Wartime Stack Management

[Mknn]

How do people do this? I start wars with nice organized stacks containing the mix I want of units. But, very quickly, due to withdrawing units to heal inside my own boarders, or to the opportunities to plunder or attack flanking enemy units, they become pretty disorganized. It seems to work, but it feels very uncontrolled.

How do you manage your attacking stacks, say, after the first city conquest?

 

[WTBCzero]

I leave a few units in the city I just captured, and the stack moves onto the next city. The stacks heal in enemy territory, and reinforcements arrive under escort to meet with stacks in enemy territory.


This works fine for me in single player at Prince level, though I'm sure it won't work very well in multiplayer.

 

[madscientist]

This happens to me often. As long as I am taking cities or pillaging resources I don't care much. I probably should, but I tend to be a sloppy military person, efficient but sloppy. As long as the AI dies, disorganized stacks can be forgiven.

Just how controlled can a war be anyway?????

After the first city conquest I either continue on (if there are healthy troops) or heal in the conquered city.

Finally, attaching a Great General to a mobile unit (chariot, Impi, etc) and promoting them to medic III helps alot.

 

[Verge]

For every "primary" stack I have, I have a secondary stack that is shuttling reinforcements to the primary stack and newly captured cities under the cover of defensive units. This secondary stack isn't usually necessary, but it's a convienent way to keep things orderly.

If I have no medic units, then I'll use the secondary stack to bring wounded units back to friendly territory.

Pillaging stacks should always be separate from the main stack for maximum effectiveness, so I don't have that problem.

 

[r_rolo1]

How do people do this? I start wars with nice organized stacks containing the mix I want of units. But, very quickly, due to withdrawing units to heal inside my own boarders, or to the opportunities to plunder or attack flanking enemy units, they become pretty disorganized. It seems to work, but it feels very uncontrolled.

How do you manage your attacking stacks, say, after the first city conquest?

I let the severely wounded with a medic 1 unit in the first captured city and move on with the rest. Every turn you spend with the stack idle is a turn that your enemy has to react. And because of that I normally don't reinforce attacking stacks ( unless with the garrison units to relieve the attacking ones from that job that they can't do properly ) : The turns you lose moving the troops to where the 1st stack is you can use to attack another spot ( that will probably be lightly defended, due to the effort that AI does to reinforce cities in the front and the capitol )

Of course that this requires a medic 3 unit ( and hopefully the almost mythic ( never had it until now ) medic 3 woodsman 3 ) and a good idea of where the AI has his troops and what it is planning....