What is the best/worst cultural military building

[Gunnarr]

Looking at some of the cultural buildings I find many of them to be pretty... garbage. For instance, the hussars which adds defense to light cavalry does not seem very good, seeing as light cavalry has such a low defense value.

I am just wondering what you all think is the best and worst cultural buildings.

I do not really find the camel riding buildings very good either. Then again I do not really like the increased defense ones

 

[Isaios]

Looking at some of the cultural buildings I find many of them to be pretty... garbage. For instance, the hussars which adds defense to light cavalry does not seem very good, seeing as light cavalry has such a low defense value.

I am just wondering what you all think is the best and worst cultural buildings.

I do not really find the camel riding buildings very good either. Then again I do not really like the increased defense ones

Best is either Frankish or Byzantine. The first due to the riduculous impact it has, the latter because it's also a bit balanced. Worst? Probably the East African one. 'Course, none of them are REALLY terrible, and the worst of them are balanced by having more troops from other buildings.

 

[stormblind]

Looking at some of the cultural buildings I find many of them to be pretty... garbage. For instance, the hussars which adds defense to light cavalry does not seem very good, seeing as light cavalry has such a low defense value.

I am just wondering what you all think is the best and worst cultural buildings.

I do not really find the camel riding buildings very good either. Then again I do not really like the increased defense ones

Honestly, I find the Letigallian building insanely powerful. (For the Baltic culture group I believe). Gives you a huge defense boost to Heavy Infantry, who are already super strong, and assuming you build the warrior meeting grounds, and the Barracks; you can end up with incredibly durable armies capable of fighting enemy armies significantly larger then yours.

Using this strategy, I've had my own personal armies of 1-2k troops completely annihilate enemy forces of 4-5K troops with equivalent leadership (Of course, using the heavy infantry specialization). The defensive boosts are obscene on certain classes, but terrible on others. I'd agree the light calv defense boosts probably wouldn't be terribly good, but I think their purpose is more to make that class of troop the best of their kind; not the best troop period.

 

[Isaios]

Honestly, I find the Letigallian building insanely powerful. (For the Baltic culture group I believe). Gives you a huge defense boost to Heavy Infantry, who are already super strong, and assuming you build the warrior meeting grounds, and the Barracks; you can end up with incredibly durable armies capable of fighting enemy armies significantly larger then yours.

Using this strategy, I've had my own personal armies of 1-2k troops completely annihilate enemy forces of 4-5K troops with equivalent leadership (Of course, using the heavy infantry specialization). The defensive boosts are obscene on certain classes, but terrible on others. I'd agree the light calv defense boosts probably wouldn't be terribly good, but I think their purpose is more to make that class of troop the best of their kind; not the best troop period.

You mean as a Pagan then?

And the Russians and Irish get the same effect from theirs btw.

 

[l3ol3o]

Byzantium is the strongest IMO. Heavy cavalry and horse cavalry is awesome. Franks/Germans/Breton/Normans are also good with Heavy cavalry and light cavalry.

I don't think there is a worst. None are terrible but light infantry and light cavalry are the weakest Imo.

 

[Comradebot]

Persians are awesome... just silly amounts of Horse Archers (though Cumans, Mongols, and I think Kurdish and Turks get em' too).


And absolutely disagree about East African: the damage bonus they can eventually get is just silly, and using retinues of primarily Ethiopian Skirmishers I've personally decimated larger Mongol armies.

 

[Isaios]

Persians are awesome... just silly amounts of Horse Archers (though Cumans, Mongols, and I think Kurdish and Turks get em' too).


And absolutely disagree about East African: the damage bonus they can eventually get is just silly, and using retinues of primarily Ethiopian Skirmishers I've personally decimated larger Mongol armies.

Worst, not bad

Besides, it's not the retinues that are best in re Ethiopia, it's the cultural buildings combined with all the other buildings giving Light Foot. Soooo many Light Foot with bonus offense.

 

[Fraemi]

For some reason I can't even build the cultural military buildings in 1.08, they are simply not there. Noone else also owns them apart from English crown having a few.
I'm Greek Orthodox and usurped the throne about 5 years before the date in the attached image, all my stats are 18+ and I started as the Spartenos family in Napoli at 1066 if that is of any relevance.

Spoiler

Regarding OP, I find that that the Frankish and Byzantine buildings are the best since Heavy Cavalry is generally unstoppable and makes for the strongest units. One of the reasons why I'd like to have them on hand as well.

EDIT: I've also both LoR and SoI, I verified cache integrity on steam twice

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Honestly? The most powerful is probably the Byzantine Cataphracts since that gives you the largest punch for your troop count. Everything is roughly equal in a vacuum but that falls apart when your giant army of Light Infantry loses half it's numbers to attrition before the battle even begins. That said, without attrition I'd probably give the edge to heavy infantry - you can get pure HI retinues, the Shieldwall tactic is great, and their tactics (and stats) in melee are no slouch either. Back them up with a couple of cav retinues for the pursuit phase and they utterly demolish enemy armies with good generals in charge.

 

[Isaios]

Honestly? The most powerful is probably the Byzantine Cataphracts since that gives you the largest punch for your troop count. Everything is roughly equal in a vacuum but that falls apart when your giant army of Light Infantry loses half it's numbers to attrition before the battle even begins. That said, without attrition I'd probably give the edge to heavy infantry - you can get pure HI retinues, the Shieldwall tactic is great, and their tactics (and stats) in melee are no slouch either. Back them up with a couple of cav retinues for the pursuit phase and they utterly demolish enemy armies with good generals in charge.

Attrition is the real killer, sure. >_> Which Heavy Infantry "group" d'you prefer then? North German+Saxon (+60% Offense) or Irish+Russian+Baltic (+60% Defense)?

 

[icedt729]

How exactly do attack and defense values work in CK2 battles? Is it Vicky2-style, where attack armies use their attack stats and defending armies use their defense stats? Is it related to tactics or different combat phases? The quality of the bonuses seems to depend a lot on whether attack and defense are equally useful.

 

[Isaios]

How exactly do attack and defense values work in CK2 battles? Is it Vicky2-style, where attack armies use their attack stats and defending armies use their defense stats? Is it related to tactics or different combat phases? The quality of the bonuses seems to depend a lot on whether attack and defense are equally useful.

Both stats are used in every battle. When Group A wacks Group B, the former uses their Offense stat and the latter their Defense stat. The fact that the bonus is percentage based also makes the ooomph more telling with units with higher base stats of course. I'm very happy with the Defense bonus, though I'd prefer one with +30% to both I think.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Personally, I prefer offensive over defensive, since you'll be breaking the enemy in melee phase, and Heavy Infantry Melee offense is higher than Melee defense. However, an argument could be made either way, particularly for fighting Mongols who are very strong in the Skirmish phase. Shieldwall's +300% Skirmish Defense bonus and Advance's +300% Melee Attack bonus are very, very nice either way though.

 

[Gunnarr]

alright, i have a question, though perhaps i will make ita new thread if no one replies to this anymore.

Playing as muslims in iberia their camel riders (light cavalry) get increased defense. Should I even get the light cav retinues? I have 1500 units of them right now but it seems to be sabotaging my battles. Most of the tactics my generals are using are "harass" tactics and it is causing me to take extreme losses. I am starting to think it might be better just to get the infantry retinues? what do you guys think?

 

[unmerged(26764)]

I agree about the heavy infantry buildings. Playing in Russia, the Russian heavy infantry was very powerful. There's a lot of it, there's a lot of great tactics for it in every phase, and it crushes in melee.

The most disappointing I think are those that add morale instead of offense or defense. Offense or defense are useful. Morale gives you staying power, but you really want killing power. Playing in Italy right now and the pike units are disappointing. Pikes themselves are actually great -- they're basically better heavy infantry that is useless in pursue. But there aren't a lot of good pike tactics it seems, so they end up being less effective. And morale again. The Scottish pikes are probably useful because they get a real combat bonus.

The only upside I think is that the guy who breaks usually gets destroyed in pursue. So morale is theoretically useful because as long as you can last longer, you should wreck the opposing force as soon as it breaks. Yet pikes are useless in pursue. And if you're mixing them with other units, you're watering down the moral bonus. So again, less useful.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Try stacking the all Camel Riders on one flank, and leaving the levies to hold everything else, assuming they're not too badly outnumbered. Harass gives a bonus to Light Cav, which is why they're using it.... but it hurts archers, and levies provide a lot of those. In the melee phase, they should use Raid (or Desert Ambush) most of the time, which provides again, a bonus to Light Cav. The flank-type stacking tactic works with any troop type retinue (except archers!) when you need to bulk out armies with levies.

Edit: Italians should have Pike Column Advance, which is just as good as Advance, although not quite as good as Schiltrom if you leave out the Cav Retinues. I don't think either will trigger as often as regular Advance, though. For the North Germanic Heavy Infantry, they also get Berserker charge, which provides even more attack bonus than Advance, though with a penalty to defense.

 

[Tokie]

Do the +% bonus work on your retinue? If so, where would you build your culture buildings? Capital?

 

[icedt729]

I'm a big fan of the schiltrom (Scottish pikes), personally. They have served me well.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Cultural Retinues include an inherent bonus equal to the level 4 cultural building. They also benefit from your capital's tech, but not it's buildings - and the inherent bonus is why. Regular Retinues are out of luck when it comes to culture bonuses, as far as I know.

 

[Gunnarr]

Try stacking the all Camel Riders on one flank, and leaving the levies to hold everything else, assuming they're not too badly outnumbered. Harass gives a bonus to Light Cav, which is why they're using it.... but it hurts archers, and levies provide a lot of those. In the melee phase, they should use Raid (or Desert Ambush) most of the time, which provides again, a bonus to Light Cav. The flank-type stacking tactic works with any troop type retinue (except archers!) when you need to bulk out armies with levies.

Edit: Italians should have Pike Column Advance, which is just as good as Advance, although not quite as good as Schiltrom if you leave out the Cav Retinues. I don't think either will trigger as often as regular Advance, though. For the North Germanic Heavy Infantry, they also get Berserker charge, which provides even more attack bonus than Advance, though with a penalty to defense.

The problem though is the raid tactic increases attack damage only, while camel riders increased damage is only for defending so as far as I can see there is no use for using camel riders for defending, even with the bonus damage (they are just getting pulverized against the heavy cavalry charges!). Is this correct? sorry if i am, i get confused quite a bit by the combat in this game!

EDIT:

PS, is there any way to change the modifiers for these cultural buildings and retinues? (say changing the camel riders to increased attack instead of increased defense)