What is your Army mostly made of?

**Budwise** · 08-20-2005, 12:20

The reason I ask is that everyone tends to specialize in something. Maybe not directly or on purpose but we all tend to do it I notice. If someone could make this a poll that would be great.

So what are you heavy on

Polearms
Men at Arms
Heavy Calv
Light Calv
Artillery
Archers
Horse Archers
Axemen
Peasants (yeah, thats my main strategy too, to suck)

Honestly, I would go for Heavy Infantry. I'm not saying that I am good, but it works for me because I suck at spears (Even in perfect formation, they just don't work for me I guess) I split between Polearms like the Billmen and Men at Arms. Then for like the last 4 slots, I would go archers and horses.

Or I go heavy archers - works great on CPU - but I have never been a heavy horse person.

**Knight Templar** · 08-20-2005, 13:28

My armies are mostly made of heavy inf, although I try to have 5 cav units in every battle. When playing as Eggs or Turks, I mostly rely on Saracen inf Ghulam cav.

**Emerald Wolf** · 08-20-2005, 15:24

I'm still finding my nich on the battle field. It's a pain in the balls to get the damn units to follow thier orders. Not really the units fault but more of a lack of quality grasp of the game controls. Not quite sure whjat does what yet.
I got the strategic part down like nothing. If I auto-calc I make the world my bitch. If I fight for myself, I'm boned like in a prison movie.

**Evil_Maniac From Mars** · 08-20-2005, 16:19

4-10 slots: cavalry
2-5 slots: artillery
remaining slots: medium/heavy infantry

**Ironside** · 08-20-2005, 19:25

Well it depends, but commonly atleast 2 ranged units (often 4-6) and atleast 2 cav (often 4-6 there too) and the rest a mix of swords, spears and non-halb polearms (they are too slow for me).

Occationaly I go heavy on cav, and should probably do that more often as I'm quite good at it (lure with faint charges, hitting both flanks at the same time, etc).
I never use more than 4 horse archers as horse archers at the same time as I usually loose control of them after that and I'm too impatient with weaker horse-archers. Can I hit the back I'll do it, even if the enemy unit is almost at full strength. So I like heavy horse archers

**Graphic** · 08-20-2005, 19:38

Muslims are being my favorite factions, especially the Egyptians. I like to have equal parts Saracens and Arab/Arab Heavy infantry, maybe some archers thrown in (not always cause I use the javelins of the Arabs) and I top it off with some Saharan cavalry which run at the speed of sound.

**Patron** · 08-20-2005, 19:43

I think of troop combinations as a graph with many peaks and I use many peaks.

I first thought that using spearmen and cavalry was the best tactic and it still is for many situations. You can hold anything in position with spearmen, for a while, then flank them with cavalry.

I then became a cavalry addict, I'd usually bring infantry into a battle along with me, but get impatient and just swarm the enemy with cavalry, charging through cracks in their line and flanking everything and anything, even halberdiers. This also works and I occasionally use this tactic.

I then started to use an archer spearmen swordsman arrangement after I realised that decreasing casualties is the key to victory (to have a full army after the battle is wearing on means victory, have you ever wanted just one more unit of men at arms standing by, to help your 20 knights kill off the remaining 40 halbs?) and noticed that spearmen are practically only used for stopping cavalry and pretty much a waste of space, so I developped a stereotypical, archer infantry cavalry troop selection.

I then went back to using spearmen and cavalry, except to use the spearmen to draw troops of a hill and flank them william the conquerror style, except with the cavalry and infantry roles swapped.

I never really use 1 unit, they all have their strengths and weaknesses and I have to use more than 1. Though I guess cavalry are extremely useful in attack and men at arms in a forest are extremely good in defense.

**Forward Observer** · 08-20-2005, 19:42

I firmly believe that you can win just about any campaign with an army composed of about 40% armored spearmen mixed with any other heavy infantry you happen to acquire, 40% mixed missile troops, and to round out the mix---10 to 20% medium cavalry that can use both swords and bows---like the Russian Boyers for example. Add a level 6 general or better and you can usually kick butt across the continent.

A little light cav is OK for attacking archers or chasing down routers, and of course a seige engine or two for castle assaults if you are inclined to bother with them.

I used to have what seemed be better than normal odds luck with a catapult taking out an attacking general when I first started playing, but this pretty much stopped happening after a patch or the expansion.

Cheers