Basically, do anything you can to eliminate the advantage their number gives them. in the famous 300 battle they used a choke point method meaning even though its a much bigger force, only a few of its troops can fight at a time so the quality and training of the units starts to be the deciding factor. in this case his cav and the fact that the ai attacked in split forces and didnt wait meant that as long as he faced them separately, they were evenly matched for the most part. he relied on damaging the enemies morale as much as he could by taking out his general and charging into the back of the units. Its pretty easy to win once you get a feel for how the Ai does its thing in a particular total war game.
@@anushirwanirani2950 not really. idk why people feel the nee to reply to an old comment to try and look smart. especially when they come with wiki surface level facts. they had lots of desertions and lots of the number was inflated by slaves present. The number of spartan warriors on the battlefield on that day was indeed 300 though. and they're the ones who did the final stand
@@redcastlefan wiki level facts i got this from an iranian book thats trying to show the actual side of greco persian wars in which xerxes actually won and greeks where his vassals etc. i can go into deatil if you wish
@@redcastlefanexcept that you’re also wrong. Out of the 7k Greek allies and the 300 Spartans, 5k were turned away when they learned of the encirclement by the Persians-another ~900 left upon the march into battle (both with orders to from Leonidas and some without orders.) Of those that stayed: roughly 700 Thespians under their general Demophilus from Thespiae, and 400 loyalist Thebans from Thebes stayed and fought to the last man with the Spartans.
I've fought countless battles outnumbered, won a battle outnumbered 10-1. Key is to keep your flanks secure. Having a few archers helps and having some shock cav to hit the enemy from behind as well as to take their archers out is useful. Taking the enemy general out early is also good. But as soon as one of your flanks starts to win and has free units, move them out and roll up the enemy flank. If the AI had the decision to hold back and wait for its forces to catch up. I think it would be nearly impossible to win when outnumbered.
@@VRichardsn Nope, we were fighting on the plain desert and had no choice. It was a Tactical Defeat but a Strategic Victory. Manage to destroy their faction after losing a whole Army xD.
A little late to the party but I just want to say, very nicely done. If I could provide some feedback though I think you made 3 mistakes that might have cost you the battle. 1. Taking out their general at the start of the battle was a brilliantly executed maneuver, and if there wasn't a second army coming in would have easily been the key to winning. Well done. However with the addition of the second army I think sacrificing your shock cavalry like that might have actually (at least in part) lead to your defeat. I can't help but think that maybe, if nothing else, you might have been able to use one of your cavalry units to cover the retreat of your other two for use later. 2. Counter charging. Admittedly there could be some debate around this because of charge bonuses but I am personally of the belief that if you had held your line instead of counter charging into the Roman's charge you might have fared a little better. Now again this is a big picture view because clearly your tactic worked wonderfully against the first army. Unfortunately by the time the second army caught up to the first your line had devolved into a blob, which leads to point 3. 3. Getting enveloped. Now I don't think this is really a "mistake" in it's own right, so much as a result of the previous two points. Even with the counter charge you managed to hold your line reasonably well up until the point when you brought your flanks around to attack the sides of the first army. Which, again, is not a bad idea in it's own right but with the addition of the second army I think lead to your defeat. This is because while they began to attack the enemy flank and act like to "hammer" they stopped protecting or your own flanks, subsequently allowing you to become enveloped by the second army. I think if you had been able to rescue one or two of your shock cavalry units from the start of the battle, you could have used them as your hammer and kept your flanks defending. Other than that, well done.
Playing as sassanids you need to bring more cavalry. The combination of horse archers and shock cavalry are insanely effective. The one you have used on this battle were crowsbow cav which isn’t ideal for micro management! Great effort anyway 👏🏼
This was a well-fought battle. Holding out against a much larger force is no easy feat. I guess the only larger-than-small and somewhat more obvious mistake (IMO) was that you didn't use all of the Heavy Spearmen as optimal and efficient as they could have been used. Often, 3 or 4 units were waiting behing allied spearmen, not fighting any enemies. They could have used for flanking the enemy troops, tipping the battle even more in your favour.
Just corner camp with your army. I'm playing Ebdanians now & I take: 3 onagers, 2 cheap cav, 4 warhounds & 10 King's warband. I just sit in the corner (at minimmum shooting range of catapults) & stay still in shieldwall. If heavy cav charges, I use my wardogs to counter charge. I try to keep my 2 cav hidden for later on or for skirmishers.
Ps. I'm fighting on hard with the mod 'double hunnic stacks' & 'Better AI recruitment & army compsition'. I'm playing in the province of Gothiscandza/Hrefshenhold & England. If I do this tactic against the enemy, I get shot to pieces. The huns have 2 large onagers, +/- 6 heavy inf, +/- 4 heavy cav, +/- 6 Strong horse archers per army, +/- 2 heavy archers per army.
First of all, great job. Considering your troop quality was lower (not to mention they're spearmen vs a swordsman rich force), you held on for much longer than I would've expected. Main point I would raise though, is you definitely could've pulled out your cav after killing the enemy general. Sure you would lose the majority of them in the process, but even a small remnant of your shock cav would have been incredibly effective with your hammer and anvil approach. Looking at your infantry. I'd say they're better suited to temporarily holding a line rather than actually defeating roman infantry. This would've probably worked had your hammer blows (flanking) happened more often as the battle ensued. Mainly a cav problem, plus maybe holding your inf rather than charging might have been a little better, but that's not overly important. Great video otherwise! I always imagined Eastern factions relied on quantity over quality when facing roman armies, so this was a revelation of sorts haha
I remember being outnumber by four armies against my one luckily, I was the Huns hit and run tactics work well getting behind the enemy once you find a point on the battlefield to lead them into seperate groups once their calvery have chased you down break your army up then confused the enemy with skirmish unit calvery their calvery once provoked will always try and chase them down position spear men slowly towards your calvery as you retreat this will always lead them straight into a spear wall circle ⭕️ your skirmish calvery around behind the enemy making them chase position. your troops accordingly to How you control the Ai movements
Bad. You held your cav behind, but you had time to use it against archers because the second army was far away. A bit of hammer and anvil with light cav after you took down archers would have allow you to kill the first army faster and reorganize your line to face the second legion. You would have probably lost anyway, but with very different numbers, and your second army which couldn't help would have cleaned the rest of the a.i. easily. Plus, it is ok to kill the general asap, but you sacrificed all your heavy cav in order to do that.
NUKE ZAP I apologize for the lack of video quality bare in mind I just started making videos so have limited experience in editing any feedback will be much appreciated on how to improve tho
Hard difficulty is absolute bs. I was in a siege battle and had 300+ border guard spearmen against about 100 levy spearmen, I had them completely cornered and got them down to less than 80 but they just won't break. While the rest of the army was chasing away their other units the border guard unit decided to break... because I had them cornered I had my army push ahead of them so my missile units were at the back, and when the border guards broke the levy chased and broke my archers and then the rest of my infantry and cavalry joined in and made me lose the battle.... By far Attila is the most disappointing total war game I've played.
Sorry for saying this, but it was rather a poor performance. Being outnumbered 2:1 when your opponent has to bring the 2nd army as a reinforcement is often much easier, especially considering well shown tendency of AI to leave generals unprotected. There should have been another window of opportunity to flank another genersl, shouldn’t you lose your cavalry shortly after the defeat if the first general unit. Also, preserved calvary could be backed up by your general too. That would be very risky, but as you have to fight two larger armies, you don’t have a way to play safe anyways.
I think it was more the unit quality I had, just a bunch of tier 1 Spears & mercenary cav the army was put together in that campaign in response as an emergency force of sorts, let's just say they were destined to be sacrificed to hold my borders for a few more turns
Each to their own, surprised people even care but the AI in these games still have collision problems even on the hardest difficulties so it doesn't make much difference to me
@@JC-fy8wh cringey? I'm at a festival with my mates, nowt edgey about it you fool. It's called having a social life you absolute dosser. I wasn't being a dick to the guy just saying any other TW players on RU-vid play hard minimum with enemy morale boosts etc. AI isn't a challenge on anything less.