Import/export business

So what unit(s) do you go out of your way to get? Does it determine your rate and direction of expansion or do you send out an expeditionary force far from your lands to take a colony where you can build them? I remember back when I used to constantly be shipping Cretan archers and Scythian Riders to my legions, first as auxiliary's and then a continuous stream of replacements when needed. Lately I'm not sure if I've just become more practical or lazy but I've just started using whatever happens to be regionally recruitable in order to cut down on the logistics nightmare.

i usually just use whatever is available in the region , though now and then when the money is flowing in and i have and some FM's spare , i will attempt to field a "royal" factoinal army and charge it out on war path, though i do not really replace them with units from the homeland. ( too far to march ).

as romans, i always use elephants from carthage while fighting celts, works well but kind of role-play-ish, in my mind they are devasting to the barbarians who have never "seen the elephant". Lots of Iberians when fighting in egpyt, idk why but it's kool for me,and some sarmatian horse archers.

I use only the units i could train in my own regions, without colonizing very far. I tend to specialize my cities, in order to be able to recruit a vast range of different units.

Obviously, it depends on the faction i've taken. If i took Carthage, i would send some army to establish a colony far away.

If playing as a European faction and I get a family member who is either getting bad traits because of age or because of his personality I sometimes take him on a tour of eastern Europe to bring back some horse archersand other various useful units I may find on the road

I have an obsession with keeping my units at full health, so I will constantly ferry them back to my homelands, retraining them, and then sending them off again. Huge, ineffecient, and possibly dangerous (Leaves my frontiers very weak) process, but I like my phalangites with 242 men.

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Originally Posted by A Very Super Market

I have an obsession with keeping my units at full health, so I will constantly ferry them back to my homelands, retraining them, and then sending them off again. Huge, ineffecient, and possibly dangerous (Leaves my frontiers very weak) process, but I like my phalangites with 242 men.

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Same here, except that I take a more practical and efficient approach, having a halfstack of reinforcements follow my fullstack of main forces. And then more reinforcements on their way. If I had to ferry my units back and then again... Considering the size of my EB Empires... :dizzy2:

Why not the units together that way you send back a unit or 30 or so men instead of sending 10 units of 170-220 men

Because I can barely afford a single army, at least when I RP.

Usually I just recruit whoever I can get my hands on. It also depends on how I am RPing.

For the Romans, though, I almost always have two generals per unit. It is especially helpfull during sieges when I can send one general out to recruit some of the local mercenaries. As for recruiting from cities, most of my cities are Type IV and I am partial to those Iberian troops :beam: Cheap and effective.

Usually go for the Thracian Peltasts and their brethren, also the Bosporian archers and if I'm playing the gallic factions I head east until i can recruit the Boii Cingetos and west to get the Dunaminica.

As Carthage, with their lack of factional missile units, I always pick up a lot of Balearic Slingers for my western armies and Sardinian Infantry for my eastern ones. The Balearic Light Infantry are also fantastic, and I use them every chance I get.

In my current Karthi campaign (VH/H) I am shipping Balearic slings to Iberia ( and skirmishers, no great distances involved) and to italy ( a bit of a pain actually, and they are getting thin so i disbanded them and replaced them with weak Toxotai) and with the Royal army to Egypt (they are almost untouchable when they flee behind the wall of pikes ha ha).

The royal (ahem Shofetic) army is all Karthi elites (sacred band, african pike, african assault and a big fat ele) and the slings are the only regional in there. They get reinforcements from Carthage only.

Otherwise its strictly regional. I built Hellenic stacks in my type 4 govs in Italy (Hellenic merc clients in Taras, Rhegion and Syracuse, Italic Imperator in Capua), but the Tarantines have Bruttians and Lucanians in their little army whereas Syracuse has hoplites as their line troops backed by a mess of Psiloi.

I have a Numidian army (with a forest ele, ah the joy of elephant owning) patrolling across Africa and they can hop on a boat if needed, but I will try to send them as a regional army, not piecemeal forces (although thats perfectly historical for Karthage if i want to). I have local Iberian armies that are ridiculously powerful for their size, full of Lancearii and Loricati: I am lazily grindiing my way into Eleutheroi cities up to the Pyrenees with these atm (tactics not really required, just point and chop). I will consider sending them to Italy under a FM if my Italian locals start crumbling (not happening yet, in fact the Capuan first army is eyeing Rome).

I'm trying to keep track of each seperate force (no stacking, 8 units per minor general) so they go home to rebuild. Its fun to RP an Italian army formed up deep to fight Romans, and being reinforced by a traditional Greek phalanx formed up wide. "Huh? You guys carry your own javelins? And whats with the checkerboard?"

As Baktria I always capture India so that I can get infantry guild warriors, Indo-Greek Noble hoplites, and indo-greek peltasts. They are all excellent regional units. As Gauls, I go south to capture Massalia as the massalian hoplites are the most armored units available to the celts. If I am in northern Europe (Celts, etc) I also try to capture Ireland, as the Goidilic unit roster is very strong. In Greece, the Thracian regional unit roster is also very strong, and several cities combine Celtic units with Dacian units. I also like to capture a couple of towns in Italy if I am a Greek faction, just so that I can get the Italian (Samnite) heavy infantries... I usually have regional "legions" that are recruited from frontier areas. As greeks, epiorotes, maks, I would have a very strong barbarian legion from thrace, an Italian legion, a Royal guard consisting of Hellenic elites, and an Asian legion.

Once while playing as Baktria, i noticed that the lowest level of Phalanx was available in Saba, so I invaded successfully so that I would have a supply line into egypt, so AOR can, and does determine my expansion.

In summary, Great regions to recruit from:
India - very strong units, and elephants...
Ireland - great regional roster, especially if you edit to allow the elites -
Thrace - The best selection of barbarians anywhere!
Red Sea - Ethiopian units are underrated...
Crimea - mix of Greek and H/A units
Italy - thuggish heavy infantry, and solid medium/light guys. I actually like their cavalry...

Individual hot spots -
Massalia - great hoplites are a must have for barbarians!
Crete/Rhodes - Cretan Archers and Rhodian slingers...

There are probably others, but I haven't played on every corner of the map...

You can see the regions that could possibly support new factions in EB2 just from the recruiting hot spots!

In my Pontos game I ship Bosphoran archers and horsearchers from the Crimea. Always tried to include Belearic Slingers in my armies as Carthage. Other than that I don't tend to conquer far off areas just for certain troops to ship around, but I will build up regional armies in certain settlements to send all together to the front, especially if I own any settlements that produce troops very different from my factional roster (like Galatia, also in the Pontos game).

Mercenaries and local units are RP'ed by me. I only recruit them if I'm not at war with them or when they have been sufficiently pacified. Even then, I tend to send local units to the other side of my empire in order to assure loyalty from these men. This RP even goes for my factional units from my core provinces, who are most of the time not even allowed to train units except when they have the highest lvl barracks.

There is no way I would send in loads of more useful mercenaries.

I tend to either use locals as garrison or guard duty for the bordering territories(when they are of a very common type or they work good as counter for troops there) or I move them to the other side of the empire as in most cases this leads to strategical Superiority over the enemy locals(mostly ranged units and good charging cavalry)
eg: as KH I ship most of my Kretans to the north as they work good against units with few armor(or as Sweboz Baltic archers in gaul) or I send Prodromoi to places where people prefer swords over spears.

In my current Makedonian campaign I got bored of doing the hammer and anvil all the time so I recruited a full stack of horse archers from the Crimea and have that fighting of all those Ptolemaioi fullstacks. They suffer minimal casualties, but every once in a while i have them retrained.
Otherwise I went to conquer Krete for it's archers, antiocheia for it's syrian archers, the crimea for their nice heavy archers, scytian units and Thrace and that city on the amber route for it's great 'barbarian' units.
If possible I want a unit of rompadoroi (or whatever) with my army, they chop through everything!