You get 4 Men-At-Arms - which 4 do you take?

[jpinard]

I have no idea which ones to get because my enemies are constantly changing. Which 4 would you suggest?

[AlBoulcan]

catapults, archers, light infantry and/or light horses/heavy infantry
catapults is priority since it makes sieges much faster. Trust me its not the best against enemy armies, but its best on winning wars faster than the enemy.

[Natius]

catapult archer skirmisher cavarly

[Mad Max]

Catapults and then I try to counter whatever my enemy has by looking at their army composition.

[subhuman connoisseur]

Like others suggested, catapult or mangonel whichever is available depending on your culture advancement is top priority. Battles cap at 50% but sieges can go 100% plus capturing an heir or the leader makes you win without giving fight. Skirmishers and archers are less costly which deter and help againts powerful nobles cause of their force ratio to yours. The fourth can either be light cav/pike/armored footmen depending on who you are facing and your early game budget. But I noticed the AI will always spam skirmishers and archers even cultures with MAA Cavalry since it suits their budget so I just go light cav to counter them.

[kesat]

Always Onagers (or equivalent), no matter what.

Otherwise it depends a bit on the circumstances, esp. the most common terrain in your area.
E.g. in West Francia up to East Francia Horseman are pretty good due to a lot of plains, which would be crap though in ireland and scotland. In Scotland, the Baltic Area and the byzantine Empire pikemen would be pretty good due to a lot of mountains and hills - horsemen would be crap though.

But for the easy composition:
Onagers, Bowmen, Horsemen, Pikemen

Usually you would swap on of those four for the cultural special unit (e.g. huskarls, who are superior heavy infantry with bonus vs. spearman AND bowmen, +taiga/forest bonus)

But there's also another solution to your question:
Multiple men-of-arms of the same type. You don't need to choose four different types.

E.g. 2 Onager units, to speed up carpet sieges.

[jpinard]

Автор сообщения: kesat

Always Onagers (or equivalent), no matter what.

Otherwise it depends a bit on the circumstances, esp. the most common terrain in your area.
E.g. in West Francia up to East Francia Horseman are pretty good due to a lot of plains, which would be crap though in ireland and scotland. In Scotland, the Baltic Area and the byzantine Empire pikemen would be pretty good due to a lot of mountains and hills - horsemen would be crap though.

But for the easy composition:
Onagers, Bowmen, Horsemen, Pikemen

Usually you would swap on of those four for the cultural special unit (e.g. huskarls, who are superior heavy infantry with bonus vs. spearman AND bowmen, +taiga/forest bonus)

But there's also another solution to your question:
Multiple men-of-arms of the same type. You don't need to choose four different types.

E.g. 2 Onager units, to speed up carpet sieges.

Super thanks! I've still yet to find those carpets to siege lol

[WolfWhiteFire]

So far for me I am using a mix of Khandayets and war elephants, though both of those are cultural. They both counter multiple types, cover each other's weaknesses, and seem to be a fair amount stronger than the normal equivalents for their type, though they are extremely expensive so cheaper options may be a bit more practical.

[Harris]

I agree with the above suggestion - the exact composition also depends on your culture and the terrain you're gonna live in / you are planning to conquer. Though those usually compliment each other i.e. elephants thrive in jungles where you are able to recruit them in the first place.

Good example where you want to derail from your standard composition is Poland. They get Konni as soon as tribal, so basically 867 - improved light cavalry with pursuit stat of 60, double that of regular light horsemen. When you get units like that you obviously want to focus on them and add in this example some heavy infantry to counter spearmen which would be the counter to your OP unit.

Same way if you're England and get awesome longbowmen you want spearmen to supplement them as they are normally countered by cavalry.

This matters because realistically speaking you will be only focusing on a single unit with your duchy buildings and trying to get it to incredible levels of OPness.

Of course this is less relevant if your unique regiment is something like gendarmes and comes late medieval when you don't really need it anymore.

[-=Prepper_Jack=-]

Catapult, catapult. Beyond that, I'll do whatever special troop my chosen culture has, and focus my military buildings towards that.

[Hammer Bear]

2 siege guys / 2 special culture army guys

[Crim]

Siege Siege Siege Siege

With enough Levies you can defeat any MAA comp

[Ficelle]

Catapults...
Wanna win wars ?... siege faster than the enemy ;D

I like the archers / skirmishers pair as they are cheap and get boosts from the same buildings

The heavy / pikemen pair also shares boosts from same buildings and are much beefier...but the cost is not the same...more for when money is no more an issue

Cav, not a fan...too many malus...


Me tend to boost a pair as high as possible, eventually double it + catapults
Dont care about counter ...Ai dont try to counter anyway

[Al Gore]

3 archers and a skirmisher, archers rock the world of the majority of AI's that only field skirmishers.

Plus once you get a few camps and hunting ranges their damage goes over 100 and you can evaporate enemy armies of any size.

[ShepherdOfCats]

It really just depends on what I'm surrounded by. I went big with the horse archers as the Cumans but had to make it a point to try to only fight enemies in steppe terrain where they decimated the enemy. As I moved into the mountains taking over land I had to replace some of them with infantry units more suitable to the area.

It's very important that you consider the terrain as well, not just the counters. Some units get massive buffs in certain terrain and you want to be using each type of unit to its fullest potential.

[glythe]

You only need one "siege weapon." If you are in Iberia get two of the special horsemen. They are beyond op as hills become favorable terrain.

Think carefully about where you will fight to take land. Also remember that the game throws your stack of dudes at the enemy stack of dudes. The game does NOT say : ok I'm an archer so I'm only going to target skirmishers.

What happens is that if you have 1 skirmisher and he has 1 archer then his archer gives your skirmisher a penalty. If you have 200 skirmishers and he has 100 archers then that penalty is reduced by 50% due to number difference.

Автор сообщения: Harris

I agree with the above suggestion - the exact composition also depends on your culture and the terrain you're gonna live in / you are planning to conquer. Though those usually compliment each other i.e. elephants thrive in jungles where you are able to recruit them in the first place.

realistically speaking you will be only focusing on a single unit with your duchy buildings and trying to get it to incredible levels of OPness.

Once you become rich and make a thriving empire/dynasty I think at least with the late early med. period you want to have a wide mix of units. Why? You can't always make the building you want where you want it.

I have an insane tract of land and bonses from buildings. Archers are not my primary focus and they are over 100 damage and 35+ toughness.

When you get up to 8 men at arms is when things really get fun. This lets you have one trebuchet and 7 units. Things to avoid : Do NOT use H. cav or house guards. Heavy cavalry only gets bonuses at the very end of building chains so they are very minor. They also have half the unit count of lighter men on horseback. House guards are only a size 1 unit so they suck because by the time you get them money becomes unimportant (even the AI has been rich enough to hire mercs indefinitely).

My army is : 1 Skirmisher, 1 Archer, 2 Iberian horsemen, 1 Pikemen, 2 Heavy Infantry.

Why do you want "one of everything"? Because anyone who fights me will get a unit penalty on their MaA.

My best unit is the horsemen. So I have 2 of them as well as 2 of the unit that counters them.


I designed my army this way so that when I shatter an enemy their army takes insane losses on retreat even if I do not chase after them.