Field of Glory 2: Medieval Strategy Tips: Allies, Terrain, Zones & More

Field of Glory 2: Medieval gives players the opportunity to take command of armies from the High Middle Ages and test their tactical skill. The FoG series of games can be daunting for new players due to the large number of factors at play, so here are some useful introductory tips and tactics for Field of Glory 2: Medieval.

 

Know Your Army List

FoG 2: Medieval offers a staggering amount of factions with their own collection of units, or army lists, covering a variety of factions and fighting styles of the High Middle Ages. One of the best ways to start learning army lists is to choose four or five lists and study their roster strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, a good army list will have a flexible selection of units that can deal with various adverse situations, such as cavalry focused armies or maps with plenty of rough terrain.

 

Consider Adding Allies

When composing armies for a battle, nearly every army has the option of supplementing their roster with a limited number of allied units from a selection of other army lists. This is an incredibly useful feature, which allows for mixing and matching different army styles or covering up for a weakness found in the primary army list. For example, the Russian army list is quite flexible with a good balance of cavalry and sturdy infantry, but by taking the Cumans or the Hungarians as allies, they gain access to further light cavalry options they normally wouldn’t have.

 

The Terrain is Your Guide

The geography and layout of the map is the ultimate guide to composing an army and formulating a battle plan. Depending on the generated map, a player’s army might be hindered or greatly strengthened by position of the various terrain features, so it’s wise to compose an army that maximizes the advantages the terrain offers. Moreover, the terrain can provide an outline of where players can effectively attack or defend based on their unit options. For example, the French have a lot of units for open field battle and will be greatly hindered by marsh or rough ground, though they have a few units that can contest or delay more irregular enemies.

Units classified as Medium Foot, Warriors, Bowmen, and Light Foot are excellent choices for fighting in rough terrain as they do not get disordered and maintain their full fighting strength. Any Heavy Foot or Cavalry units are best used in open terrain and want to avoid any kind of impeding terrain, such as forests, patches of rough ground, and large streams. Forests usually disorder all types of troops except Light Foot but can hide your units and be utilized for ambushes or sneaky flank attacks.

 

Learn Zones of Control

All units exert a Zone of Control to three tiles to their front. ZoC can be understood as a zone of influence or a kind of sticky taunt field through which enemy units can’t move through and must stop. This means that units can control or dictate the movement of enemy units or protect friendly flanks without having to directly engage in combat. For example, you could use weaker units to block, delay, or tarpit more powerful units even without necessarily engaging in combat.

 

Always Aim to Flank

The objective in battle isn’t necessarily to eliminate units outright, but to break their morale or fighting spirit and drive them from the field. The surest way to break enemy morale is to hit enemy units in the flank or rear while they are already engaged to their front. Any attack on the flank or rear will almost always guarantee a single level drop in cohesion (morale), which significantly reduces the affected unit’s combat effectiveness. If attacking engaged units in the flank is not possible, it is still a good idea to attack unengaged units in the flank as the attacker will get massive combat bonuses. This is a great way for lowly spearmen to gain an advantage over heavily armoured knights.

 

Dynamically Move Generals in Battle

Generals provide a small maneuver bonus to units assigned within their command range, increase the chance of rallying a shaken unit, and give a significant combat bonus in individual engagements. All generals, including the commander-in-chief and sub-generals, have one free move, provided they are not already engaged in combat. They are an incredible and flexible tactical tool that can bring about a quicker victory or bulk up a failing part of the army. It is wise to actively utilize them every possible turn and shift them dynamically from unit to unit for maximum benefit.

 

Avoid Bad Engagements Unless Absolutely Necessary

The primary way to shake enemy morale is to use the best troops to win engagements and cause enemy units to rout. Every army will have a backbone of elite troops and a large force of unexceptional forces. The purpose of the average or non-elite troops is to create the best situation for the elite’s to win the fight. It is highly likely that the average units will end up face to face with the enemy’s crack troops.

As explained in the tip on ZoC, even lower quality troops can pin better quality troops as long as they are in a Zone of Control. Because of this, there is no need to engage a worse unit with a better one in combat, unless there is some tactical benefit, like setting up a future flank attack.

 

Concentrate Ranged Fire

An excellent way to gain a local advantage is to use various missile troops to cause a cohesion drop on enemy units before the battle devolves into a massed melee. The best way to increase the chance of a cohesion drop from missiles is to concentrate fire on a single unit until its morale is shaken. Important to note: units will only drop one cohesion level from missile fire per turn, meaning once a unit’s morale drops there’s little reason to continue firing, unless the unit is so small that it could just rout from losses.

 

Knights Rule the Open Field

The flagship unit of FoG 2: Medieval is the new Knightly Lancer type unit. They are usually the highest quality and most dangerous units on the field with massive combat bonuses on the charge. In fact, knights are so strong in the open field that even some heavy infantry can’t stand up to their charge. This gives knightly armies interesting tactical options as well as army composition strategies, especially in open field battles, which in turn demands creative counter cavalry tactics for armies without knights.

 

Force Light Cavalry to Evade

Some of the most annoying units to deal with are light skirmish cavalry, usually found in the Eastern European or nomadic army lists. There really is no quick and easy way to deal with light cavalry even if your own army has lots of cavalry. The best tactic to catch enemy light cavalry is to attack with friendly higher quality light cavalry or to attack with any close combat unit to cause an evasion check (as most cavalry will attempt to evade a greater threat to them) and hope that the light cavalry fail their check. Once caught, however, light cavalry will usually crumble pretty quickly.

 

Crossbows Are Deadly

Higher levels of armour reduce the effectiveness of ranged weapons. Crossbows have the lowest penalties against armour due to their better performance against armor compared to bows, slings, or javelins. In FoG II: Medieval armor is quite prevalent across many army lists. Knights in particular have the heaviest armor and large numbers of massed crossbow formations are a great counter to knights and heavy infantry.

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