What is your Army mostly made of?

[dgfred]

Swords are the most versatile troop, and can usually beat spears and polearms (when all other factors are equal), but low valor swords can be vulnerable to heavy cav.

Consider this. After thousands upon thousands of MP games people have worked out the strongest armies. You'll see pavise xbows and arbs, cavalry (light, heavy, and archer), and depending on the situation you'll see hybrid Muslims like Nizaris or Janis, some LBs, and some polearms like JHI, Bills, and Swiss Halbs.

But in every game you will see lots of swords, FMAA and CMAA. The reaso you see this is that people have found that these units are the best value, strong for the money, and can be used very effectively. Sort of like natural selection.

Once more, this idea that this type of unit sucks or that type of unit rocks really isnt valid. Any unit can rock at high morale/valor, just as any V0 unit can suck if used improperly.

IMO its best to use troops that are suited for your style of play, use them in the manner for which they are intended, and have a variety of troop types at your disposal to use as the situation arises.

ichi

Hey, I love my Swabian Swordsmen . Strong for the money as you
said . Although they lose quite often, they take alot of the enemy with
them .

[ichi]

I love Swabbies in Early. Give them some armor and they do very well. Get a unit of Swabbies to flank and watch the heads fly

ichi

[PittBull260]

10 units of heavy cavalry, 6 units of light cavalry/cavalry archers

[Fabolous]

Normally I get pretty lazy when building armies so I just make 11 of my armies basic infantry and 5 cavalry made up of some combination of my king, princes and basic cav for that faction.

[Talain]

Honestly I pretty much use whatever I can scrape together. I like to win battles strategically, by utilizing superior mobility and force distribution to concentrate my strength where the opponent is weak. My main weapon is my florins.

Its a rare event when I'm attacking from fewer than three different provinces. As a result I can't build a 'perfect' army. So I heavily utilize what I like to call 'fire-and-forget' troops. Highlanders, Gallowglass, Militia, Light Cavalry, any Mercenary. They die fast, but achieve a KtD ratio of greater than 1/1 while coming in nicely sized units. Add in a couple Feudal Sergeants to provide a line for my fire-and-forgets to flank off of and a core of a couple/few ranged units and always, always one heavy cav.

The basic plan is to be willing to sacrifice as many men as possible to achieve victory. Two units of mercenary Italian Light Infantry can hold off five times their number long enough for you to exploit the numerical superiority of all other forces on the field to crush the opponent. Sure, those two Italian Lights will rout and be annihilated, but by that time the enemy has a few hundred men and you've still got half a stack.

Now unfortunately this doesn't work in the desert. You see the Muslims love routing and regrouping, and have hugely massive numbers. In addition, operating from an ocean away I can concentrate force on any single province to attack it, but I can't get off the coast using my standard tactics. So I make a super-stack. My best General always heads my Middle East task force, which consists entirely of national troops. Can't trust mercenaries when reinforcements will be unavailable for the 4 years it takes to build a port. No bows, only lots of arbalests, two units of Hobilars or equivalent light cav, lots of the best spear available which is hopefully Chivalric Sergeants. Also, one or two units of the best knights available, dismounted. Find the biggest hill and set up the world's staunchest static defense, and do not, ever, ever, ever chase down the enemy. Let the rout, reform, attack, rout without doing anything, reform, etc. Their 40+ units aren't a big deal when only a few reinforcements manage to trickle in before the defenders win by time. The cavalry and foot knights are there to render the troops impotent, by killing the enemy commander. Always, always ALWAYS kill the Muslim prince who's leading the huge attack. The morale penalty guarantees that their forces will waste twenty minutes or more rallying, charging and routing before they touch you.

[manbaps]

That is the best way to tackle muslims in my opinion, however i would suggest that having missle superiority is important aswell. If a 1/3 of your units are longbows they will waste the muslim cav archers.

[dgfred]

Nice informative post Talain-- good tactics .

and Welcome to the forums!

[Eternal Champion]

I try to go square (4-4-4-4) or nearly square as much as possible. This gives enough flexibility for attack or defense. Lately I've cut down on the spears and added additional swords or cav unless the enemy is cav heavy. I always bring a couple of spears to stop/pin cav charges as nothing does it better. But more often then not, I'm patching together full stacks with the best combo of "full units" I can to continue or counter attack. Much like Patron I've run the gamut of fav combos and think experience and current game/faction conditions keeps the ultimate combo as an elusive goal.