Various tactics have used through out the history usually based on there technology lvl. My question is who here actually uses real life tactics used my military? It can be modern or very old. Don't say flanking because I know lots of people try that to some degree. What are tactics that work good in waronline and don't?

Absoultly. I am a former US military officer and a military history buff. I constantly use tactics that were used in real life. The trick is to know which one to use when. There is no one tactic that always works. Some people I have used as models are Sun Tzu, Confederate Generals "Stonewall" Jackson ( who based many of his tactics on Napoleon) and James Longstreet. Since I like to play heavy in horses and archer types, I also have used battles of the Sioux Indian Nation leaders like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. I'll not go into detail so I don't loose my edge, but yes I do attempt to do that. In realty not so much a leader, but rather a battle or situation.

Yeah I just got done studying all the major battels of the civil war in my history of wars class and was thinking about using some of the thing the confederates used.

If we still had farms then I could use the tactic that Grant like to use and push the men of my enemy into their castel and surround the castel. It would whipe out his army without losing many of my men.

The American Civil War has some great examples.
I would suggest Chancelorsville as a great example of how to flank an enemy. Gettysburg on how to set up a defense. Jackson's Shannadoa Vally is pretty neat too, hit and run tactics vs a slower enemy. Vicksburg from Grant on a siege. And in general the whole war on the power of a strong economy.

I also find that some of the tactics of the Romans come in handy. The troop types are similar enough that a lot of the formations and techniques work pretty well.

also the roman tactic of walling the beseiged city so reinforcments couldn't get in. and in this game it serves as a primary wall keeping the archers out of range and a full charge on you out of the question. only problem is the time and cost that this would imply. If I had the time I would create a roman city's defences of towers, walls, diches, ect...

I also look at fudel tactics. how fudel lords held the land when the castle was miles away... trust me on one thing, if I have time and resources, my wars would never have any lost ground.

Having said that, I think that would apply for most of us at level 10-15 and beyond! :-)
I'm more interested in practical solutions - like dumping farms in people's way, using small forces as decoys while the main force escapes and re-groups, and so on.

And I would suggest "North and South" (game) as a total lack of strategy, but funny nonetheless in arcade mode :-)
The idea of one little infantry guy dodging lots of cannons and dodging all the cavalry + bullets is funny but not too realistic. Expect the American Civil War to last about 3-6 months!

Or a ww2. Use the german blitzring tactic (spelled something like that). Imagine bombers, fighter planes, tanks, marines, anti aircraft guns, naval ships, infantry units, airborne units, aromered units, amphibous vehicles for invasion,artillery pieces such as cannons, pill boxes, snipers, mortar men, I don't that would be funner then what we are playing now

its spelled 'Blitzkrieg', to be precise.
and whether you prefer modern, ancient, or fantasy units is a mere matter of taste, i think.

I like this medevil type stuff but I have been in ww2 mood for the last few months. Looking for a good ww2 game reading some ww2 books and looking at my grandpa's stuff.

If this game had hills and the people on the hill get defensive bonus but the attackers gets more exp then the game would be more complex and realistic and you could use even more realitic tactics.

stealth, there is a WWII game that is text based at WWW.coldfirestudios.com

hmmm there is an idea, but instead of giving bonuses to defence on hills why not make the dark land areas give a small defence bonus to any troop inside of it.
Example; your scout moves into the thick swamp terrain tile, that scout should get a small bonus to defence, sure the scout can't move as fast, but they can't be targeted by arrows as easly or fight in hand to hand as easly.

That's a good idea savetuba. Hills would require more graphic objects or something, but bonus for the rougher terrain shouldn't be hard to implement. You should take this to the Suggestion Forum.

Swamps should never give defensive point irregardless it is thick or thin. Areas like swamps, rivers, valleys are all deathtraps for troops.

I will put it up when req comes back because I have decided its pointless to give ideas when he's not here. You guys have more in depth ideas than me so feel free to put the idea in yourselves.

After playing waronline I havn't been to a text based again. It has to meet or exceed waronline now . I did find a ww2 game that just focused on normandy and I downloaded it but never got the time to play it. Now I have the time and the site dosn't work anymore. The site was like www.2am.com , so if anybody knows what I am talking about and I am putting in the wrong address in I would be grateful.

I'm not too sure 'bout if modern tactics are good for making up your battle plans. And here's why:

We're speaking about Blitzkrieg (Lightning War). I love WWII and love german plans (BTW, do u know that German plan to invade France was jst a coincidence? they wanted to repeat what they did in WWI, the 'Schlieffen' plan, using the plains of Belgium as a big motorway for their panzer. But (luckily for them) an airplane that carried a copy of the plan fell down in French territory. Unable to know whether the allied had found their plans or not, Hitler's generals started with 'B' plan, Von Manstein's plan to race through the Ardens forest. That took Allied unawared, cutting off French army in two.

What I mean is luck is a main factor, and like any other game in WOL u can be lucky or not. But also remember Blitzkrieg was based on fast AIR attacks. They used Stukas and Ju-87 to punish enemy lines BEFORE they started attacking with tanks. And behind tanks came motorized infantry, as fast as the tanks or even more.

If we consider Heavy Cavalry as tanks, where r the air units? where is the motorized infantry to secure the position? there's only foot infantry, too slow to quickly secure conquered territory.

We have medieval troops, so the best we can do is use medieval tactics.

Red!

Roman legion is pretty nice as model.
Using squires as a front row, they're hard-boiled, difficult to kill and with their large shields ranged troops don't make them a lot of damage. Putting them in def mode, with some pikemen side-to-side at the front, some cavalry (I prefer light cav and scouts to heavy cavalry, but maybe that's because when I started light cav. was the best cavalry in the game) flanking them at both sides, so they can both go back to face an eventual menace from the back or move quickly to the front to punish enemy's ranged units/surround his army. And of course two lines of ranged troops just behind front row's squires is a tactic pretty similar to that romans used, and works pretty well. Also u can use it with scouts instead of light cav and archers as ranged units, therefore just having to develop squires (squires are critical to make a strong front line)

Red!

I wasn't actually suggesting Blitzkrieg for waronline

But it's viable given the amount of recon a single player can do. By staying just out of sight and then jumping out with loads of cavalry, blitzkrieg is a possibility. Just difficult :-)

I like hit and run tactics....guerilla warfare......let them follow you...retreat.....attack them....chase them away.......lose a few men on purpose.....let them attack you some more......slaughter them..........

Giving enemies confidence....(Sun Tzu)
Flanking enemies........(Pre-Medieval Warfare)
Guerilla warfare.........(Modern warfare)
Covering flanks.........(Atilla the Hun)
Tight Formations.........(Roman tactics)

All tactics r good, that's the real matter! u have to know when to use which.

And I always use them wrong =)

Red!

P.D: My best tactic is... hope (hope that guy quits be4 taking over my castle)