What is the best/worst cultural military building
- Thread starter Gunnarr
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Since the point of this thread is which is the best building, I'd have to go with some sort of pikemen or heavy infantry building. That way you get a troop that's powerful per head (useful for attrition) which still provides its bonus to a significant number of troops that other buildings raise. If you asked which is the best culture for retinue + building, I'd have to say Byzantine Cataphracts. Cataphracts are the strongest retinue by far, being devastating in the skirmish phase due to constant use of Swarm tactic with lots of horse archers, and devastating in melee with the cavalry charge tactic with the knights, and getting you the most bang for the buck in regards to attrition. But, the Cataphract building is sorta useless as you don't normally get any horse archers and knights are in few supply, so the bonus doesn't apply to the troops produced by other buildings. I find the usefulness of the retinues outweighs the buildings.
Really, best building depends on the size of armies you're fielding. The light infantry and archery buildings are amazingly good for smaller armies where you stay well away from attrition, so on duchy level games they're great, but if you get to empire, you really want the biggest bang for your attrition limit.
Really, best building depends on the size of armies you're fielding. The light infantry and archery buildings are amazingly good for smaller armies where you stay well away from attrition, so on duchy level games they're great, but if you get to empire, you really want the biggest bang for your attrition limit.
I would PROBABLY switch to one of the Heavy Infantry+Archers groups. Keep a BIT of the cultural unit though. Not much, but enough no to be a one trick camel.
Yeah, no love for them. They also don't gain the Cultural Building bonus, which leaves them a bit weaker than your levies (IF you get a bonus from the building that is). This is a bit moot, as every culture gets the same unit in their Cultural Unit as they get in their Building, but it just means that as the Russians, don't buy the other units cointaining Heavy Infantry
As far as I know, you're right. Increased Offense has a marked effect, but Defense seems highly underwhelming.
You can change the modifiers in two files: \common\buildings\00_buildings.txt and \common\retinue_subunits\00_retinue_subunits.txt
What you should change will be easy to spot, just copy the bonuses from one of the other cultures for instance.
I would PROBABLY switch to one of the Heavy Infantry+Archers groups. Keep a BIT of the cultural unit though. Not much, but enough no to be a one trick camel.
Yeah, no love for them. They also don't gain the Cultural Building bonus, which leaves them a bit weaker than your levies (IF you get a bonus from the building that is). This is a bit moot, as every culture gets the same unit in their Cultural Unit as they get in their Building, but it just means that as the Russians, don't buy the other units cointaining Heavy Infantry
As far as I know, you're right. Increased Offense has a marked effect, but Defense seems highly underwhelming.
You can change the modifiers in two files: \common\buildings\00_buildings.txt and \common\retinue_subunits\00_retinue_subunits.txt
What you should change will be easy to spot, just copy the bonuses from one of the other cultures for instance.
It worked! thank you!
Attack, I assume, but I don't really think that's going to help against (since he mentioned heavy cavalry charges) what I would guess is the Crusader orders. Prettymuch everything other than a Cataphract retinue is going to get pulverized by them at equal numbers. While Harass and Raid/ (Desert) Ambush do boost offense and not defense (thus not stacking with the Defense bonus) Light Cav's Skirmish Defense isn't inconsiderable - in fact, they have the same Skirmish defense and better Skirmish attack than Heavy Infantry. The problem is their melee attack/defense and morale is slightly worse, but with those pursuit values picking off smaller units (or flanks) is just crushing. An option would be to give them an Organized general - you should be able to dance around enemy armies relatively easily, and your losses should you need to retreat from an engagement would be minimal compared to a Heavy Infantry army.
Having a flanker and keeping them all on a flank would also help, some. The problem is that it probably won't be enough. >_> So much easier with Heavy.
Yeah. Medieval-era Light Cav is a guy on a horse or camel with a pointy stick and maybe a mail shirt and leggings (Basically, the exact same thing as Light Infantry, but mounted). Not exactly suited to duke it out with Heavy Infantry, Pikes, or Heavy Cav in a straight fight. Really, the sad part is they're almost a disadvantage due to the mostly-inferior tactics. I've modded the Desert Ambush tactic to remove the terrain restriction to give the Arabs a boost, myself. (Changed the localization to "Running Ambush" to make myself feel better).
No idea. Haven't actually played a serious game as Arabs to test it yet. I like my Heavy Infantry and Cataphracts too much.
I rarely see the AI make cultural retinues, to be honest. They seem programmed to follow a relatively balanced approach of Skirmish, followed by Shock, followed by Cav, followed by Defensive, and so on. I've seen the HRE replace the Cav with the Heavy Knight retinue, but others are rare. Of course, part of the problem may be as the human player, I'm pretty good about ensuring favorable situations when it comes to battles, and I rarely pay close attention. In my latest game the Fatimids did conquer the Seljuks after I threw them out of Greece, so it may be having a bigger effect than I am aware of. That may just be the Fatimids being the Fatimids, however.
Edit: It also requires the melee phase lasting long enough for them to pick the Desert Ambush tactic >.>
Edit: It also requires the melee phase lasting long enough for them to pick the Desert Ambush tactic >.>
I don't know enough about the combat mechanics to really know what is best but I do know that when I see my Norse heavy infantry doing a beserker charge with HI offense bonus, victory is imminent.
I did a quick test using a Third Crusade start as the Arabs. It seems that high martial generals will tend to pick Desert Ambush as the initial tactic in the melee phase, which gives levy armies a big boost.
Before that image, they chose Desert Ambush (which I localised to Running Ambush) in 2/3 melee phase starts, but as you can see chance drops off sharply after that. Still, it does give them a nice edge since it boosts three of the four most common troop types in levies (and Horse Archers, which is a bit confusing since Arabs don't get any).
Before that image, they chose Desert Ambush (which I localised to Running Ambush) in 2/3 melee phase starts, but as you can see chance drops off sharply after that. Still, it does give them a nice edge since it boosts three of the four most common troop types in levies (and Horse Archers, which is a bit confusing since Arabs don't get any).
Yeah they had 10 times the bonus they were supposed to pre-1.08. It was meant to be +15% pikemen defence per building upgrade not +150% (so a max of +60% not +600%).
So what I'm understanding now is that a retinue made up entirely from the 400 LC/100 HC is very underwhelming. And, if playing Egyptian/Arabian/Whatnot, the Camel riding Retinue is just as underwhelming. In fact, I should stick to 400 A/100 HI retinue completely. Correct?
Wish you could make a 500 HC retinue or something...
Wish you could make a 500 HC retinue or something...
Russian, Baltic, Irish and North Germanic+Saxon all have 500 Heavy Foot. I'm currently testing the effect of changing the Frankish building to 500 Heavy Cavalry. Doesn't appear to be a good idea. Maybe if I cut it down to 250.
The Byzantine (Heavy Cav/Horse Archers), Scottish/Italian (Pike), Russian/Baltic/Irish/North German/Saxon (Heavy Infantry) retinues are all good. The Frankish/German/Norman/Occitan Retinues are 300 Heavy Cav/200 Light Cav by default, which makes them not bad either (it also makes a goodly amount of sense, since the Knights would have had lighter-armed Squires and Armsmen tagging along with them). The Altaic Horse Archer/Light Cav retinue doesn't seem bad either, mostly due to how awesome Horse Archers are. Also, there's a tactic (harras_swarm_tactic, lol typo from the devs) that buffs HA/LC in the skirmish phase. The Retreat-and-Ambush tactic they have to switch the battle back to skirmish phase is also devestating.
Would an entire LC retinue be able to perform this tactic? Considering my god awful retinue choices as Egyptian Emperor, I'm considering going to a 100% Camel Cavalry Retinue (LC) but I'm unsure as to how they'll perform or how the AI would make use of tactic selection (since you can't select your own obviously).
Thanks
For the other thread: It doesn't necessarily need to be a balanced army. Just not entirely Archers. Or, in fact, greater than 60% archers, since that's the trigger for charge_on_undefended_flank (total modified factor is 100, so it's handily beat out any other tactic choice, since the average factor there is a grand total of 9).
For this thread: A pure Light Cav Retinue, due to the way the combat system works will typically pick Raid/Ambush (in Melee) or a variation of Harass (in Skirmish). It's never a certain thing that a general will pick a given tactic, but you can skew the odds by stacking the troop (types) you want. Unfortunately, there's no non-cultural Light Infantry Retinue, which would help. That said, it's not hard to add a generic Light Infantry Retinue (You wouldn't want many, but one or two for each flank to help skew the odds). Also, the retreat-and-ambush tactic is Altaic-culture exclusive. So unless you switch cultures (which comes with it's own set of issues) or recruit Altaic generals, it won't help.
This goes in 00_retinue_subunits (at the top) to add a generic LI retinue. That's a zero, btw.
and this goes into localizations (pick any .csv, or just add a new one)
For this thread: A pure Light Cav Retinue, due to the way the combat system works will typically pick Raid/Ambush (in Melee) or a variation of Harass (in Skirmish). It's never a certain thing that a general will pick a given tactic, but you can skew the odds by stacking the troop (types) you want. Unfortunately, there's no non-cultural Light Infantry Retinue, which would help. That said, it's not hard to add a generic Light Infantry Retinue (You wouldn't want many, but one or two for each flank to help skew the odds). Also, the retreat-and-ambush tactic is Altaic-culture exclusive. So unless you switch cultures (which comes with it's own set of issues) or recruit Altaic generals, it won't help.
This goes in 00_retinue_subunits (at the top) to add a generic LI retinue. That's a zero, btw.
Code:
RETTYPE_INF0 =
{
first_type = 0
first_amount = 500
}and this goes into localizations (pick any .csv, or just add a new one)
Code:
RETTYPE_INF0;Militia;X;X;;X;;;;;;;;;x