Strategy

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i find cavalry to be utterly useless in this game.  when i watch the kill reports i rarely see a kill from them when firing their carbines.  not sure if their accuracy just sucks or they receive a huge penalty from horseback firing.  i only have a few of them that i let charge at the very end of a battle to chase down routed enemies.  other than that i have a some infantry infantry and everyone else are marksman.  the marksmen can be equipped with halberds or swords as well and make decent enough infantry that i cant justify using regular infantry. 

as soon as the last of my current infantry die off im not even going to bother replacing them.  in future games this will also save me money cause i wont have to worry about upgrading their equipment.  i would consider abandoning cavalry as well since their aim sucks. but i would feel weird being the only guy on horseback......

for sieges i really wish they would redo the AI for the enemy.  breaching with explosives makes it silly easy to get in there because they all huddle near the hole in the wall and when me and my companions come through we just lob grenades at them and kill a bunch of them before half of my army is even at the wall.
 
  Cav is useful.  But not as your main force.  They should be used to exploit weakness, and they are useless in making them.  If you fail to remember that you cav will be a hiderance.  If you remember to use them like that they will be your most useful troop.  There is a perfect metaphor.  Cav is a battering ram.  They are NEVER used where there was a wall or heavily reinforce sections.  They were used against gates and weak walls.  And when broke through, that was usually the end of the siege.

  Use the weakness of your foes units.  Musketeer when isolated are helpless against heavy cav and are torn to shreds after they shoot.  Pikes when engaged show their flanks and are helpless if you attack quickly and severely.  If you stay with your cav you will be torn to pieces.  So never get entangled.  Ram them.  Penetrate but leave an escape otherwise the rams head will be stuck and will be a hinderance.

  So in conclusion, if you lose more cav them kill enemies it isn't because cav are useless but rather your lack of thinking outside the box makes them so.
 
 
reallybigjohnson said:
i find cavalry to be utterly useless in this game.  when i watch the kill reports i rarely see a kill from them when firing their carbines.  not sure if their accuracy just sucks or they receive a huge penalty from horseback firing.
It's probably damage rather than accuracy. The only guns usable from horseback do fairly low damage, they're likely scoring plenty of hits, they're just not doing sufficient damage to kill with those shots (and probably your musketeers or infantry are finishing the job).
 
JCash85 said:
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.

Are you playing on easy or something? Even with the best muskets my troops don't hit **** until you can see the white of the enemy's eyes.
 
All u need is this to win any battle

7506BAF1E8F8133748F7ADFA4F5C496FA93D4315
 
from the outset, do missions or other garbage to get 8-10k.  save everything.
once you have 30 guys or so and 12-ish k, run velvet and spice runs to swedish cities.  you'll net around 80k each run.

use the money to buy a patent so you pay less overhead.

once you have cash, toss most of your random troops and invest in some mercenaries.  I chose the swedes because they have a 'good' slave trader and are the destination for my caravan runs.

my army is sharpshooters 60% and mounted pistoleers.  The mounted pistoleers are used as a cavalry screen.

previous skills that were necessary are much less important now.  renown > leadership for party size bonus now.

for maxing reknown, keep a party no larger than the enemies you're farming for renown.

 
My army composition:
40% pikemen
40% musketeers
20% cavalry

I setup my musketeers on the nearest high ground and place my pikemen about 20 feet in front of them in a close formation. (Pikemen should be on lower ground so as not to block the musketeers of course). Then I myself lead my cav off to the far right, making sure not ever to get closer to the enemy than my pikemen are. Then I simply ride to the enemies flank and wait for them to charge and leave their musketeers alone, all things considered pikemen do pretty well against most enemies and the musketeers pick of alot of men before the melee begins and after. But mostly once my cav hits the enemy musketeers the enemy morale breaks and half their guys just start running.

Its a beautiful tactic that has never failed me.
 
Mine is a variation of Sirwho's but with low-tier Crimean Khanate faction troop types (recruitable from villages once one becomes a vassal)

I'm finding playing as Crimean Khanate COMPLETELY a new experience than playing as the Khergit Khanate back in Warband. While I do miss the heavy lancer cav charge that single handedly beat any and every battle (no need even for Khergit Veteran Horse Archers), now in F&S I actually need to start using musketmen/archers to really complement and make my light cav work (at least in my part of the game with low-tier faction troops recruited en masse from villages). 

Low-tier Troop Composition
60% Musketmen (Mostly Kakipuli who are really all archers, but treated in the group of Marksmen)
There are also some Seymens, Janissaries, etc whom I obtained just from freeing from enemey lords, can't recruit these better faction units yet. Additionally, there are a few infantry units like swordsmen and pikemen thrown in for some defense.
40% Light Cavalry (Bajrak wear no armor, just felt cloth!)

I, too, now place my main force of foot archers on strategic terrain, some hill usually, with my cav on the side, a bit back. If the enemy comes at me, then that's great, I don't have to lure them out. If they're turtling, I ride with my cav to harass them and draw them out.

This tactic even works on those nasty anti-cav wagon forts, after I give it some time 2 minutes tops, usually less. A lil patience ensures a much neater victory, with less casualties on my side. Another interesting thing is I've become quite proficient with it, where I lose usually 12 Kakipuli (archers) and 8-10 Bajrak (light cav), but I completely demolish higher-tier armies, with high kill and low wounded/unconscious ratio for the other side. Economically, my force costs very little even for the village-recruited veterans, and even in large numbers. By able to win so predictably against higher-tier troops, there is an economical disparity that is in my favor. I can replenish my losses with much greater speed and ease than the enemy lords can with higher-tier troops (still it's a breakneck speed, those enemy lords bounce back waaay too fast imho).

Hopefully,  later in the game, when I can recruit elite faction troops, I'll try to go back to heavy lancers only with strong armor. Still, even then, armor is much more "brittle" in this game and this strategy may not pan out. I may just go with my new strategy for F&S, but with an ideal army of 60% Janissaries and 40% heavy lancer cav (though this would be expensive as heck and may actually maybe perform worse than the "cheap" but effective "En Masse Village Conscription" I found with the Crimean Khanate.

Anybody else have better strategies to optimize Crimean Khanate faction troop types? I'd love to hear what works and doesn't work for this faction and other faction troop types?
 
My strategy is 100% marksmen, i just form one big line and fire and everything just... dies.. and in the end there is not enough bullets to even shoot so my marksmen switch to polearms lol
 
30% pikeman (scottish pikeman my fav)
50% musketman (lifeguards are my fav)
20% cavalry (swedish rieters my fav)

Line of musketmen. Forward 10 space i have my pikeman set to "stand apart" which let the rifleman more chance to shoot between them.
the cavalry off to one side and when the enemy clashes with my pikeman i send in the cav forward and behind to encircle them. standard strategy game tactics.

game over. actually 50% of the enemy force is dead before they even engaged me. Only hicup i ever get is if the enemy force is primarily mounted archers.
 
Since I'm used to playing my pike and blade mod, which beefs up inf, makes pikes common and generally puts cav charges in the same position as wfas, I found the transition pretty minimal.

Only real diffo is that I can't deploy jav tossing skirmishers to rip up enemies. But since muskets en masse are more effective than bows it's no biggie.

Coupla things. I find closing musket ranks more useful than spreading them. Muskets have **** accuracy, so narrowing the line and putting out more bullets in a smaller area generates more kills.

I also rely heavily on pikes. Muskets require favorable terrain to function well; pikes are always effective, although placing them slightly behind a rise does wonders for their survivability against muskets.

Cav I use more than I used to, but much less than vanilla WB. Unlike many I prefer heavy cav, generally without guns; they're more effective against muskets and in melee and less likely to die while charging.

When possible, cav flanks at a distance, muskets stand on a hill and pikes hide behind and to the left, charging after cav has rammed the muskets. Works pretty well.
 
Its all about heavily armourd pike spam, works a treat 40% muskets 60% pikes, tel the pikes to bunch up
into a rectangle and muskets behind =  :grin: and dead cav.
and its awsome to watch.
 
One tactic I have done well with when defending in sieges:

Simple: Do not fight on the wall!
Musketeers, at least the faction ones, are only lightly armored and poor at melee. They're also most effective when in a firing line and raining leaden death on your enemies. So on top of a wall only the few with a line of sight to the enemy will fire one or two shots before being entangled in the melee, getting slaughtered  and being in the way of you and the big armored guys.
So what I usally do is immediately turn tail an run down into the yard with my men. There usually is a significantly big place in the siege maps with a road that leads to it. Position your musketeers at the back of the yard, as far away from the enemies entry point as possible to give them more time to pepper the foes with shots.
Position your melee men in a line a couple of feet in front of the musketeers and you're golden. The AI is surprisingly good at shooting above the heads of your own men and they can't teamkill anyway. The enemy will now trickle down the wall and be funneled through the street into the fire of your men with no way to escape. They will arrive stretched out because they do not stop to gather after they climb the ladders one after the others so you can now finish them off easily with your melee men without blocking each other, all the while your musketeers can fight to their full potential and fire into the melee.
 
Smart Floh,

I do a similar strategy but when sieging myself, making sieges much less costlier. I always try and go for the "Attempt to Open Gate" or the "Blow up the Wall" tactics.

This way, this creates a gaping hole in the enemy defenses. Unlike what is prescribed by rushing through this opening, I found it is much better to just wait with a line of marksmen on your side of the gaping hole and not rush in. Instead, rain lead or arrows into the opening and let the defenders trickle out and get immediately mowed down.
 
Reykjavikdragon said:
Its all about heavily armourd pike spam, works a treat 40% muskets 60% pikes, tel the pikes to bunch up
into a rectangle and muskets behind =  :grin: and dead cav.
and its awsome to watch.

This proportion was the same as in the real life. Somewhat from 40% of pikeman to 60% and the rest is musketeers.
 
sirwho said:
My army composition:
40% pikemen
40% musketeers
20% cavalry

I setup my musketeers on the nearest high ground and place my pikemen about 20 feet in front of them in a close formation. (Pikemen should be on lower ground so as not to block the musketeers of course). Then I myself lead my cav off to the far right, making sure not ever to get closer to the enemy than my pikemen are. Then I simply ride to the enemies flank and wait for them to charge and leave their musketeers alone, all things considered pikemen do pretty well against most enemies and the musketeers pick of alot of men before the melee begins and after. But mostly once my cav hits the enemy musketeers the enemy morale breaks and half their guys just start running.

Its a beautiful tactic that has never failed me.

This, which is exactly what I did in M&B. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Also, I usually get off my horse and go around 1-shotting the silly Poles who don't wear armor.
 
tbh i have full infantry army, and i win against kings with their son's & strongest marshall while attacking Warscha :grin:
Full infantry = FTW

I just sit back snipping anyone down with my hand made bow <3
Life is great if you have expensive caravans on the way, a strong loyal army to command, and an inventory full of beer!
 
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