Here's another question about tactics: when you guys are fighting as the attacking force and have your spear wall coming up, do you walk them up to engage the opposition to pin or do you charge them? Or do you wait till the opposition decides to charge you and instead send some other forces out to meet the enemy spears head on?

I send out a spear force with mixed archers. I stop them some 150 meters from the enemy and have the archers pepper. First targets are archers, so I don't get killed before I anger the enemy into charging. Then I run him through, and the flanks get closed by heavy cavalry.

I have a question... how do you make a unit that has both a ranged and a melee weapon to switch from one to the other? I'm never figured out and rarely use them because of that.

By the time they run out of arrows the battle is already over, so I just use regular archers type units instead.

On the unit card, next to the status(charging, fighting etc.) there's an arrow/sword icon. Click that. That's why Hashishin rule. They come out, fire a salvo of arrows and can immidiately start cleaving with scimitars.

I really depends on the situation, but usually I like to goad the opponent into attacking with my own ranged harrassment and charge my spears in to meet the charge head on.

Another note on tactics:

If I can I will manuever almost my whole attacking army trying to flank the opponent on equal elevation. This usually causes the A.I. to reposition to avoid the flanking manuever and makes for great horse-archer harrasment opportunities.


In one particular battle I made the A.I. move it's army in three directions at once! This was caused by my broad flank on one side counterbalanced with a series of mounted harrassments on the other. Sufficed to say the strungout and disordered opponent made for easy pickings when I charged my main force in for the kill.

When you have the dual-purpose unit selected just hold alt while clicking on the unit you wish to attack. This will cause a ranged unit to attack with melee but doesn't change the default from ranged.

Most mounted ranged units can double as weak light calvary and make for great players to pursue units that have been routed. You can also melee-charge ranged-foot units with them as well and take away some of the edge foot have in the shooting contest vs mounted.

Do you have the expansion? I do and I dont get the Ottoman foot units though I have the required buildings. I do get Turkomen infantry which are similiar. According to unit guide ( the unit comparison guide is the one I refer to here: http://shogun.cafe24.com/medieval/ ) Perhaps the expansion nerfed them and made them late units only?

Anyway....
Thanks for the insight and the war story! So many things make this game great! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I agree with out-flanking when attacking. The only other tactic I try is to pin one side of my enemy's army with spears and then bring cavalry around that same side to attack their general. It leaves my other side soft, but if I can rout or kill their general it is generally worth it.

Chewbacca, I dont have the expansion and have the same problem. For whatever reason, ottoman infantry arent available when I start early and play for a while, yet if I start in the late or high period, they are. In my current game I've already got janissaries, but still no ottomans!

Personally, I rely more on Morale to win my fights.

I put my footmen in the center of my army with a unit or two of cavalry behind as backup, and put the rest of my Cavalry on either side. I then send them against the lowest morale units of the ennemy and his General while my footmen take care of the spearmen.

In the beginning I kill the first wave of prisoners I capture. That's usually enough to make them run. Then I send my light cavalry after them while my main army wait in formation. When the ennemy reinforcement start coming in I pull back my light cavalry and do the same thing again.

In my personal experience, an elite heavy cavalry unit will almost always win against a regular spear unit. The Cavalry kill at least 4-5 spearman for every casualty it suffer, so the spearmen usually panic at their biggest loss and start running away. Sure, they have the number and would eventually win, but none of them seem to want to be part of the 40-50% or so casualty they would get.

You can hold down the Alt key and this will force them to use their melee attack. It's great for using when spears are charging your futuwwas - just change them to melee and since they're armed with swords they'll decimate the spears. :D