Elite peasants

[MikeTam]

Hi

I bought this game last year and played it very much before Christmas. Then I had a long break. Yesterday I got a sudden urge to try it again and spent late evening and the first hours of the nigt with it. It's a great game, no question about that.

One aspect of the game that annoyed me much in the past, however, showed it's ugly face again. I always seem to get beaten when trying to lead the battles myself. This is alright, I suppose, as being part of the challenge. But why does my swordsmen and piked units have so much problems with the peasants? Even in one-to-one battles (unit against unit), the peasants seems to come out the best. The only good way of beating them seems to be with the archers. I think I have tried every possible combination of formation and order, to no avail. :confused:

The only exception to this rule seems to be when I have peasants and the AI regular units; then the "forkmen" get slaughtered as they should.

What am I doing wrong??

Mike

[crpcarrot]

i know i'm new and really bad at fighting myself. lost a few marshals even though i had better army

in my case i didn't fight the whole first half of the game so its possible that the enemy units were more experienced than mine and hence my severe losses

i think the key to winning battles is not actually killing all units but breaking their morale but still havent figured out the best way cos lots of units seem to fight to the death. guess i'm still using MTW tactics and getting pulverised.

[Baghera]

I think that part of the strength of peasants is their unit size (40 vs swordsmen's 30). This means that, despite their inferior stats, the peasants offset their negative morale by outnumbering more advanced units (this is quite significant when you have 9 units of peasants).

Dealing with peasant armies:
Break their morale. Let the AI string their army out as it is comming at you. You must break the morale of the 1st group to get to you as fast as possible. Once one group retreats it becomes progressively easier to make the next one retreat and so on until they all surrender.

The absolute easiest way to do this is with missile troops. About 4 to 6 volleys is about as much as any peasent group can handle. You can generally get 2 volleys off while they are advancing on your position (3 with longbows or if they are comming up a good hill) so if you are lucky you can get away with just 3 units of archers. If you only have a few archers in your army make sure to hold your fire once the peasants turn or you will waste a volley or two and run out of arrows before the show is over. Remember that archers can camp to geagin arrows in the middle of a fight although keeping the enemy from attacking your archers' camps may be a little tricky.

If you only have cheap infantry (your own peasants or swordsmen) make sure that you concentrate your forces on one enemy unit at a time. This is I think where the AI has a slight advantage in that it manages the confusion of the melee better by targetting your weakest unit almost all the time. When your units are engaged pay attention to their morale. If it drops into orange hustle a fresh unit in, if you have one available, and pull the tired ones out. I like to charge my marshal into the fray once the enemy is engaged then back him out rest and repeat. It helps my troops morale and each charge does significant casualties. The melee is a difficult place to order units so try to minimize your orders to the engaged squads. I find that the unit bars at the bottom of the screen are easier to use when the squads are all on top of one another.

Combined arms with infantry and archers can be very difficult until you get archery 3 skill on your marshal. You have to babysit your archers giving them new targets and ceasefire orders regularly or you will inflict more casualties on your own army. I would not recommend trying this until you really get the hang of the battles.

Speaking of marshal skills "dread" rocks a peasant army's world. A dreaded marshal with some archers can put down any and all peasant armies without a scratch.

This has all pretty much been said elsewhere by much better tactitians that I, but I hope that reiterating it here helps get you guys through the opening stages of your games.

[Wolfgrin]

Or play Scandinavia. Vikings make peasants wet themselves. Full Viking armies are unstoppable in the first half of the game, until they run into knights and longbowmen.

[MikeTam]

Thanks guys. I'll give it another try, shall I?

[Baghera]

Vikings make peasants wet themselves.
nice image :eek:

[Byzantian]

I have used the Marshal-as-bait startegy. The AI alway goes for my Marshal, so I divide my army and send them moving opposite sides of the map, when the AI starts moving it's army targets the group with my marshal. This usually strings the AI army as well so the individual squads are easier to defeat and leaves AI marshal alone and defensless. So the second portion attacks as soon as the AI army is well on it's way towards my Marshal. This works especially well with cavalary + archers. Hasn't failed yet :).

[lethalgoose]

Baaaah! I have had an entire army surrender at the sight of me (no joke) and these were no peasents. It wasn't nighttime either. I had a marshal pulverise their morale through skills. Its why I have beaten an army twice the size of mine in an assault with two marshals and town guards. Lost I think only two squads of Teutonic Knights in that seige. Its my key to army superiority, not to mention making my units have 3 stars of skill. I have never had an issue with peasents, but that's my strategy I use to defeat armies.

[theoverlord3]

i have the same problem with the preasents, i alway lose or lose so many dam men. this is for 1 unit (swords men, templar nights) v 1 units of peasents. even the marshel can have problems usally losing 3-5 men.

peasents sould just run as soon as the first 2 lines of there sqaure goes.

[Angryminer]

peasents sould just run as soon as the first 2 lines of there sqaure goes.They do. If managed correctly you can even make men-at-arms run in terror without too many losses (1 or 2 soldiers). Without archers.
Peasants are a snap. Really. It's all about the strategy.

Angryminer

[Mortimer]

one thing I noticed with peasants, if if you are ortodox, and your opponent muslum, you are going to have a real hard time. I was playing byzantia and was at war with athe muslems to the south. took a groop of swordsmen against a groop of peasants, and they won desisively, I think the battle only lasted 15 seconds or so, with my whole army running away. I have never noticed this with other religions but orthodox but usually the catholics do not fight muslems real early in the game