I stink at warfare :(

[The Fishman]

Hello, people...

I mainly play Warlord, sometimes Noble. My favourite tactic is getting loads of horse archers (or immortals) and catapults, combined with maybe a few axemen. Horse archers are then spammed all over the enemy, overunning them, and then I bring in the siege and axeman stacks to take the cities.

Unfortunately this tactic tends to get beaten unless the enemy has no metals, like in North Africa and Arabia on the Earth maps. The problem is I just can't seem to get my stacks big enough. By the time a big stack is ready everybody else seems to have moved on and I have lost my tech advantage.

For example, when I was playing as Persia, I built a barbaric horde as described in the first paragraph. I swept Egypt, Arabia, Greece and Mali under the mat. As the Romans were attacking my allies, the Russians, I decided to to give something back to them in return for all the general suport and I sent my army of knights into the Roman empire. But I was dismayed to find myself facing a Medieval army much more developed than my own, despite the fact that I was on Warlord and I had a decent research advantage on them. My army managed to crush their war stacks, which were heading out the fight Russia, but in the process I lost all my offensive force. Musketmen were no use, and I had to retreat back across the Bosphorous, leaving my Greek territories at the mercy of the Romans. I have since given up with that game, as even though my empire is a similar size to the Arab Caliphate, I have lost all my momentum, a bad blow in what was meant to be a game of conquest.

Any ideas of what I should do to make powerful enough stacks?

 

[Sjaramei]

Stop the Horse Archer spamming first, make more Axes/Swords instead. That and City Raider promos should help you a lot.

 

[The Fishman]

Stop the Horse Archer spamming first, make more Axes/Swords instead. That and City Raider promos should help you a lot.

I'll try that next time, thanks. But how would I overcome my problem of stacks being outdated before they are finished? Either I out-tech my own stack or worse the enemy out-techs it.

The main thing I like about horse archers is their combination of speed and strength. They don't take a defended city easily, but they can just overrun the entire Civ and cut any supply lines and reinforcements off. They can just dodge a moving spearman (some AIs are too dumb to just keep them fortified in their cities or in their stacks, and try to attack the horses directly with them instead, lol!), and Keshiks are especially good as they don't have to worry about the forests.

 

[Sjaramei]

I'll try that next time, thanks. But how would I overcome my problem of stacks being outdated before they are finished? Either I out-tech my own stack or worse the enemy out-techs it.

The main thing I like about horse archers is their combination of speed and strength. They don't take a defended city easily, but they can just overrun the entire Civ and cut any supply lines and reinforcements off. They can just dodge a moving spearman (some AIs are too dumb to just keep them fortified in their cities or in their stacks, and try to attack the horses directly with them instead, lol!), and Keshiks are especially good as they don't have to worry about the forests.

Better production cities would solve the outdated stack problem. (and whipping from slavery is very useful to get an army quick)

Supply lines etc, you don't need an army to do this. A Spear/Axe unit can cut of strategic metal during the first turns of the war. (anything else than this isn't really necessary in SP) In fact you don't need horseback riding at all until knights and stuff. (it's too expensive really)

The main stack should keep hitting cities and taking them. If you do it right the AI won't fight you in the open and just take damage in cities. (the AI is pretty dumb yes)

 

[r_rolo1]

If you are playing with Persia and have horses, you should try to make a immortal rush in the same basis that you currently use horse archers. Immortals come with Animal Husbandry + Wheel ( much sooner than horse archers ), are cheap hammerwise and can use terrain for defense. Because they are cheap you can get more of them soon and simply overrun the AI with numbers.

Otherwise ( i.e. other leader ) , listen to Sjaramei.... City Raider promotions help a lot with early warfare

 

[IAM]

Sometimes when I raid/pillage with mounted units I keep them in stacks of 5. 3 with shock promotions to defend against spears/pikemen one with medic and one with sentry for additional visibility.

My offensive armies don't move until I get seige equipment. Normally I don't lose many units except for seige weapons and I burn through them to soften enemy defenses and in suicide attacks.

As for facing higher tech units I prefer to hit them head on. Better to lose your offensive army in their civ than in defensive action. In my current game one civ. (Mao) had macemen facing my axemen. I bombarded the defenses of one city to draw in enemy defenders when the macemen moved into the plains I hit them with cats. and axemen. Lost one axeman for every macemen I took out but eliminated the threat. Then before attacking the city I bombarded I moved my stack toward another city to draw more macemen into the open to defend that city and hit them again. My mounted units tore up enough roads to slow the transfer of macemen down so I could hit them in the open.