Peasant garrisons in BI.

**Al: Total Gore** · 10-09-2005, 08:40

Playing as Romans in RTW I used to just use peasant garrisons with maybe 2 units of archers in any city that wasn’t close to a dangerous border region. With RTW: BI should I still be doing this? Hoard armies can easily bypass border regions and head for your empire's heartland. For example, having a peasant army in Constantinople could prove to be a bad idea. What are your thoughts? I've noticed that upkeep seems to have dropped for them also.

**Rodion Romanovich** · 10-09-2005, 08:55

I think 1 or no general + 1 or 2 archers, the rest peasants, will suffice for holding almost any stone walled city, if you're prepared to do some daring manouvering with your general. I mostly use peasants for the cheapness, and so far I've had good training facilities in most cities so I've been able to quickly train a unit of archers if it seemed like an enemy was on the way and my regular field armies were too far away. I think in BI it's more than in R:TW useful to put some troops with fighting capability as garrisons, as the cities are few and the distances huge.

**PseRamesses** · 10-09-2005, 12:31

In RTW you had many cities which mostly didn´t come in contact with the enemy. In BI the distances are great so my games shure have changed from RTW-build-as-many-armies-as-you-can-afford to BI-only-offensive-armies style.
Ex: Holding the lands of WRE in RTW meant one stack in Iberia, Britain, France, Italy, Balkan, Africa etc etc. That is atleast 5 armies.
In BI I tend only to build armies that fill a certain purpose offensively, like defending your northern bridges against the hordes as ERE or taking your objective cities etc. My main defence nowdays are my cities and their heavy fortifications. I use 2-4 really good infantry and 4-6 archers in every city I hold (usually) and I haven´t lost a city yet.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 10-13-2005, 20:44

I find a couple or more units of Lombard Archers (or any powerful missile unit) with some infantry / cavalry support can really massacre any potential besiegers. Especially when they have several chevrons of experience

Just keep focusing your archers' firepower on the AI's siege equipment - you can butcher AI ladder crews in no time

**ChaosLord** · 10-13-2005, 22:06

I don't like using peasants, just ruins my nice array of forces. I usually work out a set garrison for inner and border cities, then setup all my cities like that. In my Saxon game I finished last night it consisted of 3 Levy Spearmen-2 Hunters for inner cities, and 2 Levy Spearmen, 3 Saxon Keel, 3 Hunters, 2 Saxon Sea Raiders for border cities. It worked out pretty well too, considering the only time I ever lost a city was when the Franks and Lombardi filled it with spies and it rebelled on me.

Despite the costs i'd go with professional(non-peasant) garrisons everytime. It makes your cities easier to defend and easier to reinforce in the event of a big invasion when time is a factor(just by moving troops from inner cities to border or the like).

**Ordani** · 10-14-2005, 01:08

3-4 peasant units will garrison a city for less than the upkeep of a decent infantry unit. It's much cheaper to keep a regional army that you can move in the field instead of dedicating that money to specific cities. I've had a single army hold off multiple Hordes in BI, versus having to put an equally powerful garrison in all the neighboring provinces they could invade. The only cities I ever garrison with real fighting units are key chokepoints near rivers or mountains that are likely to come under siege with minimal warning.

Keep your professional soldiers out practicing their profession. In my opinion it's debatably better to let a superior invading force take an outlying city, that way they're immobile and can't escape when you counterattack, and you can trap their cavalry in narrow streets instead of facing them on the open field. The real danger in BI comes from hordes no garrison can hope to overcome alone.

**LestaT** · 10-14-2005, 03:56

Never used peasants. Always play with MODS that don't have peasants. Well, since MTW days already. With RTW i use town watch , with BI (playing saxons use the levy spearmen as garrison.

**Kekvit Irae** · 10-14-2005, 04:14

Peasant Garrisons wont deter Hun/Vandal/Goth hordes from coming and taking over. It seems as if they have a (randomly) set target, and will bypass other cities just to get to that target. More often than not, it's Ravenna

**econ21** · 10-14-2005, 09:28

Peasants are great for maintaining order. I tend to build them where they will help unrest or free decent troops from garrison duties. Of course they cannot fight and should not be on the front line. But I think they are so good for their upkeep, I wondering about banning them as a houserule.

One reason I am a little relaxed about garrisons is that as WRE I had Salona attacked by 3-4 full stacks of Samartians. Due to an oversight, I had only one unit of limitanei on the walls and a peasant in the square. The limitanei died quickly to chosen swordsmen. But the Samartians lost thousands of men marching round my walls before they reached my peasants in the square.

**Furion** · 10-14-2005, 13:11

Hordes wont bybass into your land if you know how to keep them out, build forts to the crossing places in the frontier rivers, put 2-4 limitanei to them so that the enemy has to besiege them in order to get through, but while they are besieging the settelment, your major armies can move to destory the horde.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 10-15-2005, 13:50

Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Of course they cannot fight and should not be on the front line.

Yeah, they are ineffective fighters, but they make great siege-fodder. Simply build up plenty of siege equipment in 2-3 turns, then use your peasants to take the walls. Once your towers / ladders / sapping points / rams have done their job, simply reinforce the peasants with your standard army. This can save you a small fortune in retraining costs for your regular army, as their casualties are minimised in the actual siege itself.

However, you'll inevitably lose men in the storming of the settlement once a breech is made. Send in the cheap stuff first to hold the enemy in position

**symball** · 10-19-2005, 16:49

you will have to taior your use of the peasants to which faction you use and where the city is- I agree that using a couple of peasants to garrison your major cities is a bad idea and if playing ERE you mustn't assume that garrissoning the northern bridges will protect you.

I lost thessalonica because the goths were forced out of their last city and the hordes were created [I]inside[I] my lands. As I had hun and vandal hordes all pacing around looking to get in I caouldn't use my garrison troops and ended up shipping an army I had built up for invading africa over to protect constantinople and athens (I left thessalonica as a target to buy myself some time). It has taken about 15 turns to finally get rid of the goths and I have nearlly backrupted myself doing it.

**Dagobert II** · 10-19-2005, 20:12

Hey all;

I agree that peasants are the most cost
effective solution to garrisons, and cheap
replacements if there is squalor, but I dread the
peasant general. Hooooooooo....