Army Sizes and Compilation?

[D-A-C]

Hey everyone.

I'm just wondering how large you build your armies and what combination of units you use in them.

I've only played as Rome so far and haven't got very many years into the campaign (starting from the earliest 474 date), but I have my main offensive armies about 24000 troops strong and consisting of about 12000 Heavy Infantry, 8000 Archers, and 4000 Horsemen. I then use armies of 4000 Velites and 2000 archers as guard armies in border provinces.

So what do you guys use for your armies in terms of size and units?

 

[fabius]

As Rome I've been going with 18+ HI; 5 or 6 archers; 2x Cav and 2x Horse archers. If it's against barbarian LI then may higher ratio of archers.

 

[Scipio Aemilius]

My traditionnal main stacks are made of 10 HI, 5 Ar, 5 Cav, that's for 90% of all my armies. I sometimes build small mobile armies of 5 Cav and 5 HA (to reach defensive positions faster) ; or small sieging armies of 4 to 5 LI.

 

[Powerslave]

I played some games as Rome where I used a house rule to have legions consisting of a maximum 6 units. My armies mostly consisted of 4-5 heavy infantry and 1-2 archers and I also used sieging armies consisting of 6 light infantries. It's really hard to fill all the legions with generals and it's not helping that the senate appoint generals themselves when you're at war.

 

[Antiochus_Soter]

I divide my armies into seperate ones for infantry and cavalry.

The infantry armies are for besieging provinces so they do not need generals with high martial, so these units I assign a general of 6-7 martial.

The cavalry units are for engaging the enemy in the battle field, therefore they need generals of 8-10 martial.

The infantry armies need to stay in enemy territory for a long time so they must be smaller or they will suffer attrition, so they need to be at a size of about 15,000, the cavalry armies stay behind the frontline and can move quickly into and out of battles so they will suffer much less attrition (usually only one month per engagement) so they can be much bigger, up to 40,000.

The tactic is to place the infantry armies on the frontline and move them into unguarded enemy provinces to begin a siege. Once an enemy army is spotted heading to engage the infantry army, then I start moving in the cavalry army into the province to join the battle. Because the cavalry army is made up of just horsemen it will arrive faster than the enemy army so even though it started it's journey to the battlefield last, it arrives first and gets the tactical advantage. Then when the battle is won, the infantry army is left in the province to continue the siege whilst the cavalry army heads off to route the retreating enemey army. Even though the retreating enemy army left the battle first, the cavalry army is still faster and will get to the next province first and again recieve the tactical advantage of being at the battlefield first.

 

[Cheexsta]

I've been having some decent success with this basic Roman Legion:

9-10 Heavy Infantry
3-5 Archers
0-3 Heavy Cavalry

Combined to form 15,000 men. The army is large enough to hold on its own, while when combined with another Legion or two will be able to take even level 3 forts after a couple of assaults.

 

[UniversalWolf]

5 Heavy Infantry
5 Archers
2 Cavalry

This 12 stack has low attrition and can handle most enemy threats. If I need more power I toss in a second 12 stack or some cavalry. Later on I may add 1 elephant and/or 2 horse archers. I never use individual stacks bigger than 15.

I also use small siege stacks of 2 mercenary light infantry and 2 mercenary archers.

 

[Antiochus_Soter]

I am surprised that noone else uses the technique of diving the infantry and cavalry units into seperate armies and only bring them together when it is time for battle.

I swear by it, it gives you great flexibility in that a large cavalry army can hang back in a friendly province with high support but will always arrive at the battle in time because it is so fast when it has no infantry slowing it down.

 

[xGhost4000x]

I am surprised that noone else uses the technique of diving the infantry and cavalry units into seperate armies and only bring them together when it is time for battle.

I swear by it, it gives you great flexibility in that a large cavalry army can hang back in a friendly province with high support but will always arrive at the battle in time because it is so fast when it has no infantry slowing it down.

This + using smaller cav units 1-2 to block off possible retreat territories before the battle ends.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I've been playing with the RoA mod for my current game, and in RoA cavalry has the same movement speed as every other land unit, so it doesn't make sense to split them up.

Normally I have one or two all-cavalry armies for policing and rapid response. Ferrying troops by sea is even better in some situations though.

 

[Cheexsta]

I am surprised that noone else uses the technique of diving the infantry and cavalry units into seperate armies and only bring them together when it is time for battle.

I swear by it, it gives you great flexibility in that a large cavalry army can hang back in a friendly province with high support but will always arrive at the battle in time because it is so fast when it has no infantry slowing it down.

I like to have self-sufficient Legions that I don't have to micromanage, but I have had some success with a small (<10k) mercenary cavalry force running around to complement my army and chase down small enemy forces before they can combine into a big army.

Also, another tip for combat: set the game to pause whenever you win a battle so you can get your victorious army to chase down the routing enemy. They'll arrive on the same day, but your army will be treated as the defender in the ensuing battle (unless there was already an enemy army in the target province). This of course means that you get any bonuses for defending...

 

[Borne2Run]

Depends on the scenario, and what mod you're using. For Magna Terra my Ethiopian Empire has 30k Legion Groups (16k HI, 5k Calvalry, 4k Archers, 5k Elephants), for the Saudi-Arabian area there are 10k Calvalry/HA continents to push back whoever gets stuck besieging the desert.

Since I'd be fighting Egypt I'd need the massive stack to repulse their similar groups of similar size.

 

[unmerged(85507)]

My legions consist of 3 heavy infantry and 2 archers. This might seem small. But it gives me flexibility so that I can easily shift some forces from one province to another without having to reorganize an army. And often you do not want to have more than one or two of these legions in one province because of attrition.

 

[unmerged(429822)]

Rome Gold is new to me but,as a general rule I've kept my Inf, Cav and other units seperate in other games. Lots of good info. Thanks

 

[Lucius Siccius]

My main armies primarily consists of Heavy Infantry and Archers in a 2:1 Ratio (20 units). Cavalry is kept in separate armies (10units) to be used depending on the situation. Support or rebel/barbarian hunting.

 

[merserm]

Hi,
Brand new to EU:R, but I have played EU3 and HOI3 quite a bit. A couple questions.

1. In regard to unit composition do units gain any advantages by being "combined arms"? If so, how?

2. Also, is there any advantage to attacking from multiple provinces? i.e. with hoi3 encirclement, multicombat penalties....

3. Lastly, I have noticed my tooltip/flag-icon tells me certain provinces are cononizable, yet the province itself says barbarian strength too high. Is there any way to lower the barbarian strength?

Thanks very much!

 

[Lofman]

Hi,
Brand new to EU:R, but I have played EU3 and HOI3 quite a bit. A couple questions.

1. In regard to unit composition do units gain any advantages by being "combined arms"? If so, how?

2. Also, is there any advantage to attacking from multiple provinces? i.e. with hoi3 encirclement, multicombat penalties....

3. Lastly, I have noticed my tooltip/flag-icon tells me certain provinces are cononizable, yet the province itself says barbarian strength too high. Is there any way to lower the barbarian strength?

Thanks very much!

1. Basically archers fire from the back, cavalry can attack the flanks while heavy infantry (as well as militia and elephants) stands in the center doing most of the fighting. Going all cavalry is not really cost-efficient (but can be done) and all archers is not a good idea as most unit types will easily slaughter them if they face them directly.

2. No

3. Either wait until they start to move about on their own or just station an army there, which will eventually provoke the barbarians to rise (size for your army as far as I know irrelevant, although a small army will probably be annihilated, but an army that is too large will suffer excessive attrition. Know that the size of the barbarian horde will be what the barbarian power is and consist mostly of militia with some archers and cavalry)

 

[Cheexsta]

There is no Combined Arms bonus like there is in EU3, but units do work together like Lofman says.

 

[Anubisath]

I keep small armies of 6 000 units, 4 heavy infantry and 2 archers or 4 cavalry and 2 cavalry archers. They are small but this way they can be at lots of places and if the war starts I group few of these armies depending on the site enemy sends at me.
I usually hire 1 unit of mercenary militia and send it to stand in the province I want to colonize. They manage to provoke barbarians pretty fast, and since they are mercenaries I don't care if they get annihilated.