Peasants?

[HappeR]

I have always wondered...what's the point of having peasants in your army...

I found out that having peasants in your army makes your army even weaker. Mainly because the bastards tend to rout when ANY enemy gets close...

[Gunno_Desk]

That's why we DON"T have peasants in our army because of that. Only use them as garrisons (also as a last resort) which fights at the square so they can't rout. Mass can always be helpful but I can gurrantee they'll still suck

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Peasants can also be used in 'immigration'. Build up a stack of peasants from a city that is overpopulated, and move them to one that is underpopulated. Disband them, and voila, you have two stable cities.

[UhOhIt'sAnArrow]

Peasants can also be used in 'immigration'. Build up a stack of peasants from a city that is overpopulated, and move them to one that is underpopulated. Disband them, and voila, you have two stable cities.

Does that honestly work? Redudant question but could you perhaps elaborate because I'm in shock lol.

[Draugdur]

Yup, that should work. There are even mods (Fourth Age for example) where you have a 'settlers' unit that's good only for moving the population. As far as I remember it was possible in vanilla too.

[Blaven]

Damn, good thinking Popat, didn't even know that could be done. That's pretty useful for when cities start getting over 24,000+ people in the them.

[Slimshoom]

peasants should only be used a)in extreme emergencies b)for garrison c) immigration or d) to decrease the pop in a city that is near plague levels...

[Severous]

I have used peasants in my army.

They are not strong and rout easily. No question about that.

But if you have a 10star general in command you have +10 to troop morale/fighting. Suddenly your mass of peasants are individually stronger than many regular troops. And there is a lot of them...enemies become distraught ?

I used them deliberately against British chariots. Let them absorb the chariot charge and then with all other troops swamped the chariots. Peasants can kill chariots. Not as good as velites but effective. You can replace them almost anywhere.

Rebel bashing with a nearly all peasant army:


Without a unit of peasants in this fight I would have lost.


Normally they are not to be feared.


Seriously upgraded with gold chevrons and equipment, like after a city revolt, they pack quite a punch.

[orange slice]

you could build a city up full of peasants so it looks like you have a strong army, and most likely your enemys wont attack a full stacked army, unless they have one too.

[Kraut]

I only use peasants from time to time as cheap garrison and for the "population movement thing". I never use them in my armies. They just suck. It is a waste of money and time to build them.

[Aemilianus]

I don't think I have ever used peasants in my entire life as a fighting force, as they really aren't worth the 100 denarii you have to spend on them. It's much easier in my opinion to build one division of, say...Equites, or Noble Cav, or something like that. Equites are probably worth 4 peasant divisions money wise, and I can almost guarantee you that they'll rout all 4 divisions (and take less time to build).

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

I think peasants are useful to have around, especially during sieges. You can use peasants to position your siege equipment in place, be it saps, ladders, battering rams or siege towers. This way, any tower / defenders fire will usually be aimed at the peasants, allowing them to soak up the damage while you move your heavy infantry and shock troops into position.

I used to order any unit to dig the saps...until one collapsed and killed the whole unit of Silver Shield Legionaires that we're busy digging...

Since that nasty encounter, peasants have always dug my saps, it doesn't matter if they collapse because peasants cost next to nothing to upkeep and maintain per turn.

[NobleNick]

I think peasants are useful to have around, especially during sieges. You can use peasants to position your siege equipment in place, be it saps, ladders, battering rams or siege towers. This way, any tower / defenders fire will usually be aimed at the peasants, allowing them to soak up the damage while you move your heavy infantry and shock troops into position.

I used to order any unit to dig the saps...until one collapsed and killed the whole unit of Silver Shield Legionaires that we're busy digging...

Since that nasty encounter, peasants have always dug my saps, it doesn't matter if they collapse because peasants cost next to nothing to upkeep and maintain per turn.

Whoa, Seasoned Alcoholic, excellent points! I never thought of using peasants that way. Sappers and siege tower movers...

Peasants are *THE* most cost-effective way of keeping the peace in settlements. Also, if you have some good quality troops in town that you need to get to battle (like when you've just conquered a town), but you need them to stay in town to keep the peace, building peasants is both the cheapest *AND* the quickest way to get the good units out of town and into battle. This is because Peasant units are larger; and so a single unit, built in a single turn, can replace larger numbers of other units. So, building a single unit of Peasants can free up two units of heavy cav. 2 units of Peasants frees up 3 units of most infantry, and so on. You must weigh this REAL advantage against the disadvantage that they typically stink in battle. (But I;e found out lately that they don't stink as badly as I thought they did.)

Oh, the population move thing: Good for building (or reducing) the population of small settlements; but a waste for making huge cities smaller. Run the numbers: for a Huge city (population over 24,000) with 1% PG, it is generating 240 pop per turn. If you build one Peasant unit per turn on (next setting up from Large) unit setting, you will break even. On Large unit setting, your peasant units are only 120 strong, and you can only build one per turn. This is only half of the 240 you need. Therefore: TOTALLY useless for decreasing populations when the population is 12,000 or more and you are on large unit setting. MARGINALLY useless for towns of 10,000 or more (using large units). Obviously, the larger the unit setting (you can only adjust this BEFORE you start your campaign), the more effective this technique is.

@ Severous --> That second pic: Cutting it a bit close aren't we? Wow, the margin of victory can be razor-thin. I would have been sweating it. (As an aside: what mod or techniques are you using to get the neat tabs and formation buttons in that last pic? PM me if you like.)

[Kraut]

I think peasants are useful to have around, especially during sieges. You can use peasants to position your siege equipment in place, be it saps, ladders, battering rams or siege towers. This way, any tower / defenders fire will usually be aimed at the peasants, allowing them to soak up the damage while you move your heavy infantry and shock troops into position.

This is a real point I did not regard until now. Normally I used my "expendable" Inf (skirmishers, mercenaries) to do the dirty work in sieges. Well, I will give it a try with peasants. Thanks for the hint.

[JCeasar_911]

I think peasants are useful to have around, especially during sieges. You can use peasants to position your siege equipment in place, be it saps, ladders, battering rams or siege towers. This way, any tower / defenders fire will usually be aimed at the peasants, allowing them to soak up the damage while you move your heavy infantry and shock troops into position.

I used to order any unit to dig the saps...until one collapsed and killed the whole unit of Silver Shield Legionaires that we're busy digging...

Since that nasty encounter, peasants have always dug my saps, it doesn't matter if they collapse because peasants cost next to nothing to upkeep and maintain per turn.

Yes but what happens when the peasants breach the walls and have to face the enemy troops? after being peppered with arrows the entire time they will probably route at the first encounter with an enemy and their route will upset the rest of your forces. However that is a good idea if you can backup your peasants after they breach the walls or pull them back after breaching to allow your more "capable" troops of handling the job.

[Severous]

Cheap and big. They make the best value for money garrison unit for controlling public order. Also good for moving population to towns needing people to progress to the next level.

In battle they are weak. Dont build them for their battlefield skills. But if they are present their main weapon is their numbers. Put them close to a wavering enemy and it may rout due to 'overwhelming numbers'. Ive used them a lot behind my German spear phalanx...safe from fighting they scare due to numbers.

Scythian horse archers seem to like charging at peasants...so I have used them as live bait. Then sprung a trap on the HA with my own cavalry snaring the Scythians who were chasing peasants.

[Zuwxiv]

I use them as a cost effective force.

If you have some city with good upgrades... say, every trained unit gets silver weapons and armor as well as 6 experience (three silver chevrons). This happened to me at Babylon.

Now ordinary peasants are fairly useless. But when their attack and defense are increased by +8, +8, they are a very reliable light infantry. They won't rout too easily because of the experience, and although they won't hold on for long against heavy infantry or phalanxes, they are more than capable of holding the line until you can out maneuver your enemy. They are easily replaced at any city.

But if you have the money, and can afford better units, do that. Be warned: If you are low on money, you have two options: Train weak and cheap units (town gaurd, peasants), or wait. Remember that if you train the weak units, their upkeep will prevent you from being to save up to buy better units. It might be better to just wait and then once you have saved up, spend on the better units.

I remember playing as the Hayasdan on EB, money is a huge issue. I had to plan out how much it would cost to train units, followed by their costs. I was making a very small amount of money each turn, and couldn't train any troops without starting to lose money... And all of my troops were occupied in keeping order in my cities. To attack another city, I had to save up about 10,000... Which was actually only about 5,000 in unit costs. I had to factor in:

Turns:----------Actions-------Cost
1-------------train unit -------unit cost
2-------------train unit--------unit cost plus previous units upkeep
3-------------train unit--------unit cost plus previous two units upkeep
4----------train another unit----unit cost plus three unit upkeeps
etc.

And the very first unit's upkeep was more than my previous profit per turn.

Roundabout way of saying it, but sometimes saving money can be better than spending it on whatever you can afford. Still, with good upgrades, peasants are very cheap for their usefulness.

[Severous]

Agree with all the above re use of peasants in right circumstances.


From my closest batle. Enemy was peasants...seriously upgraded ones as you can tell from all the little flags they carry. I made a few blunders, won by a narrow margin, learnt to respect upgraded peasants.

Noble Nick..Use 'Ctrl'@click to select multiple units. Once highlighted, say all your cavalry, press 'G' to group them. You can move the soldiers individually or as a group. In my previous post I grouped the cavalry and selected 2 line formation. Made it easier to move the units into position. In battle the group did not function as effectively as micromanaging and ordering them individually.

[webusver]

Imho all factions except rebels should not have peasants available to recruit. At the same time rebels should have peasants. That's historically true. Perhaps any rebel army should have 10 peasant units more.

[Legionary Jezza]

Like someone has already said; use them to balance out your cities. I also use them to hold an enemy in a certain position so then i can flank him.