Why abandon early tercio at all?

[Richon]

From the way the battles in this game play out, even on easiest, it seems that the early tercio is king. So why would anyone have ever switched to thinner, smaller units that cave under pressure? And why am I always outfitted with the thinner, weaker tercios while my enemy continues to use the older, superior tercios?

I'm particularly befuddled by the Battle of Lutter. I get that it should be difficult, as the Danes lost it historically. But I don't even know what to do here, as the set up implies that while the enemy was manoeuvring into position to cross both ends of the creek, my troops pretended they couldn't see anything. So I'm stuck having to react to a situation that shouldn't have happened in the first place. How do I take them on?

[Zarkarion]

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=320&t=53447&hilit=Lutter

[CHOO CHOO]

Early Tercio was a huge manpower sink, a giant target for enemy fire and especially cannon, slow to manoeuver and at the same not able to bring more firepower to bear.

At least that's how I understand it. Feel free to correct me.

[SnuggleBunny]

Keep in mind the historical scenarios are made to be difficult. In terms of points cost for skirmish vs AI or multiplayer, Tercios are extremely points inefficient, and are large artillery targets.

Yes, one Tercio will plow through one Pike and Shot in the open. But what about two? What if they are deployed so that the Tercio has to move through a crossfire to come to grips with them? What if they are in a strong defensive position? The Tercio can't afford to come to a halt and try to use musketry to weaken the enemy before the assault, as their firepower would be dwarfed by that of two Pike and Shot units. It would rapidly take heavy loss and lose cohesion, while the fire of one Tercio is unlikely to cause cohesion tests.

The Tercio is, when steady, invulnerable to cavalry, and it is a melee tank against non keil infantry in the open. But it lacks flexibility, is vulenrable to musketry and artillery, and losing a single Tercio is far more devastating for your army than losing a single unit of Pike and Shot.

[Richon]

Originally posted by SnuggleBunny:

Keep in mind the historical scenarios are made to be difficult. In terms of points cost for skirmish vs AI or multiplayer, Tercios are extremely points inefficient, and are large artillery targets.

Yes, one Tercio will plow through one Pike and Shot in the open. But what about two? What if they are deployed so that the Tercio has to move through a crossfire to come to grips with them? What if they are in a strong defensive position? The Tercio can't afford to come to a halt and try to use musketry to weaken the enemy before the assault, as their firepower would be dwarfed by that of two Pike and Shot units. It would rapidly take heavy loss and lose cohesion, while the fire of one Tercio is unlikely to cause cohesion tests.

The Tercio is, when steady, invulnerable to cavalry, and it is a melee tank against non keil infantry in the open. But it lacks flexibility, is vulenrable to musketry and artillery, and losing a single Tercio is far more devastating for your army than losing a single unit of Pike and Shot.

Thank you for this. A couple things, though.

1. In the recent failure, there were two enemy early tercio formations engaging me in melee, I had each one attacked by two reformed tercios. The early tercios obliterated me.

2. What is "keil infantry?"

[SnuggleBunny]

If you look at the unit description, or ctrl click on a unit, you might see the word "Keil." This indicates that it is a large unit with at least 50% pikemen (the one exception to this is Elizabethan Foot, whose billmen count as part of the melee compoment of the keil).

Keils get substantial impact bonuses in the open, and large melee bonuses. Units that are all melee (like Swiss Pikemen or Landsknechts) get +100 POA bonus. Early Tercios are composed of 50% Pikemen 50% Arquebus, and so only get +50. Keils are also able to charge cavalry, even the keils composed of mixed melee and ranged units.

Later, more linear units, such as Later Tercios and Pike and Shot, don't have enough pikemen to get the keil bonus. They also thus lose the ability to charge cavalry. They wll fare poorly in melee against Early Tercios, but are cheaper, so you can get more of them for shooting.

Early Tercios get a special bonus that renders them immune to flank AND rear attacks. Keils by default are immune to flank attacks, but NOT rear attacks. The benefit to Later Tercios is that, though they lack the Keil bonus, they are nevertheless immune to flank attacks, rendering them less vulnerable to getting rolled up by cavalry than regular Pike and Shot.

The extra manpower of Later Tercios compared to Pike and Shot (approx 1000 men vs 500) makes them more resilient in melee as well. Since only the front ranks are considered to be fighting, if a PnS unit is fighting a Lt Tercio, the Tercio will gradually start getting a bonus for being a larger unit. Note that this doesn't kick in immediately, because men over 500 aren't counted in this calculation, but as the two units take losses the Tercio will gain a statistical bonus (referred to as the Combat Strength Modifier in the Tool Tips).

If you haven't already, I highly recommend turning on Detailed Tool Tips in options. I personally don't use the Combat Reports that pause the game, but if you do, set those to detailed as well. It will give you all of the under the hood calculations.

It all sounds really complicated, but as you play the game with the tool tips you'll just figure this stuff out naturally, too.

[Richon]

Thank you for all of that! That is helping me make some sense of what's being going on. Next time I have enough time to play a battle or two, I'll have to look at all that.

[Richon]

Well, haven't gone back to try Lutter yet, but I did try my hand at the Battle of Dreux, and took your advice to read the detailed unit reports. I couldn't find out how to turn on detailed combat reports though. But even just studying the detailed unit reports gave me a better picture of how different units would fare against each other, even units of similar/same class. It was a hard-fought battle, but a few well-placed and well-timed attacks (that I only knew to do from the detailed reports) turned the tide in my favour! So thank you for that. How can I turn on the detailed combat reports for next time, so I can learn even more?

[SnuggleBunny]

Well done; Dreux is a very challenging scenario.

Got to options, then Advanced Options. Set to:

Tooltips: Using Detailed
Close Combat Reports: Detailed

[Richon]

Originally posted by SnuggleBunny:

Well done; Dreux is a very challenging scenario.

I used my superior lancers to break their cavalry quickly. They never got to flank or even harass my Pike and Shot formations with any horse whatsoever. Meanwhile, I used my arquebusiers to draw off half of their infantry, including one of the Royal Swiss. I teamed up on the other Royal Swiss 3-1. Between wiping out their entire cavalry force and routing one Royal Swiss and two Pike and Shot, I was able to win the day. It only cost me a few of my cavalry units and two routed Pike and Shot, one of whom later reformed and held a flank rather well, going all the way from broken back to steady.

Originally posted by SnuggleBunny:

Got to options, then Advanced Options. Set to:

Tooltips: Using Detailed
Close Combat Reports: Detailed

Got it! Will do that for next time. Thanks!

[Geffalrus]

I'm running into this problem during the Battle of Wimpfen where due to the pre-chosen setup, the enemy has an equivalent number of Early Tercios to my Late Tercios, and they're veteran. So essentially they just waltz through my cannon and musket fire and then destroy everything in melee extremely quickly. The restrictive terrain - and - the enemies cavalry superiority hinders my ability to use maneuver to my advantage. And even now that I know the Fall Back command, that only delays things a round or two before the Tercios catch up since Fall Back is one space movement, while the Tercios move 2 spaces.

[Geffalrus]

Just watched 1 Veteran Early Tercio that spent the entire march up getting blasted by two cannons plus multiple other units obliterate 2 late Tercios and 1 Pike and Shot in a big gang-up. One of my late Tercios was also flanked by another Early Tercio who was in turn flanked by another one of my late Tercios.

The Early Tercio is an invincible monster in melee that seems to require lots of luck to reduce morale enough to get the D and F penalties. That takes a lot of work and space, and in the meantime, the plentiful Imperial cavalry needs to be dealt with.

Honestly, I'm trying to kite with my Late Tercios, but they just eventually get caught and killed. Not sure what the solution is here........

[Verboxe]

Rules of the game allow for only 500 men to be active during an engagement. Rest are reserves and in the case of early tercio; you have 1500 protectors/reserves against charges from flank and the rear.

Having so much manpower in a formation makes it vulnerable particularly against arquebus, artillery and musket. Tercio is usually armored to the extent of lessening the effects of bow armed cavalry and massed crossbowmen at long range.

Strategically speaking; Tercio should be used as an offensive unit when;
-Terrain is flat or rough
-Opposition doesnt have a lot of firearms or artillery

Failing to comply with these two standards will result in massive casualties and lots of morale checks throughout the game. Even being distrupted is enough to render a tercio useless. Morale checks can be prevented to some extent by using elite Tercio Vijeo but that unit scores an all time low in price/performance charter.

Imo tercio is best when used defensively or to hold ground; preferably in cover and/or high ground. In such a scenario does the reserves fulfill their role in an active fashion.

[Geffalrus]

If you are limited by funds, then Early Tercios can be a poor investment because you can counter them will multiple shooting units. However, if number of units is the limiting factor, then the weaknesses of the Early Tercio largely disappear. This is what you see in the historical battles where the AI opposing faction fields armies far more expensive than yours. When you have 7 Late Tercios and they have 7 Elite Tercios, you're in for a tough time.

[SnuggleBunny]

Yes, the historical battles are made to be very difficult; try using an Early Tercio army in MP skirmish against a more flexible army, and you're likely to suffer.

[Jactar]

Spanish was superpower during the time period of tercios and inventor of original tercio tactic. Spanish troops were considered one of the best troops at Catholic side also there were battles where Spanish troops beat up army using later tercio tactics with early tercio tactics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_N%C3%B6rdlingen_(1634)

Other catholic side countries tercios generally was not nearly as good as Spanish tercios. This is propably why spanish tercios are pretty strong but they are also were expensive and force you to play were aggressive as they cant win longer firefights. While with later tercio armies you can play more cautious or aggressive.