Live Blogs The Idiot General Conquers The World

arrowstorm2012-04-01 18:56:12

Gates? York is a village.

In that battle I tend to use my peasant archers to pick off the spearmen (run away when they sally) before sending in my knights to hack down the peasants. If you make sure your knights wade right into the middle of the fighting by clicking forward to move them into the midst of the melee (DO NOT DO THIS AGAINST SPEARS) then the knights cause about three times as many casualties as wen you just leave them dancing around the side of the formation; cavalry have an odd habit of just standing on the edge of melee getting swung at after the initial cut-down... and get stabbed at and cut down themselves. If you move them so they're embroiled in the enemy unit then they start using their powerful strikes which will butcher peasants and other light infantry. (Be wary against heavier infantry; you really need a charge cycle for that.)

Ouch... the running ahead of your reinforcements problem. While you can win that battle and thus get the city a turn early, it's usually best to wait for the reinforcements. What I usually do is get the reinforcements, take Rennes, and then dash down south to Bordeaux castle and take it, before using the resulting mountain of income to build an army to start taking Bruges.

Use your archers more during sieges; its entirely possible to win Rennes in an assault with no casualties outside your Generals bodyguard by using your archers to kill most of their army. (Ok admittedly when I tried this, my general was the only man left standing in his bodyguard... but he killed those bloody mercenaries!)

I fully admit I tend to use my bodyguards as free, and very deadly, fodder. There's nothing like obliterating an entire unit of spear militia with one charge and losing three men who will replace themselves for free in as many turns.

Also, if I may offer a bit of advice: remove skirmish from your archer units and simply pull them back manually when the enemy gets close. It's a bit of a fiddly thing to do, as they will always play their firing animation if they started it, so telling them to haul ass just before they're done shooting one volley is the most effective and they fire most of the shots anyway.

I would as an aside advise you to upgrade Nottingham to the highest possible archery range and get longbowmen, pronto. They outrange everything you'll be facing for a long time (until you hit Italy or the Moors, and by then you should have numbers on your side) and can slice up non-heavy units with ease.