Sciforums' Medieval Total War battles

^^I was getting tired of chasing those damn horse archers around, I just decided to try an finish off TDI completely.

MTW is a great game, I never played it before this. I havent even bothered with single player yet. I'd still like to try more 2 vs 2 or more though.
 
2 vs 2 adds an extra dimension. You are a bit depended on your ally. If he fucks up you have the clean up the mess. And it is much more dynamic than 1 vs 1. I can still remember one game we were playing in the viking era when I thought we lost, but things turned so chaotic it turned into victory. I had no control left whatsoever at one point. Half the infantry was running. My horsies were mostly somewhere where they shouldn't be, but my ally kicked ass and I could regroup and help finishing off.

It's nice when chaos reigns or even rains.
 
Plazma Inferno! said:
This is good game description.

I could almost feel sword in my hand, mud beneath my feet, smell of spilled blood in my nostrils... :eek:
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you should TOTALLY play this game with us.
in that game, the more players there are, the more fun battles become.

1v1 battles generally are formulaic....."kill the general".
 
Nickelodeon said:
^^I was getting tired of chasing those damn horse archers around, I just decided to try an finish off TDI completely.

MTW is a great game, I never played it before this. I havent even bothered with single player yet. I'd still like to try more 2 vs 2 or more though.
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single player mode is fun if you start with an objective in mind.
im playing a game right now as the teutonic knights where i have conquered all of eastern europe, down to constantinople.

i forgot about the mongol hordes that just *pop* onto the map about halfway through the game.....my back was exposed.

so, i decided instead of fighting mongols, i would ally with them, and force them to invade southwards toward the middle east.


only england, france, spain, and almohads still survive against the golden horde and the christian teutonic alliance.

my goal in this game is to keep control of the vatican now.
 
I've got MTW plus Viking Invasion, and Enemy Territory. Never played any of 'em. I'm constantly torn between wasting my time with them and doing something else. :(
 
The Devil Inside said:
you should TOTALLY play this game with us.
in that game, the more players there are, the more fun battles become.

1v1 battles generally are formulaic....."kill the general".
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Kill the general is a tactic that works well if you don't have so much florins allocated and you play early era. Later on and with more money this tactic becomes less 'reliable'.

In the early era the units are just more eager to run. Killing the general will have a huge impact on that aspect of unit management. Units in later era often have the attribute that do not panic. If you also have a lot of money you can give them plenty of valour which once again decreases the chances that units will run.

That's why you should switch Eras and amount of Florins when you host a game. Otherwise it will turn into a one-trick pony.

But even with little money and early Era you don't have to play the kill the general game. You can first go for the weak spot in the line and have the line fold in. And then finish off the general at leisure.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
Kill the general is a tactic that works well if you don't have so much florins allocated and you play early era. Later on and with more money this tactic becomes less 'reliable'.

In the early era the units are just more eager to run. Killing the general will have a huge impact on that aspect of unit management. Units in later era often have the attribute that do not panic. If you also have a lot of money you can give them plenty of valour which once again decreases the chances that units will run.

That's why you should switch Eras and amount of Florins when you host a game. Otherwise it will turn into a one-trick pony.

But even with little money and early Era you don't have to play the kill the general game. You can first go for the weak spot in the line and have the line fold in. And then finish off the general at leisure.
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of course. my favorite era right now is the "high period".
 
redarmy11 said:
That would require:

1. Learning the game (possibly getting slaughtered a lot would help there); and
2. Sparing the time. And there's the real problem.
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1.the game is incredibly intuitive.
ask spuriousmonkey how quickly nickelodeon and i learned the game.

2. each game lasts 5-10 minutes. ive only ever had one battle go over the 15 minute mark. ever.
 
Some standard tactics.

Mtw-tactics1.png


This is pretty much a standard attack formation in 1 vs 1. This particular tactic worked very welll on TDI and Nick until they started to get good. It will still work very well if performed decently. Especially with archer units.

First you have a row of infantry. Usually a type of spearmen, but the best ones you can afford with decent valour. You don't want these guys to cave in and run. They are meant to engage the enemy and keep them occupied.

Behind the line of infantry you can put some javelin throwers or archers. Javelin throwers work very well against armoured infantry. They can decimate them in a minute. Unfortunately you need to control your javelins. This require micromanagement which can go wrong in the heat of the battle. You can't keep them in skirmish mode because they will run away all the time. You have to rely on your block of infantrymen to protect them. So you turn skirmish mode off. And place them yourself. And click on specific units you want to attack. No point wasting your javelins on some shit unit. Go for the elite units. The disadvantage of javelin troops is of course that they run out of javelins really quickly. Most can throw 3 times or so. If you do it properly though these salvos of death will hurt elite units that cannot be hurt so easily in other ways, such as 1 on 1 combat with other elite units.

A more relaxing solution is to use archers. They don't need to be so close and can hang back a bit. They also can shoot longer since they have more arrows. Disadvantage is of course that the arrow isn't as deadly, especially against heavily armoured troops. Sometimes it is therefore better to target the weak lightly or unarmoured units of the enemy. Moral can cave in if there are lots of dead people in the opposing army. Or you can let all archer units focus on one enemy unit. An elite one. Or the enemy general. It's a bit the coward way though. I did it once in a battle 2 vs 2. TDI my ally was completely butchered. I saw it happening. I finished Sockpuppet path's general off with archer units, crashing his moral. Later in the same battle I did the same with Nick's general. :eek:

Now it is time to plug holes. Your infantry spear units have engaged the enemy and are holding them down. You can have some sword or axe infantry units on the sides which are now send forward to attack the enemies flanks, or at least to pin them down.

Remember that you will never win this battle in the center. The center is just for holding down the enemy. In fact you are slowly losing the battle in the center, because if everything went well his best units are there and pinned down. Otherwise you are in trouble.

With the flanks occupied and semi-safe you can send you cavalry behind enemy lines. They flank the battle and make a concentrated attack in the rear of an infantry unit that CAN lose. No point in going for a suicide attack against the general unit or an infantry unit that is standing around in reserve. Your spear man line is the anvil. Your cavalry is the hammer that will hit a unit from the back against the anvil.

9 out of 10 the crushed unit will pack in and run away.

this is the moment you have been waiting for. You can pull the cavalry unit back or route the enemy. Or you let the infantry unit that was holding the line chase it. The idea is that you now have a free unit in the line. You can wheel the infantry around to attack the flank of the neighbouring enemy unit. This enemy unit has already seen its buddies run and the chances are good they will do the same. If you have send the infantry unit to chase the runners you can use the cavalry for another hammering. You have pulled them slightly back and now you send them again.

If you kept your general unit in reserve you can now direct him to the weak spot to help give the final punch. Once a few units start running you have achieved superiority in numbers.

What is left is to finish the enemy off.

Needless to say the adversaries Nick and TDI have been highly trained now to expect a standard attack like this, but with the right units it is still difficult to counter it.

Standard counter techniques are to use your own cavalry to block the flanking of the cavalry of the attacker. Or hold some units in reserve that protect the flanks.
 
The Devil Inside said:
of course. my favorite era right now is the "high period".
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My favourite is the viking era with almost no money. The problem is however that when I play the Irish in the viking era I become a very very deadly adversary. So I try to avoid that, but sometimes it is just clean old fun to pick the Irish and massacre everybody that comes in my way.

And yes, TDI and Nick learned very fast. In the beginning I was dancing circles around them, and nowadays nick regularly beats me and TDI wishes he could beat me. :p
 
i prefer 2 pronged cavalry attacks, myself.
going to just one side is difficult to pull off, but if you have at least 2 groups of 2-3 cavalry units coming from each flank, it is almost impossible to hold off...especially if you are performing at an average rate on your front lines.
i have taken to using less ranged units, and adding an extra armor or weapon stat to a few of my front line troops to supplement the "anvil" mentality.

more and more frequently, as all of us get better, the battle is won 1 small skirmish at a time, however. these "grand tactics" tend to get their user slaughtered in our games nowadays.
 
More MTW tactics

You don't need any archer/javelin units though to mount a successful attack. The principle of hammer and anvil is valid in any situation.

Here is an example of the same pinciple without archer/javelin units
Mtw-tactics2.png


Once again you have your line of infantry. A good spearman unit with high valour and if you have the money also good armour is best for this. In the later era you would pick for this job, feudal sergeants or chivalric sergants, or pikemen.

They engage the enemy front and pin them down. They will slowly die. So it is time for action now.

The idea is to create local battle superiority. So in this scenario swordsmen infantry units are concentrated on on flank. The aim is to try to steer them towards the flank of the enemy unit and possibly swerve them around the flank and let them attack a defending unit from the back. In a optimal situation you can have an enemy unit be confronted by 3 units. They will start running eventually.

The line of spear infantry is the anvil (peach/orange). The swordmen units are a slow hammer that hammer one flank against the anvil (purple).

If you keep things static the enemy can react at leisure. Luckily you brought cavalry. The main job of your cavalry is to keep the battle fluid.

In this case the cavalry is send around the other flank. If the enemy sends reinforcements to the left flank it exposes the right flank. If there is an opening you can now hammer with the cavalry.

Certain cavalry are better for this than others of course. You want a nice heavy cavalry if you know you are going to do some heavy hammering. If you just want to keep things fluid you might want to have some lighter cavalry since they can run faster. They are not so effective at hammering, but often it doesn't matter.
 
redarmy11 said:
That would require:

1. Learning the game (possibly getting slaughtered a lot would help there); .
Click to expand...
Its very easy to learn the game, at least fast enough to avoid getting slaughtered all the time. I think I managed to win in my 3rd game ever, not sure. (I didnt have much experiance at all when I managed to massacre Spuriousmonkey & TDI as described in the OP).

redarmy11 said:
2. Sparing the time. And there's the real problem.
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Our games don't last long, 5-10 mins max, so you dont have to set aside 2-3 hours for it or anything ridiculus like that. Besides, I havent really played more than 3-4 games consecutively.
 
The Devil Inside said:
i prefer 2 pronged cavalry attacks, myself.
going to just one side is difficult to pull off, but if you have at least 2 groups of 2-3 cavalry units coming from each flank, it is almost impossible to hold off...especially if you are performing at an average rate on your front lines.
i have taken to using less ranged units, and adding an extra armor or weapon stat to a few of my front line troops to supplement the "anvil" mentality.

more and more frequently, as all of us get better, the battle is won 1 small skirmish at a time, however. these "grand tactics" tend to get their user slaughtered in our games nowadays.
Click to expand...

The advantage though of an uneven battle line is that you have immediate local battle superiority. Although you have to work hard not getting your ass kicked where the line is weaker.

A large part of the tactics is also assigning valour, weapon upgrade and armour upgrade.

Not all units need valour. Not all need an armour upgrade. There can be trade-offs.

But I am not going to reveal my strategies on this front too much, because smart people can find out themselves.

Obviously units that need to stay put under constant attack of the enemy need their valour upgrade. Unless you can finish off the enemy real quick.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
The advantage though of an uneven battle line is that you have immediate local battle superiority. Although you have to work hard not getting your ass kicked where the line is weaker.

A large part of the tactics is also assigning valour, weapon upgrade and armour upgrade.

Not all units need valour. Not all need an armour upgrade. There can be trade-offs.

But I am not going to reveal my strategies on this front too much, because smart people can find out themselves.

Obviously units that need to stay put under constant attack of the enemy need their valour upgrade. Unless you can finish off the enemy real quick.
Click to expand...
duh.
 
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