Keeping the home fires burning.

[Marcus Julius Britannicus]

Just curious about how many troops people leave in their cities and what sort?

I tend just to use Rorii and wondering what other people use.

[Legionary Jezza]

I would use the basic units and possibly some skirmishers for the inner cities and outer cities AKA my frontlines the heavy units and archers and cavalry to maintain a strong border defence with forts around bridges.

[Tzif]

In my Greek campaign I just keep a whole bunch of the Taxitoi (spelling not right) hoplites in each town along with a few Generals and/or a unit of Creten Archers.

Tzif

[Turkeys!]

Well for my captial i leave 2 Dii infantry and a bunch of palanghiti[i cant spell] + a couple of toxatai and the rest of my cities get some taexis hoplites or palangati or if they can make them 2 dii infantry and 5 palangati.

[Zuwxiv]

Just curious about how many troops people leave in their cities and what sort?

I tend just to use Rorii and wondering what other people use.

Hi, welcome to the forums!

Anyway, I tend to change my strategy. Playing as Epiros, it depends. If it's early in the game, and I'm short on cash, then its whatever is cheapest. But as the game progresses, it becomes necessary to have not just a police force, but a defending army. A lot of other factions are at war with me, and others might be soon. I try to play as a peaceful leader, but if someone attacks me, they don't get any mercy!

So by the end of the game, as I have money and influence to use, I start using progressively better troops. Right now in the game, I have a lot of land, but a lot of enemies. I'm making a good deal every turn, so I disband the bad soldiers or send them to the save regions of my nation. But in the border states, like Northern Italy against barbarian invaders, it's some full stacks keeping order. I have elephants, the best pikemen, and a couple family members.

So I guess the answer is that I'm flexible, my strategy changes based on what I can afford. Of course, some pressing need might change that. Say, an ally backstabs me and I wasn't expecting it. This happened in Greece - the Greeks were my allies, and I started a war with Macedon. It was really more of a preemptive strike, they had no enemies, no other factions on their border, and a crap load of soldiers massing. It would be a tough campaign against them, but I was pretty confident in my success. I had just finished off Rome as a threat, so I was feeling ready to finally expand in my homeland instead of Italy.

Then BAM! Greeks attack me. Vicious little bastards. So instead of fighting a difficult war, I'm fighting a damn near impossible war on two fronts. Lucky for me, I had a disenherited family member (Would have been the next faction leader, but a wonder child was born that was destined for greatness.) I role played a bit as him, giving him a half army (not a very good one, either) and sending him against the Greeks - 2 full stacks immedately, and 3 more in cities. He had to prove his worth. Well, he damn proved it all right. It was like Thermopylae v2.0 with the Greeks getting owned. While my main army (reduced because some of them joined the second guy) tried to beat Macedon, my small "I can do it, and I'll prove it to you" army went and fought a very strange and unorthodox war against the greeks. It consisted of passing some cities to raid others, tons of mercenaries, and all sorts of Heroic Victores. Suicidal attacks and seiges just to hold off the Greeks, it was intense. It got to the point where I was training horsemen to seige Greek cities just so they couldn't recruit, and preventing their armies from attacking my main army which was seiging another big city.

Long story... Well, long, both the Macedonians and the Greeks got owned. But I made sure the Greeks paid first. You don't backstab me! My disenherited would-be faction leader ended up getting on a boat and laying waste to the Greek Isles, just to finish them off. I think there were 4 cities? Rhodes, Lesbos, the one near mainland Greece, and Creete? Took him like 12 turns, it was Blitzkreig at seas.

In a case like that, it's geared for war. All my cities are practically empty, taxes nonexistant, just so I can field one more unit. But if it's a border with a ceasefire'd enemy, it's full stacks.

[Gaius Baltar]

Just curious about how many troops people leave in their cities and what sort?

I tend just to use Rorii and wondering what other people use.

My basic garrison is x2 archer units. I can often beat off sieges from smaller groups by taking out a ram or tower.

If unrest is a problem I go with x4 archers and x2 legionares. If enemy activity is more certain I might aquire a merc hoplite unit just for kicks when guarding gates.

Merc Elephants can be fun against massed infantry as well.

[Marcus Julius Britannicus]

Makes sense, i tended to use just the cheapest unit and fielded flying squads to get to the cities that may be sieged before the siege could happen, but cash seems to flow a little better...

right now i have alot of middle europe... all bought and paid for as i pushed the ppl once known as brutii off southern italy, just taken northern italy, but i was mostly wondering cause i never build archer units in cities, normally im concentrating on getting an army sorted i only have 1 or 2 cities pushing out archers... perhaps its time to think about it more, currently running stacks at 1000 men, one on sciliy which just pushed carthage out, one taking patvium (sp?) and the other trying to rid the world of epirus (sp?) which is down to 1 province... after all this i still have minimal defense and in vanilla didnt seem to be much of an issue but TE seems to be more sneaky lol, so perhaps its time to have larger defence forces

[JCaesar316]

Gotta be honnest i always use two+ of the cheapest troops i can plus a general, while in TE the enemy might be more sneaky but ive also noticed that an enemy army laying seige to one of your citys rarely storm it on the first or even second avalible turn, allowing you to move a feild army there to wipe them off the walls. On the i leave just enough cheap troops (+ general) to allow me to tax em at high or very high.

Only if its a border city where i'm at war with my neighbour do i garrison it with slightly more or if i have no feild army close to hand. But on the whole more troops in a seiged city = more deaths while your under seige (before the fighting even begins)... As i say if you can tax the city on high/very high a small garrison leaves more money for feild armys where it will do some good. I dont like the idea of wasting money on legions that will only sit on thier arses enjoying the baths and games instead of doing what they ment to do, ie being in the feild gaining lands, fame & glory, slaves and battle experince.

But thats just the opinion of a arm chair general

[Gaius Baltar]

Makes sense, i tended to use just the cheapest unit and fielded flying squads to get to the cities that may be sieged before the siege could happen, but cash seems to flow a little better...

I dont like the idea of wasting money on legions that will only sit on thier arses enjoying the baths and games instead of doing what they ment to do, ie being in the feild gaining lands, fame & glory, slaves and battle experince.

Yes, they are more expensive, and this results in somewhat smaller field armies, but that has never been a problem. I have regulary defeated Carthaginian, Gauls, Brits, and Germans whose forces outnumber me. Much tougher with the Iberians and the 2hp Bull Warriors and Generals. In addition, I can move these units right out of the city into battle, they are essentially frontline units. With Rorrarri you really cant do much once the neighboring factions have teched up one level.

In addition, I usually develop my cities are much as I can before expansion. This way they can provide economic, and miltary support to the banners in the field. This makes for slower expansion, but I rarely lose a city to counterattack.

As always, there are exceptions that effect my garrison strategy. A few that I can think of right off-hand are;
1. Attacking a Carthaginian city with elephants in it.
2. Fighting Egyptians in the desert.
3. Fighting Greeks or Epirius

When one of the above occur, I tend to hire more mercs.