Tricks and tips that you can share with us...

[Archer of Sparta]

Here's one of my favorites:

-ASSASINS WORK. They work like crazy too I had an assasin, maxed out his skill and still lives at age 67. He has killed about 15 generals so far, really helped with my war against the scippii, as they do tend to bunch up their generals around the capitol.

-Oh and never march 300 spartans into a full stack, I learned that the hard way.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Here's one of my favorites:-Oh and never march 300 spartans into a full stack, I learned that the hard way.

• LOL SPARTANS CAN DESTROY WHOLE STACK IF DEFENDING...
• LEONIDAS

[konny]

When you want to hunt down routed enemy cavalry with horse archers or any other cavalry unit with ranged weapons use the sword-attack (holding the ALT-key when double klicking on the foe) + "fire at will". They will keep gallopping & fireing and will not stop to shoot. This combination is also good for heavy cavalry with ranged weapons like Eastern Generals: they will charge the enemy and keep shooting until in swords' distance.


Be carefull with the "fire at will" option of your archers when your cavalry is outflanking the main battleline of the enemy; they may fell victim of friendly fire. Also, toggle off "fire at will" when going into melee with hastati and the like: when they had (hopefully) crushed the enemy and he turns and runs they might throw pila at anyone around, even at the single enemy peasent that is already sorrunded by 60 of your prime horsemen....


No friendly unit is allowed to stand in front of your Phalanx. Pelasts are best placed behind or (if none more decent medium infantry is available) on the flanks of the Phalanx. In both situation the sikirmish mode should toggled off.

Remember that there is an option to turn the Phalanx-Mode off. Your Hoplits will be as fast as any enemy heavy footsoldier and can very well react to flanking manouvers. Toggle "Phalanx on" close before the fighting starts.


When your settlements are small and poor or only few use your family as cheap heavy cavalry. For instant, when playing the Franks in BI, a cavalry wing of 6 squadrons of Paladins will certainly crush anything the Romans might bring to field.

Check your characters wether their skills come from their talents or are simply added by their staff. Sometimes you will have a three stars general who has now military talents at all but only some good military advisors. Move those "Moltkes" to characters that allready have military talents but are lacking advisors.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

THX FOR TIPS KONNY!

LEONIDAS

[konny]

Three things I forgot:

Economy: If possible, try to keep the upkeep for your army on the level of your tax-income. You will be neither over-strengthed nor under-armed and you will have the income from farming, mining and trade for construction and recruitment.


Mercenaries: Do not neglect them! They do not cost you more than the compareble national unit (i.e. Merc Phalanx vs. Hellenistic Phalangists) in upkeep, do not "cost" you population, but have - more or less - the same fighting strength. The downside is that they are more expensive when raised and very much limited, what depends on the region. You can't retrain their casulities either.

Mercs can give you units that you can't raise so far or even will never be able to raise at all. So, when entering enemy territory always check what kinds of mercenaries are available - those will be very certain the kind of soldiers your enemy army is made of. Hiring those will reduce the enemy's advantage in one or the other "exotic" weapon.

Faction Leader and Heir: Make sure to change your faction heir in time - if necessary. Once your leader dies there is no way to change to another leader than the last heir. Also, note that your leader will always be in command when present, regardless of better generals in the same stack. So, if he is no kind of an Alexander leave him at home.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

how you change faction heir...

Leonidas

[konny]

It can be done in the family tree: Select the one who should be heir and use the "make heir" button on the left panel. But the former heir will lose influence by this - so only do so if you are sure.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

thx very much

Leonidas

[Archer of Sparta]

-When you are defending as a roman. Set your infantry to fire at will, the hastati or whatever pila unit will cause devistation as the enemy aproaches.

[Happykiller]

-When you are defending as a roman. Set your infantry to fire at will, the hastati or whatever pila unit will cause devistation as the enemy aproaches.

Or better yet, ALWAYS enable fire at will for them (except for maybe during the mopping up operation).

[Archer of Sparta]

Well sometimes when you're ofence there might be friendly fire so Thats why I usualy don't set my whole legion on fire at will.

[Happykiller]

Well sometimes when you're ofence there might be friendly fire so Thats why I usualy don't set my whole legion on fire at will.

I guess my widespread use of archers is what ALWAYS makes my enemies come to me so I set on fire at will , And every time I need to advance my troops I just release the hounds or the calvar(i usually carry 3 warhound units in an army), so I haven't been forced to advance with legions on to the enemy lines for a while

[LeonidasOfSparta]

I never played with warhounds...they look funny. But I tried them and can tell you tat they rock!

Leonidas

[konny]

Yesterday I had a quite epic battle between my Franks and the Goths' hordes. They came marching through my lands, 4 1/2 stacks full of Steppe Warriors. At the same time the Vandals showed up as well but I was able to sign treaties with them and sent them south against the Romans.

I had hoped to avoid battle with the Goths as well and followed them closely with my main army (one stack full with Paladins from my all family members and a couple of mercenaries I had hired from the remains of the Roman armies in Gaul). Finaly they started siegeing my cities so I went into battle - seriously outnumbered.


So, what I learned in this battle is that the AI has all his light units (in this case loads of horse archers) on permanent sirkimish mode. It is enough to simply threaten them and soon enough they will turn and run without actually haven been engaged in combat. Keep on pushing foreward and you will be able to seperate those from the main army.

I had seven units of Paladins from my family and a unit of Gral's Knights hired somewhere en route. So I used three of this eight heavily armoured squadrons chaseing away all his hores archers (the arrows won't do them much harm). What left his infantry entirely exposed to three sided attack. The outcome was a massacre.


What is to learn in return:

• When you have light units screening your flanks always turn off skirmish mode.
• Horse archers and the like are an auxiliary weapon. Do not make up all your cavalry of such men.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

thx for great tips Konny !

Leonidas

[Prince_of_Macedon]

What is to learn in return:

• When you have light units screening your flanks always turn off skirmish mode.
• Horse archers and the like are an auxiliary weapon. Do not make up all your cavalry of such men.

Human opponents can utilize horse archer spam much better than the AI. I'll have to play BI again to see how effective horse archers are, but I'm sure they're still deadly. Humans > AI

[morteduzionism]

When you have light units screening your flanks always turn off skirmish mode.

That's probably not a really good bit of advice. Here's why:

-if you're on defense and you have your skirmishers(light infantry) on 'stand-and-fight' and your flanks are attacked by heavy infantry(or something they can't handle) they're going to be mowed down and your flanks are going to be exposed.

However, if they're on 'skirmish' mode hopefully they will run off somewhere and the enemy will chase them(I've seen 3 units chasing some of my skirmishers) and if they are chasing the skirmishers they can't be attacking your flank. It's up to you whether or not you allow units under your command to chase enemy skirmishers all over the map.

So, in some instances your one unit of skirmishers can effectively nullify multiple units. When your main army defeats the enemy march them to the rescue of your skirms(probably somewhere in a corner)

[Freddie]

In the beginning don’t expand (hardly at all) so you give the A.I a chance to build up its forces so you will have a decent enemy to fight rather then stacks of 2 or 3 unties.

When out numbered form your men into a defensive square and prey that your enemy will get tired and rout before your men crack and run.

Don't move your archers behind the enemies back line as this is not realistic, all you are doing is exploiting the AI's own stupidity.

Build realistic legions and not legions of pure Pretorians and Urban cohorts.

1x General
2x Cavalry
2x Archers
2x Javelins Aux
10x Legions
2x Auxillia

[LeonidasOfSparta]

thx for tips Freddie

Leonidas

[Sh3rpa]

a lot of these are cheats, i wouldnt feel too good about a "victory" through baiting. bleh.