Army Composition

[simplemind07]

What kind of army composition do everyone use and tactics?

I usually like my army composed of 60% infantry (40% heavy infanry and 20% light infantry), 20% calvary (Heavy calvary), 5% archers, 10% skirmishers, and 5% artillery.

Tactics I usually use is have my artillery and archers bombard the hell out of the enemy as the enemy gets closer, then force have them or lure them to engage my heavy infantry with the support of my lighter ones. I put all my heavy calvary on one side while my skirmish calvary on the other side and hide them if possible. If the enemy has calvary, I'll use my heavy calvary to engage them if they dont well I use my heavy cal to flank the enemy in one side while my skirmisher, both foot and cal, to the other side where the enemies have their backs turned and let those missles do their their job, usually the enemy would rout, if not then I would make my skirmishers charge and it always happen, before my skirmishers would even reach them, they would rout and it would be a flood.

[sumaznguy]

I tend to use around 50% heavy infantry. then 25% skirmishers and 25% missile troops.

[Tiberius Tosi]

50% heavy infantry, 25% skirmishers, 25% heavy cavalry.

Formation-
I = Infantry
S = Skirmisher
C = Cavalry
G = General

---I---I---I
I--S-I-S-I-S--I
---I-S-I-S-I
--C-C-G-C-C

I use my cavalry in the back instead of the flanks so I can use them as needed. As I usually end up swinging my back line of infantry around to the flanks anyways so the cavalry being there would be in the way.

Basically what I do is I turn fire at will mode on for everyone, and turn off skirmisher mode for skirmishers. I then let the enemy line attack mine, and as they charge forward my skirmishers, and heavy infantry if they have missilies, pound the enemy line with missiles as they charge. Once their line has engaged with my front 3 infantry, I exhaust the missiles of my second line infantry and then rush them foward, attacking the enemy line so as to fill the gaps in my own line. Then I use whatever strategy is needed to sorround and destroy the enemy, so the next phase of my battle plan is usually just whatever is needed to accomplish that. Usually I swing my third line of infantry around, or use them (if spearmen) to protect a flanking move from enemy cavalry, let them take the impact, and then swing my own cavalry around and defeat the enemy cavalry and continue on to sorround their infantry.

PS- The model of my army is a little off. Basically it looks more like the Roman manipular system but with the second and third lines' gaps filled with skirmishers (only I use 3-4-3 with infantry in my formation as opposed to the actual 4-3-4 in the real manipular system).

[Mister S]

4 heavy infantry to guard the sides, one to back up, 1 elephants, 1 archer, 2 skirmishers. If necessary, heavy cavalry. The rest phalanxes/hoplites.

tactics: pin the enemy with phalanx, then elephant charge down their entire line. Let the elephants rest (they tire very quickly) and repeat. The reason I do this is because I think cavalry sucks in this mod. The AI turns around way too fast (RTW issue) so a back charge against hoplites is more like a frontal assault => RIP cavalry. Elephants are beter: strong and relatively cheap. (1000 casualties 5000 upkeep, cavalry 200 casualties 2000 upkeep and half the cavalry dead.)

It is also nice to do a Charge of the Light brigade: 20 artillery vs enemy army. pwnage guaranteed.

[FriendlyFire]

In the early stages of my Carthaginian campaign (H/H) I'm using a similar "pin and rout" approach, with hoplites to pin and heavy cavalry to do the routing. Then I add an archer and/or slinger, 2-4 peltasts to soak up enemy missile fire and tempt the enemy cavalry into foolish charges, and maybe a skirmisher cavalry to chase down routing enemy generals. You can see some typical battles with this mix in the AAR in my signature. Just ignore the first battle, that's a bunch of mercenaries

I haven't tried elephants yet - I'd always fear losing one! And each city that I capture can typically start recruiting peltasts and Carthaginian cavalry within a year (1 season of military occupation, then 3 seasons to produce a happy colony), so I have a steady supply of those units. That's why I use the peltasts to soak up enemy fire, because I'm trying to preserve as many of my precious hoplites as I can.

The one weakness that I've found with this force mix is wall battles: the hoplites can fight their way through skirmishers or lighter hoplites, but against anything heavier they have a hard time holding their own. I'll be using Mister S's approach of heavy infantry for flank guards (and wall assaults) once I start expanding into Iberia.