Let's talk army composition

[Restless Native]

Ok so first of all I understand there already threads on this on here and other sites. I've been researching this but there's lots of conflicting and confusing info out there. The wiki also is confusing.

First off I have all expansions and latest patch. Let's ignore upkeep, supply limit and terrain in this.

Apologise for a long post but this is a complex subject. Here's what I understand. I am new to this so I could be way off here

1. Battles are composed of the front row and the second row. This are simply lines of regiments that face each other.
2. Infantry and cavalry can only fight when in the front row.
3. Artillery can fight in both but are very exposed in the front row. Essentially you should avoid artillery in the front row.
4. How many can be in the rows depends on combat width. This seems to be the most important thing when considering the composition.
5. Combat width changes with tech. I think it's 7 plus military tech level? This means army composition should also change as you advance.
6. Cavalry has a flanking bonus which means it can attack the unit diagonally in front of it also ( I don't fully understand this but I gather it means two units can gang up on one )
7. Flanking also increases as certain tech levels. ( does this mean cavalry become less important later on )
8. Your infantry and cavalry will be deployed in the front row as priority. I'm not sure sure how it decides how many of each. When the front row is full any remaining will be in reserve and move it to replace units if they are fully beaten.
9. Artillery will be deployed in the back row as long as the front row is full. If it is not full some will move up to the front row. This is bad.
10. During combat units will be removed if they are zero soldiers ( or is this zero morale? ). This means the front row is fluid.

So from what I can gather here are my rules.

1. Combat width is the first thing you check.
2. You ideally want 2 cavalry (any more isn't better than an infantry but as I said I don't understand that bit at all)
3. You then want the rest of the front row in infantry ( combat width minus 2 )
4. There is no point having any more artillery than combat width. But the closer you can afford to combat width the better.
5. As some units are depleted they are removed from the front row. To avoid your artillery being brought to the front you ideally need some reserve infantry ( and cavalry )

So your battle plan should be 2 cavalry plus combat width minus 2 in infantry. Then some infantry reserves? Any rule here? Do you also add a few for break off siege units?
Then as much artillery as you can without going over the combat width ( or at least not going over your total infantry plus cavalry ).

This of course is what you want going into battle and it necessarily in moving around. Also I think early game artillery isn't very affective anyway and not worth it.

So how much of this have I got wrong ?

 

[ScytheV]

Well, the cavalry part. In early tech levels, before infantry gains a lot of fire modifier, cav is a lot stronger. So for early stacks it is worth it to have more than 2, if you can afford it.
But in later techs you may even ditch cav completely, if your tag dont have something like cav CA. In full CW vs full CW fights there is not much room for flanking and cav performs badly in fire phase after tech 21+.
Cannons prior to tech 13 are mostly for sieges. After tech 16 you absolutey must have them for fighting. After tech 13 - if you are filthy rich.
As for the reserves, the best way is to engage an enemy with some stacks so that you'll have full CFW of cannons in the back row, and then reinforce with a pure inf stacks to rotate the front row. Arty will hardly take damage if you do this right.

 

[Bouchart]

You have the gist of it. Artillery isn't very useful early game except for sieges, because it doesn't deal much damage and is very costly. I'd recommend early on that every stack get at least 1 artillery, to get +1 to siege. If you are rich, you might want additional artillery in a stack dedicated for sieges.

Certain countries benefit from going heavy on cavalry, mainly steppe hordes and Poland. Cavalry causes more damage early on than infantry. Also each battle always begins with a Shock phase so cavalry can dish out good damage before infantry get much of a chance to retaliate. Problem is, money can be very tight early on and it will probably make more sense to go with infantry. Also, damage to infantry during a battle can incur an insufficient support penalty to military tactics if you are heavy on cavalry.

For the record, flanking bonuses affect infantry units, but it won't be until later in the game when that has any impact. Infantry start with the ability to attack one tile diagonally if at full strength, but if they take more than 25% damage they can't.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

Battles begin with a fire phase.

I like to keep 2 cav in each stack later in the game just in case I wind up against a stack with a few fewer units. They cost a bit more money, but by the time they fall off enough that you can forgo them, you can afford them, so why not? They get a modifier later on that lets them flank even further, so they can be really good for finishing fights effectively.

I'm also a big fan of quality and aristocratic ideas, even if they aren't necessarily the best, so I do get a bit more use out of them.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

ScytheV has covered the most important points, I think.

If you want detail, these docs (Zwirbaum's) are a little bit outdated but still the best reference I know of: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...5LEKiON0k2rZJ82YbYaB0/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0 & http://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/135820/Zwirbaum's unit guide.pdf

Cavalry/infantry ratios given in the spreadsheet are questionable and basically assume you're doing a lot of fighting against smaller forces. I habitually run four per stack throughout the game. This is more than some people would use, but I like them: they won't win battles for you but they'll make won battles more descisive, flanking the enemy for horrible amounts of damage when their line starts to collapse.

As ScytheV says, being able to bring in extra infantry from reserve will add a lot to your survivability.

Beyond that, there's a lot of more situational finesse that you don't need to know but which you might like to learn just because: but you'll only get most of that from practice and experimentation. If there's a rule of thumb, it's to remember that modifiers multiply with pips - so if you have insane bonuses to morale, morale-focused infantry will pay off at a better rate, if you have a six-shock general, you'll get a bit more milage out of shock pips, and so on. An obvious example of this kind of thing would be that Poland or another nation with big cavalry bonuses can field not only more cavalry, but also more defensive infantry, as you're more relying them to just hold the line while the cavalry does the real damage.

 

[Badesumofu]

Just on front row cannons - I saw something once that made me question the accepted wisdom that you never want cannons in the front row. See if I can find the screenshot...

Here, this wasn't from my own gameplay, btw.

 

[Bouchart]

Smolensk gets some powerful bonuses to artillery. They also deal nearly no damage during the Shock phase. I do wonder if 72k artillery is actually better than 36k infantry and 36k artillery.

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

Also the general with six pips in fire, and 125% discipline, and a crap/average Ottoman general.
And they do have 171 artillery and that is expensive for a lot of nations (except Smolensk).

In most cases you want your artillery to be fully supported by an infantry front row. Situationally that may change, but generally speaking.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

If you are playing a Tengri horde, don't be afraid to go full Cav

 

[Restless Native]

Ok thanks all for the feedback. It looks like I had most of it accurate. So I’m starting to understand flanking a bit more I think. From what I can tell you just do extra damage if you can out number them if you flank better. Also flanking for both cavalry and infantry increase with tech levels.


Due to shock values, a higher proportion of cavalry is better ( but more expensive ) early on, without going over the limit ( default 50% but can vary ) until the fire phase becomes more important. Another thing I learned is this is total number in the stack checked daily, So if you are right on your cavalry ratio limit and some infantry are killed, it will put you over, best not to go right to the ratio limit.

Even one artillery in a stack adds one pip to siege. I did not know that.

Watch your combat width and try to fill it.

So I think I’ve got the idea now. I don’t really want to get too min/max and micro manage every battle composition but as long as I am set up decent and not making any fundamental errors I’m ok with that.

Just on front row cannons - I saw something once that made me question the accepted wisdom that you never want cannons in the front row. See if I can find the screenshot...

Here, this wasn't from my own gameplay, btw.

View attachment 322064

That’s an interesting screen shot, according to the wiki artillery take double damage in the front row, but still deal their full damage ( as opposed to half from the back row ) add half of their defence to the unit in front of them. This is why ideally you want them in the back row regardless what is in front of them. I guess like in that screen shot, if you have full artillery they are both back and front row units, so although the front row units take double damage, they are still supported by the back row units which add 50% of their defence, which alleviates it somewhat, but as explained I think that nation gets some really big artillery bonuses.

 

[iquabakaner]

Just on front row cannons - I saw something once that made me question the accepted wisdom that you never want cannons in the front row. See if I can find the screenshot...

Here, this wasn't from my own gameplay, btw.

View attachment 322064

If you're playing Smolensk, artillery-only army is the way to go.

But only if you're Smolensk.

 

[Badesumofu]

That’s an interesting screen shot, according to the wiki artillery take double damage in the front row, but still deal their full damage ( as opposed to half from the back row ) add half of their defence to the unit in front of them. This is why ideally you want them in the back row regardless what is in front of them. I guess like in that screen shot, if you have full artillery they are both back and front row units, so although the front row units take double damage, they are still supported by the back row units which add 50% of their defence, which alleviates it somewhat, but as explained I think that nation gets some really big artillery bonuses.

It's a very marginal case and really not something you'd generally consider. But artillery, even just from the back row, will be doing most of your damage in the late game. Double-down on it and it can be devastating. The enemy army from that screenshot was more or less beaten after the first fire phase (and fire comes first). The player in that screenie is running +30% art combat ability (as mentioned by others, Smolensk gets bonuses from its NIs).

One other thing to mention with regards to cav - you will generally want to be a bit under your maximum cav ratio because your infantry will take more casualties in the battle. That ratio is rechecked every day, I believe. I would say in most cases it's better just to use enough cav to max out your flanking. Cav is stronger than inf early on but it's a lot more expensive. In most cases you'd get better bang for your buck spending that money on something else. As fire begins to dominate in the later game I usually stop bothering to build it entirely.

Part of the reason that I posted the screen shot though was just to highlight that there are often exceptions the rules of thumb in this game. Even crazy stuff like pure cannon armies can work in certain circumstances.

 

[bly08]

You don't need to fill combat width if the enemy stack does not fill it. Only need to match their frontline with extra cavs when possible. Most battles early/mid game are fought at less than combat width.

 

[Restless Native]

You don't need to fill combat width if the enemy stack does not fill it. Only need to match their frontline with extra cavs when possible. Most battles early/mid game are fought at less than combat width.

This is a good point but I find that by the reformation and even before age I'm fighting battles against multiple armies that fills combat width. Plus if I'm filling the combat width and they are not, my composition isn't as important with the numerical superiority.

But it leads to a good question. Say a combat width of 20, if you go with 16 inf and 4 cavalry and fight an army with just 10 or 12 inf, is your cavalry useless?

 

[bly08]

They should still flank, though I'm not 100% certain.

 

[Badesumofu]

This is a good point but I find that by the reformation and even before age I'm fighting battles against multiple armies that fills combat width. Plus if I'm filling the combat width and they are not, my composition isn't as important with the numerical superiority.

But it leads to a good question. Say a combat width of 20, if you go with 16 inf and 4 cavalry and fight an army with just 10 or 12 inf, is your cavalry useless?

Your cav would be deployed on their flanks. 4 of your inf would be mostly useless in that situation.

 

[Restless Native]

Your cav would be deployed on their flanks. 4 of your inf would be mostly useless in that situation.

Right so Cav are automatically put on the flanks to the enemy no matter how many infantry you have?

 

[bly08]

In the case where you outnumber their frontline they should be. But in other situations it's pretty buggy. For example if you send in one stack after the other sometimes cavs will get deployed in the middle instead.

 

[tobias.mb]

Most has already been said. I'll just put the Combat width progression with tech
You should also be able to see your current bonus in the tech screen at the mil techs. I think it only displays the bonus though, so you'll have to remember the base value.

Another thing about combat width. In most cases it is better to be at combat width, even if you end up with mostly Inf Armies. So early game as a minor you can just run around with something like 18 Inf + 2 Cav. Getting outflanked hurts.

For Inf reserves: Technically you don't need any. Still for convience sake I usually take around 30% CW extra Inf.
Instead what you should do is to have an extra army of pure Inf (CW + some reinforcements) behind your main stack and reinforce at some point in the battle. That way you also refresh some morale during battle.

 

[bly08]

You don't ever need to engage with more than CW. You can reinforce later but there's no need to do it with a full CW army, the damaged regiments don't get replaced with new ones.