4 replies to this topic

[King BoBo]

As im a nab maybe this wont help so much but still.

If u fight bots (hard and very hard) you must now something (not really but) -bots make only dragoons but a ton of em and some of em make riders (turks and ukraine make a lot of cav) - bot ussually makes patrols of arround 40 men (16 archers and others are grenadiers.-Most of arty that bot makes will be mortars and u must upgrade ur pikemen alot if u want to match ur enemy.

Bot ussually put ranged units behind inf so if u send a group of light cav u can rape his ranged units.

Now on beggining- if u have hills near your base put some ranged units as watchmen (arround 15-25) and hope theyre gonna slow down the enemy army

Now if u wanna slow down the enemy army u can send arround 15 light cav (cossacks or magyar cav) and run arround so the enemy army follows you until you split em in 2 armies.

Now about economy (my economy is horrible) you must get a ton of wood and a ton of food and even more gold and coal if u want a cav army or a ranged army and a lot of iron for inf. As everyone says u must have more mills and more town halls and more and more and more and more!

You must have some kind of a backup unit (even 10 pikemen hidden behind a house can help) if u get raped and if u have a cav based faction (like poland or ukraine ,but magyar and turks are good too) recruit a lot of cav and keep em behind and send em to raid the enemy. If that fails never mind ur gonna save some food but it better works cuz u can deal a serious hit to enemys economy by making him loose 2-3 mines and a mill.

So i hope theese tips can help u to be better then me in this game.

[Saddoveanu]

Not too shabby Bobo Regardless of what the AI makes, there are a few things that you should do:

• always build: peasants and pikemen. Buy food (or whatever) from market if needed, but you barracks should be pumping out pikemen at all times, and your town halls peasants. If you have stables, make them work as well. Cossacks is a game of quantity.
• scout - with durmmers because they have the biggest filed of vision
• you should be able to see when they attack; recruit 10-15 merc cossacks and send them around their inf, attacking archers/ranged units. It will also make their pikemen turn back, and give you more time to upgrade your own pikemen and make more of them
• always recruit light inf (mercenary), aka "meat" - yes, they're very weak, but youh can send groups of them to different locations in the enemy base, and while your pikes fight his, the mercs will capture and set fire to buildings. To add to the effect, have 10-15 merc cosssacks ready, and use them to attack valuable targets, such as the mill (kill food gathering peasants) or mines - gold being the most important, of course. Also, you can send them in front of your pikes to take arrows or bullets, so you precious pikes don't.
• in late game, the key to beating AI armies is cannons. The AI will have large armies, but imagine 15 cannonballs landing in their midst

[Parzival]

I maybe have up to now used the wrong factions for heavy pikemen use, because of those I have tried I liked Saxony most and they have Grenadiers as an excellent all-round unit - but I don't really see the point in producing lots of pikemen, at least in the 18th century. As you prefer England, I see their melee infantry is very strong but I rather decide on recruiting either musketeers or fodder instead of pikemen in the later stages of the game.

 

In the 17th century pikemen are necessary to protect riflemen from cavalry charges because the early gunpowder units are slow and easily break in melee. 18th century musketeers however own bayonets and are not as vulnerable to horsemen, so I don't see the sense in pumping out high quality melee units (who consume tons of iron) for the sole purpose of defending the now stronger musketeers. It also seems a much less expensive solution to throw in cheap light infantry if it's only to absorb cavalry's attacking and flanking power. Pikemen don't really seem to stand a chance in surviving intense 18th century battles, as slow infantry is anyway shot into shreds by advanced musketeers and artillery.

 

To sum it up: Pikemen are slow, relatively expensive and easy to outmanouevre. So why to invest into them, rather than increasing fire power and filling holes with cheaper units?

[King BoBo]

And one more thing you must do---- when the enemy breaks ur resistance in your village use your last defenders to keep enemy inf away from your stables and there recruit small group of cav and take out enemy ranged reinforcments and hope for your ally will send some army to help you

[Saddoveanu]

Some good points Parzival; you are correct about pikes and 18th muskets - all I said applies mainly to 17th century. 17th muskets are just not effective, unfortunately. This aspect was addressed with Mod 1, which increased 17th musket damage and decreased their building time, but still pikemen are generally more effective (I never make 17th muskets). Ex for England: pikeman build time: 125, 17th musket: 370. And, although most pikemen require iron, muskets require iron (and coal) every time they fire; most 17t muskets: 3 iron and 3 coal for each shot.

 

Without muskets -  I'd rather have 3 pikemen than 1 musketeer - pikemen are the only option to form the backbone of the army.

 

About light inf merc, I didn't say I'm sending them against cav. They have 14 attack, and cav can reach 14 defense against sword with a few upgrades. So, it takes a very, very long time for the poor "meat" to kill cav. They're good when attacking a base: as your pikes engage their main army, your can send "meat" in a few groups, to different points in their base and destroy their economy. Also, a merc dragoon consumes 7 iron and 7 coal for each shot, and it takes about 3 shots to kill one meat - which costs 5 gold. Also, every shot taken by mercs, is not a shot taken by other, more important troops.