Do you ever make elite armies?

[The Mad Monk]

In my last campaign as Roma, i had what I nicknamed the 'Golden Legion' for it was full of 1-3 Gold Chevroned grizzled troops. It was
1 8star General, age 49
1 3star General, age 20
2 Equites
4 Hastati
4 Princepes
4 Triarii
4 Archers.

These vets had seen combat beginning with the destruction of Pyrrhus of Epirus, the conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily, the Invasion of North Afrika and the sacking of Carthage, the destruction of 6 Gallic stacks in as many turns, the assault, defense and attacks launched from on Eastern Greece to all of Greece.

I love these guys

[Spartan198]

All the time. In one GCS campaign, I had a Spartan army that I kept in Greece specifically for quashing rebels.

[dacder]

how do you nickname um???

[The Mad Monk]

how do you nickname um???

not literally. just a emotional attachment to the Golden Tenth...

[C-Rob]

Due to marian reforms I kind of dont' for hte romans until after those but for every other faction I generally do build an elite corp for each theater.

[dacder]

Did you make up the tenth 2??And I am developing one,it is my only real defence as I train another legion.

[gaius_caesar]

I do! I once had A legion which I called "Task Force 11". Out of the 11 Legions I created, it was my most favorite seeing as their commander goes by the name Alexander Corvinus.. HAHA!

[smoesville]

The Baktrian 1st They were the bravest of us all... The core unit was in Bactra from the beginning, 1 unit of Agema Hoplites. They killed hundreds of thousands of Seleucids and it was ages before i could even retrain them back to full strength.

They died when the Parthians re-emerged and took bactra, some 100 years later, the last we saw of them they were surrounded in the gateway by hundreds of horse fighting to the death, their last act to kill the parthian king and utterly destroy those purple jerks once and for all.

[Scutarii]

My Syracusian veterans were pretty beast. Trained specifically to face the garrison scripts of Rome, Rhodes (hate this one. Always forget about it), and Carthage as well as for securing Italy nearly single handedly. Not to mention costing me more than their fair share of my pretty pennies. But their awesomeness was worth it in the end.

[AchillesXX]

I make two kinds of elite armies. One I create early on in the game and keep using throughout my campaign. So, the units are only from a City Barracks, not the best in and of themselves, but they end up with gold chevrons after tons and tons of battles. They make a great offensive army because they are relatively easy to retrain while advancing. The other type I recruit from a top tier barracks. My best army ever was probably in my Pergamene campaign. 5 Sacred Band, 4 Hypaspists, 2 Syrian Archers, 2 Artillery, 2 Companion Cav, 4 Eastern Skirmish Cav, and a good General. They were based in Antioch and I used them to fend off the Seleucids. I left the Seleucids with all their holdings from Hatra east, so they would usually attack me every turn, or every other turn. Before long these elite soldiers had all gold armor/weapons and chevrons.

[Pinkie Pie]

has anyone managed to get 3 gold chevrons?
i cant seem to get over the 2 gold chevron barrier

[The Mad Monk]

Now that i think about it I only pass two also! hmm...

[AchillesXX]

I agree, I think two is the highest I have ever seen. Maybe some kind of archer could get three because they can fight without taking casualties (in theory at least).

[Shadurak]

Maybe I haven't played this long enough, but sadly, I am unable to create elite armies. I only managed to get two gold chevrons on my SRG and a general who will soon die of old age.

[death to the romans]

everybody can make elite armies, just take an army of high-quality troops, smash hundreds of enemies under the lead of a jong general, and voila!

[Pinkie Pie]

all of my armies follow the same pattern
9 heavy infantry
4 archers
4 heavy cavalry
2 siege weapons
1 general

[death to the romans]

i should add more cavalry. i always make sure i have sufficient of those. my favourite tactic is the hammer and anvil, wich relies on cavalry support. i don't really mind about archers

[AchillesXX]

I personally love skirmish cavalry (and skirmish units in general). They are really excellent at disrupting enemy formations without taking casualties. Also, once the have experience and upgrades + their armor piercing trait they can really create some damage.

[Pinkie Pie]

i dont use any particular tactic
i just go with the flow

[smoesville]

I have to say while i always have a core of experienced troops the other parts of the army are quite fluid. I only train units in their respective sectors, spartans in sparta, greeks in greece etc. so the core suffers casualties over time so the rest of the army are made of AoR units or more likely mercs. this means that they cannot be retrained but instead when they go below fighting strength they are disbanded or if close enough settled in some region which requires citizens. To make life difficult i have a rule; units like legionaries and hoplites (the mainstay of either my greeks or my romans), can be retrained where ever it is possible but they are only allowed to be trained in their core provinces. This mostly applies to romans because of the structure of the legions.

My favorite Roman army was the V Augustus which consisted of:
2 generals, because they are treacherous, disloyal bastards (the leader was Varius Mus/Africanus/Magnus/the Mighty/Gallicus/Graecus/the Wrathful)
1 first legionary cohort, the cohort that gave it its name, the V Augustus,
between 7 and 9 legionary cohorts, not always 9 but i tried to keep the strength up but some sectors are too underdeveloped to retrain them
4 Archer auxillia
a mixture of cavalry and skirmishers makes up the balance, whatever is available in the local theatre of war.

Marius was stripped of command when he became a danger to the empire and had 0 loyalty. He left the legion and greece, became really angry and then went on a rampage in Africa with lots of mercs, he died when his own elephants went beserk for no real reason and slaughtered his bodyguard.

The campaign was abandoned when i discovered Extended Cultures, which is insanely difficult when you're Massillia and you're me and after all these years from shogun all the way up i'm still only a barely competent treasurer who uses the wonderful debt relief method of "they have a nice city, lets burn it and kill everyone and abandon it afterwards so they can rebuild". This has backfired when my advance overtook the cities i had burnt long before i had intended.