Your ideal stack and how you use it

[BananaBob]

What is your ideal stack and how do you use it? What is the perfect combination of units that make up your unbeatable "dream stack"?

Mine perfect stack consists of

4 pikes
2-4 heavy infantry
4 muskets/crossbows
2 heavy cav
2-4 Light cav/ missile cav
the rest as gun powder artillery

I have my pikes make a wall around my muskets and artillery, one heavy cav unit
on either side of the line for flanking, and I rush my missle cav behind the enemy line and harass. The mass musket and culverin/basilisk fire coupled with groups of reiters doing the shoot'n'charge is pretty much an instant route and the light cav clen up the fleeing enemy effortlessly. MANY a heroic victory hath come from this strategy.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

Welcome to the Guild, BananaBob.

Although your tactic might work, I find it a little unrealistic to put the muskets behind the pikes, as they can never get a clear shot. And I don't think pikes are a good frontline unit. They should be, but are severely bugged. Instead, I place my muskets in between the lowered pikes to blunt the charge before it penetrates to the pikemen causing them to switch to their swords, which is when they will die like flies.
Concerning the reiters, the enemy unit often stands still to receive the charge. At this point, stop the charge and you can shoot them in detail while they stand there waiting what happens next...

There's some other tactics threads here you might be interested in, e. g. https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88758

[Grombeard]

This is my standard formation i use in singleplayer games:

I usually use a line of Spearmen (Armoured Sergeants or similiar units) as my frontline to hold off the initial blow if the enemy charges (with cavalry). To backup these troops after contact, heavy infantry (like DFKs) wait right behind this line. They also take care of enemys approaching around my flanks when my cavalry is busy. Next comes my missile crew (Archers or Xbows, though on flat ground i find archers are often better because i usually place them behind my lines and xbows need longer range to fire over the frontline, but usually i use them anyhow when they become available) to decimate the enemy before impact or harass the enemy general if he lurks around behind his men. Finally, on either side of the formation a few heavy cavalry units wait until they can flank the enemy and charge in their backs, chase down the enemy general, kill ballista/catapult/cannon crews and whatever duty has to be done. If i'm fighting against eastern factiosn i usually bring 50/50 heavy/light cavalry instead of only heavy, to be able to chase down these horse archers...

That's it... well, ok, if one is around, my general waits behind the middle of the front line so he can jump in and save the day whenever the front line soldiers can't hold it (the enemy ;)) any more or when flank support is required.

So heres the rough army composition in short:
6-8 Spearmen
4-6 Heavy Infantry
4-6 Missile Troops
4-8 Heavy Cav
(or 2-4 Heavy Cav and 2-4 Light Cav)
1 General ;)

[Galain_Ironhide]

welcome to the org BananaBob

Hmmm... Lets See

English

3 x Spears
6 x Retinue Longbows
4 x Dism. Armoured Swordsman / dism. English Knights
4 x Heavy Cav
1 x General
2 x treb's

Turks

3 x Dism. Sipahi Lancers
2 x Naffatun
3 x Saracen Militia / Halberd Miltia
5 x Ottoman Infantry (Archers)
1 x General
4 x Sipahi's
2 x Catapaults

or

20 x Sipahi's

Plus a few variants of this. When facing the Mongols/Timurids I will normally increase my Spear units and archer units for the stand off and decrease my other infantry units. When playing as the Turks, flanking with Sipahis are very good for countering the Mongols' horse archers, drawing fire away from the main infantry lines allowing a more effective strike on the Mongols centre, which will usually consist of the General unit.

By the sounds of things I will be getting a re-education in how the Mongols conduct themselves in Broken Crescent though

[Zaleukos]

I often use the following Scottish stack, which is available fairly early:

4 highlander archers in a thin line
4 highlander nobles/order knights (border horse until nobles become available) in two groups, hidden at the flanks
6-7 highlander pikemen or scots pike militia (use ordinary highlanders until pike is available) behind the archers
4 highlanders in two groups to cover the flanks of the pikemen (later replaced by noble swordsmen).
General
1 bombard if sieging.

Not very sophisticated, but:

- Position yourself in a forest
- the archers pelt the advancing enemy and retreat behind the pikemen
- Pike holds the enemy (the militia will take huge losses if used)
- any enemies who try to flank you are dealt with by the highlanders
- pinned enemies are charged by the highlander nobles from the flank or back
- Archers are either put at the flanks for continued pelting or set to a dense formation (skirmish off) and used as an extra "charging reserve" (scottish archers are better at melee than at archery)

The general takes out enemy archers.

Obviously this setup has deficiencies on the attack (where I'd at the very least want to bring some border horse along) and would probably get eaten alive in MP, but against an advancing AI it works fine. The highlander nobles have the same charge bonus as feudal knights. I could use order knights instead of nobles, but prefer not to as I find that the lack of knights adds to the flavour of the scots.

[BananaBob]

Welcome to the Guild, BananaBob.

Although your tactic might work, I find it a little unrealistic to put the muskets behind the pikes, as they can never get a clear shot. And I don't think pikes are a good frontline unit.
Concerning the reiters, the enemy unit often stands still to receive the charge. At this point, stop the charge and you can shoot them in detail while they stand there waiting what happens next...

I find that If you have any hills/ mountainous regions (Iberia especially) You can place the pikes so that they are in front of the muskets while at a lower elevation, and put a unit of heavy infantry in between. When you see infantry approach you lines, rush your infantry up and engage, followed by a quick cavalry charge from the heavy cav. Once the enemy routes, move your cav and infantry behind the pikes, and loose your skirmishers on the routers. If your playing the Spanish/Portuguese or have Swiss/Landersnekt (sp?) The pikemen can do a lot of damage with the swords, and you can usually get away with only minimal amounts of Heavy infantry.

They should be, but are severely bugged. Instead, I place my muskets in between the lowered pikes to blunt the charge before it penetrates to the pikemen causing them to switch to their swords, which is when they will die like flies.

Regarding the pikes, I have never had them not work out for me. They just keep the pikes out and keep the enemy at a distance until one enemy worms their way toe to toe with a pikeman. Only that pikemen switches to their swords and defends himself, the rest of his unit keeps the pikes out. It looks cool when to pikes slowly close in on each other. Like that "bad war" painting from the Italian wars.

Also, what is the current patch? I thought it was 1.3, but when I installed kingdoms it says patched to 1.4?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Also, what is the current patch? I thought it was 1.3, but when I installed kingdoms it says patched to 1.4?

Maybe you won some special patch for being the 1,000th person to install Kingdoms, because I have never heard of a patch 1.4 and if it has fixed your pikemen then I really want it now!

Pikemen have always been bugged as far as I have seen. The kill charging cavalry head-on, otherwise to me they appear useless. Anyway, my armies...

Turks:

As the Turks I like to vary things a bit. Playing as these guys has made me appreciate how deadly all cavalry armies are. However, representing the Ottomans in the late game I also like building some armies of Dis. Sipahi Lancers, Janissary Hvy Infantry, Janissary Archers / Ottoman Infantry, with some cavalry, artillery, and if available Janisarry Musketeers thrown in. However, my favourit earmy is:

1x General's Boyguard
5x Qapukulu (their maces will take down even the heaviest opponents)
2x Sipahi Lancers (bye-bye enemy foot archers)
6x Turkomans (round one flank, got speed and stamina which Sipahis lack)
6x Sipahis (round the other flank, got the armour and the punching power)

I'll just leave it at the Turks right now, since I can remember them best as I'm at Turn 190-something with them in my current campaign.

[BananaBob]

Maybe you won some special patch for being the 1,000th person to install Kingdoms, because I have never heard of a patch 1.4 and if it has fixed your pikemen then I really want it now!

I certainly hope so!

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Also, what is the current patch? I thought it was 1.3, but when I installed kingdoms it says patched to 1.4?

Kingdoms is version 1.4. Pikes still suck in Kingdoms unless you remove their secondary weapons.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

If only the single guy - not the whole unit - would switch to swords, that would be a dream. But I have never seen that in my game. It works in RTW, why not in MTW2?

Playing Kingdoms from Gold Edition, version is 1.4, pikes are still bugged... Hoping the final patch will fix it...

[PBI]

My "ideal" stack would be equal parts musketeers, pikemen and late-period fast cavalry such as conquistadores or demi-lancers, to make an army roughly resembling an English Civil War era army. "Ideally" this stack should demonstrate any similar sized medieval army of knights, archers and swordsmen to be thouroughly obsolete.

Of course practically, this army doesn't really work very well given its hefty price tag. Therefore more ideal practical army at the moment would have to be:

10 Polish Nobles
10 Strelzcy

This army can be built from a wooden castle and seems to be very cost effective against the militia stacks seen in the early period, and seems to be quite effective against horse archers too. In fact I can't really think of any cheap and efficient way of defeating such a force.

Of course, this refers only to my ideal field army. My ideal siege army looks very different.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Depends on the army your are fighting against but my run of the mill standard late army is as follows (exception unhorsed knights)

x8 Portugese Abrequeser (PORTUGESE not reg!)
x4 Unhorsed Knights
x3 Tercio Pikemen
x2 Heavy Horse (chiv knights or the like)
x2 Musketeer
x1 Officer

of course there are exceptions... alot of time ill make a gun only stack

x10 Portugese Arbs
x6 Musketeers
x1 Culverin
x2 Heavy Horse
x1 Officer

against the tims/mongols alot of archers ,spearmen of all types and qualitys and light horse ..all of them spammed in abundance and without regard

theres many other combos tho that im sure are just as or more effective.... few as pretty to watch tho =)

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Playing as the Turks and fighting the Mongols:
1 general
5 heavy cavalry (Quapukulu)
14 HAs (Sipahi and Turkoman)

As the English:
1 general
7 longbows of any kind
4 heavy cavalry
4 armored swords
4 spears

As the Moors:
20 Camel gunners

[Vladimir]

1 Bodyguard
6 Spears (any)
4 Sword (any)
4 Archer (any, archers are simpler but you can work in two crossbowmen)
2 Heavy/med Cav (or light)
3 Missile Cav (or light)

It's assumed that all unit categories are of the same type.

We're doing full stacks right? This one is perfect because by the time all you people get up to your high tech "ideal" armies I'll have conquered Asia minor and Africa while you're stuck, bankrupt, in your little corner of the map.

This army can do anything, and is all I need.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well I could just get an army of 20 Turkish Horse Archers / Turkomans...

Or Italian Spear Militia and Pavise Xbows as the Italian factions...

Or Mailed Knights with some others as anyone else...

Any of those armies can pwn the world. But they're not quite the 'ideal' stacks.

[Vladimir]

Well I could just get an army of 20 Turkish Horse Archers / Turkomans...

Or Italian Spear Militia and Pavise Xbows as the Italian factions...

Or Mailed Knights with some others as anyone else...

Any of those armies can pwn the world. But they're not quite the 'ideal' stacks.

Spam is far from ideal. Every time you overspecialize like with your horse archers you set yourself up for defeat. The army also shouldn't be faction specific. The army I use is ideal because it requires little infrastructure to raise and support, is maneuverable, flexible, and can be easily upgraded to incorporate new technology. Even as powerful as the Italian militias are, their relatively limited number of cities would be hard pressed to field enough men.

[Askthepizzaguy]

My dream stack is Ultimate light cavalry. Works against everything besides a full stack of Ultimate heavy cavalry or a full stack of Ultimate camel gunners.

Ultimate light cavalry:

My king's bodyguard unit (x1)
My king's personal heavy cavalry companion unit (x1)
Gold chevron, armour and lance upgraded light cavalry (x13)
If applicable, horse archers (x5), or heavy cavalry (x5)

More maneuverable and fast than any other unit, still equipped to deal a devastating charge, can do hit and run and doesn't tire easily, can outrun anything and keep up with horse archer armies.

Horse archers versus ultimate light cavalry = pwned.
Heavy infantry divisions and archers versus ultimate light cavalry = pwned
Standard assortment of cavalry and infantry versus ultimate light cavalry = pwned
Artillery versus ultimate light cavalry = pwned
Gunpowder versus ultimate light cavalry = pwned

Tactics: Surround and flank any infantry or cavalry to make them rout. If the general then exposes himself to prevent his troops from routing, surround him completely and continue pounding his troops from all directions to make them unable to envelop your cavalry without taking severe charges from the rear. If the general attempts to run away, light cavalry destroys him. Perfect general slayer when upgraded and used en masse.

When facing the Mongol horde, or any other "Ultimate heavy cavalry" combination, I don't put all my eggs in a single stack. I could probably come up with a single stack combo that could toe to toe slug it out with the mongols, but that would be a big bother and would destroy a lot of good troops needlessly. Thats why for anything the Ultimate light cavalry brigades cannot kill, I bring in my spammed heavy infantry and cavalry to surround and pound mercilessly from all directions. That is how you isolate and bring the fight to every single Mongol stack, even if their army is bigger than yours, your local numbers advantage will decimate stack after stack of troops and slowly destroy them with fewer losses on your part.

For the other 98% of battles, Ultimate light cavalry pwns. Other than seiges of course. The best seige force is any two stacks of infantry. If the enemy has reinforcements, thats what the ultimate light cavalry is there to slay first.

Ultimate light cavalry own the battlefield outside of seiges, and also own sally battles on both the defender and offensive side. Their only weakness is offensive seige situations where the enemy doesnt sally and I need to take the city by force, or when the Mongols arrive with their spammed heavy cavalry.

Everything else, light horse will own. Especially you horse archer lovers. I salivate at the thought of pounding your miserable cowardly horse archers into oblivion with my light cavalry. Since heavy cavalry is more expensive to recruit and maintain, and is more difficult to recruit outside your main recruitment centers, light cavalry is much easier to spam in greater numbers, from almost any captured castle from anywhere in the world.

Note: haven't actually used the Ultimate light cavalry spam as the main tactic in my campaigns, but I love, love, love using them in battles and am considering doing an Ultimate light cavalry campaign.

My critics:

"But any unit is more effective when upgraded. Why couldn't I do ultimate heavy infantry and slay your light cavalry?"

Light cavalry is available since the very beginning of the campaign, costs little to produce and maintain, can rout and destroy more enemies than any infantry army ever could, and I can recruit them from anywhere. Which army are you more likely to see spammed all over the campaign map, heavy armoured infantry with gold chevrons, or light cavalry with gold chevrons?

"What about ultimate heavy cavalry?"

Too expensive to maintain and costly to recruit. Requires more specific buildings to recruit, making them less available. By the time you churn out your gold heavy cavalry, my vast armies of light cavalry have already destroyed your empire. While if they were used in practice, heavy cavalry comparable to my light cavalry would win, they are just much more difficult to create and would be greatly outnumbered by my light cavalry spam.

[Vladimir]

Mountains and/or forest = cold pizza

spam = loss

You do have a strong argument though. Maneuverability is what you need on the battlefield. Low costs help too.

[Galain_Ironhide]

Spam is far from ideal.

I'm sure my 600 or so Sipahi's wouldn't like you calling them spam!

You are definately right though. But when you are bored, sometimes creating all same-type stacks can just spice up the game a little.

[PBI]

I think possibly there are two different questions being asked here. I believe the OP was asking what your idea of the best stack you could possibly assemble would be, i.e. which would be most effective in battle, irrespective of cost and availability.

There is a separate question to this, which is "what is the most cost-effective stack you could produce, i.e. a stack which although it may ultimately lose the battle to the above stack, would win the war through its abundance and cheapness.

Perhaps we should have two different categories, a "best budget model" stack, and a "best in show" stack. Of course, my favourite stack falls into neither category; it is neither particularly effective, nor is it very cheap. I just like it.

You are definately right though. But when you are bored, sometimes creating all same-type stacks can just spice up the game a little.

Agreed, I find sometimes it is fun to take on an enemy army with a totally unsuitable army. Like trying to take on an eastern horse archer army with an all pikemen stack. After all, Alexander did it, so it must be possible.

[PrestigeX]

My ideal army would include.

half horse
half foot

Half of the horse would be missile cav
the other would be Heavy Cav

Foot army would include half pike/spear units
2 archer units
and then some heavy infantry , i think it would be 3.. sometimes no archers and more heavy infantry, and vice versa

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Is there actually still a cav-in-tree penalty? In mtw1 there was of course, as there was for missles in the rain. But I havent noticed any such penalties in mtw2. obviously the trees break up the formations abit but they dont seem to die any faster/shoot any worse in their assumed adverse conditions.

Why would ne1 shiltrom an entire army of pikemen? putting ur eggs in 1 basket means that they all get crushed together. wouldnt it be better to have em in depth and at least a couple in reg form as a counter to your opponent flanking/surrounding ur force?

[Askthepizzaguy]

I think you misunderstand my meaning of Giant Schiltrom.

The troops are not actually in Schiltrom formation, but they are lined up in a circle with all their spears facing out, this removing ANY exposed flanks. In a forest versus light cavalry, that would be impossible to defeat without the use of ballistics.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

AS a disclaimer I thot Id add this about gunpowder troops. They are primarily offensive. They work great as attackers, but can easily become fodder in a defensive situation. Their nemesis is obviously a cavalry charge. So in a defense of 2/1 odds or greater... it may be expedient to have a true "front line" for the AI to charge instead. I experienced this first hand late last night when the Moors attacked with @ 3/1 odds against a full gun stack (no officer) I won still...(covering fire!!!) but it was way to close and I had less than 200 left afterwards.

PS I found out how to take screenshots! (only a decade behind e1 now hehe)
so Ill try to put those up once I get home.

[jepva]

Five units Spearmen - not the militia kind (SP)
Four units Heavy Infantry (HI)
Four units archers - preferably the stake setting type (AR)
Two units crossbow (CB)
General (CC)
One unit heavy cavalry (HC)
Three units artillery (AT)

I can use this offensively, defensively, and for besiging.


................CB AR AT AR AT AR AT AR CB
........................SP SP SP SP SP
.....................HI.....................HI
.................HI..........CC.HC..........HI

Defensively - Just before the enemy is in sword range, the archers are moved behind the spearmen and artillerymen are routed then moved behind archers; if the enemy is inferior or equal in cavalry, CC and HC are moved to their respective flanks; once enemy infantry is in contact with SP, HI moves forward to attack on their flanks; if enemy is superior in cavalry - HI, CC, HC are used to defend against cavalry flank attacks.

Seiges - the force is divided into three sections, attacking three sides of the city/castle, simultaneously, thus spreading out the defenders (which are always far fewer numerically - if not, lay seige until they are forced to attack you. Note: If you have good missile cav, such as Polish Strelczy - lay seige with six of these, one general and one HC - if the garrison is six or more units, the garrison will sally out on the next turn and be annihilated.