Building Armies with the New Style EDU

[gamegeek2]

So how have you guys been building your armies with the new EDU?

As always it's rather dependent on circumstances, but can you give me an idea of what you consider a solid fullstack for a custom battle or campaign?

[NoHelmet]

Just beggining a new campaign with ERE, i will bring news as soon as i can.

[metsikhovne]

for georgia campaign i use less dismounted monaspa inly 2 units in stack.. i usually have more tadzreuli swordsman.heavy cav aznauri or monaspa..monaspa costs too much and horse archers of course monaspa HA s are very usefu.as archers i use metsikhovne archers not monaspa..but in campaign it is very hard to have stack lika that...usuallly it is mix of all unts

[Iguanaonastick]

I actually build my armies more or less the same way as I did in the old EDU. This is because I want my armies to feel well balanced and realistic. This makes them much more fun to use for me. So if I play Kypchaks I'm going to include a lot of light horse-archers no matter what. Whatever faction I play, I'm only going to use one or two elite units of infantry and cavalry each, except in a "Royal" stack which will include a much larger proportion.

The big difference with the new EDU is how I use these units.

My Roman armies nowadays include some 12 infantry units and 8 cavalry, half of which is light (missile) and half heavy. Back in 2.02, I'd use my light cavalry to harass and destroy the enemy flanks, especially cavalry. My own lancers would destroy some enemy infantry as they approached, the rest as they started to engage my infantry. My foot archers would cause some damage, but unless the enemy had a large advantage of numbers my mêlée infantry would mostly be spectators as my cavalry won the battle.

In the new EDU, I hold my cavalry back far longer as they're more vulnerable and my infantry is more reliable. The infantry will need to hold the line much longer, though barring elite units and pikes they still generally don't kill a lot of foes. Horse archers play a much smaller role, as their arrows are pretty much ineffective against good troops and there is little point to fighting missile duels. I aim my shots at soft targets, but those are generally pretty unimportant. Instead, the horse-archers spend a lot of time acting like light lancers and decoys. Javelin cav on the other hand has gained importance, it can cripple units of heavy infantry quite effectively.

There are some subtle differences in army composition. For example, in the old EDU the Basileus' army wouldn't include low-class pikemen as they performed (and were priced) mostly as militia units. Nowadays they're better, so they're in all armies. In the old EDU horse-archers were better so I'd use trapezitai sparingly or not at all in better armies, now I always include a unit or two. But the general proportions remain the same because I base those on what feels right for the culture in question rather than a specific analysis what will yield the highest gameplay results.

BTW, I can give specific examples of army-lists, but I already gave a good few of those in the horse-archer army thread. I imagine other people's lists would be more useful in that regard.

[Fracchione]

definitely a strong army needs heavy inf BADLY,plus some cavalry

playing as OMAN,my strongest army is:2 generals,6-8 heavy infantry,4-6 archers(can be beduin camels,arab inf or similar),at least 2 cavalry(no matter what,just to smash routing enemies);
stuff changes in sieges(omani nobles are a must when defending)

[gamegeek2]

Funny, I've been having a good amount of success with horse-archers' arrows. They also serve as general-purpose light troops, though they can't fill the light lancer role something like Trapezitae can.

[Iguanaonastick]

Roman horse-archers can. They're armed with spears and have just about the same mêlée stats as Trapezitoi.

My lack of success with their arrows may well have something to do with the fact these are fairly low-quality horse-archers though. I imagine their accuracy is low.

The factions I've been playing in the new EDU happen to have been light on horse-archers. Jerusalem, Oman, Rome, Makuria. The first three have very limited horse-archer availability, the last have none whatsoever.

I briefly played Kypchaks but never fought any serious wars with them so can't really tell.

[trollface]

success with HA depends on terrain... sticking them on a hill will give a strong improvement