[Viking Conquest] Army Size&Troop Composition and Formations

I have played through the storymode of Viking Conquest and I am now close to finishing it (as a Christian, so no pillaging monasteries).

However, I struggle with two things:

First, there's my army.

I never seem to have enough money to keep more than around 100-150 troops in the field. Sometimes I manage to have enough money for a few more (for instance while I held a few villages and one castle as fiefs), but mostly I'm strapped for cash. However, I only have investments in two cities, averaging about 1000 pennings/week (brewery and something else), so investing in more of those seems reasonable.

But I'm also not sure how big my army should be and what troop types it should contain. So far the lack of money wasn't much of an issue, as I only had 3 or 4 ships anyway, but I guess if I want to conquer my own kingdom after the story is over, I guess I need more of them.

I was thinking about invading Friese, as they are out of the way and should be the easiest ones to conquer. So how many troops (and what type) would I reasonably need foor such an ambitious undertaking and how should I go about it? I only initiiated one siege so far (the one the story required) and that gave me nightmares: I decided to starve them out but ended up with starving and deserting troops myself, had to mount a direct assault and lost most of my men.... so I'm worried about doing this again and on my own.

And another thing that I wonder about are formations. I thought I had got the hang of them, but I can't make them work quite right it seems.

I'm aiming for a formation like this:

. SPSPSPSPSPSP

CCCCC SSSSSSSSS IIIIIIII

HHHHH AAAAAAAAA

So, spears up centre, behind them Skirmishers and Archers. Companions left and slightly behind the mainline, Infantry to the right and back. Horses somewhere in the back to run down stragglers afterwards.

Usually my troops deploy alright: Spears up and centre, behind them skirmishers and archers, horses at the back. My companions form their own division that I assigned as my bodyguard, so they usually end up left and in front of the main line. Infantry ends up right and in front.

So I get something that is almost like the formation I wnat to have, but tthe Companions and Infantry always end up in front of the main line and not behind it. Is there any way to rectify this and kind of "save" that formation so that i can easily replicate it in my battles?

Submitted February 24, 2018 at 08:43AM by Angelareh http://ift.tt/2ENwlaK