What use are heavy infantry

[󠀡󠀡]

Since most nations field mostly skirmishers they are always countered, do they have any other benifits.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by nosuchname:

Since most nations field mostly skirmishers they are always countered, do they have any other benifits.

Partially, it's better than levies, but anything is better than levies, and their base stats are a lot higher even while countered.

Personally I don't build anything but horses, and sometimes a few archers to counter everyone else as you pointed out.

Light cav hits like a hammer and wipes out entire stacks every time, I never raise a single levy, they take too long to gather, just teleport the men at arms everywhere and raise/lower them for instant teleports and wipe out stacks 3x bigger than mine because they are still using levies.

[Hunkthebear]

They counter Pikes, They have Good base stats and are Very Easy to increase (Armories/Royal Blacksmith spamming), They have NO Terrain Penalties nor advantages.

You can use them with Archer Armies to Shut down Light Infantry/Skirmisher Advantage.

All round Solid unit.

[Crimson Bolt]

They are one of the better units...especially late game. Skirmishers may counter them but skirmishers generally have terrible stats (literally only a tiny bit better than levies).

[The Former]

Even when countered, they provide excellent combat presence. Assuming they're countered to the max, they still have a Damage output of 12.5, which exceeds that of Light Footmen... and their Toughness is still 22. They also have no particular terrain situations to worry about, making them good anywhere, anytime, and they're the only regiment that counters spearmen.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by VoiD:

Originally posted by nosuchname:

Since most nations field mostly skirmishers they are always countered, do they have any other benifits.

Partially, it's better than levies, but anything is better than levies, and their base stats are a lot higher even while countered.

Personally I don't build anything but horses, and sometimes a few archers to counter everyone else as you pointed out.

Light cav hits like a hammer and wipes out entire stacks every time, I never raise a single levy, they take too long to gather, just teleport the men at arms everywhere and raise/lower them for instant teleports and wipe out stacks 3x bigger than mine because they are still using levies.

Can you explain to me how that works, I can either raise my entire army levies included or local troops, but I havent figured out how to raise custom armies, I have to sort them out once I raised them.

[Crimson Bolt]

Originally posted by nosuchname:

Originally posted by VoiD:

Partially, it's better than levies, but anything is better than levies, and their base stats are a lot higher even while countered.

Personally I don't build anything but horses, and sometimes a few archers to counter everyone else as you pointed out.

Light cav hits like a hammer and wipes out entire stacks every time, I never raise a single levy, they take too long to gather, just teleport the men at arms everywhere and raise/lower them for instant teleports and wipe out stacks 3x bigger than mine because they are still using levies.

Can you explain to me how that works, I can either raise my entire army levies included or local troops, but I havent figured out how to raise custom armies, I have to sort them out once I raised them.

Raise all while paused. This will instantly raise men at arms and mercenaries. ctrl-right click to move them (before unpausing) to raise no levies.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Crimson Bolt:

Originally posted by nosuchname:

Can you explain to me how that works, I can either raise my entire army levies included or local troops, but I havent figured out how to raise custom armies, I have to sort them out once I raised them.

Raise all while paused. This will instantly raise men at arms and mercenaries. ctrl-right click to move them (before unpausing) to raise no levies.

Wont you suffer more losses if you fight without levies, men at arms are quite costly to replenish.

[Crimson Bolt]

Originally posted by nosuchname:

Originally posted by Crimson Bolt:

Raise all while paused. This will instantly raise men at arms and mercenaries. ctrl-right click to move them (before unpausing) to raise no levies.

Wont you suffer more losses if you fight without levies, men at arms are quite costly to replenish.

Depends on what you are fighting...peasant armies or a small vassal/enemy? Not really a big deal

Against bigger enemies it's usually fine too...the main reason being that they are very efficient. Levies are very very bad...if your army of 2500 men at arms is stack wiping 10k levies it's worth it because you are saving money by not always having everything raised.

Also this allows you to have an army that is good for defense (just lots of levies on good terrain or defending territory) and a very efficient attack army (men at arms)

[VoiD]

Originally posted by Crimson Bolt:

Originally posted by nosuchname:

Wont you suffer more losses if you fight without levies, men at arms are quite costly to replenish.

Depends on what you are fighting...peasant armies or a small vassal/enemy? Not really a big deal

Against bigger enemies it's usually fine too...the main reason being that they are very efficient. Levies are very very bad...if your army of 2500 men at arms is stack wiping 10k levies it's worth it because you are saving money by not always having everything raised.

Also this allows you to have an army that is good for defense (just lots of levies on good terrain or defending territory) and a very efficient attack army (men at arms)

This.

You can get men at arms tech very early and get them over lvl 5 so you'll probably be fielding 4k+ men at arms, if they are all decent quality (as in, not light infantry) they will probably be stackwiping stacks of over 10k troops very easily, levies are completely worthless.

The one time I needed them, fighting the pope as a massive catholic ruler to form the roman empire, and he had over 100k gold to hire every merc in the world I raised everything I had, don't remember if it was 50 or 60k armies to fight all the pope mercs, but it didn't help anyway because mercs have too many men at arms on each of their stacks.

tl;dr levies are useless against weak foes, and strong foes too because they are still levies.

[Admod, the Equivocal]

So there really isn't any way to improve levies with culture tech later in the game? :(
I mean...if feudal levies got better over time while tribal levies didn't because of tech it'd make feudal even more appealing.

[Crim]

Equal number of Light Infantry and Heavy Infantry fighting each other...

The Heavy Infantry will DESTROY the Light Infantry, not even close

"But their being countered!"
They don't care

Their stats are so insanely higher than the Light Infantry that it doesn't matter

[VoiD]

Not that I found.

Early game it's all about knights and martial skills to improve their effect so you can punch far above your own height, late game just men at arms.

Change every feudal contract to scutage and max out taxes, ignore levies and you'll be a happier person.

[glythe]

Originally posted by Talamare:

Equal number of Light Infantry and Heavy Infantry fighting each other...

The Heavy Infantry will DESTROY the Light Infantry, not even close

"But their being countered!"
They don't care

Their stats are so insanely higher than the Light Infantry that it doesn't matter

Most people are not aware of how the countering system works:

1. Your unit gives me a stat penalty based on the # of your unit present. If I have 1000 pikemen and you have 500 heavy infantry then my pikemen will only get a 50% penalty.

2. The game throws your blob against my blob. It's a damage number diceroll based on advantages (terrain/commander/unit counters/misc.) and combat width. Your archers do not target my skirmishers or anything like that.


I am 95% finished with the Reconquista achievement. I need one more war and a bit of fast forwarding to flip religion in a few tiles.

My Men at Arms group is 8 men (7 combat units since one is a group of trebuchets).


My army (note each group is 1200 men):

1 Skirmisher - 50 dmg, 35 toughness, 59 pursuit, 16 screen.
2 Caballeros- 104 dmg, 64 toughness, 92 pursuit, 93 screen.
1 Bowmen - 85 dmg, 29 toughness.
1 Pikemen - 158 dmg, 132 toughness
2 Armored Footmen - 147 dmg, 104 toughness

The Caballeros is a special Iberian tech light cavalry unit that gets + 30 pursuit/screen and hills as favorable terrain. This cavalry unit is amazing but in any other region I would have built my army differently.


Why did I build my army like this? When an army retreats from me it gets absolutely crushed without me chasing it down for up to 12 tiles. To counter my 2400 horses you need 2400 pikemen. But I have 2400 Heavy Infantry to counter them. So then you need 2400 skirmishers. This creates a trap where even another player (much less the AI) can't beat you.

2x armored footmen units= 352,800 dmg, 249,600 toughness
6x Skirmisher units = 360,000 dmg, 252,000 toughness

Originally posted by VoiD:

Early game it's all about knights and martial skills to improve their effect so you can punch far above your own height, late game just men at arms.

Bingo

Originally posted by VoiD:

Change every feudal contract to scutage and max out taxes, ignore levies and you'll be a happier person.

I have played two different games for a couple hundred years and I can tell you that both work. The gold is the longer term smarter play - assuming you have a peaceful start where no one is going to harass you (/cough not England).

[Crim]

Originally posted by glythe:

Most people are not aware of how the countering system works:

1. Your unit gives me a stat penalty based on the # of your unit present. If I have 1000 pikemen and you have 500 heavy infantry then my pikemen will only get a 50% penalty.

Equal numbers is 45%
Double numbers is 90%

As defined by the game files

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by glythe:

Originally posted by Talamare:

Equal number of Light Infantry and Heavy Infantry fighting each other...

The Heavy Infantry will DESTROY the Light Infantry, not even close

"But their being countered!"
They don't care

Their stats are so insanely higher than the Light Infantry that it doesn't matter

Most people are not aware of how the countering system works:

1. Your unit gives me a stat penalty based on the # of your unit present. If I have 1000 pikemen and you have 500 heavy infantry then my pikemen will only get a 50% penalty.

2. The game throws your blob against my blob. It's a damage number diceroll based on advantages (terrain/commander/unit counters/misc.) and combat width. Your archers do not target my skirmishers or anything like that.


I am 95% finished with the Reconquista achievement. I need one more war and a bit of fast forwarding to flip religion in a few tiles.

My Men at Arms group is 8 men (7 combat units since one is a group of trebuchets).


My army (note each group is 1200 men):

1 Skirmisher - 50 dmg, 35 toughness, 59 pursuit, 16 screen.
2 Caballeros- 104 dmg, 64 toughness, 92 pursuit, 93 screen.
1 Bowmen - 85 dmg, 29 toughness.
1 Pikemen - 158 dmg, 132 toughness
2 Armored Footmen - 147 dmg, 104 toughness

The Caballeros is a special Iberian tech light cavalry unit that gets + 30 pursuit/screen and hills as favorable terrain. This cavalry unit is amazing but in any other region I would have built my army differently.


Why did I build my army like this? When an army retreats from me it gets absolutely crushed without me chasing it down for up to 12 tiles. To counter my 2400 horses you need 2400 pikemen. But I have 2400 Heavy Infantry to counter them. So then you need 2400 skirmishers. This creates a trap where even another player (much less the AI) can't beat you.

2x armored footmen units= 352,800 dmg, 249,600 toughness
6x Skirmisher units = 360,000 dmg, 252,000 toughness

Originally posted by VoiD:

Early game it's all about knights and martial skills to improve their effect so you can punch far above your own height, late game just men at arms.

Bingo

Originally posted by VoiD:

Change every feudal contract to scutage and max out taxes, ignore levies and you'll be a happier person.

I have played two different games for a couple hundred years and I can tell you that both work. The gold is the longer term smarter play - assuming you have a peaceful start where no one is going to harass you (/cough not England).

How in God's name do you afford that army?