Favorite build out for each type Unit?

[Stryk9]

I've just started playing and am wondering what you all consider your favoriate/optimum unit build.

Post your favorite build of each of the four unit types (Inf, Cav, Skirm, Arty)

Including
Unit Size
Perks
Weapon Type

I look forward to hearing your answers and thoughts

[wanderingthoreau1987]

Infantry brigade with the endurance as a tier one perk, fire arms course (the one that has a -10% reload time) and finally sharpshooter. This makes the unit quick, able to lay down fire faster (great for early/mid game if you use Lorenz) and fire more effectively from distance. Of course I want to give them the best weapons possible, so the Fayeteville, or CS Richmond go to my elite 3 star brigades.

[RomePong]

Unit size is very tricky. Sometimes, keep your infantry brigade below 2000 men will help you, by limiting enemy size, thanks to scaling system.

[uhamster9]

On Easy, Normal and Hard you should keep your army as small as possible to not trigger the scaling too much, as the reward is fixed. On Legendary, you should keep your army as large as possible, so the enemy will hit the 2,950 men cap and stop scaling further.

[Suleo]

I play normal all the time (it's what most new players would use when they buy the game and should be considered a benchmark for 'balance'). My infantry brigade sizes, past the early game, are almost always 1600 men. This is a pretty good size for avoiding crazy scaling, while still maintaining good enough firepower.

Upgrades are endurance, marksman, sharpshooter.

Cavalry is always 750 (again past the first few battles when lack of money/guns means they get to be around 400). Since the last patch destroyed shock cav, I always use carbines. 1861s are great, and if you play the skirmisher scaling game well, you'll get enough spencers eventually. Upgrades are speed (the horse icon), then the ones that give them guns/accuracy/efficiency bonuses.

Skirmishers are 500 (again, eventually, they start at 200). I always have more than one unit of skirmishers (I usually have 3), once I equip them with Whitworths The extra unit is usually min size (or generally kept small) armed with hunters to avoid JF brown madness. The other(s) get whitworths & scoped whitworths. If you have them set up as such, you'll get enemy skirmishers with spencers, which you can loot & use for your cav.

Artillery is always 6 guns. They still kill a lot and I never run out of ammo. It also prevents crazy AI artillery scaling (ai guns scale with your number of guns, and, as all scaling, it takes into account ALL your army's guns, not just the corps you're going to deploy). Upgrades are Logistics, the accuracy one, and the short range one (since long range fire is next to useless when the player does it).

In general, more brigades is better than larger brigades (subject to the deployment limit of course), since you can use flanking fire and maneuver more effectively.

[wanderingthoreau1987]

I played with large brigades in my first playthroughts but have settled on the 1500 mark. I feel it gets the best of firepower and experience as I have noticed larger units gain experience slower. Or perhaps that is just my interpretation and that isn't true. I also play with close to 95% percent of my army being infantry (it was primarily an infantry war) with only a few brigades of cavalry and filling out the rest with cannons.

I always try to rotate in fresh units to my I Corps (I want my general to get the experience) and rotate my 3 Stars into a Corp for that purpose. I make all my aforementioned Cav and Skirmishers to max size, while keeping my batteries of cannon at between 12-15 guns. Larger batteries seem to reload slower, and I read that somewhere also, so I have just always done it that way. A majority of my army ends up being 2 stars, but have somehow gotten over 10 3 star brigades in one campaign.