What is your go-to army composition?

[Hooahguy]

So we all have a go-to army compositions. Some of us like flexibility so we can fight in any terrain and any type of (land) battle, other times we make armies that are tailored to meet certain challenges, like sieges or ambushes, or even certain enemies. An infantry-heavy army will not do well against a mainly horse archer army.

Personally, I favor an agile force that can adapt quickly to anything with the exception of a horse archer army.

That means for me my force has a lot of infantry that can be flexible on the battlefield. If I have to quickly wheel around to meet a different enemy coming at me from a new direction, I need to do that fast.

So in general, its a cavalry general, two units of heavy cavalry, and depending on where I recruited them, two units of light cavalry or ballistas. More recently its been ballistas since they are quite amazing, much more useful than light cavalry in the long run as I can batter them even before the melee starts. Though I do miss out on more cavalry to chase them down as they rout, so its a give and take I suppose.

I have contemplated how I would deal with army composition with a greek faction, as their pikes are their strong points. But on the other hand, pikes are unflexible and lack the flexibility that normal spearmen have. So I suppose I will have to play around with the roster, see if normal spearmen can hold up to greek pikes.

So what are your army compositions like?

[Slaists]

depends on the faction I play. As Romans, for example, I tend to roleplay a bit: hastati, mixed with principes, triarii, just a couple weak cavalry units, few missiles. As a hellenic pike faction, I tend to go 4 to 8 pikes + infantry or cavalry for flanks (depending on the faction setup and tech development at time) + the best javelins I can get for firing from the rear ranks. Why so few pikes? Because even though they are powerful, they are very inflexible (as mentioned by hooahguy above) when playing against the AI. AI would try to avoid your pikes at all costs and go for your flanks en masse. So, stronger flanks is a good idea against the AI.

I tend to avoid ballista unless it is a walled city assault army (that one would be heavy infantry + ballista + javelins for helping to clear the breach). No ballista setup makes for more fun battles when attacking the AI. If the player has artillery, the defending AI tends to rush you unless they have their own arty.

Then there is the early game "clear barb towns setup" for hellenistic factions: hoplites + massed slingers for no-walls settlements; hoplites + javelins for walled cities ;)

[Kamakazi]

General
Pikes X4
Sword Infantry X4
Hoplites X4
Ranged unit X3
Cavalry X3

Generally

[Sp4]

4 ballistas, rest whatever (no, not 15 units of slingers)

[Subedei]

Roman
1. General (Cav or Inf, depends on region)
2. 2-3 various Cav (currently building Horsearchers somewhere East….adding them to my legions step by step)
3. 1-2 Praetorian
4. At least 3 Legionaries or a mix of Spear- and Sword Units
5. 2-4 Slingers/ Bows
6. 1 Artillery
7. If in danger: Merc Units

Pontos:
1. General (Cav)
2. 3 Cav
3. 2-3 Phalanx
4. 2 Sword Units
5. 2-5 Slingers/ Bows
6. 1 Artillery in case available
7. If in danger: Merc Units


Starting to develop a feel form y Gernerals/ Armies with the 4 TPY Mod.

[Myth]

Rome

Early game army: 12-14 units of Praetorians, 4-6 units of veites. 2 units of light cav for routers (mandatory).

Mid game: reduce veite count for Socii Equites Extraordinarii

Late Game (haven't even played that yet due to deleting my saves constantly): Mass pretorian guard (10 minimum), and an even mix of Aux. Cretan Archers and Aux. Eastern Cataphracts.


Northern Barbarians (Gaul/Suebi/Iceni)

A core of the best spear units I can field. Between 6 and 8 units.
Heavy sword infantry on the rear flanks - things like Oathsworn, Swormasters etc. Between 4 and 6 units (used to chop up enemy spear/phalanx units from the side and rear, and to dispatch cav units that get bogged down in melee).
Masses of shock cav and 2 units of light cav for the remaining slots, with 2-4 skirmisher troops if I lack funds/time to recruit more cav and melee.

Early armies get a lot more skirmisher support and only 2 light cav units to rout enemy skirmishers and kill fleeing armies.

Hellenistic factions (true greeks and successor states)

If true greek:

Masses of pikes (8+) as a core, 4-6 heavy hoplites on the flanks. 2 light cav to kill routers/route enemy skirmishers. Peltasts for support since hellenistic slingers are somewhat meh.

If successor state:

Pike core of 6-8 units. 2-4 heavy hoplites on the flanks. 2-4 heavy infantry as rear flanks. Rest is shock cav and 1-2 units of light cav to kill routers.

If early game army, replace cav units with peltasts/eastern slingers

As a nomad barbarian: 12-16 units of the best HA I can field (migh tmix in jav-cav if available) the rest is shock cav.


It's important for the factions who have niche units to make use of them correctly. Don't try to hold a line with berserkers, naked fanatics or painted ones. Use them to butcher enemies from the side/back. Don't chase down routers with heavy cavalry unless i'ts past the victory screen. Etc.

[Bramborough]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Image from the Pontus guide; it's pretty much the standard to which my Pontic army composition had evolved by end of the campaign. I've also been using this same composition and base formation as Egypt.

Pros:
- Open-field. Superb defensive strength. The BAI is sufficiently aggressive that one can set up in a defensive posture in any open-field battle, regardless of relative army strengths or who initiated the battle.
- Minor settlements. Confined approaches but lack of walls create excellent advance lanes (or defensive positions) for pike units, using structures to protect flanks.

Cons:
- Walled city assault. Pike units can certainly be effective in taking provincial capitals. But I usually find myself wishing I had a few more good-quality melee infantry for these battles.
- Not the greatest composition for outright killing power. The strength of this formation is its propensity to rout, rather than destroy, the enemy. And once they do start running, there's not much cavalry to chase them down.
- "One-trick pony". It's an extremely powerful method of beating the AI, who doesn't do very well against intelligently-used phalanxes. But with pikes, my take is that there is definitely a "right" and "wrong" way to use these units, and one cannot stray far from the proven formula. Top-quality melee infantry seem much more versatile...and forgiving.

I do think I've gone a bit overboard with the pikes, using 7x units (including general's guard). I think I'm probably going to drop to a 5-6 unit pike line in favor of increased melee infantry on the flanks. Something a little closer to the @Kamakazi composition above, which strikes me as quite flexible.

[Slaists]

That, or go more heavy on cavalry rather than infantry (Macedon style). For Pontus, I sometimes drop pikes altogether and use roman style setup. After all, Pontus was known for their imitation legionaries.

I am not sure if you have seen it happen, but whenever I try something similar against the AI to what you have in the pic, the AI would respond with something I call "dumbell formation". It would throw all it's melee and cavalry at my flanks (huge blob on the poor hoplites or whatever I have there), while the AI's missiles would focus on the pikes. Essentially this splits the AI's melee forces into 2, leaving my pikes in the middle unoccupied (well, I can reoccupy them, but that means breaking the line and attacking with individual units). That dumbbell formation attack is why I have started to lower the % of pikes in my hellenistic armies. I've experimented also with going with heavy cavalry in the middle, pikes being just a place holder for the cavalry to be able to hit the AI missiles and the two heads of the dumbbell in the rear.

As to those ballistae: I know they're tempting, but I tend to avoid them in my field setup. The ballistae is the reason why you see the "aggressive field AI". Unless, the AI has arty of its own it will charge you if your army has ballistae. I have seen much more tactical battles when I have to attack without any arty in my army. The AI knows how to hold a hill, etc (when it has missile superiority). Then the battle turns into more of a tactical play where you have to create local superiority over the AI, etc rather than managing a huge mush-pit when the AI charges in. Just more interesting for me to try to get some tactical scenarios going.

[Kamakazi]

My setup is the best ive found for flexibility. Even when totally out numbered I can generally win a battle with this. All I have to do it guard my pike flanks. That's where hoplites come in. If they are having trouble I can augment with swords for a buffer. Just enough cavs to throw out and kill enemy ranged units /chase down routers/and go for tactical kills on enemy ballista or general units.

[Bramborough]

I am not sure if you have seen it happen, but whenever I try something similar against the AI to what you have in the pic, the AI would respond with something I call "dumbell formation". It would throw all it's melee and cavalry at my flanks (huge blob on the poor hoplites or whatever I have there), while the AI's missiles would focus on the pikes

It's a mixed bag, sometimes the AI does try frontal assault, such as the Iudaea battle in Egypt AAR (Part 8). But yes, what you describe is also very common, as seen in quite a few other AAR battles. My flank Galatians, Nubian spears, and Thorax swords often get quite a workout. Main reason why I'm thinking of reducing the number of pikes and replacing with more melee infantry for the flanks. Also will probably drop one archer unit as well. I don't really mind the "dumbbell". Splits the enemy army, often leaves those missile troops exposed. Many times I can wheel a couple of phalanxes to the right/left and create a V-shaped vise surrounding the enemy blob. Sure, it breaks the integrity of the overall pike line...but the enemy center is empty as well, except for now-exposed missileers in the second echelon.

Never occurred to me about the ballistae being "aggression bait"...but yeah, I think you're right. This actually strikes me as a plus for a pike-centric army...one wants the AI to charge.

[Sp4]

It's a mixed bag, sometimes the AI does try frontal assault, such as the Iudaea battle in Egypt AAR (Part 8). But yes, what you describe is also very common, as seen in quite a few other AAR battles. My flank Galatians, Nubian spears, and Thorax swords often get quite a workout. Main reason why I'm thinking of reducing the number of pikes and replacing with more melee infantry for the flanks. Also will probably drop one archer unit as well. I don't really mind the "dumbbell". Splits the enemy army, often leaves those missile troops exposed. Many times I can wheel a couple of phalanxes to the right/left and create a V-shaped vise surrounding the enemy blob. Sure, it breaks the integrity of the overall pike line...but the enemy center is empty as well, except for now-exposed missileers in the second echelon.

Never occurred to me about the ballistae being "aggression bait"...but yeah, I think you're right. This actually strikes me as a plus for a pike-centric army...one wants the AI to charge.

I have never seen the AI do anything that didn't seem to amount to control A, right click behind enemy units.

[Kamakazi]

Open Field Battle

Let them come. Usually I have 3 peltast units but in this I happened to have 2 ballista. Hid my cavs in the right flank trees and happened to split off half of the enemy force to try and stop those 3 units... Usually the Ai tries to find a weakness to the back and happens to just hit the sides. Then u pull the back ranks forward if the pikes get in trouble

[Slaists]

I have never seen the AI do anything that didn't seem to amount to control A, right click behind enemy units.

Try this Macedon move. Turn one, move your starting general from Pella towards border with Larissa. Train hoplites. On turn two: hire mercs to fill your army (not optional; this seems to trigger the city assault to be a field battle in this case and that's what we want) and ambush Pyrrhus' elephants next to Larissa. On the same turn, attack Larissa, which will have a garrison + the other Epirus starting army. Any time I try this, the AI sallies to the field. At this point, the AI will have missile superiority not you.

What will ensue will be a field battle against a defending AI. The AI won't rush you. It will defend a hill-top.

As to ballista: arty is definitely an aggression trigger. Any arty. The only time it is not a trigger in field battles is if the AI has similar arty to match.

Open Field Battle

Let them come. Usually I have 3 peltast units but in this I happened to have 2 ballista. Hid my cavs in the right flank trees and happened to split off half of the enemy force to try and stop those 3 units... Usually the Ai tries to find a weakness to the back and happens to just hit the sides. Then u pull the back ranks forward if the pikes get in trouble

Yup, I know we can win against the AI this way. But is it the fun way to win an attacking battle (where you are supposed to be attacking)? Surrounding your own ballista, with pikes and taking a walk to the bathroom. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this: just questioning if it is interesting.

For one, it would never work if a human was controlling the defending AI (in an MP campaign). A human would just let the timer run out and you'd lose your attack.

[Kamakazi]

This is a defense actually. I had an Egyptian city sieged and they attacked with an outer army. Just throwing out a strength of the composition of my army....

[Sp4]

As to ballista: arty is definitely an aggression trigger. Any arty. The only time it is not a trigger in field battles is if the AI has similar arty to match.

No.

[Slaists]

No.

Do a quicksave before any battle where you are attacking and you have a ballista (one is sufficient) whereas the defending AI has none. Does the AI defend or attack you? OK, exit the battle, load from the quicksave, delete the ballista and attack that same AI again. Unless you have missile superiority of other type, the AI will defend. I am talking about a field battle here, not a wall-less town defense.

[Myth]

Try this Macedon move. Turn one, move your starting general from Pella towards border with Larissa. Train hoplites. On turn two: hire mercs to fill your army (not optional; this seems to trigger the city assault to be a field battle in this case and that's what we want) and ambush Pyrrhus' elephants next to Larissa. On the same turn, attack Larissa, which will have a garrison + the other Epirus starting army. Any time I try this, the AI sallies to the field. At this point, the AI will have missile superiority not you.



What will ensue will be a field battle against a defending AI. The AI won't rush you. It will defend a hill-top.

As to ballista: arty is definitely an aggression trigger. Any arty. The only time it is not a trigger in field battles is if the AI has similar arty to match.



Yup, I know we can win against the AI this way. But is it the fun way to win an attacking battle (where you are supposed to be attacking)? Surrounding your own ballista, with pikes and taking a walk to the bathroom. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this: just questioning if it is interesting.

For one, it would never work if a human was controlling the defending AI (in an MP campaign). A human would just let the timer run out and you'd lose your attack.

This is called a Noob Box in Rome 1 MP

[Slaists]

@Myth, LOL, why did you grab that post with my text? The original newb box came from Kamakazi ;)

Unrelated

Temporary garrison army

I have started using temporary garrison armies. These armies get spawned right where I am doing conquest and disbanded when the area is pacified. They use cheap local militia exclusively (supplemented by mercs if some real danger appears), but, at times get decent fighting going for themselves (catching remainder stacks, etc.). For Seleucids, for example, such an army might consist exclusively of the cheapest spears + slingers (available anywhere). Once disbanded, the army's legacy can be reestablished later at some other point so such armies rack up traditions even.

[Kamakazi]

Call me a newb if you want effective is effective. Id never use this in multiplayer.

[Slaists]

Call me a newb if you want effective is effective. Id never use this in multiplayer.

I think, he was just teasing. Cheers, mate.

[Myth]

Lighthearted humour yes I too use tactics that I would dub underhanded/ineffective for multuiplayer. I am sorry if I offended.

[Sociopsychoactive]

So I've just finished an Icini campaign and thought I'd share.

I go infantry heavy in my armies with almost all factions. With Britons it was...

6 spear band (chosen spear band once available)
6 sword band (ditto)
2 slingers and 2 skirmishers
2 scout cavalry (replaced with veteren riders when they were finally available)
1 ballistae (mainly for sieges but usefull in forcing the defender to attack, ammo upgrades a must)
Heroic nobles general (much more effective than cav for early battles)

I stuck with this for the entire campaign and felt it worked well against almost any enemy army composition. My basic strategy as to force the enemy into charging, catch the bulk of the charge on the spears (braced if possible) and then move in the swords to mince away while any spare infantry moved around to roll up the whole battle line. The only times I found it didn't work well was against cav heavy armies that equal me in infantry, as they could outmanouver me and my spears were always needed on the front line. In these instances I always had to get the enemy focussed on one part of the battle with a few heavy hitting but disposable units and chase down as much cav as possible while they fought to the end before re-engaging with the main force.

I also tended to array them the same for most battles.

Sp = spear band
Sw = sword band
M = Missile troops
C = cav
G = General
B = Balistae


-----------------M---M---M---M
Sp Sp Sw Sw Sw Sp Sp Sw Sw Sw Sp Sp
C---------------------G----------------------C
-----------------------B

The middle spears can't kill much but hold well and counter a central cav charge from the enemy well.

[Veho Nex]

When im playing my normal campaigns I move armies in twos.

One army is mainly my main fighting infantry. Spears, heavy inf, auxiliary of some form. Second army comprises my archers/ranged, cav, and artillery. Special units normally tag along too depending on who im playing as.

[Bramborough]

When im playing my normal campaigns I move armies in twos.

One army is mainly my main fighting infantry. Spears, heavy inf, auxiliary of some form. Second army comprises my archers/ranged, cav, and artillery. Special units normally tag along too depending on who im playing as.

I've thought about doing something like this, but have refrained from doing so for a couple of reasons:

1. Army Cap. Depending on territory configuration and # of enemies, I've sometimes felt stretched thin responding to incoming threats. Often my biggest problem is that while my armies are hugely successful in any battle, they just can't be everywhere at once.

2. Enemy agents. They're pretty good at immobilizing armies and preventing reinforcement. Using this setup further increases their power, allowing them to affect 2 stacks instead of 1. Plus the danger of one wing getting attacked when the other cannot help.

[Slaists]

I've thought about doing something like this, but have refrained from doing so for a couple of reasons:

1. Army Cap. Depending on territory configuration and # of enemies, I've sometimes felt stretched thin responding to incoming threats. Often my biggest problem is that while my armies are hugely successful in any battle, they just can't be everywhere at once.

2. Enemy agents. They're pretty good at immobilizing armies and preventing reinforcement. Using this setup further increases their power, allowing them to affect 2 stacks instead of 1. Plus the danger of one wing getting attacked when the other cannot help.

I do pretty much the same: two armies working in tandem. One army is the regular strike force, the other one tags along with missiles, cheap auxiliaries, artillery (I do not like artillery in my main army since it triggers bad tactics from defending AI's). Sometimes I even use 3 armies (the third one would be a locally raised militia force for garrison duty until the area is pacified).

The way I avoid AI agents is by hiding armies in ambush stance. Sure, makes for slower advances, but has the side effect of slowing me down at the same time. Since I rotate the generals to maximize influence gain for my party, even if an agent kills a general of mine: it is not a big loss, LOL.

Somehow I do not encounter the issue of not having enough armies everywhere I need them even post patch 7. I gave Rome a try finally, playing on VH. I purposely followed the somewhat historical Roman expansion route (which implied leaving exposed areas, no continuous borders) and still I sense no danger from the AI. by 235, I own all of Italy, Apollonia, half of Sicily (left Syracuse there to take it some time mid 150's), Africa (former Lybia + Carthage) and couple holdings in Spain. Expanding into Illyria now. No AI has declared war on me. If I attack anyone, they run (and my armies still consist of hastati, principes, triarii).

The only campaign where there is a real sense of danger seems Epirus start. It used to be Seleucids for me, but with the diplo reliability working in patch 7, now I realized I was breaking preexisting truces when playing as this successor faction. Now I tried playing the way CA "intended us to play": not making peace with Quidri (making truce with them results in a reliability hit; especially with satraps); not attacking Egypt and Cyprus on turn 1 (that's what I used to do and, as it turned out, it would make me a scumbag in the world's eyes). This gameplay resulted in an extremely peaceful Seleucid start. I even managed to keep my satraps so far (turn 30 or so) and our relationship is steadily improving due to the wars I am dragging them in.

[Veho Nex]

I use a mod that almost triples the amount of armies you can field. When you hit imperium rank 4 you can field a whopping 38 armies.

[Hooahguy]

I use a mod that almost triples the amount of armies you can field. When you hit imperium rank 4 you can field a whopping 38 armies.

Which mod?

[Slaists]

I use a mod that almost triples the amount of armies you can field. When you hit imperium rank 4 you can field a whopping 38 armies.

I actually quite like the army restriction on me (the player) when playing vanilla.

[al Roumi]

Interesting to see the roles-playing and gaming type approaches to armies. For the SP campaign i try to play in a way i think is reasonably historical, with armies to match. So that means generally avoiding spamming top units and keep a balance of core and supports - including foot skirmishers, if only as a screen/bait. I like to have my armies flexible and mobile so I don't tend to use many siege weapons.

For Rome I used infantry heavy armies, with a decreasing number of pre-Marian types: Hastati>Principes>Trarii and roughly similar numbers of velites as hastati. I then exclusively use auxiliaries for support and cavalry, phasing out the velites (get a bit bored with them and you also have to worry about the damage to wild-life if they ALL wear a dead wolf).

My fave auxilliary skirmishers are the Numidians, on foot or hooves, as well as Cantabrians/Iberians. But also I'll take whatever's going...

Post Marius, I try to have veteran<=normal legionaries, with one First cohort per legion. I get a bit annoyed that my general's cohort gets shoved in the main line by the auto formations though.

In my current Seleucid campaign, i'm using a 10 pike core with a hoplite unit for each flank. Again, I try to scale the quality of pikes such that the majority are "normal", but not levy units. As such, I typically have 1 silver shield per stack and maybe 3 Thureaos. Persian hoplites are the perfect flank unit with their square formation. The lack of phalanx limits their offense, though that's the job of the slow marching pike line.

I've tended to focus on cavalry skirmishers, javlineers and camel archers, but they get less effective as the campaign progresses. I've then added more Median shock cavalry and superseded skirmishers for Tarantine cav.

I had my first experiement with chariots recently, hiding them in forest behind slingers before charging head-on into an advancing melee line of low level spears and skirmishers. The chariots were pretty impressive (1 unit killed circa 200 enemies in 1 charge) but I suspect they might come unstuck against e.g. legionnaires.

[Slaists]

I had my first experiement with chariots recently, hiding them in forest behind slingers before charging head-on into an advancing melee line of low level spears and skirmishers. The chariots were pretty impressive (1 unit killed circa 200 enemies in 1 charge) but I suspect they might come unstuck against e.g. legionnaires.

Did it really kill that number in the charge or were the kills assigned after the battle? In my experience, the end-battle (once the enemy is routing) button assigns ridiculous amounts of router kills to elephants and chariots. In one battle, my elephants got around 500 kills assigned to them. There is no way they killed that many in the battle (the unit just charged one spear unit in the rear).