Medieval: Total War In-Battle Tips version 1.3
by Vlada Peric (Gallavant)
Contents:
=========
1. Copyright
2. Contact
3. Introduction
4. Version History And Date
5. Tips
6. Sea Tips
7. Contributed Info
8. Credits
1. Copyright
============
This FAQ is copyright (c) 2002-04 Vlada Peric (Gallavant). It's for personal
and private use only. It may not be reprinted in part or in whole, or
reproduced in any way or in any form (written or otherwise). This document
is free, and thus cannot be used in any commercial transaction. You must get
my express written consent to reference, alter or post FAQ.
This FAQ can be found at:
- www.gamefaqs.com
- www.neoseeker.com
If you find it anywhere else please tell me.
2. Contact
==========
If you have any contributions and suggestions for this FAQ you may contact
me at vlada.peric@gmail.com. Make sure to put "Medieval: Total War"or something
similar in the subject or the e-mail might be ignored because of my spam
filters. I'm no longer playing the game, so I can't answer any questions you
might send me.
3. Version History
==================
1.0    03.10.2002.
- First release containing mostly contributed info.
1.1    07.11.2002.
- Some minor contributions
- Some minor corrections
1.2    23.06.2004.
- Major re-format of the guide
1.3    25.07.2004.
- Added more contributed info
4. Introduction
===============
This FAQ is meant to serve as an in-battle guide. It should contain unit
tips and battle strategy. Currently it is chiefly from contributed info but
that will change soon. UPDATE: It seems that very little people play the game
so there is little new info in this update. Since the introduction of hit
counters on GameFAQs, I have seen that this is by far the most viewed FAQ of
mine online, so I decided to re-format it. Note that I am no longer playing the
game, so I probably wont be able to answer any questions you might have.
Model of a tip:
tip. name of the contributor (if none than I myself have contributed)
5. Tips
=======
The following are the tips I have collected (and written) in no particular
order.
- Use sword infantry against spearmen/pikeman.
- Use heavy cavalry against heavy infantry.
- Use spearman/pikeman against cavalry.
- Assault castles only if you need the province really quickly (It wastes
men). zach34
- Watch the weather: If you have archers/gunpowder units wait for good
weather; if the enemy has them attack immediately (and if you are defending
pray ;)
- When on the defensive, always hide units in trees.
- A peasant unit charging downhill into cavalry units can do an awful lot
of damage. And the price difference means even if they're wiped out,
they'll have inflicted enough damage. Newbreed
- Use cavalry archers to lure enemy units out of formation and then attack
while they're scattered. Usually you'll flank some units. Newbreed
- When you have more units, advance in line formation to the enemy. Charge
your cavalry into the centre of the enemy formation. When units move to
flank your cavalry, flank them with you own infantry. Eventually your
cavalry will rout the central units. Then you can spread out and destroy
the other halves of the army. Newbreed
- When badly outnumbered with no retreat, charge every unit but your
strongest and your general's unit at the enemy. Then hunt down the
general with your strongest unit. If you kill him, the enemy might rout.
Newbreed
- Never attack across a bridge. Newbreed
- A good formation is to have a line of missile troops in front of your
lines, followed by a main line of infantry and some cavalry to the rear.
Your missile troops will decimate the enemy's archers and lure the enemy
cavalry into a charge against the infantry. Any units which pursue your
skirmishing archers can be hit in the flanks by your cavalry. If the
enemy breaks and runs, reform your the troops into the original
formation. You'll find that enemy forces will rally, attack again and
suffer heavier losses and morale will even drop to the point where being
ordered to charge against your missile troops will rout them. Once your
arrows are spent use your cavalry to chase them off the field. Newbreed
- Never pursue a fleeing enemy, let them rally, gather the reinforcements
and attack again. Most of the enemy's units will flee if forced to fight
for very long and they'll panic the reinforcements as well. Newbreed
- Be careful charging naphtha throwers, it's much better to use missile
troops to cut them down. Newbreed
- Always. Always. Have at least 2 units of reinforcements when attacking.
This means that you should always attack with at least a 200 man
advantage. Never attack if you have equal numbers except if it's an
emergency. psycho1001
- The Wedge Formation is devastating for breaking enemy formations,
especially if they are heavily armored and SUPER EFFECTIVE if your troops
have a high charge (Clansmen!!!!!). Just make sure you don't have your
General unit do Wedge, because the unit's leader is always at the tip,
and he will die in one hit and your entire army will lose major morale.
IcedMetal
- In defense always start above your opponent.
- In attack move troops around as necessary to make sure your opponent gets
as little help from height as possible.
- Missile troops are often better for defense (where they are battle
winning) than attack (where they are expensive cavalry fodder).
- Cavalry can be very effective for trashing your opponent's siege weapons.
nat46
- Know at least roughly what is coming at you. If you rout the first army,
and try and follow it off the field, sometimes reinforcements turn up and
really ruin your day. Trying to ride down every last router is fun, but
not always necessary. Winning comes first, causing 10 times more
casualties than suffered. nat46
- If you are playing as the Egyptians make use of the Bedouin camel
warrior. They are cheap and can be trained in any desert province with a
fort.
- Cavalry's greatest effectiveness lies in its potential to wreak great
devastation upon the enemy. I've seen a group of 15-20 Royal Knights
catch a large enemy infantry unit in the flank and absolutely go through
it like a hot knife through butter. Furthermore, two other enemy infantry
units that were adjacent to the targeted formation - both were engaged in
melee combat as well - wavered and broke when this happened, and in their
turn were badly mauled by my units they were engaged with. El Cid 58
- Regarding Spanish Jinetes, once I've chosen them, I bring the mouse over
a target unit until the bow and arrow appear - they then engage the
target unit, and if the target unit maneuvers towards them, they
automatically withdraw in order to keep distance between them (authors
note: this can apply to all ranged units). El Cid 58
- When available always build the pavise version of a unit (pavise
crossbowman and pavise arbalesters) it has the same cost and building
time but increased protection while reloading.
- On defense sometimes it will be possible to set your units for an ambush.
Use this wisely since attacking from three sides is much more effective
that attacking from one of even two sides.
- Viking, Clansman and Gallowglass units have strong charges. Use this to
your advantage.
- When fighting on the dessert, make sure you have a quick fight (if your
faction is a non-Muslim faction). The heat on the dessert will make your
troops get tired faster, especially heavy-armored troops. They get
roasted inside their metal plate. What can deflect blade cannot deflect
the wrath of nature. However, this can be an advantage if you are playing
the Muslim factions. irja
- Most of the cavalry also have strong and irresistible charges.
- Valor can play a great part in a battle. Just remember that each unit has
its own valor. So when combining two units with 2 valor and 2 with 4
valor on the screen it may say that the units have 3 valor. But that is
untrue because there are still two units with 2 valor and two units with
4 valor.
- Generals command attribute also affects combat (mostly moral).
- Catholic countries have strong heavy infantry, while the Muslim countries
have good axe-wielding infantry and excellent cavalry (especially horse
archers).
- Axe-wielding troops usually have bonuses against armored troops.
- In battle keep an eye on the kill ratio. It shows the percentage of the
troops you have killed.
- Some units (Gothic Knights) can dismount. This can be done by right-
clicking on the unit and choosing dismount. The ability can be beneficial
when the enemy has many spearman/pikeman and when there are a lot of
woods in the area (cavalry are bad in woods). Any other case and it isn't
worth it.
- Even if you are attacking a province, you are generally far better off if
you can goad the enemy into attacking you.  In many cases if the computer
has more units than you, or something close to a 50-50 split, you can get
the computer to attack you. cj_ramone
- In early to mid game, the computer will usually build a lot of weak units
instead of a smaller numbers of stronger units.  If the ratio of attacker
to defender is not too far out of whack, a smaller army with better morale
and a better caliber of troops will defeat an opposing force of up
to twice as many troops.  You have to have enough QUANTITY to build your
infantry line, but beyond that the QUALITY and MORALE of the troops is
far more important than the number of units. cj_ramone
- It is far easier to maintain a proper infantry screen with archers behind
the main battle line when you are defending.  It is also generally easier
to respond to an opponent and exploit their mistakes rather than winning a
careful battle of maneuver on the attack. The exception to this rule is
when your army has a 2 to 1 or greater advantage.  In these cases you can
have such an advantage in total units that you can easily flank the enemy
and hit their key units from 2 or more sides at once. cj_ramone
- Serpentine are good only for killing PEOPLE don't use them for sieges.
Roachey
- Make spearman at least 3 lines deep and pikeman at least 5 lines deep.
Roachey
- Use light cavalry to destroy siege weapons and their crew. Roachey
- When horse archers are just picking your men off from all angles and all you
have is infantry stretch your whole army as thin as possible and march to
the other side of the map. The horse archers will then HAVE to fight you
hand to hand. AdamOfScouseland
- Dismounting cavalry can change then tide of a battle especially when your
army is mainly heavy cavalry and your enemy has mainly spearmen. This is
also the only way to get feudal foot knights, gothic foot knights and also
chivalric foot knights. Some of the best foot on the game. AdamOfScouseland
- The computers AI can often be very arrogant especially when they outnumber
you heavily you can play on this, by using you smaller force more wisely.
The enemy will usually charge for the middle of your army causing a bottle
neck in their army which you can hit from all sides. AdamOfScouseland
- Usually you can never get naptha throwers close enough to the enemy to use
them effectively, I once saw someone use this tactic to devastating effect
on the internet to one of my allies. What you do it get a steep hill and
have something like spearmen or something else that can hold the enemy back
awhile with your napthas just behind them, now when the enemy approaches
your spreamen the napthas range is greater and they throw over your spearmen
and destroy entire units in no time. AdamOfScouseland
- Use the terrain. Hills are the most obvious of this, but don't underestimate
forests. If you can conceal your men well, the enemy will often run down the
timer searching for you. This gives you a better chance of holding them for
the 30 mins that the defender must hold to win. Also, it gives an
all-infantry defense a way to defeat a mainly archer attacking force. Hide
some men in the forest, and put a large, visible force outside. March the
large force into the forest, baiting the archers closer to your concealed
men. I think you know what to do then ;) That Annoying Noob
- Never underestimate the power of cheap, low-class units. A unit of Byzantine
Infantry, or Almohad Urban Militia, or even Vikings can be absolutely
devastating on the enemy. Just because they may be low-tech and seem like no
problem for your Gothic Foot Knights doesn't mean they are; while they may
not pose an attack/defense-breaking threat, they are still a force to be
reckoned with. That Annoying Noob
- First of all, unless playing as the English, you should never have more than
4 archers on the field at a time. As the English, 6 units of longbowmen
could be a good idea. JustFramer
6. Sea Tips
===========
Just a few tips about sea strategy.
- When building trade routes use cheap and fast ships. This will help
because if at war with someone that attacks your ships your fast ships
will usually be able to outmaneuver them.
- If you have a really profitable trade rout and fear an enemy may cut it
have at least 2-3 strong ships in every sea square of the way.
- If you see enemy amassing ships in some sea squares near you go to war
quickly and destroy the ships. Sometimes they will even "forget" they are
at war and in a few turns they will be neutral. Just don't repeat the
tactics several times without break, that time they will not forget about
the war.
- If you want a strong navy be sure to build many ports. These decrease
support cost.
- The captains of fleets also have the command ability.
7. Contributed Info
===================
These are the larger contributions that are too big for a single tip or are
connected.
First, do get better acquainted with the battle rules. In it, you'll find
things like how to create groups (helpful because you can protect a missile
unit - "archers" - with a good infantry unit, like "feudal sergeants", for
example). A group also allows you to simplify your movement of forces from 32
mouse-clicks (16 to find your units, plus 16 to actually click on them so you
can give them an order) to a smaller and more manageable number. One hint on
groups - when combining units, keep infantry with infantry; cavalry with
cavalry... combined arms in this game isn't like world war two, where the
(fast-moving) armor would slow down in order to keep the supporting infantry
close by