Ideal army composition?

[Insalada]

Hey y'all, so I'm a bit new to EU4, only have about a hundred hours, and the thing that confuses me the most is army composition. How many infantry do I need? How many cav, etc... How should I reduce attrition as that's such a big problem for me, and I still have no idea how to go on about wars, should I move my whole army for sieging provinces and forts? What should be my strategy in most wars?

Any help would be extremely appreciated, thank you!

 

[Butterkeks93]

I'm a noob myself, but I know that there's a limit to Cavalry-Infantry ratio. Iirc, it's 50%, so an army should never have more than 50% cavalry. For some countries this is different, Ottomans can have 10% more cavalry in an army.
I mostly go for 30 Infantry, 15 cavalry and 6 Artillery. If the enemy has a stronger army I simply fight him with one or two armies more.

When I go to war against a smaller country I simply crush them in a full frontal assault.
Against bigger enemies or ones with many vassals (Looking at you Austria!) I try to lure them into my land and then defeat the armies seperately. Once this is done I conquer my territory back and conquer some of the enemies'. Repeat.

 

[Froonk]

Ideal army composition depends on your tech, income and national ideas. However as a rule of thumb you want frontline full of infantry up to your combat width, 2 cavalry if you can afford to and combat width amount of artillery. You don't need artillery early in the game except 1 to help with sieges but from military tech 16 through 25 you should try and gradually increase artillery amount to combat width thus equal to your infantry.

There is some nations with ideas that boost cavalry that will adjust how many you will use and tech groups that have stronger cavalry especially early on (Eastern, Anatolian, Muslim, Hordes) but for most Western tech groups you don't need more than 2.

You also need to be conscious of supply limit and split your armies to not take too much attrition, as supply limit lags somewhat behind the combat width especially with artillery.

 

[Sidolowka]

It really depends on who you're playing, and how far into the game you are. If you're starting off as a OPM, having 6 Inf and 4 Cav can make a huge impact when fighting against 10 Inf. But considering how you're new, I'll assume you're playing one of the larger nations that can fill out combat width.

In the early to mid game your army should look something like

• Full Combat Width of Infantry
• 2 or 4 Cavalry
• 1 Artillery, more if you can afford it, but early game artillery is slightly disappointing.

Late game the ideal composition would be

• Full Combat Width of Infantry
• 2 or 4 Cavalry
• Full Combat Width of Artillery

I usually ditch the Cavalry though, since their impact is negligible, compared to their increased cost.

This is a very generic guideline though, with nations such as Poland and the Tengri hordes wanting as much Cavalry as you can get. Watch Dragoon's somewhat meme-y video of Tengri Horde Poland to get an idea of why.

 

[Katrex]

As many infantry as you can afford.
Tech 7 1 artillery

Tech 16 Combat width of artillery

Fuckcav, its not worth the hassle of keeping track of. The benefit isn egligible.

 

[Froonk]

As many infantry as you can afford.
Tech 7 1 artillery

Tech 16 Combat width of artillery

Fuckcav, its not worth the hassle of keeping track of. The benefit isn egligible.

Cav effect is not negligible, especially early on when frontline can stay below combat width for multiple days and shock phase is where most of the damage happens, the argument is whether it is worth the 2.5x the cost.

Taking the correct assessment cavalry cost 2.5x and don't have 2.5x benefit to mean that is neglible is misleading, especially when there are few combat modifiers early on and manpower conversation can be more important with new mercenary system.

I do wish that more nations that focused on cavalry would have gotten appropriate benefits to cavalry however, maybe via estate privileges. Like France, Ottomans, Mamelukes, Timurids and some others at 1444 start. You would eventually want to revoke the privilege ideally.

 

[Katrex]

Cav effect is not negligible, especially early on when frontline can stay below combat width for multiple days and shock phase is where most of the damage happens, the argument is whether it is worth the 2.5x the cost.

Taking the correct assessment cavalry cost 2.5x and don't have 2.5x benefit to mean that is neglible is misleading, especially when there are few combat modifiers early on and manpower conversation can be more important with new mercenary system.

I do wish that more nations that focused on cavalry would have gotten appropriate benefits to cavalry however, maybe via estate privileges. Like France, Ottomans, Mamelukes, Timurids and some others at 1444 start. You would eventually want to revoke the privilege ideally.

I rather spend my time focusing on other things than creating and updating ideal templates, especially when you cant pause in mp.

 

[delta180]

I mostly go for 30 Infantry, 15 cavalry and 6 Artillery

you shouldn't do this because if your infantry start taking more damage than your cav you will get the malice from having too much cav