Total War: Tactics - Shifted Battle Line Trap (Gunpowder Ambush)

I layout the basic plan for an ambush with gunpowder troops and show how it can be used to devastating effect on the battlefield.

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Closed Caption:

whats up guys its oakley and as per your
recommendations i'm doing total war
tactics so this one is going to be
entitled shifted battle line trap so i
figured the way I'm going to do this is
I think start with the generic general
battle plan and then show you the
execution so for this planet is going to
be an ambush with the first step is to
lay your trap so have some sort of
hidden units so you can see that the
market on the bottom the units on the
left are supposed to be hidden use tall
grass to the forest
then what you want to do is start
shifting your line usually what I try
and do with some form of a like a canted
line like this so you can start shifting
your line up like this and typically
your opponent will try and match your
line
that's often the case and will also
start to tilt and then you'll see both
armies start to will into position
it's important that you don't get
engaged at this point you want your
point to kind of match your flank and
this will become apparent why we're
doing this
but anyways don't feel like you have to
engage with you . if you're too close to
your opponent at this point
go ahead and draw back a little bit the
idea is just to get him to shift his
forces and you'll see why we want him to
do that once the forces get sort of into
position and the advantage of this is
you're trying to pull your . kind of
into the trap so now you can see him
moving up into position here keep your
distance
don't engage just yet now the next part
is to beat the enemy so by shifting your
line you force your opponent to kind of
come to you and we should do is open up
a tempting target for your opponent
so you can see how on the left shifted
my line and at that point I don't have
any units there so that should be
whatever enemy flanking forces there
into that little gap but make sure
you're not to expose make sure you can
actually exploit that line so make sure
that your head and troops are pretty
close so that your opponent if he
decides to move on that little gap that
you can then hop on to him and deal
damage to him but the idea with the
shifted line is to allow your opponent
or invite him into that gap in your
force and the next step here is to
spring the trap was your opponent takes
the bait
unleash on him with your flanking force
now this works just as well with arrows
or gunshots make sure part of your
flanking force your head and force also
has something that's maneuverable like
calorie so once you start shooting at
his unit right there
then you can spring out with Calvary and
either hit that ambushed unit in the
flank or actually moving to where that
you would it used to be and hit him in
the flank
so now your point is going to completely
upset space five is going to follow up
on this move
and your point is gonna be staring at
what's going on the left on the right go
ahead and hit him he's going to be
already off balance because your attack
on the left
go ahead and take advantage of that and
strike on the right you'll notice that
your opponent will have much of his
micro dedicates left and oftentimes they
won't see you coming and you can get the
charge bonus on the right
so hopefully that attack goes well and
now you basically have the ability to
completely encircle your opponent
so this is a general strategy of how it
goes it takes a lot of practice to know
which units a place where what
appropriate distances are and the timing
but let's go ahead and jump into a
battle where I pull this off
so this is the battlefield where I
wanted to show you this is going to be a
multiplayer 2vs2 battle I position here
with all the samurai units and like I
said two verses to battle but this
strategy can work just as well so we are
in phase 1 phase one is if you recall
hide your troops so i have a number of
troops on my left flank if you remember
the battle diagram this is the left leg
that wants to stay hidden have units
that can you know have the devastating
blow of an ambush so if we were in Rome
or some other battle we would probably
have archers or something that can do a
lot of armor penetration perhaps
javelins
in this case it's going to be my red
bear and then like I said make sure you
have some sort of Swift mobile force in
the back to follow up so that's going to
be my yari key and then i also have sort
of my main line moving forward
now the next step is going to start to
tilt your battle lines so you can see my
forces starting to creep Ford something
you can do is I'm going to be a little
bit from the basics that i mentioned
before is what i like to do is just
throw out some sort of force in the
front so I sent out my cavalry and I
start to sort of play with my opponents
attention
I see that he's pushing the left so just
like in that battle diagram
my point is going to start shifting and
take a look at this from above my forces
are now going to start shifting to the
right so this is the shifted battlefield
I'm shifting my battle lines here I'm
pushing forward with my yari key here
I want to have him you know you look at
this his line is already starting to
tilt because I put a lot of pressure on
one flank i'm starting to tilt his
battle line just like I described to you
in the battle plan so here's my force
I'm pushing more units to the right I'm
sending up some calories today I'm
making my presence felt here and take a
look at how my phone is racking this
he's further tilting his line so that's
working accidentally
now this is kind of an abstract a sort
of a more realistic approach but you can
still see the basic dynamics of what i
showed in the drawings
my line is over here my hidden forces
over here and my point is you know
turning to match my battle lines
now i am doing the phase which is sort
of debate the enemy and i'm going to
start reading my left flank i'm going to
retreat this link and we're going to be
pushing up this side now retreating
units easy
are you know that's kind of a very good
piece of bait because cavalry and other
units definite want to pursue this my
opponent is eager to fight the battle
and by retreating by showing that this
is an exposed flank
then i can go ahead and start to do the
phase of the battle which is beat the
opponent so most of my line is here
my point is facing me and here is that
left like that he thinks I excellent i
can come in and I can hate these guys on
the side
I specifically put white tiger force
here because white tiger force is very
cheap so my opponent is analyzing my
forces and he's saying I look at this I
can strike this Frank white tiger force
that's easy i'll hit that on the flank
and then I'll come and swarm through the
center that's what he's thinking
now this is exactly the piece of bait
that I was telling you about
so take a look at the range he's going
to start to reposition to get at that
flank and now i'm going to start to
spring my trap so my Red Bear infantry
are going to start to fire the strap the
trap has now been sprung
I'm gonna unleash on his guys so this is
going to be the devastating effect of
the ambush
so just doing ridiculous amounts of
damage his guys are stationary and now
it's going to be very important that i
put this on pause so I'm doing a kind of
two steps at the same time
this is as you saw in the battle plans
spring your ambush and then follow up on
that so one of my follow-up moves like I
showed you in the violent battle diagram
is to Sally out with my reiki my araki
are going to push over here and their
role just like a diagram is to intercept
these katana calorie of these katana
calorie want to charge my guys that's
final intercept with my yorkie otherwise
these guys will go along
hit them in the back or they'll continue
on to this flank
now like I said once this ambush is
sprung your opponent is going to start
to react he's going to have to focus all
his microphone here
he's not entirely sure what he's getting
shot and why he's going to zoom in
trying to say okay these are red bear
then he's going to reposition
he's gonna be doing a lot here and
that's why i am doing the move on the
right now I'm not striking over on the
far feel like i'm actually going for the
center
so this is going to be sort of the next
phase which is following up on the
ambush the ambush is not just
devastating because you take out a unit
it's devastating because it draws your
opponent's microwave so over here you
can see an exposed line of archers now
this is the traditional way to set up
units archers in the front speakers in
the back
now usually if you charge this type of
formation with calorie your opponent
will merely pull back as both by nurse
peers and you're screwed
but because he's busy micro and his
units around here reacting to the ambush
he doesn't have the micro left to
adequately move these guys away i'm not
even sure if you actually realize that
my calorie are coming in
this is all auto fire so I'm able to
actually go straight make a beeline for
his most expensive
bo hero units with my reiki yes I'm
taking some damage but you can see he's
not able to get his spears into position
they're not even moving up at this point
my opponent like i said is busy my
crying over there
he hasn't even moved these katana
calorie they were so close
and that is the power of this type of
move now I'm coming in with my calibrate
slow motion just like i said i have more
guys in the back to counteract make sure
that your ambush force has enough units
to to to survive this is a little
wrinkle that I didn't explain before but
make sure that your ambushing force has
some sort of support so for instance my
main line here is going to send
reinforcements to support this ambush
I don't want my ambush to get destroyed
too many times early on I thought I
could get away with a one-unit ambush
that's no longer the case you want your
ambushes to actually be pretty beefy and
have some followback plan in case your
opponent charges at your ambush here you
have read bear poohbears station to hit
those guys in the site and then here's
the calorie going around the back
I can hit these guys on the side and
also bringing in some more you are a key
so not exactly the battle plan that you
saw on the map but it's still following
true to the main idea
let's go ahead and put this on play
finally my opponent has reacted to this
and i lost my yarn key but i was able to
just destroy his boat here
I precipitated this assault his guys
over here are you going to be out of
position and I'm already going to charge
forward with my spear levy
my guy is my opponent is totally out of
position i'm going to go ahead and put
this on pause
Oh actually they actually decided to
quit the battle
I wanted to show you that over on the
right flank i already had some uh
matchlocks position on the flank just to
beat back the second enemy force that
was coming in so you can see i was able
to win this two verses to battle almost
instantaneously within a minute
our opponents admitted defeat just
because i was able to use the hidden
force turn my shifted battle line beat
my opponent him in the flank and then
most crucial of all was a follow-up if i
had not had a follow-up if it had just
been this image ambush
I guarantee my opponent probably would
have thought on but because i had that
follow up because i took out his bow
heroes
he knew that it was I was all downhill
from there so this is kind of the way
you could execute this
so because enjoyed this first laying out
of the plan and then following up of how
to do the tactics i think this is going
to be the way I want to do it's probably
the most effective
the problem is however that it can
sometimes be specific to one total war
game so perhaps in the future I can try
and show you how to do this tactic in
Rome or something where you have to do
it with archers are you than units like
that anyways hope you guys enjoyed this
is as I said per request for you guys
would ask to see some tactical tutorials
so this is going to be me just testing
the water as always I respond to your
feedback so if you do like to see this
type of battle the step of tactics and
if you think this is the appropriate way
to teach you guys that I'm all ears i'll
check the description the comments below
to see your feedback so yeah go ahead
and leave some comments anyways hope you
guys enjoy these tactics go ahead and
try them out on the battlefield and let
me know how they work out for you see
you guys is out