best hordes/ retinues?

[The CEO of Based]

Whats the best horde/ retinue nowadays? For nomads of course.

And which retinues dont work well togehter, for example, if i was to mix heavy, light or horse archers, how would that work? any better solutions?

[Captain_Narol]

Waaaagh !

That's definitely the best horde !

(Ooops, wrong game)

[KG]

It boils down to 3:
100% light cavalry
74%-50% light cavalry + 26-50% heavy cavalry (I forget what the exact best mix really is, sorry, but IIRC it doesn't matter too much as long as you stay in that range)
100% heavy cavalry

Horse archers are awful. You might have bonuses to HA offense/defense coming out of your ears but they screw up tactics so badly there isn't a point in using them. Camel Cavalry can be used in place of LC - they're more offense-oriented in skirmish and melee but weaker in pursuit.

[The CEO of Based]

Originally posted by KG:

It boils down to 3:
100% light cavalry
74%-50% light cavalry + 26-50% heavy cavalry (I forget what the exact best mix really is, sorry, but IIRC it doesn't matter too much as long as you stay in that range)
100% heavy cavalry

Horse archers are awful. You might have bonuses to HA offense/defense coming out of your ears but they screw up tactics so badly there isn't a point in using them. Camel Cavalry can be used in place of LC - they're more offense-oriented in skirmish and melee but weaker in pursuit.

True. To me. the ultimate army, good in aalll phases would be something around this:

33% camels. 33% Light cavalry, 33% light infantry (of course this setup would be tested, and modified)

[Donathan Cheadledge]

Pikes are v good as a retinue. Best armies are naturally hordes of heavy cavalry but that gets expensive.

[Sir Roger Redstealer]

i thought horse archers were better than light cav?

[Kronk The Gluemuncher]

Horse archers are trash.

Only do Light cav earlygame, or the light/heavy cav retinue.
Sack Constantinople, move capital there and now you can make 100% pure heavy cav units.

Enjoy your deathball.

[KG]

Originally posted by Ballin' Stalin:

i thought horse archers were better than light cav?

Horse archers have nice stats in skirmish and pursuit but they screw up your tactics something fierce.

[The CEO of Based]

So the horse arcers can be used for skirmishes, defeating weaker opponents, and sieges?

[Myrmuz [IRL]]

Norman Retinue is pure heavy cavalry I think. Very strong.

[The CEO of Based]

Originally posted by Myrmuz IRL:

Norman Retinue is pure heavy cavalry I think. Very strong.

Norman retinue = french retinue , isnt it?

[quarre]

Originally posted by Crusader-Hussar overload:

Originally posted by Myrmuz IRL:

Norman Retinue is pure heavy cavalry I think. Very strong.

Norman retinue = french retinue , isnt it?

Yup, it is. I wanted to say Breton, but hey, same with Norman and French retunies (but cooler, since Breton is Elder Scrolls race )

[KG]

Originally posted by Crusader-Hussar overload:

So the horse arcers can be used for skirmishes, defeating weaker opponents, and sieges?

Skirmish phase has tactics for HAs to screw up. With just the right troop balance - that off the top of my head is ridiculously difficult to get - you could maybe be quite good at Skirmish. Otherwise, no, HA will cause tactics to make them worse than LC.

In pursuit HA have 7 attack vs light cavalry with 6 attack and there are no tactics - so HA get a slight win here at least.

Sieges are no longer based on skirmish stats, but instead on melee. LC have much superior melee phase stats.


Sorry, horse archers are awful right now. It costs a lot to get them to come to the party and then they pee in the punch bowl.

[quarre]

But if you downgrate game version to... i dunno, Charlemagne?.. HA will be good :p
My choice right now is heavy infantry. Because i'm playing as Norse :(

And i'm a bit of sad right now since i captured Byzantine princess, which survived ~13 years in my dungeons and turned Byzantine empress... and no "Take Concubine" option avaliable. Sadness. Sadness and lots of heavy infantry.

[Donathan Cheadledge]

Learning a lot about horse archers here, cheers bois

[Dedmoin]

hm, I am only using 200 LC + 50 HA retinues in my current playthrough
At the beginning they worked out average because of melee phase, which was not that of a handicap because first wars have been against other nomadic light cavalery and tribe light infantry
After the capitol buildings boni dropped in, nothing can stop them.

Result of a 5k stack vs 5k stack is about 150 losses on my side and opponent loses min 1300.
I waged war against Muslims and just conquered 1/3 of India in one go, fighting against 3 kingdoms at once, with my unused manpower at max all the time.

I don't mix retinues with other troops. Actually I pillage every holding to the ground, so I don't have any to mix with.
I also don't use leaders currently since I don't have enough for all my troops and flanks anyways.
But my leaders are of nomadic culture only (Turkish, Cuman, ...) so they should not mess up the tactics if I would use them.

So far I cannot complain about LC+HA for 25 gold each.