Basic Medieval warfare strategy (PVE)

This guide serves as a basic for the real-time warfare section of Medieval 2 campaign map.
I will be going over basic strategies and formations for open terrain and siege warfare.
By following these strategy you will be able to keep a proper order of battles that don't look like a mess and are interesting to look at.

Q: Why would you make a guide about the basics even tho the game probably doesn't have many newcomers?
A: Because why not and you can't stop me.

Introduction to Medieval Warfare

Hello commander or soon to be one.

In this guide I will show what formation to use and how to use them. My personal goal in a battle of total war titles is usually to win (duh), but one very important goal of mine is to win with style. Which is why I have an obsession with order of battles or keeping formation during combat. This is what I will try to show during this guide.

These tactics have been extensively tested against AI in the campaign. I don't play PvP and don't really care if it works or not in PvP so plz don't bother me with it.

I will go over the terms and basic information before starting so that we can understand each other.
I will probably refer to skirmish button, defensive stance and the group buttons when I will talk about formation. In the case it's not clear, refer to the image above.

I will be using the Totalwar Medieval 2 formation icons when illustrating formation.
Red rectangles = Infantry
blue triangles = Archers
Green rectangles = Cavalry

Fast description since it's suppose to be a guide on the basics:
Infantry: Foot units with the intention of fighting in melee divided in three archetype. Light Infantry fast and expandable so good shield your important units. Heavy Infantry are very good to hold position and usually best at taking walls. Spearmen are soldier that are proficient with spear and usually have bonus against cavalry, they also include halberds and pikemen. They are usually first in line since they are often expendable and in the case of pikemen they can hold their own and crush cavalry charge.

Archers/crossbowman(xbow): Foot units with the intention of killing units from afar, they usually need to be well position or a good angle to do their job.
Archers have higher angle of attack while crossbow shoot more straight, it can be both a curse and a blessing. I include skirmisher in this section because I don't care about them. (don't get me wrong, they are good but I don't base my strategy on them)

Cavalry: The mounted troops that win battles almost by themselves. Its very important to understand how crouch lance charge are op in this game in order to not become the victim of it.
Light cavalry are fast, heavy cavalry have a crushing charge and skirmisher cavalry are good at being annoying.

Alright, let's get started!!

Basic Formations

Most basic formation

Vanilla AI Formation

This is the formation you will see the AI use. It place all units where it has good potential to do their job.
Keep archers in front for the opening skirmish, infantry in the middle to hold the enemy and the cavalry on the sides to circle behind. You cannot go wrong with this.

I would say the only weakness of this formation is the lack of defence to full on cavalry charge because the cavalry could be far away on the sides and the archers are in the front.

If you want a strait up fight with the AI, this formation will always give you line of battle. You may have to worry about enemy infantry going for your cavalry which is annoying, so I normally back them up a bit.

You can easily use it by making a group with your whole army and taking this option:

Cavalry Vanguard

Aggressive formation that is very useful against a archer or infantry heavy enemy. It will make full use of your cavalry in the opening seconds, were the Ai is the most vulnerable. This is extremely useful when on the defensive in order to either provoke the AI to attack or take the initiative in the case they have superiority in archers or siege engine.

Big WARNING, this strategy relies on using heavy cavalry, it probably isn't the best do use it with light cavalry.

You can easily use something similar by making a group with your hole army and taking this option:

Hannibal Defensive Semi circle

The Semi circle is a very flexible formation that can engage a larger number of units than it use itself without being encircled and can easily send reinforcement for one place to the other. It doesn't mean you can win against superior numbers but you can hold them, you would need to make use of you cavalry to hammer the enemy or siege engine to do the killing.

This formation can be disadvantageous for range unit depending on the terrain. Cavalry may struggle with infantry charging them in the opening phase since the AI always try to make the longest line possible and will have less target to attack it will go for your cavalry when you get out.

Don't forget to remove skirmish mode from archers

Archer Bait

This formation tries to make use of archers while covering them with cavalry instead of infantry to counter charge foes that would normally not be so reckless. It can be useful for baiting enemy cavalry assuming you have stronger cavalry yourself or even the enemy general bodyguard.
I find it also useful against horse archers, you will trade blows with cavalry in exchange for archers. Archers are easy to come by like militia so I think it's good exchange rate if you have the numbers.

Infantry Archer checkers

This formation tries to somewhat abuse the AI but you could say it early use of spanish tercio formation. The benefit of this formation is that it attempts to use the full power of range weapons without friendly fire. Because of the space between the infantry you can cover more ground so you can keep more infantry in reserve or to cover the flanks.

I would recommend to disable the skirmish from archers since you want them as close as possible.
You will also want to put your infantry on defensive stance so they don't break formation, that way the enemy will go in the spacing and get kill by the archers.

Disadvantage is that if it doesn't work and the enemy cavalry or infantry don't get aggro by the infantry, it will be encircle and your archers in danger.
There is also a good guide about crossbows that you can go see that talks more about this.

Two ways to make it work:

Basic Aggressive tactics

These tactic will be about taking the initiative and routing the enemy.

Let's tackle the obvious one first
Hammer & Anvil
The bread of butter or any Total war game, hold the enemy with infantry and charge at the back with cavalry. Once it is done, you fall back then rinse and repeat. I don't think I need to expand more.

Normally where it goes wrong is step 2, charging at the back because the enemy may have superior cavalry and wont let you do it.

First blood charge
This tactic is useful for tacking out a good portion of the enemy at the start of the engagement,
Very powerful on the defensive because when an enemy is marching or running toward you, heavy cavalry are so powerful they can completely wipe out a unit.

If you have in cavalry superiority, you can move to Hammer & Anvil tactic to finish the fight, otherwise it is best to fall back in formation, the Ai will usually run after your cavalry and that is a good opportunity to bring them in pinned on your infantry lines.

WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS AGAINST PIKE WALLS OR SHARPEN STICK WALL (or you will have a bad day)

One side Gambit
This tactic is good against stronger enemy cavalry and makes good use of Xbox to compensate for the usual loss of cavalry that will happen. It is important to at least try to put one unit on the weak side even if it stretch your main line, it will slow down the possible but probable encirclement.

This strategy will concentrate more force on one side to attempt to flank the enemy with more success but will leave your other flank vulnerable. Somewhat similar to Alexander's strategy at Gaugamela.

You may want to remove skirmish from crossbowmen

Basic Defensive tactics

Defensive tactics that will increase your odds of survival or just make better use of your resources.

Spearman - Heavy infantry swapping
This is a common tactic to save your best infantry from deadly heavy cavalry charge by keeping them in reserve. Always keep your cheap replaceable spear militia in the front, once you've made contact with the enemy infantry you charge your heavy infantry in the lines and back up your spearman on the flanks.

You will lose some men because they will show their back to the enemy, but the heavy infantry will make up for it.



Close quarter Catapult
Very easy to use on the defensive against superior forces. Especially useful when defending a bridge, town or castle since there will be choke points. When in the open terrain, the important part that can easily fail is the fake retreat.

You can create the concave formation from the start but the AI may try to charge in with the general body guards, so this is a precaution. When possible threat to the flanks are secure you can take on the side but be worry of attack at the back since you might get hit by your own catapult.

Siege Warfare

Taking settlement is an important part of the campaign. But they can be tricky if there's a lot of troops manning the fortifications. Of course the best option could simply be to wait for the AI to exit the town but that would make this section very boring.

There are two types of settlements, towns and castle. Towns will only have 1 layer of defence and castles can have up to 3. It can there fore be important to prepare accordingly. In the case of Citadel (the castle tier with 3 layers of wall), I recommend making some ladders because they can be reused, which is not the case with siege towers.

Another point that can make a big difference in late game is using assassins to sabotage towers. Personally, removing cannon towers is must for my own sanity. If you sabotage it the same turn you lay siege they wont be able to repair them so you can still construct your siege equipment if needed.

Getting to walls
Siege towers and ladders are risky move that don't leave a lot of option for an easy retreat once engaged. The AI will often throw everything it can to defend the walls and the gate, to reduce that number you disperse your cavalry and archer units around, this will reduce the number enemy to engage on the walls at the same time.

Ladders are generally more lethal for your troops because they arrive one at a time, but they also have many advantages: easy to build in numbers, reusable (very useful in citadels) and cannot burn.

About siege engine and cannons, you can break walls, towers, gatehouse (burning oil control) and gate door. I highly recommend firing on the gatehouse towers first to save ammo, by shooting the towers some of the missed will hit the gatehouse taking two birds with one stone. Taking towers down should be a priority target, especially if they are upgraded to cannons or balista, it will save you a lot of casualties.
On another point, the AI appears to abandon the walls if you break 6 wall sections or when your spies open the gates to the city but will double back once you approach the walls so make it quick.

Fighting on walls is something Heavy infantry excels at, it's usually a good strategy to take the walls with them and then finish the job with spearmen and archers in the square. it may still be useful to send dispensable troop first to soak up enemy missiles if you don't have many heavy infantry.

To make taking walls faster:
1- Tell your squad already engage on the walls to run behind the position of the enemy, that way they will group up and have more people attacking at once. It will make you lose slightly more men but since it makes the combat faster you will lose less men to tower arrows.

2- Bring archers inside the settlement and shoot from under them.

Once inside the walls it's a question of numbers and quality but you still use the walls to your advantage in Fortress and citadel because of the extra wall that provide vantage points for archers.

Fortify!!!!

Basic Formation
Unfortunately, range units don't work very well for shooting from walls. They will often don't have a line of sight and waste the ammo shooting with a very angle. So, in order to use ammo more efficiently, it can be very useful to prepare for ladders and siege towers. Look were the ladders or siege towers are going, send an infantry near the entry but don't block it. In the best situation, you would have infantry on one side engaging the enemy, Archers on the other side shooting in the back of the enemy.

Concave Choke
For holding gates or plaza entrance. If there's a lot of cavalry, it's important to give some space away from the gate otherwise they will force their way through your soldiers like madmen and break you.

By making a concave form, it will make easier target for archers placed on the walls to shoot in the choke point and in some conditions shoot in the back of the enemy, just make sure you will be in control of the walls.



With Heavy infantry on the walls you should be able to hold for a while against light infantry but if the gate fall don't hesitate to fall back before enemy cavalry make it impossible.

Kill Zone of perpetual pain
A bit more advance formation when you have more money and siege weapons.

Use the defensive strategy of close quarter catapult and aggro with infantry on the side of the entrance to leave a clear path for the projectiles. It can be useful to set the infantry near the gate on defensive stance so they don't spread and block the view of projectile.

Keep a space on the sides to shoot with throwing weapons or Xbows with impunity.

With catapult
Stack them up

Conclusion

Thx for reading this guide and leave a comment if you have feedback or if you have more formation tactic that anyone can use easily use.

I'm open to adding contributors if someone wants to add more formation with illustrations.

Plz keep comments toward PvE, I know there's already a guide about PvP so it might be more proper to post on that one if that's your thing.

That will be all and have a good day.

[Vanmarcos]

Ohh okay thank you very much!

[Bdeslaurs]

No, I was wrong it's 6,4 with bug fix compilation 1.27
Can be a slow mod a the beginning but it's also feel more realistic.

[Bdeslaurs]

Yes certainly, the screenshot were taken in the mod Stainless Steel 6.2 or 3. with the start date for 11 century. I think most of them where taken with the redesign byzantine empire.

[Vanmarcos]

Hello, a well done guide! But i also wanted to ask what mods were you using in the screenshots, coz those flags looks cool.

[Bdeslaurs]

yeah, I think the medieval 2 AI aims for the units with the highest damage number, normally they aim for your own range unit first tho. In any case, placing two-handed unit behind another with shield will help protect them a bit, not as much as being out of range of course.

[Elric]

Another benefit of the infantry swapping defensive strategy is that it saves your better infantry (dismounted knights, especially two-handed ones) from enemy ranged units, as they will always (almost?) target your front line first. Really like the guide.

[Bdeslaurs]

Thx very much for the comments, it also brings me joy to know new people are discovering this game, hope you're having a blast!

Also took some time to fix some typo while adding info on the siege warfare section based on comments. Thx @Archaon for the info on why the AI falls back from the wall layer, I had seen them retreat when breaking walls but I never realised it was the number of breach, I will definitely pay more attention to that next time I play.

[Insanity]

As a newcomer after watching Pilps be memey, this definitely helped! Thank you so much

[ettore.ven]

You'd be surprised at how many newcomers M2TW gets even in 2024. With the release of the new TW games and remasters like Rome, all of the classic TW content creators continue to recommend this game for one reason or another.

[ThePr7nceTheyKnow]

🥇 This guy deserves a medal! 🥇