I need a better Venetian stack

[Amon_Zeth]

I usually go into battle with the following stack, as the Venetians.

1 General
1 Caroccio Standard
6 Pavise Crossbow Militia
6 Venetian Infantry
6 Feudal Knights

I am going to restructure this army, in order to include artillery so as to better siege my enemies. While I'm at it, how else should I change up my usual stack of soldiers?

[FactionHeir]

While Milan is different from Venice, it is only so slightly, so I'll tell you what I used as Milan..

I basically made up my army of 1-2 generals, depending on whether I can find some troops to occupy another general with or not.
Secondly, I use cav heavy armies, so usually 4-6 knight hospitaller + 4 feudal knights.
Add to that you'd want 2-4 dismounted feudals and some spear infantry such as armored sergeants or merc spearmen.
For ranged I'd then suggest mounted xbows for speed or merc crossbows for stationary. Genoese xbows work as well, but tbh I actually never seen any for hire (maybe after gunpowder age?), which is why I suggested mercs.
Caroccio may give you minimal morale boost but its too few people and I found them to be overwhelmed by rebel peasants already so I wouldn't recommend using those except for a defense.
For artillery, you'd want ballistae to take out enemy artillery and trebs for hitting people and walls. I found the AI using trebs are very very accurate, more than catapults even against troops and a lot more devastating. I suppose 1 treb and 1 ballista should really be enough. For sieges you got rams, towers and ladders anyway to scale those parts you don't want to break the walls of.

[Shahed]

Feudal knights mounted or dismounted ?

[Amon_Zeth]

Feudal knights mounted or dismounted ?

Mounted, otherwise I'd have no cavalry other than my general.

[Wizzie]

Hmm, 6 Crossbowmen seems a bit excessive. I would tone it down to three or four, and add in some Feudal Foot Knights in their place The Venetian Infantry are great but I find the foot knights even better. Also, 7 heavy cavalry is great, but I usually try to include some light cavalry (mounted sergeants; broken lances are heavy, arn't they?) in my stacks for performing lightning-flanking manouvres or chasing down routers.

[Musashi]

I typically use my general, 4 VHI, 4 Italian Spear Militia (Or pike militia), 6 Pavise Crossbowmen, two units of cavalry, and three artillery pieces.

[Jagger]

If I expect strong enemy heavy cavalry, I definitely want some Venetian heavy infantry to back up my infantry line rather than dismounted knights.

[Amon_Zeth]

How effective are pike militia/spear militia, anyway? I've heard some people complain about spear units getting destroyed by cavalry charges.

[Handel]

There is no such thing as "better stack". One stack is better for defence, quite other for attack, third against horse archers, forth for emergency help...

[Musashi]

How effective are pike militia/spear militia, anyway? I've heard some people complain about spear units getting destroyed by cavalry charges.

Pikes and spears survive cav charges better than non-spear units. Italian Spear Militia can hold cavalry much longer than VHI, but VHI will do more damage to the cav unit.

[Jagger]

I will usually have a front line of pikes or spears if the enemy has significant cavalry. If the enemy has primarily heavy cavalry, pikes are best with their shield wall. If primarily light cavalry, the spear schiltron is best as it doesn't have flanks. Pikes hit on the flanks are massacred. Often it is best to anchor the flanks of your front line with spear schiltrons rather than pikes regardless of what type of cavalry you are facing.

I will back up my front line with a mix of Venetian heavy infantry and/or dismounted feudal knights. The heavy infantry can strike back against any cavalry charge against the front line and the dismounted knights can counter against infantry attack.

Unfortunately, I have found the Venetian archers almost useless. With their armor and bows, initially I felt they would be ideal against eastern armies with their light cavalry and bowmen. Arrows would work perfectly fine against the low armor of eastern armies and the heavy armor of the Venetian archers would protect them against enemy bows. However, I have found the eastern armies use flame arrows to negate the armor advantage. My Venetian archers don't last long against the massed flame arrow attacks of the eastern armies. So IMO, the heavy armor of the Venetian archers provides very little advantage to compensate for their high cost. I have stopped using them as pavise crossbows have far better surviveability at lower costs.

[Jagger]

Actually, I may have to change my mind about the Venetian archers. I just did a test of three Venetian archers vs three dismounted foot knights. The archers won. The arrows decimated the knights and the charge finished the knights off.

I was kind of surprised. The arrows didn't have a problem with the knights armor even though they aren't armor piercing. In addition, even though the knights have better offense and defense, the archers had the ability to take out the knights in close melee once the knights were reduced by arrows.

I may start using the Venetian archers in my second line against western european armies. They can send arrows into a charging enemy over the front line and then still have the melee capability to counter any portions of my spear line that need melee assistance. I will see how they do.

[Beren Son Of Barahi]

1 General
1 Caroccio Standard
6 Pavise Crossbow Militia
6 Venetian Infantry
6 Feudal Knights

* i would drop the standard, unless your in a city and defending.
* i would most likely take either pikes or dismounted men at arms or dismounted knights to make up the core inf , they have high defence and can keep the other force pinned in location, and have the venetian inf on the flanks, there high attack is great as a flanking force.
*take less xbows, take some venetian archers.
*i would take some light cavalry, the light cavalry at the top end of the tech tree are awsome, and maybe the quickest light cavalry around.
*some arty would help, trebuchets are great.

so i would go with the following..
1-2 generals
2 xbow (to be out in front taking on missle troops and thinning out the front lines)
2-3 v.archers (behind the lines used to focus fire on shock troops or elites)
4 pikes/dismounted anything (used to hold the line, while others wrap around)
2 venetian heavy infantry (flanking force)
4 heavy horse of anytype (charges flanks and light troops to rout)
2 light horse (used to get behind and take out arty or anything the routs)
2 arty (trebuchets to send forth the cows and break up lines)

[Amon_Zeth]

What specialities do the Venetian Archers and the Pavise Crossbow Militia have? I'd think that the Xbows would be better all around, seeing as how they have high-powered armor piercing shots and shields to guard against arrow fire.

[TinCow]

The Venetian Archers are fabulous. Not only do they have ranged capabilities comparable to Longbows, they have very decent melee abilities. They will beat anything below the dismounted knight level of infantry in melee. This makes them particularly good at defending cities and castles, since they can repel ladders and towers as well as shoot.

[katank]

Xbows don't shoot as fast. Thus, Venetian archers can kill enemy units faster. Once they fix the passive AI, xbows will not get ability to expend all their ammo.

There is indeed no "best" stack. I assume this is for SP. If so, then exploit the passive AI all you want and load up on Xbows and Venetian archers. Throwing in a piece of siege might also be good. Then add in 4-6 units of heavy cav to break up the lines and rout chase. That's for a general AI stack.

Some bread and butter units are Italian spear militia and Venetian Heavy Inf for anti-cav and anti-armor respectively. Carraccio standard is likely a waste unless you have tons of militia units.

Note that catapults are a must for bridge defense as they can shred enemy troops on the bridge.

[rios]

There is no such thing as "better stack". One stack is better for defence, quite other for attack, third against horse archers, forth for emergency help...

since venitian can retrain cav militia and pavs in all large+ cities I generally use my defensive armies against horse archers. Cheap units to burn. Once they are experienced it's not that bad.

[Musashi]

Xbows don't shoot as fast. Thus, Venetian archers can kill enemy units faster. Once they fix the passive AI, xbows will not get ability to expend all their ammo.

There is indeed no "best" stack. I assume this is for SP. If so, then exploit the passive AI all you want and load up on Xbows and Venetian archers. Throwing in a piece of siege might also be good. Then add in 4-6 units of heavy cav to break up the lines and rout chase. That's for a general AI stack.

Some bread and butter units are Italian spear militia and Venetian Heavy Inf for anti-cav and anti-armor respectively. Carraccio standard is likely a waste unless you have tons of militia units.

Note that catapults are a must for bridge defense as they can shred enemy troops on the bridge.

My Crossbowmen get to expend their ammo almost every time, even when the enemy charges. I just don't cease firing when they engage my front line

[andrewt]

If it's campaign, venetian heavy is a lot cheaper to maintain than dismounted feudal knights, so I barely use any dismounted feudal knights.

[sapi]

Personally i'd either drop most of the cavalry or all of the infantry.

I find that mixed armies often suffer from being the jack of all trades and the master of none, so it's sometimes easier to have both an all infantry (+ the general) and an all cavalry army operating at the same time; you can use either one as the situation demands...

[monkian]

Personally i'd either drop most of the cavalry or all of the infantry.

I find that mixed armies often suffer from being the jack of all trades and the master of none, so it's sometimes easier to have both an all infantry (+ the general) and an all cavalry army operating at the same time; you can use either one as the situation demands...

You NEED to have a mixture - i.e a couple of cav units at the very least.

[Von Nanega]

Carraccio standard is likely a waste unless you have tons of militia units.

With the Venetians I have used lots of militia units. The Carrico standard has helped hold their morale. I have also had them drop the standard and fight. They are pretty good IMO. My Carrico standard in my main army has a silver chevron from their various battles and have over time only lost a total of three men. Some of these battles against Milan have been brutal with the dead stinking in the sun. But the Carico standard has stood over the piles of the slain.

[sapi]

You NEED to have a mixture - i.e a couple of cav units at the very least.

Yeh - i generally have the general and one cavalry unit (or, later in teh campaign, two generals)

With the Venetians I have used lots of militia units. The Carrico standard has helped hold their morale. I have also had them drop the standard and fight. They are pretty good IMO. My Carrico standard in my main army has a silver chevron from their various battles and have over time only lost a total of three men. Some of these battles against Milan have been brutal with the dead stinking in the sun. But the Carico standard has stood over the piles of the slain.

On a similar note, the holy cross (for crusading armies) is the only unit i've seen which can stand up to a mongol charge

[Musashi]

You NEED to have a mixture - i.e a couple of cav units at the very least.

I disagree. Pure infantry armies can work beautifully. You just have to accept that you can't pursue routers very well.

[Ars Moriendi]

I disagree. Pure infantry armies can work beautifully. You just have to accept that you can't pursue routers very well.

Yes, they can work beautifully, but only in a very limited set of circumstances :

- What about fighting against horse archers ? An all inf army can't deal with that...

- What about an heavy cav enemy ? You'll just get surrounded and mass charged to hell from all directions...

- What about fighting against massed archers on a hilltop ? Your all-inf. army will get shot to pieces on the way...

- What about achieving the ideal victory ? That would be making the enemy rout as quickly as possible with minimum engagement, thus limiting your losses and maximizing theirs in the rout. You can't get them to mass rout quickly with an all inf army (that would require cavalry rear charging the engaged units) and if you can't catch the routers...

The only circumstance when an all inf. army will work well is in sieges or in forest battles, where both cavalry and archers are not very useful.

.............

Yesterday I fought a very illustrative battle against the Venetians : they had 1+1/2 stack (~30 units) wich - except for 2 heavy cav and 2 catapults - was composed of heavy inf: a mix of dismounted knights, broken lances and heavy venetian infantry. My army (byzantine) was much lighter (5 spears, 4 archers, 4 byz. inf, 6 horse archers, general). The pre-battle screen showed 3-1 (or 2-1?) in their favour. I wouldn't normally engage under such circumstances, but I was forced to. The and result : I won, losing ~2/3 of my army, the venetians lost all their men (half dead, half prisoners). If they had brought along some more cavalry and some of their xbows they would have certainly stomped me with minimal losses, but their lack of flexibility killed them.

[Nepereta]

I assuming this is single player grand campaign:

go do some successfull crusades you'll get one of the crusade cavalry which tends to be as good as generals bar the hp difference.

[Quillan]

You had 10 missile units, though. That makes a HUGE difference. No, they can't handle that. My typical in-campaign Venetian stack has 4 pavise crossbow militia, 6-8 venetian heavy infantry, 2 mounted sergeants for chasing down routers, and a load of generals for heavy cavalry. I'm not using any governors to avoid bad traits, so they all wind up in the armies. I've had as many as 7 bodyguard units in one army. In some armies deaths have whittled them down, so I replace the generals with feudal knights or Hospitallers. I prefer the St. John knights, but I've only got one castle where I can build them, so only armies near there have them.

[katank]

Since you mentionned BGs, let me simply say that a 20 BG stack is very uber. Just about nothing can stand against their combined charge.

If you want to exploit passive AI to its fullest, have no melee infantry. Have about 12-14 units of xbows/Venetian archers and the rest all heavy cav. Shoot them till they all die and mop up the rest with your cav (simple charge should rout the depleted units) and then have fun rout chasing.

[todorp]

I did one Venetian Vh/Vh campaign.

In garrisons I used 6 crossbow militia, 11 peasant crossbows and 3 militia cavalry. The Venetian militia cavalry is a great value, it is FREE in towns, $150/turn out of a town, has good stats and gets +3 valour if produced in a town with Merchant Headquarters. It gets 3 more valour if retrained in horse Guild Headquarters! It seams it earns valour very fast, in no time it has 3 gold chevrons. When besieged I sally out first with 6 crossbow militia, next with 6 peasant crossbows and when the AI runs away finish it off with the militia cavalry.

My siege army (sieges only) was a general, ~2 trebuchets or guns, ~6 Venetian infantry, ~6 hand gunners or Venetian armoured archers.

My field army (field battles only) was a general, ~10 crossbow militia, 7 spears and 3 militia cavalry. The Venetian crossbow militia is on “stand and fight”, they have good defence.

[Musashi]

Yes, they can work beautifully, but only in a very limited set of circumstances :

- What about fighting against horse archers ? An all inf army can't deal with that...

It absolutely can. Since half my army will be high quality foot archers or pavise crossbowmen, I can cut his horse archers to ribbons while my much hardier troops easily weather his weaker arrows.

- What about an heavy cav enemy ? You'll just get surrounded and mass charged to hell from all directions...

I've set myself up with all infantry armies versus full on crusader armies (Heavy Cavalry dominated armies with light infantry support) and turned them back easily. Pikes can stop Heavy Cav easily, and even Armored Sergeants or some form of Heavy Infantry can hold them and inflict grievous casualties while your crossbows volley and break their morale.

It's also completely possible to deploy in full square, or to lure the enemy into charging the wrong point and envelop and overwhelm them with superior numbers (150 infantrymen per unit vs. 80 men per cavalry unit).

Heavy cavalry is overrated.

- What about fighting against massed archers on a hilltop ? Your all-inf. army will get shot to pieces on the way...

This is trickier, but it can be done. The fact that they are taking a stationary and defensive stance allows you to split your forces and envelop the enemy. The AI seems to have no concept of the "square" formation.

There are other strategies to deal with this situation as well.

- What about achieving the ideal victory ? That would be making the enemy rout as quickly as possible with minimum engagement, thus limiting your losses and maximizing theirs in the rout. You can't get them to mass rout quickly with an all inf army (that would require cavalry rear charging the engaged units) and if you can't catch the routers...

I think you underestimate the ability of massed crossbows to create routs.