Strategy

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Evil Cereal said:
i haven't played WFaS for that long time, BUT, my favourite strategy in MaB's mods, when you have a lot of lancers and fighting against musketeers only was this: Shout "Stay where you are!" and charge the enemy alone. When you are around one third through the way shout "Charge!". Now the more dangerous part: ride your horse in front of the enemy and go behind them, but keep your distance. The idiots will turn around and shoot after you. As they have muskets, they will reload, but they wont finish it, because they will be killed by your lancers, that they did not see.  :grin:

Well, that is a good tactic and you can also combine it with taking all you cav with you. If you jogg or ride sideways in front of archers and musketmen they always (almost) miss you! It's the going head-on that will get you shot.

Personally I don't think this is a problem it's just taking M&B into the 17th century. Which was the intention of the developers!
 
I guess im a warband baby but, my army is 100% cavalary! however they all have the wheelock musket that can't be used from horseback so as soon as there dehorsed (usually while charging that big army of gunmen :razz:) they become great marksman its working quite well so far, Im finding I lose a couple of men on the initial charge but once im on top of an enemy... ah its like swardi knights all over again :razz:
 
Evil Cereal said:
i haven't played WFaS for that long time, BUT, my favourite strategy in MaB's mods, when you have a lot of lancers and fighting against musketeers only was this: Shout "Stay where you are!" and charge the enemy alone. When you are around one third through the way shout "Charge!". Now the more dangerous part: ride your horse in front of the enemy and go behind them, but keep your distance. The idiots will turn around and shoot after you. As they have muskets, they will reload, but they wont finish it, because they will be killed by your lancers, that they did not see.  :grin:

I find that waaaay to risky, since you can get killed with 1 or 2 hits. I usually stay behind my army, like a reponsible leader should do. After all, your army will fall into chaos without you, so you should do whatever you can to stay alive, for their sake.  :wink:

Here's a nice tactic for defending fortresses (the ones in the south east, at least). Have an army of musketeers, leave the walls and line up your musketeers down in the courtyard. This way they will be able to turkey shoot the enemy as they come up the ladders. The ladders/entry-points will form fatal funnels, making it easier for your musketeers to shoot the enemies as they get on top of the wall. You should be positioned at one of the flanks to take out any enemies who make it down the walls.
 
BlackAlpha said:
Evil Cereal said:
i haven't played WFaS for that long time, BUT, my favourite strategy in MaB's mods, when you have a lot of lancers and fighting against musketeers only was this: Shout "Stay where you are!" and charge the enemy alone. When you are around one third through the way shout "Charge!". Now the more dangerous part: ride your horse in front of the enemy and go behind them, but keep your distance. The idiots will turn around and shoot after you. As they have muskets, they will reload, but they wont finish it, because they will be killed by your lancers, that they did not see.  :grin:

I find that waaaay to risky, since you can get killed with 1 or 2 hits. I usually stay behind my army, like a reponsible leader should do. After all, your army will fall into chaos without you, so you should do whatever you can to stay alive, for their sake.  :wink:

Here's a nice tactic for defending fortresses (the ones in the south east, at least). Have an army of musketeers, leave the walls and line up your musketeers down in the courtyard. This way they will be able to turkey shoot the enemy as they come up the ladders. The ladders/entry-points will form fatal funnels, making it easier for your musketeers to shoot the enemies as they get on top of the wall. You should be positioned at one of the flanks to take out any enemies who make it down the walls.
Why is this better than standing on top of the wall fireing down as they approach :?:
 
Greenfur said:
I guess im a warband baby but, my army is 100% cavalary! however they all have the wheelock musket that can't be used from horseback so as soon as there dehorsed (usually while charging that big army of gunmen :razz:) they become great marksman its working quite well so far
Yes. They were called dragoons :wink:

Mollberg said:
Why is this better than standing on top of the wall fireing down as they approach :?:
Because it funnels them in to a tight area. Musketry is at it's most effective when the enemy is in a group, the tighter they're packed the better.
 
Archonsod said:
Mollberg said:
Why is this better than standing on top of the wall fireing down as they approach :?:
Because it funnels them in to a tight area. Musketry is at it's most effective when the enemy is in a group, the tighter they're packed the better.

That, and another important reason. When you are on top of the wall, your soldiers can't kill off the approaching enemies fast enough. So, the enemy climbs the ladders pretty quickly, forcing your soldiers to engage in melee. Engaging in melee means there's a high risk of casulties.

When your soldiers are lined up down in the courtyard, they have a clear view on whoever is on top of the wall. Before the enemy can get down the wall, they have to run along the wall to the stairs. This gives your musketeers plenty of time to shoot most of them. The few enemies who make it down into the courtyard, you should be able to handle on your own, allowing your musketeers to keep shooting the enemies on top of the wall. First of all, it's basically like a reverse slope defense, forcing the enemies to come at you one by one. Second, it's like a tower defense scenario, forcing the enemy to run around your defenses while you shoot at them.

Just try it out yourself. When you stand in the courtyard and take a look at the wall, it will become clear what a great vantage point it is.
 
I like putting my muskets on top of a hill, my pikes below and my cav following me.

After softening the enemy up with muskets I mantain the musket volleys and advance my pikes toward the enemy infantry and pin them as I charge the unprotected muskets with my cav and then if the fighting is still going on I flank the infantry.

This works against all deserters, bandits and impetous lords.
 
I use pretty much zero cavalry as they constantly get mowed down. It seems like it's easier to have a 1:2 ratio of marksmen/infantry.

I've been destroying everyone with this combination. And I never used swordsmen. Seems like pikesmen do just the trick.
 
Pikemen, Hold Position and Stand Closer (spam this a couple of times) and a Cavalry charge will be stopped in its' tracks.
 
Right now i am using 20 cossack marksmen with wheel lock muskets (little more than 300 a person to hire) and 40 tsar's infantry with best armor, club, iron cone helmet and a shield (little more than 1300 a person to hire).

It's expensive to say the least. But because i am playing on hard i only have space for 70 units. And considering heavy armor allows infantry to survive between 3 and 5 hits, i think it's worth it. I aim to lose 5 or fewer infantry during an even battle.

I place the cossacks with their decent muskets in front of the infantry. These guys are good shots and cost me "only" 300 a piece, so they can be target and meat shield.
Then when they get close i let my infantry charge. If they are charging with mainly horses i let the cossacks catch them. They can deal with unarmored cav with their spears.

The main thing to remember when you use this tactic is that your army is a tool to fight. It's not self sufficient. In order to fight those battles with heavy losses i have to trade and loot.

Everytime i see a killed message i cry a little though. Just 10 of those guys dead and i'll be off to gather 13000 to buy new troops. Good to have 5 surgery +2
 
Modified my tactics with merc calv I realized I can put them behind the marksmen since there taller they shoot over the shoulders...

Then when its time to finish order the charge.. muhahaha

You know I swear I keep telling my swiss infantry that they should carry a shield but they keep telling me no sir....

:wink:



and now unleash the cavalry...



Oddly enough to add more insult more of men decided to let the enemy know there grand plan had failed...



I think I have seiges down...


I found throwing grenades at the wall buys time for your troops to get where they need to go...


Found blowing up the wall causes less loses on my side though doesn't matter the prison population allow me for free to fully rebuild my army to full
strength...


though would like to know how one of my guys got up there...


The enemy loses just keep getting worse...


All in all it can be done...
 
My tactics is
1. Ranged infantry stand ground and hold fire
2. Cavalry and infantry hold
3. Ranged infantry advance 20 paces
4. When enemy come to range fire at will
5. All units charge
It works against enemy that dont have many muskets but if enemy has for example 30 muskets damn i got ripped to shreds when i charged because i had ten muskets.  And it all happened on a big field so i could not use any tactical advantage.
 
Valdemar I said:
My tactics is
1. Ranged infantry stand ground and hold fire
2. Cavalry and infantry hold
3. Ranged infantry advance 20 paces
4. When enemy come to range fire at will
5. All units charge
It works against enemy that dont have many muskets but if enemy has for example 30 muskets damn i got ripped to shreds when i charged because i had ten muskets.  And it all happened on a big field so i could not use any tactical advantage.

Sure you can, marksmen have problems hitting targets moving left or right... Order a follow on calv lead them and have run around in a circle around then fire your thomp... oh wait no
burst firing machine guns...  nvm  :shock:
 
Personally I go with european merc cav, those guys are great - when I want quick charge I keep them as cav and order to follow, when I meet large pikeman force or just need musket infantry I order my troops to dimount and voila!(also you move pretty fast on world map with all cav army).
 
I almost never play with infantry or cavalry; all my troops (mercs of course) are mounted marksmen with the best musket and armor you can buy. I only have them mounted for the strat map speed increase of course. At the beginning of the battle, I dismount them, take them to a high point, spread them out and have them unleash on the enemy. Even mounted enemies get hammered before they can charge my line... As someone said, no more heroics from my character anymore though; you tend to get mowed down fast doing that.
 
tactics? what tactics?

Here's the tactic that wins all day every day:
1) Buy musketmen
2) find hill
3) go make a snack, catch up on the latest episode of your fav show, knit a pair of mittens, whatever
4) profit

I'm enjoying the game, but really . . . .  muskets kind of force you to adopt one tactic: muskets. I made freakin dinner once while waiting on a battle to resolve while I just stood behind a tree to prevent cheap sniping and let my marksmen do the work.
I don't even buy cav/infantry at all. Just musketmen recruits, 2nd best armor, best musket. I might lose 2-3 every battle, but I'm killing the enemy in droves.
Wish there was a way to enforce volley fire though, telling troops to hold fire stops the reload sequence.
 
In response to the "no more rambo" posts I reply with this: naked, alone, and on foot I have twice now killed 20 armed bandits with only a sword. Only the second time did I get screenies though because I didn't expect the first adventure to work. No cheats, tweaks, or mods of any type were used.
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I have 18 AGI and 6 Athletics with nothing to encumber me. I ditch the horse at the beginning of every battle because it doesn't corner like I need it to and I can't efficiently fight off of it with a stabbing-only weapon. The key to all of this is speed: of turning, running, attacking. I have a fast weapon meaning in melee I have the advantage. I never run towards them unless they are reloading and then once within about 10 ft or so they switch to a melee weapon and I kill 'em. I pick a flat area so I don't ever get slowed down on a hill and run back and forth in front of them as they edge closer and kill the ones that come close for hand to hand. After a couple minutes there are only a few shooters left so the time between shots is long enough to run in there and kill one or at least make him put his gun up.

Never, never, never charge directly at loaded firearms. Never stop moving. Concentrate on speed in all things. I even put the lance up so I had 1 less encumbrance.

Now, some of you will be saying that this isn't "going Rambo" because I'm not charging straight into the whole group of them and laying about me with a blade and I guess that's true but then again, wading in and laying about is more of a Terminator thing whereas picking them off whilst half naked with only a blade is VERY Rambo (watch the first movie in each series, you'll agree). The slow and innaccurate firearms make WF&S a face-hugger's wet dream. I've tried it in Warband (I have a female woad raider mercing for the Nords) and the rate of fire of the ranged units there just put too many missiles in the air. If you stop once you get stuck. Even fighting looters is a problem with no armor or shield.

Point is, well, I don't know what my point is. You can't play WF&S like Warband so you can't compare the two. If you are going to compare, compare it to any mod with early firearms.
 
Ogrecorps said:
In response to the "no more rambo" posts I reply with this: naked, alone, and on foot I have twice now killed 20 armed bandits with only a sword. Only the second time did I get screenies though because I didn't expect the first adventure to work. No cheats, tweaks, or mods of any type were used.

Well, you have clearly shown us that going Rambo against a bunch of bandits is possible.

However, a real battle (50 vs 50 soldiers or larger) is much more complex than that. There will be so many variables involved that you won't be able to do things as perfectly as you did fighting those simple bandits. There will be so much chaos and things will happen so quickly that you won't see that cavalry flanking you, or that swordman running up behind you, or that musketeer taking aim at you as you take a moment to gather your senses. Then there is, of course, pure bad luck involved, as a stray bullet hits you in your face, for example. In a real battle there are a lot more things involved than what you tried in your experiment.

I want you to fight 10 proper battles against a professional army (like the Swedish). Participate in the battles as a front line soldier, then come back here and tell us with a straight face that you didn't die in half of those battles. If you can do that, then we will be impressed. And then you will have converted us all to Rambo-ism.
 
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