Defensive Units

[shl7070]

Defenders are very useful to cover stacks of bombard units and overseas invasion stacks. Defenders are essential to all tactics involving funneling (chokepoint or city) to cover the attackers and bombard units. My overseas invasion stacks contain 10-40% defenders dependent on the relative strength, tech and resource availability.
Of the defenders I like Infantry, as they have attack of 6 (as cavalry) they can aid in the attack if cavalry got depleted after a proper bombardment. (not taking mechanized into account)
The usual ratio of defenders I use is 20-30% in the whole military.
p.s.
Offense is the best defense but smart offense is better.

 

[vmxa]

Armies are the way to cover stacks, so they do not get attacked at all.

 

[shl7070]

I want them to attack, The more of their units they bring the better and in cities they will attack any unit with everything including 4 mechinf armies with a longbow.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

And some of us just have bad luck getting Leaders to form Armies with

 

[vmxa]

It is not correct that the AI will attack any unit in a town. I have seen many times where sticking one extra spear or pike in a town caused them to stop attacking that town.

I have seen that at times they will not attack a town with small stacks that has powerful armies defending. It is correct that they may well attack a town, regardless of what is in that town. I have had dozens of armies in a town and they attacked anyway.

You can get a feel for when they will and when they won't. My point was the safest way to use a stack of bombardment units is to cover it with a knight army or any army with defense of at least 3.

Most of the time stacks of bombardment are meant to attack, not be attacked in the field. That is due to the possiblity that you will lose some defenders. A stack of doom, is a different matter. Even then I do not want any of my stacks to be attacked in the field as defending is the position that I can expect to take most of my losses.

 

[vmxa]

And some of us just have bad luck getting Leaders to form Armies with

I do not think that is possible. On average it is the same for all. I can accept that some do not do enough elite combats to get many armies, but if I have 160 elite wins I am going to have about 10 armies.

I would not be surprised to see that those that get only a couple of leaders probably have less 40 elite wins. Now the odds will have their deviation, but in the longer run they hold quite firm.

Follow some of the SG, where they are tracking elite wins as I tend to do in my logs and note they are very consistant with percentages. A single set of tuens may fall out, in a few more sets the odds are holding to the norms.