sturgia sucks hard?

[Sauer_Kraut]

tried back then at release and now again. Everytime i join sturgia (i like vikings(rus vikings a bit less)) but they do nothing useful, every war we are in we lose castles and towns, then we make peace only to declare war or get declared war on by a much stronger faction. i have to do all the work.. i take a castle or city and we lose two others. (also ♥♥♥♥ the khuzaits, op ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥). should i just spilt off and do my own viking kingdom).
I "own" 1 town and two castles.

[AccelToWinYT]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

Originally posted by Hugh G Rection:

You spelled Fians wrong dude.

Indeed, every faction works well as long as you mix in some fians!

The closer to 100% fians the better.

I MADE AN ARMY OF RECRUITS WORK. JUST HAVE 100 FLANS AND BOOM! EASY

[Akameka]

Originally posted by unduruu1:

These "Sturgia" sucks hard motifs are wild.

Sturgia can be insanely good if you actually know what you're doing.

The shieldwall with round shields is great. Moreover, they have very powerful infantry.

Just mix in some empire archers for ranged and you're good to go.

Well, round shields mean no leg protection from arrows. Against an half decent kuzhait horse raider, than means about half your HP gone in a single leg shot. A decent player with 300+ bow skill and a noble longbow will chain oneshots to the lower body and ride far and fast enough to dodge all throwing spears, hence can chew through a whole viking army by themselves.

The few field battle I had with them as a lone kuzhait mercenary (helping other AI armies) ended up in a complete one sided trample. Meanwhile we lost a 1500 VS 1100 against empire despite me doing more than 100 kills by myself and I had to flee when I was the last one alive.

[Triple G]

^

I mean the trick in Sturgia vs Khuzait battles is to use auto-resolve. It´s not that their units couldn´t beat them, but if You help some AI army, they will scatter around with the infantry, and the Khuzait cavalry takes them out one by one, and when Your units finally arrive it´s too late and to little, because somehow they arrive at last units. I personally don´t understand why the AI just doesn´t stand in some formation, when facing cavalry heavy armies - instead they run around all over the place. And i don´t understand why Your units do different things than the AI army units if You press F6. But once You have beaten the initial armies with some high tier units - the rest is rather easy going, and Your high tier units will make short work of their horse archers. No Fians needed, even if i also have 10 of these, because my waifu is Battanian and leads the archers, and 20 Sturgian archers, 70 heavy spearmen, 30 axemen, 10 heavy line breakers, and 20 Drugzini cavalry. I thought if i finally do Sturgia, i should go all in with melee infantry. Works so far and we own half of the map. Also bows are for cowards - same as horses...

Usually the shieldwall works that way, that they take zero casualties, and when the infantry lines finally engage i press F1 F3, and the whole screen is filled in green, with the occasional axemen or bowman dying. But usually any engagement with Khuzaits, when the numbers are equal will have zero casualties on my side. Now i also have the shieldmaiden as captain, who is specced into all the shieldwall perks, and has 235+ in the melee skills. Engagements with Vandia or the Empire are usually more painful, because they have superior infantry, and less horse archers, which always attack and split their party size. Also Khuzaits aren´t cool any more, since some of them wear the Battanian scaled bracers, when nobody wears any scale parts. Instead of adding more variety for high tier armor via adjusting the values, they gave the units other items, which don´t fit the concept - and few players would go with light or medium armor, as being able to take a couple of hits more is more valuable than running speed in bigger battles - while most would be on a horse anyway...

[Akameka]

If you want your guys to be the first one the battlefield when fighting with allies, you can tweak the deployment rules in the options --> stronger first. This way, your army which will usually be composed of higher tiered unit, will be deployed in priority. That's also true for ennemies though, so expect their best unit on front line then only fodders at the end of the battle.

Also, to know what the real value on the field a unit has, you need to consider the fact your own units gets 50% damage reduction on the starting difficulty ( unless you changed that ). So to know how the sturgia units really fare, you need to see how they do as allied armies. And in the few times I fought them, they've been obliterated by the horse archer first wave, that keep harassing them from all side, because their shield cannot protect them. That's their main weakness IMO.

Also Khuzaits aren´t cool any more, since some of them wear the Battanian scaled bracers, when nobody wears any scale parts. Instead of adding more variety for high tier armor via adjusting the values, they gave the units other items, which don´t fit the concept - and few players would go with light or medium armor, as being able to take a couple of hits more is more valuable than running speed in bigger battles - while most would be on a horse anyway...

Right. I wanna keep the faction design so I am stuck with lamellar body armor for now. Hopping for a legendary one for increased armr value.

Also bows are for cowards - same as horses...

Yes, but it can also allow to win 1 VS 100 without getting ganked on, so IMO it's just superior accross the board. I don't see any reasons other than RP to go another way ( execpt for the HP+ of high athletism that is )

[GIJoe597]

Originally posted by Akameka:

Well, round shields mean no leg protection from arrows...

The game does not actually work that way. All shields provide the same protection and they are all classed as "large" regardless of what you see visually.

[HaleTheFreeVoice]

Originally posted by Silhouette:

Sturgia is hard to play as a vassal for, but its also got some good things going for it.

As it has been said, focus on one war at a time. Focus on taking all of one factions fiefs and eliminating them, that way there is one less faction to declare war on you, even if you lose territory on the other side of the empire. Worry less about taking a little bit away from each faction each war, because doing so makes it harder actually.

Battania and Khuzait are relatively easy to conquer, though taking out battania generally means having to war with vlandia asap with having taken battanias territory and their position putting them right on their doorstop. So finishing battania generally means a back to back war with vlandia right afterwards. If you are doing the campaign that means plan accordingly.

The first few wars I wouldnt worry about getting much land besides maybe taking a fief for money or one to use as a base of operations. Instead just build money, skills and most importantly a large pool of influence. That way you can force the ai lords into either keeping a war going with an almost finished enemy or force them into peace with someone they keep running off to fight

It takes 150 influence to declare war and 75 for peace, so keeping them from having enough influence from proposing either can force their hand into focusing on one faction at a time. propose peace with factions that have the least support and abstain from the vote repeatedly.

Sturgian linebreakers are great in sieges but terrible on open battlefields against cav with a 'short' 2h weapon compared to other infantry. The sturgian noble cav are alright, but always a good fairly 1 for 1 against other noble cav. Even the weakest T6 noble cav is still a T6 noble cav compared to other units. And a good option against vlandians and imperials.

The sturgian horse raider is surprisingly useful against khuzaits, as the khuzaits dont use shields the javs do decently well, there are character perks that can give cav jav throwers major boosts, up 50-60 Points.

Their weakest link are their archers, gotta use them for sieges just expect more losses then other factions, or just take advantage of easy access to imp and battanian lands to get fians or crossbows.

you can't really do that when 3 factions declare war on you within a few days of each other and completely trash you. making a faction in this game is essentially impossible now or takes HOURS and i mean HOURS of gameplay to even kinda start one

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Akameka:

If you want your guys to be the first one the battlefield when fighting with allies, you can tweak the deployment rules in the options --> stronger first.

Hmm - i thought it only applies to the own party, as the tooltip says the AI will do it via their order in the army list or something. I have set it to homogeneous though, so it should mean, that the initial people should be mixed between high and low tier, no? While i have usually only me and my companions / family members on the field. I thought my units were always last, because i came into help at last.

I mean when i have another party, like many fians, or Banner Knights - they will mop the floor with the enemy units, and turn that into a win after the AI parties are all gone.

Originally posted by Akameka:

Also, to know what the real value on the field a unit has, you need to consider the fact your own units gets 50% damage reduction on the starting difficulty ( unless you changed that ). So to know how the sturgia units really fare, you need to see how they do as allied armies.

Yes - i changed that to Bannerlord since i first played the game. Let´s say i played this game for 1k hours, and roughly know which units do good, and which not. And of course it´s easy to beat Sturgia as a player - but it´s also not hard to win as Sturgia as a player, as the AI is usually not good. The culprit of any AI with horse archers is that they send in the horse archers first, even if the rest stays back in a defensive position - and it´s always about numbers. If they send their 50 horse archers in their party against my 30 archers and 20 heavy cav, they wouldn´t do good - and i don´t need to focus on anything else if the rest stays back, or moves in slowly on foot. Also there´s the square formation, which somehow isn´t called turtle formation..

Usually the player party with high tier units, will beat any other party - and usually turn the tide if too equally sized armies meet, except the AI friendlies are all recruits, or the enemy army is of a faction, which usually won most battles in the past, so they also have many high tier units, but this is rare - or they face a lot of horse archers, because that somehow messes up their formation - it´s not so much the round shields, which have a bigger protection area against arrows with the perk, (and like said above the visuals don´t matter much, as the shields will magically catch the arrows anyways, even if You have some of these Aserai Agatas, which look like hearts.) but when You fight an AI army, they don´t have an infantry captain for it. So You can´t really see how good Sturgia (or any player party) is, when watching the AI. These perks of the captains add up quite a bit. 5% more damage here, 20 more skill there, -4% damage taken, 10% more damage to mounts, 40% less charge damage taken, 10% more damage to shields, etc...

Originally posted by Akameka:

Right. I wanna keep the faction design so I am stuck with lamellar body armor for now. Hopping for a legendary one for increased armor value.

That´s how i do it atm as well. I haven´t looked at mods though. I guess if the values and equipment of the units could easily be changed there´s a mod for it. If i was in the mood i would even consider doing it myself. Imho it´s something the devs should address, as many units in the game now look like patchwork. There´s nothing wrong in adjusting the armor values and pieces for a couple of items, instead of messing up the visuals, as they all have good looking armor pieces, which fit a certain style. Also it´s wrong when an Empire legionary wears cataphract armor instead of legionary armor, and the leather thingy on top of it looks just off - or in case of Sturgia, they wear Vlandian mail pieces on arms and legs, which are darker.

[Akameka]

The game does not actually work that way. All shields provide the same protection and they are all classed as "large" regardless of what you see visually.

Well, they do indeed magically catch arrow wider than their actual size (mostly due to the perk I guess - especially "funny" when someone lower his shield to hit you, then you drop your arrow and it get magically caught by the shield of the dude just behind him) But there is a wide difference between imperial triangular long shield and round shields in that reguard.

The first ones I have like a pixel of right feet to hit them through shield stance, while sturgias round shields fighters will constently take their arrow to the knee.

And for Tripple G, what I meant is how the AI use the unit. As you said, almost anything the player activelly command will be able to be at least good. But what matters too in the grand sheme of things is how it is treated by auto resolve and by the AI in actual battle. In my case, in all the situation I fought Sturgia as the Kuzhait, even without my own army involved (so just the Ai commanding and me helping them) they get eaten raw by the horse archer, either flanked or just shot straight to the legs.

Of course in siege battle its not the same at all. Their medium tiered units are better than the Khuzaits ones (because almost no armor lol) So Khuzaits takes heavy casualities.

[RJboxer]

Sturgia is the worst faction in the game. By far. I and others have written extensively about their terrible deficiencies.

Noobs talk about their infantry, as if that matters. Sturgia has about 100-300 OTHER issues that make them broken.

Can you win with Sturgia? yeah. But you need to be experienced, or follow a few key exploits, that MOST people don't consider an exploit.. but some might.

1- Give you scrub allies in sturgia denars. Lots and lots. you can make millions. They can't afford troops upgrades. Sturgia has the worst economy in the game BY FAR... (all their deficiencies are usually THE WORST in game BY FAR). So take that away. Give Gotun a nice fat chunk of 300k or so, early on. Keep feeding him. Watch how Tyal doesn't fall. Give ALL clans 200k every once in awhile. if u got millions give them a bit more.

2- If in the faction, make yourself a second and third party of your guys. Protect ONE SIDE. If you have a personal army of you, companion, companion. You can fight off MOST armies the enemy sends to siege. And that's legit.. not even exploiting the AI.
But assume your sturgian allies can't walk from one side of their area to the other, because they can't. They lose focus half way through. They WILL go to one side to 'attack' or whatever. But leave the other side naked. Your job is to take your mini army and defend that area. All day.
Exploit???? when someone sends in 1000 dudes to siege a town, stand next to it.... wait for them to get real close. Hop in. They will walk away. Follow them to next area, then if they go to hit another fief, hop in it. Most likely they go back to original town .. u walk there again.. and YEP, hop in. Rinse repeat.

Huzzah, You win with sturgia. Especially once you are king. now just recruit all empire lords, and watch them demand/want empire fiefs. You now have dudes in your kingdom OUTSIDE of your snowy tundra, and can fight your way to victory. But the AI has a zero percent chance (if not lower) of ever ever ever winning with sturgia, They suck.

Ps- Get ranged troops from other factions. Now your troops aren't pure garbage.

[Triple G]

^
Imho the faction selection is only about the visuals, while of course Battania and Khuzaits are auto-win factions, if You go with only Fians or Khan´s guards, as they´re OP units. (In manual battles that is - in auto-resolve not so much)

It works like any other faction in the game: Babysit their armies, help them in the defensive and offensive sieges, and You "win". I joined them then they were down to a few towns and castles - didn´t give the clans any money, except i bought 3 Battania, 3 empire and 1 Vlandia clan into Sturgia, when we were at war with them. Before they had all the mercenaries the game could offer, now they rarely have them - and all factions pay tribute to Sturgia - except for the Aserai, as we weren´t at war with them yet. It´s like with any other Faction, and only because they don´t have Fians or Khan´s guards doesn´t make them "the worst faction" - even more so if You could still have a party only with these units if You feel like it - to use the most OP units in the game and call it a day. F1, F3, win.

Problem is that the devs somehow messed the visuals of the units up - for most factions. But else they all play more or less the same. You have Your party with the highest tier units - 200+, and the enemy has half of their units with recruits. If i face a party or army with equal size i have zero injuries. If i face a Khuzait army with 50% more people - i might have 6 dead people and a couple of injuries - worst is always if You help the AI, as they do something different than You, and You have no setup screen. Then Fians or Khan´s guards with only pressing F1, F3 come in very handy.

Also all factions lose focus if the borders are far away - and i´m sure all factions use the same AI. But it matters not. One can also fully focus on one side to finish them off, or reduce them badly, and then take back what was lost on the other side later. Because if You´re not with Your party where their armies are (all factions) the enemy will sooner or later have many prisoners, as they will exhaust their army, and then disband it, while they´re all disorganized, when the enemy is near, and can just pick them off easily...

I also think it would work without ranged troops at all, as my ranged units are only that i have a ranged unit, but they´re only 30 people out of 240 - while some might throw axes...

[HaleTheFreeVoice]

Originally posted by Akameka:

Originally posted by unduruu1:

These "Sturgia" sucks hard motifs are wild.

Sturgia can be insanely good if you actually know what you're doing.

The shieldwall with round shields is great. Moreover, they have very powerful infantry.

Just mix in some empire archers for ranged and you're good to go.

Well, round shields mean no leg protection from arrows. Against an half decent kuzhait horse raider, than means about half your HP gone in a single leg shot. A decent player with 300+ bow skill and a noble longbow will chain oneshots to the lower body and ride far and fast enough to dodge all throwing spears, hence can chew through a whole viking army by themselves.

The few field battle I had with them as a lone kuzhait mercenary (helping other AI armies) ended up in a complete one sided trample. Meanwhile we lost a 1500 VS 1100 against empire despite me doing more than 100 kills by myself and I had to flee when I was the last one alive.

so no shields then is that your final answer?

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Akameka:

But what matters too in the grand sheme of things is how it is treated by auto resolve and by the AI in actual battle. In my case, in all the situation I fought Sturgia as the Kuzhait, even without my own army involved (so just the Ai commanding and me helping them) they get eaten raw by the horse archer, either flanked or just shot straight to the legs.

The problem there with the AI is, that they will always setup a shieldwall with these units, but it´s not good vs horse archers, who attack You from the back. You need the square formation then. I had like 5 battles in a row against Khuzaits, and i haven´t had one injured person in all combined. I have the 15% less ranged damage banner on my infantry though.

Also i tested auto-resolve for fun. 2 armies of around 1k units. In the first manual battle i went down fast because i thought i ride around, but that was a bad idea - we lost that a bit, with them having like 50 people left. Then i reloaded and did auto resolve. We won with 400 people remaining. I thought it´s like a cheat, so i did the manual battle again, a bit more careful (problem is that i wasn´t in charge as i helped the army), but we also won with like 150 people left. So i guess in auto-resolve the horse archer units are way weaker. And it´s not that they´re super strong vs tight formations, but they distract everyone, as they move around constantly. So the archers would shoot at them instead of easier targets, and the cavalry would chase them down instead of also focusing on easier targets - and the AI infantry would also try to chase them down all over the place, so they´re easy pickings for ranged units and melee cavalry. All of which doesn´t matter in auto-resolve, while i guess that You will have better results with high tier units, like the player party. But else i don´t use auto-resolve in these battles, only in sieges, or against small parties, as i don´t want to set up everything for this. It was probably the first time i used auto-resolve in an equal number field battle.

Haven´t seen the comment before, else i had covered it in my former post.

[rurka3]

Ah, my first kingdom once I've joined (I mean Sturgia). In my save for long time they was keep all cities (even Varcheg, which I heard, that they lost first) and lost only two castles.

About Khuzait problem, you can easy resolve it... when they siege town or castle. If you have high Tactics, then if you stay in town during siege, you can send soldiers when time was come and just look, how their 2.000 army (like in my case) just is destroyed by 300-400 sturgia mans in town. Their horsemans are terrible during sieges.

[kristianjakob]

You win with Sturgia the same way you win with every other faction in the game.

Fight one war at a time.

[Akameka]

Also i tested auto-resolve for fun. 2 armies of around 1k units. In the first manual battle i went down fast because i thought i ride around, but that was a bad idea - we lost that a bit, with them having like 50 people left. Then i reloaded and did auto resolve. We won with 400 people remaining. I thought it´s like a cheat, so i did the manual battle again, a bit more careful (problem is that i wasn´t in charge as i helped the army), but we also won with like 150 people left.

Indeed, the auto resolve assign the horse archer a way worse value than how they really are. They are not THAT strong, but can easilly disorganize a whole army and cannot be ignored without taking heavy casuallities. Which doesn't count in auto resolve.

Also, in siege, they have terrible debuff both in fight and auto resolve, so they get shreded by weaker armies. Alos their medium tier - which compose most armies - are almost unarmored so that doesn't help with their survival.

so no shields then is that your final answer?

IMO that's their worst weakness. Almost no cav in AI armies, no complete protection against arrow rain... and alway at war against everyone lol. Regardless, Armies with complete shield fare way better against Khuzaits and heavy ranged reliant armies.