Ideal Army Composition for Western Europe, 1700s onward?

[Corvus_Alt1]

So, before Common Sense, I constructed my army composition in a 3/1/2 ratio of infantry/cavalry/artillery, making armies of 30000 that could be split up into 5 smaller divisions of 6000 soldiers for carpet sieging. Now that carpet sieging has been rendered moot with the fort system, I figured that there might be a more optimal form of army composition that would permit me to split my armies perfectly in halves or quarters. Perhaps an army composition of 5/1/4 with armies of 40000 would be a good balance?

[Tayip]

as always, it depends on the nation and the time period

[Corvus_Alt1]

Ah, right, of course. 1700s-1800s, Great Britain.

[zacharyb]

Usually you want to have the same amount of artillery as your combat width.

[Corvus_Alt1]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Usually you want to have the same amount of artillery as your combat width.

Funny enough, I always felt uncomfortable with that rule of thumb. While I understand that the artillery is meant to fill up the entire rear line of combat width, I feel rather apprehensive about having more artillery than infantry.

Sigh. Perhaps a 2/1/2 ratio with armies of 50,000 would keep my mind at ease... Or maybe a 5/1/5 ratio for armies of 44,000, since cavalry are less effective?

[Moo Cow]

Cavalry is still great for flanking and such. Artillary is expensive and is of no use if you only have enough infantry to cover it when they'll be taking the most losses. I've been sticking with 3/1/2 and making it in stacks of about 34 to split in two when needed.

[Corvus_Alt1]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Can't say I'm certain what composition I'm more comfortable with. I liked the 3/1/2 because of the aforementioned carpet sieging as well as the plentiful number of infantry compared to cavalry; I tend to be quite paranoid about running the risk of having too few infantry to support my cavalry after particularly heavy battles, and I also often like to construct my army composition to take advantage of infantry combat ability when playing as Sweden, Prussia, the Netherlands, etc.

But now I'm worried that armies of 30000 may end up being too small to be practical as the late game rolls out. A size of about 40000-50000 seems ideal, and I need my regiment count to be in multiples of 2, 5 or 10, just because I'm that obsessive.

So, as it stands, I could stick with my current 15/5/10 ratio, or try a composition of either 20/4/20, 20/5/20 or 20/10/20. I suppose 30/10/20 is also a possibility, but that would demand a lot of forcelimit increases, possibly a lot of development, a likely reduction in the number of stacks I can field, and I have no idea how large the average supply limit is for European provinces. Ach, I'm overthinking this. Maybe I should just add 5 infantry and 5 artillery to every army and call it a day.

[Tayip]

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

I pretty much go 60% infantry of combat width and then 40% of combat width for cavalry and then 50% of infantry and cavalry combined for artillery. So, if combat width is 20 I go 12 Infantry , 8 cavalry and 10 artillery. So I would have a stack of 30 units total but then I usually throw in some extra infantry and cavalry to replace casualties during battle. So maybe a stack of 36 or so with 4 extra infantry and 2 extra cavalry to replenish losses in between combat phases.

in late game, infantry becomes more powerful than cavalry so you probably have more infantry and less cavalry