Unconventional Armies

[Cathedralsquares]

What armies have you used that seem to go against what the faction historically has strength in? In my ERE game I've resurrected the Legions, 12 units are Swordsmen and Castophrikae while the rest is split between skirmishers and cavalry. I pretty exclusively use light cavalry to run down horse archers or flank charge.

[meese]

I would hardly call it unconventional by historical standards, but it was certainly unconventional by the game's standards.

As the Crusader States, I made a full cavalry army which had units added to it as the game went along. So I had a few knights of jerusalem, knights templar, hospitaller knights and st lazarus knights running around, 19 of them led by a general. They kicked ass and were never in need of training a full unit because none of them were ever too badly decimated. It was only in around 1480 that they ran into a battle which left only 9 units standing and by then, everyone was either on 2 or 3 gold chevrons

[Duck of Death]

I also like bringing back my own middle age version of the legions with the Romans.

I go 2 each of catapults, mangonels, ballista, elite heavy cav, archers.
4 spearmen and 5 elite swordsmen.... with a general.

May sound like to much artilary but, it seems to be working. Ive yet to lose a battle with this setup (as long as i place and use them properly).

I currently have 12 of these legions stationed along my borders consisting of the entire reclaimed eastern empire + all of africa.
My goal is to get up to 28 sustainable legions by the time Ive conquered Spain, western europe and england... thereby reproducing the "old" empire as much as possible

Im just now about to invade Italy with my 9th, 10th and 11th legions hehe.

[bluemagician]

The idea of having your troops organized in legions seems really cool~!!
giving them their legion number, dislocating and dispatching in units of legions..
even just recruiting them would be fun enough, seeing your legions grow in number~!!
appointing Generals as legatus legionis would give it a more roman touch~

I guess I'll try it myself on my later Roman campaign too


P.S.1 as u have said.. there seems to be too much artillery though..
how do you manage to use your mangonels??
i can't really find a practical way to use them;;


P.S. I hope the next total war would be RTW2

[Nacht]

Mangonels, I always use them to aim at targets further behind than what I'm aiming for, so that when the barrels land too far ahead, which they often do, they'll still hit the target I want them to. I basically use them to decimate annoying units like Lancers or Scholarii so they don't torment me later on.

[Duck of Death]

Well granted, I havent come up against the later (heavily armored) knights of europe yet. I may have to ease up on artillery then. I just love seeing all that firepower slamming into enemy ranks and decimating them before they even get to my infantry
... also im only about 25 or so turns from getting cannons.

I do wish there was a way to actually number the legions. Right now I just know their numbers by memory hehe.

Modders? Is that possible somehow to number them?

Possibly to recruit them as numbered legions from a certain castle through a certain building option similar to the way they did it in the "Roma Surectum" mod?

[Cathedralsquares]

Well the Byzantines didn't use a Legion system they used a Thematic system. Anyway, what are some other breaks from reality people have had?

[Ichon]

I tried playing Mongols using only infantry once just to see how things would go. Got bored about 20 turns in but if you aren't afraid of using add_money for a couple turns its a funny campaign.

[Ataraxie]

It can be very interesting to use entire armies of pavisse crossbowmen as one of the Italian states, backed up with a decent artillery train. Since they're fairly well armed and armoured, they can fight, the artillery is good for knocking about knights, and the long range of the crossbow makes their approach difficult.

It's not, however, as fun as playing entire armies of pavisse arbalesters was in MTW I

[YuriVII]

All my armies are based on the opponents I face. Playing as HRE I have a good amount of heavy cav and spears with a few swordsmen and archers. I dont like using swordsmen because they are hard to replace and I need them for sieges. I also prefer to expand west instead of East. Shorter frontier economically developed regions and france is on the faction kill list. If I play Kievan Rus I actually have light cav to replace swords men entirely in field armies and a special replacement "reinforcement train of swordsmen when I need to use them for big sieges. I rarely use artillery because I dont like the effect it has on mobility. I recruit artillery only on special occasions like storming a huge city or citadel.

[Fotchimus]

As the Seljuks I have one army specifically meant for siege assaults. This is the composition:

1 General
8 Saracen Militia
4 Hashashim
4 Turkish Javelinmen
3 Trebuchets

Very different from my normal armies in that it has no archers and no horse archers which really are the Seljuk's strength (in the early era...). But I got tired of using spies to open gates and trying to do sneaky things with horse archers. It's much easier to blow a bunch of holes in the walls and rush in infantry.

[oxxid]

My "standard" army would be :

1 General
6 Bowmen/Crossbows/Guns
4 Pikemen
3 Heavy Infantry
4 Cavalry
2 Trebuchets/Cannons

A very solid center with mobile troops on the side.
After that, it depends on the ennemy. What I love most is the "look" of the army. I create my own version of some troops if I don't like how they look, or if I want a "specific" look, like I just did with the Teutonic Pikemen. So much for usefulness ... (Ohh... but these particular ones ARE useful !)

[Cathedralsquares]

I love pikemen. I've never gotten a game along far enough to actually get to them though. I usually win before I even get pike militia.

[Nat Belmont]

When I have a lot of javelin units available (Seljuk, Portugal, Leon, Aragon, etc) I use javelins instead of infantry. I try to make sure I'm on the defensive, and even heavy cavalry takes heavy damage when it charges my javelins.

I guess for Seljuk it's not really unconventional, because their other early infantry units are such utter trash that you may as well save money and use peasants.