Do you intend to use historical army compositions?

[QuintusSertorius]

Given the beta is coming soon, we can start to discuss this sort of thing. It's also a side-discussion that has been recurring in the house rules thread.

So do you intend to use a historical army composition in EB2? To be clear, but historical I mean as close to what we know was done as is possible, within the constraints of the engine. For example if you are playing the Romani, that means half your force should be allied, meaning non-Roman, as well as a 2:2:1 ratio of Hastati:Principes:Triarii. If you don't recruit allies, then "Partially" is the most accurate description. If you use full stacks of pedites extraordinarii, then it's "No".

In general you're probably using a historical army if you have no more than 10-20% cavalry (unless a nomadic faction), no more than 10% elites, no more than about 20% missile/skirmishers and a mixture of factional and regional/mercenary units.

[Docus]

The question is, will the AI?

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Yes, I intend to, but I may recruit a lot of mercenaries to bulk out my stacks.

[Ludens]

Unless I am planning a big campaign, my armies tend to be ad-hoc compositions of whatever units are available. I frequently use stacks that are rather heavy on mercenaries or local levies, i.e. soldiers that have only a loose attachment to my empire. However, these armies are always built around a core of professional, or at least citizen militia, units.

So, not quite historical, but not unrealistic either.

When I do plan a campaign, I prefer unit types that can be expected to stay loyal: my faction's core units plus quality mercenaries. However, I am quite willing to vary proportions (i.e. more emphasis on cavalry than infantry or visa versa) if that makes the army more effective.

[QuintusSertorius]

I find varied armies much quicker to recruit, since you tend to be more limited in what you get in your outlying settlements. Invariably that means they handle the light troops and the heavier, factional units come from the core.

[joshmahurin]

If enough people explain what certain factions historical armies looked like then yes I would love to play in this manner :) otherwise I build like Ludens.

[alexkon3]

When i'm campaigning i tend to use national units and units from my clients. when the war is longer i'll replace them with local mercenaries as soon as the unit is short on men.

[BroskiDerpman]

Depends, I don't like using exact numbers or something.

I generally use my own imagination and what I enjoy from the most.

Or I pretend to reform armies, etc. I make my own story out of EB and the army compositions is one of the perspectives.

[Bambi]

Partially. No when I play Diadochi. I used already in Rome 1 very few pikemen. (In any Arche Seleucia game, the Thorakitai formed the backbone of the armies. Probably not very historically).

[Marcus F]

im a big fan of the Aedui, could anyone give the a possible historically accurate army composition for what the Audui army could have been?

[Ibrahim]

im a big fan of the Aedui, could anyone give the a possible historically accurate army composition for what the Audui army could have been?

a small cadre of professionals and guards (including cavalry), and the rest are a bunch of hapless militia units

[Cybvep]

I never build 20xarchers stacks or sth like that, but I'm not a heavy micromanager and I don't try to actively recreate historical armies, esp. if they don't work that well in-game.

[fallen851]

The question is, will the AI?

This is indeed the real question...

Or we will face the endless stacks of slingers like in RTW II...

[V.T. Marvin]

If the AI keeps on recruiting units close to its maximum capacity, it will be forced to produce fairly balanced historically plausible armies thanks to M2TW system of recruitment pools and replenishment rates, which we are using very thoughtfully to get as much from it as we can.

Therefore if the AI decides that it likes slingers and slingers only, such slinger stack would be very far from endless because it will only be possible to recruit only one unit per a given amount of turns.

[I_damian]

I've always used realistic army compositions in EB. I try to use them in all other strategy games as well. When playing as the Romans in EB I'm fanatical about realistic army composition because we have very good sources telling us exactly what their armies looked like. When playing as Seleukia I use a core of good quality phalanx troops and a small number of quality heavy cavalry recruited from Antioch, Seleukia and any other core Seleukid province, then lots of light troops, light cavalry and slingers and archers from wherever the army passes. If I'm fighting against the Parthians I'll draw lots of slingers and archers from those eastern provinces. Stuff like that.

Since I don't know how to compose a realistic army of "barbarians" when I play as someone like Averni, I tend to use a core of decent swordsmen supported by tons of light spear armed infantry and mostly light cavalry with one unit (usually the general) of heavy cavalry.

So yeah, in general I always use realistic armies if I can.

[gstephenopolous]

Yes, I plan to use historical compositions, and failing that as the game progresses however it may, I will use at least plausible ones. I play historical games such as these in almost OCD-like fashion, rewriting history as I go. If the game gets too game-y a feel to it I'm usually compelled to restart. As a result I never get far quite often. Is it healthy to play this way? It is fun when I pull it off, though.

[I_damian]

Yes, I plan to use historical compositions, and failing that as the game progresses however it may, I will use at least plausible ones. I play historical games such as these in almost OCD-like fashion, rewriting history as I go. If the game gets too game-y a feel to it I'm usually compelled to restart. As a result I never get far quite often. Is it healthy to play this way? It is fun when I pull it off, though.

I'm exactly the same. The moment the game starts to become too unrealistic or too fantastic, or deviate so far from history that we're in "utterly impossible" territory then it's time to start a-fresh.

What sucks is that this carries over into other games as well, such as Skyrim. I'm fine at the start when I have barely any money, hardly any potions, a rusty sword and my armour is a potato sack with holes cut out for the arms and head. I feel like I'm starting in a fresh world and I have to work my way up. But as soon as I hit level 10 and I have a full suit of epic armour and awesome weapons and more money than I can spend I feel like I'm too powerful and start again lol.

[gstephenopolous]

I'm exactly the same. The moment the game starts to become too unrealistic or too fantastic, or deviate so far from history that we're in "utterly impossible" territory then it's time to start a-fresh.

What sucks is that this carries over into other games as well, such as Skyrim. I'm fine at the start when I have barely any money, hardly any potions, a rusty sword and my armour is a potato sack with holes cut out for the arms and head. I feel like I'm starting in a fresh world and I have to work my way up. But as soon as I hit level 10 and I have a full suit of epic armour and awesome weapons and more money than I can spend I feel like I'm too powerful and start again lol.

Man, I can't tell you how OCD I was about Oblivion. I ended up spending more time modding and modding mods than actually playing the game. I think I only ever ended up clearing one Oblivion portal or something. I dabbled around a little in Skyrim but never got into it (which for me was a good thing.)

[Ludens]

I play historical games such as these in almost OCD-like fashion, rewriting history as I go. If the game gets too game-y a feel to it I'm usually compelled to restart. As a result I never get far quite often. Is it healthy to play this way? It is fun when I pull it off, though.

I'm exactly the same. The moment the game starts to become too unrealistic or too fantastic, or deviate so far from history that we're in "utterly impossible" territory then it's time to start a-fresh.

Same here. I take that attitude to other games, as well.

As for whether it is healthy: as long as you're having fun, does it matter? You are not obliged to play a game in the way the developers intended.

[I_damian]

Man, I can't tell you how OCD I was about Oblivion. I ended up spending more time modding and modding mods than actually playing the game. I think I only ever ended up clearing one Oblivion portal or something. I dabbled around a little in Skyrim but never got into it (which for me was a good thing.)

I found a really good mod for Oblivion! It was called "Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul" and it overhauls pretty much every aspect of the game, except for graphics (iirc, it has been several years!). Basically it removed level scaling entirely and introduced a living economy, so if you sold something to a shopkeeper for 500 Septims, the shopkeeper would have 500 less Septims. You couldn't just sell every single thing you had to one shopkeeper. It made heavy armour way heavier, you ran way slower in it. Enemies did way more damage and so did you, potions healed over time instead of instantly so you couldn't spam them, you leveled up much slower and best of all - enemies didn't scale. So in vanilla Oblivion you could go into basically any other cave/fort/ruin when you were level 1 and all the enemies were also level 1. In the OOO mod they had set levels, so if you went into the wrong cave you'd get killed in one hit by a level 50 wizard.

I remember getting to level 10 in OOO and thinking I'd be powerful enough now to go and kill the vampires that lived underneath the arena in the Imperial City. You could get to that area through the sewers by going down a well somewhere in the Imperial City Market District. I killed one or two vampires (with great difficulty) then got absolutely wasted by a vampire lord. He just hit me with a gigantic ice spell that killed me in one hit. So yeah, no matter how powerful you got in OOO there were always enemies way bigger than you that you'd have to avoid or run away from.

Same here. I take that attitude to other games, as well.

As for whether it is healthy: as long as you're having fun, does it matter? You are not obliged to play a game in the way the developers intended.

I can have fun playing like this in EB because I can start a fresh game as a totally new faction and play for 100 turns or so, which takes several days (or weeks even), and read all the new building and unit descriptions and stuff. It stops being fun though when you've played Skyrim for almost 400 hours (according to STEAM) but have never got further than travelling to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards because you always feel way too rich and powerful by that point. :(

[clone]

in dlv mod for mtw2 they have found a way to combat this(have a lot of money in the end game)
1 every city,spy cost money to simulate maintence
2 armies and agents that are outside the faction borders cost double upkeep to simulate the extra cost to travel ,do misions
3 if you have too much money all upkeep(the above) is doubled to represent inflatation

[Ludens]

It stops being fun though when you've played Skyrim for almost 400 hours (according to STEAM) but have never got further than travelling to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards because you always feel way too rich and powerful by that point. :(

As long as you had fun during those 400 hours. And if you didn't, why are you still playing?

This is going a bit off-topic, though. If you wish to discuss Skyrim, Oblivion or gaming habits further, I can create a separate thread and move it to the Arena.

[Bodeni]

im a big fan of the Aedui, could anyone give the a possible historically accurate army composition for what the Audui army could have been?

Early periods: FM cavalry, some medium cavalry, mix of mercenary swords, normal swords and spears.
Late period: slightly more heavy cavalry, far less swords, but higher quality ones. A few spear bands and with lots of archers and short swords to plump up the numbers. Again, slingers and levy spears as garrison.

In both cases, levy spears and slingers should only used defensively and bulk out armies with plenty of regional troops.

[I_damian]

This is going a bit off-topic, though. If you wish to discuss Skyrim, Oblivion or gaming habits further, I can create a separate thread and move it to the Arena.

Don't you oppress me!