MAA which one's do you use?

[Sir Snuffles]

what's a good bog standard composition? heavy inf and heavy cav?

[spasti696969]

Before the update I used to do all heavy infantry because if you built a barracks in every province you could get like +200%, +300% from building bonuses and you could kill a 60,000 man army with 5,000 MMA only losing maybe a few dozen. With good knights backing them up, of course.

It's a bit closer now, but I still prefer to go all heavy infantry. If you can stack wipe then screen and pursuit are irrelevant. If the battle ends when it's still on the arrows instead of the swords then you kill all the people trying to retreat. Heavy Infantry hit the hardest naturally. Heavy Horse is good now too.

[NK SemTex]

I usually go for 2 stacks of heavy infantry since they usually don't get debuffs fighting in any terrain. The rest of the slots are based on the enemies around me and my home territory. If the land I own and the land around me my enemy owns are, for example, flat land I go for 1 slot for cavalry to increase enemy casualties and 1 for pikemen so I can counter cavalry; Like plains in France.

If I play in the Balkans with a lot of hill counties I replace cavalry for more pikemen or heavy infantry until I get crossbowmen.

Starting year also plays a factor; 867 means no heavy cavalry for a while, while 1066 have heavy cavalry that needs to be countered.

[drake_hound]

Heavy Infantery(special groups) Pikemen (need only one group) and Bowman (also need 1 group)
I usually do not bother with the skirmisher and cavalry.. while they are great.
Their upkeep is also great. especially since there are plenty of Heavy Infantry diversity to choose from, especially cultural and regional.

The only thing I found worthless was the light infantry, so usually I dismiss that group right away and get some other heavy infantry that does the same. same story with spear mans (get rid of it go for pikemen right away)

[VoiD]

tbh any of the more expensive ones will stackwipe most enemy armies, specially if you stack a bunch of buffs yourself.

Alternativelly you can just take a few ones for counters and get the chivalry tree+any knight bonuses you can find and use your daughters to matrilineal-marry the strongest men on the map, having a dozen of space marines with absurd buffs can also make your army invincible.

[Rex is back, baby!]

It ultimately depends on culture, surrounding terrain, and what MaA your neighbors use. There are powerful cultural unique MaA. The most powerful being horse archers and elephants.

Always have a slot open for Siege engines too.

I like to include archers, 16.5% - 33% of the army. Then I include what beats the archer counter.

Bulky heavy infantry are great, horses are amazing at pursuit phase.

Check the wiki on warfare/MaA to read on the adv/dis of each unit :)

[ShepherdOfCats]

"whatever counters your neighbors."

I'm doing a new mongolia run at the moment and there's hills and mountains everywhere, and my neighbors are all horse lords so they go with cavalry and horse archers (the AI doesn't make very wise decisions on MaA and will usually choose their special cultural MaA just because they can). So half of my MAA are pikemen. Some horse archers and light cavalry for when I get into fights on the steppe/dryland raids and the last group is the special house guards you get when you unlock the last legacy for 'house of warriors' (which I use too much but it just feels natural when you're tribal). I don't even use siege weapons really unless I'm planning on expanding but as an emperor most of my time is spend raiding and letting my vassals do the expansion. If I'm fighting a defensive war I'd rather have another stack of combat MaA rather than siege engines.

Also these new accolades are OP. I've got one regiment of pikemen and one of horse archers that is over the tribal size limits. I just wish I knew how to tell what the requirements are for secondary traits. After those knights who gave me that ability died, I haven't been able to find any since.

[VipreRX]

May not be a good answer due to the necessity, but I always keep at least one group of siege engines.

As for standard troops, it varies based on where I'm playing because I aim to counter the most common units used by my neighbors. If they focus primarily on cav I want pikes for example.

[The Former]

There's no real "meta" for this, I think. It's always a matter of balancing a few major factors:

- What are your rivals using?
- What kind of terrain do you usually fight on?
- What can you afford?

[Rex is back, baby!]

Originally posted by ShepherdOfCats:

"whatever counters your neighbors."

I'm doing a new mongolia run at the moment and there's hills and mountains everywhere, and my neighbors are all horse lords so they go with cavalry and horse archers (the AI doesn't make very wise decisions on MaA and will usually choose their special cultural MaA just because they can). So half of my MAA are pikemen. Some horse archers and light cavalry for when I get into fights on the steppe/dryland raids and the last group is the special house guards you get when you unlock the last legacy for 'house of warriors' (which I use too much but it just feels natural when you're tribal). I don't even use siege weapons really unless I'm planning on expanding but as an emperor most of my time is spend raiding and letting my vassals do the expansion. If I'm fighting a defensive war I'd rather have another stack of combat MaA rather than siege engines.

Also these new accolades are OP. I've got one regiment of pikemen and one of horse archers that is over the tribal size limits. I just wish I knew how to tell what the requirements are for secondary traits. After those knights who gave me that ability died, I haven't been able to find any since.

Smart! I've never thought to play that way, inspires me to try out East. Only attempted a Bengal(?) playthrough and was horrifically wiped from existence xD.

But yea, as SoC and others have said, there's no "Meta," especially since T&T/free update needed MaA in favor of stationing troops for specific powerful buffs.

I like to go more an RP flavor with my troops too, House Guard are great for the Belicose players afterall.

[Doc Dreamist]

Presently, I have 2 stacks of cataphract heavy cav, 1 stack of heavy infantry, 2 stacks of konni light cav, 1 stack of magonals, and 1 stack of spearman. Coupled with the appropriate building bonuses, they destroy literally everyone and their grandma.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Doc Dreamist:

Presently, I have 2 stacks of cataphract heavy cav, 1 stack of heavy infantry, 2 stacks of konni light cav, 1 stack of magonals, and 1 stack of spearman. Coupled with the appropriate building bonuses, they destroy literally everyone and their grandma.

Meanwhile I'm rocking 300 light infantry and 30 onagers and praying someone with a setup like yours doesn't declare a holy war.

[Poompaxhotl-Mardxvar]

Whatever the region i'm playing in has a speciality in: horse archers if i have the culture trait, heavy infantry with some cavalry plus two stacks of siege weapons, because sieging is OP. Now there's an incentive to have some diversity in your armies, so whatever sticks to my personal domain.

Originally posted by Lockfågel, Paradoxriddaren:

Originally posted by Doc Dreamist:

Presently, I have 2 stacks of cataphract heavy cav, 1 stack of heavy infantry, 2 stacks of konni light cav, 1 stack of magonals, and 1 stack of spearman. Coupled with the appropriate building bonuses, they destroy literally everyone and their grandma.

Meanwhile I'm rocking 300 light infantry and 30 onagers and praying someone with a setup like yours doesn't declare a holy war.

Why would ever hire light infantry? Or do you specifically play as one county minors with building restricted?

[Doc Dreamist]

Originally posted by Lockfågel, Paradoxriddaren:

Originally posted by Doc Dreamist:

Presently, I have 2 stacks of cataphract heavy cav, 1 stack of heavy infantry, 2 stacks of konni light cav, 1 stack of magonals, and 1 stack of spearman. Coupled with the appropriate building bonuses, they destroy literally everyone and their grandma.

Meanwhile I'm rocking 300 light infantry and 30 onagers and praying someone with a setup like yours doesn't declare a holy war.

Lol! I definitely appreciate your min-max approach. I'd like eventually do a pirate duke playthrough. I'll have just enough MaAto raid and tons of gold in the bank in case I need to hire mercs for a defensive war.

[Validuz]

All Elephants.

[Abacus]

I look at enemy comp. If I dont know the region well I will play a few mock games to see what they have.

I use the mod that add's like 250 MAA, so it's pretty important to know what they have.

Still a usable strategy without the mod. Build the counter