Warfare Question

[MikeKoder]

Is warfare in this game just blob warfare? Is it really just outnumber your opponent? Is there no real strategy? Is there not a way to rearrange your troops tactically? Is it really just outnumber your enemy, have a high ranking general in charge of each flank, and be on good terrain? Cuz that sucks. How can a smaller nation with a smaller levy go up against larger ones? How can Denmark take on the HRE when the HRE decides it likes Denmark's land? Tell me I'm missing something here.

 

[Tuerai]

There are a lot of subtleties to the composition of your army, and what strategy your army ends up using in battle. But if you're going up against the HRE, you're basically fucked. Unless you'd like to take a cue from the mongols, and find some way to build tons of horse archers. If you could build an army composed mainly of horse archers, and be defending from atop a mountain, I'd say you could potentially win against an HRE stack twice your size with the right general.

 

[MikeKoder]

So what are these strategies? How can a smaller army take on a larger one?

 

[The_Blind_One]

the right general, the right troops, the right location.

Good generals should lead your army with the best combat modifiers and the most appropiate leadership traits for the right troops and the location the battle is taking place.

The right troops are the best troops you can field, preferred are high quality and combined arms, so that you will deal damage in every phase; skirmish; melee or pursuit. The best troop you can field is a knight but their time to shine is in melee phase and breaking your enemy formations.

The right location is undoubtedly the one you either receive the most defensive bonusses if attacked, or the enemy receives the least amount of bonusses when u are attacking. You achieve the best defense by sitting on a mountain or hills behind a river. Conversely, you are worst off if your enemy is in the same position.

 

[unmerged(600321)]

Combat is mainly about numbers, but smaller numbers can beat larger numbers in the right situations. It is not worth fighting the HRE when you are small, but eventually in most of my games I decide its time to conquer and take over the HRE (how else could I conquer the whole map). This usually happens when I have at least 1000 holdings (i.e. I am two to three times the size of the HRE), but I shall cover some basics for fighting with a smaller army.

1. Troop type. Heavy cavalry can beat out armies 4 times their size made up of light infantry, perhaps more. Nothing beats the Greek Cataphract retinue (300 heavy cavalry, 200 horse archer), but some of the other retinue specialities are fairly powerful too. 20k in cataphract retinues can usually beat out most solid army compositions of twice their size. The problem is by the time you get 20k of them, you have the potential to have a 100k+ in levies. Other troop types like heavy infantry, pikemen, etc are also solid choices. Basically, light infantry sucks and the better troop types will crush them. Fortresses tend to make the better troop types, but it is not always best to stack fortresses (cities give more income and stacking cities can let you hire mercs extensively till retinues get big enough to not really need levies).

2. Generals: Good generals with high martial skill and good traits can make all the difference. Traits like brave, patient, etc can make a big difference in battle, so can martial skill. Good generals for all three flanks and balanced flanks are critical. Losing a flank due to unbalanced flanks can result in an easy loss.

3. Terrain: Terrain is often ignored, but in even fights they make a difference.

4. Tech: Tech levels make a small difference. Due to tech penalties when ahead, this is not always a big difference (I don't focus on it). But tech boosts like the special cultural retinue boosts can be useful when picking retinue types.


Nothing is going to help you beat the HRE as Denmark until you get bigger. Beating the HRE with 3/4th of the HREs size is very possible. But not as a small Kingdom like Denmark unless you grow first. I usually make allies in the early game to avoid issues with the HRE if I play near them. At the end of the day, size is king unless you make alliances and your allies help you. Smaller armies can beat bigger armies, but getting a 20k army of cataphract retinues takes a much bigger Kingdom than than just 80k in pure levies. If you want to win with a smaller army size, you can't unless you game the AI (take a boat, move around and conquer land and avoid the AIs army...if you have a reasonable army size so you can siege all enemy territories, you can sometimes beat the AI with a much smaller army.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

The HRE doesn't usually go after Denmark unless you took land that's de jure part of the HRE. In which case, they're just taking back what's rightfully theirs. If that's the case, you sort of brought this onto yourself -- you might need to give the land back and expand elsewhere until you can beat them.

But you have another option, of course. You can swear vassalage to the HRE. A king can be a vassal of an emperor. Then expand inside the HRE and eat it from the inside. When you're bigger, break away in independence again with half their empire under you.

As for battles, that's all basically right. Levies fighting levies are mostly about numbers. Because levies are pretty much all the same. It's the same troop composition for most holdings across the map. Every levy army is more or less the same. You can do slightly better than the numbers with smart tactics -- generals, favorable ground, and the like. But what you really need is strategic thinking. Make a big stack. Fight the smaller HRE stacks. Fight around coasts. When you see a bigger stack coming from you, flee on your ships. Land somewhere else where you can do damage. You're vikings. Fight like vikings.

That sort of strategic thinking wins wars. I recently did a papal invasion of France with Brittany. I won. I owned Brittany and Ireland. I was much smaller. But I used boats, mercs, and maneuver to beat down the French army until I could start sieging. It took a while but I pulled it off. It's more or less the same situation you're in.

Also, retinues are a different matter. You can specialize them. So a retinue army, well led with the right leader, will smash much larger levy armies.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Is warfare in this game just blob warfare? Is it really just outnumber your opponent? Is there no real strategy? Is there not a way to rearrange your troops tactically? Is it really just outnumber your enemy, have a high ranking general in charge of each flank, and be on good terrain? Cuz that sucks. How can a smaller nation with a smaller levy go up against larger ones? How can Denmark take on the HRE when the HRE decides it likes Denmark's land? Tell me I'm missing something here.

1. You do not fight HRE as Denmark, you make HRE fight for you! Ally yourself with HRE, France and Poland and then eradicate the pagans in the north.
2. Keep the war in the north constant. As long as you fight a common enemy the HRE cant attack you.
3. Denmarks strength is financial, build up your economic infrastructure massively in the beginning.
4. When the day finally arrives when HRE attack you, you should be able to muster a sizeable merc army. The HRE will be slow to gather its forces so you can often take them out piecemal. After that proceed to storm a couple of countries and the war is over.
5. Take advantage of the fact that the holdings you have stormed are weakend and immidiately launch a war of conquest against HRE using whatever country or duchy claim you can conjure up.

Disclaimer, if the HRE has a truely strong emperor at its head and does not face any internal or external threats, you are probably better off just surrendering and waiting for the next time HRE are in internal chaos to take the land back.

 

[grumphie]

also, remember that all wars require valid casus belli. best bet to keept the HRE away is not ALLWOING them a casus belli in the first place.