replacing losses?

[Vae victis]

I start out my conquering spree with a stack of healthy troops. Evertime I fight a battle I take some losses. After many battles, my units are at 1/4 strength, they have gained some experiance, but may be far from home. At this point I dont know whats best for my stack.

What are the best ways to replace losses in a offensive and even deffensive(garrison) stack? Do you merge units to bring them up to full strength, or do you march them back to a far away barracks for retraining? Do you forget about unit strength and experiance and recruit a lot of mercenaries?
Thanks

[Scutarii]

Don't merge unless they have no hope of retraining. If a stack got mauled, the obvious solution is to send them back to the homeland to retrain. If you seriously need the stack to defend until reinforcements come, then get your hands on as many mercs as possible.

[Hyperterran]

in my roman empire, I always have a few stacks to use when conquering or defending.
when one stack is severely depleted, I merge them back to full strength and add more unit stacks
this way it is more realistic

and if that army is crushed, I totally disband it and send my generals(if they are not dead already) to a suicide mission

[Vae victis]

Ok Thanks. What I should try doing is following my offensive army with a garrison stack. That way when I take a city I can send the offensive stack back for retraining while the garrison defends. The problem with this is the distance to my home bases, and I usually dont have enough income to afford a second offensive stack. I thought that I could relieve this problem by having a decent garrison, but in RTW settlements aren't as easy to defend as in MTW2.

What I usually do when an enemy besieges is to march up a garrison from a nearby city to merge with and relieve the besieged garrison. This usually works but it requires large garrisons. Is there a better way to defend a city when under assult from the enemy? What defensive tactics do you use to fend off a siege?

[Hyperterran]

I don't really put a garrison stack in my cities, because some AI just wait it out while sieging. (also I don't like waiting behind walls)
so usually i leave like 3-4 units in the city (exterminate is great) and have a stack of "defenders" outside, so I can take the fight to them when they siege

also, I try to use the terrain to my advantage. like the landbridges between italy and greece. that i put a defender army there so I only have to fight one enemy stack at a time.


edit: also, sometimes, there requires 2-3 stacks to ward off some enemies near the border

[Vae victis]

Yeah, its hard to defend against seiges anyway, when you have inferior units. What I normally do is leave a light garrison in my cities, just enough to keep the people from rioting, and then have an offensive, or in this case, defensive stack nearby to come to the cities rescue. Doing this lets me fight a seige battle in the open where you can use tactics to defeat an army with superior units.

The best thing I like about this mod is being able to use inferior units and tactics to beat an army with superior units. Battles are balanced and seem just right compared to some of the other mods that I have played.

[despot_of_rhodes]

When you sally out, there is still a "draw" option, if you let the timer run down - so, if you are losing, you still can save your city, at least, if it´s not going to be stormed by the enemy on the AI turn and you can´t bring reinforcements in time to relieve it from the siege. Plus, sometimes your relieving army has not enough movement points to attack the enemy, but a sally brings them into the fight as reinforcements.
And if you´ve got a general with "nightfighter" abilities, you can mostly devide the multiple enemy armies and fight them one by one ( of course only, if the reinfocing enemy army doesn´t have a commanding general with this nightfighter trait ). I´m refering to BI engine with nightfighter skills, though.

Also, if you sally out, you might be able to surprise the enemy by a bold attack, since the AI often tends to move and reform it´s forces in the corner of the map, where they arrived from on the strategical map.
Example: if you are besieged by many phalanx units and or many skirmishers, you can attack the phalanx with your missile units from behind, while the skirmish mod is turned off, and the skirmishers with your cavalry, while they are on the move to that corner. You can catch an enemy general, while harassing him with missile cavalry, hitting him from the back ( armour piercing is awsome here ).

Well, some see this as kind of bugusing, or their house rules forbid them to act so, but actually it is a matter of speed, because you don´t really have much time untill the AI has reformed it´s battle line

[AqD]

I start out my conquering spree with a stack of healthy troops. Evertime I fight a battle I take some losses. After many battles, my units are at 1/4 strength, they have gained some experiance, but may be far from home. At this point I dont know whats best for my stack.

What are the best ways to replace losses in a offensive and even deffensive(garrison) stack? Do you merge units to bring them up to full strength, or do you march them back to a far away barracks for retraining? Do you forget about unit strength and experiance and recruit a lot of mercenaries?
Thanks

After each battle, I take out the lowest-strength units (below 3/4), and merge the rest; then send those not in full strength back home. That's for my regular armies and they would always be followed by some fresh units behind.

I also have armies of mercenaries/levies for defending minor targets or harassing the enemies. They're not permanent forces and need no replenishment.

[Maurits]

It's the same with me. The core of my army are 3-4 Roman or Italian legions that do the conquering or big defences, and when I need some garrisons or small forces I recruit or hire them in the province that is attacked.

Further, the first thing you should do before conquering large shrunks of land is making sure you've got a healthy economy, so that you can keep fighting without money troubles.

[Ichon]

I usually try and get 2 active stacks at all times. Not always both on the offensive but doing something. I start with stack of 8-10 units which are usually the ones you get with most faction at start, only a couple faction get less than that where you can't group them.

Then I find the most cost effective unit I can produce, usually something with decent stats but low maintenance costs. Usually not the worst and definitely never the best. This is the backbone unit for my empire. Produce as many as possible early so they can get experience.

First turns I try and find weak opponent not to far away and send first stack to raid them. Not trying to hold cities, just maximize loot by extermination then destroying all buildings possible. As that stack is raiding I build another 10 units stack with 5-6 home units and 4-5 mercenaries. Most often mercenaries are the pincushion units which absorb the brunt of enemy attacks. The home units are the finishers or missile units which shouldn't face much direct combat losses. I avoid rebel cities first because they don't change much. Other factions can usually only get stronger and taking out a weak neighbor in your back by looting their cities to the ground means one less frontier to guard for a while.

Once get two stacks in operation I usually try and rotate reinforcements in continuous cycle always keeping 1/3 army as mercenary units to be the dead meat which you can disband or use as garrisons. Then I fight with units until they get below 50% then rotate back to homeland while newly produced units should be arrive shortly.

If keep 2 stacks running all the time this way 1 stack should be doing something offensive every turn and often both can be. Its tempting to start a 3rd stack but unless I'm playing near the rich trade areas like Greece it ends up being too expensive and means my original 2 stack do without reinforcements for awhile. Leave only enough garrison to control cities. Usually home cities only need a governor with decent stats. Also I try and use the generals body guard cavalry the most, not only does this give them experience and make stronger but it replaces losses for free.

Although some civs can afford massive stacks by raiding larger empire and not trying to hold land. Just loot there while expanding and holding against other uncivilized or weak factions. Armenians, Parthians, Bactrians, Pontus, Samartians, can do this way. I love having roaming armies of horse archer with numerous spies to open gates which pillage and plunder nearly an entire empire.

[Vae victis]

Thanks for the feedback.

despot_of_rhodes: Well, some see this as kind of bugusing, or their house rules forbid them to act so, but actually it is a matter of speed, because you don´t really have much time untill the AI has reformed it´s battle line

Lol, whatever it takes to win. I turned off timed battles so I think if I sally with my garrison, and dont win, I will be destroyed.

aqd: After each battle, I take out the lowest-strength units (below 3/4), and merge the rest; then send those not in full strength back home. That's for my regular armies and they would always be followed by some fresh units behind.

Yes, I think this is the best method. Marching a fresh unit behind the army to replenish loses is a lot better then marching the whole army back to base for retraining.

Maurits: Further, the first thing you should do before conquering large shrunks of land is making sure you've got a healthy economy, so that you can keep fighting without money troubles.

Good advice. The problem I have is not so much my economy as it is the build times for auxillary/colonial buildings and my barracks. I can take a lot of land in the 50 turns it takes to be able to recruit a unit.

Ichon: I avoid rebel cities first because they don't change much. Other factions can usually only get stronger and taking out a weak neighbor in your back by looting their cities to the ground means one less frontier to guard for a while.

Once get two stacks in operation I usually try and rotate reinforcements in continuous cycle always keeping 1/3 army as mercenary units to be the dead meat which you can disband or use as garrisons. Then I fight with units until they get below 50% then rotate back to homeland while newly produced units should be arrive shortly.

Thats a pretty ruthless strategy you have. Lol, I should try it next campaign. I tend to stay away from mercenaries because of their high recruitment costs. Maybe I should use them more for garrisons and to absorb battle damage.