Retinue Types

[Prime624]

I've heard that the best retinues ate heavy cavalry, but in my game (used broken kingdoms mod) as king of Scotland, the only heavy cavalry I can get are 100 with 400 light cavalry. Is this what they mean by "heavy cavalry are best", or is this because I am in Scotland (I'm Saxon)?

 

[l3ol3o]

No what people are talking about is the Frankish/German/Breton culture retinue that is the best.

A Scotland you can make Pike Retinues which have some good bonuses. I would build mostly them to start with. Once you get bigger add in some archers and cavalry.

 

[Prime624]

Another question: Now I'm king of Scotland and Ireland (almost), and I control Pomerania. I'm still Saxon. Do I get the same types of retinues? What determines what types I can recruit?

Side note: (I personally hate the cultural troops of Scotland and have always had. I love playing there in strategy games but I can't stand the pikemen and lack of cavalry.)

 

[Sereglond]

Both retiment and special culture building types depend on the ruler's culture.

 

[FabiusBile]

Another question: Now I'm king of Scotland and Ireland (almost), and I control Pomerania. I'm still Saxon. Do I get the same types of retinues? What determines what types I can recruit?

Side note: (I personally hate the cultural troops of Scotland and have always had. I love playing there in strategy games but I can't stand the pikemen and lack of cavalry.)

The culture of your king decides what sort of retinue and cultural buildings you can build.

edit : ninajd

 

[FabiusBile]

Another question: Now I'm king of Scotland and Ireland (almost), and I control Pomerania. I'm still Saxon. Do I get the same types of retinues? What determines what types I can recruit?

Side note: (I personally hate the cultural troops of Scotland and have always had. I love playing there in strategy games but I can't stand the pikemen and lack of cavalry.)

Without cultural bonuses I'd not choose a cav retinue. The 400/100 Cav retinue is very bad since it does not have any special bonuses and costs a high amount of retinue pop.

 

[Prime624]

Without cultural bonuses I'd not choose a cav retinue. The 400/100 Cav retinue is very bad since it does not have any special bonuses and costs a high amount of retinue pop.

My problem with Scotland (and the rest of Britain). Right now I have a 400/100 and a 100/400 of heavy/archers, and a 300/200 pikemen/archers.

 

[Grubnessul]

But without a 400/100 retinue, you really will not have much heavy cavalry. Medium stables give only 5 of them, and those buildings are quite expensive.

 

[Prime624]

But without a 400/100 retinue, you really will not have much heavy cavalry. Medium stables give only 5 of them, and those buildings are quite expensive.

So I should get a cavalry unit for my next retinue?

 

[Grubnessul]

I would recommend to do so for the huge damage heavy cavalry deals.

 

[Bob_the_Insane]

I am finding that having a lot of Archers in the Retinue and using that to augment the Levies is pretty effective in the early game (as England)...

I also tend to acquire three of the same with an idea of balancing the three flanks when the retinue gets bigger. I was always getting the 100/400 archers and Heavies until I noticed I was getting pasted in the skirmish phase. I started paying more attention the army make up and noticed my levies where usually weak in archers.

My normal is currently (as and when I can get them) 3x 400H/100A, then 3x 100H/400A, then 3x 400H/100A, then 3x 500A.. So now with 2.7K heavies and 3.3K archers (6K troops that take 8.7K space) I have a good base to build on...

After that I might add 3x cavalry (mostly for the light cavalry to mop up after victories)...

 

[delra]

Numbers win battles and sieges, not quality. Spamming archer retinues is a cheap way to get numbers on your side and become devastating during the skirmish phase. Some heavier mercenaries (holy order, varangians, lombards or swiss) can provide shields to hold the line, cheap stables all over the demesne can provide light cavalry to give chase to routed enemy but it's easiest if the bulk of your army is cheap archery units coming from retinue which can heal very fast and take castles one after another. Byz can easily have 20000 archers as his personal stack of doom, outnumber enemy archers 10:1, win battles in skirmish phase, often rout enemy flanks during the skirmish phase!

Those elite retinues like Catas are hugely overrated.

 

[sergeant113]

I stack archer retinues in one flank. which end up destroying its opposing flank during skirmish phase. The other flanks are only enough not to be overrun. Usually, my battles end at skirmish phase. If I have a craven general, even better as he will try to stall the skirmish phase as much as he can.

 

[icedt729]

Something to keep in mind- everybody loves that heavy cav retinues like Knights and Cataphracts can take armies about twice their size, but that's because they cost twice as much cap. One heavy cavalryman takes twice as much cap as a heavy infantryman, pikeman, horse archer or light horseman and four times as much as an archer or light infantryman. Adjusted man-for-man they're fairly balanced. Just keep in mind that after you take cap/numbers into consideration, the biggest impact troop composition has is on what your army's best at. People love the English Longbow retinue, for example, because they're incredibly powerful in the Skirmish phase and can sometimes win battles without having to go into melee and saving both time and manpower. Scottish Schiltrom pikemen have huge defense, especially in melee, so they're tough to kill and can prolong battles (good if you have reinforcements moving towards them, bad if the enemy has reinforcements). Stuff like that.

 

[Grubnessul]

True, but archers and light infantry can be obtained from normal buildings, while HC is rare. So for a balanced army, a HC retinue seems a good idea.

 

[delra]

But why would you want a balanced army? For assaults you want pure numbers. For battles you want to win the important phases - skirmish and pursuit. That means archers and light cavalry are the combo to look for. Unless you're using house rules here, you really should bank on the two most important units.

 

[icedt729]

But why would you want a balanced army? For assaults you want pure numbers. For battles you want to win the important phases - skirmish and pursuit. That means archers and light cavalry are the combo to look for. Unless you're using house rules here, you really should bank on the two most important units.

Roleplaying, mostly. Also because the archers-light cav army is a gamble and will get annihilated if the battle does go to melee.

 

[unmerged(600321)]

HC retinues are the best because of unit attrition if you go over the population maximum for a territory. It is much easier to destroy the Golden Horde or Ilkhanate doom stacks with HC based retinues. Prior to the point where you have 30-40k unit army stacks, the heavy cavalry retinue is not all that great since you don't have to worry about attrition. Once your levies are at 200-300k and you have 50-60k in retinues, having highly heavy cavalry focused retinues is very very helpful. Earlier in the game, I prefer 400 archer/100 heavy infantry based retinues.