Dependence on local units?

[Zim]

Just curious how many people find their armies filling from regional MICs and local mercenaries.

In my Sweboz game I find the AOR is a bit on the small side, and it's harder to ship troops around by boat than in the Mediterranean. Often I start out with a mostly Sweboz army recruited in the homelands, pick up a few locals on their way to wherever they're campaigning, start taking losses after which the locals are far easier to retrain, and end up recruiting mercenaries as well to fill the army. By the time they've campaigned for long I often end up with a core of high experience Sweboz troops and a lot of regionals and mercs, without ever having thought about it.

I can't decide if I should make up a house rule to deal with this or not.

[Blxz]

As a general rule I like to use as few regional units as possible. If I want to play as a country, in my mind I will use their units 95% of the time. Regionals are for emergencies and for garrison if they are cheap enough.

Mercs on the otherhand come in very handy but I never keep them around for long enough.

Admittedly there are some very powerful and useful regionals out there but its not worth the effort for me to find them using recruitment viewer. Any off the top of your head that are a must have if I have a faction in whatever part of the world?

[Cyrus]

No i think it's completely historical, for the same reasons you said, take a look at hannibals troops in the last stages of his italian campaign.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

All my campaigns have the same result.
For example, in my Romani campaign, I started my wars in east against Seleucids with a full stack of Roman troops. After some difficult battles I had 1/3 Roman troops, 1/3 mercenaries and 1/3 regional troops.
In my Carthaginian campaigns I end up with mostly mercenaries all the time. Perhaps only 1/4 are factional troops(African pikemen and Libyans) and then the rest is mercenaries and locals. Then again, I'm rich and why should I send my own citizens to death?!

[Blxz]

I guess I must play more slowly than you guys. I tend to have more than enough time to cycle my units back to the homelands for retraining etc. Especially while building the governments.

EDIT: Actually that probably explains why I dislike Carthage so much, their AOR is pretty damn small for most of their units. they are skewed towards regionals which IS historic i guess.

[antisocialmunky]

I ugess I'm lucky there there are Greeks EVERYWHERE. Same goes for the Celts.

[A Very Super Market]

Whoo-hoo! Baktrians have no need for ethnic tension, for we use whatever peoples we come across in our conquests...

[Macilrille]

Well, with the AI insanely attacking you from everywhere the problem is that there is not really time to ship the veterans home and back.

I remember one game I managed it on M/M, but the current game is VH/H and I too find myself with about a third of each and most of my Camillan Troops (it is 211 BC and I run pure Camillan Army still, no time to ship them home and exchange them) have silver and gold chevrons, but are all 10- 50% strength.

[IrishHitman]

I always leave ten to five slots for local mercs.

They're abundant, and their recruitment is instant, so raising large armies in the area you intend to fight is possible. It's excellent.

[Blxz]

Mercs can be good in a pinch but you can never guarentee there will will be a pool of what you need. Either the computer factions hire them out or there just aren't any (insert unit type here) available in that area.

Btw Marcrille, I play VH/M all the time and its easy enough to rotate. The trick is to either use regionals for garrisoning or have at least 2 (more is easier) stacks and have one hold the line while the other 'recharges' back at base. For defense at mid range using boats, 2 stacks are enough for constant warfare defense. Increase to 3 stacks if I need to push the boundries....and so on the further away I get. Of course it all depends on your style of gameplay. Some people just hate the micro management, I know i hated it in RTW vanilla, I would conquer most of the world with velites and town watch because it was boring to have to wait for stuff to build up.

So, in regards to the thread topic, I use regionals for garrisoning sometimes. but its nomally a very minor role and only if they are cheaper than some easily available home units.

[SwissBarbar]

All my campaigns have the same result.
For example, in my Romani campaign, I started my wars in east against Seleucids with a full stack of Roman troops. After some difficult battles I had 1/3 Roman troops, 1/3 mercenaries and 1/3 regional troops.
In my Carthaginian campaigns I end up with mostly mercenaries all the time. Perhaps only 1/4 are factional troops(African pikemen and Libyans) and then the rest is mercenaries and locals. Then again, I'm rich and why should I send my own citizens to death?!

Which is quite historical accurate, I'd do the same as Romans or Carthage..

[satalexton]

i tend to have a 2nd stack of replacement troops near the first one, acting as the baggage train.

[Tolg]

Basically I use 3 different types of armies:

1. Factional armies: Those are my main offensive armies, they fight without any reinforcements till their numbers are so low that I have to withdraw them to my homelands.

2. Regional armies: Their chief purpose is to defend borders at which factional units aren't available. Greek or Celtic armies (because of their huge AOR) sometimes also assist my regional armies when attacking, but even then they stay behind them to prevent the enemy from attacking my rear.

3. Mixed armies: Those armies develop when there aren't enough useful regional troops in an area which I have to protect against powerful enemies. I then use a Factional army for defence, but as I don't use more then one army I can't withdraw and replenish them. Instead I use mercs, locals and even regionals from other areas which makes those armies considerably weaker then the other armies. So weak that they're completely useless in attack (they can't take more then 1 or 2 major battles without needing reinforcements) and that I usually split them into a factional and a regional army once I don't need them anymore.

[Zim]

It looks like there are a couple of different philosophies on regional troops. I rather like the idea of using regional armies mainly for defense their settlements (maybe having the occasional client king go raiding if his settlement is being heavily harassed).

I'm getting a little better at shipping factional troops around. It's a bit difficult since they have to go by land. Sweboz also have a fairly small AOR, and their pre-reform troops are unarmored and take horrendous losses against the Polybian Roman troops I've been fighting. It makes things interesting.

Admittedly there are some very powerful and useful regionals out there but its not worth the effort for me to find them using recruitment viewer. Any off the top of your head that are a must have if I have a faction in whatever part of the world?

Can't really say for most factions since I've recently come back to EB (hadn't played since version .8). In my Sweboz game there are a lot of Celtic regionals that are fun to play with. As far as essential...

In my other thread there was mention of very good cavalry in Gaul if you have a high level MIC. You can also hire Celtic light cav, which is much better than the German cavalry available. In the Alps you can hire those spearmen that are basically poor man's Gaesaetae, which I found very useful, although there is a German equivalent in Silengoz. Teceitos (Celtic axemen) are great as well, with ap weapons, and more durable than clubmen. Hevetii were a lifesaver in an Aedui game I had in 0.8, and are just as useful now.

As far as units that fill niches completely lacking in the German roster, I'd say the best candidates are the Celtic slingers and Baltic frontiersmen, both far, far better than the weak German archers.

[kekailoa]

I actually found the German light cav to be very useful, actually, a go between the too-light Celtic light cav and the Brinhtein. It takes forever to get to the German heavies, so the light German cav is very useful for me.

An extremely, extremely useful regional would be the Iberian medium spearmen. Cheaper than every other spearman on par with them, they have great stats, good morale and stamina, and are deadly even toward infantry. Also, another good regional in Italy would be the Samnite heavies. Classical Hoplites are also extremely valuable, and they're found all over the map. For cavalry, the Celtic light are good for what they're designed to do, and the Celto-Germanic cav aren't too shabby either.

EDIT: I forgot. If you get a chance to get your hands on Galatians, do it. They're the best infantry in the east, plus a fairly decent cav unit also.

[LordCurlyton]

Contrary to what you may think, basically every faction would not hesitate to use "regionals", as they represent, combined with the different government types, more than just mere levies of conquered peoples. A fully built Type IV Gov/MIC combo represents an allied government that is so strongly affiliated with you that in terms of TW granularity you basically control them. The easiest examples would be Rome and Pergamon and/or Bosphorus plus Carthage and basically anyone who fought for them that wasn't Libyan/Punic.
To answer the OP I find that regionals tend to eventually become more and more of an army the longer I play, and especially as I get further away from factional recruitment. So Greek, Celtic, and Eastern factions typically won't need to rely on regionals for a long while as they have large and fairly consistent recruitment zones. Carthage HAS to rely on regionals unless you like spamming elite pikes and Rome is probably one of the very few factions that could manage with a small-ish factional zone since they are centrally located and as a player you can use much faster naval transport to keep fresh troops going. Even as the Romans though I still like having strong regionals since they generally at least provide units I lack (archers, cavalry) and/or units that are very well suited to fighting other locals (Elite Thracians).
Mercenaries are generally a hit or miss proposition for me, depending on how much war has been going on in the area prior to my arrival. Mercenaries, however, are VERY good for dealing with any potential late-game surprise attacks by a large AI faction, since you will generally have a large are of your own that has been at peace for a while and thus is chock full of mercenaries. I believe 4 full stacks of mercenaries at once is the most I've ever purchased to provide insta-armies.

In the end, I look at the trend as an inevitably of Empire, since generally those that clung solely to their own troops tended to be conquered by those with looser feelings in that regard. taking the Sweboz, there can only be SO many Germans and you can only breed so fast. Ergo, a very successful war leader would by necessity have to keep bringing foreigners "into the fold" via treaty/marriage/etc to ensure his war machine could keep functioning. Sadly, humans can't pull a Waa-Orc, though we definitely have tried.

[Vulg]

I have streams of stacks pouring in and out of Rome to fill the Byzantion gap that Pontos wish to get into. I believe its around 150bc, no Marian reforms and approximately 8 stacks of local regional Roman troops fighting 2 or 3 battles before falling back to the Italian lands to rearm and requip.

[satalexton]

who says we cant waaagh? *puts on green paint* WAAAGH!!!!

[Aemilius Paulus]

I blitz like hell, so my armies have much smaller native contingents. I have a couple 100% regional armies and the rest of my legions are very much varied. It depends. I basically have no house rules, usually doing what is most effective. I try not to hire too many elites as they make the game easy, but that is about all.

So usually, my armies begin as 70%-90% native, as I train them in Italia. That is especially true for my Marian armies, as the Romans have much better troops then. However, my Armies are large. Usually, a single army consists of one and a half or more often, two full stacks. The first stack is largely native infantry and the second stack has mercenary pike phalanxes, slingers, archers, and cavalry, all of which are better if recruited as far away as possible from Italia (except for the phalanxes of course - they are available in many places). By the end of the campaign, after conquering 10+ territories, I have only about six full Roman units and the rest is Regionals, as they are usually better than any of the mercenaries. The only mercenaries which I always have generals stationed to recruit are the pike phalanxes, Galatian Wild Men, Thracian Peltasts, and Balearics.

As for my regional-only armies, I have two stacks of Cordinau Orcas mixed with Iosatae and Greek Mercenary Generals, which is what I use instead of the mortal heavy cavalry. I also have a stack of Elite Thracian infantry, Galatian Spearmen, Cretan Archers, and more Greek Merc. Generals. Then I have two stacks of Greek Classical Hoplites, with Cretans, Merc. Generals, Galatian Wild Men, and pike phalanxes. Yet another stack of nothing but Scythian Riders and Thracian Auxiliary Cavalry exists. Then I have a Hoplitai and Bosphoran Archer stack, along with yet more Merc. Generals. There is an Eastern stack too, with a whole mix of units, some among of which are Syrian Archers, Hoplitai, Babylonian Heavy Spearmen, and some slingers.

So those are basically all my pure Regional armies. In addition to them I have many more largely Roman or 1/2 Roman armies.

And of course, I am playing Romani, 1.1, M/M, at 221 BC and with 136 territories. Yes, it was quite a blitz, although not as grand as the one by Fluvius Camillus.

[Kromulan]

Depends on the campaign. . .
As Saba, I use mostly regionals with a few Saba native units to remind my enemy who I am.
As Getai, the only regionals I use are the elites (Kluddos Lugos, Cardinau Orca), with everything else trekking in from the homeland. The exception are my raid armies, who tend to be almost exclusively mercenaries.
I haven't got very far in my Luso campaign, but I like their factional units, so it will likely mirror my Getai campaign.
My Baktria campaign is RP'd as a breakaway Indian faction, so I'm using the Indian regionals as my faction troops. . .
I haven't got far enough in my Roman or Ptolie campaigns to decide yet, although I do HATE phalanxes, so if I continue the Ptolie one for any duration, I'll likely use lots of regionals.

[Misguided Mortal]

Hello, first post:

In my 1.1 EB Baktrian campaign i used a lot of eastern axemen for flanking the never ending supply of Arche Seleukia's pike phalanxes.

[Decimus]

I usually use almost all factions troops, cept for emergencies or when a really good merc unit shows up, but in my Koinon Hellon campaign i destroyed all the Greek wonders except for the collosses to fund a large merc army to use to blitz Macedon

[Antinous]

I used all regional troops for my invasion of Africa as rome, but eventually I ended up using mostly mercs to fill in my regular troops. Also when I took sicily my army was about 10% factional troops 90% mercs.

[Zim]

It's interesting to see how everyone looks at regional troops differently.

My comp was wiped by a power surge and I lost my Sweboz game (). Right now I'm trying Carthage after purposefully losing most of their starting territories (not so much as an rp thing as to make it harder).

I'm slowly reconquering Africa while holding off the Ptollies. I haven't gotten to experiment with a lot of regionals yet, and haven't made it back to Iberia where I know Carthage gets some great ones.

However, I have gotten to play with the Numidian troops a lot. I especially like their skirmishers. A ton of troops even on normal unit size, quite a few javelins, and their spears make them pretty useful even against the Ptolemy bodyguard units.

The javelin cavalry on the other hand, I've had less luck with, although I suspect it's more my lack of skill than their lack of effectiveness.

[seienchin]

When I played Karthago I used a lot of local levies and I was surprised how weak the roman camillan troops are against celtic levy troops and I was then surprised how easy the sueboz kill of celtic levies
Anyway I always use lusothanian medium spearmen infantry mercenaries in western europe cause they are probably one of the best units in the game.
And as bactria I fought with local peasants only... damn hard

[A Very Super Market]

What difficulty were you on???

[Zim]

I always did like those Lusotannan mercs, no matter who I was playing.

When I played Karthago I used a lot of local levies and I was surprised how weak the roman camillan troops are against celtic levy troops and I was then surprised how easy the sueboz kill of celtic levies
Anyway I always use lusothanian medium spearmen infantry mercenaries in western europe cause they are probably one of the best units in the game.
And as bactria I fought with local peasants only... damn hard

VH/M, no bonuses for the AI (well, no in-battle ones). I've just always done badly with Javelin cavalry...

What difficulty were you on???

[A Very Super Market]

Oop, not you. Numidian skirmishers are surprisingly good.

I meant seienchin, since camillans shouldn't lose to Lugoae

[V.T. Marvin]

And as bactria I fought with local peasants only... damn hard

You mean these guys?

Kofyaren-i Kavakaza (Baktrian Light Infantry)

IMHO they are definitely one of those "surprisingly good" units - large size (200 on Huge), lot of javelins and AP axes make them extremely valuable flankers and shock troops rather than "mere skirmishers". They are certainly one of my most favourite units!

Nevertheless, I would complement them with any large-shield spearmen (even something as bare as pantodapoi) in guard mode to form a line to stop advancing phalanxes etc.

[seienchin]

Oop, not you. Numidian skirmishers are surprisingly good.

I meant seienchin, since camillans shouldn't lose to Lugoae

M/M...
Of course they wouldnt loose a one on one battles, but I used them atacking from mountains etc. and they had no problem beating Hastati and Principes and eventually Triarii it just took like forever...
But I hated them when I played Aedui cause the germanic units are just insane against lugoae...
By the way I did a custom battle in a plain battleground and my marian legions lost against the sweboz, when using the same amount of money. May be it was the Alexander Ki but the germans just flanked them and teared them to peaces in close combat...