Patch 16 Multiplayer Guide

After the success of my last general multiplayer guide http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=327151163

I decided to do another. The last one was more of a general introduction to start out with while this one will go much more in depth with the tactics used by the top players at the moment.

Feel free to ask questions, leave feedback and share with your friends.

These are commonly used tactics and their definitions.

Rush
Rush tactics are where you take an infantry and cav heavy army with little skirmishers and go straight in for a fast engagement. The advantage of being agressive is that you get to pick your engagements and your opponent is more likely to make mistakes if hes under pressure.

Kiting
Run away with skirmishers while doing damage and wearing your opponent down.

Meatshields
Use cheap units in thin lines to soak up enemy missiles or charges.

'YOLO' charge
Charging head on with cav into infantry in order to deny them of a charge. It is important you pull out and back up with your own infantry quickly in order for it to work.

Focus Fire
Using multiple missile units to fire on one target in order to kill it quicker. This is advised for skirmish engagements.

Hammer & Anvil
Tieing a unit down from the front with one of your own (Anvil) and then attacking it in the back with another (Hammer) to destroy it.

The meta (or what is commonly used at the current time) is sword spam. Most tournaments have a maximum of 6 of the same unit so you genrally see armies with 6 Mid tier infantry (in the 700-800 price range) and then cheaper infantry, cheap spears and a small ammount of cav or skirmishers.

Since almost every unit has javalins and they have less killing power than they used to, cav are not as important as they once were. They can get good kills when used properly but bringing more than 4 can put you at a large disadvantage.

The most powerful factions are Tylis, Boii, Galatia and to a lesser extent Arverni and Rome. Units such as Sword Followers and Tribal Warriors are incredibly strong for their price.

Example builds

Boii
Oathsworn (General)
6 Sword Followers
6 Celtic Warriors
4 Heavy Horse
3 Celtic Bows
Other useful units: Axe Warriors, Levy Freemen Galatia
Noble Horse (General)
2 Mercenary Capadocian Cav
6 Galatian Legionaries
6 Galatian Swords
2 Mercenary Syrian Archers
3 Levy Freemen
Other useful units: Galatian Raiders, Horse Skirmishers, Naked Swords

Tylis
2 Oathsworn (General)
6 Tribal Warriors
Noble Horse
3 Raiding Horsemen
3 Levy Freemen
2 Celtic Warriors
Thracian Peltast
Other useful units: Thracian Warriors

General Celtic Army - Arverni/Boii/Nervii ect.
5 Oathsowrn (General)
5 Celtic Warriors
4 Heavy Horse (or their equivilant)
2 Levy Freemen

Non barbarians:

Carthage
Generals Bodygaurd
African War Elephant
3 Carthaginian Cav
Mercenary Noble Fighter
4 Lybian Infantry
3 Mercenary Scutarii
2 Mercenary Gallic Warriors
2 Late Lybian Hoplites
Mercenary Cretan Archers Rome
Generals Bodygaurd
4 Legionary Cav
3 Hastati
6 Legionary Cohourt
3 Veteran Legionaries
Evocati Cohourt
2 Vigiles

So how do you beat sword spam? There are 2 ways. The first is fairly simple, you just sword spam back and play better. In these barbarian vs barbarian engagements getting a clean charge is crucial as units recieve a big charge bonus. Disrupting an enemy charge with cav or cheap units can give you the edge. Special abilities, although they aren't as common anymore can be very useful. I recomend taking an Oathsworn general and activating headhunt and battle rhythm as soon as the unit enters melee. Once they wear off and the unit becomes exhausted you use the second wind ability so they will be fresh again.

Here are some examples of games played with 2 sword heavy factions so you can see how the armies work in practise. These games are from the recent Dignitas Invitational.

This is me using Galatia vs Tylis. Note how important it is to get the right engagements and charges and also supporting your weaker troops plus protecting skirmishers.

What are the alternatives to using sword heavy barbarian builds all the time?

So the first thoughts are: I know I'll just get an elephant or a chariot and run them over. Sounds good in theory but you must remember these factions have all the tools to deal with them. First of all, nearly every infantry unit has javelins. Then for example Tylis have access to heavy peltasts as well as some of the most cost effective skirmisher cav in the game. All javelins have a bonus vs large as well remember so your elephants or chariots are going down unless you take extremely good care of them.

An elephant or chariot can change a game but its very hard to keep them safe from missiles. Hellenic factions like Pontus, Bactria, Selucids and Egypt have to make very good use of special units to have any hope of beating barbarians.

Side note, if you want to be a total ♥♥♥♥ you can do this
So then what about skirmish builds? No infantry builds have been around for a long time and they used to be really powerful. Now they can work but I wouldn't recommend them.

First of all your micro needs to very good. A small mistake could cost you the game. Second of all your opponent can just suicide charge his cav and if he backs them up with infantry they will kill your cav.

Cavalry doesn't do as much damage to infantry as it used to. Cataphracts are still strong and devastating when used well but they are again, weak against javalins.

If you to have any chance of pulling off a no infantry skirmish build you should take Parthia or Armenia with Eastern Cataphracts and Eastern Slingers (for the extra ammo)

The Prussian Prince managed to win against Llewelin of Agarthia with Armenia vs Boii. He did well but I also think Llewelin couldve done a lot better.

Impressive when executed correctly but not a safe option at all. NOT RECOMMENDED

We then move on to pikes and skrimishers. Don't try this. Pikes get easy out flanked and you will get destoyed unless you sit there in a noob box which isn't fun for anyone.

Now we have eastern factons.

In my opinion Parthia are better than Armenia because they have Parthian Foot Archers which are great (40 missile damage + precision shot) and they also have mercenary hoplites, not the most powerful unit but good at holding. My Parthian build is:
Noble Horse Archer (General)
2 Mercenary Scythian Horse Archers
5 Eastern Cataphracts
5 Parthian Foot Archers
3 Mercenary Hoplites
Persian Hoplite
2 Eastern Spearmen

I've been using this since patch 15 and its still successful for me. You tie the enemy infantry down and kill their cav with yours. Then you use cataphracts and archers to clean the rest up. You can see it in action here against Carthage and Selucids

The weakness of this is if you don't protect your archers then you are pretty much screwed. It can be vulnerable when your opponent brings lots of cav and rushes for your skirmishers. I find its usually successful vs hellenic and eastern factions and then sometimes but not all the time vs barbarians.

If you are Parthia and your opponent picks a spear counter like Ardieai or Sparta, Do not panic! Parthia has all the tools to deal with it. An elephant can be devastating if you keep it back and are patient while you kill enemy skirmishers. Just bring 4 cav as they will protect your skirmishers but wont deal much damage. Concentrate on skirmishers and some decent infantry. Heres the build I used against Ardieai and a video of Parthia vs Sparta

I'll admit straight away, I haven't played at all with nomads this patch. In general infantry is better than cav. The draco ability removes the bonus that spears get against cav so that can be good when used well. In general nomads lack the punch needed to kill large ammounts of infantry and so I wouldn't reccomend taking them.

So there you have it. Please let me know anything I've missed out and I'll do my best to include it. I hope you found it helpful.

To futher check out the YouTube channels that have been linked throughout the guide like Milkandcookiestw, Maximus Decimus Meridius and WolfOfRemustw. Most importantly though, practise.

Goodbye :)