Thought Knights were OP...Till I tried Horse Archers

[The Blind One]

(I play stainless, fyi, but I assume this goes for vanilla too)

Their only weakness are good foot archers. Which the AI is dumb enough to put infront so you can often just rush them with heavy cavalry...leaving them without any defenses against the endless skirmishing of the HA.

I use an army of around 8 Turkomans and it just consistently beats stack after stack...not to mention bodyguard units...Just gang up on them and watch them die like flies...just insane...knights can't do that since they have to melee and bodyguards tend to murder them quite effectively...

What's your favorite OP unit? Stainless or otherwhise...I hear the vardaratoi for the byzzies is illegal in multiplayer...I can see why...

In stainless steel even the turkish horse archer (which has only slightly more upkeep cost than the average levy!) is seriously OP. Basically a peasant on horse with bow....beats bodyguards...

[Armchair Civilian]

i love the basic Turkish horse archers in SS (except for the way that their "horde" formation lends itself to friendly fire unless handled with a modicum of care).
Their cost-effectiveness even when massively outnumbered puts them in a league of their own for SS, though in vanilla the higher tiered variants are much better.

But even as a devotee of the noble art of horse-archery OPness, my FAVOURITE "op" unit would have to be Naffatun.
Especially when teamed with horse archers :)

[Fay]

Horse archers are great and all but I'd personally have to say a very special type of mounted ranged unit: Camel gunners

[Inardesco]

Naffatun's weakness is their low range though they stand their ground very well in melee.

I don't seem to have a favourite unit as long as said unit does it's job I'm fine with it, considering I've worked with units that have 2attack/2defence and still won despite being outnumbered/outclassed it's more about the tactics used than the unit in itself.

I tend to ignore horse archers unless I've got lighter cavalry or if my complement of archers is large enough to decimate their numbers to the point of uselessness.

As for vanilla units, Venetian Heavy Infantry are nice but in the grand scheme of things easily counterable. Horse archers are so devestating because they've got the least amount of counters in the entire game.

[EoNightcore]

I'm partial to the heavily armored infantry units, like English Armored Swordsmen, though that's probably because I like to play siege battles against the AI, and heavily armored infantry units murders everything in siege battles.

In field battles, it's more of a toss-up, because the AI can just flee and flank my units. Course, if I sacrifice a unit, I can surround the AI's fleeing horse archers from far away and than just close them in. They try to flee through one of the gaps? At least one horsemen will get caught, and than it just goes downhill from there for them.


Course, if I'm at the point where I have to surround an AI horse archer, that probably means my Ranged units are all dead....

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

I.... hate.... horse.... archers....

They do nothing that standard archers - especially crossbows - can't do better, and foot archers have a higher unit count so send more arrows in the general direction of whoever you're shooting.

My solution to enemy horse archers is to just shoot them to bits. They typically don't survive long with the mercenary crossbows I bring along in most of my armies.


EDIT: oh, you're playing SS, that explains it

[danconnors]

I like Retinue Longbowmen. Stakes in the ground to impale horsemen, a lethal bow, good armor, and the ability to fight in melee. These were the guys that brought down the flower of French chivalry, time after time after time.

[Inardesco]

Well, I'm just glad that the AI in DaC doesnt mindlessly charge into stakes. Heck, if you've got an army so well hunkered down when fighting against cavalry in DaC, chances are they won't even bother attacking you at all.

[Sukketh]

I absolutly adore the conquistadores, they're bascially the pinicale of heavy infantry and if you upgrade them *NUT*

[Sukketh]

Originally posted by danconnors:

I like Retinue Longbowmen. Stakes in the ground to impale horsemen, a lethal bow, good armor, and the ability to fight in melee. These were the guys that brought down the flower of French chivalry, time after time after time.

But the french still won the 100 year war

[Sukketh]

Originally posted by EoNightcore:

I'm partial to the heavily armored infantry units, like English Armored Swordsmen, though that's probably because I like to play siege battles against the AI, and heavily armored infantry units murders everything in siege battles.

In field battles, it's more of a toss-up, because the AI can just flee and flank my units. Course, if I sacrifice a unit, I can surround the AI's fleeing horse archers from far away and than just close them in. They try to flee through one of the gaps? At least one horsemen will get caught, and than it just goes downhill from there for them.


Course, if I'm at the point where I have to surround an AI horse archer, that probably means my Ranged units are all dead....

English swordmens imo aren't really worth it since they're like the feudal knight but with +1 defence plus their more expensive

[Kusarigama]

Sorry but Armored Swordsmen are essentially Chivalric Knights with less upkeep DFK have 225 I think while AS have 125-150 somewhere in there so yes they are worth it. If your talking MP they are still worth it because again you can have 4 DFK and 4 AS and have a good center core.

[Armchair Civilian]

If you're playing as england, there's absolutely NO reason to use DFK unless you're too lazy to make buildings - as Kusarigama says, armoured swordsmen are both better and cheaper than those cancerous scum.

[The Blind One]

Wow wow wow bro, calling the nobility cancerous scum? You sir are heading for the gallows! Did you not know that their blood is BETTER than your blood? Something to do with them having PURER blood than you do...I don't know how that happend since they are supposed to be christian and believe in the whole Adam and Eve story so you'd have to figure out how and where the purity stopped...but I am sure it had something to do with that filthy guy called CAIN cuz he's a murderer...and nobility certainly don't murder! oh wait...

[Armchair Civilian]

Nice :)

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by TheBlindOne:

t...

Almost thought you were Skeever, only to read Skeever approves.