What are the optimum attacking armies for the Middle Ages?

[DeletedUser]

Following some advice I received in a different thread I changed my military setup to focus on fielding a 4 SR/ 4 LR for the attack with by Iron Age army. I was also able to confirm for myself that this combo has godlike powers against almost any random assortment of equal-era troops or a little above. Since the AI for defending players is so weak, it's hard to be sure if the units themselves are unbalanced or if I can just blame the AI for everything. But that's a different topic.

My question is, what do people replace their units with when they move up an Age? The Mounted Archer has only about half the attack of the Iron Age Archer, so it doesn't seem like a real worthy replacement. I've also seen people complaining about Crossbows even... so are people sticking with the Archer in EMA/HMA and just upgrading the LR units, or do they still use the given Age's SR units despite their apparent shortcomings?

 

[DeletedUser]

Im in Colonial Age and I still use archers. They are cheap, they can shoot from a distance and they can be used as bait in order to attract the enemy troops away from your siege weapons. So you cant lose with them. Not to mention their building occupies just 4 slots. Crossbows have a smaller range so they are not very spectacular in battle. However they can be used as bait just as well.
In the middle ages though you can also concentrate on siege, be it catapults, trebuchets or cannons. They are the main weapons for all attackers.
You mentioned mounted archers. They are only good in defense because they can (depending on terrain) hit the enemy from the first turn. Other than that they are rather useless.

 

[DeletedUser5943]

My question is, what do people replace their units with when they move up an Age? The Mounted Archer has only about half the attack of the Iron Age Archer, so it doesn't seem like a real worthy replacement. I've also seen people complaining about Crossbows even... so are people sticking with the Archer in EMA/HMA and just upgrading the LR units, or do they still use the given Age's SR units despite their apparent shortcomings?

If you have enough space and people, you can keep:

-Spearfighters (weak unit, but cheap, fast to produce, good to use it as bait)
-Iron Age Archer (great range, decent damage, small footprint, relatively cheap to produce)
-Mounted archers (they can be used as tactical units in some battles)

...they are weak if you use them as a replacement for normal archers, but in some battles, they did come in handy and normal archers would have been useless.

as for the rest, unless you have space and people to spare, you should upgrade ASAP.

 

[DeletedUser]

Yes I was suspecting that I might do well to have at least 1 Mounted Archer building just to provide them for defense only. Since an Archer might take more than 2 hits to kill a unit from the Middle Ages, are people increasing the ratio of LR/SR to compensate?

 

[Surge]

You mentioned mounted archers. They are only good in defense because they can (depending on terrain) hit the enemy from the first turn. Other than that they are rather useless.

Well I'll say: Mounted Archers are as useless as you describe, although they are mostly fit to be suicide runners. It's what the AI does: If there aren't many mountains or hills or swamps, the mounted archers would go directly in range and hit your units. They have less defense and attack AND range than iron age archers. It trades all those for speed. It's not really a good decision. However it's good at fleeing. But if it flees, it can't attack without being in range of a unit's movement zone, so mounted archers are mostly "hit n' die" units.

 

[DeletedUser]

Keep iron age archers until you can get long bows. Keep upgrading your LR units as you go along with the exception of replacing trebuchets with cannons. cannons stink.

 

[DeletedUser556]

Archers + best siege weapon available
That's what I used in the Middle Ages.

When I hit LMA archers just didn't cut it anymore so I switched to crossbowmen (more sturdier and more damage).

 

[DeletedUser653]

Im in Colonial Age and I still use archers. They are cheap, they can shoot from a distance and they can be used as bait in order to attract the enemy troops away from your siege weapons. So you cant lose with them.........

I would love to see a screen shot of you attacking with archers, they do so little damage you have no chance against colonial troops and you need at least 4 hits to kill one dragoon and 5 for a Grenadier. I suspect you think they are great but have not yet tried them out against any colonial troops?

good point about mounted archers, but never understood why with 2 in defense one will march up and attack and the other hangs around having a smoke and does nothing.

 

[DeletedUser]

I would love to see a screen shot of you attacking with archers, they do so little damage you have no chance against colonial troops and you need at least 4 hits to kill one dragoon and 5 for a Grenadier. I suspect you think they are great but have not yet tried them out against any colonial troops?

good point about mounted archers, but never understood why with 2 in defense one will march up and attack and the other hangs around having a smoke and does nothing.

Who said I use archers against Colonial age troops? The topic was about fighting vs. Middle Ages troops. And even then archers are useless against LMA troops.
As to mounted archers, I had cases of 3-4 attacking and hitting my troops from turn 1. As long as the terrain provides and they can hit they go all the way.