depleted units as strategic reserve

[eisenkopf]

just wanted to share a strategy that works well in my current campaign as sicily in lands to conquer on H/H:

in lands to conquer, sicily is always extremely low on money (low kings purse, ships cost a lot, while cities don't reap that much income). in addition, i wanted to turtle a bit, play as "Defender of the Faith and Pope" and not "Conqueror of the world", so in the mid-1150s, i only got Naples, Cagliari, Tunis, Tripolis (all cities) and Palermo (castle). i've fought the excommed Venetians (conquered Bologna, gifted it to the Holy Father), and in between had constant fighting with the Moors. I got lots of mailed knights (like 8 units) from missions, and the upkeep would cripple my economy. So I merge the depleted units in such a way that i always have like 4 knights at full strength for fighting, while the other sit in the castle with only 3 or 4 men per unit left. As soon as the fighting force is decimated, the reserve is brought to full strength and exchanged with the depleted forces.

The result of this rotation strategy: I'm fighting a two-front war successfully, have enough money, and knights that soon will earn their first gold chevron.

[sparty]

I've been experimenting with this concept in battle as well. I'm quite certain I'm not the first, but so far it's worked exceedingly well.

Typically I keep 3 light cav in my starting armies and just use one early on to harass enemy archers that aren't too close to spearmen. I can flank wide, charge in and right after I make content I run them back out. Once they deplete from 30 to 20 I stop and put them by my bodyguard.

In the last battle I fought (English vs. Teutonic Quick Battle) it worked great. I managed to totally route their left flank archers with a combo of concentrated archery fire and the cavalry hit & run.

My only concern is that it's very micro-managey so it feels a bit gamey to me as though that would never have been done and just exploits the control you get in the game rather than playing it in a more historically appropriate fashion.

[eisenkopf]

yeah, I use mounted sergeants in a very similar manner.

however, what I originally meant to say and probably didn't in a clear way, is that now I'm upgrading to Norman Knights (yeah!), and I keep the "old" mailed knights with lots of experience but less than 10 men as low upkeep reserve in Palermo. If I get attacked unexpectedly, I can quickly pump them up to full size and have an experienced (although slightly outdated) army.

[Mithrane]

That is indeed an interesting idea. I would likely never use it for two reasons, though.

First, I'm a person who either holds a front with a lot of troops, or pushes the front... with a lot of troops. If there is fighting, or could be fighting, I tend to be already gearing up an army to send on the attack.

Second, while I tend to make good use of the watchtowers, I rarely get enough warning that a simple retrained army would suffice. When I get attacked, it is either a junk army, easily beatable with a 2 infantry, 1 archer, 1 cavalry army, or a full force, requiring a true counter attack.

Were I able to retrain many more units at a time, and had more warning, then yes, I would find use for this tactic. As it is, I tend to just send experienced units to get retrained, and find uses for them, even if outdated.