Battle strategy

I play on max difficulty. I absolutely obliterate any army that’s 1.5x my size or less, but I’m always trying to get better. Current formation/tactics:

40% archers, usually a mix of fian champs and xbows 20% infantry, usually heavily weighted towards legionary 30% cavalry, almost entirely druzhniks or elite cataphracts 10% mounted archers, don’t really care what they are so long as they’re t5

Tactics: shield wall 10-20 paces in front of archer wall, preferably lower in altitude so archers can fire over Archers spread (f2+f3) Horse archers immediately behind Cavalry immediately behind, also spread

Everyone on hold fire till 185 distance Horse archers and archers fire Usually knock out a significant number of troops. 100 distance before enemy cav hits, horse archers on f6 - they usually distract enough that there isn’t a full charge wrecking my infantry, and my archers are slaughtering horses anyway 20 distance before infantry meet, infantry fire 10 distance before infantry meet, cavalry full charge. As soon as it crushes thru, send cavalry on to archer line (if it still exists) or send it to a point so I can bring it immediately back for another organized charge against infantry If they pull back to regroup with reinforcements, I move my archers to the gap between archers and infantry to inevitably pick the 100-200 arrows up, rinse and repeat

My question: people seem to be more nuanced than me, using things like shock troops (what are those and why would I use them?), light cavalry (what’s the point also?). Would love thoughts on other unit types, as well as general strategy for maximizing victories/minimizing casualties.

Last time I actually lost an open, pitched battle I was outnumbered 3.5:1 and there were absolutely zero hills to use. TIA!

submitted by /u/CSparrow17
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