What's your battle tatics or tricks?? let's share and learn

[veronicaaltoids]

1. Shallow-vee formation for archers/horse archers, so the guys on the far ends can get around shield-bearing infantry as they get to close range.

2. With an infantry anvil, using heavy cav as my hammer but instead of the Charge command (wasteful and scattershot) I instead give them a move order from one flank of the enemy to the other, ideally with enough width in their formation to drag across their archers as well. It looks like a squeegee when you pull it off correctly, and you can immediately repeat rather than letting your cav take some crazy long trip before turning around.

3. Mamluke-style horse archery: mounts stationary, only moving to redeploy to a new position. Combined with heavy cav to force the enemy to give up an exposed flank. Put the heavy cav on follow orders and angle yourself so they just barely contact one side of the eny formation. If you do it right, like fifty dudes spin their shields around and catch arrows to the back, you don't lose any heavy cav and the enemy formation sorta comes apart.

4. I never use the Face Direction command. Instead I use the drag-and-drop troop placement because it let's you set your formation width and fixes their orientation.

5. Speaking of width, never deploy your units deep. They should be in a wide ribbon, ideally wider than the enemy. In the case of infantry, give a Charge command as the enemy gets close and the ends of your formation will collapse in on their flanks. For cavalry there are some times you want a narrow front, like maneuvering around to clip the corners of the enemy formation, but if you ever pull off a rear flank, you want them as wide as possible.

6. The most devastating possible charge is one with javelin cav at a trot, arrayed as wide as practical, on Hold Fire orders until you reach about 30 meters. Let them throw then give them Move command through the enemy formation and well beyond. Done right, you'll drop one dude for every cavalryman you commited.

thanks for the reply, so many questions for you though
1. V shape formation for archers?? but your front archers sticks out and enemy horse man can easily kill them
I always use loose formation.

2. what's the purpose of stationary horse archer? let them attack by themselves , they will just circle around and kills
bec they stay on no moving horse and can shoot more accurately???

3. I always put archers in loose foramtion and infantry behind, wait for enemy get closer and charge the infantry
usually the archer in loose formation so they have wide range, they can shoot enemy on the flank

 

[Althix]

just sturgian heavy axeman those fools

 

[Apocal]

thanks for the reply, so many questions for you though
1. V shape formation for archers?? but your front archers sticks out and enemy horse man can easily kill them
I always use loose formation.

2. what's the purpose of stationary horse archer? let them attack by themselves , they will just circle around and kills
bec they stay on no moving horse and can shoot more accurately???

3. I always put archers in loose foramtion and infantry behind, wait for enemy get closer and charge the infantry
usually the archer in loose formation so they have wide range, they can shoot enemy on the flank

1. With foot archers, I usually have a dedicated anti-cav group that keeps them distracted. Or did; it has been awhile since I used foot archers for anything except sieges.

2. They are more accurate, yes. They are also easier to control and don't take unnecessary losses by riding straight into the enemy if you tell them to fall back.

3. Yeah, that works.

 

[Althix]

With foot archers, I usually have a dedicated anti-cav group that keeps them distracted.

hold on. so why do you split your archers when you can just kill horse archers? i mean especially in the current version of beta

 

[Apocal]

so why do you split your archers when you can just kill horse archers?

I split the archers into a shallow vee so they can get around forward-facing shields. The anti-cav group is just some cav I lead around. As long as you threaten the enemy flank, the enemy's cav usually won't try to charge your archers. But I wouldn't dive the my own cav into the enemy infantry because it just leads to losses and not many kills.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

5. Speaking of width, never deploy your units deep. They should be in a wide ribbon, ideally wider than the enemy.

How do you change them to be wide and not deep? The only trick I found is to put them in a different group, say horse archers in group 2 and they will be 2 deep like foot archers. Is there a better way?

 

[Apocal]

How do you change them to be wide and not deep? The only trick I found is to put them in a different group, say horse archers in group 2 and they will be 2 deep like foot archers. Is there a better way?

Use the F1 move command with drag-and-drop.

 

[Berzerker Jay]

I tend to flex my tactics a lot, but in my current archer playthrough one of my favourite strategies is to put them in loose formation and then either have them advance or take high ground. If I think they're going to flee, I'll hold fire until they're too close for that to matter. If the opponent is formidable, I'll ride ahead and cut through their line, split their group so my formation has less to deal with at one time -- tends to work like a charm, and it's how I made it this far following an arbitrary rule of recruiting only the Fian line of troops, even when I only had three to back me up and I really had to break up the enemy into bite-size chunks.

 

[Berzerker Jay]

5. Speaking of width, never deploy your units deep.

In general, yes, but I wouldn't say never. I love being able to unleash a charge from a thick formation kept behind my line of archers. The archers keep the enemy from concentrating on this heavy force and it overwhelms and breaks the center of their line fast. And from there it's all bloodbath.

 

[Midnitewolf]

I am generally pretty basic myself. I generally always find good defensive terrain preferable someplace I can put my archers on elevation above my infantry line or I line them up just in front of my infantry and if the enemy isn't attacking then I have my horse archers follow me and we harass the enemy until they decide to attack. Then I just let them run into my wall of arrow and finally have my infantry wade in just before they reach my archers. I then have the Cavalry and Horse Archers charge to break and purse the enemy. Battle done, wash, rinse and repeat.

 

[veronicaaltoids]

I am generally pretty basic myself. I generally always find good defensive terrain preferable someplace I can put my archers on elevation above my infantry line or I line them up just in front of my infantry and if the enemy isn't attacking then I have my horse archers follow me and we harass the enemy until they decide to attack. Then I just let them run into my wall of arrow and finally have my infantry wade in just before they reach my archers. I then have the Cavalry and Horse Archers charge to break and purse the enemy. Battle done, wash, rinse and repeat.

well I found 60%-70% of time enemy wont attack you first, they will play defensive and you have to find them and attack

then how do you attack? what's your battle tatics

 

[Razeo]

There's a reason why I only compose my army of heavy cav & ground archers & let my companions cover the the recruitment of infantry. 99% of the time the AI will turtle itself behind trees or somewhere uphill. I simply inch my way into their formation until my Fians are within range to rain their arrows down on them, once they take enough casualties from that they take the bait & let their infantry advance. Their archers stay behind & my cav just mows them down; all that remains is their infantry who then gets sandwiched between my infantry & my cav behind them.