Expansion and Logistics

[Decimus Equitius]

So how do you do it? I was wondering how do you manage to keep your armies supplied with troops? When you are way out in the frontier of enemy territory do you hire mercs or send reinforcements?

How do you deal with expansion? Historical? Convenience?

Is your army upkept by the slaughter of towns and cities, or by the strength of your economy?

Are your armies powerhouses with your most elite troops destroying everyone in their path, or peasant and merc armies that overwhelm the enemy with numbers?

Is your navy a vital part of your army or is it just to keep ships from blockading your ports?

And do you play/expand the same way everytime for what ever faction you play?

[Hader]

So how do you do it? I was wondering how do you manage to keep your armies supplied with troops? When you are way out in the frontier of enemy territory do you hire mercs or send reinforcements?

Usually I keep them near a town that can retrain them, or I have a navy nearby to take them to a town that can retrain them. I never let their numbers fall below half. If they get close then they are going to be retrained. Well, thats just with my professional armies, which have the best roops and are experienced and organized. I do random stuff with non-professional armies. Sometimes I hire mercs, but not too often, usually its for a small boost in numbers, use them as a reserve unit or to buy them before the enemy does.

How do you deal with expansion? Historical? Convenience?

My expansion: my armies rule all! I sometimes make expansion historical, but usually just random if I am not Rome.

Is your army upkept by the slaughter of towns and cities, or by the strength of your economy?

Both.

Are your armies powerhouses with your most elite troops destroying everyone in their path, or peasant and merc armies that overwhelm the enemy with numbers?

I make highly organized, disiplined and elite armies that fight all the battles on the front. Other units are used for garrisons of towns that are in the center of the empire and have little threas nearby.

Is your navy a vital part of your army or is it just to keep ships from blockading your ports?

Early on in any game for me it is just to ferry a few trrops and stop blockades, I use money on my army more than on my navy early on. But after about 20 years or so I build my navy up a lot and make it a power to reckon with.

And do you play/expand the same way everytime for what ever faction you play?

Matters on the faction. As Rome its usually into Gaul, Carthage, and Greece at about the same time. As Armenia I usually expand into Pontus and Seleucia, but sometimes I like to take a defensive approach as Armenia and let everyone come to me.

[LSJ]

In my campaigns I try to take the closest coastal provinces, and like to have every province border two others. So, an enemy cannot just run through a line of cities - the force has to split up, and thus its easier to defend.
I like to take islands and almost complete continents. As Pontus I take over Asia minor, as Rome I take Spain, Germania, and Italy, as Egypt I take all of Africa and Arabia.
I like to have an empire like a block, and not have messy borders. I want my faction to look like Canada or Mexico rather than India or America. I only take islands if they are close to one of my provinces.

I usually support my frontline forces with cheap troops and mercs from frontline cities, while building a large army in the heart of my nation. Instead of sending lines of units to the armies, I group them together and come as a force. Its slower, and my frontline forces can be weaker after years of battles, but they usually hold out for 9 turns (which is how long it usually takes me to send a new army to a frontline).

I prefer having three mid-tech cities than one super advanced city, because I can get more armies faster, and with good battlefield tactics it doesn't matter whether the enemy units are militia or elite. Javelins thrown by militia men are deadlier than javs thrown by an expert unit of one third the size. And a light infantry unit can hold out long enough for medium cavalry to flank the enemy and squash a few dozen, retreat, and do it again.

Mercs are good expendable units. If the enemy army is overwhelming, I can hire a nice halfstack army of mercs and delay the attackers as well as kill a bunch of them before they reach a city, which by then usually has a lot of archers and big walls.

[Decimus Equitius]

I think part of my problem on expansion is that I never use mercs. At most I'll have one or two units in my entire army. Or I'll hire them for a battle and disband them the same turn. I have a capital system of recruitment. Every area I expand to I'll slaughter the population except for one town which I make the capital of the area which is responsible for Troop recruitment. All other towns are for the economy. I tax everyone as high as they'll let me.

My armies are all standard legions and standard garrisons as the romans. Each border town will have 4 units in garrison of pretty good troops. Legions are strictly for offence and are retrained as often as I can. I like it this way because by the time marian reforms come about my first legion usually has 2 or three silver chevrons for every unit; if it's still alive that is.

I like to have a strong navy once my economy can support it. The majority of my attacks are naval invasions; sailing my army in behind their main line and destroying them from the inside out. So I always take the Islands first, because their easy to defend and have good trade income.

I'm a chronic Roman Player. It seems that I cannot be anyone else, plus I expand the same way almost every time. Sicily, Gaul, Germania, Thrace. But I'm changing that, I think next time as the romans I'll sail to Alexandria after I solidify my homeland. Just for something a little different.

[technishn08]

When I conquered the world as the Julii, I really, for teh most part, ingored the Senate missions, unless they were to take a settlement. I standardized my armies and with those in hand, went on to take spain, north africa, and gaul. All the while, the Brutii and Scipii were off blockading ports for the Senate. To keep my armies sustained, I only occupied settlements so that tehre would be plenty of people to train. Then, I would leave them in one or two turns, and keep a garrison of maybe two mercenary units. After a while, the garrison standerdized as well (3 principes, 3 hastati, 2 velites, one equites). Once that was done, I disbanded the mercenaries in the towns, and moved on. After I secured Northwest Africa (Carthage to Tingis), Gaul, and Spain, I just sat and waited. I built only economic buildings, and horded gold till my treasury was the greatest in the world. Once that was achieved, I made a few more pre-marius legions, then the reforms happened. Now I had a mix of Marian Legions(standardized of course), and pre-Marian legions, with a mix of a few Auxiliary Legions here and there, mostly to put down rebellions. I started to move into Britannia and Germany, and after a while, the people loved me enough to proclaimme emperor. So with the ten armies that I had strategically positioned in Italy, I atacked the Senate, the Brutii, and the Scipii all at once. Frankly, taking Italy was easy. Then I noticed my grave mistake. My navies were terrible. My ports were blockaded, and the money wasnt flowing any more. So i took a few years to creat several large navies, and exploded them into the Mediteranean, where the fighting was fierce. The Scipii navies were ferocious, partly because of the special ships they can get when they build a tmeple to Neptune. In the end, it turned out to be an issue of human vs. AI, where the human won, because he was smarter :original: