New World- what kind of army?

[Ice]

I'm the Spanish currently and I am about 125 turns through the game. First, I want to say this game is amazing and I love it. I have enormous amounts of wealth and power. Anyone who fights me immediately asks for a ceasefire due to the high level infantry, calvary, and cannons I possess.

Anyway, I'm assuming I'll be able to access the new world soon. I have an exploders guild and have many dockyards on the coasts of present day portugal and Spain.

What should my armies consist of going to the new world? Should I bring a lot of gun powder units (muskets), should I bring a lot of heavy infantry, or should I bring a lot of calvary? I know I'm definately going to bring enormous cannons to breach cities quickly, but I'm not sure about the rest.

[Doug-Thompson]

Mercenary Horse Archers vs. an all-infantry army. I drool at the prospect.

Consider Jinetes or Mounted Crossbowmen if you want a Spanish Army.

[Molinaargh]

I haven't seen much of America, but they have a few archers that can counter missile cavalry.

I would go (and I am going) with Arquebusiers (cheap and effective), heavy infantry and light cavalry (after a few cannon shots and Arquebusier volleys the morale should be low enough to rout them after a quick charge).

[Warluster]

I will go with everything, train everything, ship them over there and wipe them out like a horde!

[Zenicetus]

Horse archers sound fun, but might be hard to maintain at full strength over there. I think the only local mercs you can hire are Indian infantry. You get the special Conquistador unit, but that's a mounted knight, isn't it? To maintain a HA army against all those full-stack waves of Aztecs might require a steady stream of reinforcements from the Old World.

I'd like to try musketeers, with local Indian mercs as a sacrificial pinning force, and whatever cav I can scrape up. But they probably have the same recruitment/retraining problem. There won't be any big cities over there with the ability to replenish lost units for a while. Might have to go bog-standard for army composition in the first several years, unless you have a whoppin' big economy and lots of ships for sending reinforcements.

P.S. that's all just armchair generalship, since I'm playing Spain but haven't reached that point yet.

[Comrade Alexeo]

After experimenting with HRE vs. Aztec custom battles, here are some possible helpers:

1) DON'T bother with sword or spear infantry. They'll be destroyed by the Aztecs in melee.

2) DO use lots of of pikemen and, perhaps, halberdiers. In the case of Spain, you're lucky that you have Tercios.

3) DON'T use heavy cavalry unless you can ensure they'll get a good charge, as they also tend to fall apart in melee

4) DO use missile cavalry, especially those that can melee reasonably well (like HRE Reiters); you can charge them in after you weaken the enemy with barrages. Those that don't (like, I suspect, Mounted Crossbowmen), be prepared to micromanage them.

5) DON'T use exclusively gunpowder infantry.

6) DO use Musketeers AND Pavise Crossbowmen in concert. The former are to scare the Aztecs, while the latter are there for sheer killing prowess (and survivability, as your supply lines are effectively nonexistent in the New World).

7) DON'T expect artillery to be a panacea, and don't bother with really big artillery pieces either.

8) DO bring artillery like Serpentines and try and concentrate them on the enemy general; and/or some Ribaults to strengthen your flanks.


Hope these help!

[Ice]

After experimenting with HRE vs. Aztec custom battles, here are some possible helpers:

1) DON'T bother with sword or spear infantry. They'll be destroyed by the Aztecs in melee.

3) DON'T use heavy cavalry unless you can ensure they'll get a good charge, as they also tend to fall apart in melee



Hope these help!

Even if I have the highest level knights with upgraded armor and weapons? How will unarmored aztecs tear them apart?

[lars573]

After experimenting with HRE vs. Aztec custom battles, here are some possible helpers:

1) DON'T bother with sword or spear infantry. They'll be destroyed by the Aztecs in melee.

2) DO use lots of of pikemen and, perhaps, halberdiers. In the case of Spain, you're lucky that you have Tercios.

3) DON'T use heavy cavalry unless you can ensure they'll get a good charge, as they also tend to fall apart in melee

4) DO use missile cavalry, especially those that can melee reasonably well (like HRE Reiters); you can charge them in after you weaken the enemy with barrages. Those that don't (like, I suspect, Mounted Crossbowmen), be prepared to micromanage them.

5) DON'T use exclusively gunpowder infantry.

6) DO use Musketeers AND Pavise Crossbowmen in concert. The former are to scare the Aztecs, while the latter are there for sheer killing prowess (and survivability, as your supply lines are effectively nonexistent in the New World).

7) DON'T expect artillery to be a panacea, and don't bother with really big artillery pieces either.

8) DO bring artillery like Serpentines and try and concentrate them on the enemy general; and/or some Ribaults to strengthen your flanks.


Hope these help!

Foot Conquistadores can take it to Aztecs in melee. Mounted Conquistadores should be used to assassinate the Aztec generals. Then the Aztecs tend to retire. My Spainish armies in Mexico are Conquistadores (6 foot 4 mounted) 4 musketeers, basiliks, and my general.

[Siebharrin]

As the scots I beat 4 full stacks of aztecs with 7 Noble Pikemen, 8 Noble Highland Archers, 4 Knights and ze General.

Just siege a castle and wait for the rescueattempt...

Hole up in a corner of the map with your inf and general, while the knights
hit'n'run... You run out of arrows pretty fast, so I'm wondering if crossbows
would have been a better choice. But I've never had so many perfect charges =)

Seeing four units of aztecs go down in two seconds was awesome =)=)
(I'm not much of a cav player)