To be honest, I felt a bit the same when I started playing. Then I learned to just to treat large fights like a macro level engagement of their smaller versions. I'd group my infantry, ranged units together, making essentially bigger units out of small ones, then just play the battle much the same way I would had it been smaller. Now I find 40vs40 actually quite fun !
While I don't disagree with the premise of the tactic, In this video's illustration, the "winning" army is bringing more units to bear against the enemy army, than the enemy has. Would like to see the point made again with equivalent units on both sides.
In that situation you probably need more of a hammer and anvil approach. Hold the enemy with a front line of hyper defensive units that can tar pit/tank even when outnumbered while your "concentrated force" can pick where to hammer them down. Then you get the snowball effect as the anvil units can spread to reinforce their nearby fellows
That’s actually pretty accurate. Breaching enemy lines or going on an aggressive offense only really works in reality if you have a 3-1 advantage. In real battles, while you do want to win the battle, you also want to ensure you have an Army capable of continuing the campaign. Which is why these offensive heavy tactics only work in a 3-1 advantage. Even an attrition of 20% can severely degrade a unit’s capabilities. Which is why in modern war, the US will only fight an offensive battle if we outnumber the enemy 3-1.
History nerds. I see you and appreciate you. If i'm not mistaken, Zerkovich has explained some form of the diagonal order before, but called it a flank overload?... Strengthen one flank, smash through, then reinforce the rest of the army. I don't think i've seen anyone attempt the staggered advance in multiplayer, though.
I was always under the impression that dumping 3 units into 1 was a waste besides flanks or monsters. I thought units that are relatively the same size have a hard time making enough room to fight the same target head on
Good to have monsters in this case. I believe the fiends are big enough in these examples. They have the mass to push through and actually help your daemonettes or marauders overwhelm their target since they're can fight the rear ranks simultaneously. I think it does work out to be a waste to cram infantry together, though. So monsters and infantry. Cavalry can demolish the flanks and backline as usual.
I think you are correct if they are similar mass as Jason has said above it helps to have cav or monsters to cause pockets of space allowing them to hit the enemy. If you have similar units or ones that lack the mass to make space it can still work as a flank overload so you put them all on one side and wrap around exposing the flanks etc instead of trying to push straight through if that makes sense.
this is still mostly true for infantry vs infantry; but not so much if you bring monsters vs infantry; monsters use their mass and splash attacks to penetrate frontlines; dealing la lot of damage to enemy infantryeven when concentrated. That being said, flanking will likely still yield better results than just stacking them all into the front of a unit if the enemy has nothing to contest your fanking moves with. If a fight has 2 engaged frontlines of swordsmen and I have 2 free units of swordsmen left; then sending those 2 around, say, the right flank will yield much better resuts than stacking them frontally into one place on the battle line; but sending them evenly spread to support the frontline would yield even worse results. In practical PvP engagements it is often not easy to flank the enemy as they will have either their own mobile flanking force (cavalry, ir in WH titles,monsters) or flank guards (usually some anti-large units) in reserve there (and often both); so especially in larger fights it might end up being better to try and achieve a breakthrough than to attack his (defended) flanks.
It depends a little bit on how you view it I suppose. I do think that three small units for example aren't able to all engage a single unit at the same time. Focus fire doesn't really work for infantry. Effectively it's more likely going to be a little over a single unit. But there is still a fairly significant advantage. So let's say that in a frontal attack both sides can have a maximum CP of 500 that can be engaged at any time, regardless of how many units they stack in that space. In the short term the side with 3 units worth 500 each isn't going to have that much of an advantage. But the side with 1 unit is slowly going to lose their CP while the side with 3 units will be able to keep up that 500 CP performance for much longer because they can simply replace the losses they suffer. And because the side with one unit keeps losing damage output, the casualties on the side with three units isn't going to be that bad.
What you're demonstrating is the Oblique Formation, a real strategy employed by Alexander and Napoleon. It works very well. It was hard to pull off historically because you needed your main line to stay firm. In less disciplined armies, they could break because your main forces are focused on the left or right. The center has to hold strong.
But the tactic you described comes down to "Have more (and better) troops than the enemy" because you literally had 6 units while the enemy had 4. In this case, also flanking is viable. Realistically, any concentration of force means a shorter width and a higher risk of getting flanked. Only exception here would be a 1:1 matchup where you let your elite unit fights a low tier unit in the enemy frontline and breaks through.
Yee. Obviously you're winning because you have a matched force, except you brought more on top. 1.5x as much army stomps, news at 11. This is why infantry that is better at holding, or chaff infantry gets useful. To use Lizardmen, Temple Guard can handle being flanked because you have a smaller front line, while a Skink Cohort definately won't win, but can at least hold for a while as the value you shifted over to say, Kroxigors or Ripperdactyls punches through elsewhere. It's also where cheaper monsters or combat heroes can come in handy, a Bastiladon can pretty handily survive taking on 2, 3 units at once. It'll probably break without support, but it won't die, or even take significant damage.
No it doesn't. It just means concentrate your QUALITY in one location. You only have so much to spend. You send weaker speed bump units to tie up his forces while your elites chew through each of them in sequence.
@@blacksheepwall79 If you concentrate your force on weakest targets your enemy can do the same to you, because the AI doesn't think about it, and most of the time spreads force instead it can work in campaign but I don think it would work so well in multi
@@80ruta89 then it's a matter of execution. You can argue against this strategy but you're arguing against Patton, Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Robert E Lee. Because they all used this tactic to great effect...
He's british, we don't have 'CP' the way you have it in America, in fact the only reason I know what you mean is because of looking up the song "Little Simz-Mood Swings". He was most likely unaware of the connotation.
This a useful tactic in WH3 especially since so many of the maps (settlements, sieges, survival battles) are designed around choke points. Going wide is less of a viable tactic compared to WH2 and monsterous infantry are a bit less useless now as they’re useful for reinforcing infantry.
The spells part is my favorite tactic as ogres. Having pretty low armor overall you trade way better with a good wyssan's wildform. And the with their high weapon strength (except gnoblars) they hit way harder too. On a great unit like maneaters it is a super efficient force multiplier. Ironfist maneaters with a beast slaughtermaster can kill like 3 stacks of elite cathayans pretty easily
It's good to mix Monsterous Infantry together with a normal infantry unit. But it's not that great to pile normal infantry on top of each other. Rather than having 2 units piled on one, you're better off letting the stronger unit continue to fight while pulling the weaker unit back and sending them to go for a flank or something.
I think enticity uploaded a short consistent with your suggestion. I believe he tested with Swordsmen of Hoeth and regular Spears. The swordsmen routed their opponent way earlier when they fought alone. So yeah, the chaff can be sent ahead just to take the brunt of the initial damage, but your elites are better off fighting solo for the most part.
@@cagedglobe2139 Sorry I can't even remember. I tried a few different keywords and couldn't find it. Might be quicker to actually test it yourself at this point. 😆
Since ranged has been so overtuned in tw warhammer I never focus on any melee tactics like this, to the point where I have no excitement to play melee factions like demons. Im glad this video pointed out there are interesting things to do without having a spam of bows and arty.
In warhammer 3, melee units are quiet viable, if you know what you are doing. They are even better than ranged infantry imo. For example, I prefer forsakens over pink horrors.
@@aliserkansar335 I don't really agree there, I'm afraid. Range still absolutely shits on melee. Easiest to see it is playing as or against kislev. Their armies are incredibly destructive... till they run out of ammo. They will punch WAAAY above their weight despite having relatively small unit sizes and being hybrid melee/range fighters. The moment their ammo runs dry or they are all engaged though, it becomes either a slaughter (uneven stats) or a slow melee slog (even stats). The way WH is tuned, and honestly has always been tuned, is that ranged units and artillery will absolutely dominate the battle. Monstrous cav and monsters have huge utility, but melee front lines are largely there to give time for the "good" units to do the work.
@@lamezorlord Mostly agree on the points about ranged. It's been my experience that frontline melee in wh is really more for buying time, as far as campaign is concerned. It's a totally different game in mp though, given the army building restrictions. On another note, don't forget to consider that fast melee units (i.e. wolf rats/doggos/chariots/cav/flyers) can play a valuable damage mitigation role. "Good" units only do damage when they're not getting chomped.
@@JJoJam I don't play too much multiplayer because I find part of the fun the strategy involved in empire building. Just that TW has become progressively worse at this aspect. And yeah, melee units aren't literally garbage, but I'd never really build an army around the melee. Even melee only factions have "good" units to do the hard work while most of what would be seen as a front line is there to bog the enemy down. Undead are a good example. Zombies are literally the worst melee unit in the game, except they are a fantastic unit for utility and hard countering ranged. Just that, you are relying in cav or monsters or magic. Otherwise though, I'd actually say playing singleplayer is made substantially better with mods that cap player and ai units. I've tried various types ranging from all factions having unit caps a-la tomb kings, cost based army cap mechanics with a max army score that can be pushed over the threshold for huge debuffs and tabletop style limits. All forms improve the general formula, because in the end, battles feel a lot more satisfying when you have to think and employ key units effectively, rather than just throw doomstacks at the enemy.
@@lamezorlord I've only ever watched multiplayer coz I'm fairly casual. Good point with undead. It's even somewhat similar with greenskins. As hard as Da Boyz hit, you need your cav and a helping hand from Gork. Or foot? I do like my unit caps too. Sfo was great over the years. Plus, theme is important to my experience too. I just feel bad for spearmen sometimes. They try hard. They really, truly do. 😔
Another tactic that might work if you don't have reserves is stretch out 2 front line units, sacrificing a few ranks, to cover the frontage of 3 enemy units. Then stack the freed up unit on one of your flank units. Your front line units should be able to hold on long enough (since only the first few ranks are fighting initially, anyways) for your double strength flank attack to cave in the enemy line. In Shogun Total War an army of stacked spear or pike units, backed up by gunpowder and bow units, nearly always defeats anything the AI can throw against me.
Video suggestion, reactive vs proactive play...when should you bank on your advantages vs trying to counter enemy strength. Like should I throw the Minotaur at the week infinity to try and break them, VS sending them at enemy elite to cut them down first
Getting Rid of your opponents offensive threats should take priority. Minotaur can churn through low tier infantry pretty easily so I would focus the elites first. They are the biggest offensive threat and I believe they will have a bigger impact on army losses and morale resulting in the fight ending sooner.
@@edwardfontaine7108 if a minotaur can break the line in no time while their elite will take a few more seconds to win against your regular infantry, then breaking the line first is definitely a priority. Sure the elite will kill your guys, but by that time theyll face the minotaur and the rest of your army.
@@edwardfontaine7108 I believe this is the general theory with mp as well. As you say, bigger impact on army losses. Basically, if the balance of power represents each army's hp bar, you're doing greater damage when you tear apart elite units first.
Would it be accurate to phrase your suggestion as making plays vs counter-playing? I don't believe i've seen it in an explanation video. However i've seen moves in mp where one side, typically the one with faster units or more artillery, essentially gets to choose their targets. i.e. They're proactively choosing/prioritizing which units to tear apart first.
If fighting against the AI you always focus weaker units, because causing army losses is your best way to victory. If fighting against players then its a near impossible question to answer as there are so many factors involved. Using your example let me expand on the questions that are all involved. That elite enemy, is it strong vs minotaur? Do you have other units better fit to fight that elite? Is that weak infantry good against your other units or is locking up important units of yours? Is the weak infantry acting as a guard for something you want to get to. Do the enemy out number you? I'm sure there is even more questions to ask, but that just the first few that come to mind. So for PVP that is extremely case by case.
Playing Vlad and Isabella, you can have 3 to 5 Vargheists at turn 3 and use concentration of force right away. Since they can fly, the Vargheists are perfect to fly over the enemy line and hit a weak spot from above or behind all at the same time. Five Vargheists regiments smashing into an infantry regiment from above has an awesome effect on leadership. Being able to do that in the very early game is priceless.
I disagree that the main strategy against concentraiting force is to it yourself. it certainly is the easiest, but I'd say the main strategies are: 1. having a cost effective tanky unit of yours take the brunt of the assault. As you will continuously outclass elsewhere it is fine if it trades poorly. 2. focusing aoe attacks in that are (mentioned in the video, but more as a side note) His first example shows well how that can works as his opponent had a tanky unit and then his hero oppose his rush. If he had won the rest of the front line faster or had some aoe he should have won the battle.
The fastest overloads are done in warhammer 2 with wood elves. lord on horse with helm of discord, overcast the withering with spellcaster on horse, 2x wild riders. Charge through one unit and have a front line of blade dancers follow. very hard to time though and weak to artillery or high tier ranged. Won't give a high win rate but fun to do.
Got the same feeling. In reality you would crush your own infantry with cavalry lol Even tabletop warhammer has these base sizes (meaning base under your model) to prevent amassing units where you general on a dragon stands;)
well i mean crushing the enemy center was a often used tactic in warfare the whole point being to just overwhelm the poor bastards (im looking at you attack collumn) and then roll up the flanks from there , you can use shock or just heavy infantry but if you are feeling particulary violent you can use shock cavalry (their whole point)
@@BartMK you would do this with what you had on hand , attack collumns would be lead by elites followed by the regualr peasantry and you need alot if not most of your army to succeed in this cause the whole point as i said is to overwhelm them , how that translates into total war is another topic
@@mcsmash4905 It translates like shit in the new total wars :) In rome I could hold 4 units with elite troops cus the fighting is between the first 2 lines and my troops just kill 4 or 5 for 1 of them. In new total wars you stack 4 units of peasants and somehow the elite troops just autolose cus "cp" xD
I feel this is more useful in MP battles than campaign ones vs the ai. On the harder difficulties, ai has buffs so huge that makes melee largely pointless and ranged attacks/magic become the mainstay of damage dealing. On lower difficulties thats still the case, but also melee is a lot more forgiving. I dont think I was ever pushed to do something as "advanced" as this against the ai. It might happen if there was actually a reason to have small armies or if the field battles had a) more space or b) a reason to exist. As it is though, field battles are rare unless they are ambushes or bridge battles. If you do get one, its likely a 20vs20 or even 40vs40, so the ai WILL make a giant line from map edge to map edge. At that point, its almost always more effective to just let them come near you, blob up and get demolished by a spell. Truth be told, last time TW games made me actually try use tactics instead of gaming the battles were shogun 2 and thrones of britannia.
Melee is still useful vs AI, but you really need speed in order to mess up the AI and fall upon any isolated AI unit with enough force that it gets wiped out really fast. Bait the AI but refuse to commit while overloading on single targets. But those classic line vs line infantry engagements just aren't very useful.
you can make it work; the AI buffs let it beat your units in a fair 1v1, but if you overwhelm them they still rout; your frontline cannot be relied upon to beat enemies, but it will last just fine aginst the enemy while you use the rest of your army to ovsrpower their infantry; you can easily win Legendary WH2 using only infantry and monsters (ie, no magic and no ranged units) if you know what you're doing; it's just that ranged unit spam is the far easier and more effective way to do it. (and WH3 is no different in this regard) Much of TWWH's problems is the horrible "Leadership" modifiers that make it so even low tier infantry will not rout quickly when overwhelmed, and that make chain routes very hard to execute; these are not problems caused by the game's difficulty modifiers but rather by the core design of the morale systm in WH titles. (morale buffs/debuffs from things like flanking; losing/winning melee combat, low/high ground, friends/enemies routing are all really small compared to the size of the morale bar; meaning units will almost never rout from being mishandled; but only from 1. "casualties sustained" 2. "army losses" and 3. "stronger and faster enemies nearby 2 of these are damage related while the third almost never comes into play; this means your victory is almost directly tied to your ability to deal damage as opposed to your ability to ouutposition and outflank the enemy. using melee monsters is also just generally completely viable in Legendary; a few MA/MD points won't make the difference for those. (but in WH3 the economy makes that a bit harder to pull off in large scale)
@@captainnyet9855 that's the thing though. Melee monsters don't fall under melee units as far as I'm concerned because they have "different" applications. A melee monster is basically an alternative to a damage spell. It's is a tool to micromanage and direct into a favourable spot in the enemy lines. Whatever it is, the battle will always rely on a damage output. Unlike with historic tw games, positioning and flanking comes largely secondary to knowing the meta units and then gaming battles. This tends to make most fights rather dull, because on easy difficulties the same exploits and cheesy approaches are even more effective, while on legendary - 90% of fights will be near identical.
I find the Ogres do this particularly well. I tend to put my army in a column, they can just pull through an enemy front line and start running amok in the ranged units. You then end up dispersing the column to envelop the enemy flanking units.
a few years ago i realized i had been playing these games for over a decade & they never once actually took the time to explain to me how they work lol
You don't actually have to engage the ball of death . start retreating that army causing them to chase. If Ball of Death decides to move to another group - you can flank the ball of death with your army fake retreating and start picking them off as they spread apart. Giving more time for your other lines to finish off combat to help. Its a risky game and you need some long range to pull it off effectively
3:04 I've been playing a lot of Shogun 2 and I am going to have to answer not the spear man. Don't want to charge right into a Yari wall am I right fellas?
you can actually obliterate Yari wall lines with shit like monks and katanas properly focussed on one point; yari walls are often overhyped beause of their cost effeciveness; but once the enemy routs one of those Yari Asigaru it can quickly snowball into an entire fronline collapsing so the casualties can be worth it.
The inability of infantry to do what infantry always, even in ideal conditions, in TW (hold a bloody line) is what made me drop the newer titles. I find that all battles just turn into a moshpit.
I always *want* to do things like this in Total War games. It makes battles sound way more interesting and like a lot of fun. Then I actually load into a battle, my units are slow to respond, they get stuck on each other or stuck on bits of terrain, and I figure I'm screwed because I'm completely out of formation. I look across the battlefield, and find that the AI is just shuffling back and forth between two points because their pathfinding is even worse, and I remember that this is why I autoresolve.
Or you realize 2 units of stationary handgunners completely outclass the most advanced infantry maneuvers you could possibly think of. Ranged units are so overtuned that they completely invalidate any form of maneuver or tactics, turning every battle into “just stand here and let them walk into your arrows and cannons.
As a skaven player i like to use reverse concentration of force, bait the enemy into concentrating their forces into one of my units, and rain hell on top of that unit with every single ranged unit in my army. Efficient friendly fire all the way is the skaven way.
I play a lot of hoi4 where concentration of power is a big deal (as it was historically), never occurred to me that some people don't realize the power of exploitation and concentration of force in total war.
Theres a sort of gut level rejection of the idea that you should just blob everything together. Like why does the frontline exist at all if the strategy is going to be to blob everything powerful in one place. Surely you'd want to move those frontline units into the death blob?
I think the relatively high power of ranged units and spells, along with AI cheats have lead to this. To most players, melee infantry doesn't "win", it holds so ranged units and magic can win, or maybe the big SEMs can win. What's the point of understanding how to make Saurus more effective, when you're relying on Salamanders, Stegodons, and Uranon's Thunderbolt to actually win, right?
hhhhmmmm... I gravitated to pushing into and through units the moment I realized that monsters were big and chunky. Am I just really.................. PUSHY? 😎 Good evening, nerds.😁
@@mcsmash4905 its what he says, disregarding the fact that getting your enemy into a position so it turns into a turkeyshoot in your favor is the pinnacle and holy grail of battleplanning.
Thank you, this tactic is so useful and simplified I watched a lot of guide videos online including play through a and none ever explain battles well or at all
Every time you had bigger army or same. Napoleon use it when he had 2x less army than opponent. Can you show how to defeat enemy with 2x less troops with concentration of force?
It's a game. If you have full/total Fog of war in the campaign and battles it would looks like real life. In the game you have literally ideal execution of your orders by your troops. In real life, you don't)))
It's not an ancient tactic--in reality (and in Rome 2), the front line can only contain so many people. Packing more people in simply makes them stand behind the rest. This was how this tactic was used--when the men in front are dead, more can pile in from behind--but your enemy doesn't have any more men there. But in Warhammer, several units can magically occupy the same position and attack together.
@@dmar4194 Unless more than one man can occupy the same two meters of space, no it is not. What they would do is increase the rank of a unit in the phalanx--so when the men in the front died, the men in the back would take their place: if you had a unit with more ranks than your opponent, then you could break through that space in the line. This is the tactic you are thinking of. The tactic here is merely putting three units into the same space at the same time--the problem, of course, is that space does not work this way.
@@laserprawn that doesn't apply to phalanxes, whose offensive power is augmented both by the number of spears brought forward and the strength of the human wave pushing against the enemy, both qualities increased by having deeper ranks hence why it was common for ancient Greeks to add men behind a line they wanted to break, such as the battle Leuctra
Thank you so much! Thanks to your videos I can enjoy the game, I really was a noob in the beginning. I know now it's not starcraft 2, it's slower paced more like chess, making sure your pieces are in the right place. Your videos saved me lol 😊
The back of the enemy is more effective but charging through your own units with cavalry or monsters is viable too. When playing Lizardmen a common tactic is to let kroxigors fight inside of skinks, that way they dont get flanked and are more durable
Yes and also highly recommended for some factions. As Tomb Kings early game its a strong strategy to let your skelotons engage the enemy and charge your ushabti through them.
There are some enemy types that do poorly against large groups of chaff or against beefier units, they usually struggle because they have low entity counts and get outnumbered and swarmed easily. When you mix them in with other units, be it chaff or decent mele units, they get kills with less damage taken. This works best with monstrous infantry, and to a lesser extent with Cav. Cav's best strength is their ability to move around the map quickly and apply their charge bonus. If you bog them down in a prolonged mele more often than not their value decreases.
Surprising me as well but, Yes. Yes It is if you can overwhelm your enemey thus opening more opportunities for flanking and breaking that "frontline" the AI always makes.
I really like this force concentration when fielding flanking cavalry. I often concentrate all of my cav on one flank while having the other flank covered by an anti large unit. This helps me overwhelm whoever my cavalry is fighting on the flank and lets me run hammer and anvil on the main line
What‘s also quite nice if you play a faction with flying cavalry is attacking them head on with your melee units, flying the cavalry over and landing them behind their lines. Then you can just flank their whole army and use the shock effect. It‘s more of a hammer and anvil tactic, but it works with force concentration too, where you charge at specific spots in the enemy line and free up some of your front line units to overpower them. Works very well for me with Cathay especially
Fun fact: This was the exact strategy used by Thebes to defeat Sparta in the Battle of Leuctra. The Thebans made their phalanx way deeper than normal and smashed right through the Spartan line.
Fun fact: The Athenians used the reverse of this strategy to defeat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. They intentionally thinned their center and thickened their flank. This allowed them to push the Persian flanks back and trap the Persian center.
But how exaclty did it work, because the pikemen in the rear cannot engage due to lack of space !? Only the first 1-3 lines can fight the enemy isn't it so? Or did the thebans used midget pikemen so the rear lines could use their pikes above their midget comrades?
@@Scout887 the weight of the Theban phalanx was more concentrated, so they literally just pushed through the Spartan phalanx and broke its formation, which was all they needed to win the battle. In a phalanx the whole column uses their shields to push.
A experienced player will almost always be waiting to punish large groups with powerful spells or missiles. If possible, concentrate away from enemy casters, or better yet, use a fast unit to harass their casters. This strat is great for not overstressing your micromanagement, but the enemy will have the same reprieve. As always, Good Stuff!
as a skaven player i often use this kind of tactic. the enemies first charge is enough to smash through a normal line, so you stack units to be able to provide a stable line and then shift units to be able to provide the force needed to make holes in the enemies lines. concentrated backline fire is necessary as well so i can quickly stop my cowardly units from breaking as well
I think another good way to deal with force concentration is skirmish units, the longer the big force takes to squish your units the longer you have to wittle down their big blob
I just started playing W3 and I've noticed that I need the battle speed in slow motion other wise I get overwhelmed with everything going on then freak out and lose. Thanks for all your guides!
The strategy here isn't bad per se, but if you have enough force to focus a single point while he doesn't, then you should be able to pass him by and smash in his flank and back. Another way to act with this strat when the enemy is the one charging, is to have the targeted unit move back, so that the enemy, pursuing it, end up surrounded by your force, then you attack it from 3 sides at once. A good way to get the enemy to give you these kind of opportunities, is to use a small number of fast units to Lure enemies away from his main army, so that the rest meet your main force one bit at a time. The fast moving units can then be used to pick out opponents that ended up being isolated from the main force, then, once taken out, they can move in to backstab whoever is in contact with your main troops, or eliminate shooters.
"I'm spreading my forces evenly" Meanwhile the 1st of 4 groups is being slaughtered and sprayed across the grass by huge beasts while not much is happening in the others...
Hello there! I've been playing strategy games for a while, but have always been afraid of hopping on to multiplayer battles as I'm not very confident about my tactics I developed during the single player gameplay holding up in multiplayer. Seeing your videos, however, a lot of it boils down to the basics I already use. Hammer and anvil, force concentration, flanking with handgunner troops, and sometimes all in conjunction. AI isn't that bad a teacher, I guess.
I was really hoping for something more than a 12 minute basic game fundamental tutorial here… like no shit putting monsters behind chaff is better than just chaff. I was hoping you would get into if stacking infantry affects CP
@@Zerkovich this was basically like making a video saying you shouldn’t let your missile units shoot your own guys in the back and you should move them to better positions when the fighting starts. It’s common sense… this video was pointless
Good video, I appreciate your work a lot. Yet this strategy has a huge weakness. Grouping some elite units in the one place is just asking for aoe spells.
Also, on legendary skill level it would be possible that unseen forces help to shatter one of your line units freeing enemy troops on the line and in the woods to suddenly encircle your elite troops that are tangled up in the center. Safer to use those units to flank on the right and/or left rather than risk them breaking the center. Main point: flanking is superior to breaking the center as it gives a better chance to recover unexpected developments -- But, TBH, those are rare when facing the AI.
Terrain plays an important role in the battles. Use higher ground and you will make the enemy units *suffer* vigor. When they suffer vigor, it does not matter if both units of opposing sides have the same CP, same stats. The tired unit will rout quicker and easily. A strong charge from the higher grounded unit will push back any unit seeking to rush uphill. I use terrain to my advantage and normally, I usually have a mixture of units. However, I usually do the 4-4-4 formation and allow the unique units to take different positions whether it is on the sides, behind, hiding in a tree, or biding their time over the crest of a hill. Combining horse riders with the army helps too. When they break through the front lines of the enemy troops, it's far easier to scale back and attack the back of enemy units banging on the frontlines.
Not so obvious for the average total war player who only knows ""hAmMeR aNd AnVIL"" look at all the comments asking why he ""didnt just flank"" people seemingly cant imagine anything else
@@mcsmash4905 because it works better and if you played older total wars you’d knowd know back in the day units actually had collision and weight which made blobbing useless
@@gd88467 pre empire cavalry had no mass which made stuff like wedge useless , they would hit a formation and then stop unless the formation was very very thing , attacks into the rear dont count , but after empire a unit of cavalry could charge an unprepared line of infantry from the front and if tgey were strong enough come out on the other side leaving behind them a formation that was broken in two ((whole point of wedge)
@@gd88467 and what zerk is doing may be blobbing to the brainless eye but its a sensible tactics breaking the enemy line (prefferably the center) by sheer force of mass the probelm in older total war games was that the collision sometimes ruined everything cause the units are supposed to ""push"" eachother into the enemy and force a break in but instead they often just bogged down
'In the fast paced world of total war battles' The exact problem with every recent total war release... no big strategy, just power ups and spam. Cant pull any maneuvers other than outflanking because everyone sprints and falls apart within a minute
Seing him explaing bits by bits and detail by detail on how to used a better strategy makes me wanna excite more and play the dayem game again and again 😅😅
Man I find you videos and advice so much more informative than Legend of Total War. . Though I think your video forgot to add to make sure your concentrated force can actually concentrate, rather than just turning into a blob and there is defiantly diminishing returns on large entitles where too many concentrated and they'll end up stopping each other from attacking. Plus of the few things the AI is good at dropping aoe vortexes on blobs is one of them.
this is actually really handy to know I usally never stack units and go for big flanks or other maneuvers but this coould really help me with some factions I tend not to play
This mechanic looks terribly wrong, malfunctioning, and being an error of concept. One can send a reinforcement unit to another that is weakening, or one can put one behind it to protect the members who withdraw from it, but there is a boundary between the people who enter combat in the same area, with which, grouping units, instead of only involving causes greater problems. Even worse, send a cavalry charge from the back of your own unit. It is very different a concentration of forces that allows for example an armored unit supported by infantry as well as elements of artillery or precision aviation, operating all together and communicated, to the absurdity that must be to see the cavalry itself charge against the back of your own unit in order to break the enemy unit. Most likely, this cavalry will lose the initiative and have destroyed its own unit.
This is such nonsense, when the enemy has a strong point you could have another strong point instead of trying to match his. And having multiple strong points is often better than stacking it all in one place.
I liked to form a solid shield wall of dwarves in the corner and have seige and bolt throwers pick of any range. Then shif fire to tue front line while keeping an eye out for any recovering range units.
If you concetrate you are vulnerable to a host of countermeasures (magic winds, vortices, etc, debuffs like Curse of the Midnight Wind), or getting surrounded by flying, cavalry, or get shredded by artillery, etc. My favorite way to beat the AI is lure them to focus on a couple bait units, while my fast units go around or/and I prepare the dragons, Cassandora, etc...
Very much a classic Roman tactic. Hastati, Principes and Triarii stacked up then have mercs/auxilaries on the flanks in a similar fashion in the video. It works exceedingly well no matter what game you are playing. Just er... be situational - Don't feed a Phalanx your troops for breakfast.
In throne of brit. I always have 4 units of hascarls 2 of berserkers. The berserkers reinforce the weak points and i concentrate those huscarls on the edges. Work from one point to the other. Sometimes i work from both edge to the middle. Those saxons run for the hills within minutes. When i attack i break through the middle with berserkers and normal sword/axe infa. Then i work to the edges.
So a few things I'm wondering. If you trying to send your own units -through_ your frontline instead of around it to gang up on a unit, do you still get your charge bonus or the fact that they bump into friendly models and slow down negate it? They're still in the charge animation most of the time when you do this. Another is the idea of concentration at all. So say I have 7 melee infantry fighting 7 melee infantry and I have 3 giants. Does it make sense to shove those 3 giants into the same melee fight, or spread them out? It doesn't have to be giants, you can think of other races who have a high damage melee monster. The implication of the concentration of force idea is to get the faster and stronger enemies, so you just need the minimum amount to tie the enemy down without your own units routing and then have everyone else dogpile an enemy unit. But this was never tested against equally spreading out the reserves in the video. Also isn't the second example not really a concentration of force but just a regular flanking move?
Depends on the units. If your individual unit models are blocky and static, then chances are not all of those 4 stack of units are going to fight at the same time, like in the vid. What would happen is that they would wait their turn, essentially waiting for your first engaged unit to either rout or you retire them to the backline. It's kind of in real life, battles go in formations, with the reserve essentially waiting for the frontline troops to retreat or be destroyed before going into the fray. You can't just jam everyone in one section of a frontline and hope that they'll be too numerous to destroy when you can shift them into other parts of the line, like flanking the enemy. Remember folks, a wider frontline of adequate force is way better than a shorter, but thicker frontline. Ask the Romans at Cannae how did it went for them.
Quick question though if you're stacking like 5 units behind each other wouldn't your own units start getting in the way of each other? As 2 bodies can't occupy the same space and as much as the first unit can still make room for more coming from behind I'd imagine there is a limit, no?
There probably is a point where this sort of strategy can have diminishing returns. Keep in mind the goal is to smash a hole into your opponents line and push through to begin flanking so the initial push should be somewhat decisive.
"Officer, please, I was Googling 'Combat Potential'..."
Tell that to the judge
i love cp
My google search is " How can i maximize my CP production "
you know, just realised how much fun id be to have small scale fights against the ai rather than just full 40v40 all the time.
I have always thought the game would be a ton better if all units cost twice as much
@@roddogy9617 yeah would allow for actual tactics like this. right now its just make as big a line as possible.
Do these fights then?
To be honest, I felt a bit the same when I started playing. Then I learned to just to treat large fights like a macro level engagement of their smaller versions.
I'd group my infantry, ranged units together, making essentially bigger units out of small ones, then just play the battle much the same way I would had it been smaller.
Now I find 40vs40 actually quite fun !
@@roddogy9617 although I don't like that (just personal preference) they do have mods that your asking for, give em a look!
"And in the fast pace of Total War battlefield, speed is everything."
[Sad Dwarven Sobbing Noises]
I'm pretty sure you mean "Sounds of gunfire from a corner of the map".
@@JackPhoenixCz "Better run better run, faster than my cannons"
Slaanesh: Usain Bolt baby!
Dwarves Might not be fast but they will stand there unmoving unflinching until the end of time
@@sovietpowersupereme6231 And after the end of time they will come back for Age of Sigmar
While I don't disagree with the premise of the tactic, In this video's illustration, the "winning" army is bringing more units to bear against the enemy army, than the enemy has. Would like to see the point made again with equivalent units on both sides.
Note for the Internet: And this is how proper feedback and challenge should be issued.
In that situation you probably need more of a hammer and anvil approach.
Hold the enemy with a front line of hyper defensive units that can tar pit/tank even when outnumbered while your "concentrated force" can pick where to hammer them down.
Then you get the snowball effect as the anvil units can spread to reinforce their nearby fellows
That’s actually pretty accurate. Breaching enemy lines or going on an aggressive offense only really works in reality if you have a 3-1 advantage.
In real battles, while you do want to win the battle, you also want to ensure you have an Army capable of continuing the campaign. Which is why these offensive heavy tactics only work in a 3-1 advantage. Even an attrition of 20% can severely degrade a unit’s capabilities.
Which is why in modern war, the US will only fight an offensive battle if we outnumber the enemy 3-1.
Why are you lying? They're equal.
@@kyriacostheofanous1445 You weren't paying attention. Time stamp 1:06 shows the play he also illustrates in the thumbnail. NOT equal.
"You concentrate all your forces into one area"
Keeper of Secrets winding up that overcasted Pit of Shades: "That's cute"
8:00 The first person to use this uneven distribution of forces was a Greek called Epaminondas. He beat a Spartan army in exactly that way
And he also used the trick of diagonal battle order, so his weaker flank suffered less.
@@peterbaracska8738 Yeah good catch, the staggered advance kept them out of the fight for longer
History nerds. I see you and appreciate you. If i'm not mistaken, Zerkovich has explained some form of the diagonal order before, but called it a flank overload?...
Strengthen one flank, smash through, then reinforce the rest of the army. I don't think i've seen anyone attempt the staggered advance in multiplayer, though.
Well the first recorded description of such. Unlikely the first actual use.
Pump Yer dwarven legs
"They won't be the same unit"
Enter Miao Ying with 17 jade warriors
I was always under the impression that dumping 3 units into 1 was a waste besides flanks or monsters. I thought units that are relatively the same size have a hard time making enough room to fight the same target head on
Good to have monsters in this case. I believe the fiends are big enough in these examples. They have the mass to push through and actually help your daemonettes or marauders overwhelm their target since they're can fight the rear ranks simultaneously.
I think it does work out to be a waste to cram infantry together, though. So monsters and infantry. Cavalry can demolish the flanks and backline as usual.
I think that *used* to be the case in older historical TW. Now it's like each friendly unit has no real impact on eachother.
I think you are correct if they are similar mass as Jason has said above it helps to have cav or monsters to cause pockets of space allowing them to hit the enemy. If you have similar units or ones that lack the mass to make space it can still work as a flank overload so you put them all on one side and wrap around exposing the flanks etc instead of trying to push straight through if that makes sense.
this is still mostly true for infantry vs infantry; but not so much if you bring monsters vs infantry; monsters use their mass and splash attacks to penetrate frontlines; dealing la lot of damage to enemy infantryeven when concentrated.
That being said, flanking will likely still yield better results than just stacking them all into the front of a unit if the enemy has nothing to contest your fanking moves with. If a fight has 2 engaged frontlines of swordsmen and I have 2 free units of swordsmen left; then sending those 2 around, say, the right flank will yield much better resuts than stacking them frontally into one place on the battle line; but sending them evenly spread to support the frontline would yield even worse results.
In practical PvP engagements it is often not easy to flank the enemy as they will have either their own mobile flanking force (cavalry, ir in WH titles,monsters) or flank guards (usually some anti-large units) in reserve there (and often both); so especially in larger fights it might end up being better to try and achieve a breakthrough than to attack his (defended) flanks.
It depends a little bit on how you view it I suppose. I do think that three small units for example aren't able to all engage a single unit at the same time. Focus fire doesn't really work for infantry. Effectively it's more likely going to be a little over a single unit. But there is still a fairly significant advantage. So let's say that in a frontal attack both sides can have a maximum CP of 500 that can be engaged at any time, regardless of how many units they stack in that space. In the short term the side with 3 units worth 500 each isn't going to have that much of an advantage. But the side with 1 unit is slowly going to lose their CP while the side with 3 units will be able to keep up that 500 CP performance for much longer because they can simply replace the losses they suffer. And because the side with one unit keeps losing damage output, the casualties on the side with three units isn't going to be that bad.
What you're demonstrating is the Oblique Formation, a real strategy employed by Alexander and Napoleon. It works very well. It was hard to pull off historically because you needed your main line to stay firm. In less disciplined armies, they could break because your main forces are focused on the left or right. The center has to hold strong.
Yayy, somebody knows
Alexander got it from the thebans. That’s how they defeated Sparta
@@ChipsDeluxe Correct, in the battle where they defeated the Spartans by overwhelming the flank.
@@jonnguyen3732 oblique order I think it’s called but I forget
I have always done this tactic but didn’t know what it was called. So thanks
But the tactic you described comes down to "Have more (and better) troops than the enemy" because you literally had 6 units while the enemy had 4. In this case, also flanking is viable. Realistically, any concentration of force means a shorter width and a higher risk of getting flanked.
Only exception here would be a 1:1 matchup where you let your elite unit fights a low tier unit in the enemy frontline and breaks through.
Yee. Obviously you're winning because you have a matched force, except you brought more on top. 1.5x as much army stomps, news at 11.
This is why infantry that is better at holding, or chaff infantry gets useful. To use Lizardmen, Temple Guard can handle being flanked because you have a smaller front line, while a Skink Cohort definately won't win, but can at least hold for a while as the value you shifted over to say, Kroxigors or Ripperdactyls punches through elsewhere. It's also where cheaper monsters or combat heroes can come in handy, a Bastiladon can pretty handily survive taking on 2, 3 units at once. It'll probably break without support, but it won't die, or even take significant damage.
No it doesn't. It just means concentrate your QUALITY in one location. You only have so much to spend. You send weaker speed bump units to tie up his forces while your elites chew through each of them in sequence.
And also... flanking is exactly this tactic. Using two units to envelop and overrun one. Imagine using these together to get maximum effect.
@@blacksheepwall79 If you concentrate your force on weakest targets your enemy can do the same to you, because the AI doesn't think about it, and most of the time spreads force instead it can work in campaign but I don think it would work so well in multi
@@80ruta89 then it's a matter of execution. You can argue against this strategy but you're arguing against Patton, Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Robert E Lee. Because they all used this tactic to great effect...
cp is not the best acronym
He's british, we don't have 'CP' the way you have it in America, in fact the only reason I know what you mean is because of looking up the song "Little Simz-Mood Swings". He was most likely unaware of the connotation.
Depends what your unto
@@joshjohnson2360Don't speak for all of us. I'm pretty sure a lot of Brits know about the acronym cp stands for.
What is cp?
@@benlee4046 Cyberpunk ... O.o
This a useful tactic in WH3 especially since so many of the maps (settlements, sieges, survival battles) are designed around choke points. Going wide is less of a viable tactic compared to WH2 and monsterous infantry are a bit less useless now as they’re useful for reinforcing infantry.
The spells part is my favorite tactic as ogres. Having pretty low armor overall you trade way better with a good wyssan's wildform. And the with their high weapon strength (except gnoblars) they hit way harder too. On a great unit like maneaters it is a super efficient force multiplier. Ironfist maneaters with a beast slaughtermaster can kill like 3 stacks of elite cathayans pretty easily
It's good to mix Monsterous Infantry together with a normal infantry unit. But it's not that great to pile normal infantry on top of each other. Rather than having 2 units piled on one, you're better off letting the stronger unit continue to fight while pulling the weaker unit back and sending them to go for a flank or something.
I think enticity uploaded a short consistent with your suggestion. I believe he tested with Swordsmen of Hoeth and regular Spears. The swordsmen routed their opponent way earlier when they fought alone. So yeah, the chaff can be sent ahead just to take the brunt of the initial damage, but your elites are better off fighting solo for the most part.
@@JJoJamcould you link this short?
@@cagedglobe2139 Sorry I can't even remember. I tried a few different keywords and couldn't find it. Might be quicker to actually test it yourself at this point. 😆
Since ranged has been so overtuned in tw warhammer I never focus on any melee tactics like this, to the point where I have no excitement to play melee factions like demons. Im glad this video pointed out there are interesting things to do without having a spam of bows and arty.
In warhammer 3, melee units are quiet viable, if you know what you are doing. They are even better than ranged infantry imo. For example, I prefer forsakens over pink horrors.
@@aliserkansar335 I don't really agree there, I'm afraid. Range still absolutely shits on melee. Easiest to see it is playing as or against kislev. Their armies are incredibly destructive... till they run out of ammo. They will punch WAAAY above their weight despite having relatively small unit sizes and being hybrid melee/range fighters. The moment their ammo runs dry or they are all engaged though, it becomes either a slaughter (uneven stats) or a slow melee slog (even stats). The way WH is tuned, and honestly has always been tuned, is that ranged units and artillery will absolutely dominate the battle. Monstrous cav and monsters have huge utility, but melee front lines are largely there to give time for the "good" units to do the work.
@@lamezorlord Mostly agree on the points about ranged. It's been my experience that frontline melee in wh is really more for buying time, as far as campaign is concerned. It's a totally different game in mp though, given the army building restrictions.
On another note, don't forget to consider that fast melee units (i.e. wolf rats/doggos/chariots/cav/flyers) can play a valuable damage mitigation role. "Good" units only do damage when they're not getting chomped.
@@JJoJam I don't play too much multiplayer because I find part of the fun the strategy involved in empire building. Just that TW has become progressively worse at this aspect. And yeah, melee units aren't literally garbage, but I'd never really build an army around the melee. Even melee only factions have "good" units to do the hard work while most of what would be seen as a front line is there to bog the enemy down. Undead are a good example. Zombies are literally the worst melee unit in the game, except they are a fantastic unit for utility and hard countering ranged. Just that, you are relying in cav or monsters or magic.
Otherwise though, I'd actually say playing singleplayer is made substantially better with mods that cap player and ai units. I've tried various types ranging from all factions having unit caps a-la tomb kings, cost based army cap mechanics with a max army score that can be pushed over the threshold for huge debuffs and tabletop style limits. All forms improve the general formula, because in the end, battles feel a lot more satisfying when you have to think and employ key units effectively, rather than just throw doomstacks at the enemy.
@@lamezorlord I've only ever watched multiplayer coz I'm fairly casual.
Good point with undead. It's even somewhat similar with greenskins. As hard as Da Boyz hit, you need your cav and a helping hand from Gork. Or foot?
I do like my unit caps too. Sfo was great over the years. Plus, theme is important to my experience too. I just feel bad for spearmen sometimes. They try hard. They really, truly do. 😔
Thank you Zerkovich for your time and dedication to making educational videos, I always learn something with them, I really appreciate your effort
Bro whenever he says cp 💀
1:38 Zerkovich talking about CP again? and the video is demonetized.
Another tactic that might work if you don't have reserves is stretch out 2 front line units, sacrificing a few ranks, to cover the frontage of 3 enemy units. Then stack the freed up unit on one of your flank units. Your front line units should be able to hold on long enough (since only the first few ranks are fighting initially, anyways) for your double strength flank attack to cave in the enemy line.
In Shogun Total War an army of stacked spear or pike units, backed up by gunpowder and bow units, nearly always defeats anything the AI can throw against me.
Video suggestion, reactive vs proactive play...when should you bank on your advantages vs trying to counter enemy strength. Like should I throw the Minotaur at the week infinity to try and break them, VS sending them at enemy elite to cut them down first
Getting Rid of your opponents offensive threats should take priority. Minotaur can churn through low tier infantry pretty easily so I would focus the elites first. They are the biggest offensive threat and I believe they will have a bigger impact on army losses and morale resulting in the fight ending sooner.
@@edwardfontaine7108 if a minotaur can break the line in no time while their elite will take a few more seconds to win against your regular infantry, then breaking the line first is definitely a priority. Sure the elite will kill your guys, but by that time theyll face the minotaur and the rest of your army.
@@edwardfontaine7108 I believe this is the general theory with mp as well. As you say, bigger impact on army losses. Basically, if the balance of power represents each army's hp bar, you're doing greater damage when you tear apart elite units first.
Would it be accurate to phrase your suggestion as making plays vs counter-playing? I don't believe i've seen it in an explanation video.
However i've seen moves in mp where one side, typically the one with faster units or more artillery, essentially gets to choose their targets. i.e. They're proactively choosing/prioritizing which units to tear apart first.
If fighting against the AI you always focus weaker units, because causing army losses is your best way to victory. If fighting against players then its a near impossible question to answer as there are so many factors involved. Using your example let me expand on the questions that are all involved. That elite enemy, is it strong vs minotaur? Do you have other units better fit to fight that elite? Is that weak infantry good against your other units or is locking up important units of yours? Is the weak infantry acting as a guard for something you want to get to. Do the enemy out number you? I'm sure there is even more questions to ask, but that just the first few that come to mind. So for PVP that is extremely case by case.
Playing Vlad and Isabella, you can have 3 to 5 Vargheists at turn 3 and use concentration of force right away. Since they can fly, the Vargheists are perfect to fly over the enemy line and hit a weak spot from above or behind all at the same time. Five Vargheists regiments smashing into an infantry regiment from above has an awesome effect on leadership. Being able to do that in the very early game is priceless.
It is incredibly fun! Vargheists flying in and smashing everything brings such joy
Late game = zombie stacks and winds of death
I disagree that the main strategy against concentraiting force is to it yourself. it certainly is the easiest, but I'd say the main strategies are: 1. having a cost effective tanky unit of yours take the brunt of the assault. As you will continuously outclass elsewhere it is fine if it trades poorly. 2. focusing aoe attacks in that are (mentioned in the video, but more as a side note)
His first example shows well how that can works as his opponent had a tanky unit and then his hero oppose his rush. If he had won the rest of the front line faster or had some aoe he should have won the battle.
The fastest overloads are done in warhammer 2 with wood elves. lord on horse with helm of discord, overcast the withering with spellcaster on horse, 2x wild riders. Charge through one unit and have a front line of blade dancers follow. very hard to time though and weak to artillery or high tier ranged. Won't give a high win rate but fun to do.
From complex encirclement, cavalry maneuvers, artillery hold tactics to "take 5 units and click on a single enemy unit." Nice job, CA!
Got the same feeling. In reality you would crush your own infantry with cavalry lol
Even tabletop warhammer has these base sizes (meaning base under your model) to prevent amassing units where you general on a dragon stands;)
well i mean crushing the enemy center was a often used tactic in warfare the whole point being to just overwhelm the poor bastards (im looking at you attack collumn) and then roll up the flanks from there , you can use shock or just heavy infantry but if you are feeling particulary violent you can use shock cavalry (their whole point)
@@mcsmash4905 yeah but you’ld do this with elite troops or whatever. Not just putting 50% of ur army in one spot
@@BartMK you would do this with what you had on hand , attack collumns would be lead by elites followed by the regualr peasantry and you need alot if not most of your army to succeed in this cause the whole point as i said is to overwhelm them , how that translates into total war is another topic
@@mcsmash4905 It translates like shit in the new total wars :)
In rome I could hold 4 units with elite troops cus the fighting is between the first 2 lines and my troops just kill 4 or 5 for 1 of them.
In new total wars you stack 4 units of peasants and somehow the elite troops just autolose cus "cp" xD
I feel this is more useful in MP battles than campaign ones vs the ai. On the harder difficulties, ai has buffs so huge that makes melee largely pointless and ranged attacks/magic become the mainstay of damage dealing. On lower difficulties thats still the case, but also melee is a lot more forgiving. I dont think I was ever pushed to do something as "advanced" as this against the ai. It might happen if there was actually a reason to have small armies or if the field battles had a) more space or b) a reason to exist. As it is though, field battles are rare unless they are ambushes or bridge battles. If you do get one, its likely a 20vs20 or even 40vs40, so the ai WILL make a giant line from map edge to map edge. At that point, its almost always more effective to just let them come near you, blob up and get demolished by a spell. Truth be told, last time TW games made me actually try use tactics instead of gaming the battles were shogun 2 and thrones of britannia.
Melee is still useful vs AI, but you really need speed in order to mess up the AI and fall upon any isolated AI unit with enough force that it gets wiped out really fast. Bait the AI but refuse to commit while overloading on single targets. But those classic line vs line infantry engagements just aren't very useful.
you can make it work; the AI buffs let it beat your units in a fair 1v1, but if you overwhelm them they still rout; your frontline cannot be relied upon to beat enemies, but it will last just fine aginst the enemy while you use the rest of your army to ovsrpower their infantry; you can easily win Legendary WH2 using only infantry and monsters (ie, no magic and no ranged units) if you know what you're doing; it's just that ranged unit spam is the far easier and more effective way to do it. (and WH3 is no different in this regard)
Much of TWWH's problems is the horrible "Leadership" modifiers that make it so even low tier infantry will not rout quickly when overwhelmed, and that make chain routes very hard to execute; these are not problems caused by the game's difficulty modifiers but rather by the core design of the morale systm in WH titles. (morale buffs/debuffs from things like flanking; losing/winning melee combat, low/high ground, friends/enemies routing are all really small compared to the size of the morale bar; meaning units will almost never rout from being mishandled; but only from 1. "casualties sustained" 2. "army losses" and 3. "stronger and faster enemies nearby
2 of these are damage related while the third almost never comes into play; this means your victory is almost directly tied to your ability to deal damage as opposed to your ability to ouutposition and outflank the enemy.
using melee monsters is also just generally completely viable in Legendary; a few MA/MD points won't make the difference for those. (but in WH3 the economy makes that a bit harder to pull off in large scale)
@@captainnyet9855 that's the thing though. Melee monsters don't fall under melee units as far as I'm concerned because they have "different" applications. A melee monster is basically an alternative to a damage spell. It's is a tool to micromanage and direct into a favourable spot in the enemy lines. Whatever it is, the battle will always rely on a damage output. Unlike with historic tw games, positioning and flanking comes largely secondary to knowing the meta units and then gaming battles. This tends to make most fights rather dull, because on easy difficulties the same exploits and cheesy approaches are even more effective, while on legendary - 90% of fights will be near identical.
solution: dont play on hard mode its less fun
no seriously just dont build any income generation buildings and have that be your difficulty
@@Aconspiracyofravens1 yeah; at least putting battle difficulty on normal makes the games a lot more fun.
I find the Ogres do this particularly well. I tend to put my army in a column, they can just pull through an enemy front line and start running amok in the ranged units. You then end up dispersing the column to envelop the enemy flanking units.
good old napoleonic style attack collumn
Guys I'm concerned about how much CP this man has
This is probably the better use of CP here on youtube.
Is nobody gonna mention how he chose to name it CP combat potential
That's what the devs call it.😬
a few years ago i realized i had been playing these games for over a decade & they never once actually took the time to explain to me how they work lol
You don't actually have to engage the ball of death . start retreating that army causing them to chase. If Ball of Death decides to move to another group - you can flank the ball of death with your army fake retreating and start picking them off as they spread apart. Giving more time for your other lines to finish off combat to help. Its a risky game and you need some long range to pull it off effectively
3:04 I've been playing a lot of Shogun 2 and I am going to have to answer not the spear man. Don't want to charge right into a Yari wall am I right fellas?
you can actually obliterate Yari wall lines with shit like monks and katanas properly focussed on one point; yari walls are often overhyped beause of their cost effeciveness; but once the enemy routs one of those Yari Asigaru it can quickly snowball into an entire fronline collapsing so the casualties can be worth it.
@@captainnyet9855 There are things you can do to cover that weakness and the AI isn't smart enough to combat it.
@@SirNarax I was talking about pvp though; obviously the AI won't make such plays.
The inability of infantry to do what infantry always, even in ideal conditions, in TW (hold a bloody line) is what made me drop the newer titles.
I find that all battles just turn into a moshpit.
Zerk: "...speed.. ..is everything!"
Dawi, but actually it's the nameless one: "Updated my grudges."
Jeremy Clarkson: *oversteer and shouting*
Rathamy Sparkson*: Yes-yes, more speed-kills.
I usually concentrate force on one flank and work my way down the line like a domino effect.
I always *want* to do things like this in Total War games. It makes battles sound way more interesting and like a lot of fun.
Then I actually load into a battle, my units are slow to respond, they get stuck on each other or stuck on bits of terrain, and I figure I'm screwed because I'm completely out of formation. I look across the battlefield, and find that the AI is just shuffling back and forth between two points because their pathfinding is even worse, and I remember that this is why I autoresolve.
Or you realize 2 units of stationary handgunners completely outclass the most advanced infantry maneuvers you could possibly think of. Ranged units are so overtuned that they completely invalidate any form of maneuver or tactics, turning every battle into “just stand here and let them walk into your arrows and cannons.
As a skaven player i like to use reverse concentration of force, bait the enemy into concentrating their forces into one of my units, and rain hell on top of that unit with every single ranged unit in my army. Efficient friendly fire all the way is the skaven way.
Recruit the ogre that single handedly sends the Minotaur flying for 30meter at 6:58 is what I am taking away from this video.
I play a lot of hoi4 where concentration of power is a big deal (as it was historically), never occurred to me that some people don't realize the power of exploitation and concentration of force in total war.
I often introduce them to defeat in detail and concentration of force videos on RUclips. Usually talking about Napoleon:)
Theres a sort of gut level rejection of the idea that you should just blob everything together. Like why does the frontline exist at all if the strategy is going to be to blob everything powerful in one place. Surely you'd want to move those frontline units into the death blob?
Most players focus too much on flanking in online battles from my experience.
I think the relatively high power of ranged units and spells, along with AI cheats have lead to this.
To most players, melee infantry doesn't "win", it holds so ranged units and magic can win, or maybe the big SEMs can win. What's the point of understanding how to make Saurus more effective, when you're relying on Salamanders, Stegodons, and Uranon's Thunderbolt to actually win, right?
In total war flanking is superior
I’ve played over one thousand hours of 2 and never thought to use force concentration instead of standard flanking. Jesus. Thank you.
I'm embarrassed to admit the same oversight.
hhhhmmmm... I gravitated to pushing into and through units the moment I realized that monsters were big and chunky. Am I just really..................
PUSHY? 😎
Good evening, nerds.😁
Its amazing how basic principles can be sold as profound insight. Over, and over, and over again.
its my go to tactic cause the ai can actually react pretty well to it (im trying to have actual battles rathert than turkey shoots)
@@mcsmash4905 its what he says, disregarding the fact that getting your enemy into a position so it turns into a turkeyshoot in your favor is the pinnacle and holy grail of battleplanning.
Thank you, this tactic is so useful and simplified
I watched a lot of guide videos online including play through a and none ever explain battles well or at all
You should do a video on how to use lord/hero/item abilities how they work and how to use them in battle.
Thanks!
Every time you had bigger army or same. Napoleon use it when he had 2x less army than opponent. Can you show how to defeat enemy with 2x less troops with concentration of force?
It's a game. If you have full/total Fog of war in the campaign and battles it would looks like real life. In the game you have literally ideal execution of your orders by your troops. In real life, you don't)))
4:30 Minotaur doesn’t know which was is up 😂 smacking his own dude
It's not an ancient tactic--in reality (and in Rome 2), the front line can only contain so many people. Packing more people in simply makes them stand behind the rest. This was how this tactic was used--when the men in front are dead, more can pile in from behind--but your enemy doesn't have any more men there. But in Warhammer, several units can magically occupy the same position and attack together.
It is actually a very ancient tactic and very common in phalanx warfare.
@@dmar4194 Unless more than one man can occupy the same two meters of space, no it is not. What they would do is increase the rank of a unit in the phalanx--so when the men in the front died, the men in the back would take their place: if you had a unit with more ranks than your opponent, then you could break through that space in the line. This is the tactic you are thinking of. The tactic here is merely putting three units into the same space at the same time--the problem, of course, is that space does not work this way.
@@laserprawn that doesn't apply to phalanxes, whose offensive power is augmented both by the number of spears brought forward and the strength of the human wave pushing against the enemy, both qualities increased by having deeper ranks hence why it was common for ancient Greeks to add men behind a line they wanted to break, such as the battle Leuctra
Your videos helped me so much in increasing my tw skill, thank you so much
Shows the importance of reserves to counter this
Thank you so much! Thanks to your videos I can enjoy the game, I really was a noob in the beginning. I know now it's not starcraft 2, it's slower paced more like chess, making sure your pieces are in the right place.
Your videos saved me lol 😊
So it's actually ok to charge into the backs of friendly units in melee?
The back of the enemy is more effective but charging through your own units with cavalry or monsters is viable too.
When playing Lizardmen a common tactic is to let kroxigors fight inside of skinks, that way they dont get flanked and are more durable
Yes and also highly recommended for some factions. As Tomb Kings early game its a strong strategy to let your skelotons engage the enemy and charge your ushabti through them.
There are some enemy types that do poorly against large groups of chaff or against beefier units, they usually struggle because they have low entity counts and get outnumbered and swarmed easily. When you mix them in with other units, be it chaff or decent mele units, they get kills with less damage taken. This works best with monstrous infantry, and to a lesser extent with Cav. Cav's best strength is their ability to move around the map quickly and apply their charge bonus. If you bog them down in a prolonged mele more often than not their value decreases.
@@andy4455 same for chaos spawns.
Surprising me as well but, Yes. Yes It is if you can overwhelm your enemey thus opening more opportunities for flanking and breaking that "frontline" the AI always makes.
I really like this force concentration when fielding flanking cavalry. I often concentrate all of my cav on one flank while having the other flank covered by an anti large unit. This helps me overwhelm whoever my cavalry is fighting on the flank and lets me run hammer and anvil on the main line
thats not blobbing thats concentration of force
Love this videos, thanks to your hard work I learn so much about this game,
Force concentration on enemy's front li....
Why does that shadow sorcerer has 200 kills.?!
What‘s also quite nice if you play a faction with flying cavalry is attacking them head on with your melee units, flying the cavalry over and landing them behind their lines. Then you can just flank their whole army and use the shock effect. It‘s more of a hammer and anvil tactic, but it works with force concentration too, where you charge at specific spots in the enemy line and free up some of your front line units to overpower them. Works very well for me with Cathay especially
Fun fact: This was the exact strategy used by Thebes to defeat Sparta in the Battle of Leuctra. The Thebans made their phalanx way deeper than normal and smashed right through the Spartan line.
Fun fact: The Athenians used the reverse of this strategy to defeat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. They intentionally thinned their center and thickened their flank. This allowed them to push the Persian flanks back and trap the Persian center.
But how exaclty did it work, because the pikemen in the rear cannot engage due to lack of space !? Only the first 1-3 lines can fight the enemy isn't it so? Or did the thebans used midget pikemen so the rear lines could use their pikes above their midget comrades?
@@Scout887 the weight of the Theban phalanx was more concentrated, so they literally just pushed through the Spartan phalanx and broke its formation, which was all they needed to win the battle. In a phalanx the whole column uses their shields to push.
This tactic is especially useful when you have more units than the enemy. Lmao
A experienced player will almost always be waiting to punish large groups with powerful spells or missiles. If possible, concentrate away from enemy casters, or better yet, use a fast unit to harass their casters. This strat is great for not overstressing your micromanagement, but the enemy will have the same reprieve. As always, Good Stuff!
Exactly my thoughts.
this is not a triple a game and not a triple a studio
as a skaven player i often use this kind of tactic. the enemies first charge is enough to smash through a normal line, so you stack units to be able to provide a stable line and then shift units to be able to provide the force needed to make holes in the enemies lines. concentrated backline fire is necessary as well so i can quickly stop my cowardly units from breaking as well
Slaanesh loves CP
i hope to see more tactics videos from u ! u explain it perfectly and it helps me a lot thanks!
My takeaway is that if you are fighting 2k army with 8k army you are going to destroy them. Very useful tactical knowledge
I think another good way to deal with force concentration is skirmish units, the longer the big force takes to squish your units the longer you have to wittle down their big blob
You use 3 units against one so the rival will have free units to counter your tactic.
"this'll get him good! wait... where did my fanks go?"
I just started playing W3 and I've noticed that I need the battle speed in slow motion other wise I get overwhelmed with everything going on then freak out and lose. Thanks for all your guides!
The strategy here isn't bad per se, but if you have enough force to focus a single point while he doesn't, then you should be able to pass him by and smash in his flank and back.
Another way to act with this strat when the enemy is the one charging, is to have the targeted unit move back, so that the enemy, pursuing it, end up surrounded by your force, then you attack it from 3 sides at once.
A good way to get the enemy to give you these kind of opportunities, is to use a small number of fast units to Lure enemies away from his main army, so that the rest meet your main force one bit at a time.
The fast moving units can then be used to pick out opponents that ended up being isolated from the main force, then, once taken out, they can move in to backstab whoever is in contact with your main troops, or eliminate shooters.
"I'm spreading my forces evenly"
Meanwhile the 1st of 4 groups is being slaughtered and sprayed across the grass by huge beasts while not much is happening in the others...
Hello there! I've been playing strategy games for a while, but have always been afraid of hopping on to multiplayer battles as I'm not very confident about my tactics I developed during the single player gameplay holding up in multiplayer. Seeing your videos, however, a lot of it boils down to the basics I already use. Hammer and anvil, force concentration, flanking with handgunner troops, and sometimes all in conjunction. AI isn't that bad a teacher, I guess.
4:28 that minotaur hit that poor demon
I was really hoping for something more than a 12 minute basic game fundamental tutorial here… like no shit putting monsters behind chaff is better than just chaff. I was hoping you would get into if stacking infantry affects CP
How dare I make content for new players huh!
@@Zerkovich this was basically like making a video saying you shouldn’t let your missile units shoot your own guys in the back and you should move them to better positions when the fighting starts. It’s common sense… this video was pointless
Thank you for these videos! Saved me a ton of time watching these rather than learn through trial and error
The roman legions at the battle of cannae disagree.
you rock!!! Thank you so much for all your master classes! Finally started to win battles without stressing too much or being lost.
Good video, I appreciate your work a lot. Yet this strategy has a huge weakness. Grouping some elite units in the one place is just asking for aoe spells.
Also, on legendary skill level it would be possible that unseen forces help to shatter one of your line units freeing enemy troops on the line and in the woods to suddenly encircle your elite troops that are tangled up in the center. Safer to use those units to flank on the right and/or left rather than risk them breaking the center.
Main point: flanking is superior to breaking the center as it gives a better chance to recover unexpected developments -- But, TBH, those are rare when facing the AI.
Terrain plays an important role in the battles. Use higher ground and you will make the enemy units *suffer* vigor. When they suffer vigor, it does not matter if both units of opposing sides have the same CP, same stats. The tired unit will rout quicker and easily. A strong charge from the higher grounded unit will push back any unit seeking to rush uphill.
I use terrain to my advantage and normally, I usually have a mixture of units. However, I usually do the 4-4-4 formation and allow the unique units to take different positions whether it is on the sides, behind, hiding in a tree, or biding their time over the crest of a hill. Combining horse riders with the army helps too. When they break through the front lines of the enemy troops, it's far easier to scale back and attack the back of enemy units banging on the frontlines.
I like how this tutorial teaches basically the most obvious thing you can do to break the enemy line
Not so obvious for the average total war player who only knows ""hAmMeR aNd AnVIL"" look at all the comments asking why he ""didnt just flank"" people seemingly cant imagine anything else
@@mcsmash4905 because it works better and if you played older total wars you’d knowd know back in the day units actually had collision and weight which made blobbing useless
@@gd88467 pre empire cavalry had no mass which made stuff like wedge useless , they would hit a formation and then stop unless the formation was very very thing , attacks into the rear dont count , but after empire a unit of cavalry could charge an unprepared line of infantry from the front and if tgey were strong enough come out on the other side leaving behind them a formation that was broken in two ((whole point of wedge)
@@gd88467 and what zerk is doing may be blobbing to the brainless eye but its a sensible tactics breaking the enemy line (prefferably the center) by sheer force of mass the probelm in older total war games was that the collision sometimes ruined everything cause the units are supposed to ""push"" eachother into the enemy and force a break in but instead they often just bogged down
Love these tactics videos so much - could watch vids like this all day
'In the fast paced world of total war battles'
The exact problem with every recent total war release... no big strategy, just power ups and spam. Cant pull any maneuvers other than outflanking because everyone sprints and falls apart within a minute
Yeah dude attack moving infantry lines into each other for an hour is peak "strategy"
Seing him explaing bits by bits and detail by detail on how to used a better strategy makes me wanna excite more and play the dayem game again and again 😅😅
Man I find you videos and advice so much more informative than Legend of Total War.
.
Though I think your video forgot to add to make sure your concentrated force can actually concentrate, rather than just turning into a blob and there is defiantly diminishing returns on large entitles where too many concentrated and they'll end up stopping each other from attacking. Plus of the few things the AI is good at dropping aoe vortexes on blobs is one of them.
Legend actually plays the game. This is pretending real life tactics got any relevance in in a spreadsheet adapted into an arcade'y moba game.
@@AlecFortescue the mobile shit is only in sieges and minor settlements
@@AlecFortescue Except Legend focuses on cheesing the AI, which doesn't work in multiplayer.
this is actually really handy to know I usally never stack units and go for big flanks or other maneuvers but this coould really help me with some factions I tend not to play
This mechanic looks terribly wrong, malfunctioning, and being an error of concept.
One can send a reinforcement unit to another that is weakening, or one can put one behind it to protect the members who withdraw from it, but there is a boundary between the people who enter combat in the same area, with which, grouping units, instead of only involving causes greater problems. Even worse, send a cavalry charge from the back of your own unit.
It is very different a concentration of forces that allows for example an armored unit supported by infantry as well as elements of artillery or precision aviation, operating all together and communicated, to the absurdity that must be to see the cavalry itself charge against the back of your own unit in order to break the enemy unit. Most likely, this cavalry will lose the initiative and have destroyed its own unit.
You think CA cares about any of that any more?
As always, such a good video! Thanks and nice work, Zerkovich!
This is such nonsense, when the enemy has a strong point you could have another strong point instead of trying to match his.
And having multiple strong points is often better than stacking it all in one place.
I Love the "ohhh Scheise" Moment. Thanks for your tactic videos.
Am I the only one who sees little point in this video? "To win fights, use stronger units than your enemy".
Always love to hear your „oh Scheiße!“. Thanks for your tactics videos. I really like them :)
1:40 jesus man, don't scare us like that
These are the kind of vids i really love to watch
Me: Does a bit of force concentration.
Lord Kroak: Deliver Pizza!
I liked to form a solid shield wall of dwarves in the corner and have seige and bolt throwers pick of any range. Then shif fire to tue front line while keeping an eye out for any recovering range units.
"HANK. HAAAAANK. HAAAAANK. DONT ABREVIATE COMBAT POTENTIAL. HAAAAAANK."
If you concetrate you are vulnerable to a host of countermeasures (magic winds, vortices, etc, debuffs like Curse of the Midnight Wind), or getting surrounded by flying, cavalry, or get shredded by artillery, etc. My favorite way to beat the AI is lure them to focus on a couple bait units, while my fast units go around or/and I prepare the dragons, Cassandora, etc...
Very much a classic Roman tactic. Hastati, Principes and Triarii stacked up then have mercs/auxilaries on the flanks in a similar fashion in the video. It works exceedingly well no matter what game you are playing. Just er... be situational - Don't feed a Phalanx your troops for breakfast.
In throne of brit. I always have 4 units of hascarls 2 of berserkers. The berserkers reinforce the weak points and i concentrate those huscarls on the edges. Work from one point to the other. Sometimes i work from both edge to the middle. Those saxons run for the hills within minutes.
When i attack i break through the middle with berserkers and normal sword/axe infa. Then i work to the edges.
thank you, this was very informative
So a few things I'm wondering. If you trying to send your own units -through_ your frontline instead of around it to gang up on a unit, do you still get your charge bonus or the fact that they bump into friendly models and slow down negate it? They're still in the charge animation most of the time when you do this. Another is the idea of concentration at all. So say I have 7 melee infantry fighting 7 melee infantry and I have 3 giants. Does it make sense to shove those 3 giants into the same melee fight, or spread them out? It doesn't have to be giants, you can think of other races who have a high damage melee monster. The implication of the concentration of force idea is to get the faster and stronger enemies, so you just need the minimum amount to tie the enemy down without your own units routing and then have everyone else dogpile an enemy unit. But this was never tested against equally spreading out the reserves in the video. Also isn't the second example not really a concentration of force but just a regular flanking move?
Depends on the units. If your individual unit models are blocky and static, then chances are not all of those 4 stack of units are going to fight at the same time, like in the vid. What would happen is that they would wait their turn, essentially waiting for your first engaged unit to either rout or you retire them to the backline.
It's kind of in real life, battles go in formations, with the reserve essentially waiting for the frontline troops to retreat or be destroyed before going into the fray. You can't just jam everyone in one section of a frontline and hope that they'll be too numerous to destroy when you can shift them into other parts of the line, like flanking the enemy.
Remember folks, a wider frontline of adequate force is way better than a shorter, but thicker frontline. Ask the Romans at Cannae how did it went for them.
thank you for making me laugh at 11:33 completely unexpected, nice one! :D
Quick question though if you're stacking like 5 units behind each other wouldn't your own units start getting in the way of each other? As 2 bodies can't occupy the same space and as much as the first unit can still make room for more coming from behind I'd imagine there is a limit, no?
There probably is a point where this sort of strategy can have diminishing returns. Keep in mind the goal is to smash a hole into your opponents line and push through to begin flanking so the initial push should be somewhat decisive.
Great vid. The slaanesh combo of charmed, poison and soporific is very underated and really does the job