Why are Empire Legionaries so strong?

[Manny Pardon't]

The Empire already has a very strong and diverse array of units, so why do they also get the strongest infantry unit in the game? You'd think an infantry specialist faction like Sturgia would have the best infantry but they get outclassed by Legionaries in actual battles.

Why does the jack-of-all-trades faction have the strongest infantry?

[thunda]

Because the Empire doesnt have a strong and diverse array of units.

Their best units are Legionaries and Palatine Guards. Rest is mediocre or bad.

Their Noble cavalry is trash, the Cataphract weapons are bad and they barely can get any kills. Useless.

Their horse archers the Bucellarii do nothing in battles. Useless.

Their 2 handed infantry, the Menavliaton die like T1 recruits because they dont have shields. So in other words, just like all the other 2H infantry. I'd rather have 100 T3 Imperial Trained Infantrymen than 100 T5 Elite Menavliatons because the infantrymen get javelins and shields AND 1 handed weapon. Thats how bad Menavliatons are.

Now why cant TW give all or most T5 2H infantry a 1H weapon and shield too. Then when they get into melee they pull out their infantry slaying 2-hander. Give them weaker armor in return, so that the heavy 1-H + Shield infantry is the rest of the tank while the heavy 2H infantry is the barrel that shoots the shell. Would make sense.

Sturgia has the great Veteran Warriors. I'd rather take 100 Veteran Warriors than Legionaries.

[Manny Pardon't]

Originally posted by thunda:

Because the Empire doesnt have a strong and diverse array of units.

Their best units are Legionaries and Palatine Guards. Rest is mediocre or bad.

Their Noble cavalry is trash, the Cataphract weapons are bad and they barely can get any kills. Useless.

Their horse archers the Bucellarii do nothing in battles. Useless.

Their 2 handed infantry, the Menavliaton die like T1 recruits because they dont have shields. So in other words, just like all the other 2H infantry. I'd rather have 100 T3 Imperial Trained Infantrymen than 100 T5 Elite Menavliatons because the infantrymen get javelins and shields AND 1 handed weapon. Thats how bad Menavliatons are.

Now why cant TW give all or most T5 2H infantry a 1H weapon and shield too. Then when they get into melee they pull out their infantry slaying 2-hander. Give them weaker armor in return, so that the heavy 1-H + Shield infantry is the rest of the tank while the heavy 2H infantry is the barrel that shoots the shell. Would make sense.

Sturgia has the great Veteran Warriors. I'd rather take 100 Veteran Warriors than Legionaries.

In testing Legionaries are actually stronger than Veteran Warriors. This is strange because Sturgia is supposed to be the infantry focus faction yet their best infantry is outclassed by Legionaries (and often Sergeants, for that matter).

You say that the Empire's diverse array of troops doesn't matter because they aren't very good, but it's only because 2h and cav archers aren't very good in general, not that the Empire's are bad specifically. Other factions don't even have the troop options the Empire has to begin with, and sure the Empire doesn't have great archers but that doesn't matter when they have God-tier infantry and cavalry.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by thunda:

...
Their 2 handed infantry, the Menavliaton die like T1 recruits because they dont have shields. So in other words, just like all the other 2H infantry. I'd rather have 100 T3 Imperial Trained Infantrymen than 100 T5 Elite Menavliatons because the infantrymen get javelins and shields AND 1 handed weapon. Thats how bad Menavliatons are.
...

Regular Menavliatons are arrow-sponges. They're a way for you to donate EXP to your enemy's troops.

Elite Menavliatons, though, are well armored "Reinforced-Glass Cannons." :) They are still subjected to worrying numbers of casualties if they get caught by good archers/crossbows, javelins, and some other sorts of troops. But, they're very capable of getting very good kill counts and can quickly down loads of less-capable melee units.

The trouble is getting Menavliatons to survive long enough to become Elite... and then protecting them.

I blame the Group mechanics. TW is using the old Warband Group classes with an added HA Group, since someone, somewhere, loves them HA's so very much... To be effective and protected, Elite Menavliatons have to be micromanaged, placed behind the shielded lines, ordered to charge heavier/capable infantry that is already held in place by heavy-infantry, used behind lines to quickly down any cavalry, etc. It appears many players don't pay a lot of attention to special sorts of melee units and just lump them all together into Group 1. That gets unshielded units killed with regularity.

Both Menavliatons seem to have issues weapon-swapping in sieges, from time to time. They love charging into gatehouse stairwells with their polearms... (IMO, it's an "iffy" thing, sometimes, whether or not they weapon-switch properly.) On a wall, though, as long as they're not busy eating enemy arrows, they murderize besieging units pretty effectively. (Experience as a besieger, only - Never fought a defensive siege is twenty-eleven bajillion hours of play so far.)

I don't know that all troops have had their stats rebalanced appropriately. That matters. (Or should.) On EA Release, IIRC, Elite Menavliatons shared the same stats as Legionaries. Because of course they did... (A lot of troops shared/share the same skill stats.) That rebalancing is critical and will, or should, have significant impact on how troops perform. (Some shieldless units need access to some +missile defense perks or something.)

I like Elite Menavliatons for their shock value. When they have trouble, outside of eating arrows all day, it's often against heavily armored two-hand melee troops, I think. Though, E.Menavliatons have very good armor, IIRC. (Not sure if it's the same or one class below the Legionary's armor, which is top-tier, minus the shield of course.)

Legionairies are top-tier heavy infantry. They've got the best unit-available armor in the game. In my experience, they're not very good at using their spear, though. I don't recall many of them using it against other melee units. I seem to recall them maybe using it against cavalry at times. They don't get javelins like their lower-tier versions and have a mace, instead. Why? I dunno, maybe to increase capture rates, but I'm not sure they use those much either. (Weapon switching doesn't always seem to be optimized.)

PS: On Sturgia - In an early patch, due to player-outcry, TW gave some love to Sturgian units because Sturgia was basically "the suck." I don't know that they took the opportunity to rebalance any other trees. I'm also not sure that Sturgia sucked so bad because of unit-AI, campaign map issues, or combat stats... It's could be a case of "solving for "x"" and changing "y." :)