How to grow to 3 full army's?

[Turtle Style]

I seem to have trouble with the upkeep of my army. I always sandwich all my troops into two full sized troops. Every man, archer, spearman, town militia and general packed into the max (20?) slots so that I can crush 99% of any opposition. When I begin to gather them to meet somewhere in the map I always hire some small 2-3 slots of town militia or something similiar to keep that town I abandon happy. If they are still in the yellow I build a church or set the auto manage for the settlement as community build. I have yet to have 3 army's yet with maxed out units, It's always 2. What is the best that I could build up my army without having to worry about expenses? Dirt roads and grain farms?

[Dreagon]

Keep the armies cheap. You should use spear militia, cheap archers and some cavalry support. The cavalry is expensive so don't have to many of those. I find that 4 units of mailed knights per army is enough, especially early game. For the rest, just build a lot of economic building like roads, ports, farms, markets and also mines, if they make a decent amount of money. Another important thing is that you shouldn't have to many castles. Castles provide you with troops but the cities provide you with money. For example: When I'm England and I control the british isles, my only castle in the isles is Nottingham. I always change Invernes and Caernaervon into cities.

But really, don't try to have full stacks early on. You'll do just fine with smaller armies. I would recommend armies along the line of 6 spear militia, 3 archers, 1 general and 2 heavy cavalry. Maybe add 2 siege weapons if you're playing as a catholic faction. With a little bit of skill, armies like that can defeat a lot of things the AI throws at you in the field. It can defend a city or castle from a full stack of decent quality troops but it might run into some trouble when attacking a city. As long as the garrison is smaller you should be fine. Once you've conquered some new territory and developed it a bit you can start recruiting full stacks of quality troops.

[Turtle Style]

I also never use agents, I should probally start doing that too. When I open a port do I just leave it like that and currency comes in ordo I use boats manually?

[Sweetie Belle]

Merchants are excellent for income. If you play as a catholic faction, you should send them to Istanbul, where there are silk resources.

[Aeratus]

Half of the issue with your army upkeep is whether your units are too expensive. You can open your financial report to see how much upkeep your army is taking per turn.

However, the other half is whether your economy is large enough to support your troops. You can always get more income by building trade-related buildings such as ports, markets, and improving the roads. Conquering more settlements will bring more income. If your economy is managed efficiently and your empire is large enough, you will be able to support a huge army, even an army that requires 50k or even 100k florins for upkeep per turn.

Ports are generally the most important sources of income, because they have access to a large number of connections to external provinces, usually. Once you build a port, the income is automatic, and you don't have to worry about it. I would build ports as first priority, then markets as second priority.

[Maklodes]

Three armies? Simple. Pump out 60 units of peasants (peasants, peasant archers, peasant crossbowmen) and whatever your cheapest militia is (i.e., crossbow militia or something).

Not very useful, is it?

I'm not just a troll, though. Having three full stacks of units, isn't particularly important as an objective. Three full stacks could be three stacks of crap (as I demonstrated), while a half-stack could be a really good half-stack. To figure out what kind of army you want, you should know what it's for.

I think of there as being three basic types of field armies: the mobile all-cavalry rapid response force (or "Parthian"), which is good at moving from place to place rapidly and catching under-escorted enemy generals as they move from one city to the next. The combined-arms force with a mix of ranged and melee infantry and cavalry designed to win field battles as efficiently and reliably as possible, plus do sieges in a pinch (or "Macedonian"), and the plodding force consisting mostly of heavy infantry, with some support from cavalry and missile infantry, plus the addition of siege equipment, designed to storm cities and castles (or "Roman").

A cavalry army is typically the most expensive, if it's a full stack, but does it need to be a full stack? That depends on what you want to use it for. The beauty of it is that it can withdraw from trouble more rapidly than most of its pursuers, while concentrating against weak stacks. A stack of five mounted crossbowmen, a general, and four chivalric knights could still be quite good at catching under-escorted generals and other weak stacks in the open field, while being a half-stack. It could be worth more, in those circumstances, than a full-stack combined-arms army with a full mix of armoured sergeants, dismounted feudal knights, pavise crossbowmen, chivalric knights, and mounted crossbowmen, even though the combined-arms army might be as expensive or more so.

So the question is not how to get three full stacks. The question is how to achieve your objective.

Unless you just want three full stacks because you're attached to the idea, in which case my full-stack peasant/militia army ideas also work.

[Turtle Style]

Thanks for all the feedback I'll begin with constructing ports roads and markets to support my army. Also will hire some merchants and send them on their way = P