Retraining question?

[Bcman]

Hi all I am having trouble deciding how to retrain deplenished legionary army's in my roman campaign. It is around 630 AUC and I have taken all of Gaul Italy and Spain. And now tht my numbered legion army's are getting a little bit over stretched. i am hell bent on just holding the rhine and i just took out beleage so i cant recruit any units of use from those newly aquired provences. I don't know which of the 2 main ways to retrain units I should use.


1. one way is to send the entire army back and retrain it that way but it can take a really long time but you can keep all the golden and silver chevrons and not risk loosing them by mixing units. The negotiable side is that if I move the legion out of the fort to go down to southern Gaul to get retrained I risk loosing the fort and having barbarians cross te Rhine into my lands


2.The other way is leaving the army where they are and merging their units and them recruiting the replacement units at the city and then sending them to the legion. This does ensure that no smelly barbarians cross my river but the legion will be under strengthed.


I have been using mostly the first strategy but it is taking its towl by having legions in Belgium being sent to massila to be retrained.

[Velico]

I have a whole logistics process set up for my games. I use defensive, offensive, and professional/elite armies, and have supporting armies for each one of them. I typically keep one of each unit in the three different army compositions in close proximity (but behind the main force) and move them up to reinforce after I have a battle. I do that until one of the units is close to depleting itself, and send just him back to retrain. It works quite well for me. A little tedious at times, but I've become proficient at it and its a system that works for me.

I don't like having my main armies off the front lines for very long, and going back to a city that is several provinces away (without ship transport) puts them out of combat for too long for me.

[Bcman]

I have a whole logistics process set up for my games. I use defensive, offensive, and professional/elite armies, and have supporting armies for each one of them. I typically keep one of each unit in the three different army compositions in close proximity (but behind the main force) and move them up to reinforce after I have a battle. I do that until one of the units is close to depleting itself, and send just him back to retrain. It works quite well for me. A little tedious at times, but I've become proficient at it and its a system that works for me.

I don't like having my main armies off the front lines for very long, and going back to a city that is several provinces away (without ship transport) puts them out of combat for too long for me.

I do have supporting army's and complete auxiliary army's but they either just sit in a conquered province so no barbarians have a naval invasion or they help out my allies in the Middle East. But when I invade Somone I have a around 6 or 7 legions and then I'll have 3 other legions so after I send the original 7 back to retrain ill have the 3 supporting legions fight off any counter attacks.


@Sukiyama I am going to try that strategy later on today when I probebley send my 5 legions to watch the Rhine instead of my 2 or 3 mercenary units in the Rhine forts

[CatoTheYounger]

This is always a tricky issue. I usualy bring reserve units to merge but if i have an uber experience stack i prefer to send them home to retrain so i get max experience. This is not always practical. Forts are the key to holding areas. One stack can back up 3 or 4 forts. When an enemy seiges a fort the reserve army responds. this buys time until the Stack sent home returns. I like Lord Tedric's startegy of Capture and hold. Blitzing is not effiecent anway.

[Zom]

Forts are the key to holding areas. One stack can back up 3 or 4 forts. When an enemy seiges a fort the reserve army responds. this buys time until the Stack sent home returns. I like Lord Tedric's startegy of Capture and hold. Blitzing is not effiecent anway.

I cannot agree with you more strongly. I use forts when I advance into a new region (read your Ceasar) to protect my legions from surprise attack. When I take a strategic bridge/ford, when I have mountain passes on my border, I build a fort an leave one or two units in it. I keep a relief force positioned to reinforce multiple forts. My lands are peppered with forts.

[Bcman]

This is always a tricky issue. I usualy bring reserve units to merge but if i have an uber experience stack i prefer to send them home to retrain so i get max experience. This is not always practical. Forts are the key to holding areas. One stack can back up 3 or 4 forts. When an enemy seiges a fort the reserve army responds. this buys time until the Stack sent home returns. I like Lord Tedric's startegy of Capture and hold. Blitzing is not effiecent anway.

This is exactly what i am doing right now. I just finished taking over all of spain so i sent 7 of my legions up to belguim so i can invade Britain. So it would be better if i had those 7 legions holding the Rhine only have 3 and thats what i did. I think im kinda overkilling the invasion with 12 legions but whatever i got nothing better to do

[Love Mountain]

This is always a tricky issue. I usualy bring reserve units to merge but if i have an uber experience stack i prefer to send them home to retrain so i get max experience. This is not always practical. Forts are the key to holding areas. One stack can back up 3 or 4 forts. When an enemy seiges a fort the reserve army responds. this buys time until the Stack sent home returns. I like Lord Tedric's startegy of Capture and hold. Blitzing is not effiecent anway.

I try to play reastically. I always merge units, and when I retrain; I literally re-recruit entire armies from their shambles(3-12 cards left in the stack). That way, I have extremely experienced troops, and completely green cohorts. Unfortunately I cannot emulate promoting veterans to officers, and spreading skilled troops around the cohorts... which is a pity imo.

[CatoTheYounger]

Sound idea Suki. I see you are picking up my style of Role playing? ha!.

[Love Mountain]

2.The other way is leaving the army where they are and merging their units and them recruiting the replacement units at the city and then sending them to the legion. This does ensure that no smelly barbarians cross my river but the legion will be under strengthed.

This is the only real way to keep up the strength of your legion bcman. You have to bring additional cohorts of Polybians or Legionaries and merge existing units with fresh ones. Keep your reinforcements in camps or something, until you need them.

[moredrowsy]

It's more economically efficient (saves money) to retrain. I only retrain if my units are 50% strength. The upkeep for depleted units are very low so spending the time to move them back to the training center is worth it. You get higher experience and it saves money. Recruiting fresh units are not economically efficient.

If you had taken all of spain, italy, and gaul, then you should not be overstretched. You only need militias type units to fight off rebellions in spain and italy while your main legions are at the frontiers. I always have 1 numbered legion to fight main battles along with 1 full stack auxiliary legions to support. Then I have different numbered legion with another full stack auxiliary legion as reserve so the battered legion can travel back to retraining.

Also, I believe once I created a legion of 20 units, only those legions "belong" to that stack. Any new units that are used should be temporary replacement. The new units just don't feel like family BECAUSE they are not the original united that I levied! So if somehow my legion IV lost 6 cohort units (or a major battle with HEAVY loses), then I won't retrain units and considered that legion as destroyed. The "shamed" and "dishonored" legion should be punished and I will send them to fight till the very last man. Afterwards, it then should be completely re-levied from ground up and it will be considered a new legion with a new history. hehe