One of the goals of a side project I'm involved in is making army composition more realistic by giving light units the logistical/scouting impact they had on campaign. This would remove traits and ancillaries attached to the general, and instead bring them when you have minimum numbers of light cavalry and infantry in a stack.
It's my perception, fuelled by sights like the one below, that a lot of people don't really care about having realistic army compositions, and either grab whatever is at hand, or pack it out with as many heavies as possible.
Which is a shame. Not only because you miss out on the variety of units available, but it must surely make for rather tedious battles that are all the same. Heavies slug it out with heavies, the monotony broken only by the charges of heavy cavalry.
Do people use light infantry (not just archers/slingers) and light cavalry (not just horse archers)?
My Epeiros-as-Syrakousai game, my main army is currently thus:
2 Family Members as heavy cavalry
1 Hippakontistai
3 Phalangitai
1 Hoplitai
1 Thureophoroi
1 Euzonoi
1 Akontistai
1 Kretan Peltastai
1 Iberian Slingers
1 Kretan Toxotai
1 Samnite Hastati
Lots of variety, lots of light troops.
What does your "usual" army, if you have one, look like?
one of the reasons that people ignore light and skirmishing units is that they are near useless on the battlefield, imo. it isnt something that was introduced in EBII though, rather this inherent weakness was carried over from EB1, i would argue. playing as a successor state back in EB1 you had no real need for archers and the like. all you needed was to amass phalangite host and march it forth. it was increadible how this would withstand several volleys of javelins from 240 men strong skirmisher unit at point blank, taking 2, 3 casualties at best. same went for other missile units. and im not talking of the heavier phalangites here, regular levies did the job nicely although they supposed to be lightly armoured. so there was virtually no need for screening force and sadly, this may still be the case (albeit to the lesser extent). there still be players going for elite armies, whatever you do, but functionally, skirmishers are underpowered atm, imho. RTR had a nice balance when it comes to missile units. it forced you to enrol a sufficient screening force and infantry wasnt invulnerable to missile fire.
one of the reasons that people ignore light and skirmishing units is that they are near useless on the battlefield, imo. it isnt something that was introduced in EBII though, rather this inherent weakness was carried over from EB1, i would argue. playing as a successor state back in EB1 you had no real need for archers and the like. all you needed was to amass phalangite host and march it forth. it was increadible how this would withstand several volleys of javelins from 240 men strong skirmisher unit at point blank, taking 2, 3 casualties at best. same went for other missile units. and im not talking of the heavier phalangites here, regular levies did the job nicely although they supposed to be lightly armoured. so there was virtually no need for screening force and sadly, this may still be the case (albeit to the lesser extent). there still be players going for elite armies, whatever you do, but functionally, skirmishers are underpowered atm, imho. RTR had a nice balance when it comes to missile units. it forced you to enrol a sufficient screening force and infantry wasnt invulnerable to missile fire.
This is pretty realistic on the battle scale, skirmishers weren't much of a threat to formed up heavy infantry, especially not from the front. Skirmishers were mostly good at killing other skirmishers. But it was on the campaign scale that they should shine, scouting, screening, raiding, foraging, lots of vital activities not currently represented.
Skirmishing was deemed important enough that Philip of Macedon dual-trained his original phalangites as javelineers, for use both as raiders and in sieges. It's a shame the engine isn't flexible enough to accomodate dual-use units.
This is pretty realistic on the battle scale, skirmishers weren't much of a threat to formed up heavy infantry, especially not from the front. Skirmishers were mostly good at killing other skirmishers.
they were good at killing unscreened troops that lacked missiles of their own to return fire. when skirmishers encoutered other skirmishers on the other hand, it was more about dodging the incoming missiles and staying alife than scoring a kill. their kill ratio against other missile troops was rather poor when compared to the damage they could do to the unprotected main battle line. i would recommend Adrian Goldsworthy's Cannae for a brief but insightful discussion on that.
1 Familiy member as general
3 Cavalry units, Heteroi if possible
8 Phalanx units, 2 Agema if possible
4 Archers unit or Peltasts
4 Hypaspist or Thuerophoroi or Galatian swordmen
As in EBI, I use balanced armies whenever possible. As Pergamon, my ideal stack looked like this:
1 FM
2 Hippakontistai
1 Skirmisher Cav (whatever is avaible)
3 Phalangitai
2 Peltastai Logades
2 Euzenoi (or 1 Euzenoi and one hoplitai haploi
1 Thureophoroi
2 Kretikoi Toxotai
As Pergamon-as-Syracusai (my favourite campaign so far), the 3 phalangites are replaced with 3 hoplitai and 1 hoplitai epilektoi (added them to the Pergamon recruitement). And maybe one more cav unit and iberian or celtic mercenaries.
Never more than 14 units per stack unless there´s more than 1 enemy full stack around, then 20.
2 or 4 FM's
5 Hastati
5 Principes
2 or 3 Triari
2 Citizen Cavalry
Unfortunately the roman skirmish javelin unit is useless. They don't even throw their javelins. Otherwise, I would include 2 or 4 and subtract some cavalry.
Unfortunately the roman skirmish javelin unit is useless. They don't even throw their javelins.
It's a known issue with all javelineers (both infantry and cavalry); in the meantime I fixed it in my unofficial hotfix, though it may not be savegame compatible.
I mostly use the hammer and anvil tactic, with a quite important proportion of phalanx in order to fix the enemy, with lighter troops on the sides to attack the flanks or fill the gaps and cavalry as the hammer of course charging on the enemy's rear.
This tactic usually works quite well.
In addition to a leader unit, I like to use 2 or 3 skirmishers, twelve line infantry (whatever mix works for the troops available), two heavy cavalry and two light cavalry. I use the light cavalry for harassment of flanks and pursuit of routing enemies. I use the skirmishers for those things as well as for shielding my main line from enemy fire during the advance-to-contact phase.
As to the other effects that light cavalry and skirmishers should have, IMO they should be vital for scouting. An army should be able to see enemies on the map, or be invisible to enemies on the map, based on the presence of light troops. Maybe an army with a light troops advantage could have the enemy dispositions revealed to them before deployment on the battle map. A substantial light troops advantage could even result in ambush attacks.
Light infantry should not be nearly so useful as light cavalry for these things. Perhaps a ratio of 1 light cavalry soldier equals 4 light infantry soldiers would work well; that is, a typical 100 man light cav unit would be twice as effective as a typical 200 man light infantry unit.
I have no idea if this is moddable, but it's what I'd like to see.
eta: the logistics thing should probably be similar to recon stuff, except that light infantry would probably be just as effective as light cavalry for the purpose. Of course, I have no idea how logistics would be simulated. I'm all for simply doubling the support costs of units outside of friendly territory to simulate the costs of offensive warfare, but I don't know how something like a supply train could be simulated.
Last edited by Ballpoint202; October 15, 2014 at 10:59 AM.
Usually 2 archer and/or slinger units (as a house rule I never exceed this number).
As far as javelineers go, I've only ever used Komatai with Epeirus. Chiefly because the stats of other* units haven't impressed me at all.
As Carthage I use 2-3 skirmisher cavalry units (tbh, only because of fond memories from my EB1 days ).
* Btw, does anyone know why the skirmishing ability was not added to the new Peltastai units and removed from the Uazali?
Never more than 4 akontistai units
Never more than 4 archer units
Never more than 4 units of Skirmisher Cavalry
Never more than 4 units of horse archers
Never more than 4 mercenary units
And my unit cost rules...
Let's say there three cost levels under 1500, between 1500 and 2000 and above 2000
A xxx number of units with a cost under 1500 but fitting the style of the faction
4 units with a cost between 1500 and 2000
2 units costing above 2000
The same for cavalry but different cost limitations...
And...
Royal units, guard units and the like can only be used if the faction leader or faction heir goes on campaign with the army.
I'm sure i've forgotten something but these come to mind
QS, that's one of the coolest ideas I've seen -- how would you implement it?
If it's possible to test for via triggers, it sounds like there's a lot of potential there. For example, punishing Roman generals for not leading "consular" armies into battle...
When I play Rome, I try to get the hastati/principes/triarii thing going. One of the challenges though is if I want to deploy in three lines, the enemy is usually fielding one giant line. So I end up with my checkerbox formation "just because" rather than what makes sense to do.
I like playing a pike faction and having a wall of pikes bear down on the enemy with some supporting troops. There's something heroic about a charge of companions. I don't think I've ever advanced a campaign far enough to actually recruit hetairoi, though, in EB1 or EB2.
The battle line is stronger with Logades but it's the cavalry that gets the job done. If you haven't tried the chariots you don't know what you're missing!
6 longbow men - they have the same weapon as swordsman
4 cav = lancers, light cav
3 non factional mercenary units = hoplites , eastern archers, bactrian tribesman, saka HA
Nabatea (nomadic phase) - cavalry do most of the damage especially now with your hotfix they are like whirlwind in the desert, nothing escapes them
14 inf 8 cav
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
2 FM = lancers
6 HA
5 spear
3 swordsman
3 heavy hellenic units = phalanx, hoplites, - either mercs or allied state.
3 mercenary units = Ethiopian spears, east coast levies, other hellenic units
What do your usual armies look like?
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History+Gaming=Historical_Gameplay
Originally Posted by Sarkiss
