Yea, peasants are only good to suck some arch volleys vs mediocre players.
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Yea, peasants are only good to suck some arch volleys vs mediocre players.
I usually have a rule to never train peasants, and even disband my starting units, but in my current campaign (Scythians, H/H, huge) I've found my population is growing so fast and "happiness" buildings so few I have to use them to shift population around. I usually send them to captured cities with good facilities and too little population to train any units in. Once disbanded there the city has enough population to train something useful instead!
I never use them in battle -- "sending untrained men in to battle is to throw them away".
I only use them as garrison.
I don't use peasants.
:balloon2:
I am using peasants to train my army.
Senate mission makes me take a town I do not want to hold. After taking it I exterminate and strip all of value, put the tax up very high, and withdraw the garrison. Two turns later it revolts back to its previous owner..and gets loads of peasants as a garrison.
This is a predictable supply of enemies. They can be quite strong though..with much experience weapons and armor.
My closest big fight ever was won by a unit of peasants I happened to have along with the army.
Something quite similar happened to me once when playing as the Brutii. I had take a town in Germania that the British had captured from them earlier. After taking it in a bloody seige, I was forced to leave behind a small garrison and meet another Brittanic army in the field. The town revolted and, to my suprise, the rebels filled the town with a large comtingent of mostly peasants, supplemented by a few militia, warbanders, and barbarian cavalry. All the rebel units had at least 3 silver chevrons,silver sheilds and swords! :oops: After driving off the field army, I reinforced from my closest settlement and came back to besiege the rebel town. :wall:Quote:
Originally Posted by Severous
After about 6 turns of weakening them down, I attacked. The mostly peasant army nearly defeated my superior, highly trained, experienced, mostly Urban Cohort and Preatorian Cavalry force. It was about the second most costly victory I have ever had. It was shocking to see several of my Urban infantry units routed by these ragamuffin blighters. :sweatdrop:
Yes, properly trained and equipped, peasants can be quite capable for a low cost. It can even be a severe phsycolgical blow to an online opponent if he is not suspecting such a ruse.
Something quite similar happened to me once when playing as the Brutii. I had captured a town in Germania that the British had captured from them earlier. After taking it in a bloody seige, I was forced to leave behind a small garrison and meet another Brittanic army in the field. The town revolted and, to my suprise, the rebels filled the town with a large contingent of mostly peasants, supplemented by a few militia, warbanders, and barbarian cavalry. All the rebel units had at least 3 silver chevrons,silver sheilds and swords! :oops:Quote:
Originally Posted by Severous
After driving off the field army, I reinforced from my closest settlement and came back to besiege the rebel town. :wall:
After about 6 turns of weakening them down, I attacked. The mostly peasant army nearly defeated my superior, highly trained, experienced, mostly Urban Cohort and Preatorian Cavalry force. It was about the second most costly victory I have ever had. It was shocking to see several of my Urban infantry units routed by these ragamuffin blighters. :sweatdrop:
Yes, properly trained and equipped, peasants can be quite capable for a low cost. It can even be a severe phsycolgical blow to an online opponent if he is not suspecting such a ruse.
The following factions' peasants have an ATT/DEF 3/3 fighting attribute :
Parthia
Egypt
Carthage
Pontus
Armenia
Numidia
Spain
The following factions' peasants have an ATT/DEF 1/4 fighting attribute :
Gaul
Germany
Briton
Dacia
Scythia
The factions' peasants not listed above all have a 1/1 fighting attribute.
:book:
I haven't played Vanilla RTW for a long time, since I play now EB. ~:)
But when I did play, I rarely used peasants, because they were useless in combat. When I want garrisons, I set up a balance:
-combat power
-money
-unit size
After I checked everything, then I start pumping those units to get rid of surplus population.
Havent played BI in a while (busy with EB), but I used to use them for garrison and a screen for my limite's. In the early parts of your campaigns as romans, the peasants are indespensible as a screening force and arrow shield, the enormous amount of space they take up in loose formation is quite amazing. I often use them as destracting cover while manuevering my heavier forces for a flank or to split their lines before engaging.
They may not be the best in a fight, but skillfully used their indespensible.
If you train them to about silver shields/ silver swords, they can be a pretty good flanking unit! I also use them as a garrison in cities I know aren't going to be attacked.
Summary so far ... Peasants can be used for :
1) Garrison Duty
Peasants are cheap to recruit and maintain !
Normally, I use 1 Peasant unit for every 1000 population in a city.
Bigger unit size = less garrison unit used = less $ maintainence $ cost
(might be useful for large city size and for a faction with a poor economy)
2) Cannon Fodder
Peasants in open formation can draw enemy fire. Especially in a STALEMATED battle where micro managing your units is essential to win the battle or the army you are using has weak ranged units (e.g Spain). Enemy units like Velites, Hastatis will use up their ammo very fast. Without thier ammo, it will open up more tatical possibilities for you.
3) Siege - Who do the dirty work ?
I also find them useful in city siege battles (esp stone walls). I will use them to push Siege Towers/Rams and capture enemy "Towers" while the other infantry units engage enemy units in the melee. "Towers" captured will shoot at the enemy below the walls while they can't do shit to you.
Sap the enemy walls ! Casaulties ? You dont care ! Let the peasants do the dirty work !
3) Bait
Drawing enemy archers out from their rear. You can then charge them down with your calvary.
If the enemy give chase to your Peasants. You can then lure them into a trap. (E.g lure them in range of your archers OR they chase you so deep that you can use your calvary to smash into thier flanks or rear)
3) Bog down Chariots
Tons of infantry mobbing bogged down chariots soon kills chariots. (good idea contributed by Severous ! )
Peasants are also useful for wearing and slowing down units especially cavalry. (good idea contributed by Wardruid ! )
4) Move Population Around
Its a cheap and good way to hasten the developement of a settlement. If you have the extra cash, recruit peasants in a settlement, move them to a nearby settlement, and disband. The population of the settlement will increase and so will its "rank" ... thus developing into a bigger city very fast.
To be continued ...
Yes
wow, DevDave posting in the Entrance Hall !
:balloon2:
I wonder mif one can play an entire capaign using ony peasants
I got "axed".:2thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch_guy
Ah yes I see, what did you get yourself into this time ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave
:balloon2:
'Cuz, I fought the law and the... law won, i fought the law and the... law won.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch_guy
The peasants rose up and... they got none. The peasants rose up and... they got none.
:laugh4:
And you can quote me on that!!!:2thumbsup:
The wrath of Beirut is now common knowledge even in the Entrance Hall :shocked:
Well, lets get back on subject before I get "axed" permanently. I can't do doo-doo, can't even access my control panel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
Peasants are best used for population redistribution, other than that, they are about as worthless as discussing politics, religion, or anything of interest without passion or testicular fortitude.
Using them to move population on the largest unit size is the main use I think. By drawing them from your higher growth territories to those small poducts with valuable trade resources and routes you can get a port up 5-7 turns earlier which is a big difference. For example Kydonia is incredibly lucrative but not worth much until you have a port. Rhodes starts with a port and the size doesn't matter much, it is an importer. Draw peasants from Rhodes every turn till Kyodonia is port sized.
Also someone mentioned above that they can build siege equipment which could be useful. Never had peasnats on the front lines.
I like to keep my public order high so that I don't have to garrison. If I do garrison it is usually with half spent worthless mercs.
Also you can cue severeal peasnats at once to make the public order go higher. My favorite trick is just to cue the unit you really want and thena string of peasants. This is really usefull for letting your army move out of territories you just conquered and onto the next territory.
They might do okay in combat with a mercenary peltast or soomething?
I am wary of queing too many peasants in the build que.
These have been taken from the population so will reduce the tax and trade income whilst pushing army upkeep costs onto other cities.
A useful tactic to be sure to allow your army to move on...but one to check out on the overall faction finances page if being done just to keep taxes high.
An enemy army on the battlefield will react to the distribution of your troops. Running some peasants around will cause the enemy line to readjust...tiring them.
On occasion I use them for pinning enemy cavalry down and let other infantry units flank the cavalry. Ido the same with priests. THey are just as bad and good as cannonfodder or suicide missions in the field
When I can avoid using peasants, I don't use them. I never use them to fight, only as garrison duty.
btw where's the poll?
I never use them except as the Gauls early game when taking out walls. Warbands can't sap so it's back to peasants for getting through walls. It looks like they do have their uses, they're just not the best unit out there.
I try to only use peasents when either the town can't build a Town Watch/Town Militia, or it's the closest thing that faction has to a garrison unit.
I think Peasants have become an exploit. I never use them for battle just for moving populations around and lining up 9 units in recruitment queue in newly conquered towns to help control the unrest (1080 less in population helps a lot the garisson:pop. ratio) And another thing if an earthquake is coming that queue is saving you a lot of population from getting killed
huh ? 1/2 effect ? is it true ?Quote:
Originally Posted by longbowmen
Yes, but only in BI. Not in R:TW.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyNgFL
I use them as cannon fodder and to distract enemies. works alot. like one time i killed the enemy general cause he charged my peasent which were aided by royal pikeman.