When competing against people, or very hard difficulty AI's, producing a large number of high cost units is going to be the most crucial factor in your success. Great tactics are only enabled by having a large pool of options which is in turn enabled by having a large and diverse supply of fighting units.

And so a respectable number of cities, and then beyond that, diversely specialized cities is necessary to fight effectively. My go to minimum is six cities, this allows me both two cities for each family, as well as two cities with each specialization(training for military units, growth for workers/settlers/caravans/disciples, civics for buildings/research/projects). Ideally your capital and at least one other city get enough investment to become 'Jack of All Trades' type cities. A military specialized city producing for instance a worker adds a lot of training per turn to promote your units. Having below ~50 training income during or prior to a major war will leave you much more vulnerable, so add barracks/ranges to every city or keep a military city producing non military units at times to increase your training pool. It's important to remember you can pad training income with miner specialists, and civics with stonecutters, no resource on the tile required, just the improvement + specialist!

Why are growth and civics necessary to fight, you might ask? Rebellions are an inevitable part of Old World, and your units will need to face them when they happen. Whether your unit has a malus depends on the happiness of your cities, which depends most on the number of late game specialists, which all require food and growth(in the form of citizens). Monks and priests are the standouts at adding happiness, though monks require Enlightenments for that. Disciples are going to build monasteries and temples and cathedrals, and all can boost happiness. Workers have the ability to create amphitheaters, and bath type improvements. They will also improve the luxury resources, which will then require a civics produced specialist to gain the two happiness, once sent to a city. Furthermore, upper tier acolytes and some ranchers add orders, which are the games way of representing communication along with command and control. Late game each elder adds happiness (with law adopted), and since each city can need 10+ per turn just to maintain equilibrium, you want to try for well above that in each city.

To distill this section, the game makes balance a necessity if you are going to compete in any arena, including militarily. You need people to fight, and these people need supplies, and training. You can think of training as encompassing military industry(forges and fletchers) and veterans, while civics cover education, construction and tradesmen. Lastly growth is the farmers, fishers, ranchers, and trappers who feed the troops, not to mention their mighty steeds! It's also the workers who build the barracks and the roads for those troops, and pay the taxes to buy their gear. Wars cost money, and having an oversupply of at least one resource to sell--or simply an absurdly high gold income--may be the difference between affording to produce a unit or not.

Really 7.2. The unit you start the game with has four strength. Either a slinger, or a short swordsman called the warrior. Then it scales up through new units to 5 then 6, then 8 then 10 strength units. You could very conceivably face a 6 strength maceman or war elephant, or unique unit(including barbarian) while only having a warrior or slinger to fight it. An opponent civ with a friendly family will add 20% or 1.2 to have 7.2 strength with no other factors added yet. Let me tell you truly that fight will never end well. Even with even odds in this game it will favor the AI(due to higher numbers), or the human defender(because of their ability to heal). Only by getting the strength odds in your favor can you do enough damage to take a unit off the board.

This ties back into the earlier economy section. You have to have archives in each city, with at least a couple getting to archive III, so that you can unlock quickly a more advanced ranged, melee, mounted, and then finally siege unit. Don't think you need siege because you are doing a peaceful run? Three mangonels with shrapnel can demolish in one turn a force that would utterly crush ten spearmen(*assuming they are clustered). What units you choose to go with are an equal measure of what you prefer, and what counters what your enemy has. And if he has everything you need it too.

This section is about the numbers. An opponent with spearmen, archers, and chariots(pretty easy to get to quickly, especially for AI on great difficulty) cannot be invaded with slingers and warriors alone. You need a unit pushing 7 strength/defense to be your pointman and have a hope of surviving mid game, and at least one behind it with 7 attack to be the DPS while it heals or fortifies at the front line. Tactically the best pointmen have ZOC, especially pikeman, spearman, and to a lesser extent, conscript, whose ZOC affects mounted.

If you can't have the more advanced unit you can still potentially have the better unit. Know your bonuses! I never built forts as I got into the game, but they are a must! +50% defense including outside of borders! A fully fortified(+25%) unit on a fort will be nearly immovable, and deals major counter damage to melee units. A ranged unit can stay on the frontline if they are in a fort, an archer will have 7.5 base defense! Anticipating where the fighting will be, and having a fully fortified unit ready(and with the ability to heal) will make things much, MUCH, easier! Fortified units in Old World can attack and heal without breaking fortify! A fort on flat land takes one turn to build with a family worker. Build it during the fighting if you are forced to stand on open ground!

Beyond that the best bonuses are +10% and 20% strength for happy families, the combat promotions for frontline troops(collectively 30% strength with all 3), the guard/strike promotions for specialists(garrison vs DPS respectively), and then the situational 25% ones such as warden or ranger. Even a warrior or slinger can get well over 7 attack, defense, or even strength with the right combination of terrain, promotion, and general bonuses.

Promotions and generals take time, if you are caught off guard, consider pulling back your key units, potentially leaving militia or other expendables(like unupgraded troops or even workers/disciples/scouts, which all have 3 defense and benefit from forts/garrisons) to hold the line, and add as many upgrades and generals as are possible, and that raise your stats the most for the coming battles. I keep a medium pool of training as an emergency reserve to either purchase orders or add levels/generals to units facing tough opponents. You want to spend some of it continuously, though, upgrading all your units to at least level 2 or 3, so that they are more ready to face unforeseen threats, like rebels, surprise attacks, or tribal invasion.

Seven strength is all well and good until you meet your first cataphract, dromon, or polyboros(all have 10). Such a unit with promotions and a general will go around one shotting your previously 'frontline' units. The Companions were cataphracts(obviously), dromons are a nimble ship that spits Greek fire(head canon), and polyboros are a siege sized machine gun crossbow/catapult hybrids(say that 5 times fast).

So, given you are fighting such opponents now, things are going to end up looking like "The Battle of the Bastards" if you don's get at least an 8 strength unit to face these(that'll be 9.6 strength with the easy to get 20% family bonus - just keep family gifting with the chancellor, or give all luxuries to one). Old World gives you a back door to strong units without needing high tech levels. Four laws gets you access to the stronghold, and seven to the citadel, and each unlocks a unique unit for their civ, always 6 and 8 strength.

Proper use of these unique units, will allow you to potentially skip one or two military techs and focus on other priorites. With Hatti for instance I can go for barding as my last major military tech, as I get an 8 strength mounted melee unit with rout and circle(same as cataphract except -2 strength) called 3 man chariot.

The late game has another aspect, and that is laws. Without one of the laws allowing hurrying in your civ(along with the economy that produces enough to fund these hurries), you will be dramatically outpaced in unit production late game. You'll need an economy humming along overproducing at least 2 resources, and 2 of 3 from training, civics, and money, one of them exceptionally. Whichever is most plentiful, you need the corresponding law so you can hurry with it; money(judge or law), training(requires war if law or a zealot leader), or civics. *Can also substitute growth if you go 'volunteers' law and hurry with citizens, or even orders with 'orthodoxy' law and a well spread religion.

Combat in Old World can feel a little bit more like sudoku than an RTS, but I consider it to be one of the best representations of medieval war since chess. If you leave gaps in your formation, cavalry will ride behind the lines, and strike your bowman, your siege engines. If you stand in the open archers will rain death. The high ground is important to take and hold in a siege, it gives you more vision and range, and advantage vs mounted. Sealing up a city by surrounding it is important, lest fresh units pour in every turn to prevent it's fall, but that exposes your troops to easy attack. Your horseman can charge out from the shadows and butcher lighter troops, but once there he is easy pickings to be gutted by spearmen type troops(labelled anti-mounted in game).

Form a solid line, and double up. This means whether attacking or defending, form a complete line to face your enemy(note this line may need gaps to minimize AOE damage, if so, make sure ZOC prevents enemies from charging the gaps). And double up means try to have two of every unit paired up. It doubles the firepower, and leaves you with that units ability even if one was killed during the last turns fighting. It also will trigger the Commander +20% bonus if that general is applied to one or both units. Not having another archer to fire over the line and kill the low health enemy monarch is not a good feeling.

God favors the side with the better artillery. Said by Napoleon, it is very true in Old World. If the enemy has superior long range you must fall back. Look for a path to slip mounted around and rout them all en masse. A single cavalry can work, but I try to have a minimum of three, so they can be the ones to weaken the enemy, without relying on my own ranged units, which can be hampered by trees/scrub(or maybe have been killed by enemy cavalry, this is war, Peacock!). You can increase your own range for slingers thru longbowman types with promotions, the tower building and standing on hills, to try to reach enemy ranged if mounted attacks aren't an option.

Keep in mind there is a difference between fighting a battle between armies, and fighting a siege. A tough city like a capital with towers might need 20 attacks a turn for multiple turns to bring it down. A smart opponent will put a strong military unit inside to hold it after the city runs out of hp. After July 2024 patch, noncombat units will retreat rather than defend a city, making them much easier to capture quickly. Still, combined with up to 5 hp regeneration(for the city and the units inside, even more with herbalists), a siege can become a costly trap if not perfectly prepared for. Hannibal routed army after army, but never tried to siege Rome. His primarily mounted and light troops just weren't suited for the task.

In game, every siege attack is worth I'd say roughly triple what a normal units attack would deal to a city. The exception being melee and ranged units that are given 'besieger' promotion which gives a 25% bonus. If you thought cities were too tough before this guide(and didn't bring siege) bring 1 or two each of a ballista and onager type to the battle(assuming an attacking force of about 10 units) and tell me how it goes then.

When it comes to army on army combat, there are pretty much two tactics I usually go with. Carpe diem, ie, charge in and kill as many units as possible, going for at least two or three, and focusing my kills on cost effectiveness(what targets eliminated reduce my damage next turn), while positioning troops to take advantage of cover if worried about range, or rivers/chokepoints if concerned about melee.

The other tactic is the 'goat on a rope'(Jurassic Park). You leave a militia or slinger or spearman, etc, with no upgrades out on the border. The enemy surrounds and kills it. Surprise, you've entered a kill box and are now savaged with the pierce and other AoE abilities, followed by one or more cavalry routing every unit sent into your territory. This is often followed by a second enemy wave which will probably kill some of your units, but smart play may limit that, and falling back and bringing in fresh troops or reserves can give you a decisive victory over even a top level opponent. Keep reserves out of sight by selecting an enemy unit and checking their vision with bottom button by the minimap. Don't rely solely on concealment as the enemy may scout you with his first moves, or have a network in place revealing your unit.

If the enemy doesn't take the bait and move into the open, you then move your ranged units into range and either go carpe diem with the melee units, or fortify a line out of range of their melee to hopefully draw them into the open and a slaughter, but at least force a withdrawal/attritional battle. When practical, have scouts, workers, even missionaries along with the troops to buy tiles if possible, so that you may heal as the battle becomes attritional. If not, they can be positioned nearby to limit enemy maneuvers or hold territory temporarily while damaged units fall back(beware of routing potential, however! Don't feed the cataphracts!)

Every attack you force to be directed at an expendable unit during a pitched battle helps swing the battle faster, even a 3 defense unit on a hill or in a choke point may be the difference between a max level unit plus general surviving. *Scouts are surprisingly good early game at soaking damage. Put them on enemy territory trees(where they can be seen, usually) to force the enemy to root them out while the archer behind them fires volleys. Additionally if you really don't wan't to lose a tile put a scout under the unit, so you can potentially reinforce that tile next turn if the unit dies. I say scout because I consider it most expendable, but I've used any available noncombat for this 'reserve' role.

I honestly believe that using these tips and tactics, that you could, like Alexander, conquer yourself a nice map spanning empire in a couple dozen turns in game. Pretty historical, if you ask me!

Thank you for reading. Seriously. That you have chosen to read this, thank you, sir or madame.

Thank you Soren, I call you Soren because after spending hundreds of hours in your game, I feel like I know you :) Thank you, sir!

This game is something special, and shows what passion and a dedicated team can accomplish. I really can't say enough about the polish and balance of this game, and I've played it to the hilt, now having completed a victorious playthrough for all 9 nations on Great difficulty and available on YouTube(#9 is being uploaded!).

This is my first guide and I want to thank everyone for checking it out, and would appreciate some suggestions. I really wanted to get this typed out and add my voice to the growing number of people really impressed with this game.

*All videos except this last one have a link in the description to quickly get to a minute or two of video that highlights a concept from the segment. If someone comments how to imbed YT videos timestamp, I'll do my best to update the videos so it goes directly to the timestamp.