The best units of their kind?

[Garbad]

I'm curious what you guys consider to be the best unit of their kind (IE, best archer, best heavy horse, etc), including any faction + mercs.

[Alfonzo over Innsmouths]

Armenia:
The armoured horse archers whose name escapes me at the moment. They're practically broken in how awesome they are. They can take on any other cavalry except Kataphractoi, they're as effective as heavy cavalry in a rear charge against infantry, and they're archer cavalry, so they can harass before charging. They're insane!

Maurya:
Longbowmen. Their range is so freaking huge that they're again, practically broken. Just stagger one behind the other, and you can wipe a fair amount of health off attacking units.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Merc cretan archers decimate indian longbow troops despite having less range and less men.

The long bow units are absurdly inaccurate.

Best melee unit is the double strength batavian cohort almost guaranteed.

I'd say aux cretan archers reformed would contend for best archer unit in game.

Baelric slingers would be the best slingers.

Artillery quinquremes in player hands are easily the best shio in the game.
Harpax hexaremes can be op at times though, but they lose out in melee to egyptian octaremes so that tips it in favour of arty fives.
Something garbad just loves.

Just to name a few.

[Augustusng]

Best melee unit is the double strength batavian cohort almost guaranteed.

I'd say aux cretan archers reformed would contend for best archer unit in game.

If we're including the double-strength units, then I'd pick the double-strength auxiliary Hamian archers.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

If we're including the double-strength units, then I'd pick the double-strength auxiliary Hamian archers.

I wasn't aware that was a thing.

[Augustusng]

I wasn't aware that was a thing.

Yep, imperial reforms and Syria. 320 elite archers is just ridiculous. Of course, you can only have one unit of them, but Syria has something like 5 other auxiliary archers, as well as other good auxiliaries. Definitely worth your time to conquer as Rome.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Yep, imperial reforms and Syria. 320 elite archers is just ridiculous. Of course, you can only have one unit of them, but Syria has something like 5 other auxiliary archers, as well as other good auxiliaries. Definitely worth your time to conquer as Rome.

In all my hours as rome, i have never happen to recruit a army in that region. I'll have to keep that in mind.

[shiraio]

Noble Rhampeia infantry(forgot the exact name) of the Odrysians can deal massive damage as well as being quite durable themselves.

[PietrolEremita]

Are we ranking pure fighting ability or cost-effectiveness? The latter analysis is much more interesting to me

Late Thracian Rhompaia warriors are the best melee infantry for their price. Absolute best would probably be the evocata or the evocata germanica

Special mention for the Thracian medium cavalry as the most cost effective cavalry. Good stats all around (including armor) plus skirmish and javelins!

[Don_Diego]

Haha just like the real romans, you will quickly ditch your Cretans for Syrian Archers!

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Haha just like the real romans, you will quickly ditch your Cretans for Syrian Archers!

Oh the cretans will still be useful forthe first 150 turns.

[Garbad]

My favorites:

Armored Cav: German Cataphracts
Medium Cav: Gallic cavs
JavCav: Tarantine
Horsebow: Thracian, just because they are near rome.

Skirmishers: Media pelts are really quite good, one of the most versatile and effective troops in game. Cheap, too. From Thrace.
Archers: Gastraphaltes (magna grecea), cretean, or syrian. Germans have nice range/damage but terrible rof, armor, and morale.

Infantry: All legions erry day, no need for anything else.

^ In all of the above, the key is armor since it can reduce casualties.

My favorite production centers:

Magna Grecia: Pretty much the perfect compliment to rome, right on your doorstep. Elite javcav, excellent archers, crossbows, good lancers, even phalanxes if you are into that. They die easily for the cost, but they fill all of romes holes nicely.

Thrace: 4 slots of goodness including romper high offense/cheap infantry, horsebow, elite skirmishers, decent heavy infantry beaters, decent horse. Can augment any need on the cheap, but have poor armor.

Subieu: 4 slots of Teutonic meat, including loyal and fun doggies, cataphracts, horsebows, stronk bavarian infantry, decent archers, decent skirmishers...pretty much anything you want. Fairly expensive, though.

Aquitaine: Elite medium cav + good skirmishers is a nice rounding out of roman strengths. Ghetto archers tho, and kidn of expensive for their durability.

Galatia y Cappa: Elite Lancers, horsebows, dogs, good archers, elephants...not bad at all.

Honorable mentions: Pannonia (close cataphracts), Hispania (good horse + slingers, but not as good as gaul).

TL;DR - Give my legions good horses and some decent ranged attackers and the battle is already won.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

@garbad


Pretty much agreed on everything.

Even if double strength batavian cohorts are the best unit in the game, you only get one, so the legions are your best go to unit for combat and versatility.

I suppose you could be a cheeky er and transfer 19 eagle cohorts into a single army though.

I'd use crossbows more often, but i tend to grab cretan archers right off and don't swing back through magnagraceia to pick up troops for a while.

Tarantine cavalry are great, but im restricted by my particular army templates, have to stay as historical as possible. So I keep both socii equites in my army rather than switching out for better cavaley until marian reforms.
At which point i have excellent medium or geavy cavalry available.

I'm tempted to pick cantafirian skirmishers over meadi peltasts because of their crazy melee stats, but those spartacus skirmishers are very, very good.

[Garbad]

I'm tempted to pick cantafirian skirmishers over meadi peltasts because of their crazy melee stats, but those spartacus skirmishers are very, very good.

Tara cavs are amazing early game. Turn off free fire, skirmish mode and they are more than serviceable as light cav for routing the weak missile troops you see so often. Then flank and turn on javs for a withering volley to the back to win close melees. They grossly outperform all other early game cavs. I use them even endgame (mainly for variety).

Cat skirms are good too, I use them in my gallic armies on occasion. Spartacus is better, cheaper, and no cap limits though. I like using them to use trick strategies like my Boar's Tusks.

I usually run "regional" armies, such as:

Gaul I: Mostly heavy roman infantry, siege, and a few elite horse
Gaul II (support legion): Lots of support missile (archers, skirmishers), more horses, some regional flavor infantry depending on what's available

The idea is that the core of my army is always legions, but its augmented by local flavor for variety.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Same here. But early on i use socii units even when better regional troops are available.

[ablebodie]

I know lots of folks don't use pikes, but I believe the best pike in the game is often overlooked.

Komatai Thorakati Stratiotai, or Dacian Heavy Phalanx, actually beats Seleucid Silver Shields at holding the line.

On the face of it, they are more or less the same. Seleucids are more offensive pikes, Dacians more defensive. Difference isn't a whole lot in both directions. They have the same armor value, but Dacians have higher health & melee defense. Seleucids have higher damage, melee attack and charge. The real factors that put Dacians over Seleucids in my mind is their shield and their Fulcrum ability.

The Seleucids have Encourage (I believe this is still correct), but the Dacians have Fulcrum instead. This ability reflects their proximity to the steppe nomad factions like Catarioi and Basileioi Skythai. They get a huge anti-cavalry bonus when using Fulcrum, allowing them to obliterate even eastern cataphracts in short order. Using Greek-style tactics against nomads or easterners - heavy ranged component combined with pikes or hoplites - you can placed these pikes at river crossings or chokepoints and just obliterate any heavy cavalry coming at you. With their huge thureos shields, they block missiles better than Silver Shields, and fare slightly better in non-pike melee. Basically, they can be used not only as pikes but as wall-scaling heavy infantry in the event you're sieging without ballistae. Lots of Greek pikes just do okay at sword melee, due to their smaller shields. Dacians do a little better by virtue of using the Thureos.

Also, in the IA campaign (is it in GC now?), Dacians have a racial of +10% melee defense, putting it even further beyond Silver Shields.

Kind of cool for a barbarian faction to be able to hold the line so well by midgame, allowing your awesome flanking troops to do some brutal work on your foes.