So, this video was covering only typical tactical situations, but I said nothing on strategical part. Delayed Oblique Order attack means initial full frontage advancement, feigned retreat of one wing and a center (when there are about 6 squares between armies left) and advancement of one heavily reinforced flank.
It's the most effective tactic for beating both default AI and Rise of AI. I don't remember last time when I lost more than 2% of my forces in Empires Exported Battles. And the thing is you are down on quality and numbers there, since I'm playing on Suicidal Burgundi with 0-1 General against 1-2 2-2 when I'm on the attack, so this concept is bulletproof.
You never rely on terrain, cause dice roll are still too random and comparative advantages are insignificant. Basically what happens is that you shift (and split to kite) your line while being pursued by superior forces (learn the power of fallback and turn around) and therefore never engage with most of the enemy line until about turn 15-16 if you still wouldn't able to rack up 40% due to their numbers superiority.
Your reinforced flank 2nd rank slightly shifted to the outer side to make envelopment faster and easier. You never rely on pushbacks-breakthrough strategy, cause they are too random and slow. You aiming for guaranteed cohesion auto-drops instead. As you can imagine you don't cover full frontage at all and trying to put as many forces towards reinforced flank as you can.
Avoid doing 3rd rank, cause it's too slow and proly wouldn't end up mattering in the grand scheme of things. It's viable during development to make a column of about 4 ranks and stretch it out wide, gradually turning clockwise to envelop enemy, but again it can be too slow and I don't like this braindead approach much.
2% usually comes from sacrificing 1-2 light horse units for tactical tricks like taking away ZoC's to get into enemy rear super fast, blocking front squares to move in into proper position with right facing 1 turn faster, setting up flanks on HI on the next turn (they won't turn immediately if can be charged by mounted or non-lights on the same turn), blocking fallback squares for both yours and enemy cav, putting up ZoCs to prevent fallback action, body blocking secondary ZoCs to alter your troops path, flank attacks etc.
OFC you gotta know mechanics well. I mean stuff like: can I make this intermediate move after taking away enemy ZoC to execute that trap to take away my cav bounce fallback square and then move in front of my infantry to enable them put up Primary ZoC at >90 degree. Or can I charge this not engaged enemy after moving to this intermediate square first. Rise of AI has some troubles with miscalculating this, default AI don't ever use any of this and humans I rarely see make any intermediate moves.
Its chess terminology BTW. It is an unexpected in-between move that interrupts an apparently forced tactical sequence and changes the outcome of the game.
