Retinue Composition

[ferrousgolem]

The altaic horse breeders sound a little out of whack too. 100% attack per level and a morale bonus seems kind of extreme considering the nature of the other cultural buildings. I suspect that the decimal places are off for the scottish and altaic culture buildings/retinues. 15% defense/level for schiltrons sounds more reasonable. Likewise 10% attack/5% morale sounds more in line for the altaic horse breeders. I think all of the bonuses sum to 15% per level, or are supposed to anyway.

 

[VILIAMUS AVGVSTVS]

I don't know how the inner workings of the combat system operate, so I don't know how extreme this is, but the scottish culture building gives 150% defense per level to pikemen. This means that the schiltron retinue (500 pikemen) starts with the max bonus at 600% defense. So without any armor tech, a schiltron pikeman in the melee phase would have 56 defense? Has anyone seen how this sort of thing plays out yet? I have a feeling that someone misplaced a decimal when putting the bonus in and it just got copy/pasted into the successive levels of the building, but for all I know it could very well have been intentional.

If they did miss a decimal place on the cultural building, they didn't on the retinue it's 60%, here is the code:

RETTYPE_CUL_SCOT =
{
first_type = 2
first_amount = 500

culture = scottish

modifier = {
pikemen_defensive = 0.6
}
}

Edit: Here is the altaic as well:

RETTYPE_CUL_ALTAIC =
{
first_type = 6
first_amount = 260

second_type = 3
second_amount = 240

culture_group = altaic
culture = persian

modifier = {
horse_archers_offensive = 0.4
horse_archers_morale = 0.2
}
}

 

[unmerged(287474)]

So going 100% heavy cav would be a bad idea? lol

Also does anyone know if the cultural buildings give bonuses to your retinues too or is that just for your levies?

Not imo. Knights and HA are good in every phase. They can be countered but its a rarity.
I prefer smaller massing all knights and HA and stack them on a flank with the strongest cav leader, they'll steamroll that flank, they roll up the other flanks like a carpet.

 

[ferrousgolem]

Hadn't even looked at the retinue files yet, good find. Looks like it is just the culture buildings being off then.

Edit: My initial assumption was that the values were derived from the culture buildings, not sure why I didn't think the check the retinue file too.

 

[VILIAMUS AVGVSTVS]

Hadn't even looked at the retinue files yet, good find. Looks like it is just the culture buildings being off then.

Yeah the culture buildings code do confirm the 150% from each scottish building thing, whereas the russians have 15% defense from each heavy infantry unique building, and 60% from unique retinue, so yes, i believe this is a typo on the scots and altaic/persian unique buildings.

Actually now that i think of this, that might explain somewhat of the problems people are having fighting the mongols, if they are actually building the unique buildings.

 

[LarryLeica]

Wonder what in-game values are showing then for these various types? I didn't notice any extreme values out-of-whack for the Persian stuff, seemed okay to me, i.e. there was nothing in the region of 56, the highest was 11.1 IIRC.

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

So going 100% heavy cav would be a bad idea? lol

Also does anyone know if the cultural buildings give bonuses to your retinues too or is that just for your levies?

also to your retinue if you pick the right one, there is a special retinue linked to your cultural special building. and cataphract regiment is op, but dutch for example have some lame light infantry special retinue so its not that great to just mass that.

in my game i have 1k heavy inf, 600pike 1400 bow and the varangians in the center, the flanks is all cataphract. i got a 13k retinue atm

 

[Eldorian]

If they did miss a decimal place on the cultural building, they didn't on the retinue it's 60%, here is the code:

RETTYPE_CUL_SCOT =
{
first_type = 2
first_amount = 500

culture = scottish

modifier = {
pikemen_defensive = 0.6
}
}

Edit: Here is the altaic as well:

RETTYPE_CUL_ALTAIC =
{
first_type = 6
first_amount = 260

second_type = 3
second_amount = 240

culture_group = altaic
culture = persian

modifier = {
horse_archers_offensive = 0.4
horse_archers_morale = 0.2
}
}

When did you pull this? I had thought I read in the latest patch notes that all Iranians were given the Persian culture building. Did they not get the Persian retinue? That line of code says culture = persian, and not culture_group = iranian.

 

[NosgothKingdom]

As the byzantine emperor, I coud beat much bigger armies with my pure HC/AC retinues. Some 12+ guys could stand as much as a 20k+ enemy armies and deal more than double casualties they received (and then chase for finishing them up). Just get the proper leaders and your retinues will destroy.
And the AI is stupid as not to realise their clearly superior power tough compact numbers. They'll often throw slight superior (in numbers) stacks to be decimated by these armies.

Particularly useful in all those desert/mountains provinces in the near east/north africa.

 

[Dracko81]

When did you pull this? I had thought I read in the latest patch notes that all Iranians were given the Persian culture building. Did they not get the Persian retinue? That line of code says culture = persian, and not culture_group = iranian.

Yea the Kurds got screwed again. It has been reported as a bug.

Retinues do not receive bonuses from cultural buildings.

 

[OldRanger]

So it is clear that if you have a strong clutural retinue: e.g. a heavy infantry or horse archers that your retinue should use the type that you have a cultural bonous for.

My question is, does there come a point where you it is wise to diversify. So you are a northern European king and have 4000 heavy infantry retinue. Is it time to add some archers and heavy horse or do you just keep building up heavy infantry?

 

[DarkPhoenix]

I made very good use of mixed retinue units as BYZ until the mongols came. The added manpower of "cheaper" shock infantry and pike units just makes waging war much more relaxed than having one smaller but pure cataphract army. But then the mongols just evaporated my precious armies, and the only way to stop them was a 20k unit of heavy cav and horse archers...

 

[grumphie]

So it is clear that if you have a strong clutural retinue: e.g. a heavy infantry or horse archers that your retinue should use the type that you have a cultural bonous for.

My question is, does there come a point where you it is wise to diversify. So you are a northern European king and have 4000 heavy infantry retinue. Is it time to add some archers and heavy horse or do you just keep building up heavy infantry?

depends. i.e. the byzantines have HA+HC, wich is a combo with an incredible punch in all phases. you want to go pure cataphract there. i.e. the scandinavian housecarls are veyr strong too, especially considering the tactics, resulting in shieldswalls being used en masse, and then utterly maul the opposition in melee. with them i generally follow a 4-5 heavy inf-1cav retinue to give it some killing power in the pursue phase. on the other extreme end of the equation you have i.e. the abysinian retinue thats pure light inf, which you can either mass and defeat the enemy by sheer numebrs or dont use them at all and build i.e. shock retinue's as backcbone, supported by some skirmishers, defence and cav retinue's