[EU4] War Academy I: Army Composition & Basic Combat 

Got a new mic for Christmas, let me know what you guys think of the sound quality.

0:46 "Here's an example of a normal battle you might see" Revolutionary Theodoro vs Russia

This is the ideal army composition. You may not like it but this is what peak damage looks like.

Have like 1000 hours in the game and after watching your video, Iam felling like a complete noob.

Cross a straight into a mountain province without a general while the enemy is waiting there with a 6/6/6 General. Greatest meatgrinder I hope to one day see.

But cavalry loot faster... important thing to consider when you're pulled into war by your ally and have to strategically plunder your enemies land while they do the fighting

'If you're a new player, chances are you're not building enough artillery.' Yep, sounds about right, now I'm excited to use my new found knowledge in EU4.

Hey Reman, as always your videos are really in-depth and precise. I think what you could have done better, however, is emphasizing how much more important artillery becomes later in the game, compared to how relatively weak it is when first unlocked. I think there's even an argument to be made that until about tech 16 or so that there isn't really a point to building artillery except to siege. But maybe this is in the next video? I think something else to consider is how your tech group's pips and your current general can affect your army composition. A 3/6 general in the late game isn't ideal, but a few cavalry regiments could really make use of the shock modifier since their shock is still so much higher than infantry in the late game. I could be wrong, of course, and that's fine too, but I love that EU4'S combat is complex enough to warrant this kind of discussion.

Can we get a degree at the end? I feel like this knowledge would have an actual monetary value.

armies without cavalry are dishonorable sir. Do you expect a cannon to charge and save the day?

Wonder if paradox has plans in some future update to make late game cavalry more relevant given the critical role even going into the 1600s. There were tons of battles in the late modern period where cavalry was critically important.

"Dead soldiers can't fire their guns" - *Laughs in Vampire Coast*

Who’s back after part IV, some 2 years later.

This was incredibly useful, thank you. I'd been looking for in depth guides with mathematics and the scientific approach for a while so I fell in love with your channel immediately. I'd been looking for a proper explanation to combat and the wiki just wasn't cutting it with some areas beyond me, some below me, and lots of "get this army" with no explanation such as suggesting a tiny 10 wide army stack which really wouldn't cut it even at the very start of my game. This video brought me up to speed enough to understand the rest of the wiki and explained why giving me the skills needed to make my own armies. Again, thank you.

Your videos are actually so amazingly good

When I have 400 hrs on Eu4 and still have no idea what I'm doing

I love how much influence Reman holds, actually. After the recent video about 20 vs 40 combat width in HOI4 EVERY HOI youtuber or streamer I watch started using 40 width divisions.

Something I really REALLY can’t stress enough is your ability to make something this complicated understandable. Someone else could’ve EASILY just been rambling on with numbers for way to long and being hard to understand while you take everything one by one and slowly so that I understand very well. You’ve earned yourself a sub!

Man you are a wolf among sheep withing eu4 tutorial youtubers. Truly eye opening stuff , Thanks

Remember the day you said: We don’t need algebra in real life! Now look back at the formulas used to measure casualties in eu4 battles Yeah, we all now regret saying that

Wow, this is absolutely increcible, indept and well described guide. One of the best I've ever seen for any aspect of any game. Thank you for that Reman!

Sound quality is amazing! Also, thank you for making this video! I have played lots of EU4 but never knew for sure how to approach it the best way.

It really makes my day seeing that you uploaded a video.

Thank god for your take on that, been feeling the need for someone to put an in depth definitive resolution for the optimal army composition problem since no one on the forums or reddit ever seems to agree on the same numbers

Ive watched and read many army guides now and this one is by far the best it covers stuff completely and from the bottom up. Thank you a lot Reman! :D

LOL, i have been playing the game for a year, I restored the Roman empire as Byzantium, and yet, my army composition has usually been 4 Inf, 2 cavalry, 1 artillery, LMAOO

The fact that you have only 38k subscribers is beyond my understanding . Thank you and keep up the good work !

Another 'must-have' set of videos to have on the EU4 learning curve. Congratulations on the best strategy-gaming tutorials on YT

Dear Reman, your fabulous gaming skills, insightful interrogation on the mechanics alongside the gentle and polite presenting style make me love everyone of your video. I truly appreciate all works you have done and I am always ready for your next video. I just finished the Ryukyu Q&A, and I almost felt jealous that all those commenting question gets your answer. That being said I also have several questions that I would like to ask. 1. You promised us that you would make a video on Ming-Yuan on the patch ”Third Rome”. I know it is very hard to make a video and you are busy on other more intriguing topics upon Paradox Strategical Games, but I just would like to say that I am still interested in that topic even it is already”Cradle of Civilization”: Is the Ming-Yuan still available now? Is it still powerful? And how to quickly form Yuan as the Ming blob? 2. As a Chinese player, the patch Mandate of Heaven is a light of hope and delight, but it also brings a difficult choice: conquering or tributary? Through all the Ming games I have played after the patch, this question has been an endless puzzle for me. I would like to apply for your attention on this game mechanic. Using your erudite knowledge upon Paradox Game, you can tell us that is it more beneficial to gain as much tributary states as we can, or we should just conquer all the land we can instead of making more and more Tributary States. Also, how is the benefits of tributary states differ through all states on different continents, is it better to make Asian States, European States, or even American tribes into Tributary?While dealing with “Tributary Range” Is it more efficient to just conquer small land as “Tributary Bases”, and make the country around your tributary states? Or is it better to conquer through big states such as Russia, and make a pathway from Asia to Europe, while making tributary states along the way? 3. Can you also do a video about the world conquest difference, if the religion, culture, or even capital is locked by the achievements? Is there any difference in the world conquest if your original position is not on an island, but Byzantium which is in the middle of multiple great powers, or Karaman which is surrounded by a big power like Ottoman? Is it different for World Conquest if it is a one state minor? Thank you for all your effort, and I do not want to urge you in answering ay of the question, please take your time, and keep your pace. Finally, is there anyway that I can send you patrons, I really love your work and I want to keep you around as far as I can.

I want to thank you for this series. As someone who always tried to learn how to play EU IV and always ended discouraged, partly due to opacity of many game systems, this video made it much easier to understand what I've been doing wrong (a lot).

One of the best in-depth guides of EU 4 I've ever seen, keep up the good work!

I kinda wish Cav had some kind of use in combat, like the scouting bonus in Vicky 2 or something.

Reman this video just opened my eyes. 2000 hours and I realize Im trash. Thanks man!

I lost as Venice last night after taking out the balkans nations, byzantium, athens, milan and annexing both of my vassals. I had an amazing trade based economy going and had force limit army ready to go in the balkans just in case the ottomans decided to attack me. The ottomans did indeed attack me and they easily defeated me twice in 2 wars that were about 10 years apart despite me having a higher military tech by 2 the first war and 3 the 2nd war. In the 2nd war i had a roughly +20 force limit too compared to the first war, but still i was wiped out easily. I realise now that i had way too much cavalry and not enough artillery. Thank you! I will make a small nation again and fight with correct composition this time and see how i go!!

Wow, I have read and watched many army compisition tutorials and never anyone said to drop cavalry completely... But your reasoning is sound and logical. Good to know.

I feel like I need to take notes, I've played like 200 hours of eu4 and had no clue about needing that much artillery. This really helped me

Took a hiatus from this game, good refresher series Reman, well done.

Bless you sir, I just got this game with the Dev weekend sale and this video series is goated...cheers!!

What I really like about you Chanel is that your Videos are about quality instead of quantity. And dude... the qualitiy of your vids is just insane :D

The sound sounds great lmao, and thank you for this vid, after 1000 hours of eu4 still learn something new everyday

This cleared up so much! I have 300h in this game and up until now i have been a total noob. I feel like this is gonna make my campaigns atleast twice as easy. Thanks so much man! You rock!

Your videos are amazing, the work put into them is second to none and since I subscribed over 6 months ago I've never missed a notification. Keep it up!

Can’t wait for you to talk more about horde combat and such, still having trouble with properly optimising my stacks so they can take on ming

New mic sounds great! Did you make a pop filter? Also, thank you for making these videos. It breaks down a very overwhelming amount of information into great, well explained pieces.

Glad to see you back and great new idea for a series of videos!

Wow 1000 hours in and I had no idea about artillery thanks man.

Thank you so much ! It is the last mechanic in EU IV , of which I have no clue how to conscientiously interact with .

Somehow I cannot replicate the success of your army composition. I use 18 inf + 14 art stacks in the mid-1600s as Persia, and even when fighting at a morale/discipline/tactics advantage in defensive terrain my stacks take massive losses.

I'm amazed by the amount of data you use, it's very useful. I was a user of EU2 on its day and now in EU4 I'm like: a 40 regiment army losing to a 20 one WTF!! My brain is exploting right now hehehe. Thanks.

An excellent and very informative video. This will definitely improve my playing of EU4!

nice video, cool explaning. also with going into the details and the formulas!

Update for 1.30 Merc system? Some nations have great bonuses and that extra manpower pool at a cheaper cost is a godsend!

Oh my, thank you so much for this Reman. I wish you come back to youtube.

Awesome look at the combat mechanics... very informative. Thanks for sharing!

To make late game cavalry useful they could: 1. always allow for flanking even at maximum combat width. 2.Let cavalry grant bonuses to the rest of the army to represent scouting etc. 3.Could perhaps reduce attrition (from cavalry being useful for foraging). 4.Give large bonuses to casualties inflicted to retreating units. 5. Have a chance to cause a 'breakthrough' whereby cavalry attacks artillery in the second line, or deals massive damage to infantry in the first line (to represent being attacked in the rear by cav). Just some thoughts.

Actually even without flanking cavalry is worth it because you can cram more power into the same force limit (especially early game where it's low). Which is kinda a big deal. But yeah if you take it out of that context you're right.

Thank you very much for the tips about artillery! I wasn’t using them outside of sieges because of their price and they seemed useless in combat (in large numbers i mean). I didnt know theses guns would help my armies fight better !

Hey found one of these videos in my suggestions Really good work I would suggest throwing these into a playlist so it's easier to watch in one sitting and easier to find the other parts later

My army composition is usually art+5%(min. +1) with equal amounts of inf to match the siege requirements for modern forts and prevent small attrition from slowing down the siege. Depending on my forcelimit and income I build multiple of those and then fill another army with 4 cav, 5 art and combat width-4 inf. Suitable for fighting in the early game, taking out capital forts, reinforcing my other stacks in combat and pre-sieging. With pre-sieging I mean progressing a forts siege progress, while your siege stack is busy, and then letting the siege stack take over and finish the siege almost immediately.

Excited to see what you say about combat ability, that is one thing that has never clicked. Also glad to hear confirmation of my army composition. I use a mix of 2 and 3. +10-20% more infantry in my main stacks, with reserves along side. As a suggestion to cover, I would be interested in seeing what a good ratio of normal infantry/merc infantry would be for your average nation, both for your main fighting force, as well as for reserve forces.

This is the most useful guide I watched.

Things I was doing wrong: 1. 25% of army was cannon when it really should have been 45-50% 2. Building calvary late game. 3. Not combining armies before attacking. 4. Quickly clicking out of the "battle" screen whenever it came up because it was too confusing. Thanks for the tips!

Appreciate you breaking down some of the combat mechanics but the cavalry composition deserves some more attention.

1200hrs pleb here 1st of Love the videos Reman rly cool also made me so happy when u described the hybrid strat because thats what I independently arrived at :D

Cavalry pursuits following a victory in battle often had the most devastating and damaging effect of the whole shebang. I wonder why Paradox never included that in an otherwise awesome game.

YES!!! I have waited for this! Thanks, reman!!

REEEEEEEEEMAN we love you! Thanks for the enlightenment!

Amazing video as always

Im a simple man, I see reman post a video I press like without seeing it 👍

I feel like cavalry usage really demands a more in depth discussion, as using or not using it a lot of times depends on your opponent and morale values, as well as your economic situation. Cavalry does a ton of morale damage, and most times unless your troops are prussian space marines, you don't win battles just by killing the enemy, but by crushing the enemy morale value. And the AI is highly prone to fielding not a full combat width of cannons, so the cannon's backline fire damage isnt killing your cav, and the infantry won't be shielded by the backline cannons, which adds up to a LOT of shock and morale damage. The same thing can happen to you, as well, as the AI likes cav a LOT more than players usually do. Running a stack with less than a full combat width of artillery and all infantry into an enemy stack with a heavy mix of cav and a good shock general can destroy you, especially if its a country with very high morale bonuses like france. How many artillery to field is a video all to itself as well, but until province unit support values get to late game quantities, artillery is the single greatest killer of your troops (via attrition by being over province support) so you very rarely have more than 1 stack with full width artillery, which is where the above comments come even more into play imho.

This makes me appreciate Total War: Empire army mechanics more.

"Here is an example of a normal battle you might see" *revolutionary theodorian forces kick Russia's butt*

As always, a fantastic guide

Regarding cavalry use, have you try fighting a 40inf+30art stack with 30inf+10cav+30art stack? Depending on how late is late game, of course, the stack with 10cav can decimate the pure infantry army by taking no practically no shock damage while dishing out tons of damage in shock phase themselves. The problem is severely exasperated when the dice roll is favorable for the infantry army in shock phases but less so in fire phase. The army with 10 cav is effectively immune to disadvantageous dice roll in shock phases. I just don't see how flanking bonus is the main reason for cavalry use barring extremely early game. Can you address this pease?

Hearts of iron 4 game was pretty good and gave me an unforgettable feeling of an absolute ruling entity. My knowledge has expanded beyond the boundaries of the Universe. I must continue my journey with console commands in Cheat Land.

Incredible series. Thank you!

Thank you so much for this, I've just not been able to play euiv for months because my armies constantly get their shit kicked in unless they clearly outnumber the enemy, and it makes fighting any larger country impossible, so you just spend all game at peace.

Pipless infantry is the best infantry! And I love your videos, you're doing an amazing work!

Amazing video, mate! Very useful!

I actually thought shock was just surprising the enemy

Awesome video, really didn't know cav usefulness dropped off so hard in the late game.

Victoria 2 war academy when?

I'm actually a fan of keeping the 4 extra calvary regiments around until the high-late game where the battle is more often than not decided in the first fire phase with the initial barrage of death. The extra flanking range actually comes in extremely handy as a 'win more' effect. So very rarely do you get to finish off an enemy entirely in one battle - and more often than not weaker Nations can't field a full combat width, even in the mid-late game - and there will be weaker nations with weaker stacks, colonial nations, the remaining nations in the HRE and if Ming survives a few border Asia provinces quite often. Obviously, it's a different story in multiplayer but even then they come in handy if you do win a battle. Not only is it good against smaller stacks but in the last few turns in battle calvary get in a few last kicks as the enemy's line collapses. This is especially devastating when the cannons take the front line in the last few turns of combat before they retreat - the extra hits your calvary get in costs your enemy heavily, both in terms of manpower and cost. With that said I wouldn't justify it in -every- stack I have - just the frontline ones. Backlines can remain the typical infantry/cannon core but the frontline sieges... It's worth it I find. Not to mention the calvary scale to 3 at tech 18 which is terrifying (and eventually 4). Even if the AI misplaces them they can still get in those last extra kicks onto an enemy line. Maybe I'm overvaluing those last extra kicks but I'm reasonably confident in saying that in long wars of attrition between two mega-nations those extra kicks in every battle you win can actually make a difference over time and force them into loans and mercs just that little bit sooner. But I haven't crunched the numbers personally so maybe it's not all that worth it. I'm convinced it's more manpower efficient (presuming you're at your force limit) - but I'm not entirely sure on ducats cost efficeny

concise and helpful as usual

>units take no damage on second line Actually units take morale damage there. That's also why you don't want to put infantry on 2nd row. This is like the main trick of early game pvp wars. Also after they increased reserves morale damage, you don't wanr to push 300k instantly into the battle in the late game too.

8:49 Artillery 11:14 1st Composition Suggestion 12:58 2nd Composition Suggestion 14:10 3rd Composition Suggestion

Even though I appreciate the effort, the more videos I watch for any topic the more confused I become. I am starting to believe that his game must be experienced alone

Nice video as usual. Obviously, depending on where you're playing in the world, you'll want to evaluate your stacks as the game goes on. Western Europe let's you field grand armies without much micro since the supply limit is huge. If you're in western Africa where attrition is a big deal, you'll want something that works better on most of the terrain without having to constantly split your armies. I've been using a 15/2/10 template for my troops for a very long time and it's convenient, practical and effective to accomplish most of your goals in SP from tech 13 to 23.

Late-Game Russian Streltsy, 10% firedamage, -10% firedamage taken from ideas together with stronger cannons. Pretty damn good.

I'm just going to pop into the game and change my army comps around a bit...

THANK YOU!!! Your mic sounds amazing.

You're great Reman. You should give CK2 some love too.

Wow, what a great video

I really enjoyed the last three quarters of this video because I knew most of these things from experience (Edit: 2106h right now) but couldn't really explain all of it lol. Now I can point to or quote this instead of just going "uh... well it just is" xD So thanks, and great job! I probably even looked up stuff like this (literally) ages ago but forgot about it Drop cav mid-late game (unless getting big bonuses per ideas etc), then alltogether late-late game (because in all likelihood by now the individual pips of infantry will be better than for cavalry for about all nations regardless of tech group, but don't quote me on this) Always 4 cav early-mid game, and I also do 16/4/0 stacks, then later add cannons JUST for siege bonus (unless filthy rich) because their individual pips are horrible early game. Late game = combat width cannons, and combat width infantry + infantry reserves (about 10 more per stack - unless filthy rich) Or go Spartan style and always do combat in certain terrain (that will lower combat width) if you're not the strongest military nation. Oh and mic sounds good to me, but I'm pretty new here! (Couple of weeks)

Surely you would still want some cavalry late game for fighting smaller stacks; the flanking range allowing more units to engage and the bonus shock damage could easily be the difference between a stack-wipe and your enemy being able to retreat.

Can you make a video dedicated to Cavalry? Like going into more detail on why most Western armies should stop using them in the late game (other than flanking not being important in the late game), but also on which nations (e.g. Poland, Hordes) get good mileage out of Cavalry, and how best to manage Cavalry Support Ratio for these nations if it's below 100% maximum?

Thanks,this explains a lot of things

Reman, great as always. Question re: cavalry late game. How effective would it be to build units w/ only cavalry and use it to pillage the enemy's lightly defended rear? Basically destroying the enemy's ability to make war? I did this in a US Civil War game years ago. Gave JEB Steward 1000 horses and sent him up north. Worked fantastically for keeping McClellen's army undermanned/unsupplied. Also, please include in-depth naval warfare in this series. I keep trying to make Japan the UK of the east, but not at all sure what's going on w/ naval warfare.

hooray it's reman

Thanks for the video