. Since the split of loot we get in a cooperative battle is based on our kill count, I usually end these battles with next to no causalities and tons of loot.

 

[StevieLee7132]

I just fought a battle with ~600 men per side and it was the same story as all of the huge battles I've been involved in. At first it goes fine. But over time, all my good units take too much damage and get killed. This happens every time I fight a huge battle. This one was even worse since the Enemy camped right by their spawn point, so my reinforcements had to run across the whole map to get into the fight while theirs were right there. The end result was a close victory, with most of my high-level troops wiped out.

Does anyone have any tips for these big battles, I tend to avoid them at the moment since it seems like I lose tons of men through no fault of my own. I guess I could retreat and then come back, but it feels a bit cheesy.

Serious suggestion: think about what you are doing more. Would you choose to fight a battle a half a mile from your reserve (reinforcements)? Why do you give the enemy this advantage? Pick the terrain YOU want to fight on taking EVERYTHING into account (your forces, enemy forces, mobility, protection from archers, fields of fire, engagement areas, where your reserve is). I use over 800 battle size, so I haven't really noticed reserves, but I also rarely lose many troops. Even if outnumbered, be smart. For example, you might put infantry up as bait to fix the enemy then hit them from flank with archers while constantly withdrawing infantry, feinting cavalry charges on their flanks to slow them down. A lot of people don't think and just F1 F3, but if you think about what you are doing it's really not that hard. The AI is not nearly as smart as a human (yet, in five years it will probably be better tho).
If you are not commanding the Army, all you can do is protect the troops under your command by not wasting them, and hopefully find clever ways to use them to lead to vastly better outcomes. I generally take archers and maneuver them to position right into flanks or even behind the enemy slightly if terrain is favorable, but cavalry is even easier to influence, and even doing basic things with infantry can make a big difference, since the AI really seems to like to see infantry die (as compared to say, Viking Conquest where the AI was very cautious with their battle line; not committing to making contact until it was on favorable terms).

 

[Rafalongo]

Elite infantry waiting in shield wall. And archers behind.

 

[abc123456]

Have you tried using F6? It gives full AI control to your troops. Usually does quite well.
Then ride behind enemy lines and do a skirmish if you are cavalry yourself, split up and distract the enemy troops, especially the archers.
You can see which troop killed the most at the battle screen, and which troops died the most.

 

[Bramborough]

Have you tried using F6? It gives full AI control to your troops. Usually does quite well.
Then ride behind enemy lines and do a skirmish if you are cavalry yourself, split up and distract the enemy troops, especially the archers.
You can see which troop killed the most at the battle screen, and which troops died the most.

+1 (at least for cav)

I haven't tried F6 for whole army yet (at least not for anything harder than a Looter beatdown, lol), but I've started giving cavalry the F6 command lately while retaining control of inf/archers. Have been pleasantly surprised. They split to cover both flanks, and generally do a better-than-expected job of knowing where the line between "aggressive" and "stupid" is. And at least at some rudimentary level, they change their actions to the flow of the battle, like "covering flanks" early, switching to "charge enemy formation" later...sometimes even picking enemy archers as their target, which is what I'd want. It's not perfect...AI is still AI...but significantly better than Warband native (some of the WB mods got pretty good with this as well, as someone mentioned above for Viking Conquest).

That said, I'm not as happy with ranged F6 behavior. It seems they want to position themselves at their own MAX range...which often compels them to needlessly run backward upon receiving the F6 command. Increases separation from their own protecting infantry, plus the farther the range, the more accuracy & killing power problems they have. And finally, AI cav (again, pretty good) likes to ride around flanks and get into your backfield, so by running backwards and getting further from friendlies, archers/xbows under F6 command play right into the enemy cav's hands. Has made me reluctant to try F6 for ranged troops in any battle that isn't already going to be a one-sided massacre regardless of what I do.

To what (very) little extent I've used F6 for infantry, I don't really see that they've done anything much different from what would occur with the F1-F4 command (which itself is also much better than F3 charge, as other posts have stated above).

 

[luisedgm]

Horse archers tend to live a lot longer, make an army of only them :^)

 

[Sepone]

If they're camping at their spawn point you are in trouble, no matter how good you command your troops. The problem with respawns in battles that run in your favor is, that many of your men are already injured when fresh enemy troops show up, especially the well armored ones, they don't die easily and soak up many small HP losses over time, while the lower tiers are either dead or unhurt. That is the reason why your elites start dying as soon as the reinforcements come into play, the numbers equal out while HP is no longer in your favor.
The easy way around this would be to increase the battle count above 500 if your PC cooperates with that idea. ?
The hard way is to divide your elite in groups using formations in the army list and keeping some of them in reserve. When reinforcements show up exchange the first elite formation with your reserve, and after a while send the first back in so they can help finishing the enemy off.

 

[Junglekid1091]

I play on easy so that may be why I do well. My army comp is 50 shielded imperial troops, 40 archers, 20 cav (not archers). I use all imperial troops. Shields are a must for infantry, put them in shield wall formation. If there is a hill I put inf at top of hill and archers behind in skirmish (F1 F4) Once the enemy get close. Send cav in immediately to head off the enemy and give you time to set up. Once inf and archers are close to where you want them call the cav back. Put the cav in a position so that when the two inf lines meet the cav can charge in from behind, or attack enemy archers if they’re doing a lot of dmg. DONT charge with inf in shield wall, it breaks up the formation and makes them more vulnerable. Advancing is okay but preferably keep your inf still and use your archers and cav to bring the enemy to your inf line Once inf lines meet I like to move the archers to a 90 degree angle from my inf line so they have better angles to shoot the enemy. I typically stay with the archers to protect them from enemy cav. Then send in my cav to wreck the enemies back lines.

Like I said I play on easy cus I’m looking for entertainment not a challenge; but following this formula I will destroy an equal force with maybe 1-3 losses. I might lose around 5-10 if fighting an enemy twice my size.

When I go into the massive pitched battles, I do the exact same thing. The only difference is I typically don’t get to choose where to set my inf line. I have to match my ally AIs starting line and they typically “advance” until they meet the enemy. So archers get immediately place on skirmish, inf shield wall then advance, cav: charge, slow down enemy inf, fallback. I may lose 5-10 troops in an equal size pitched battle, a few more against superior numbers and considerably less against weaker foes.

Again, I’m playing on easy so that will make a considerable difference but if it cheeses the AI that well on easy, surely it’ll work on realistic with only a few more casualties. (Or perhaps that’s just naïveté)

 

[BarnardStar]

If they're camping at their spawn point you are in trouble, no matter how good you command your troops. The problem with respawns in battles that run in your favor is, that many of your men are already injured when fresh enemy troops show up, especially the well armored ones, they don't die easily and soak up many small HP losses over time, while the lower tiers are either dead or unhurt. That is the reason why your elites start dying as soon as the reinforcements come into play, the numbers equal out while HP is no longer in your favor.
The easy way around this would be to increase the battle count above 500 if your PC cooperates with that idea. ?
The hard way is to divide your elite in groups using formations in the army list and keeping some of them in reserve. When reinforcements show up exchange the first elite formation with your reserve, and after a while send the first back in so they can help finishing the enemy off.

Yeah, that's exactly what happens! I could already cook breakfast on my laptop while I'm playing, so upping the battle count probably isn't an option, unfortunately... but that's really a good point about the army groupings! I can keep all my elite infantry back while my cannon fodder (or even better, my allies' troops!) soften up the enemy and then send in the elites to break the enemy. That's pretty much what the Roman's did I think, Hastati first to soften them up, then Principes, and then, if necessary, the Triarii to finish them off. Good tips. Thanks!


It would be really nice if we could choose what troops to take into battle and which to have in the reinforcement waves. But I think that would be a long way off, if ever.