Has anyone figured out whether having a mixture of troops in an army confer any advantages? Or is it better to just get the most expensive units?
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i think it helps alot if you make combined arms armies instead of just spamming the most powerfull unit. my combined army of 10,000 just totaly anihalited a 20,000 strong barb hord to the man
I dont have the game yet (email me withmy code, Paradox!) but I believe that archer units increase the effectiveness of heavy infantry units they are placed behind.
Every unit is more efficient at killing certain other kinds of units, and less efficient at others.
It's an unfair(but vivid) comparison to say that it's a bit like Rock Paper Scissors. I didn't actually check the numbers for this example, but it gets the point across:
If you field nothing but heavy infantry, then anything that has a bonus against heavy infantry(say, cavalry) is going to shred you. So you need to field something(say, archers) to deal with the cavalry.
So if an army of 15,000 cavalry tears apart your army of 20,000 heavy infantry, then having an army of 15,000 heavy infantry + 5,000 archers would probably work much better.
That is my theory!
It's an unfair(but vivid) comparison to say that it's a bit like Rock Paper Scissors. I didn't actually check the numbers for this example, but it gets the point across:
If you field nothing but heavy infantry, then anything that has a bonus against heavy infantry(say, cavalry) is going to shred you. So you need to field something(say, archers) to deal with the cavalry.
So if an army of 15,000 cavalry tears apart your army of 20,000 heavy infantry, then having an army of 15,000 heavy infantry + 5,000 archers would probably work much better.
That is my theory!
From what I've found, Heavy Infantry have good stats against everything, but are assisted by archers.
Cav is particularly good against archers..and Elephants, I think
Militia is poor against everything
Only Heavy Infantry, Militia and Archers get counted in a seige assault. Unfortunately, Elephants don't.
Cav get extra movement in battle (can't remember the official term). I hope this means they DO get to attack the archers...but I don't know
Cav is particularly good against archers..and Elephants, I think
Militia is poor against everything
Only Heavy Infantry, Militia and Archers get counted in a seige assault. Unfortunately, Elephants don't.
Cav get extra movement in battle (can't remember the official term). I hope this means they DO get to attack the archers...but I don't know
Unit stats need some modding IMHO. For example, militia should be not the worst but one of the best against elephants. It represents light infantry/skirmishers - fast enough to avoid the charge and capable of peppering the beasts with javelins from a distance.
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Unhinged Loon said:
From what I've seen so far, they don't get an extra attack or anything.
In fact, it seems that trading for the resources to get certain units (horses for cavalry etc.) isn't worthwhile at all. Heavy infantry just wins everything.
From what I've found, Heavy Infantry have good stats against everything, but are assisted by archers.
Cav is particularly good against archers..and Elephants, I think
Militia is poor against everything
Only Heavy Infantry, Militia and Archers get counted in a seige assault. Unfortunately, Elephants don't.
Cav get extra movement in battle (can't remember the official term). I hope this means they DO get to attack the archers...but I don't know
Cav is particularly good against archers..and Elephants, I think
Militia is poor against everything
Only Heavy Infantry, Militia and Archers get counted in a seige assault. Unfortunately, Elephants don't.
Cav get extra movement in battle (can't remember the official term). I hope this means they DO get to attack the archers...but I don't know
I've noticed that a cav/hi/archer army sustains far less casulties than a just hi/archer army, so IMO it's worthwhile to incorporate cavalry in your army.
From what I've found, Heavy Infantry have good stats against everything, but are assisted by archers.
Cav is particularly good against archers..and Elephants, I think
Militia is poor against everything
Only Heavy Infantry, Militia and Archers get counted in a seige assault. Unfortunately, Elephants don't.
Cav get extra movement in battle (can't remember the official term). I hope this means they DO get to attack the archers...but I don't know
Cav is particularly good against archers..and Elephants, I think
Militia is poor against everything
Only Heavy Infantry, Militia and Archers get counted in a seige assault. Unfortunately, Elephants don't.
Cav get extra movement in battle (can't remember the official term). I hope this means they DO get to attack the archers...but I don't know
Grubnessul said:
I believe it's because cavalry have a little larger attack "range", allowing them to attack and cause casualties to the archers in the back line (behind the front line, typically made up of the hvy infantry). I would suspect that because your cavalry is causing the enemy archers to suffer casualties that they wouldn't be taking when facing an army made entirely of infantry, the casualties the archers are causing is going down.
There was a forum thread about the attack "range" of different units a short while ago...you might be able to dig up that thread to see if it has any useful info in it. Perhaps somebody with more knowledge than I could clarify things for us?
It's completely unrealistic cavalry isn't counted during sieges. You bring down their gate and you can rush inside and wreak havoc on enemy streets with your mounted units just like with anything else...
delra said:
Not really unreaslistic, cavarly (like tanks) excell in the open field where they can manuever and maintian momentum, they are vulnerable in close quarters.
I think you've been playing TW too much.
But those cavalries we have in Roman times aren't any close to tanks with long lances used during Middle Ages. They are more like mounted light infantry. Especially Roman cavalry. Parthia or Macedon could have something close to tanks but Rome certainly not.
soaresb said:
Not true. Cavalry based armies can be quite deadly, especially when you use them to their fullest advantage.
First off, armies with composed of only cavalry and horse archers move much faster strategically, meaning you can get to provinces ahead of infantry armies and get defensive terrain bonuses (rivers in particular). I've used that single facet of gameplay to great effect playing as Parthia.
Second, cavalry and horse archers have maneuver values of 2 and 3 respectively. This doesn't mean they get to attack archers necessarily, but it does mean two things. Cavalry and horse archers on the flanks get access to a flanking bonus if they can attack any unit that can't attack them directly. Second, horse archers can play support to cavalry by sitting in the second rank (like regular archers) or get a flanking bonus by sitting on the wings of the army (like their cavalry brothers). The army will do its best to configure itself to whichever mode will work best, putting horse archers on the extreme flanks if effective, and deploying the rest to the second rank where they can support.
The above is also why having some cavalry mixed in a regular army is also useful. Even with my Roman heavy infantry legions, I try to get some cavalry to cover the flanks.
All that being said, cavalry and horse archers aren't uber. And they cost a lot more than infantry. You can field 5 archers or 2.5 heavy infantry for every cavalry cohort. Also, heavy infantry are good at stopping unsupported cavalry dead in their tracks. On the other hand when the heavy infantry and the cavalry get support from archers and horse archers, it can quickly become a contest that boils down to better generalship. Armies composed of mostly militia tend to get slaughtered by armies composed entirely of horse archers and cavalry, so if someone is spamming cheap auxiliaries, cavalry will clear them out.
Something to keep in mind: cavalry work best when you have national ideas to improve, much like heavy infantry. Horse lords give +10% discipline bonus to cavalry (not horse archers!) and Cataphracts gives a +100% bonus to offensive for cavalry (not horse archers!). Using these ideas will make cavalry the equal of infantry IF you can afford to support them. It also means that you can't create hordes of horse archers by themselves and expect to win battles; they need to be combined with cavalry.
So based on the above information, I like to do the following: Start with a baseline of heavy infantry (say 5). Add 3 archers to support the middle. And then add 2 cavalry to cover both flanks. That gives me a quality army of 10K men that can get the 10:1 advantage when they come across new recruits. Its also an affordable army. From there I scale up by adding more infantry and archers. And then I toss in some horse archers when I have extra money. Final army might be 20K with 10 HI, 5 Archers, 2 Cav, and 3 HA. But that of course is not a specialized army, just a nice rounded force. But thats just my opinion.
Devout said:
I use about the same setup, but I replace an archer with a heavy inf to get 6 Heavies, 2 Archers and 2 Cav.
I found that the extra inf slightly increased the staying power - it makes a better front line soak.
Plus I like the nice, clean unit ratio of 3:1:1 Infantry/Archer/Cavalry
kristoff said:
Militia don't represent light infantry/skimishers in this game. The militia units are for when you need lots of troops quickly or siege place takers so your main army can cut deeper into the enemy's territory.
I tend to build "powerful" units to save on manpower. if i weren't so wonderfully rich i wouldn't have this luxury, though.
I guess cavalry can flank, or at least it should be able to. I don't have horse resource so no cavalry for me, which means that I fight tough battles agiants armies with cavalry.