Quote Originally Posted by Adrian II
My feeble excuse is that I hardly ever use the polearmed troops because they are so easily shot up by enemy ranged units. I know the upside is that they are cheap, but in my style of play this is outweighed by the downside, i.e. the quick turnover of individual soldiers. This slows down the making of elite units by way of merging. My Generals prefer to command battle-hardened 'old hands'.
That's an interesting thing you bring up there, as it's the complete opposite of how I construct my armies. Could you please explain more about it, like which units you use and how to "train" them?
Personally I compose my armies by the 'cheap to produce - cheap to replace' rule. Best available polearm unit (Billmen, Voynuk Blades, Janissary Heavy Infantry, Swiss Halberdiers or just Halberdiers if nothing else is available) combined with best available ranged unit (Longbows, Janissary Infantry, Arbalests). I don't use Pavise Arbalests although they're better for archery duels, since they're that tiny bit more expensive, which makes a big difference when you're mass-producing them, and because they're slow which makes them hard to use in flatlands. To this I add a few units of CMAA if in High, in Late I just add another pair of Arbalests and Halberdiers (I always keep the same number of Halbs. as Arbs.). And finally two units of best available cavalry, with my general among them (most often Chivlaric Knights or Gothic Knights if I ever manage to tech up to them). Sometimes I use best available infantry (JHI or CFK) instead.
That's my stereotype army, although they of course differ somewhat from time to time. I try to get some mounted archers unit in as well (light-cav/router-chasers and archery in one), especially when attacking. When I attack I usually bring more infantry and cavalry and less ranged units as well.
There are however four factions that can't use this tactic, namely the Egyptians, Almohads, Byzantines and the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians are almost the same as most other factions, except they lack all kinds of really heavy cavalry or knights.
I don't play too much with the Eggies and Elmos, so I don't know too much about how their roster works really, all I know is that it's über in Early, but I'm talking High and Late now. The Byz can use Latin Auxillaries in XL, but they're expensive and are spear units after all. For what I know, all these three latter factions are very dependant on their cavalry, which is unfortunate for the Byzantines as even Katatanks get outdated sooner or later.
The Turks are also somewhat of an exception really. An army with JHI and JI is pretty unbeatable and works the same way as an English Longbow-Billmen army does, but is so expensive that you can hardly afford more than one or two.