Tactics in 1257

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Diavolo

Diavolo

Knight
Steam Old Guard
Hey all, I would like to know how people play this mod on the battlefield. There is a lot of talk about units and wages, but I am more interested in how you deploy your troops in battle, what faction you play, why you play them and what you do in different situations. Right now Im at school so I dont have time to draw up my battle scenarios right now, they will come later.

Right now I play with the western units because since Im currently under no-one that is the easiest way of getting lots of recruits of the same type due to so many countries sharing the same troop tree. I have a small group of cavalry (about 10-15 including me and companions) about 30 archers and about 30 infantry. I have two groups of archers and two "lines" of infantry where the 1st line is the ones with the longest spears or best armor while line two is swordsmen and lower tier troops. I put my units on a small rise in the terrain with infantry in the middle with "stand together" pressed several times and the two lines pretty close after each other. Have the archers on each side and cavalry on flanking far out.

If the enemies have lots of archers I use my cavalry to take them out while I let the enemy get very close to the infantry line/archers before I tell my infantry to charge and archers to step back some paces.

If the enemy has a lot of cavalry I keep my cool and trust my spearmen keeping them all in a tight formation with archers and cavalry in pretty safe dstance on a small hill firing arrows. As soon as the enemy cavalry has been stopped and most of them are standing still trying to swat my infantry I let my cavalry charge in and try taking down the enmy cavalry as they spread out of the pile.

If the enemy has mainly infantry I do the same as against archer strong armies, but the cavalry are used to attack the enemy infatry in the back right after I have told my infantry to charge.

I will post pictures/drawings later.

What do you think of my tactics? Would be fun if you showed me yours too.
 
I put my archers in a double spread formation on a hill, with all my "infantry" in a close formation immediately behind them. The infantry will then sally out when the enemy get too close. I put useless peasant troops in a seperate formation behind, so as to avoid loosing too many of them needlessly.

I will deploy cavalry to one side, or else have them follow me as a bodyguard as I attack enemy knights. I always dismount young nobles and light cavalrymen and assign them to the light archer group.

In sieges, I push knights to the bottom of my list, just above peasants, so that they aren't wasted on the walls.
 
I haven't had a chance to try this out yet, but I'm going to start putting my swordsmen and spearmen/billmen in separate groups.  I like your idea of having swordsmen "sally out" in front of your archers to deal with infantry.  Having spearmen and billmen in a separate group will allow you to place them in a position to receive a cavalry charge without messing up any other units.  In case you didn't know, if you hold down F1, a little flag will appear that you can move around  and when you release it, your selected units will go there.  I've found this very useful in a couple ways; first of all, especially with the "everyone, hold position" thing in the mod, it makes it very quick and easy to set up your archers in a favorable firing position.  Second, it's real real easy to order groups around once things have started moving.  I've also got cavalry in two groups, with heavy cavalry on the left side of my formation (for whatever reason, anytime an enemy army approaches, they have cavalry on their right side and the whole army moves to my left side before attacking).  Next time I play, I'm going to put my polearm units in front of my cavalry and see how that goes.

Has anybody tried that?  In native, cavalry just plow over infantry of any sort.  Are spearmen more useful in this mod?  I haven't even checked yet.
 
Knights are even more powerful in this than in native, in a sense. I have noticed they tend to eviscerate you if your army is spread out. Charging a block formation seems much less effective, as they typically become entwined in a melee and mobbed. They can still do damage and they don't go down easy though. Also you need a dense formation... they can easily smash through a guy or two and come out the other side (lance one, smash the mount into another).
 
The ideal setup (of course depending on tactical situation) when defending: Archers in one row in front, infantry in one row behind and the cavalry (about 20% of the army, and that includes the companions) in the "weak flank", the one that faces the enemy cavalry main body. Depending on how they come at us, the archers pepper the main body of the enemy with arrows and when the foes close in, the infantry charges to face them. If the cavalry doesn't charge at the same point, my cavalry sallies out to get them, allthough usually at that point we are already engaged in a cavalry battle.

If I am attacking I let the archers in the closest (to the perceived field) hill, usually they get a few kills that way, and try to make a natural half-moon formation with my infantry and cavalry, and when almost engulfinf the enemy, we charge (and rout them in seconds  :mrgreen:)
 
Put your infantry way in front to bait the enemy to them.  Once the melee starts, quickly move your archers to flank the attacking enemy (best to tell them to hold fire until in position).  Move your cavalry to the other flank and order a charge.  Enemy routes in about 10s after that treatment is given.
 
even though one wins by using lots of knights, its not much fun (I think). Its also very easy to win if you set the difficulty to easy, or super easy.

however, back to the tactics. Here is a small picture of what I do most of the time:

basicTactic.png

did this in paint :razz:

lots of nice tactics that have come up,I  like the one that MoonCabbage came with, but I think the only bad thing about it is that it doesnt take care of cavalry very well except if you have a really steep hill to be on top of.


anyone has any thoughts about what faction is the best for different strategies/tactics?

EDIT: othrs tactic seems pretty good too, but it was a bit hard to understand completely what was done, it sounded a bit like my usual one.
 
Diavolo, how did you get your archers into 2 seperate groups? Or do you have crossbowmen one side, and archers on the other?
 
von Afton said:
still just move your knights in for the plowing

play it in super hard it still works as a charm
Click to expand...

ok, here are the difficulty "settings" (hardest on top):

best AI normal damage to all - having an army with few to no cavalry
best AI normal damage to all - having half an army of  cavalry
best AI normal damage to all - having an army of only heavy cavalry
best AI reduced damage to all - not having an army of all cavalry
best AI super reduced damage to all - not having an army of all cavalry
etc. etc.

As you can see using a "heavy cavalry only"- army is a way of making it easy for yourself, just like setting 1/4 damage to yourself is an other way of accomplishing the same. However, it can be fun and yes, it IS the "best" tactic. When you get tired of just mowing down all enemies, Im sure you'll try out infantry and archers tactics too, its a lot of fun I think because it actually requires some planning and thought not to get slaughtered.


@MoonCabbage: I just have the fully upgraded archers in one group and the nearly fully upgraded ones in an other. Or something else, I just try to create two equal groups that can stay on each side. I have tried having all archers on one side too, but then the enemy often goes to that side to take them out, while now the enemy army will either be split or be forced to go at the infantry. I have expericenced armies going for one of my "archer flanks" but then I just tell that flank to stop firing and run away to a safe spot, kiting the enemy infantry while my other archers fire at them. (does not work if you have heavily armored archers or if the enemy infantry has loads of throwing weapons)
 
Diavolo said:
@MoonCabbage: I just have the fully upgraded archers in one group and the nearly fully upgraded ones in an other. Or something else, I just try to create two equal groups that can stay on each side. I have tried having all archers on one side too, but then the enemy often goes to that side to take them out, while now the enemy army will either be split or be forced to go at the infantry. I have expericenced armies going for one of my "archer flanks" but then I just tell that flank to stop firing and run away to a safe spot, kiting the enemy infantry while my other archers fire at them. (does not work if you have heavily armored archers or if the enemy infantry has loads of throwing weapons)
Click to expand...

Or lots of heavy cavalry ^^
 
I dont know about you guys but I love a bloody battle - when I need to ill be clever and avoid losses but sometimes I enjoy seeing heavy losses on both sides even if it is gonna cripple me :razz:
 
corkbob said:
I dont know about you guys but I love a bloody battle - when I need to ill be clever and avoid losses but sometimes I enjoy seeing heavy losses on both sides even if it is gonna cripple me :razz:
Click to expand...

Sadistic swine  :mrgreen:

Actually, a real carnage is fun sometimes  :grin:
 
I know you can assign units to specific groups, but I've never realized how is it possible to split archers into two groups. Is it like 1 group consists of tier 2 archers and other one of tier 3 archers?
 
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