How do you make your army?

[Ben]

We all know that there are 3 distinct types of units in KaM TPR (Iron, wood and Siege), but is it really worth making iron units? Leather are much easier to make and since you need to make food anyway, you might as well. But if you do make iron, siege units seem to be better, even though they're weak. If you have enough, lets say, axe fighters, then you could easily guard ten or so ballista, so why not make them? Oh well. This is how I play anyway. The point of this thread is to discuss how you make your army and why you do it that way. I already explained mine so anyone else?

[The Dark Lord]

My tactic depends on the quantity of food I start with, and the closeness of iron ore and coal. For example, if I start with loads of food, I start building iron troops very fast. If iron ore and coal aren't near my starting position, I skip the bread production and start with sausages (and so leather, obviously). If my food supplies are really low, I build some vineyards first.

My army always consists of large numbers of bowmen, because bowmen make the kills. If necessairy, you can even use your citizens as a human shield to protect your bowmen and so survive early attacks (but then again - you must be sure to have enough gold in your storehouse, or a running gold production). Mostly I use lance carriers to protect my bowmen.

If I can train iron troops, I use to train crossbowmen and pikemen (and in the beginning often militia, for protection of my crossbowmen as well as my bowmen).

[Tomo2008]

I've started to just secure food straight away by making 2/3 Farms, then 2/3 Mills & Bakeries, this secures it early in the game enough for you to focus on other things. I then start going for Iron immediately if there are enough resources nearby. don't even bother with Leather on some missions, unless I'm turtling and creating big cities. After I've started building units, I can go back to ensuring there is enough food. 3 Bakeries do wonders though.

[Ben]

Dark Lord said:

I skip the bread production and start with sausages

My Grandpa does this, but I always have a hard time making enough pigs (to make sausage with) so my people always starve.

[Yeti]

Iron troops take such a ridiculous amount of time to produce. I also find on many of the single player missions there isn't even time to produce a decent number before the enemy starts raiding. Within TSK (with the possible exception of mission 20) I actually found it counter productive to take the time to produce them on every single mission.

Leather troops are simply all round fabulous.

[Nicolae]

I tend to make crossbowmen and axefighters along with some archers as well. And depending on the circumstances, i might make some lancers. I like to make massive forces only to see them anialated by the enemy. (By using the lure tecnique u really ruin the game.) But to support all of those soildiers, i need alot of food. So i make alot of food.

I like to have at least a few hundred wine barels in my storehouse at a time. But to have all those vineyards, i need ALOT of wood. And since i dont feel like having alot of wood cutters and carpenders sitting around doing nothing cuz i made my wine places, i make leather/wood troops. Alot of them. Even in the latter missions. Such as 14 or 16.

[Categoricus]

When I start only having a storehouse and am in a hurry (especially against humans) I always follow the method below.
school -> inn -> 2 stone mines -> 2 woodcutters -> sawmill -> weapon workshop (producing 15-20 axes at the beginning, changing the supply to 4 pcs.) -> barracks -> 2 farms -> swine farm (changing the supply to 5 pcs.) -> tannery -> armor workshop -> butchery -> mill -> bakery. From here on, comfortising procedure is to come. Usually I continue with increasing the number of farms.

I only equip iron units if the mission begins with special conditions, meaning I have buildings that participate in producing iron, all my starting troops have iron stuff (this is a kind of temptation) or I have to defend my town regurarly from a large army of iron untis etc. The last case only happens in single mode, otherwise such a difference between players' resources is unreal.

[Diashi]

I vary depending on my mood and who fast I want to win.
It also depends on how screwed I made the computer in the campaign with my starting troops.
Playing TSK mission 14 I killed all of green/blacks laborers with my starting 6 scouts; so green starved to death since he had no inn, and black never had built a schoolhouse, so I'm going quick leather production so finish him off.

In TPR 14, (last one), I did both. I needed a lot of units and I needed em fast.
The onslaught of units on that one is impressive, and never before have I been so sure of the absolute power of archers. :S

[Danjb]

I usually just use leather troops. Very fast and easy to produce.

My armies mainly consist of bowmen, with usually axe fighters in front. I don't bother with lance carriers unless they have a ton of knights, and I only rarely use scouts, if I have loads of farms and building space.

I tend to place my troops in long, thin lines, so there are only two or three rows of troops, otherwise the guys at the back get shot to pieces before they've even done anything.

I generally position my guys in a nice defensive place and then use one bowmen to lure the enemy to me (it feels a little like cheating, I know, but hey). In fact I usually use watch towers as part of my army in this way, luring the enemy back to fall on my towers :p

Using this method you can attack really early on most levels with repeated small armies and you'll kill about 6x as many as you lose. I nearly always attack them before they attack me.

I think I completed every level in 3 or 4 hours or less. Usually just over 2 hours for a level.

[KnightsaMerchants]

I seem to focus on food first.
But as im getting leather, and wood i'll send tempo forces to attack them to give me some time.
Most of the time, i won't create any lance-pikeman.
Nor horse units.
I prefer axe fighters, sword fighters, crossbow men(Occasionally)
And of course archers.
And when i have over 10 suasgess avergally, I'll start making the iron units or the siege units.

And i always make sure theres atleast 5 left over servs, that cant do anything.

[Batoonike2]

Whenever possible I skip the leather/sausage and go straight for iron pikemen/crossbowmen. For the high quality look and better sounds.

Actually I believe iron troops are so much better, though I dont have much data about their strength. Going leather doesnt seem to be that much faster, as I have to make pigs, wait them grow, work with leather etc etc. Making 2 mines, a smelter and some workshops seems nearly as fast. You get smaller number for sure, though.

[batoonike]

Reconsidering what I just said, in singleplayer one should make decision between leather and iron based on the resources available. On some maps in TSK going iron is extremely easy, on others the iron ore is very limited and you can make only like 30 iron units without building long roads. In the latter case you need leather anyway so you might just aswell skip the iron all together and swarm bowmen.

Once I made 200 scouts, for the sake of epicness. Tried to make 200 knights the other day, soon noticed that mining 600 iron is nearly impossible cause there just wasnt 600 iron in mountains. So I sticked with 100 knights, which still took nearly forever, much longer than making 200 scouts wouldve. So have to agree that making iron is kinda slow, if you want high numbers and map doesnt support it.

[ErikTheRed]

I like to spam cheap leather / wood units because of the reliability of a constant income of weapons. get a few armor and weapon workshops early on and keep them constantly producing (ofcourse you need to rapidly expand your wood production, but if you macro right you can get it done! if your leather production flags then no worries, it doesnt affect anything if you run out... wood is the important thing!)

If i find that i'm too slow in getting units out (i also like to overdo my economy.. go big or go home ) a town hall helps ALOT in defending against the initial mission attacks. But once those are done then there's no use for the town hall, unless you want to send in some of the heavy attackers to sneak in around the enemies defences and see if you can pick off a key store house or inn before the AI sends troops to kill them off

I also like to go for iron, but only after the initial attacks of the mission are over and done with.

Once, or if, i do get iron, i typically only use them for defence, and the wood units to attack. I also never bother with crossbows! i hate short range ranged units

[jamsmith]

it is possible to make our own army ???????????

[Jeronimo]

Multiplayer Army: Axefighters (Scouts) & Crossbowmen.

I play with 2 Stables and train Cavalry whenever is possible.
They are really good to harrass Bases/break Ranged.

If I run out of Iron, I replace Crossbowmen with Bowmen (Leather Ranged).