Battle strategies anyone?

[Crossfire]

I keep hearing people say they can take large stacks with relatively few in their stack so what sorts of tips and techniques would you offer up to increase your odds of winning the battles that make up the war? Obviously attacking from hills and woods and not across rivers when your opponent in preferably not on one of those types of tiles is important, what else?

[MasterDave]

How to win battles and not die a whole lot

In very general terms, moving stacks with combined arms is very important. A stack of ancient units with an axeman or two, a swordsman, a spearman, and a cavalry unit is far more difficult to attack than larger stacks with just one or two units. Also, you always want to take maximum advantage of the rock-paper-scissors dynamics when you are attacking (for example- always attack horses with spears first if you have the option).

Do not overlook the medic promotions, and make sure that you have at least one medic traveling with each stack that goes deep into enemy territory (I will usually choose the spearman for this duty since they are not so good at attacking cities usually, although cavalry medics are good too in case you need to rush aid to a stack that is a few tiles away).

When attacking cities, patience is a virtue, and unless a city only has one or two defenders, I will typically wait for the artillery to completely take down the cultural defense bonus first. Then I will wait one more turn so that all of my artillery can attack the city first to soften up the defenders. Sacrificing artillery units to minimize casualties among my other units makes sense most of the time, since artillery are generally the cheapest units. Also, I find that city attack promotions for artillery work the best in general in terms of minimizing casualties among those units.

[Hauptman]

when i talk about killing stacks with few units, its in my own lands, using the power of collateral damage.

A story i posted on another thread was one of the closest fights i had.

I had in the area of a city, 1 mg, 2 cannon, and 2 cavalry on land, and 3 frigates in the water.

the japanese declared war as they moved a 5 galeon stack into my borders. and also a single galeon/frigate stack adjacent full of knights.

My frigates attacked and destroyed the 2 stack killing the 3 knights, but the remaining 15 where left untouched. Then i moved the frigates and cavalry into position to direct where the japanese landed. 2 squares from my city. I changed production in the cities to units, both cannon in the cities within range.

He landed his 15 unit stack 2 squares from my city. I moved all my units into position within the city he was after, construction completes on 2 cannons, and a grenadier gets closer to range from the capital.

he moves adjacent to my city and pillages the square... Ohhh scary.

4 cannons attack, first dies. second barely wins, 3rd n 4th win there combats with lots of hps. all of his units are now well below str, close to half from just 4 cannon. my 2 cavalry kill 2 with no damage. score, he looses 5, i loose 1.

He does calculation, decides his power still strong enough, knight attacks MG and dies pitifully, all other units heal as power no longer in his favor.

my turn, cannons get promotions, 2 heal to near full, 1 still badly mauled. 2 attack and kill units. causing even more collateral damage, cavalry kill 2 and the grenadier gets in range and kills last samurai. all that remains is 4 catapults wich continue to heal on his next turn.

His stack of 4 cats 4 grenadiers 3 samurai and 4 knights dies to my pitiful little band with 1 lost cannon on my side. granted my cavalry and cannons had a tech edge but this is how it usually plays out.

[couerdelion]

Two questions?

I assume that the computer always selects the best defender when a stack is attacked which certainly seems to makes the medieval game interesting

Mace v Pikes (12 v 6)
Knight v Mace (10 v 8)
Pikes v Knight (12 v 10)

Let’s assume that three stacks are lined up against each other containing one of each unit above. Am I right in thinking that it is ALWAYS a disadvantage to attack?

A second question addresses what the game considers as the killers of these “stacks” - the catapults. What I do not understand is how the catapults cause collateral damage and, if a different question, how they break down the city defences (cultural??) that were mentioned by MasterDave

[billones]

When a catapult is adjacent to an enemy city, you'll get a new icon on the task bar (I forget the keyboard shortcut) to "bombard" the city. It looks like a targeting bullseye. Bombarding takes 1 MP (e.g. all of it), but will reduce the defense bonus the city provides by IIRC 10% of its maximum.

FREX, a city is giving its defenders a +60% bonus. You bombard it. You get the message, "Your catapult has reduced the cities defenses to +54%." Do that for 9 more turns (or with more catapults) and eventually that number drops to 0%.

Collateral damage is different. In that situation, you are actually attacking an enemy space with your catapult as if it were any other unit. It attacks as a 5, the best defender steps up and stomps it. (Hopefully, you make your withdrawal roll). However, in addition to the combat, you get a message, "Your catapult has caused collateral damage to # units". Every other unit in that defending stack takes a small amount of damage, even though they weren't the designated defender in the combat.

Those two abilities are reserved for artillery and air units, and is why those units are so important to combined arms attacks: they are what permit an attacker to overcome the inherent advantages defenders get in this game.

[couerdelion]

That makes sense although I am not sure what was meant by the term "cultural defense". Surely the catapults are knocking down the walls?

[heliodorus04]

I cannot second strongly enough how important it can be to sacrifice one or two artillery-type pieces that do collateral damage. My greatest successes right now are with Napolean on Prince (Napolean is aggressive, thus his units start with Str1 - this opens via barracks the route to a broad range of promotions for subsequent units).

For my artillery, I TEND to generally give them more first strike capabilities, because when they go to attack a city (after the defense has been neutralized), they are almost always going in with a large disadvantage in modified strength. However, if they have an extra first strike chance (or two!) they have a chance to inflict casualties first before they die. Two artillery types will almost always register a hit between one of the two, and that hit will do collateral damage to other units.

I am also fond of throwing out-dated units like swordsmen and archers at a city, regardless of odds. If they die (and they usually do) they save me money in the long run (because I find it more useful to get a unit killed rather than disband it or upgrade it), and if they have a suitable bonus promotion (like first strike for archers, or city/melee bonus for swordsmen) then they have some chance of inflicting one hit.

When two Musketeers go at it head to head, that single hit by a sacrificed archer or catapult makes all the difference in the world.

Combined arms is essential, and once your opponent is using cannons, movement on the attack should be done from dispersed stacks, so that if your opponent sacrifices an artillery piece to do collateral damage, the collateral damage is minimized to as few units as practical.