Medieval: Total War/Tactical battles

General Tactics

Weather

Weather can be an important factor for any given battle. In Medieval: Total War, the attacker determines the day of the attack, and thus the weather for that battle.

One of the most common concerns is rainy weather. In rainy weather the range and accuracy of missile units (such as archers, mounted archers, longbowman, crossbowman, etc.) are reduced. In a battle where ranged troops might be a decisive force, rainy weather may be to the defender's detriment and to the attacker's advantage.

Weather conditions can also change throughout the day. For instance, a day may start clear and become progressively more rainy, or inversely, start as a rainy day and clear up as the day goes on.

The High Ground

Holding the high ground is extremely important.

For ranged units such as archers, the high ground provides additional range. This means tall peaks or hills can drastically improve the effectiveness of ranged units.

The high ground is also important for melee units. It is difficult for a unit to carry a battle uphill. If a unit is forced to fight from below an opposing unit, it is likely to suffer many more casualties at a much higher rate than it would fighting against the same enemy unit on even ground. This may lead to a fast routing of the unit, especially in less professional militia units. For this reason the high ground is an extremely desirable position to hold.

It is also harder for ranged units to fire up onto units holding the high ground, and as such the high ground also has the benefit of added protection from ranged units for both melee and ranged units.

Ambush and Surprise

While the aggressor chooses the day of an attack, the defender has the opportunity to strategically place troops before the battle actually begins. This gives the defender the opportunity to advantageously place troops in strategic positions, such as on the high ground, but also to disguise the presence of troops by hiding them in nearby forest. Such units are functionally invisible to the enemy until they approach somewhat near those troops.

Done properly, ambushes from multiple sides or deft flanking maneuvers can be engineered in this manner.

Unit Specific Tactics

An important part of tactical planning is the superiority of some kinds of troops against others. For a list of all units with descriptions of their capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, see Medieval Total War Guide:Units.

Cavalary

Cavalry are troops mounted on horseback and are often key to battlefield strategy. Though they are not the backbone of an army as they are traditionally portrayed, they are the most maneuverable unit on the field. This means several things.

The most common use for cavalry is to use them to move around behind or to the side of enemy troops. It is hard for enemy troops to respond to this sort of quick maneuvering as their speed is vastly slower. Even when an opponent has their own cavalry, if they are not deployed in such a way as to let them quickly move in response (for example, if they are on the wrong side of the battlefield or too far behind their own troop lines) then they may not be able to effectively respond at all: The target of the flank may be routed too quickly.

While this speed can be of great advantage on the attack, it can also be very important for defense. In battles of slow moving infantry units, cavalary can quickly come to the rescue of a waning unit with a sudden charge.

The more heavily armed and armored a unit of cavalry is the more solidly it will perform in combat, but its more lightly armed and armored counterparts will move more quickly. Thus, heavy vs. light cavalry is a tradeoff between maneuverability and fortitude.

Some mounted troops can dismount, acting instead as heavy infantry, which provides them a measure of flexibility depending on the situation.

Missile and Ranged Units

Ranged units are units that are equipped with projectile weapons. Examples include archers, crossbowmen, and arquebusiers. These units are usually not very very powerful in hand to hand combat. There are many common uses of ranged units.

One common use is to put ranged unit at the head of an army, usually defending, to inflict some casualties on approaching enemy units. This will slightly damage the moral of units and weaken their numbers before they come into direct contact with other units. Usually these archers or other missile units will be recalled behind the safety of heavier troops before the enemy comes into melee range.

Ranged units behind an army's own lines can also be used to fire over the front line into enemy reinforcements waiting in the wings if they are too close or as those reinforcements approach the front line.

From the high ground, these units have particularly devestating range.