Are Macemen overpowered?

[Nero]

I found the strongest unit in the game to be the Macemen. They're incredibly cheap to produce, fast, butcher away light units and are surprisingly strong against stronger units when in masses.

With these guys playing the zerg rush style, 900 macemen and some Archers there's no stopping that I think xD

[shadowpirate250]

Messaggio originale di BOT Pepe:

Messaggio originale di shadowpirate250:

if you actually tried it you would see that they eat much less while ration is set to triple but the slider is only achieving normal. you move the slider to the right and stop right before it turns to half ration. if you do it right you can support 2000+ ppl on 3 wheat fields

but it yields NORMAL happiness. just like you wold if you set the rations to normal from the begining. so, it will consume normal rations and give you the normal happiness boost. where is the exploit?

it uses less wheat about 1/3 of normal. if you dont see the difference you are not doing it right.i know it doesnt do anything for the happiness

pic of normal no exploit https://www.dropbox.com/s/tv51xv9nqhwlbzm/exploit%20b4.JPG?dl=0


pic of using exploit https://www.dropbox.com/s/xg3vveodnlzi3se/exploit%20after.JPG?dl=0

[Printesa de Aur]

Messaggio originale di shadowpirate250:

Messaggio originale di BOT Pepe:

but it yields NORMAL happiness. just like you wold if you set the rations to normal from the begining. so, it will consume normal rations and give you the normal happiness boost. where is the exploit?

it uses less wheat about 1/3 of normal. if you dont see the difference you are not doing it right.i know it doesnt do anything for the happiness

pic of normal no exploit https://www.dropbox.com/s/tv51xv9nqhwlbzm/exploit%20b4.JPG?dl=0


pic of using exploit https://www.dropbox.com/s/xg3vveodnlzi3se/exploit%20after.JPG?dl=0

dude, there is NO EXPLOIT. in both pictures you get normal rations and just +1 happiness bonus from rations (perfectly standard for NORMAL RATIONS). you don't gain anything turning the rations to triple and moving that bar to normal than just setting them to normal in the first place.

[shadowpirate250]

ITS NOT ABOUT HAPPINESS. its about it taking a lot less food. look at where the food usage thing is. look at where it says -264 and - 90
you can get normal and double ration using less food. if you dont get it now im gonna think you are kinda dense.

[Printesa de Aur]

Messaggio originale di shadowpirate250:

ITS NOT ABOUT HAPPINESS. its about it taking a lot less food. look at where the food usage thing is. look at where it says -264 and - 90
you can get normal and double ration using less food. if you dont get it now im gonna think you are kinda dense.

yeah, sorry about that. i just saw your screenshots now. you are right. i was so focused on the happiness thing, i never cosidered food usage a factor.

[Ashlem]

Haven't really played multiplayer, but don't care to as I only have so much time to play before I have to sleep/work.

But against the AI, I can win with nothing but pure macemen armies. True, you'll have to fight each battle, as they suck in auto-calc battles, but in fights where there's no chokepoints, I will usually swarm them before they can fully get into position.

In fights where there is a chokepoint, I keep my army out of firing range, then select one unit, and have him bash into the melee units. I then repeatedly pull him back, as the AI will then send some of their units towards you, and as soon as they reach my main army, I slaughter them and repeat the process until my troops can get to their archers.

In battles where I'm outnumbered, especially if it's an army sieging one of my castles, I'll often try to at least wipe out their archers so that when my main army shows up, or they're attacking my castle, I don't have archers to worry about. I'll also try to whittle away their peasants forcing their siege to take longer to build up the siege weapons, which buys me additional time to bring in a relief army.

In castle sieges, I always try to attack with a full 1500 man army. I'll usually build two siege rams, and use one of them to be a sort of "meatshield" to absorb some of the archer's arrows. I then lump my entire army into one group, and select 5-6 of them to dig the moat on the stone/royal castle fights.

Though it seems counter-intuitive at first, the reason for the small group is to bait the AI into using their oil cauldrons up. Once you get close enough to the door, they will attack. Since the macemen are pretty fast, you can pull them out of the fire a little faster than with pikemen or swordsmen. Once all their oil is used up, I then send my entire army to start digging the moat. This then helps their survivability as the archers now have more than a few units to shoot at, and they can't kill all of my men before they create an opening for my ram to break their door open.

True, they suffer heavily against archers, and I'll lose anywhere from 200-500 troops in a stone/royal castle fight but they're dirt cheap to replace.

Another cheesy move you can use against the AI is if they're about to attack a neutral county with a large force, attack them with a group of 50-150 macemen. The goal isn't to actually win the battle, but to weaken their army enough so that the neutral county defeats their troops on their own. So your army of 100 macemen can often wipe out 150-300 of their troops before they're taken down.

The purpose of this is to deny the enemy noble another county they can then use to gather resources and draft an army from. If you do this early game where they still only have one county, this will cripple them pretty effectively, especially the Bishop. And since you didn't win the battle earlier, your standing with that noble isn't affected.

[Admiral Link]

Maceman is mainly used to kill trash enemies like archers, crossbowman and peasants. They can be easily by other units.

[Printesa de Aur]

Messaggio originale di Admiral Link:

Maceman is mainly used to kill trash enemies like archers, crossbowman and peasants. They can be easily by other units.

it really depends on the situation. archers slaughter them in seconds if you have a line of pikemen in the front. crossbowmen are excellent against anything as long as they don't end up in hand to hand fights.

however, macemen are cost effective against anything but pikemen in an open map where you can surround your enemy.

there is no overpowered unit. it's all about positioning and army composition.

[Admiral Link]

Messaggio originale di Bravo ai stil:

Messaggio originale di Admiral Link:

Maceman is mainly used to kill trash enemies like archers, crossbowman and peasants. They can be easily by other units.

it really depends on the situation. archers slaughter them in seconds if you have a line of pikemen in the front. crossbowmen are excellent against anything as long as they don't end up in hand to hand fights.

however, macemen are cost effective against anything but pikemen in an open map where you can surround your enemy.

there is no overpowered unit. it's all about positioning and army composition.

That too. But usually I send them to take out the archers or crossbow or peasants as they make short work on them but 50 vs 100 archers then yes no contest they would lose against archers or as you said a buffer unit with archers behind them. But macemen I noticed is weak against pikemen or swordsen.

[sfnhltb]

Macemen seem quite good because the AI tends to have a lot of weakly armoured units that Macemen do quite well against, and tends to let itself get flanked even when it does have decent units. A proper army with pikes or swords backed up by bows/crossbows set up so they can't be flanked will make mincemeat of them (something like 15-20 to 1 kill ratios are normal), even with their speed half of the macemen are dead before they even engage due to their lack of armor.

Of course as you are only fighting the AI this tends to make them a preferred unit for many situations, especially early on. They are not so great for sieges, so I tend to not make so many through the middle and late game, although if you need to bulk up the melee/size/strength of an army they remain an option.

[bulbatrs]

depends on the type of siege, if we are talking tier 1 then they are the best, with correct positioning and timing you can take it with just a couple of dead macemen regardless of the garnison size

[JD]

I don't think they're overpowered. Macemen can be countered by a decently-sized force of pikemen bottling them up and having a mass of archers behind ripping the macemen to shreds. They're also not great in long scenarios in end-game, as they will get slaughtered by arrows if they are your only unit filling in moats on large castles.

I do think that Macemen are one of the best units, being quite cheap and very fast and available in two large sizes as mercenaries. But a good army pairs fast units like maces with pikes and archers so that the macemen can flank, surround, and crush pockets of enemies, shortening the battle and minimizing casualties on your side in the process.

[Sir Edward]

Macemen, like Knights, are best at quick flanking manuevers. archers will WRECK macemen. If you have pikemen to lead the charge, surround the formation with macemen (or knights, and you'll decimate the enemy.

[Bouridacsos]

1080p or 1440p needed

[MnM Ondreyson]

Macemen are the most effective unit in the game. In terms of cost vs effectiveness, nothing beats them.

If you want to win on any difficulty, simply create macemen armies.

Edit - Archers only wreck macemen if you dont engage them. You always go around other enemies and engage them, even if it costs you men. Only another player could wreck a maceman army. AI will always lose XD

[lacedemon]

Messaggio originale di WitchingSnake:

I found the strongest unit in the game to be the Macemen. They're incredibly cheap to produce, fast, butcher away light units and are surprisingly strong against stronger units when in masses.

With these guys playing the zerg rush style, 900 macemen and some Archers there's no stopping that I think xD

nerf plox