What is your go-to army composition?

[Bramborough]

When im playing my normal campaigns I move armies in twos.

One army is mainly my main fighting infantry. Spears, heavy inf, auxiliary of some form. Second army comprises my archers/ranged, cav, and artillery. Special units normally tag along too depending on who im playing as.

I've thought about doing something like this, but have refrained from doing so for a couple of reasons:

1. Army Cap. Depending on territory configuration and # of enemies, I've sometimes felt stretched thin responding to incoming threats. Often my biggest problem is that while my armies are hugely successful in any battle, they just can't be everywhere at once.

2. Enemy agents. They're pretty good at immobilizing armies and preventing reinforcement. Using this setup further increases their power, allowing them to affect 2 stacks instead of 1. Plus the danger of one wing getting attacked when the other cannot help.

[Slaists]

I've thought about doing something like this, but have refrained from doing so for a couple of reasons:

1. Army Cap. Depending on territory configuration and # of enemies, I've sometimes felt stretched thin responding to incoming threats. Often my biggest problem is that while my armies are hugely successful in any battle, they just can't be everywhere at once.

2. Enemy agents. They're pretty good at immobilizing armies and preventing reinforcement. Using this setup further increases their power, allowing them to affect 2 stacks instead of 1. Plus the danger of one wing getting attacked when the other cannot help.

I do pretty much the same: two armies working in tandem. One army is the regular strike force, the other one tags along with missiles, cheap auxiliaries, artillery (I do not like artillery in my main army since it triggers bad tactics from defending AI's). Sometimes I even use 3 armies (the third one would be a locally raised militia force for garrison duty until the area is pacified).

The way I avoid AI agents is by hiding armies in ambush stance. Sure, makes for slower advances, but has the side effect of slowing me down at the same time. Since I rotate the generals to maximize influence gain for my party, even if an agent kills a general of mine: it is not a big loss, LOL.

Somehow I do not encounter the issue of not having enough armies everywhere I need them even post patch 7. I gave Rome a try finally, playing on VH. I purposely followed the somewhat historical Roman expansion route (which implied leaving exposed areas, no continuous borders) and still I sense no danger from the AI. by 235, I own all of Italy, Apollonia, half of Sicily (left Syracuse there to take it some time mid 150's), Africa (former Lybia + Carthage) and couple holdings in Spain. Expanding into Illyria now. No AI has declared war on me. If I attack anyone, they run (and my armies still consist of hastati, principes, triarii).

The only campaign where there is a real sense of danger seems Epirus start. It used to be Seleucids for me, but with the diplo reliability working in patch 7, now I realized I was breaking preexisting truces when playing as this successor faction. Now I tried playing the way CA "intended us to play": not making peace with Quidri (making truce with them results in a reliability hit; especially with satraps); not attacking Egypt and Cyprus on turn 1 (that's what I used to do and, as it turned out, it would make me a scumbag in the world's eyes). This gameplay resulted in an extremely peaceful Seleucid start. I even managed to keep my satraps so far (turn 30 or so) and our relationship is steadily improving due to the wars I am dragging them in.

[Veho Nex]

I use a mod that almost triples the amount of armies you can field. When you hit imperium rank 4 you can field a whopping 38 armies.

[Hooahguy]

I use a mod that almost triples the amount of armies you can field. When you hit imperium rank 4 you can field a whopping 38 armies.

Which mod?

[Slaists]

I use a mod that almost triples the amount of armies you can field. When you hit imperium rank 4 you can field a whopping 38 armies.

I actually quite like the army restriction on me (the player) when playing vanilla.

[al Roumi]

Interesting to see the roles-playing and gaming type approaches to armies. For the SP campaign i try to play in a way i think is reasonably historical, with armies to match. So that means generally avoiding spamming top units and keep a balance of core and supports - including foot skirmishers, if only as a screen/bait. I like to have my armies flexible and mobile so I don't tend to use many siege weapons.

For Rome I used infantry heavy armies, with a decreasing number of pre-Marian types: Hastati>Principes>Trarii and roughly similar numbers of velites as hastati. I then exclusively use auxiliaries for support and cavalry, phasing out the velites (get a bit bored with them and you also have to worry about the damage to wild-life if they ALL wear a dead wolf).

My fave auxilliary skirmishers are the Numidians, on foot or hooves, as well as Cantabrians/Iberians. But also I'll take whatever's going...

Post Marius, I try to have veteran<=normal legionaries, with one First cohort per legion. I get a bit annoyed that my general's cohort gets shoved in the main line by the auto formations though.

In my current Seleucid campaign, i'm using a 10 pike core with a hoplite unit for each flank. Again, I try to scale the quality of pikes such that the majority are "normal", but not levy units. As such, I typically have 1 silver shield per stack and maybe 3 Thureaos. Persian hoplites are the perfect flank unit with their square formation. The lack of phalanx limits their offense, though that's the job of the slow marching pike line.

I've tended to focus on cavalry skirmishers, javlineers and camel archers, but they get less effective as the campaign progresses. I've then added more Median shock cavalry and superseded skirmishers for Tarantine cav.

I had my first experiement with chariots recently, hiding them in forest behind slingers before charging head-on into an advancing melee line of low level spears and skirmishers. The chariots were pretty impressive (1 unit killed circa 200 enemies in 1 charge) but I suspect they might come unstuck against e.g. legionnaires.

[Slaists]

I had my first experiement with chariots recently, hiding them in forest behind slingers before charging head-on into an advancing melee line of low level spears and skirmishers. The chariots were pretty impressive (1 unit killed circa 200 enemies in 1 charge) but I suspect they might come unstuck against e.g. legionnaires.

Did it really kill that number in the charge or were the kills assigned after the battle? In my experience, the end-battle (once the enemy is routing) button assigns ridiculous amounts of router kills to elephants and chariots. In one battle, my elephants got around 500 kills assigned to them. There is no way they killed that many in the battle (the unit just charged one spear unit in the rear).

[Myth]

Has anyone made any real practical use of the Iceni donkey carts (aka. chariots)?

[GermanicWarlord]

I like to go heavy on everything. I like to go a Barbarian faction like Suebi or Iceni and get a lot of heavy infantry and cavalry. That (generally) works for me.

[Bramborough]

Did it really kill that number in the charge or were the kills assigned after the battle? In my experience, the end-battle (once the enemy is routing) button assigns ridiculous amounts of router kills to elephants and chariots. In one battle, my elephants got around 500 kills assigned to them. There is no way they killed that many in the battle (the unit just charged one spear unit in the rear).

I've noticed that too. Not just elephants/chariots, but every unit gets an inflated kill count after the battle...even units which didn't engage, or only very lightly. It's not uncommon in my playstyle for missile troops and artillery to inflict enough casualties early to cause a complete enemy rout (mainly talking a minor settlement attack...where the defenders let one get away with this). Yet my infantry, not having entered and fought, still come away with "kills" in the post battle screen. Are these extras battle captives, perhaps?