What cultures has the most fun Men-at-Arms?

[Desmond]

I love horse archers. so I was thinking mongolia but who else has fun men at arms?

[brownacs]

War elephants? Indian sub-continent.

[NK SemTex]

Tibet mountaineers. Those guys are OP in mountains. Stopped an army of Mongols in my playthrough when they had to split off because of supplies.

[SpacePoon]

Outremer

[snuggleform]

Sloviens have konni, which have the most ridiculous pursuit stat in the game. Winning fights is...rewarding to say the least. Even with stacked out with elephants or valets you might not be able to stack crush huge crusade stacks fast enough to do the 100% route, and this is where konni shine.

English have longbowmen which hit as hard as the best heavy infantry MAA in the game.

Some Arabic nations have Mubarzin which are probably the best heavy infantry in the game because they counter other heavy infantry in addition to pikemen.

Norse with the DLC have varangian veterans which have the best stats on heavy infantry in the game (they counter heavy horse instead of heavy infantry that the mubrazin counter)

[Merkatz]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Sloviens have konni, which have the most ridiculous pursuit stat in the game. Winning fights is...rewarding to say the least. Even with stacked out with elephants or valets you might not be able to stack crush huge crusade stacks fast enough to do the 100% route, and this is where konni shine.

English have longbowmen which hit as hard as the best heavy infantry MAA in the game.

Some Arabic nations have Mubarzin which are probably the best heavy infantry in the game because they counter other heavy infantry in addition to pikemen.

Norse with the DLC have varangian veterans which have the best stats on heavy infantry in the game (they counter heavy horse instead of heavy infantry that the mubrazin counter)

Do the Sloviens have Konni? I thought that they and the Czechs had Zbrojnosh. Which is a heavy infantry that counters archers/spearmen and basically have rough terrain advantage (forest/hills/mountains).

[snuggleform]

Whoops poliaban/pomeraning etc is konni

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Some Arabic nations have Mubarzin which are probably the best heavy infantry in the game because they counter other heavy infantry in addition to pikemen.

The problem with Mubarizun since release:

None of the usual terrain types for arabics (flood plains, oasis, desert etc) allows to build barracks.

I think originally their stats were so high that they were better than regular heavies until later in the game, but now it seems like their stats are already nerfed, while others like Norse/Normans get even better HI units and barracks on top.

Though you need to see the bigger picture, since the arabs also get to build camelries which increase knight limit and -effectiveness, while the camel rider troops are cheap and good allrounders.

And the price of MAA is very relevant, because the tons of money you can save with cheaper forces means you can hire more mercs, which are more versatile in the way you raise them and still get your domain bonuses.

Fully upgraded the camelries are crazy, +4 knight limit per holding so with a domain size of 10 you could have 40 (!) extra knights with baseline +50% effectiveness.

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Building#Building_Details

[snuggleform]

I'm partial to elephantries myself., but I'm happy as pie to use bog standard hunting grounds with jousting grounds for konni or light horsemen. Ugh it feels good routing so many troops after a good fight.

btw that wiki doesn't tell you that elephantries have to be in deccan india, can't be in south african jungle

[Traffic Conez]

I always thought the Czech Zbrojnosh ridiculously good as they allow the Czech's to counter enemy AI armies with ease. The surrounding cultures (Germany/Poland/Promeria) primarily field horses/spearmen and archers. The Zbrojnosh counter both spearmen and archers giving you an extra MaA slot to play around with rather than fielding calvary to counter their archers.

Moreover, the Zbrojnosh synergise with the Czechia's hilly/mountainous terrain. They really are the kings of TALL gameplay.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Traffic Conez:

I always thought the Czech Zbrojnosh ridiculously good as they allow the Czech's to counter enemy AI armies with ease. The surrounding cultures (Germany/Poland/Promeria) primarily field horses/spearmen and archers. The Zbrojnosh counter both spearmen and archers giving you an extra MaA slot to play around with rather than fielding calvary to counter their archers.

Moreover, the Zbrojnosh synergise with the Czechia's hilly/mountainous terrain. They really are the kings of TALL gameplay.

Excellent points. I have always thought to myself that in fact, heavy infantry dominate hilly terrain because the supposed king of mountains (pikemen) are countered by heavy inf, and heavy inf have no penalty in hilly/mountains.

I really don't like the fact that pikemen seem to have the short end of the stick (see what I did there) at least from a player perspective. Piccieri come pretty close to having top tier stats but they ultimately come too late and are a bit short compared to the top of line heavy infantry.

[Merkatz]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I really don't like the fact that pikemen seem to have the short end of the stick (see what I did there) at least from a player perspective. Piccieri come pretty close to having top tier stats but they ultimately come too late and are a bit short compared to the top of line heavy infantry.

If you like pikemen the Dutch late game is are where it's at. Although their culture unit (Goedendag Militia) are a light infantry unit, they counter heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. Pair nicely with pikemen.

Edit: I thought I was in the CK2 forum, had to remove some stuff.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Merkatz:

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I really don't like the fact that pikemen seem to have the short end of the stick (see what I did there) at least from a player perspective. Piccieri come pretty close to having top tier stats but they ultimately come too late and are a bit short compared to the top of line heavy infantry.

If you like pikemen the Dutch late game is are where it's at. Although their culture unit (Goedendag Militia) are a light infantry unit, they counter heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. Pair nicely with pikemen.

Edit: I thought I was in the CK2 forum, had to remove some stuff.

ewwwww, 13 attack points and 18 defense? I don't think I like me some Goedendag. This is the classic problem of they wouldn't even beat the unit they supposedly counter, in even numbers because they have such low stats. And they don't even have any pursuit value! Why do they pair nicely with pikemen?

[Vincent_Krys]

Cataphracts have a lot of counters and terrain disadvantages, but their stat-line is absolutely monstrous to compensate for it. They probably the most expensive MaA in the game, but considering you're holding Constantinople as the Basilus, money is not an Issue

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Vincent_Krys:

Cataphracts have a lot of counters and terrain disadvantages, but their stat-line is absolutely monstrous to compensate for it. They probably the most expensive MaA in the game, but considering you're holding Constantinople as the Basilus, money is not an Issue

The French Valets actually have even better statlines than catraphracts but it comes at the last era.

Also I think war elephants are actually the best heavy cavalry even better than french/greek. They have the most stats even when accounting for the 25 regiment size, and the 25 regiment size generally helps as it means the damage is spread to other units much more than it is to them. They don't struggle in hills/mountains, and they counter heavy infantry which is generally better than countering archers. Yes the regiment size can be a problem if you don't build enough elephants then enemy crossbow/pikemen will counter them super efficiently but once you snowball you just run everyone over with wanton disregard for sentient life.

[kampfturke]

What do you mean with fun?`
The Vikings get the most early game OP units with the Varangian Guard. These suckers can easily stack wipe armies of equal size. The computer also underestimates them and will send their armies at you, even in bad terrain.
1000 guard (in an army of 3000) can beat 10000 men easily.

Then become greek and mix some Cataphracts in there and GG.