What type of garrison / army would better deter the AI from attacking?

[drmihnea]

Hi,

I'm playing as the Romani using VH (campaign) / M (battles) on the Alexander engine and am at the moment in the Polybian era.

I'm following Quintus Sertorius's guide of being a proper Roman. In the guide he states that one should leave one's cities garrisoned lightly, and only with locally-recruitable troops, if possible. Compensationally, one should station permanent armies in the field to guard many such regions.

Will the AI be deterred more by a large border city garrison or by a small city garrison coupled with a decent army around? I am paying 200 mnai / turn to each AI faction I share the border with. With most of these AI factions I have alliances as well.

Cheers,
Mihnea

[Arjos]

The only units I've seen deterring the AI from attacking, were katapeltai/ballistae (seriously, put two in your royal stack and full AI stacks, will retreat lol)...
Everything else the AI will eventually attack it. Maybe a bigger force will prolong that time, as forts do at chokepoints. But the latter gets too costy, I'm afraid the AI won't be scared off by 20 pantodapoi for example :P

[Ca Putt]

does it make a difference wether you station the katapeltai in a fort or a city?

[Arjos]

I deployed them in forts and they did work, but I've never garrisoned cities heavily (at most 6 units), unless in war-zones, so I don't really know if they work aswell...
I'd imagine it doesn't make any difference, since the katapeltai make AI stacks retreat even in the open...

[Atraphoenix]

Once I had conquered all mesopotamian Seleucid lands and built forts in each bridge end on my side (soil) I had filled them with mercenaries full stacks I do not know why but Selucid AI avoided them for a long time (must be with alex.exe). Also most of the time AI lifts sieges to forts so that makes you breathe a bit but costs much. So I had quit the defensive thing after reform thing and attacked and overrun whole syria and later egypt.

[drmihnea]

Thanks a lot for the replies!

I was thinking along the lines of having something akin to the Comitatenses of the late Roman Empire. A mobile response force covering a few regions (2 to 4) that can reach any invading army in a single turn. It should be about half a stack (the Roman part of the legion without auxiliaries) and be augmented with mercenaries in the event of a large invasion.

After such an incursion, the enemy army is hopefully defeated and a punitive raid is initiated against the offender. Afterwards, the army returns to its home region, retrains its Roman troops, reestablishes its fort and demobilizes the mercenaries.