DateyourGame’s Blog

This is a little taster of a work in progress, which when finished will cover everything that prima strategy guides and the like have failed to do so with practically every total war game ever made…

Even the newest strategy guide for M2TW fails to please; just read the reviews on amazon etc.

for this sample of my guide I’m going to introduce a simple battle formation and explain its strengths and weaknesses and then I’m going to back up what I’m saying with a video.

1. Form your army in two lines

“To form the whole army simply in one line facing the enemy and to hold nothing in reserve for various eventualities in case of a reverse, is the mark of an inexperienced and absolutely reckless man.”

- Maurices Strategicon, Handbook of Byzantine military strategy (translated by George T. Dennis)

At first you might disagree with this and state that a single line allows you to envelop the enemy army and attack his flanks. The M2TW adviser even says this when you choose the ’single line’ formation for the first time. This is just not correct, common sense should sound alarm bells as staking the fate of your whole army in one ‘throw’ is a bad idea.

Problems with simply forming a single line:

1. If the army is large the line is hard to manage and maintain, with parts of it possibly on unfavorable terrain. It also might not fit on your whole screen so you may miss important events like units routing etc.
2. The single line formation is itself easily flanked, with no support units or reserve to prevent such an enemy maneuver.
3. When units start to rout the negative morale will often ‘roll’ along the whole line causing the the whole army to rout.
4. If units are routed or pushed back, there are no support units to ‘plug’ the gaps, allowing enemy units to pour through and flank, which is devastating.

My suggested alternative:

As seen in the diagram 2 main lines are formed; the Main battle line, and the support line.

Flank Guard:

Behind the left flank there is the ‘Flank guard’ who prevents enemy units from flanking the left side and rear of the main battle line. The Flank guard also joins the main battle line if the enemy battle line is longer.

Outflankers:

The ‘Outflankers’ are stationed behind the right wing of the main battle line and they have the same job as the flank guard but are used primarily to flank and ambush the enemy battle lines right flank.

Battle line length:

Your battle line should be made to be equal to the enemies, if possible. As stated above if the enemy line is longer than yours then always add the flank guard to your battle line first. If your battle line still is less than the enemies then and only then, add the outflankers unit to your main battle line.

Basic use of Flank guard and Outflankers:

When the your battle line is equal to the enemies then the flank guard and outflanker units will remain in their original positions and protect the flanks of the battle line, and when your battle line and the enemies are engaged they should move outwards and turn about to attack the corresponding flank of the enemies battle line.

Extra word on Flank guard and Outflankers:

Even though they have the same job, they are called by these names (I didn’t come up with these names by the way, Emperor Maurice did) because the battle line was usually flanked on the left, although not necessarily the case in M2TW. I have decided to keep these names for a sense of realism and for example if I say “expand your battle line to meet the enemies in length”, you would know i mean to add the ‘Flank guard’ to my battle line from reading the paragraphs above.

You could just as easy add the ‘Outflanker’ unit to the main battle line first, but by doing things exactly the way I have said it will make it easier to learn and to become familiar with. If its not broke - don’t fix it…

The support line:

The support line plugs any hole in the main battle line and can also protect the rear of the main line. When units in the battle line become from tired/very tired/exhausted - wavering, units from the support line should move out and take their place, with the unit being replaced in the main battle line reforming in the space left in the support line.

This may prevent a full scale ‘rout’ and will keep your battle line ‘fresh’, whist the enemy battle line tires.

You should constantly monitor your main battle line and note its ‘morale’, its level of fatigue and its number of troops. Until you can do this quickly you can pause the game periodically until you are competent.

If your army is being directly flanked from behind and the rear guard cannot manage the attack, the support line can offer assistance also.

Rear guard:

Your general, and light cavalry should form the rear guard which protects the rear of the army. Towards the end of the battle when units are tired and the support line is a mostly (if not totally) engaged in battle, the general should be moved up to provide morale boosts to units that may be wavering or are getting tired. Light cavalry is for chasing routing troops.

Any one who has played M2TW has found it frustrating to rout an enemy unit and then have it reform and come back with devastating results minutes later. Once and enemy unit has routed, chase after it with your light cavalry, avoiding any remaining enemy units that are not routing. Focus your battle line on the enemy units that have not routed and do not give chase to those that do with infantry unless you have no cavalry at all. Use waypoints to enable your light cavalry to eliminate each routing enemy unit one after the other allowing you to focus on the battle at hand.

Final formation notes:

The formation can be adapted to include heavy cavalry, which ideally should be placed on both flanks of the support line, and used in co-ordination with the flank guard and outflankers.

Archers that are good in melee can be used as a flank guard and outflanker units, allowing them to fire flaming or standard arrows into the enemy flanks before a charge.

The support line should consist of about a 1/3 of your army and you can mix archers with men at arms in the support line, particularly if the archers are good in melee combat (e.g. retinue longbow, janissary archers, Byzantine guard archers etc) .

Other archer types shouldn’t get in the way of the support line and battle line activities and if of the basic kind should lie between the support line and the rear guard if not part of the support line.

Hope this proves useful, and like a said its work in progress, this particular section will probably be added to before I release the final version.

Regards,

iRIDS

P.S. - the diagrams are mine, (made in Photoshop CS2).

Been a while since I’ve posted a video , but I’mm starting a new “project”, a kind of M2TW ‘Strategicon’.

I’ve always been interested in medieval history etc and i have just finished reading Maurice’s Strategicon - the handbook of Byzantine military strategy, which is a great book similar to that of Sun Zu - the Art of war, but was used more by generals (not just Byzantine generals) during the medieval times.

This kind of increased my interest in the Byzantines and it made me think about how much ive learned could be relavent to the gameplay of M2TW.

Anyways lookout for that coming your way but for now heres a Byzantine campaign heroic victory battle, where i try out some harrassment techniques ive been learning.

The enemy attacked me with a Spear + archer army however their spear units were Italian militia with +1 experience and where far more powerful than my slav mercenaries and Byzantine spear men (these guys melt away like butter when in prolonged melee). The enemy general was a unit of armoured sergents which are pretty damn good as far as spearmen go.

Ive been thinking of adding verbal commentary to my videos so i can talk about what i’m doing and why, which saves me writing alot… meh

anyways enjoy…

This second part in the series shows a simple and quick way of moving your missile units behind your infantry in a nice straight line with 2 keys: shift + 4 (’Sorted Double Line‘ formation)

1. Place your missile units in a line with your infantry behind them, also in a line.
2. Group the missile units and infantry together.
3. When the enemy get close or prepare to charge:

• Disable ‘fire at will‘ for missile units (’A’ key).
• Press shift + 4 to move units into ‘sorted double line‘ formation.
• Press ‘R’ to make them run. (you can select the group and press ‘R’ before you change formation also).

This can also have the effect of the enemy units still try to attack the missile units and so bunch up towards the center. The diagrams explain a little better:

note :

• red = enemy
• orange = missile units
• black = infantry

If the enemy bunch towards the center then you can wrap around their flanks as shown in the video which gives a morale penalty for the enemy, not to mention it is effective against enemy spear units.

The video is not as fluid as i would like, so ill make another to go along with this one, practice makes perfect. This was the 1st time ive tried this strategy, but you can see it works quite nicely, and again as with part one, you can imagine and implement your own variations to suit each situation.

At the very least this offers you a nice technique of moving you missile units behind your front line without dragging a line and risking changing their formation and depth etc.

Regards,

iRIDS

This is my new series of videos showing interesting and effective tactics that can be employed during a battle.

Part 1:

The ‘Double line’ to ‘Single line’ formation tactic…

This tactic exploits the way in which units target each other:

Things to note:

1. The enemy units are in red.
2. Set up your units in ‘Double line‘ formation.
3. When the enemy is close set units to ‘Single line‘ formation (Shift + 1).
4. Dont forget to make sure your units ‘run’ whilst they change formation.
5. You can have your cavalry together on a far wing (check the video).
6. As the enemy flanks and center is exposed, charge your cavalry into the enemy

From the video you can see how well this works and you imagine loads of variations on this theme, for example you can see that your center opens up too, so you could charge reserve infanrty or cavalry right through your center and the enemies center and ‘u-turn’ into their flanks.

The AI always places their general unit behind their center, and with this tactic the enemy general unit is exposed… easy pickings. Obviously the enemy army in the video has basic units but this will still work during you campaign games with a bit of skill, timing and variation.

Im interested to see what you guys think of this,

regards,

iRIDS.

This is the last part of the ‘English Tactics’ series, the next will be tactics against the mongols and other faction tactics.

In this episode the army is put to an attack rather than defense, with the enemy routing not long after the infantry cavalry charge. A very quick battle.

The strategy will be ‘double edged’ from this part onwards, as after being excommunicated by the pope, the best defense is offense, keeping check on any enemy armies gathering near by.

By double edged I mean any battle I fight will be set up as a defensive position but with the decision and intention of attacking.

In this fight, having dispatched enemy re-enforcements (not shown), I use my cavalry to wither away the enemy crossbow infantry under cover fire from the longbow. My cavalry destroy the enemy spear wall allowing for an effective charge using my spear units, under cover fire again from the longbow.

In terms of defense, if the enemy engaged the spear wall, the heavy infantry on both flanks would attack the enemy and attempt to rout them, they would then be used to flank and rout the remaining enemy engaged in the center of the spear wall. Cavalry would engage the enemy cavalry and chase down routers.

Looking at the way my campaign is turning, it looks like theres gonna be some serious assaulting from now on.

Also I’m working on this new ‘Envelopment technique’, when its perfected ill make a video. basically it involves a half-circle formation of 7 spear units in schiltrom formation when the enemy cavalry approach the center, the spear units are put into standard formation and told to attack. This creates a full circle of spear enveloping the enemy cavalry as all the spear units are selected to attack. This is mainly a cavalry trap with use of stakes on the left and right flanks to force the enemy cavalry to attack the center.

I hope you enjoyed this,

iRIDS

Third installment of the English tactics series from a campaign (part 2 was included in part 1 as it was more or less the same).

In this part I was forced to attacks, the AI would not, even though they had re-enforcements which i dispatched with my cavalry (not show in the video). I deployed 5 units of Longbow in front to entice the enemy to attack, even though the enemy had crossbow they would have been out of range at first, after the enemy charged with cavalry my longbow remained behind my spear wall for the rest of the game, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, and decimating their charges, theres a great part in the video where you see the longbow kill the enemy general.

Things to notice:

1. With missile units on skirmish and set to run, they will most likely be able to retreat in time, i always select them and stretch out line formation for them in a safe spot in case i see they wont respond in time (shown in the video).
2. Concentrating Longbow on the same target will decimate there charge, you can see the enemy cavalry stop dead due to the amaount of arrows.
3. I think its best to use missile units against enemy infantry rather than just their missile troops, your cavalry can do that whilst the enemy infantry or cavalry is not near them.
4. At the point when the enemy is about to rout i switch to flaming arrows, which damages their morale even further causing a full rout.

Note:

the last section of the video cuts off for some reason, but the results are:

• enemies killed: 562
• casulties taken: 83
• Longow inflicted kills: 192

This videos mainly show the effectiveness of missile troops when used correctly, and gives an idea as to why the English longbows where so feared.

I remember seeing a quote from some French knights during the 100 years war who said day turned to night due to the sheer volume of arrows the English longbows fired. Thats so ace

I hope you enjoyed this.

iRIDS

The first part of a series showing examples of good tactics to adopt when playing as the English. Most tactics in this series involve those actually used in the ‘One Hundred Years War’ against France.

Campaign Battle 1

This is the deployment I used, with a building blocking and protecting my left flank, Longbow extrude from the right flank with stakes in front. Cavalry are behind the archers to defend them and strike out easily to the front of the spear wall for a enemy flank charge.

Things to notice:

1. The Longbow can shoot easily at any enemy engaged at any point at the spear wall, this is devestating.
2. Cavalry must be used to protect the Longbow as they are still vunerable.
3. This is pure defensive strategy, which is how the English beat the French most of the time in the 100 years war.
4. The spear wall units must be on guard mode.
5. The longbow should be on guard mode and set to hold position.
6. The longbow should be used to shoot at any enemy units that are closest to them, i.e. on the enemies left flank.
7. Any enemy that turns to engage the Longbow must be selected by the Longbow, and cavalry must be dispatched to engame this unit

The stationary spear wall lets you concentrate on your longbow and cavalry units, you will find that it is best to keep switching the units the longbow fire at as the fight develops. If you get the chance to fire at units that are engaging your sprear wall, take a look and you will see the arrows rip through the enemy line like butter as you will be shooting across them and they are deeper in width than they are in height. Plus friendly fire is extremely unlikely and rare (I’ve checked :D).

NOTE:

when missile units are grouped and you select an enemy unit, they might not all shoot at that enemy unit due to the feature of each unit in a group selecting a ‘logical’ target that corresponds to them. Hold shift to see the way points to make sure they all have the same target. If not select the group, press G to ungroup, select the target again, then press G to group them back.

When the enemy are beginning to retreat, switch to flaming arrows, as this causes moral damage further.

thats about it hope you enjoyed, battle was a little short as it was so effective the enemy decided to withdraw half way through the battle, which the AI doesn’t normally do! (AI was on Very Hard as I always have it).

Hope you enjoyed this, and can take these tactics and even apply them to other factions etc,

iRIDS.