Sad or mad?

I just got completely crushed by the Ottomans on Napoleon Total War, I'm supposed to be good at it... I love the series... *sad face* I did everything wrong. I put my weakest troups in the most vital spot and then ignored them and my best troups in the area which was attacked lightly. All of my upgrades were put into cavalry and they were made useless by being too far away and behind an obstackle (A mountain). The weak line broke, I had warning that it was going to and tried to move my cav into help but they were slow to react, and I tried to move my reserve troups in to back up my breaking lines long enough for my other troups to join the fight but it was too late and the flood of enemy troups broke the dame and came pouring in going straight for the rear of my strong troups. I was smooshed...

I'm trying to change my single player campaign tactics which focus on keeping as many troups alive as possible because you have to continue using that army, if you are too gung ho you loss your army, to multiplayer tactics where it doesn't matter how many troups you loss as long as you win. I'm switching from defence to offence. I was also playing on the hardest setting (Nothing compaired to good TW players) and with less troups but the troups I did have had better upgrades... though they never got a chance to fight...

Tried again this time using less stupid tactics, well the first time round wasn't exactly stupid in the beginning the plan was good the real problem as that I didn't allow my plans to change when the battle started and the enemy right away moved away from where I wanted to fight, I had lots of time to change my orders but kept with the same plan.

So yeah tried again, this time I had the same number of men and the same type, though I went for slightly better light infantry. I just really spread the upgrades out a bit more, they were still a bit wasted though. I also played on a more open map in the hope of being able to see whats going on better, it's really hard to see whats happening in tree's when there is a tonne of smoke coming from the gun fire and to make better use of my cav. I didn't exactly give myself much of an advantage with this though because I had no artillery while the enemy had around 3 units of them, which works out as 12 cannons, with an open field I had to approach the enemy in a very exposed manner and the enemy had more cav than me but there's wasn't as good, however they did have one cammel unit and horses are spooked by cammels.

I split my force into two groups this time, with thin lines to make my army wider and so harder to flank. The light infantry was set to skermish (They spread out and kneel down) and the heavy infantry was behind them and would sport them by shooting over their heads giving more men firing at the enemy. The main bulk of my small army was to go down the middle of the map and engage the main force of the enemy while the smaller group was to edge its way round the enemies line and flank them on one side, the small group also had most of the cav to help them should the enemy send it's cav to destroy it. I left one cav unit to defend the other side of my army.

So the battle started and things where going well the enemy approached roughly as expected, I got a bit nervous under cannon fire which did a fair bit of damage to my cav so backed them up a bit which appeared to work as the cannon fire focused on other parts of my army (Cav is very brittle, if it's fired on by anything it takes a lot of losses and cav units are small), I pushed past my nerves and moved forwards again, I had no cannons so I couldn't hang back I just needed to close the range. The enemy decided to march forwards as well however they really didn't need to, they could have sat back and pounded me with cannon fire. Our armies met and my plans began to erode, I had to break up my cav to deal with his cav which, with my thin lines would have ate up my troups. With my cav's better stats they didn't have much trouble dealing with his however the bulk of his army wasn't far behind and it would have been bad to have been stuck in the middle of the battle field, my troups were firing at his cav and no doubt were killing mine at the same time. So I disengaged them and sent them into a near by enemy unit. My micro management skills (Micro) began to be pushed as things became choatic, the battle field was a mess, the enemies troups were in a clump in the middle of the field, I needed to move my cav on both sides of the battle field, it's easy to forget about one and for it to be fired on by the enemy or for it to be wasted by not being used, I did both I for got about a unit and it was a bit too far from where I needed it and on the other side of the field my other cav was being fired on, I noticed and charged it into the enemy. While I was manually moving my cav around I was also moving my second group to flank the enemy, which I did to a degree however I put them too far away and they were not close enough to the enemy to do maximum damage, I kept edging them in but I never felt they were close enough, they were also taking damage from a few units that the forgotten cav unit should have been engaging.

Soon a few enemy units were routing (Running from the field), and only one of mine had (A light inf unit) the battle field was becoming an even bigger mess of smoke, living and dead troups, which is a real problem because it's hard to tell whos alive and whos dead with so much going on. I thought I was winning but my routing troups should have been a tip off of something bad happening. The enemy had charged my lines to get into melee range a very bad thing for be with them having so many troups and my lines being thin, it became very hard to pick out my troups in the mass of enemy bodies I tried to bring my cav in and my small group of troups as well to try and cause some of the enemy to route and relieve some of the pressure on my lines, but it was no good, I tried to use my general to encourage my men but they started routing and in that situation it becomes and chain route and they all go, the enemy go into my generals unit and killed him and soon all I had left to control was my small group (Only 2 units one light one heavy) they managed to route another enemy unit and kill a few more of the enemy but the light inf had routed and the heavy was left on it's own bravely, my light inf stopped routing and I was bringing them back to their place infront of the heavy when the heavy routed, and just after than cannon fire came in and hit the light inf, which didn't kill many men if any but cannon fire does damage to moral and the light inf, my last unit, routed and the battle was over.

I would have liked to have won this battle but I think considering what I was up against I didn't do too bad, I started with around 1200 troups and they had nearly twice that at 2100 which included 3 units of cannons (cannons are small units). In the end I killed 1357 of them and they killed 914 of my guys. At least this time my guys didn't go down with out a damn hard fight, and maybe if this was a real battle they would have done so much damage to the Ottoman's army that they would have crushed the Ottoman's with the main force in a later battle and saved Prussia, and have been remembered as selfless heroes, who paid the ultimate price to protect their country. The second Prussian army wouldn't have even needed to be as big as the one from this battle, the Ottoman's had been reduced to half their number and would have been more likely to break under the fresh full units of Prussians, and their moral would have been lower (In real life after a bloody battle like that).

Damn, got into that too much, I wanted to go to bed early, night.

Went with the Prussians just now against the Frnech, I had the same number of units but more men because I got rid of 2 units of cav, I figured 4 requires too much micro and with so many enemy troups I needed thicker lines. The cav I choose were lancers who have an amazing charge bonus but not so amazing melee damage, the way to use them is to plow into the enemy and then run away, turn around and charge again. I poured upgrades into them and because I only had two units of them I had a fair bit of cash to spread around, so upgraded my heavy elite inf.

I positioned my army as a whole this time rather than free moving groups to create a united front. The bulk was in the front middle, my weaker heavy inf (4 units) and my light inf (Just 2 units), the elite inf was put on both sides (2 units of elite inf) slightly back front the bulk of the army to help cover it's flanks both elite units had a unit of light inf infront of them. My cav were out on the wings and further back to support the main army if their cav tried to flank. My general was in the middle of my army giving moral support.

The map had a large hill in the middle which gave me coverr from the French cannons I still took some losses front them. I ran my troups upto the hill because I wanted to control it, not to have the high ground exactly I just didn't think I had much choice but to move there if I wanted to move at all, didn't want my enemy to have the advantage. Running has a damaging affect on troups as it makes them tired and that can lead to problems later in the battle.

While I was moving the enemy some how got a unit of cav completely behind me, I have no idea how it did that without me noticing or even how it got that far into the map just after starting the battle. Anyway I did see it just in time and sent a unit of cav to destroy it, which is what happen, I took it out before it did any damage to my army. The rest of the battle went normally, the enemy did eventually crash into my lines but I used my cav to take some of the pressure off my line and it held as well as could be expected. I made a major mirco mistake and left one unit of elite inf and light inf out of the fight when I needed them most and they just sat on the wings doing nothing, I also should have turn my troups to face the enemy. The enemy general got involved in the bloody battle and died at the hands of my cav, which was a great thing to happen because it means his men were more likely to break and also not return to the battle.

Men were routing all over the place on both sides of the battle, I eneded up with 3 units left and he had 5 or so 2 of which were cannons. I rushed my general into a unit of light inf but before he got there a cannon ball killed him so his body guards continued without him but sadly their moral was too low and they routed. I now had 1 unit, my elite inf and he had 3, 2 cannon units and the light inf. I had little choice I had to charge his cannons. My men weren't close and were tired, the unit was reduced to half its original number they bravely ran into horrific cannon fire, men were being torn apart (There's no gore in the game, they just got thrown back) and finally they broke and ran from the field ending the bloody battle.

At the end of the battle I had killed more of his men than he killed of mine, but not by as much as last time, however he killed about 200 of his own men, either with cannon fire or other friendly fire, or maybe those men were the ones that were killed by running into the stakes I deployed. Anyway at the end of the battle we had the same number of men remaining, so when I got all my routed troups back together and he got his we would have had an equal battle. Both sides with about 300 men, it would have been an interesting fight because the units would have been all different sizes maybe one unit had 100 men another may only have 3. Chances are I would loss the fight because my army would have been full of tiny units that will break under even the lightest pressure from the enemy.

Over 3000 men died in that battle, 600 or so survived. The Total War series really gives you a first hand look at how horrific war can be.

Yes! Sad is over I redeemed myself just now however I think maybe it's more down to mistakes by the AI than my military tactics.

I used the Prussians again and this time was against the Danish. I had 11 units they had 20 my build was a bit different, I went with all elite inf, well 5 units of it, 2 units of lancer cav and 3 units of light inf and my generals unit. the enemy I think had 3 cal 2 cannons and I didn't look at the rest but it was all inf apart from the general.

The map was a large hill me and the dans started next to each other at the bottom of the hill but divided by cliff faces and a thick forest so I didn't bother trying to go straight for them I decided that I had enough time to march up the hill before they could reach me so I deployed in columns, bit silly really I took cannon fire at the start of the battle and lost more men than I needed to because they were all bunched up. I made them run after that cannon fire so they could get out of range.

I saw an area at the top of the hill which looked good for setting up a defensive line and began setting my men up, the dans were all over the place some appeared to be try to get behind the area I deployed at the start of the battle others headed for my new location. I saw a cav unit stray too far from any support and took the chance to crush it, I sent my cav is and dealt it a heavy blow but had to retreat as the rest of the men were getting too close and I didn't want to get bogged down and lose my cav.

The enemy got to me units at a time not as a whole and didn't get the chance to overwhelm my men and I used my cav to flank and route any units that it had chance to, with out risking lossing my cav. However at one side I did loss a unit of cav but it had managed to route several units so wasn't wasted, it was another micro mistake that lead to the loss I got distracted after sending them too far away. My other cav unit though really gave the dans hell.

Soon though the enemy force built up and got in close, I needed to use my general at one point to help hold the line, it was a real mess and I thought I was going to loss for a while but I brought men in this time and managed to defeat the assault without even lossing my general. I repositioned and sent my cav unit out again to do bloody work, I figured it wouldn't last long as it had taken heavy losses by now. Soon the enemy was in flight my cav unit was even chasing off their routing general, I stopped chasing and he stopped routing and headed back to his only remaining units the cannons who were still trying to get in range of my men.

I waited for a while just incase his army decided they wanted to come back and die some more and then when I was fairly sure they weren't coming back (On the hardest setting they are much more likely to stop routing and assault again) I marched down the hill sadly the cannons started firing and caused my cav unit to route even though it took no losses from the cannon fire. I started running down the hill as I didn't want to risk my remaining 4 units of elite inf to take losses even though they were still in fairly good condition. Other than those 4 units all I had was my general who was only slightly better off than the enemy general. I sent two units of inf after each of the cannons and sent my general after his, the rest of the battle was just clean up the enemy routed quickly and I thought their general might get away but he was too slow due to being tired and my general was fairly fresh so caught up and cut him down.

The end result was

Me: Started with 1184 men lost 748 and killed 1725 of their's

Dans: Started with 2172 lost 1780 and killed 659 of my brave guys

The unit of mine which killed the most of theirs was my Towarczys lancer cav they stared with 60 men lost 48 and killed 281.

I didn't mean to wrie as much but it can't really shorten it, I didn't want to write as much. I also tried to break it up into smaller chunks. I might do a few drawings to make it clear what the moven't were on the map.

This is how the game should be played.



Might have a go at making a video since I have Fraps on my PC, I'll see how big the file is anyway.

I did start to read your post fen, but realised I still had to give war and peace another go.

Ha yeah, I think I'll try and record videos. I tried just now but it turns out unless you pay for Fraps you only get 30 seconds of video, which on the HD and 60fps is 1.28gb.

Shame the video I tried to record was quite funny, my main force got completely destroyed and the two tiny forces were left alone until the main force was destroyed and then they almost defeated the entire on the enemies remaining men.

Sigh, started playing this again today, my interest in the time period an Napoleon is perking up. Was playing on the hardest setting out numbered by nearly 1000 men, though my men were better in some ways (I put all the upgrades into my Old Guard) I thought I was winning, a few of their units routed and I had only lost a few minor units, and then suddenly all my units started routing, even my uber Old Guard... Napoleon died as well. I did kill more of them than they killed of me, so I suppose thats a slight victory.

Now that I have Fraps I might try recording again. Though I'm pretty bad at this game really, though it's one of my favourite series of games.

Ha, I just played a battle where I had only 7 units: 1 general, 4 lancer cav, 2 old guard, the units all had max upgrades though apart from the general (They aren't really supposed to fight) against an enemy army of 20 units. I had just under 300 men, he had about 1050 men.

I ran my... army to a choke point and lined up my old guard to slaughter all that tried to get through, however while I got lots of shots off they just charged through and took the losses so they could over whelm me in melee, I knew this would happen and used my 4 lancers to charge into the mass of melee troups, a large charge of cav like that can make enemy units route and they did pretty sharpish. the enemy was left with few troups but I had taken heavy losses, my old guard unit (I lost one and a cav unit) ran out of ammo and the enemy had one unit that was at nearly full strength, sadly my units were too damaged and didn't have the moral to stay and fight so they routed, shortly after engaging the enemy unit. The enemy still had it's cannons (Which are great at destroying moral) and it's general which would have been hard to make route. So even if I had beaten that near full strength unit, I no doubt still would have lost.

The battle ended with me having lost 212 men (Or so) and him having lost somewhere around 650 or more. I fully expected to much worse than that, I expected to get bodged down in the mass of their troups and routed quick smart. There were things I could have done to have improved my odds but I'm pretty happy with that battle, also Napoleon lived.

Been playing Rome TW the last few days (Still an awesome game) been trying to man up and play the campaign on the hardest difficulty, you can set different difficulties in the campaign game, you have a world map section of the game where you move troups around etc, I usually play that on a low difficulty because on the harder ones they never let you have a break and in the actual battles I play on the hardest setting. Well now I'm playing on the hardest on both and getting my butt kicked pretty hard, one of my cities is being attacked by two different nations, when I manage to defeat one before I have any chance to recover the other nation attacks it, I've only been able to hang on this long because defending a city is pretty easy if you have the right troups (Pikemen slaughter everything) but even knowing that I've taken great losses. Now all my cities are under massive threat from many different nations, I doubt I'll be able to keep going.

My units route so easy on very hard, even when they can easily win the battle they route, it's so frustrating when you've defeated 99% of the enemy army and then all your head route when fighting one of two enemy units that they out number and if they stayed to fight could win with ease.

Still playing and still getting my butt kicked, frankly I can't believe I'm still alive. I lost the city that kept getting attacked though and my nation is 5000 gold in dept which isn't good, it means I can't make anything or recover my troups basically what I've got is all I have or can have till I start making money again (Doubt I can do that). I'm pretty much dead in other words, so I've taken a brave and frankly pointless move and started fighting back. I've been causing them some trouble but I'm only really fighting back because they are letting me, they have more than twice as many men (That I know of) as me as soon as they turn them on me I am toast.

I'm playing as Macedonia who I think are one of the harder nations to play as, not because of their army units, but because of where they start on the map, they pretty much are attacked by everyone on all sides. I don't know if I've ever had an campaign using them. In all the later games England is the easiest nation to use, we are near completely safe on this island, in Medieval 2 Scotland needs to be destroyed, which is a bloody hard job. I've tried being allies with them but sooner or later they break the alliance and attack, usually when most of the English army is in france or somewhere burning the lands. Oh I forgot my point about England in Rome TW, they suck, they are just a rabble with no millitary structure and are powerless in the late game as they have no late game units, the only way to win a battle later in the game is with numbers. I'm pretty ashamed of them really, I might try and play as them again.

Wish I could get into the Total War games, I've a load of them still to installed on my steam account and yep Napoleon is one of them, I get through a tutorial go to bed then forget it all, probably something to do with my age

I think the best way to get into a TW game is to get into the time period. Read something like the Sharpe books (Or the TV show) before playing Napoleon or Empire, firstly it gives you some idea how they used their troups (The books I think will help more with that) and also it gives a bit of passion for what you are doing and makes you think of your men as more than just units but also as people (Though the generals of the time thought of them more as cattle).

The thing that got me all pumped for TW games was a show called Time Commanders on the BBC

Spoiler:

This Napoleon show made by the BBC is awesome as well, I've been meaning to buy the DVD of this.




Bernard Cornwell's Holy Grail book series is good for understanding archers in the medieval times, though the Holy Grail part of the book is shit, it's bloody obvious from the start of the first book where the Holy Grail is, other than that though it's a good read.