Cover Crossbowmen - my new heroes

[InvisibleStalke]

Just started playing beyond the sword and getting a taste of the better AI. And I am going to have to learn some new strategies - which is great.

Playing as Maya - lined up a war against the Ethiopians who were blocking my expansion and had the buddist holy city with about 30 cities contributing to their treasury.

Built an army of macemen, catapults and trebs, escorted by a few of my UU spearmen.

First surprise - just before I was going to attack them, they attacked me. Whoa - not during a peaceful time where I was looking vulnerable, but at the peak of my military buildup. Thats new!

I took care of their invasion - but noticed they had a lot of catapults. Thats new too.

Then my nastiest surprise as I marched on their cities - getting hit by catapults followed by shock crossbowmen! Medieval warfare for me is usually about marching a big stack up to their longbow defended cities and tearing them down one by one - I don't worry much about counterattacks until they get knights. But now I had to worry. Seriously - my army was bleeding to death as it marched on their cities.

So battle in the field has become a lot more important. Enter my new heroes - cover crossbowmen. These guys are the perfect stack defenders (well you need spears too but they are cheap). They eat shock crossbowmen and shock maces for breakfast. They don't fear any medieval unit before knights. They can defend your stacks, act as good city defenders while your longbowmen come up, and do a reasonable job as city attackers cleaning up the wounded defenders.

They are vulnerable to horse archers - but only as equals and they get terrain defense. Neither of us had horses anyway so that didn't matter. And spears for stack defense are an obvious move.

Overall I found taking cities much harder. Six catapults and trebs took around 5 turns to take down a cities defenses, leaving a lot more turns where my army was defending in the open field. Even just capturing three cities took a long protracted effort and I was grateful to sue for peace after capturing the prize holy city.

Its nice to see that old tricks don't work any more. The war felt like much more of a touch and go total effort. Catapults are necessary, but greatly weakened. And the role of stack defenders and open field combat is much more enhanced. I am sure I will get to know the new AI's tricks, but its a welcome change. And great to find a solution in my new heroes - the cover crossbows.

 

[Eye of Sauron]

Just started playing beyond the sword and getting a taste of the better AI. And I am going to have to learn some new strategies - which is great.

Playing as Maya - lined up a war against the Ethiopians who were blocking my expansion and had the buddist holy city with about 30 cities contributing to their treasury.

Built an army of macemen, catapults and trebs, escorted by a few of my UU spearmen.

First surprise - just before I was going to attack them, they attacked me. Whoa - not during a peaceful time where I was looking vulnerable, but at the peak of my military buildup. Thats new!

I took care of their invasion - but noticed they had a lot of catapults. Thats new too.

Then my nastiest surprise as I marched on their cities - getting hit by catapults followed by shock crossbowmen! Medieval warfare for me is usually about marching a big stack up to their longbow defended cities and tearing them down one by one - I don't worry much about counterattacks until they get knights. But now I had to worry. Seriously - my army was bleeding to death as it marched on their cities.

So battle in the field has become a lot more important. Enter my new heroes - cover crossbowmen. These guys are the perfect stack defenders (well you need spears too but they are cheap). They eat shock crossbowmen and shock maces for breakfast. They don't fear any medieval unit before knights. They can defend your stacks, act as good city defenders while your longbowmen come up, and do a reasonable job as city attackers cleaning up the wounded defenders.

They are vulnerable to horse archers - but only as equals and they get terrain defense. Neither of us had horses anyway so that didn't matter. And spears for stack defense are an obvious move.

Overall I found taking cities much harder. Six catapults and trebs took around 5 turns to take down a cities defenses, leaving a lot more turns where my army was defending in the open field. Even just capturing three cities took a long protracted effort and I was grateful to sue for peace after capturing the prize holy city.

Its nice to see that old tricks don't work any more. The war felt like much more of a touch and go total effort. Catapults are necessary, but greatly weakened. And the role of stack defenders and open field combat is much more enhanced. I am sure I will get to know the new AI's tricks, but its a welcome change. And great to find a solution in my new heroes - the cover crossbows.

hi first post here

for BTS ahve you considered trying the Chu-ko-nu, they get drill and CG as built and are better suited to taking cities thanks to first strike and collateral damage and cover

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Welcome to the board.

Yes CNK are great - they should be even better now. Protective leaders might be strengthened too since a protective cover crossbow can be built just using a barracks and makes a good city defender too.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm playing my first BTS game now ( finished installing it 1/2 a hour ago ) and I must reckon that the AI in BTS is more capable in military terms ( whip defenders like hell, tries to intercept your army befores you lay siege, uses collateral more effectively).
Seing this, a cover xbow + spear escort to your city raider + siege units makes sense, like a lot of MP players already stated about human vs human wars. Your main attack force probably is melee city raider units ( axes+swords/maces) and catapults, and both are very vulnerable to mounted units + xbows ( cats are even more in BTS than in warlords ). Xbows + spears are a good countermeasure to that.
The only downside is the cost: xbows are somewhat expensive and some may argue that cover axes+ shock axes + spears are more cost effective ( I don't think so, but I wanted to point you that opinion. IMHO shock axes + cover axes, in spite of maybe being more favoured in terms of / protection ratio , they loose battles more often xbows, and lost battles mean XP to our enemies)

P.S InvisibleStalke, would you like a BTS LHC in a couple of days ( to give people time to get BTS and to start to familiarize with the new concepts)? I think that D. João II would be a good test leader: good for Rexing and both the UU and UB would shine in a isolated map.

 

[colony]

Crossbows will still lose to Elephants if there's Ivory around, but that isn't too common. Maces will also put up a reasonable fight against a shock XBow, as long as you're not on a forest or fortified on a hill, they won't win, but if the AI throws more than a few at your stack it could get dangerous.

A good Medieval war against a Protective leader is quite hard to pull off now without losing a lot of units, or having a lot of espionage points and spies for inciting revolts just before you attack, those castles take forever to bombard down to 0%.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I'm playing my first BTS game now ( finished installing it 1/2 a hour ago ) and I must reckon that the AI in BTS is more capable in military terms ( whip defenders like hell, tries to intercept your army befores you lay siege, uses collateral more effectively).
Seing this, a cover xbow + spear escort to your city raider + siege units makes sense, like a lot of MP players already stated about human vs human wars. Your main attack force probably is melee city raider units ( axes+swords/maces) and catapults, and both are very vulnerable to mounted units + xbows ( cats are even more in BTS than in warlords ). Xbows + spears are a good countermeasure to that.
The only downside is the cost: xbows are somewhat expensive and some may argue that cover axes+ shock axes + spears are more cost effective ( I don't think so, but I wanted to point you that opinion. IMHO shock axes + cover axes, in spite of maybe being more favoured in terms of / protection ratio , they loose battles more often xbows, and lost battles mean XP to our enemies)

A cover axe is toast to a shock crossbow. Cover and shock cancel but the crossbow is a higher strength, first strike unit with an extra +50%. Its just going to be one more casualty feeding war weariness as well as enemy XP. I lost very few crossbows in this role and only built four - but they were crucial, probably turning the war back in my favour.

You could use a cover longbow too. Not as costly and get a bonus defending hills. The crossbows did double duty though protecting against maces and crossbows.

P.S InvisibleStalke, would you like a BTS LHC in a couple of days ( to give people time to get BTS and to start to familiarize with the new concepts)? I think that D. João II would be a good test leader: good for Rexing and both the UU and UB would shine in a isolated map.

Maybe in a week or so. There are a lot of new mechanics to get to grips with. I'm thinking of dropping back to Prince while I get a feel for things again. Portugal sounds a good idea - nice to have a non financial/non philo/non industrious leader for a change. I'm not sure what I would do with the UU - launching a swarm of caravels each carrying a crossbow for an intercontinental invasion? Maybe you could capture barb cities on isolated islands or maybe join in a war thats already underway to see if you can get a great general.

UB would be great though - lots of coastal cities.

 

[AThousandYoung]

The Portugal AA is a Caravel that can carry troops? Sounds great for long range harassment.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Except its only 1 troop. So its going to take a LOT of caravels to carry any significant harrassing units. Given the other benefits of Astronomy for an isolated start you are probably going to rush Astronomy anyway and have galleons not too much longer afterwards. Without a military lead I can't see a lot of benefit in landing 4-5 units on the mainland 20 turns before you otherwise could.

Capturing islands might be more useful if it can carry settlers - not sure if it can though. If there is a big island with barb cities you could capture it maybe. Otherwise I think its going to be just a novelty.

 

[colony]

Carracks can hold 2 units and can carry Settlers

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Thats quite a bit better then. A settler and a defender - you could spawn over lots of islands and start colonies! And there is an abuse where the colony immediately starts with average techs - you can then trade with it to get some techs you don't know!

 

[r_rolo1]

A idea for a isolated portugal is to beeline for Optics ( as we already discussed ), make some Carracks, take some cities on the outer world ( barbs or ill defended AI ones ) or settle them, make a colony, help the colony to expand while teching to Astro + Economics ( for the UB ) and go to whatever victory you want, fueled by the foreign trade routes with your colony/ies.
A southern route aproach, quite diferent from the already tested paths for warlords ( ok, not so diferent, but with some interesting twists )

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Sounds a good strategy - great for space or diplo.

If its a lower level - prince or monarch (prince might be good for the first LHC with the new AI), then it might be fun to land a mini invasion. Four caravels with 8 units should be doable. Not enough to take cities, but enough to be a nuisance and maybe rack up enough kills for a great general.

 

[Cabay Jet]

*note to self: replace all axemen with crossbowmen ASAP*