Total War strategies!

[A Weary Exile]

So if you play any of the Total War games (Shogun, Rome, Medieval, Medieval II, or Empire) share your strategies both on the campaign map and in actual battle. You can also share your favorite factions and/or units if you'd like.

I have only ever played Medieval II (And the expansions, I have Kingdoms) but I love it to death, certainly blows AoE III out of the water.

Favorite Factions: Venice, Poland, Denmark, and Egypt.

Favorite units: Venetian Heavy Infantry, Venetian Archers, Pavise Crossbowmen, Italian Spear Militia, Strzelcy, Huscarls, Desert Archers, Mamluks.

Strategies: In both the campaign and actual battles I am very defensive (When the situation allows) and I like to build up my economy and fortify my cities so when I eventually do get attacked my enemy will be so devastated by their losses they won't be able to withstand my counterattack, so I guess that makes me a turtler. When I enter a battle I like to use as few units as possible to win, so I prefer quality over quantity. I also like to use religious warfare against factions that are a different religion than mine (i.e. send a crapload of clergymen into their cities to cause civil unrest).

 

[Capt. Crankypants]

Enjoyed Rome and Medieval II very much. Rome, well, either the Greeks or Selucid Empire. It has to be phalanx with archer and catapult support for the greeks on the battlefield (spartan hoplites...*droool*). The Selucid Empire was pretty much comprised (for me) of entire armies of Cataphracts. They're so shiny, and they get the job DONE!

Medieval, that's a bit trickier. Alot of the empires are very similar, but if I had to pick favourites, it'd be of the 3 campaigns I played. England, Russia and Portugal.

England was pretty straight forward, consolidate Britain by wiping out the scots, while keeping your European fortresses beating away the french until you're ready to press on and invade Europe.

Russia was alot trickier, so much stuff going against you at the start. Tiny cities, HUGE distances, and lets not forget the mongols. However, playing around with hordes of mounted boyar sons and cavalry archers is SO fun and rewarding.

Portugal was probably my favourite. It was VERY diplomatically intense. I wanted to hold the peninsula, so I wiped out a weak spain early on (to the great displeasure of his holiness...) Then I spent the next century or so holding off Milanese and French invasions, until eventually forming a reconciliation and eventual alliance with the papal states, freeing me to wipe out excommunicated catholic nations at my pleasure. I get weary of managing enourmous empires, so I gave away all but my strongest captured european fortresses (and my home peninsula) to the papal states, my ONLY ally, who, through this, became the largest and most powerful faction on the planet. I didn't want to have to fuss over europe while exploring the Americas, so I left it in the capable hands of the Pope XD

That about sums up my Tactics and playthroughs of Rome and Empire.

Good topic, although requires somewhat lengthy responses, and it's a shame so few (if any) have responded...

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I play the Third Age mod so as Isengard all I pretty much do is pillage every city in Rohan, demolish all of the buildings and just let them be taken over. I do this one by one until their economy can't handle a prolonged war.

For Stainless Steel all my battle strategy's amount to: "cavalry archers, run around until the opponent is tired."

 

[The_Decoy]

Same tactic in every total war game: blitzkrieg. Just hammer into your opponents. get a couple of heavy cavalry, heavy inf and a few sets of archers and you're done. I rarely fight against armies in the field if I can help it, but use a network of spies to open castle gates and take places quickly. Night attack helps alot. Except in Shogun, where I just build Geisha's and assassinate everyone

Best faction in Medieval 2 is England, by far. Extremely powerful and relatively safe, though Milan is a favourite too.

Oh and I will always choose quality over quantity.

If you want a game where diplomacy is actually an option, I heartily recommend Europa Universalis 3, spans the entire world, is *much* more difficult than the total war series and gives more variety in play style I find.

 

[Spinozaad]

For Shogun: Those warrior-monk units, which are generally kick ass and get a bonus fighting Christians.

Just those.

Human wave tend to work well in Shogun as well. Like a feudal, Japanese Mao you can unite Japan with enough peasants.

 

[veloper]

The main tactic for rome and medieval tw1 is go frontal with infantry and charge the flanks or rear with cavalry.
Ranged units just to lure the enemy.

The exception is denmark/vikings, because these guys can just go all out infantry.

Overal Strategy: defeat in detail.

 

[Kryzantine]

Depends who I'm playing, and I usually mod the game as well.

In Rome, I almost always played with the EB mod, so my strategies would widely differ with the nation I was playing. This one tiny, very isolated Arab nation, the Sa'ab were my personal favorites in the campaign because starting out was significantly easier, and my armies consisted of a lot of spearmen protecting maybe 5 vital archer units. I tried light cavalry in that mod, but I just didn't find their use worth the price of purchase. Some nations had different strategies; the Gallic nations were mostly shock troops with maybe a few support units (and there was one unlockable unit in Ireland that was pretty much a fucking tank, really useful during sieges to divert attention away from the ram), the Romans were pretty balanced in their unit spread, the Bactrians used a lot of heavy cavalry, etc.

In unmodded Medieval II, for most nations, I used a lot of knights. The charge in that game was unbelievably OP, and you could defeat armies more than twice your size with the proper series of charges.

In the mod for Medieval II that I played frequently, gah I don't remember the name, the map was shifted so Western Europe was basically out and you had the whole Middle East region instead; time was shifted back to the 700-900s as well, so no Mongols or Timurids either, and the entire mod was simply to document the spread of Islam to India. Due to the expensiveness of everything else and the cheapness of the fanatics (because they don't give a shit about pay, they only care about their faith), your armies would mostly consist of a mix of light infantry (peasant fanatic warriors) and shock infantry (trained army professionals), and if you were extremely, extremely lucky, a light cavalry unit as well. Except, of course, for the lone Indian faction, who had freaking elephants to smash open holes in the oncoming hordes. God, I love that mod.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Depends who I'm playing, and I usually mod the game as well.

In Rome, I almost always played with the EB mod, so my strategies would widely differ with the nation I was playing. This one tiny, very isolated Arab nation, the Sa'ab were my personal favorites in the campaign because starting out was significantly easier, and my armies consisted of a lot of spearmen protecting maybe 5 vital archer units. I tried light cavalry in that mod, but I just didn't find their use worth the price of purchase. Some nations had different strategies; the Gallic nations were mostly shock troops with maybe a few support units (and there was one unlockable unit in Ireland that was pretty much a fucking tank, really useful during sieges to divert attention away from the ram), the Romans were pretty balanced in their unit spread, the Bactrians used a lot of heavy cavalry, etc.

In unmodded Medieval II, for most nations, I used a lot of knights. The charge in that game was unbelievably OP, and you could defeat armies more than twice your size with the proper series of charges.

In the mod for Medieval II that I played frequently, gah I don't remember the name, the map was shifted so Western Europe was basically out and you had the whole Middle East region instead; time was shifted back to the 700-900s as well, so no Mongols or Timurids either, and the entire mod was simply to document the spread of Islam to India. Due to the expensiveness of everything else and the cheapness of the fanatics (because they don't give a shit about pay, they only care about their faith), your armies would mostly consist of a mix of light infantry (peasant fanatic warriors) and shock infantry (trained army professionals), and if you were extremely, extremely lucky, a light cavalry unit as well. Except, of course, for the lone Indian faction, who had freaking elephants to smash open holes in the oncoming hordes. God, I love that mod.

Broken Crescent. I can't figure out how to install the mods though.

Learning to use heavy cavalry is a must, when I wipe out those rebel units that pop up I can usually take them out with just one General's bodyguard unit then be on my merry way. Using missle cavalry (Paricularly the ones that have 'Effective against armor' like Strzelcy) is a must for thinning out heavy infantry for your charge.

 

[Spacewolf]

the only tactic you need is a collapsing infantry line so when the enamy charges you can start attacking the flanks. Except in empire where their seems to be nearly no tactics

 

[A Weary Exile]

Good topic, although requires somewhat lengthy responses, and it's a shame so few (if any) have responded...

I always feel like I make good topics, but I barely get any responses to them, maybe people are just lazy. Or perhaps if I made the topic 'WHY DOES MODERNZ WARFAREZ SUKZOORS!!!' I would've got more responses.

 

[A Weary Exile]

the only tactic you need is a collapsing infantry line so when the enamy charges you can start attacking the flanks. Except in empire where their seems to be nearly no tactics

That's why I love the Italian Spear Militia. Great defensive units that are cheap and get free upkeep in cities with two armor upgrades, all around great unit.

 

[rokkolpo]

for rome: BRING IN THE CAVALRY!

they will flee before your mighty steeds.

 

[pffh]

I have medieval 1 and 2 (plus all expansions and rome + expansions and my strategy is usually very similar in all of them, spearmen, cavalry and archers.

Line up the spearmen with the archers standing behind them, have heavy cavalry one one side and light on the other.
The light cavalry circles the enemy and then charges into their backs while the heavy cavalry charges into their sides.

But also different factions require different tactics and I rarely get a chance to defend or attack with my ideal set up of troops.

 

[Grigori361]

I only play shogun, but I generally turtle, tech up like made, and assassinate everyone else, then pick off the disoriented provinces and fortresses they leave behind, since bandit and rohnin provinces generally don't work together very well it's a sure fire win, but just spamming the shit out of the enemy with peasent conscrips works almost ridiculously well, yeah the enemy may have a kill to death ratio of 5 to one, but you still outnumber them by 10 to 1.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

i either use greeks for their hoplite formations, with the romans, since i always used the famous SPQR MOD version 7.5 or more i don't quite remember, i used to do some Blitzkrieg tactics with cavalry//archers and some Hastatis at the beginning to sustain them...

In medieval 2 i always took the French kingdom, due to some major buttkicking with their knights cavalry! FAST and STRONG !! what more could you ask!

i don't get it why people have this mystification of the french being cowards since
it's a nation that had 1500 years of wars! that should generate more respect...

 

[Grigori361]

Good topic, although requires somewhat lengthy responses, and it's a shame so few (if any) have responded...

I always feel like I make good topics, but I barely get any responses to them, maybe people are just lazy. Or perhaps if I made the topic 'WHY DOES MODERNZ WARFAREZ SUKZOORS!!!' I would've got more responses.

Yeah it likely would have gotten more responses, the thing is, would you have really wanted the responses?

I thought not, and rest my case.

 

[Spirit_Of_Fire]

In medieval 2 I use the turks and have taken control of the entire map using them.
PROS: cheap powerfull units, lots of starting territory, weak neighbours, next to the sea so ideal for transporting troops for suprise attacks on europe

CONS: mongols appear in your homeland late in the campaign, vunerable to crusades, can often lose easy battles.

I also use the scots which are suprisingly good.

 

[BeastofShadow]

i don't get it why people have this mystification of the french being cowards since
it's a nation that had 1500 years of wars! that should generate more respect...

It's just cause of how quickly France was overrun during WW2 despite being a super power.

OT: I've only played the Rome series. Favourite factions are Britannia in Rome and the Celts in BI. Giving units of chariots move orders through enemy units cuts them up. The Hounds of Culann for the celts are just bent though.

 

[Shock and Awe]

I only really played Rome to a great extent, but I have a few strategies for that.

-Probably the best(Roman) basic army comprises of one general, five cohorts of legionary infantry, two units of heavy cavalry, and two archer units. This is the best set up for doing most things in the game, attacking invaders(unless they are huge) taking out barbarian cities, ect. The only real deviation is with making a large army or one that is meant to assault a well fortified city, in which you would just double up for a large army, and for a city crusher you would add more archers and siege units.

-When attacking cities, it is best to destroy defensive towers first and then harass the enemy from outside with archers and siege units as long as possible so your infantry and cavalry are not exposed to as much danger.

-When attacking a powerful enemy state late in the game, go big or don't go at all. It is best to be able to annihilate multiple cities in one turn, so have at least three armies equipped with siege units so you can take out cities very fast. Also, remember to repair city walls after you take them, so you are in a good spot when the enemy eventually counter attacks.

When fighting army to army, try to catch the enemy in a hammer and anvil formation. Make him hit the front of your infantry(anvil) and then smash his units in the rear with your cavalry.(hammer)