best english army to have?

[Marku]

My army varies around this.

1 general / 1-2 younger generals
between 4-8 spear units
4-6 dismounted/armoured knights
3-4 archers
2ish Artillery


Its probably not the best combo so could somoene show me theirs

[Axe-Battler]

Well if you want to rush an enemy, then here's this...

1 general
7 english knights
6 dismounted english knights
6 armored swordsmen

now if you wanted a balanced army for both defense and descent offense...

1 general
5 english knights
4 longbows (who cares which kind)
5 dismounted english knights
5 armored swordsmen

I always use a combo infantry of armor piercers, and swords... hence the
dismounted english knights, and armored swordsmen.

[Metellus]

I generally separate my army types to aggressive (high upkeep) and defensive (militia). I favour heavy bill militia for defensive because of their free upkeep and armour, although they get chewed up by cavalry if unsupported. Nevertheless I have several of that unit in my army. Aggressive I go with DEK, AS or (phasing out now) DFK. Having some sort of arty in any stack is a definite plus which I try for as far as possible. Generally balance my different unit types to handle different battle situations. I enjoy recruiting mercenaries and keeping the ones that achieve some decent experience.

[Flavius_Korpulentus]

hi my first post of many here

i dont know but i have never used artillery. not in rome nor in medieval2. i like swiftness and when iam laying siege i often depend on towers and spies.

[MrMerisi]

I'm right in the middle of a campaign with the English, so please indulge me on posting a longer reply...

@OP

If money is no object, that's a fairly solid army, although you've left out English Knights (or Feudal Knights if you don't have the tech yet). You always need heavy knights, esp in Western Europe, and I'd never risk young generals in combat unless they had awful traits or were inept businessmen.

I'd add in Billmen or Bill Militia for flanking and assaulting enemy infantry, and I almost always deploy a unit of Peasants to soak up enemy missile fire and to screen my movements. Early game I recruit Galloglaich and Irish Kerns to supplement the lack of English skrmishers and fast assault troops.

But your choice depends on whether you're talking Early, High or Late period. Considering English Knights (mounted and dismounted) only come in a little later on, it's logical that the best English armies will have those units. However, any army with 3-4 Longbowmen+ (Yeomen, Retinue LB, Sherwood) with stakes deployed even when attacking, some Armoured Swordsmen and a couple of heavy knights should be fairly strong. You just have to be careful as Armoured Swordsmen can be crushed by enemy heavy cav at full charge and obviously the English don't get great defensive spearmen (although in the Tutorial campaign you have Norman Seargants under your banner that then mysteriously disappear as a recruiting choice).

To gain an advantage over local enemies, after the 1st Crusade I bring my Turcopoles back to Europe. It takes a while from them to get there by ship, but having Longbowmen and exotic horse archers is a very nice combination against the French and HRE. If you're fighting either of the Iberian powers, beware of their Jinetes, as they get them early, and use your Turcopoles wisely, as you can't recruit replacements. Also bring back Unhorsed Knights along with your Turcopoles from the Holy Lands for an early Heavy Infantry unit you can use before you have Fortresses.

My Early armies look like this:

1 Unit of Peasants, either out front or on a flank where I can throw them in to confuse the enemy, draw missile fire, or screen my flanking infantry (I use Town Militia if the enemy is missile heavy as Town Militia have a shield).
1 Unit of Irish Kerns arrayed as skirmishers
1 Unit of Merc Crossbows (to target any enemy armour)
3-4 Units of Merc Spears or Spear Militia (cheap cavalry stopper)
2 Units of Billmen, one on each flank, behind the spearmen
1-2 Units of Galloglaich
3-4 Units of Longbowmen (I tech up at Caen to get them ASAP)
2 Units of Mailed Knights
1 Hobilars
1 General

Obviously I rely somewhat heavily on Mercs early on, but I prefer to tech up my missile and my Economics buildings rather than try to tech up across the board. I don't deploy artillery early on as Ballistas are expensive to maintain and not nearly as effective as Longbows in terms of kills per florin.

If I'm attacking, I generally weaken a spot in the enemy lines with concentrated missile fire, using my Peasants to force his Archers back and/or draw out his Cavalry, which then get cut down by Xbows and LBmen. I then do a frontal charge with the Galloglaich and punch through the weak spot and/or I flank with the Billmen, sending my cavalry to the rear to harass his redeploying missile troops, artillery and then plow into the back of his infantry front. Rarely do I Cav charge his Archers as they hardly ever get within striking range, and my Cavalry almost always go to the flanks.

I play with the Winning Combo mod which includes Darth Formations etc, which will change how you array your forces. The Early period is the challenging one for me, as once Armoured Swords and English Knights come along, and you're wealthy, it's fairly obvious what to deploy and where.

All things considered, the bottom line is that Longbowmen are "war winning troops", to quote from the original MTW. Using them wisely almost guarantees victory.

[Guderian]

This is my OOB:

General
2 Hvy Cav (Mailed, Feudal, English, St Johns knights, demi lancers)
1 Light Cav (Hobs)
4 Levy/Arm Spearmen
5 Arm Swordsmen
2 English Dismounted Knight or Billmen
4 longbowmen or 2 longbowmen & 2 musketeers
1 Extra slot for arty or specialized units (i.e great cross)


My battle formation usually looks like this:

................*Rear*...................
HK__________LC___________HK
____________SP________
____DK______G_______DK
____AS______AS______AS
____SP__AS__SP__AS__SP
____RL___RL___RL____RL
................*Front*..................

HK = Heavy knights (cavalry)
LC = Light Cavalry
AS = Armoured Swordsmen (or Dismounted feudal knights)
G = General
DK = Dismounted English knights
SP = Levy Spearmen
RL = Retinue Longbowmen

Basically the front line takes the brunt of the enemy assault while the units on the flanks try to flank the enemy units engaging my front line. The units in the middle of my formation (including the general unit) are reinforcements which I use to plug any gaps if the enemy units manage to rout my front line troops. The hvy cav is usually used for flanking, engaging skirmishers/artillery etc and in engaging enemy cavalry units that go around the back of my formation and go straight for the general or for my archers who retreat to the back once the front line engages the enemy. The light cav is used for chasing down routers, and engaging skirmishers (esp horse archers) and arty.

[MrMerisi]

This is my OOB:

IMO that looks like a pretty narrow and deep army deployment, vulnerable to artillery, which always misses either long or short. Aiming for the center of your formation would result in casualties practically every shot. Esp from catapult and trebuchet, who have longer ranges than RLB.

I always deploy my longbows in the front, have them deploy stakes. Then, when the battle starts I immediately pull them back behind the first line of spears, who move forward to where the longbows were.

What do you do with your RLB when they are threatened by advancing infantry or pavise crossbows? How do you defend against heavy knights that charge your swordsmen and not your spearmen in your front ranks?

It seems you would have to do a lot of maneuvering, especially if you were attacking, and against a good opponent, breaking up your unit cohesion wouldn't be good. Even archers pulling back through your front lines would momentarily break the cohesion of those troops.

[Mikelus Trento]

I am at turn 160 of a 2T/year game as the English. My offensive armies usually consist of

A general
3-4 Sherwood Archers
1-2 Demi-lancers
3-4 Mailed Knights (or in my case Knights Hospitalier)
3-4 Dismounted English Knights (offense)
3-4 Armored Swordsmen (defense)
1-2 Siege (hopefully trebs)

As of now, I am the ruler of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Corsica, Sardinia, and ALL of North Africa. My merchants are earning me over 3,500 florin per turn.

[Irishman3]

As was mentioned above, best unit composition can depend a lot on the time period (early, mid or late) your in of the campaign. So far I haven't managed to get too far into a campaign as I just got the game for X-mas and have restarted quite a few times do to applying/merging mods (mostlt bug fix/campaign AI changes) so am only about 20 turns into my current and longest campaign. As English, which is all I've played yet, I tend to fnd myself building very RTW like armies and deploying quite the same. Usually my army composition in the very early stages of a campaign will look like this:

8 spearmen [SPEAR]
6 archerer [AR]
3-4 Cavalry [CAV]
1 General [GEN]

Deployment usually looks like this:

*****************************Rear*****************************

------------------------------------[GEN]--------------------------------------
[CAV]--[CAV]------------------------------------------------------[CAV]-[CAV]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-----
-------[---AR---]-[---AR---]-[---AR---]-[---AR---]-[---AR---]-[---AR---]------

*****************************Front*****************************

I like to have one of my cavalry units hanging outside the formation on each side do they can quickly flank or counter flank without getting caught up in the melee that usually ensues in the middle. Spear units are usually spread 5-4 deep and archers as thin as I can and in front and spanning almost the entire length of the infantry line. The general is in the middle for morale mostly, but also usefull once I see their front line middle units wavering.

As different unit types come available (or present themselves for hire) I'll replace some of the spearmen with heavier and/or specialized infantry. For now I'll just leave it at [INF] for display purposes, and include everything not spear or pike armed. I'll also usually pick up at least 2 crossbow ([CB]) units to replace a couple of archer units, they almost always go in the middle as the AI tends to send its armored infantry there when attacking, and even when they don't they can fire left or right from there giving them firing solutions the entire length of the line. So once I start restructruring my armies the formation changes to something like this:

*****************************Rear*****************************

------------------------------------[GEN]--------------------------------------
[CAV]--[CAV]------------------------------------------------------[CAV]-[CAV]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-[-INF-]-[--INF--]-[--INF--]-[-INF-]-[SPEAR]-[SPEAR]-----
------[---AR---]-[---AR---]-[---CB---]-[---CB---]-[---AR---]-[---AR---]-------

*****************************Front*****************************

If I've got any artillery (so far only used balista and catapults) they go in front of and to one or both sides of the general and slighlty back from the spearman/infantry line. With both the above formations I'll group the spear/inf line one group, the archers/crossbow in a second group and the cavalry I usually leave un grouped and manually move them where needed. I find using two groups like this I can qiuckly move my missle units back behind the protection of my spear/inf. The elongated formations, while difficult to manage sometimes, helps negate the effects of enemy artillery.

I've just started using billmen, and and someone else said I tend to have two - four units behind main infantry line and attack with them once the melee has began. I haven't really got to the mid-late period units yet so can't speak from experience there.

Regards

[MrMerisi]

My 2 cents on Roman type formations in the Middle Ages. Well, for most factions except perhaps Byzantium and the late HRE, they simply shouldn't work. In fact if you try to move most units in manipular Roman style, their cohesion should go to pot, and you'll pay the price at higher difficulty levels.

The good mods out there make it realistically tough and expensive to get the super knights and footmen. Many of the above-mentioned armies would have driven the kingdom into bankruptcy were they the standard of the time.

[Romanos]

Sent to the Battle Planning.

[Cato the Younger]

My standard English army revolves around:

General's unit
2x Merc Spearmen
3x Armored Spearmen
4x Heavy Billmen
5x Longbowmen (usually Yeomen)
2x English Knights
1x Hobilars

Not really all that expensive IMO. I like to use the Merc Spearmen for none other than Edward I's response in Braveheart. If they are killed, at least you don't have to pay 'em!

[Feudal Knight]

Personally I love retinue longbowman. They're actually really good in close combat fighting as well. Definetely able to stand up to the best infantry until help arrives.

[MrMerisi]

I am at turn 160 of a 2T/year game as the English. My offensive armies usually consist of

A general
3-4 Sherwood Archers
1-2 Demi-lancers
3-4 Mailed Knights (or in my case Knights Hospitalier)
3-4 Dismounted English Knights (offense)
3-4 Armored Swordsmen (defense)
1-2 Siege (hopefully trebs)

As of now, I am the ruler of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Corsica, Sardinia, and ALL of North Africa. My merchants are earning me over 3,500 florin per turn.

First of all, I envy you for having such awesome units in 1160AD. But don't you feel that such an anachronistic development will mean you won't have anything to look forward to until gunpowder's discovered? That's like another 300 turns with the same uber-units. I like the 2T/year option (and plan to try it at some point) but right now you have all this plate armour less than a century after the Battle of Hastings. Kind of like players of Civilization cheering their fighter bombers as they strafe greek phalanxes in 800AD.

Granted, it's all a matter of personal preference, but if I were choosing to play a game with 700 turns I'd either play the Road to Jerusalem mod or crank up the difficulty levels of my current mod. To me it would be no fun having such awesome troops in 1160AD. Even if you are 160 turns into the game, you're still only 1/5 of the way through the campaign's timespan and risk winning before the Mongols show up. Are you playing on BigMap? That would at least give some perspective to owning such vast quantities of land. And a realism mod would make it much harder for you to tame such large populations of conquered peoples. Corruption should be rampant and not allow you to build up the treasury needed to finance citadels and barracks yet, and it would take you centuries to convert the populace to your faith. Though you should be making more than 3500 a turn with your merchants.

You also shouldn't have enough governors to keep your population and corruption under control. Imagine a medieval city of 25000 people, thousands of miles from the capital and the seat of power, governed by foreigners of a rival faith. You'd have to have iron fisted, brilliant governors to keep things under control (witness the breakaway Kingdom of Jerusalem). I'm not saying you don't, but ruling even a small portion of north Africa from London was something the British found very hard to do even 900 years later with telephones and aircraft.

Anyway, I don't mean to criticise, just expressing a different viewpoint. I mean, if it's this easy for you, challenge yourself!

[Cato the Younger]

Imagine a medieval city of 25000 people, thousands of miles from the capital and the seat of power, governed by foreigners of a rival faith. You'd have to have iron fisted, brilliant governors to keep things under control (witness the breakaway Kingdom of Jerusalem).

A realism mod wouldn't help here. Because I'd have to use that joyous Exterminate button..

leads to !

[Irishman3]

My 2 cents on Roman type formations in the Middle Ages. Well, for most factions except perhaps Byzantium and the late HRE, they simply shouldn't work. In fact if you try to move most units in manipular Roman style, their cohesion should go to pot, and you'll pay the price at higher difficulty levels.

It really depends on how you move them around the battle field. I tend to use shift-click and draw (by group) in 2 - 3 different "steps" up to the end goal. This seems to keep the formation fairly well intact, and allows me to give halt orders and stop them in a semi-cohesive formation if needed. At least it works OK with first maneuvers at the opening of the battle. Once all hell breaks loose I rarely redraw the line and go to a more granular unit by unit management strategy. The one exception maybe is if there are multiple armies attacking my single stack. If I can intercept, engage and break one (prefferably one smaller than mine) before they form with the other then I'll redraw the line to prepare to defend against the second army.

Oh, and on cost of upkeep, mods, etc: I typically don't have stacks of these types of armies roaming around or sitting idle. However I've found by garrisoning a certain amount of units of each type at nearby settlements and having one army about half the size I listed above I can draw them together fast enough into one large unit if needed (and it seems I often need to against France). And I can assure you that it is costly to maintain that many units even spread out as garrison under the vanilla game, But when the French and Danish seem to be throwing full stacks at me all the time, I don't feel I'm playing at any less or more of an advantage. Then again I'm not using very expensive units in my example so perhaps you were referring to the other formations given.

And for the record of this discussion, I'm currently using Candelarious M2lite mod (1 year per turn version, modded to 2 turns per year) and the UltimateAI mod combined. The UltimateAI mod does allow for better movement rates so it makes it a bit easier to group up my disperssed armies. And the m2lite mod (1 yr per turn version) does have some changes for income/building costs, but I'm pretty sure it closely reflects what the vanilla game would net cost/income wise so it adds no level of difficulty. But as I said, its still very costly to maintain a large army even when disperssed until needed.

[MrMerisi]

A realism mod wouldn't help here. Because I'd have to use that joyous Exterminate button..

leads to !

Fine as a one off solution, but in a good mod that would lead to immediate Jihad if the exterminated were Muslim and drastically increase unrest in all other settlements with Muslim populations, or excommunication if they were Christians (Catholic or Orthodox), even if you owned the sitting Pope.

Your reputation would also take a massive hit and you'd probably lose more pious allies.

The game shouldn't model real life, but drastic acts such as exterminations should have drastic consequences. Otherwise it's a joke and you'd be best off waiting for the Warhammer mod.

[Cato the Younger]

True enough, but I don't think your rep would decrease by exterminating "infidels."

[SteffanGlaze]

I like:

1 general
4 armoured swordsmen
4 dismounted english knights
4 longbows/sherwood archers
3 of best knights (english/templar/hospitaller)
fill the rest with artillery!

I have the armoured swordsmen as my main line, then use the charge and damage bonus of the dismounted english knights to rout the enemy.

[sonicboon]

After I have a general, I try to have about the same amount of longbowman, spearman(any type really), cavalry(as advances as I can afford, I've fallen in love with hospitallers) and dismounted knights(any kind). I generally have a ballista or two around also, because the the AI is stupid and sometimes I can take out 50 enemy soldiers with ballistas before they even attack me.
Most of my armies are random assortments though, as Denmark, HRE, France, Spain, Milan, and Poland are all at war with me, and attack the same cities over and over again. After a while I just recruit as fast as I can, not really paying any mind to the makeup of the force.