Ideal Army Composition (2024)

JSparks101 said:

10 2 12 forever!

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On a more serious note, this is in a perfect world, but when your frontline gets damaged you have issues as cannons come to the front. Plus cannons are expensive.

Going 10 2 8 is probably more realistic

JSparks101 said:

On a more serious note, this is in a perfect world, but when your frontline gets damaged you have issues as cannons come to the front. Plus cannons are expensive.

Going 10 2 8 is probably more realistic

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You've convinced me.
10 2 8 is good for combining, splitting, and dropping off single infantry to siege. Staying under support limit. Nice even numbers.

10 2 8 forever.

I typically go for 4 cavalry + inf to combat width + 1-10 artillery (based on how much I can afford per stack) until I can afford field full width of inf + art, at which point cav becomes less useful. It might be worthwhile to keep 2 cav around, just for flanking, but.. eh, not super into it.
Of course, that's playing as a standard nation with no cavalry bonuses. Eastern European nations, hordes, and other cav specializes tend to keep cav around. I started putting 8 cav in my armies early game as Muscovy, and started to stack wipe danish troops easily, even when heavily outnumbered, and behind on tech (though early integration of cannons, surplus manpower, and cash to spare may have also helped). Cossacks alone make cav way better, so I'd probably field 10+ cav in an army as Poland.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I always keep more front line units than arty, 2-6 units more, to keep them good and safe back there.

Ideally you build to combat width, with 4 cavalry and the rest of the front row as infantry, and a full back row of artillery. As a practical matter that's not easy to afford. Also if a province can't support a full combat width stack, split it in half and put half in a neighboring province.

As Russia you don't have any combat bonuses for cavalry so you can skimp on them if you really need to. You also have streltsy available. If you are confident you can handle the increased stability costs you can replace regular infantry with streltsy for a small bonus to Fire damage. The first phase of any combat is the Fire phase.

deckhand said:

You've convinced me.
10 2 8 is good for combining, splitting, and dropping off single infantry to siege. Staying under support limit. Nice even numbers.

10 2 8 forever.

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I like it. It just feels right.

Later game I can double up to 20 4 16 or whatever

Past tech 16, I'd probably go for a 15/15 default. Maybe 13/2/15 if I wanted to get cav in there -- Russia doesn't have specific cav modifiers, but you do have plenty of steppes for the Cossacks. Scale that up to 20/20 width increasing combat width; idea is it's half combat width, so two stacks merge up before combat. It might not be strictly optimal for seiging (higher level forts you'd need something like 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 stack) , but it's a convenient go-to that fits well for battles.

bbasgen said:

At tech 23, a maximum of 6 calvary (three per side) is ideal when (a) you outnumber your opponent AND (b) your opponent isn't filing up their combat width. If either of those is not true, cavalry isn't as good as infantry.

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There is also case (c) you are Poland and it's perfectly feasible to have +50% CCA, but it's pretty niche.

I_am_Nemo said:

There is also case (c) you are Poland and it's perfectly feasible to have +50% CCA, but it's pretty niche.

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Yes, but the issue is that generally, infantry is stronger than cav, so even higher ratios don't make cav worthwhile, but using them for flanking is helpful.

bbasgen said:

Yes, but the issue is that generally, infantry is stronger than cav, so even higher ratios don't make cav worthwhile, but using them for flanking is helpful.

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Wait, what? Unless I'm missing something, cav have a higher combined fire + shock value the whole game. While things get a little closer when you consider fire comes before shock, I'm not sure infantry is ever stronger than cav.

In general, lower amounts of cav are used because they aren't stronger enough to the extent that they're worth the cost difference, beyond use in flanking.

bbasgen said:

Yes, but the issue is that generally, infantry is stronger than cav, so even higher ratios don't make cav worthwhile, but using them for flanking is helpful.

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I don't mean the ratio; CCA is cavalry combat ability, it's a modifier to the raw damage multiplier. At 50% CCA, 2 shock becomes 3 shock. Pair that with good shock pips, a good general, and a good roll. . .

I_am_Nemo said:

I don't mean the ratio; CCA is cavalry combat ability, it's a modifier to the raw damage multiplier. At 50% CCA, 2 shock becomes 3 shock. Pair that with good shock pips, a good general, and a good roll. . .

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That's interesting, I hadn't ever considered that. A 10% boost probably isn't enough to make a noticeable difference, but as you say a 50% boost would be. Hmm, in that case it seems plausible that calvary would be the best choice (albeit more expensive, but probably worth it).

bbasgen said:

That's interesting, I hadn't ever considered that. A 10% boost probably isn't enough to make a noticeable difference, but as you say a 50% boost would be. Hmm, in that case it seems plausible that calvary would be the best choice (albeit more expensive, but probably worth it).

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I mean, to some extent it depends on whether you're more limited by money or by force limit and combat width. With a moderate CW/FL and ample income, anything that gets you more punch per unit can be valuable. With the quantity over quality approach, you just spam more infantry and keep rotating in new stacks as your morale drops.

That said, infantry and cav modifiers could probably use a rebalance, as cav's value is far to low in most circ*mstances.

123456798 said:

Im currently playing as Russia and Im wondering how I should organize my massive military. I know of the spreadsheet except it recommends over 60 regiments per army, and most of my land can barely support 30. Should I keep that ratio and reduce it to 30 regiments? Im at mil tech 16 btw.

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How big is your combat width?
Because the rule of thumb is that you take, 4 cav for the flanks and <combat width> - 4 for infantry

Artillery when first line is covered fully with troops, you start adding artillery to 1/3-1/2 of your infantry. If you get more artillery to 1-1 some suggest, I doubt this advice is working any more.
Because usually you will end up with artillery in the front row on consecutive battle if your troops do not fully recover. Meaning insta loss for your army.
The 1/2 tops is safe also if the AI drops multiple armies on you on the same battle.

And usually for cannon heavy army you need to go full defensive troops to avoid casualties.
If you go full offensive troops less art is better than more.

40/0/40

Split to move, split to siege. If you need inf reinforcements they should start the battle outside the province to avoid morale damage. Not having a full backrow of cannons is silly.