Retinues: Quqlity VS Quantity

[Kyle Lionheart]

why do people keep repeating that light cav is that terrible? sure, theyre less than optimal in skirmish and melee but in the pursuit phase they kick ass. especially when combined with a lot of horse archers.

To get to the pursuit phase you first need to win the battle. And you can't do it with LC unless you ridiculously outnumber them, so...that makes LC terrible for battles.
Maybe they can work as a separate army for mopping up those beaten, low-morale enemies, but for anything else, get another type of troop

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

The heavy infantry cultural units are actually my favorite. It's a great balance between power and number. I've never used the norse bezerkers in particular, but on paper they look great.

I would buy 3/4 cultural infantry and 1/4 cav with that set up. They will use sheildwall in skirmish and take little damage, rock in melee, and then the horses will chase down any runners. I have used a similar set up with Russian heavy infantry and Italian pikes, and both were very effective (the Russians better than the pikes).

I agree, the heavy infantry cultural units are very strong. But I just leave it for the levies to fill out the other combat roles.

 

[Kurospidey]

I have a dumb question. Everybody keeps talking about this "cultural units"... how do I know which my cultural units are? Where do I look for that? Also, how do I know their stats, or is that something you experience in the game?

 

[anonymouswolfm]

I have a dumb question. Everybody keeps talking about this "cultural units"... how do I know which my cultural units are? Where do I look for that? Also, how do I know their stats, or is that something you experience in the game?

Cultural units:- Right click on your desmene holdings and have a look at the type of unique cultural building you can build. For instance, playing as English you can build the longbow archery range which produces stronger archer levies. The tooltip will tell you what bonuses the cultural units have as compared to their ordinary counterparts.

If you have LoR, you can recruit your cultural units as part of your retinue under the military tab.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

I have a dumb question. Everybody keeps talking about this "cultural units"... how do I know which my cultural units are? Where do I look for that? Also, how do I know their stats, or is that something you experience in the game?

It's the last retinue on the list. For every country you play, every retinue available will be the same except the last one. That changes based on culture. Thus your cultural retinue.

The cultural retinue comes with the same bonus as you would have had if you had built them out of a max level cultural unit building in a castle. It doesn't say this anywhere on a tooltip, so you just have to know it. So you can look at your cultural building, see what bonus it gets at level one, and multiply by 4 -- that what it will max out it. Or you can look in the game file if you're comfortable doing that.

You can see the bonus once you build the retinue also if you tooltip over it's stats. Look at a normal heavy cav and look at it's attack stat. Now look at a French cultural retinue -- it's going to be much higher. I think everything gets a 60% bonus to either attack, defense, or morale. For example, French / German heavy cav get a bonus in attack. Scandivanian heavy inf get a bonus to attack. Russian heavy inf get a bounus to defense. Italian pikes get a bonus to morale. English archers get a bonus to attack. And so on.

 

[Kurospidey]

Thanks to both of you for your help.

 

[dorukdorucu]

I go for cultural retinues, especially if i'm playing as England. They have pure archer retinues, which means you can go for a 1:1 rate on your retinue. Add some HI and/or pikes from levies and maybe a couple hundred Light Cavalry for pursue(despite them being useless in pretty much everything else) and you're ready to stand against the big blue blob.

 

[Sn3ipen]

Thanks for all the great replies. Made me understand the system better.

I hadn't noticed that cultural units also could be hired as retinues.

 

[unmerged(281782)]

You can see the bonus once you build the retinue also if you tooltip over it's stats. Look at a normal heavy cav and look at it's attack stat. Now look at a French cultural retinue -- it's going to be much higher. I think everything gets a 60% bonus to either attack, defense, or morale. For example, French / German heavy cav get a bonus in attack. Scandivanian heavy inf get a bonus to attack. Russian heavy inf get a bounus to defense. Italian pikes get a bonus to morale. English archers get a bonus to attack. And so on.

Actually it's 60% bonus that may be split between different stats\unit types, for example Byz cataphracts have only +30% to attack, but both to HA and HC, making bonuses for them weaker than for pure +60% of Frankish\German lists.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

Actually it's 60% bonus that may be split between different stats\unit types, for example Byz cataphracts have only +30% to attack, but both to HA and HC, making bonuses for them weaker than for pure +60% of Frankish\German lists.

True. Although I think that's the only one split between unit types. And that's still by far the most powerful retinue even with the division between them.

 

[Grubnessul]

Actually it's 60% bonus that may be split between different stats\unit types, for example Byz cataphracts have only +30% to attack, but both to HA and HC, making bonuses for them weaker than for pure +60% of Frankish\German lists.

Is there anywhere in game you can see this bonus?

 

[Gingerninja]

Is there anywhere in game you can see this bonus?

Only in the game files.

EDIT: Oh, and also indirectly when you're kicking a**

 

[Portal]

Screw me and my Bulgarian light cavalry.

 

[Sn3ipen]

Is there anywhere in game you can see this bonus?

Spoiler

RETTYPE_CUL_ENG =
{
first_type = 5
first_amount = 500

culture = english
culture = welsh

modifier = {
archers_offensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_SCOT =
{
first_type = 2
first_amount = 500

culture = scottish

modifier = {
pikemen_defensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_BALT =
{
first_type = 1
first_amount = 500

culture_group = baltic
culture_group = finno_ugric

modifier = {
heavy_infantry_defensive = 0.6
}
}

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
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_FRANK_NOR_GER =
{
first_type = 4
first_amount = 300

second_type = 3
second_amount = 200

culture = frankish
culture = occitan
culture = norman
culture = german
culture = breton

modifier = {
knights_offensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_IBER =
{
first_type = 3
first_amount = 500

culture_group = iberian

modifier = {
light_cavalry_offensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_ITA =
{
first_type = 2
first_amount = 500

culture = italian

modifier = {
pikemen_morale = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_RUS =
{
first_type = 1
first_amount = 500

culture = russian

modifier = {
heavy_infantry_defensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_NORTHGER =
{
first_type = 1
first_amount = 500

culture_group = north_germanic
culture = saxon

modifier = {
heavy_infantry_offensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_HUNG =
{
first_type = 3
first_amount = 500

culture = hungarian
culture_group = west_slavic

modifier = {
light_cavalry_defensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_ARAB =
{
first_type = 3
first_amount = 500

culture_group = arabic

modifier = {
light_cavalry_defensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_BYZ =
{
first_type = 4
first_amount = 300

second_type = 6
second_amount = 200

culture_group = byzantine

modifier = {
knights_offensive = 0.3
horse_archers_offensive = 0.3
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_IRISH =
{
first_type = 1
first_amount = 500

culture = irish

modifier = {
heavy_infantry_defensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_ETHIO =
{
first_type = 0
first_amount = 500

culture = ethiopian

modifier = {
light_infantry_offensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_W_AFR =
{
first_type = 0
first_amount = 300

second_type = 5
second_amount = 200

culture_group = west_african

modifier = {
light_infantry_offensive = 0.6
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_SOUTH_SLA =
{
first_type = 4
first_amount = 300

second_type = 3
second_amount = 200

culture_group = south_slavic

modifier = {
knights_defensive = 0.3
light_cavalry_defensive = 0.3
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_DUTCH =
{
first_type = 0
first_amount = 300

second_type = 2
second_amount = 200

culture = dutch

modifier = {
light_infantry_offensive = 0.3
pikemen_offensive = 0.3
}
}

RETTYPE_CUL_NAHUA =
{
first_type = 0
first_amount = 250
second_type = 1
second_amount = 250

culture = nahuatl

modifier = {
light_infantry_offensive = 0.3
heavy_infantry_offensive = 0.3
}
}

 

[Tempiic]

The cultural retinue comes with the same bonus as you would have had if you had built them out of a max level cultural unit building in a castle. It doesn't say this anywhere on a tooltip, so you just have to know it. So you can look at your cultural building, see what bonus it gets at level one, and multiply by 4 -- that what it will max out it. Or you can look in the game file if you're comfortable doing that.

Is that hidden bonus added to the bonus the game actually shows them having?

 

[Xiathorn]

Slight thread hijack, on the subject of retinues..

As William I of England, you start Norman - what happens if, say, you get 2-3 Norman culture retinues (the Knight one), and then you swap to English culture (unlocking the Longbow Retinues).

Do you still keep the Knight retinues, and do they still keep their bonuses? We're playing an MP game at the moment, and I'd like to know if I should grab Norman Knights asap, even if we're not really expecting to fight anytime soon, so that I will be able to keep them after we pass into English culture.

 

[ghouti]

Is that hidden bonus added to the bonus the game actually shows them having?

I belive its a routine only based bonus, and the County builing bonuses are specific to those county levies and tech bonus applies to all levies/Reutines. Not 100% sure, but thats how i think it works.

 

[Tempiic]

Well just meant that if I start out as the Seljuks for example and build the cultural retinue.

In game, for the horse archer stats, it already shows a bonus of Attack: Horse Archer: 40% (in addition to the tech bonus).
Of course it does not list the morale bonus.

 

[grumphie]

TBH, i found light cav much more destructive than everyone here seems to think. if you all got it from that post that claimed it was that weak, think again.. while it did have some valid points, it lacked the math to show that light cav is counterproductive to recruit. the mongol doomstacks have a whole bunch of them and i dont see those crippleing the HA. while it certainly isnt a troop type to mass and build enitre armies from, cultural bonusses and having a decent amount(say one or two units on every flank of an army) can really increase its killing power, ESPECIALLY in the pursuit phase. unless you got the capabilities to make pure LC armies and get them in provinces where evenmy armeis retreat to to utterly maul them there.

 

[Gingerninja]

TBH, i found light cav much more destructive than everyone here seems to think. if you all got it from that post that claimed it was that weak, think again.. while it did have some valid points, it lacked the math to show that light cav is counterproductive to recruit. the mongol doomstacks have a whole bunch of them and i dont see those crippleing the HA. while it certainly isnt a troop type to mass and build enitre armies from, cultural bonusses and having a decent amount(say one or two units on every flank of an army) can really increase its killing power, ESPECIALLY in the pursuit phase. unless you got the capabilities to make pure LC armies and get them in provinces where evenmy armeis retreat to to utterly maul them there.

HA tactics and LC tactics are more often the same than LC tactics and everything else tactics. Take into consideration that mongol doomstacks consist of HA and LC and not much else of value.