Your Ideal Army, Enemy, etc.

What I'm wondering is what style of army do people use most often? As I see it, there is the Celto-Germanic style of massed infantry, there is the successor states strategy with phalanxes and local troops, the dread horse archer army, heavy infantry armies, horse archer armies, and there are a few others.

My personal favorite has to be a late-game Romani army. I like to start off with Legions, because I have the most fun with them. The Legionary is of course the backbone of this army, with between 8 and 10 cohorts of them, not including special cohorts like First Cohorts or Praetorian ones (both of which which I use as a bodyguard for my General, morale boosters for my main line, or as a powerful reinforcement when my line is weakening). I can't remember what they're called properly, but the Post-Marian Elite Light Infantry I simply adore. I cannot express how much I love these guys, they are my special forces and I usually have 2-4 of them in any given army. I don't have great cavalry and I don't often have significant ranged units either, but I use them when they are needed. Artillery I ignore if I'm not taking civilized cities.

My strategy generally involves setting up an unbalanced line so that I can roll the enemies line up bit by bit starting on one side. It's a single envelopment, sure, but it is effective. Cavalry is used to start a rout or take out archers and slingers.

My main weakness are Horse Archer armies and similar Heavy Infantry armies. I don't have much trouble with the Celts or the Germans. I've also discovered that the Lusotann, if they can produce some of their higher-up units, are really, really nasty to fight. I mean I really HATE fighting these guys. I totally underestimated them three times, but not anymore. Successor armies aren't really a problem for me. Though they are fun to play as, very strategic. Don't like the Carthies very much, but they haven't hurt me as bad as the Lusos have (but they will)

So I guess my question is this: What style army do you use, ideally, and what enemies do you hate to face? Love to face (for the free Chevrons!)?

How about your second favorite? My second favorite style is the successor/hellenic states. I think my next campaign will be with the HK.

My favorite army type as of right now is what I call a "Black Sea Helleno-Thraikian army". I use a core of Hoplitai/Celto-Hellenic hoplitai, Right flank of Kuarothoroi/Thraikioi Rhomphaiorai/Gala-Thraikes (soon to include Cordinau Orca), Left flank of Teceitos/Gala-Thraikes, foot archer support Skythian foot archers/ Bosphoran Heavy archers. Right cav. wing-FM+Thraikioi Prodromoi, left wing Thraikioi Hippeis/Skythian HA/Riders. Add to that Peltastai (both types) and 1 slinger unit (Celtic or Sphendonetai) when there are additional unit slots and extra cash. I'm using this set-up as Pontos and it's working a lot better than my factional troops.

I go through periods where I like heavy infantry armies from Rome or Carthage, and then for a change I go far east and go for steppe faction horse archer armies. I'm not too much of a fan of successor kingdom phalanx warfare.

I definitely like the sound of that Black Sea area army. Those rombo rhombo guys with big 2 handed swords kick arse! I think I'll head that way first with my new Romani campaign.

That's the beauty of EB - so many different ways of playing, you can never get sick of it!

The core most armies I lead is heavy infantry. My favorite heavy infantry units are the Carthaginian axemen, the Seleukid elite spearmen, and the rhomparoi (sp?). I'll usually have at least 8 units of heavy infantry in a full stack army.

I will use at least 3-4 units of missile troops. Normally I prefer archers, because I love flame arrows, but if I can get good slingers in the area, I will.

In my opinion the most important part of any full stack army I lead will be the 200+ cavalry (the heavier the better) I bring along. I almost always use charges as my morale breakers, and if my cavalry has a bad day, my army often suffers.

I don't really like phalanxes. For defending a town, they are great, but I much prefer the maneuverability on non-phalanx units, even if I have to use a light infantry instead of a phalanx in any kind of open ground battle.

As far as who I like fighting against, the Eleutheroi often give good battles. I hate fighting in trees, but any faction, even nomadic archers are fun to fight, just to make you have to use differing strategies.

I love using armies heavy on range vs lightly armored enemies. Something about watching hundreds of arrows fly over my ranks and tear down the enemy before they even make contact with me just makes me feel good on the inside.

I hate using phalanxes and fighting against them, although I have played the eastern and hellenic factions many times over.

Now I am stuck on what to play. My last KH as Massalia game was really fun.

my ideal army composition...
18 units of Saka Horse Archers + 2 FMs
my ideal enemy...
everything else :D

An ideal army, needs an eastern successor faction:

- A solid line of phalangites to form the center.
- Behind them high quality eastern archers to blacken the sky with arrows.
- Some heavy thorakitai-types to guard the flanks.
- Horse archers on both flanks to circle behind the enemy line.
- A core of heavy armored lancers to deliver the killing blow.

This basic "balanced" army can be modified to better counter different enemies by tweaking the number of different unit types present:
- Against heavy infantry (Romani) armies, use less archers and more heavy cavalry.
- Against successor armies, less archers and more phalangites.
- Against eastern/steppe armies, less phalangites and infantry, more archers (especially archer-spearmen) and cavalry.
- Against Punic-style armies, less archers and more infantry to the flanks.
- Against classical (KH) hoplitai-armies, keep it balanced.

I must admit that I am a lover of Hellenistic warfare. Phalangites, excellent heavy infantry and cavalry and possibilities of "reforming" your armies by making them more flexible is one of the many pluses of rock/solid Greek phalanxes. Cons are that you can basically fight only flat terrain, as well as the fact that you need to micromanage your army a lot if you want to avoid as many casualties as possible.

Maion

a good centre line of heavy infantry with great light infantry and skirmishers to flank and pepper the enemy from behind? sorted :2thumbsup:

Depends on what I'm up against, but as I usually need more than just 1 or 2 armies capable of fending off a full stack AI army due to far-flung territories with little tactical depth available (like when playing a KH campaign expanded over Balkan, Pontus Euxinos, Mikra Asia and Syria and hence at war with Getai, Sauromatae, AS, Ptolemaioi, Hayasdan and at some point, inevitably, Romani) I need to carefully observe the army upkeep (unless of course I'd employ "console=>process_cq" which would sort of make playing a campaign pointless).
Thureophoroi are the best choice of infantry for balancing kill ratio and expense (my experience so far, anyone know a better widely available KH unit for the job please let me know) - ~6 units; 2 units of prodromoi (need them to both break enemy morale with rear charges and hunt them all down afterwards, thus no heavy cav), preferably 1 unit of Tindanotae (triples the effect of rear cav charges, sometimes the enemy breaks before the cavalry hits) in the middle of the action, ~2 units of hoplitai for either strong flanks or an indestructible center, the rest made up of psiloi (slingers and akontistai or archers, depending on what's coming at me). The KH phalanx is rather obsolete as the upkeep is far to high - same goes for thorakitai as a mainstay and there are not many places to retrain them; I hate replenishing armies by merging with single-unit stacks sent after them, gives the game an artificial feel somehow and there are always too many enemy diplomats in my hinterland...

I recently tried a Romani campaign but quit around 250BC because it is nigh-impossible to conquer the
historic expansion area on VH campaign difficulty before the map is dotted with foreign-culture huge cities meaning there's no way to get rid of culture penalties and thus huge garrisons even far behind the borders or regular genocide are needed to compensate (does Qart Hadast start out as a huge city? Couldn't reach it before it got a magistrate's chambers even after campaign restart and power-playing this time, i.e. less than 2 FM per stack and more than 1 triarii unit and no regional units in the armies even though I went right at them after consolidating Italy and Illyria).
A very effective army composition for the early stage though is
1 unit of triarii,
2 units of principes,
2-4 units of hastati,
2 units of roarii,
4 units of accensi
plus if you want to play "historically correct" samnite and bruttian units in symmetrical numbers to the med and heavy factional infantry and 2 units of campanian (or other regional) cavalry for every roman cav unit including FM.
In low wooden palisade siege battles, it is great for bug-using: run all jav infantry up against the wall in rows to both sides of the gate and set them to auto-fire, send triarii to the gate with battering ram, accensi as close as possible to the wall but out of def-turret range, set to auto fire as soon as the other infantry has cleared the area immediately before them. The AI runs from the missile-spam, back into it and out again (already suffering ~20% casualties from the first few volleys) and you can rush the triarii inside, set to def mode and "camp" in a broad row formation in the area next to the wall beside a building, facing towards the gate but at enough distance to accomodate the opposing army between the building and the wall :) and at least 2-3 men deep (this and the def mode are necessary to avoid casualties; done correctly they will lose no more than 30 men, about the only casualties on your side for the whole battle). The AI will send all except for maybe 2 units guarding the town square directly against them from the road between battered gate and town square, if there is a unit "behind" the triarii, send in 1 unit of principes or the general with them to guard the rear, then let the swarm come and when they're all up against the triarii and the accensi have spent their ammo send in the hastati to form a wall behind the enemy, trapping them, then attack - due to all the runnig caused by the missile barrage while the gate was being forced they will be so exausted that the attack from behind will very quickly if not immediately rout them. Free butchery-chevrons for the hastati and heroic victories for the generals; best against "barbarians" as it does not work so well if there are phalanx units defending the town. Oh and I did this with RTW.exe, so I don't know if it was fixed with BI or ALX.
You may want to position the triarii at an angle so that their shields will hold off any stray shots from the accensi and you might have to manually direct the fire of the accensi as on auto fire they won't shoot at enemy units already engaged in melee with friendly units.
However, if you're up against stone walls and the enemy has sword infantry or heavies on them, you're totally screwed with romani... Which is why I think they're ultimately not so much fun to play.

With baktria and pontos I usually had pantodapoi phalanxes and archers using mostly the generals as cavalry but got persistent CTD before I got to prepare tactics for stone wall battles.

My fav is the Celtic and Germanic way; massed infantry, heavy and medium is what works for me. I'm a believer in up close and personal fighting :duel:, the true measure of an honorable warrior's skill. Warbands formed around the Champions and elites is quite thrilling for me...especially against other heavy infantry ~:)

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Originally Posted by Power2the1

My fav is the Celtic and Germanic way; massed infantry, heavy and medium is what works for me. I'm a believer in up close and personal fighting :duel:, the true measure of an honorable warrior's skill. Warbands formed around the Champions and elites is quite thrilling for me...especially against other heavy infantry ~:)

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While I love the carthaginian axemen and thracian rhomporoi above all others, I also am partial to the Celts.

Northern swordsmen are great low-MIC troops, and mercenary thanes are amazing. casse has some great sword wielding units as well, but i hate playing their early game. I can't use their chariots AT ALL.

I am also especially fond of Keltoi and Thraikioi, so I build type 3 governments in northern Hellas to train many excellent troops such as Tribaloi, Galathraikes and Rhomphaiophoroi. Especially the latter seem to excell in the job of extreme flankers:yes:

Maion

Quote:

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Originally Posted by softiron

18 units of Saka Horse Archers + 2 FMs
my ideal enemy...
everything else :D

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In a thick forest...