cannonfodder

[Eccentric]

Do any of you guys use weak units like town watch in campaign?
I've noticed that they are very useful early on as fodder, first off they are cheap and easily retrainable, so it doesn't matter if they sustain heavy casualties and rout, all they half to do is distract enemy units long enough for you to overwhelm his cavalry or one of his flanks, I've used peasants (on medium) to hold hastati for ten seconds which was all i needed to flank the hastati, for example, I fought a battle in which I had 2 units of town militia and 2 units of cav (one was a general) the enemy had 5 hastati and a general, I lured the general from his soldiers and easily killed him, then I killed his infantry by pinning two of his hastati with my town militia and hit them in the back with my cav, routing them before the other three units could come to their aid, here's how I did it,

e= enemy line
t=town militia
c=cav

eeeee


__tt
__cc

As the hastati advanced in a long thin line I quickly moved my whole formation to one of their flanks like this


ct _e
ct __e
_____e
______e
_______e
This is what the enemy did, it takes them a long time to readjust their line their infantry's formation is only 3 to 4 lines deep, this keeps them far apart and vulnerable to a massed attack on one or two units at a time, and the ai always seems to try to come at you in a line that is parallel to yours so they wait until their entire line is strait and facing you, then they advance, so I attacked 2 of their hastati units with my tw and at the same time hit them in the flank with cav which resulted in an almost instant rout and then I moved on to the next two units and did the same and finally the last unit,
I had heavy losses from my town militia, but hey, who cares, they are so cheap and easily retrainable that it doesn't matter and they gain exp over time.
Finally I disagree with those people who say Iberian infantry sucks, ok, they aren't any good to hold the line, but thats not what they are supposed to do, use them like I did these town militia and they rock, especially once they start getting exp, plus they are extremely cheap, 240 denarii, a lot cheaper then even eastern infantry and almost half the price of hastati, if your looking for a cheap cost effective unit, iberian infantry is the perfect choice, at least for me it is.

[piranha45]

on hard and very hard, that would be very useful. although of course your men suffer a morale bonus due to the routing unit..

i only play on medium though and its easy enough to just outmuscle the enemy, especially with multi-star generals.

Iberian Infantry are really fun because they are so fast-moving. However, their upkeep (170) really neutralizes their cost-effectiveness...

[Romulus_A]

The only militia type unit I have evered used for an actual battle, is Carthage's town militia, and I do this simply because I think town militia can be useful in battle.

I can see that working though, and I think I have done that a few times in my previous campaigns.

In my current one as Greek City States, I really have no need to as my pikes just hold them in place, but if I were any other non-phalanx faction that would probably help.

[GeneralChaos]

I like to have town watch charge an enemy line usually- the entire army focuses on them, so you can move your actual troops up and everyone is concentrated in one area for them. Kinda cheap, but oh well.

And they're good for just having numbers. Whatever city I capture, I can retrain all of the town watch troops (well almost any city) in 1 turn.

[Selifator]

In small battles I like town militia since the enemy will get unnerved by a large amount of men, and I need that on H/H. I lost a lot of battles that I would have won on M/M. And cannonfodder is always great.

[Amroth]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[Sandrus Castus]

I do not use them that much, but they can be useful to keep up your hapiness.
In battles never, only if I haven't got any other units near when one of my cities is besieged.

[Cmdr_Sdxo]

Yeah. Even though cannon fodder is cheap and weak, they're good for flank attacks and suicidal attacks I wouldn't waste good troops to(assaulting generals etc,small ambushes and such.)

[Xavier Dragnesi]

I use them, but not as cannon fodder. I just use them when there are no other good troops trainable or in the vicinity.

[Problem Sleuth]

If you're playing multiplayer, and you have no chance to hold a settlement and probably won't get it back for many turns... Spam peasants, and use them as both scouts and to delay the enemy so you can either pull out or so you can make them pay to take the city. Perhaps purposely making the city rebel and giving you time for it to switch from rioting and then a revolt?

[Prince_of_Macedon]

Cannon fodder is pretty good, but I hate to think that I would designate people as being expendable.

[Selifator]

Cannon fodder is pretty good, but I hate to think that I would designate people as being expendable.

You think that a peasant would understand the meaning of the word expendable? :hmmm: And I like fodder, most of my infantry is expensive and effective fodder. Online I use my phalanx as a wall for my archers to hide behind and for my cavalry to strike at infantry held in place. The only job of the infantry is to die without any glory and with a lot of gore.

[Eccentric]

True, but we generals are evil

[Xavier Dragnesi]

That's a bit of an insult on behalf of the Romans

[Selifator]

Yeah well, they don't insult me. As the good mindless little puppets they are, they will happily fling themselves into all danger letting the good troops kill stuff.

[HeroSK]

The only way that I used cannonfoder units is Rome vs Rome multiplayer games. I place my archers in front of main infantry line in loose formation and skirmish mod off. When enemy come an throw pila, they hit archers. While enemy wasting their pila on my achers, my infantry throws pila at enemy main line troops.

I know that routed units lowers the morale of nearby units that is my reason for not taking peaseants as cannonfodder unit. Since they quickly rout under arrow fire..

[Aristarchus]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see the usefulness of town militia as cannon fodder. Although they are cheap to purchase, their upkeep cost is not much less than a low-level infantry with better fighting capacity and morale. When I put a force out front to delay a Roman cohort, I want it to stick around long enough to do some good, not just absorb pila. As Germany, I used spearmen to face off the cohorts and draw their attention while the fast axemen thrust forward to flank them. Any unit in that forward position that breaks just allows the cohort to concentrate too quickly elsewhere.

[Selifator]

Well, in small towns I can't train hastati or recruite mercs. So I depend on town watch.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I guess every1 has their own opinion on this one, but here's mine: cannon fodder can be very useful, but this tactic can backfire very easily as routing cannon fodder can discourage ur main troops, congest ur lines/formations, and provide the enemy with all-round momentum.

[SonOfAlexander]

It discourages your troops and my problem is that the AI normally doesnt take the bait , because its too scared of my outflanking forces, maybe.