Retinue types

[erter]

From all the different retinue types you can recruit wich one is best as a stand alone unit?

[SkiRich]

Take a read through this as well as the link inside for tactics.
There is a lot of information about how army makeup affects battle.
Lots of other links in there to discussions around how tactics can be spawned.

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Combat

[OathKeeper81]

Camel Warrior for Bedouin, Egyptian, and Levantine cultures are #1. The pure light cavalry cultural retinues as well as the pure pike cultural retinues are exceptionally good. The Himalayan Mountaineer for the Tibetan group is also excellent. Nomads also have access to overly powerful horde builds with pure light cavalry, pure heavy cavalry, and camel cavalry builds available.

[erter]

Originally posted by OathKeeper81:

Camel Warrior for Bedouin, Egyptian, and Levantine cultures are #1. The pure light cavalry cultural retinues as well as the pure pike cultural retinues are exceptionally good. The Himalayan Mountaineer for the Tibetan group is also excellent. Nomads also have access to overly powerful horde builds with pure light cavalry, pure heavy cavalry, and camel cavalry builds available.

I dont have any of those cultural troops. What I meant is that I can choose from shock skirmish cavalry retinue etc when creating a new retinue and I was wondering wich one of those retinues is best as a stand alone unit.

[erter]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Take a read through this as well as the link inside for tactics.
There is a lot of information about how army makeup affects battle.
Lots of other links in there to discussions around how tactics can be spawned.

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Combat

Okay thanks Ill give that a read.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by OathKeeper81:

Camel Warrior for Bedouin, Egyptian, and Levantine cultures are #1. The pure light cavalry cultural retinues as well as the pure pike cultural retinues are exceptionally good. The Himalayan Mountaineer for the Tibetan group is also excellent. Nomads also have access to overly powerful horde builds with pure light cavalry, pure heavy cavalry, and camel cavalry builds available.

Dont forget archers for Celtics (Anglo-Saxon, Bretton, Welsh, Irish, Pictish, Scottish)
Very powerful skirmish tactics when under a Celtic commander.

[OathKeeper81]

Originally posted by erter:

Originally posted by OathKeeper81:

Camel Warrior for Bedouin, Egyptian, and Levantine cultures are #1. The pure light cavalry cultural retinues as well as the pure pike cultural retinues are exceptionally good. The Himalayan Mountaineer for the Tibetan group is also excellent. Nomads also have access to overly powerful horde builds with pure light cavalry, pure heavy cavalry, and camel cavalry builds available.

I dont have any of those cultural troops. What I meant is that I can choose from shock skirmish cavalry retinue etc when creating a new retinue and I was wondering wich one of those retinues is best as a stand alone unit.

You should probably stick with pure Defence retinues.

[OathKeeper81]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Originally posted by OathKeeper81:

Camel Warrior for Bedouin, Egyptian, and Levantine cultures are #1. The pure light cavalry cultural retinues as well as the pure pike cultural retinues are exceptionally good. The Himalayan Mountaineer for the Tibetan group is also excellent. Nomads also have access to overly powerful horde builds with pure light cavalry, pure heavy cavalry, and camel cavalry builds available.

Dont forget archers for Celtics (Anglo-Saxon, Bretton, Welsh, Irish, Pictish, Scottish)
Very powerful skirmish tactics when under a Celtic commander.

Archers are usable, but complete glass cannons. High risk/reward and certainly not on the same tier as the others I mentioned.

[flicking]

If you don't have any of the desirable cultural groups the "Defensive" unit (mostly pikes with a few archers) is a good value for the money against nearly any opponent.

[erter]

Originally posted by flicking:

If you don't have any of the desirable cultural groups the "Defensive" unit (mostly pikes with a few archers) is a good value for the money against nearly any opponent.

Okay thanks that was what I wanted to know. Since Im a spanish king I only have the pure light cavalry retinue and I dont think that one is really desirable.

[OathKeeper81]

Originally posted by erter:

Originally posted by flicking:

If you don't have any of the desirable cultural groups the "Defensive" unit (mostly pikes with a few archers) is a good value for the money against nearly any opponent.

Okay thanks that was what I wanted to know. Since Im a spanish king I only have the pure light cavalry retinue and I dont think that one is really desirable.

As I mentioned in my first post, pure light cavalry is among the best in the game.

[flicking]

Originally posted by erter:

Okay thanks that was what I wanted to know. Since Im a spanish king I only have the pure light cavalry retinue and I dont think that one is really desirable.

As OathKeeper said, the light cavalry retinue is pretty good. It is a fair value in terms of numbers per retinue points spent, does pretty well in all 3 combat phases, is one of the best in pursuit phase (and when you are chasing around broken armies trying to raise your warscore and keep them from recovering, battles start in the pursuit phase) and is one of the fastest troops in terms of running around to get to the fight at all, a good quality in a retinue.

I like the Camels and Cataphracts a bit better, but they're in the same space in terms of quality. Feudal light cavalry isn't as good as Nomad Horde light cavalry but that's because Nomads get multiple buildings and usually religious bonuses buffing cavalry. It's still a solid unit.

[OathKeeper81]

To really optimize light cavalry, you want to have just under 75% light cavalry to eliminate the Disorganized Harass tactic and better ensure the standard Harass tactic during the skirmish phase of battle. To do this for Caballero retinue, you want to mix in generic Light Skirmish. Caballero:Light Skirmish = 4:1. Light cavalry and light infantry units work very well together, but you want the light cavalry to be the bulk of the fighting force.

[OathKeeper81]

Originally posted by flicking:

Originally posted by erter:

Okay thanks that was what I wanted to know. Since Im a spanish king I only have the pure light cavalry retinue and I dont think that one is really desirable.

I like the Camels and Cataphracts a bit better, but they're in the same space in terms of quality.

Cataphracts are very average for their price. Heavy cavalry and horse archers do not work well together with combo tactics at all and horse archers are extremely terrain dependent for their bonuses. Generally speaking, horse archers should never leave the steppe. The Byzantines are far better using generic Defence retinue.

[erter]

Okay thanks for the tips. Its good to know wich retinue to use as wich country so many thanks!

[erter]

One more question. Are the pure light cavalry retinues good enough to take on a whole flank alone?