aside from full horse archer what is the best balanced army composition?

[Dionaea]

To speak about something different than complaints and rants let's talk army compositions?

Aside from the obvious all horse archer which is nigh undefeatable what other troops do you like to have in your armies and at what ratios?

Personally I usually recruit forest bandits, bushwhackers and freebooters for my archers and I like to have a good chunk of them, preferably around 40, that way you have good archers that don't get in each other's way or that you can set in spread out formation so they can all shoot. For my infantry I usually recruit sturgians and a lot of sea raiders from the prisoners. I prefer to set these guys in a shieldwall in front of the archers. For my cavalry I tend to end up recruiting the mountain and desert bandits and I like to recruit Vlandians whenever I can. I like to let these guys march forward a bit to the flank and order them to charge once the enemy is in range of my archers. It helps slow down the enemy advance and they get some good kills in. Any mountain and desert bandit on foot and every other troop I rescue/capture and recruit I tend to put in the Skirmisher group and put them on the right flank of my shieldwall or place a bit in front of my shieldwall, Whenever I get my hands on berserkers and Ulfhednar I place them in the heavy infantry category and place them on the left flank of the shieldwall.

With this set up I have defeated armies twice my size although my skirmirsher group tend to lose a lot of men and my sea raider chiefs seem to die out pretty fast too making me wonder if I should just go sturgians only for my infantry

Lately I have been pondering traveling to Khuzait lands to capture and recruit steppe bandits to also have a small horse archer contingent to harass the enemy even more whilst my forest bandits barrage the enemy formation.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I like 50% HA 30%foot archer and 20% mix cav with throwers . I like to use bandits like you do and of course their promoted noble troop lines too.
If I use infantry it's gonna be sea raiders and other thugs I picked up. I'm looking forward to updates to let you place units before battle, that'll make more mixed stuff much funner. ATM a big part of HA goodness is how fast you can get them into position.

 

[a_ver_est]

My set up is quite similar, shield line in front backed by archers.

My companions are configured as horse archers HA and I usually have a small force of heavy cavalry HC. I sent them far from my main force and just order them to attack once the enemy is close for HA or even already engaged for HC.

I use to recruit just troops of the faction which I belong but in case of need I recruit what ever I can.

I don't usually use skirmishers, I should give them a try.

I usually want to have few dead men because I am always short of money (I avoid using smelting due i think it unbalance the game) so I engage only similar forces than me where I can win with few loses.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I avoid using smelting due i think it unbalance the game

Yeah, it somehow makes me lazy in the games where I smithed. Even though I get lots of money through fighting, being able to just dump javelins and empty town shops whenever just ruins it.

 

[BigBlock]

Party size at the moment is 246. I've got 100 infantry (mix of vlandia and empire, I'm vlandian with imperial fiefs), 60 archers (working on getting them all to be fian champions by recruiting bandit prisoners, but otherwise imperial archers), 50 cav (including my companions, mostly vlandian banners), and the rest horse archers (all kuzait, mix of noble line and standard line).

Most fights go the same way: my cav and HA get sicced on their charging Cav if they have it. Archers get sent out ahead of infantry as skirmishers. If they approach me, I hold until they're close, then move archers behind the shield wall and then flank them around while charging with all horse as they reach my infantry line. If they hold and I've gotta approach, I'll approach en masse, and when archers get in range I'll charge in my HA to disrupt their lines, approach with infantry to contact before charging in cav from a flank while flanking opposite with my archers. Once they start to route, everyone is set to charge. Very few get away.

If they vastly outnumber me and approach, I find high ground near the map edge and put my infantry back to it. I skirmish with archers and then I wait till contact with my infantry wall, flank the archers/HA around, and then run my cav back and forth through their archers before sending them into the backs of their infantry if there are any left.

If they've got large numbers of cav/HA, I try to pull them in front of my archers with my cav/HA and eventually through my infantry line before their main line reaches me.

Everything I've come across satisfyingly melts. Anything that might beat me I can easily outrun (I like to buy all the horses).

I've played with all HA, but f1 f3 win got boring fast.

 

[Dabos37]

60% or more archer units. You will be able to wreck everything with this in Battlefields.

 

[Worlok]

I've played with all HA, but f1 f3 win got boring fast.

Even other formations gets pretty boring if you fight hundreds of similar battles. At the end (before I stopped to play) I was so bored I joined my infantry line on foot to have at least some fun.

 

[BigBlock]

Even other formations gets pretty boring if you fight hundreds of similar battles. At the end (before I stopped to play) I was so bored I joined my infantry line on foot to have at least some fun.

I'm sure I'll get there, but watching the green roll across my screen is still just so satisfying.

 

[Dionaea]

I'm sure I'll get there, but watching the green roll across my screen is still just so satisfying.

watching the green roll across the screen is almost orgasm inducing

 

[Sidhwen_Khorest]

I've been doing battania full infantry down the wood runner line, half on each side. I set up my troops behind a hill and wait for the enemy to get about 70m away then charge. the thrown weapons alone cut down a lot of the enemy and the shock of the charge after that gets a retreat almost always.

I would like to sprinkle in some horses and archers eventually to at least distract their flankers/ranged but right now having that pure shock value is pretty strong, and I don't lose much in the clean up phase afterward. That said I haven't used this against an army that was mostly cav, would probably not work as well, but maybe my spears could hold them off. (if my troops were smart enough to use them!!)

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I'm sturgian as can be. 50% infantry, 25% archers, 25% throwing cav. I set my archers up on a hill, infantry next to the archers at a 45 degree angle and just a little bit further up to attract the enemy forces (like this _/ but 45 degrees), then me leading the cav harassing. We march close enough to engage the enemy with arrows then wait for them to charge. When they meet my infantry line, becuase its at an angle my archers can shoot the enemy in the back. Meanwhile im leading the cav harrassing the enemy archers/cav. Works great and leads to some really exciting battles, always awesome to have to fight waves after waves in 1000 vs 1000 battles.

 

[paladinx333]

When using Vlandian troops I always used 40% heavy infantry, 30% cavalry and 30% crossbowmen. When you get into a siege, you will need the extra grunts up front.

One time my calvary was a large mass of Banner Knights and they would erase any formation with ease. It took forever to amass so many knights. In one playthrough I had a large army of companion parties and our combined strength in heavy cav was over 120. We fought a large formation of peasants and I just charged with my knights, back and forth through them while my infantry and archers just watched. I lost one knight with two more wounded. We had over 500 kills and the battle lasted less than two minutes. Army balance isn't everything.