question: sumpter horse vs mule - party speed

[Mr-Bandit]

are sumpter horses better for party speed? their carry cap is the same, but sumpters have a faster move speed according to tooltip (34 vs 31), does this affect party speed? does anybody know?

[Someguyinhere]

As far as I know, mules don't count towards the herd penalty. Which is when you have more animals than your men can actually ride or manage and it slows you down.

[Mr-Bandit]

Originally posted by Someguyinhere:

As far as I know, mules don't count towards the herd penalty. Which is when you have more animals than your men can actually ride or manage and it slows you down.

oh, trust me - they certainly do! i had 80 mules for a 40 man party, and could barely move...

as far as i know herd penalty is party size : animals ratio. all horses, mules, camels, hogs, sheep and cows count towards it. to avoid that you either need to get more men or fewer animals.

[flyingscot1066]

Sumpter horses and mules are essentially the same thing. There are differences but they are insignificant.

[SapphireSage]

Personally, I just have an even number of both so that when I come across a village needing either I can just provide them with what they need right away and then recover my numbers at the next town with an ample number of what I need to replace.

[Gummiel]

Originally posted by Someguyinhere:

As far as I know, mules don't count towards the herd penalty. Which is when you have more animals than your men can actually ride or manage and it slows you down.

ALL animals count towards herd(even pigs, cows etc. in your inventory). Basically you can have up to 2 animals per person in your party, including the horse any of your troops can ride (meaning archers, and infantry and such allows you to have 2 animals each extra, cavalry already have one horse they are riding so they can handle one more animal extra. Once you exceed that number then herd panalty starts to kick in

[Clovis Sangrail]

Rules of thumb -- Every mounted unit can handle 1 additional horse, sumpter, mule, warhorse or herded animal, and every foot unit can handle 2 without incurring herd penalty.

So if you have x number of mounted units and y number of foot units, you can have x + 2y total horses, sumpters, mules, warhorses and herded animals without incurring herd penalty.

This also allows you to get the map speed bonus for having mounts for your foot units to ride.

I hardly ever herd sheep, cows or pigs because of the hit your speed takes with them.

Note: Once you have maxed out your herd penalty, you can pile on as many animals as you want and your speed won't go lower than 1. I have collected as many as 3000-4000 mules and a like number of sumpters for trading and still been able to move at speed of 1. But if you try to do that, you had best be the meanest mother on the block because you damn skippy cannot outrun anything.