Army setup - any best practises?

I put an equal amount of infantries/guards and artilleries, then add 2 cavalries(4 if really big stack).
So a 30k stack would be 12000 inf 12000 art 6 cav.
Inf are the front line, Art support from the backline and Cav flank/recon

I like to have some stacks full of cav too as they are fast and mobile.

That works well for me...

minificelle said:

I put an equal amount of infantries/guards and artilleries, then add 2 cavalries(4 if really big stack).
So a 30k stack would be 12000 inf 12000 art 6 cav.
Inf are the front line, Art support from the backline and Cav flank/recon

I like to have some stacks full of cav too as they are fast and mobile.

That works well for me...

Click to expand...

This should basically be sound. Except that you should ALWAYS have 1 inf. for 1. art. - initially the 12000 inf 12000 art 6 cav has the desired 1:1 ratio of course - but in the course of battle the infantery will die, the artillery won't. Meaning that you should have some extra "safety infantery" to keep your artillery behind the front lines, because if Artillery ends up in the front line, it doesn't hold up well. So I'd suggest something like 18 inf. 12. art. 6. cav.

The real question for me becomes how airplanes and tanks play in to this, anybody know how you should compose a late game army?

I'd actually go for 4 cav, 16 inf and 10 artillery in a 30k stack. There's just no need for 6 cavalry units.

It works like this.

X is infanty
C is cavalry
A is artillery.
E is the enemy.

The infantry can only fight the unit that is directly in front of them. So they will line up against each other, like so:

xxxxxxxx

eeeeeee


Artillery ccan attack the unit directly in front of the unit in front of them; they fire 'over' a friendly unit. As such, they will prefer to sit in the second line wherever possible:

aaaaaaaaaa
xxxxxxxxxxx

eeeeeeeeee


Cavalry can attack diagonally forwards - so they attack either the unit directly in front of them, or the unit directly in front of the unit to their left or right. So you always want 2 cavalry to sit on the flanks, like so:

_aaaaaaaaaaa_
cxxxxxxxxxxxxxc

_eeeeeeeeeee_


So, let's take a small example so we can see what's happening here.

__aa_
cxxxc

_eee_


the first e is being attacked by the infantry unit directly in front of it, and by the cavalry unit to it's front and left. The second e is being attacked by the infantry unit directly in front of it, and the artillery unit hidden behind that. And the third E is being attacked by the infantry unit in front of it, the artillery unit behind that, and the cavalry unit to it's front and right.

Naselus said:

I'd actually go for 4 cav, 16 inf and 10 artillery in a 30k stack. There's just no need for 6 cavalry units.

It works like this.

X is infanty
C is cavalry
A is artillery.
E is the enemy.

The infantry can only fight the unit that is directly in front of them. So they will line up against each other, like so:

xxxxxxxx

eeeeeee


Artillery ccan attack the unit directly in front of the unit in front of them; they fire 'over' a friendly unit. As such, they will prefer to sit in the second line wherever possible:

aaaaaaaaaa
xxxxxxxxxxx

eeeeeeeeee


Cavalry can attack diagonally forwards - so they attack either the unit directly in front of them, or the unit directly in front of the unit to their left or right. So you always want 2 cavalry to sit on the flanks, like so:

_aaaaaaaaaaa_
cxxxxxxxxxxxxxc

_eeeeeeeeeee_


So, let's take a small example so we can see what's happening here.

__aa_
cxxxc

_eee_


the first e is being attacked by the infantry unit directly in front of it, and by the cavalry unit to it's front and left. The second e is being attacked by the infantry unit directly in front of it, and the artillery unit hidden behind that. And the third E is being attacked by the infantry unit in front of it, the artillery unit behind that, and the cavalry unit to it's front and right.

Click to expand...

How does the later game techs affect this?

Naselus said:

I'd actually go for 4 cav, 16 inf and 10 artillery in a 30k stack. There's just no need for 6 cavalry units.

Click to expand...

That would be a 90k stack.

It is my first game, 1898 and I tend to have 1/1 guards/art armies as a continental base plus one or two engineers.

But still have to fight a large scale war, so far I mostly fought only colonial wars with various mixed smaller armies (so they don't take much attrition, none at best). There are usually 2xinf, eng, art and cav.

Same with PDM ... Guards aren't as valuable as in Vanillia. Regualr and Engineer takes on much more importance.

GAGA Extrem said:

I think with AHD guards are no longer cost efficienct enough to justifiy them as your main infantry unit.
You can add a few stacks with guards to your army, but INF (or pure ART) does the job just fine.

Click to expand...

At first I regarded guards as an elite bonus unit. But they cost only a slightly more than inf, I'm insanely rich and don't have much primary/accepted population (Netherlands), so why waste it on inf?

In the early game I make four brigade "divisions" of two Inf, one Art and one Cav (Dragoons if I can). When I get guards they replace the Inf in all divisions as soon as I can (better recon bonus for occupation and better morale, so why not). Later game it becomes one each of tanks, guards, artillery and airplane brigades for the basic division. Two divisions make one of my "armies" of 24k troops.

The reason I organize to no more than 24k armies is due to supply limits in provinces. I find that in the early game you're working with 6-12k supply limits per province with a few larger. Later on you're working with 24k limits as your tech increases and eventually 48-96k limits per province with a few larger up to 100k+. This way I can stack 24k armies of for big battles or divide down to 12k divisions for occupation without losing men to attrition.

Also when I mobilize, I make groups of 12k infantry out of my reserves and marry them with a few pre-made "mobilization core divisions" of just artillery and cavalry for instant 24k armies. These reserve armies then have good effectiveness as front line troops and not just cannon-fodder or occupation troops. I usually leave half my army as mobilization core divisions and the other half as active regular divisions for rebel suppression or short wars if needed. For bigger wars I mobilize and marry to the mobilization core divisions. I have also found that a two cavalry, two artillery mobilization core divisions works good for rebel suppression as well. In AHD, the new larger reserve strengths and tighter military budgets make this strategy work real well I have found.

This might not be the ideal solution for others in this game but I have found it works for me pretty well. I tend to beat all my AI opponents in battles if I have equal to better tech and give them a good fight if I'm behind. Also my artillery tends to survive pretty good, which is important since it costs the most to raise artillery brigades rather than infantry.

Does anyone know how much more effective a mixed army is as opposed to a pure INF army?
Using Naselus' setup, how much better is it in percentage points, K/D ratio...?

And if you have an army of CAV, ART and INF and just add them to the stack, do they then basically count as one army and fight equally well as if you had made them one army before hand?

rmax92 said:

Does anyone know how much more effective a mixed army is as opposed to a pure INF army?
Using Naselus' setup, how much better is it in percentage points, K/D ratio...?

And if you have an army of CAV, ART and INF and just add them to the stack, do they then basically count as one army and fight equally well as if you had made them one army before hand?

Click to expand...

If you make a CAV army, an INF Army, and an ARTY Army, that's not always a good thing. What I've found is that one army doesn't even particpate ... so what could happen in this instance, the ARTY Army may be in the front lines, while the INF is hanging out waiting for some frontline arty to "retreat" to their rear ...

So it's not always a good thing. Best to mix, and then rotate armies.

This is by experience ... well, at least mine.

the_Hussar said:

If you make a CAV army, an INF Army, and an ARTY Army, that's not always a good thing. What I've found is that one army doesn't even particpate ... so what could happen in this instance, the ARTY Army may be in the front lines, while the INF is hanging out waiting for some frontline arty to "retreat" to their rear ...

So it's not always a good thing. Best to mix, and then rotate armies.

This is by experience ... well, at least mine.

Click to expand...

Makes sense, thanks. Might start doing that from now on.

GAGA Extrem said:

Why waste them on guards when you can have ART?

Click to expand...

Other nationalities can support ART. Do you suggest to make only ART and in case of a major war support constricts? Well, no large scale war on the horizon, only some pesky rebels. And I have sooo good relations with everyone...

Anyway, I like brycef's setup of smaller armies.

Out of habit (with no reasoning whatsoever) I usually build half as many cavalry as infantry, and half as many artillery as cavalry. My smallest stack is 2 infantry and one cavalry, followed by 4 infantry, 2 cavalry, and an artillery, followed by 8, 4, and 2, and so on.

You'll probably like it. I figure why make big armies and just have to break them up when have to traverse low supply limit terrain anyway. Also in AHD you get more generals so smaller armies are can usually all be led by a general anyway. Also I find that infantry gets chewed up more than other units, so I put more of them in my armies than other units until the late game where I halve them in each army and add tanks.

Oh, don't kill off your cavalry when you get airplanes unless you really need to. They work well in all cavalry armies for rapid occupation duty (airplanes are better but they are more fragile), and are always good till the end of the game as anti-rebel stacks, thus freeing your other armies for offensive overseas operations.

DrLulz said:

This should basically be sound. Except that you should ALWAYS have 1 inf. for 1. art. - initially the 12000 inf 12000 art 6 cav has the desired 1:1 ratio of course - but in the course of battle the infantery will die, the artillery won't. Meaning that you should have some extra "safety infantery" to keep your artillery behind the front lines, because if Artillery ends up in the front line, it doesn't hold up well. So I'd suggest something like 18 inf. 12. art. 6. cav.

The real question for me becomes how airplanes and tanks play in to this, anybody know how you should compose a late game army?

Click to expand...

This. For airplanes, honestly I keep one with each unit for the Recon bonus. I don't use them for actual fighting. Tanks make excellent front-line units though!