Exilian

You have 10,000 men, in the pre-gunpowder era. What, in your opinion, is the best way to equip them to defeat any other given force of the same size?

5000 Infantry
-1000 Heavy
-1000 Spear
-2000 Light

3000 Cavalry
-1000 Heavy
-1000 Light
-1000 Archers

2000 Archers
-500 Crossbowmen
-1500 Archers

Quite balanced...

Against it I would put
3000 Pikemen
2000 Med Inf
2500 Longbowmen
2000 Medium Cav
400 Heavy Axemen
20 Ballistae (each with 5 crew)

Basically I outnumber you in archers/shooting, your cavalry will have a hell of a time being sprayed with ballista bolts or chopped up by my axemen, and then hopefully I can hold against your infantry until I can free up my cav/archers to reinforce and finish the job.

That all depends on my tactics. I may not choose to charge straight at you.

Instead, i would likely use my crossbowmen to fire at your ballista crews while my light cavalry kept the rest occupied. I would also use my Horse Archers to make passes at your front line and flanks.

I would then bring my Infantry and Archers forward. My archers would stop when they are able to fire at your infantry's ranks. Your cavalry will either stay where they are or try to flank my army. My heavy cavarly will either charge your lines or intercept. My heavy cavalry will easily be a match for your medium cavalry.

If you move your pikemen to take out my cavalry that will leave them and your other infantry exposed to my archers and light cavalry, as well as the bulk of my infantry. I would keep firing into your lines until there were no more arrows. I would then charge with my infantry into your line, which would fall quite easily due to my sheer numbers and casualties that you would have received.

I would then move in any remaining cavalry to dispatch your remaining archers from the flank. This would also mean that they would have nowhere to run expect into the infantry, and so would be unable to run, regroup and take potshots.

Both my thoughts and yours probably don't work too well as both rely on the enemy not replying to them too much... with more balanced armies it does come down to who thiks quicker on the day.

Someone should play Medieval 2: Total War and simulate a similar battle, see who wins.

It'd have to be MP, using the AI doesn't simulate a real human opponent very well (even when it's outplaying the player, it doesn't experience human reactions to problems).

Well that's what happens when developers cut corners to bring a game out for Christmas.

Too true, too true...

I would do a Genghis khan

every one of them a highly skill horseman armed with a light lance, sword, and short bow.
unfortunately for the sake of balance they where split up for different units in medieval2

5000 o what stormcloud recomended and the rest would be the thingimabobies whos name I forgot.

300 Spartans with Hot Gates on Wheels   :D

I'd have me, cloned 10000 times, all armed with big ol' clubs. The enemy's shields, armour and weapons would all act as mirrors and thus break when I looked at them, leaving the enemy defenseless against my club-wielding horde!

lol.
I'd just give em all guns and let them loose to GO CRAZEH!!

In RTW phalanx are completely overpowered (I managed to defend a town against a full army with only tree squads of phalanx and phalanx can easily defend town even from ravaging elephants)
So, for my perfect army, I would take like 5k-10k of those phalanx soldiers (I think that would do enough)

Tree squads, eh? I've heard that tree squads are quite good.

Yep, the armour values are excellent.  :P

but useless against my army of 10'000 crazy people with flame throwers!!  MUAH HA HA

(http://www.demotivateus.com/posters/teamkillers-flame-thrower-demotivational-poster.jpg)
the picture says it all

Have you ever fought phalanx?

pin em wit a cheap unit, flank em with anything, massacre

Doesn't work when you block streets with 'em so well though.

2000 Heavy Infantry
2000 Pikemen
1000 Light Infantry

1000 of the best archers available
1000 less amazing archers

2000 Heavy Cavalry
1000 Light Cavalry

And then of course they would have to be commanded correctly and not led to the field by a fool.

300 spartans.

Who needs pikemen..?

My archers shall fire so much that they will block out the sun ;D

good then we shall fight in the shade   :D

But my men are scared of the dark...  :unsure:

Which makes the tactic clever and deceptive, as you also won't be able to see the arrows coming towards you.

You all forget that

(http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/2/sparta-shoop-da-whoop.gif)

THIS IS SPARTA.

Quote from: "Son of the King"My archers shall fire so much that they will block out the sun ;D

My huge army of ninja's wearing masks and oversized rhinos and elephants shall shank ye.

My 8K Med Cavalry pwn all your infantry and scouts/Light cavalry. my 1.5K crossbowmen shall kill your heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. my 5K Longbowmen shall rain terror in the form of 20 arrows a minute. i'd take my cavalry and split them in half, then i'd send one part to distract your Heavy cavalry while the other half harasses your light/med infantry and archers. my longbowmen will help out the 1st half of M-Cav. to kill your H-Cav. My Crossbow men will split (750-750) and 1 half will act as back-up to the archers incase the M-Cav get's too damaged. the other half will help the other half of M-Cav and destroy your infantry and archers. Hopefully, this works xD

You'll have a job with anything that can murder your med cav effectively. Pike/Board shield mixed formation? I could ward off arrows and still sick your little nags full of holes.

Quote from: "Jubal"other given force of the same size?

I don't think size has near as much to do with it as composition of the opposing force; you have to adjust for who you are fighting.

But I reckon that is the point of this question. Therefore I find it most feasible to have a well balanced army in attempt to counter the variable of adversaries, and agree with Jubal's first suggestion as such.

10 000 armored elephants with laser beam cannons attached to their heads !

Why the mace-men?

I would change them to axemen who charge in sudden like into the middle of the line and **** everything up. :D

Quote from: "Jubal"Why the mace-men?

Swords are useless against heavily armored knights

Which is surely why you have pikes... I'f you're going anti-knight, replace the maces with polehammers for the extra hitting power.

Not mounted knights... I've meant to say heavily armored infantry... Mace men outmaneuver them , but polehammer is too slow and heavy so it would not be that effective...

Duhh... 10.000 Urban Cohorts, RTW vanilla style... I'm surprised no one said that. Those guys would even chew up knights

Just have a load of archers and swordsman would do it anyway, maybe add cavalry to help if needed.

2000 Phoenix Guard, 2000 Waywatchers, 2000 Dragon Princes but in the old days when they actually rode Dragons, 2000 Ellyrion Reavers and 2000 Sea Guard guarding 500 Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers.  It takes two Elves to crew an Eagle Claw, leaving 1000 Sea Guard to actually guard the machines while the Bolt Throwers shower everything in razor sharp death.  

They may not be real, but Elves leave humans in the dust when it comes to warfare.

Quote from: "phoenixguard09"They may not be real, but Elves leave humans in the dust when it comes to warfare.  

Ha ! They can not withstand my Empire army...