Review my Pergamene army

[QuintusSertorius]

I dont get it,why do you keep your cavalry behind and such splited.IF the enemy mass his cavalry on left wing u will still need reorganize your FMs into group or just put them together and move them somewhere forward.Dont tell me only reason for this is your hobby for grouping troops in the battle.Because this is only reasonable answer why you do such thing.

Same for javeliners.Why they are on different side of line?Together they do much better bussines and why they are behind.Again no reason for such deployment,because u will need to move them.

This is not about effectivity of your army,but you have deployment phase to deploy your troops.Such kind of battle formation is only for effect and perhaps look good,but when the battle start u will still move them to better position.So why they can start in better position grouped together by their purpose?Less managament for same performance.

Seriously tell me what happen if u see cavalry massed on one wing?what will u do?U will put them together....fail because u have deployment phase for this....and move them a bit out of your line to have clear field for charge.......again fail because u can do this in deployment phase.Do you get my meaning?Spliting cavalry on each wing and behind everything before the battle even start without knowledge of the enemy deployment is just fail of your deployment stategy.Not big fail,because u have plenty of time to redeploy in battle,but why?And now imagine doing same pointless cavalry move in 50 battles in row.And only because it looks so fine......

My cavalry and skirmishers are split because it makes a double-envelopment possible. It works every single time, I don't care if the enemy masses their cavalry on one flank, chances are the stupid AI will just charge them into my line. Which means I only need one of the two cavalry wings to loop around and finish them off. There's nothing theoretical about this, I've used it countless times and its worked every single time.

If I see massed cavalry on one flank, I ignore them. All it means is that their other flank will quickly be turned, so the one facing it just has to endure a little.

I don't move them all to one or other flank when the battle starts, they wait in reserve until an opportunity presents itself. They're behind the line to screen them. It also stops the AI breaking off some or even all of it's army to chase them around.

There's no fail at all, it works. If the AI splits their cavalry, I destroy them in conjunction with my infantry. If they mass them, I turn their other flank then swamp them. Hell, they're not even big-charge cavalry in the first place. I rely on my infantry to do most of the fighting and flanking, cavary mostly lurk in the rear to unnerve, then kill routers.

Btw did u see many ancient battle plans where is cavalry comfortably hidden BEHIND the flanks?

Chaeronea:Makedonian cavalry is in very left wing and a bit forward.
Issus:Both sides have cavalry on the flanks in same line with first line.
Gaugamela:Try guees where is cavalry:)
Granicus:Yap on the wings

Let jump to future

Cannae:Cavalry on wings
Lake Trasimene: cavalry on wing
Trebia: Both sides have cavalry on wings and bit separated
Zama: Again both sides have cavalry on each wing

No offense mate,but Alexander and Hannibal was battle hardened veterans who know their job and none of them put his cavalry in such sick position:).Btw Hannibal face some not so exactly good and skilled generals and even this guyz put their cavalry in right place where cavalry have to be.

Yet countless Roman generals split their cavalry, with the Romans on the right and allies on the left. Some of them even won!

Behind the line is still on the wings, just not out on their own where the AI can charge them, and you end up having to move them to shelter anyway. Moving cavalry out to the wings once the line engages is a trivial thing. Having to run behind before that happens, possibly chased by a now chaotic enemy is not.

Well, you don't have to bite his head about it.

As for my formations, with split javeliners, maybe that's wrong but I don't use javeliners that much. Well, at all, rather, I take archers instead. My idea of the peltastai would be to run them behind the enemy units I've pinned with my hoplites/phalangites and turn them into pincushions, and I don't know if I'd like to leave my weak side without both heavy cavalry and ranged attackers.

I like a mixture of skirmishers, javelins are more effective than arrows, they just don't have the range. In general archers aren't much use against armoured targets, whereas they're brilliant for killing enemy skirmishers (not peltastai, though).

But yes, peltastai are good as outflankers when they've expended their javelins. Also good in sieges outside the walls peppering the defenders before the rams have finished their work.

I think you've got it pretty down. Levy Phalangites would be best, and once you get Sardis i believe its a lvl 3 regional barracks that you can recruit K-Phalangites (cant spell whatevermacallit), which allows for a more quality phalanx.

I think I'll go with the merc phalangites, levies are for garrisons (same goes levy hoplites, akontistai and so on).

EDIT: Ah, having checked the unit list, I can build Kleruchoi Phalangitai, who are a lot better than the levy pikemen (though not as good as the mercs). I might do one merc, one Kleruchoi.

And as far as cavalry....the RTW AI is pretty dumb, you move cavalry too far to the flank before the engagement, they send everything after it, sure i suppose a good commander could adapt to it, but i dont think a commander in the first place would move an ENTIRE army to counter a couple units of cavalry..at most send their own to match and adjust accordingly, while the lines continued in their battle-array.

Exactly. The AI is stupid, and station your cavalry too far away from the main body and they'll break their force to engage them.