Historical army compositions

**Arkatreides** · 12-19-2006, 01:16

What did historical armies consist off? Given the 20 unit limit, I want to recreate factional armies as accurately as possible.

E.g. say I play Romani, how many hastati, principes and triarii units would I have? How many support units?

If we could compile this for all the factions that would be great.

**CaesarAugustus** · 12-19-2006, 01:31

In my Romani campaign, my main 20-unit army is made of:

Hastati- 6 units
Principes- 4 units
Triarii- 3 units
Equites- 2 units
General- 1 unit
support (rorarii and leves, sp?)-4 units

The reason for the amount of hastai, principes and Triarii units included is that I am trying to roughly demonstrate that less men would have survived to to be promoted to the next level of veterancy. (For example, of the 6 former units of Hastati that enlisted, only enough men survived to be re-organized into four units of Principes).

My amount of Equites is relatively low to reflect that the early Romans did not use their turmae of cavalry for much more than scouting, and thus did not mantain a huge cavalry force for fighting.

However, i am not sure how historically accurate this really is, it is just an estimate based on the 20-unit limitations.

**NeoSpartan** · 12-19-2006, 01:34

edit,

**Zaknafien** · 12-19-2006, 01:38

well youre missing your ala socorium (allies)--id say you need a unit or two of samnites or lucanians, or maybe a unit of some german or gallic or greek cavalry depending on where you're fighting.

Your other alae will be formed of the extraordinarii, to be used as a special reserve by the Consul leading the army.

I'd rarely go with a full 20-stack I think thats a little too large for a Republican army, say maybe 10-12 at most.

**Sarcasm** · 12-19-2006, 02:27

I'm with Zaknafien on this one...My standard early Republican legion is much smaller and *must* consists of:

1 General (Must have a commanding position, like being a consul [in which case he can command 2 of these])
3 Hastati
3 Principes
2 Triarii
1 Equites/Equites Extraordinari/Other allied cavalry [read greek, gallic or whatever].
2 Leves/Velites
2 units of supporting infantry (Kretans, Slingers, Lucanians, Samnites, Pedites Extraordinari, Hoplites...etc...) » These are optional

I like to have a strong RPG element in my games so I don't exploit the really deficient AI. An example of self-imposed elements are...

*Don't chase the enemy after the battle is won (so much more of the enemy survives);
*Keep Legions in forts along the Italian countryside [like an HQ's where they can muster and be refitted before a CO comes to take command] so there aren't legions running around by themselves;
*Use 3 line formation with horse alae;
*Never scout first with spies [increases chances of an ambush];
*Only command battles where family members are present [for the rest I use auto-calc];
*Never recruit more than 2 mercenaries for my armies [unless there's a Type 4 government in a city, in which case there can't be any more than 2 of my units, *or* there's a Type 3, in which case the ratio must be 1:1];
*Only advance into areas where there's an obvious need to intervene (not conquering just for the hell of it);
*Don't keep provinces that formerly belongued to an ally;
*After a campaign the legion must return home, after exchanging it with a garrison force of Rorarii or similar...

**Zaknafien** · 12-19-2006, 02:37

Yep, sounds alot like me--I do the forst along the borders thing as well, with a normal legion (1 unit of each hastati/princ/triarii/equites/velites) in each fort. a Consular legion is double strength, so for my "campaigning armies" i use this:

3 hastati
2 principes
1 triarii
1 equites
1x velites
1 general (w/ perhaps one younger general as a second)
2x regional ally infantry
1x regional ally cavalry
1x pedites extraordinarii
1x equites extraordinarii

**abou** · 12-19-2006, 03:22

Originally Posted by Sarcasm

I'm with Zaknafien on this one...My standard early Republican
*Don't chase the enemy after the battle is won (so much more of the enemy survives)

Chasing the enemy with cavalry is one of the reasons why Caesar was so successful as a general. Besides, the AI gets so much money and is able to recruit so many stacks you are doing yourself a disservice - not evening the gameplay.

**CaesarAugustus** · 12-20-2006, 02:54

Originally Posted by Sarcasm

I like to have a strong RPG element in my games so I don't exploit the really deficient AI. An example of self-imposed elements are...

*Don't chase the enemy after the battle is won (so much more of the enemy survives);
*Keep Legions in forts along the Italian countryside [like an HQ's where they can muster and be refitted before a CO comes to take command] so there aren't legions running around by themselves;
*Use 3 line formation with horse alae;
*Never scout first with spies [increases chances of an ambush];
*Only command battles where family members are present [for the rest I use auto-calc];
*Never recruit more than 2 mercenaries for my armies [unless there's a Type 4 government in a city, in which case there can't be any more than 2 of my units, *or* there's a Type 3, in which case the ratio must be 1:1];
*Only advance into areas where there's an obvious need to intervene (not conquering just for the hell of it);
*Don't keep provinces that formerly belongued to an ally;
*After a campaign the legion must return home, after exchanging it with a garrison force of Rorarii or similar...

These are some very good roleplaying ideas, I'll integrate some of these into my own campaigns.........

Right now the only rolepalying thing i do is form the triplex acies (I just drag out the back lines of principes/triarii to make them roughly even)

Originally Posted by Zaknafien

I'd rarely go with a full 20-stack I think thats a little too large for a Republican army, say maybe 10-12 at most.

I had no idea that republican armies were so small, or is this just on the largest unit setting? I play on normal unit size, so would it still be historically accurate if I used maybe 15-16 stacks?