Standard Unit Stacks

Im a new Total War player and im having a blast with this one so far. However as i have little experience with the game or any of the previous ones, i am having trouble forming good balanced armies. I was going to go to the official forums for help but you guys seemed far more reliable :2thumbsup:

So, I was wondering, what are good templates for a single stack of units (19+ a general) and could you please explain what situation it would be good in and what are some basic tactics that would be good for this army. You can use general terms for unit types (ie spearman and heavy cavalry) or specific ones.

(Im really interested in the scottish and danes as they appear to have nice strong infantry armies and that sounds cool) Thanks in advance! :beam:

You may find some useful information in this thread on army deployment:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73103

But I will leave this thread open for people to suggest their preferred stacks, probably faction specific.

Your question really depends on your playing style, and not only that, what you intend to use the stack for. A stack to defend a castle about to be besieged would need more archers, a stack used to attack a city would need more artillery and infantry, a stack that you'd want to use against an army in the open would need more cavalry.

And then, it also depends on your strategy, which is heavily dependant on your faction. For example, I'm playing as the English so relying heavily on the longbows...

But, here's my "ideal" configuration:

1 General
5 Artillery, preferably catapults or trebuchets
4 archers/longbows
3 Spears to protect the arty & archers
2 Holibars (light cav)
2 Knights/Heavy cav
3 Heavy infantry or billman

This way, I try to draw the enemy out of formation to the sides with my cavalry or archers without engaging directly, while allowing a main force of archers and my artillery to get in range and pound away at them. The heavy infantry comes in handy late in the battle when the enemy is worn down.

One tip: always have some light cavalry in your army! They are so much better at faster at pursuing routing troops, plus they can actually chase down a fleeing enemy general! Any other cav is too slow.

Army selection is a compromise between affordability and combat power. an army composed entirely of mailed knights is probably one of the most potent armies a western power can field, but, at around 5000 gold maintenance per turn, not very economic. I have fielded almost entirely shock cavalry forces in the past, and they are stunningly successful, but casualties are expensive to replace, and the army itself is expensive to raise.

More usually i will field an army that is a mix of militia and feudal troops, and as the milanese, my armies are usually predominantly militia. my army selection is also dependant on what are availiable, but in an ideal world, my selection would be something as follows, for a Jack of all trades field army

General
4xHeavy cavalry
2xsiege engines (catapults and trebuchets prefered)
3xmissile units
10x Infantry (5+ spears, and as many Hvy Inf as possible)

This army can meet any force in the field, and is fairly flexible, an also has the ability to immediately storm any city it comes accross, not to mention siege engines can be very useful on the open field

regards