10 heavy cavalry vs some troops & mages

[Ezco]

Why would you write an answer to a pointless question, but to give an pointless answer? Aarghh even I get sidetracked on these pointless forums. Well luckily those multiplayer threads still have little point left.
First answers goes to Nick: I have punched trough 100 (I would assume that so many still qualify as "some troops") troops of soldiers to get at those pesky mages using only a few carefully scripted wolves/knights/cavalrys. Idea here is not to win a battle but to kill mages.
Next Homer: And I still believe that attack rear is better because it allows those troops because it allows those troops to move as far as possible to sucker those defending troops into attacking them (first center then other side and then those 6 left often pass them and attack rear where commanders are usually standing at this point). I would like to hear more explanations why, not beliefs.
Next Teraswaerto: Well I too have never heard of an army of 10 cavalry. Maybe "Ezcos breakers" "mage raiders" "small band you only have close when mages and some troops attack". I know its hard but impossible no. Done it many many times and against human players. You ask questions faster than I have time to answer.
Kissblade: Yes it is usually battle against overwhelming odds. Quick & easy is not something I'm looking for in this game. And your strategy of having only 1 decoy is kinda silly because of the explanation you wrote yourself.
SlipperyJim: I'll join the concensus that this was propably a bad idea. But I wouldn't have asked how to make some damage with an army of 300 elephants.
Ironhawk: It still has more information than with what I have to make many of my decisions in the game. In this game you will never know just how many troops you're going to battle unless you're playing in a very simple situation or against AI.
To all: Luckily this is something that is pretty simple to test in game. And if you could have just kept on topic I could have had some pretty nifty new tactics I think. But too late for that I guess. Sorry for bothering you.

[Ironhawk]

Why dont you get off your high horse Ezco? You recieved "pointless" answers... but the scenario you describe is so vague it is almost useless. What did you expect to recieve? IMO, the problem is not with the responders, but with your original extremely vague post.

Try wording it better and perhaps you will get a better response.

[KissBlade]

Ezco said:
Kissblade: Yes it is usually battle against overwhelming odds. Quick & easy is not something I'm looking for in this game. And your strategy of having only 1 decoy is kinda silly because of the explanation you wrote yourself.

Alright you described "some troops". "Some troops" can include xbows/longbows, etc. You should ALWAYS have at least one forward decoy because of this situation. I'm really not sure why the heck you're dismissing everything when your initial scenario was painted so horribly to begin with.

[danm]

Ezco seems like such a swell and likable guy, that I can't help tossing in my own pointless and useless reply onto the heap )

I'd put 3 cavs about 2/3s "up" and at the very front, assigned to attack closest. The rest at the very bottom in the middle, on attack archers (I've had consistantly better luck with that than rearmost -- neither is foolproof)

The hope would be that the forward force would get everyones attention and then route without being eliminated, to draw troops away from the "real" attack force. The "some troops" will chase the decoy all the way off the field, giving your strike team the best chance at causing harm to the softies in the back.

Even better would be to fill the "decoy" position with the cheapest commander you can find, and a smallish pile of militia scripted to defend commander. Set the commander to attack rearmost for 2 turns and then retreat. That way you get a cheaper ad more effective decoy, and can use all your cavalry to best effect eating archers/mages.

[Sombre]

I'm going to have to disagree with people arguing that his original post was too vague. That's actually not the problem here at all. The real problem in this thread is simply Ezco's replies from the third post onward. Very few people feel motivated to work out whatever it is you actually want to hear when you act like a troll.

For the record, I agree primarily with KissBlade and Tera. A decoy of one troop can fox longbows and crossbows (useful to remember in many situations) and the largest possible group of heavy cav is usually best for morale reasons.

[Ezco]

Well I guess I let my temper get the best of me. I'll try to be more civil in the future. Sorry, I hope you give me another chance. And because of popular demand I'll try to make this scenario more specific. It's just that I really made this thread only to make more of a simple puzzle and sidestep all that "this is better than that" stuff that goes on here. So without further ado here is my new scenario that is quite silly really so please do not answer if you don't like it:

2 provinces on an island. You and your enemy both have one. Unrest over 100 on both and you & enemy have zero money, zero pd and no means of influencing those provinces with spells. Also you both have no means of reinforcing your troops. You have 1 ordinary commander + 10 heavy cavalry. Your opponent has 3 sages + 1 ordinary commander and 10 crossbowmen + 30 heavy infrantry. It's early game/magic research is difficult so your opponent propably has no fancy spells or items that could affect the outcome. You think your opponent is going to attack you and you're propably going to lose that province. How would you script your troops? Oh yes he's propably a new player and is going to keep his troops in 2 squads.

So mine would still go something like this:
1 at center/front scripted attack rear to draw in those crossbow bolts and hopefully also get the attention of those infrantry (hopefully this one dies/routs soon)
3 on other side little behind that center scripted attack rear. Another decoy squad. Hopefully these at least will lure those infrantry in or get to attack at least those crossbows. This will propably survive multiple turns of attacks.
6 opposite side/front scripted hold attack rear. Hopefully this gets through or at least to those crossbows so they can inflict some casualties and if you're lucky get them to rout. 6 because they don't rout even if other squads get killed.
Aargh. forgot the commander. Just holdx5/stay behind troops.

Well that's it. I promise not to reply to this thread anymore, but would hope to hear any tactic you would use in this situation.

[Taqwus]

....1......
...........
...........front
...........towards
...........enemy
C.9........

1: sacrificial decoy; attack rear, obj:
draw fire, more importantly lure HI towards the 'wrong' flank hoping they're not on 'guard commander' (in which case you're hosed anyway) to reduce risk of HI blocking group-9

9: attack rear; obj: kill; the reason 9 are in one group is to minimize risk of routing when they take losses; doubt there's enough to split into three groups or more evenly without major morale risk

Considered hold/attack for g-9 but there's a fair chance the singleton is killed during the hold phase, methinks.

I'd consider the odds fairly poor, in so far as a few lucky hits by Xbows might cause a rout, but for the same reason I'd be reluctant to split groups more evenly -- at least one group has to close the distance to have a chance.

[SlipperyJim]

Ezco said:
2 provinces on an island. You and your enemy both have one. Unrest over 100 on both and you & enemy have zero money, zero pd and no means of influencing those provinces with spells. Also you both have no means of reinforcing your troops. You have 1 ordinary commander + 10 heavy cavalry. Your opponent has 3 sages + 1 ordinary commander and 10 crossbowmen + 30 heavy infrantry. It's early game/magic research is difficult so your opponent propably has no fancy spells or items that could affect the outcome. You think your opponent is going to attack you and you're propably going to lose that province. How would you script your troops? Oh yes he's propably a new player and is going to keep his troops in 2 squads.

Okay, still need a little more info, like: What kind of heavy cavalry? Personally, I loves me my missle-weapon horsies, like the Sauromatian Raiders and/or the LA T'ien Ch'i Heavy Barbarian Cavalry.

The same question goes for the crossbows and infantry. For example, 30 Jotuns are going to be a much bigger obstacle than 30 standard guys-in-chainmail heavy infantry. But you probably would have said something if the troops were special in any way, so I'll just assume standard off-the-rack troops that can be recruited from independent provinces. No special powers, no funky weapons ... just average guys, right?

Firstly, those sages won't have any real impact on the battle. You've already specified that there isn't any real magic to worry about, but even if there was, sages can't cast any spells that would turn the battle. Body Ethereal is about the best they can do, and even that probably won't help much because the n00b opponent won't think to etherealize the infantry. So ignore the sages.

It seems to me that the real issue here is how to kill the crossbows before they kill the cavalry. Crossbows are dangerous because they're armour-piercing, but they also have a slow rate of fire.

There's two tactical choices that I see:

• Run up the middle: Literally, place all ten horsies in one group at the forward edge of the formation and script them for "Attack Closest". The crossbows will get off one volley, and then you'll be in the middle of the infantry. Continued crossbow volleys will probably do as much (or more) damage to the grunts on the ground as they do to your precious horsemen. If the troops really are standard, then I think this tactic actually has a decent chance of success. Heavy Cavalry are very tough.
• Flank the buggers: Put one cavalry front-and-center with orders to "Attack Closest". Split the others into two groups -- one on each side -- and place them a little bit behind the Decoy with orders to "Hold & Attack Archers".

Frankly, if it were me, I'd run up the middle. Then again, I'm not as much of an expert tactician as some of the other guys here.

[Taqwus]

*shrug* I was thinking that the sages were the high-value target here, because if these are ALL that either side has (and by the conditions, neither side is going to get more troops -- assuming unrest is 200+ so tax=0 + patrol is going to take too long) --


* killing all the enemy commanders prevents his attack, and forces him to rout (giving you his province if you're on the attack, keeping your province if you waited to defend for initiative reasons)

* losing most/all your HC but leaving at least one enemy commander alive, some of the HI, plus the xbowmen probably guarantees that you lose your province to his attack -- you have no reserves/pd

From that I figure you pretty much have to shoot the moon. *shrug*