[POP] Any advice for footsoldier Roleplay?

[Bukalaka]

I was wondering if its possible to do a no mount no archer build play through because honestly I am starting to get sick of the dominant meta horse archer builds that is generally recommended.

I was thinking of roleplaying as a daughter of a fallen viking chieftain yada yada. Start out as an infantry. Eventually grow to become a Valkyrie. The noble unit line etc.

Problem is, I have never played as a footsoldier before. I mean i cant even think of a way to defeat my enemies in the early game as I am probably gonna get chased down and ganged banged.
So, I was hoping maybe a few of you have done similar play through before and have some work arounds?

Any advice or additional tips is welcomed and appreciated.

[Huillam]

You can definitly play Pendor without a bow but without a horse that's going to be trickier.
Aside from the obvious (shields, definitly a plural here) the only thing that I can think of is having your CKO (or some elite tanky troops) in a custom group so you could constantly switch their orders from Follow me to Charge to ensure you're never alone. Even like that don't expect to last for an entire battle.

Early on? Do quests (cattle/wine delivery, elder's daughter) and trade while avoiding battles to get some level and enough money until you can afford to recruit decent companions.
The beginning of the game is going to be really hard and I suspect that won't be much easier later.

[Bukalaka]

Originally posted by Huillam:

You can definitly play Pendor without a bow but without a horse that's going to be trickier.
Aside from the obvious (shields, definitly a plural here) the only thing that I can think of is having your CKO (or some elite tanky troops) in a custom group so you could constantly switch their orders from Follow me to Charge to ensure you're never alone. Even like that don't expect to last for an entire battle.

Early on? Do quests (cattle/wine delivery, elder's daughter) and trade while avoiding battles to get some level and enough money until you can afford to recruit decent companions.
The beginning of the game is going to be really hard and I suspect that won't be much easier later.

Ah yes there is that! I can always focus on doing quests early on. Thats a very handy tip cheers!
Also, I never intended for this to be easy. I have played POP before and almost conquered everything but got bored because I was just stomping everything in my way.

I want this play through to be challenging but not outright impossible you see. Hence I am asking around in the forums for advice.

[Huillam]

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

Ah yes there is that! I can always focus on doing quests early on. Thats a very handy tip cheers!
[...]
Hence I am asking around in the forums for advice.

And there's anything in your life or in your education that led you to believe that that kind of attitude was going to help you get more advices? Hell, good luck both for Pendor and for the advices. You're going to need it (at least for the advices, if you're half as good as you seem to believe you won't need luck for Pendor).

[Bukalaka]

Originally posted by Huillam:

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

Ah yes there is that! I can always focus on doing quests early on. Thats a very handy tip cheers!
[...]
Hence I am asking around in the forums for advice.

And there's anything in your life or in your education that led you to believe that that kind of attitude was going to help you get more advices? Hell, good luck both for Pendor and for the advices. You're going to need it (at least for the advices, if you're half as good as you seem to believe you won't need luck for Pendor).

I dont know what the ♥♥♥♥ happened here. That was a random display of hostility out of the left field.

Was my mentioning of my character becoming too overpowered too arrogant for your taste?
I mean I was simply stating a fact. My army grew so powerful that all I ended up doing most of the battle was F1-F3 charge. So it got boring fast.
I could crank up the difficulty to hardest but then a random arrow headshot could take me off the battle to spectator mode. Which is even more boring.

Again. I don't know what trigged that aggressive response but cheers for the initial response and have a good day.

[The Danish Gamer]

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

I dont know what the ♥♥♥♥ happened here. That was a random display of hostility out of the left field.

I'm guessing that guy interpreted the first sentence of your response as sarcasm, rather than just a genuine thanks.
I've never done an infantry playthrough, but I would try making a separate group for no shield spearmen and 2 handers held behind a shieldwall of infantry, for soaking up cav charges and arrows, to then charge the 2 hander group in to hopefully rip into the cav while they are bogged down in the infantry group. In my experience having no shields in the front wall ends up getting them shot to pieces. No idea really on how to deal with cav archers though

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Huillam:

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

Ah yes there is that! I can always focus on doing quests early on. Thats a very handy tip cheers!
[...]
Hence I am asking around in the forums for advice.

And there's anything in your life or in your education that led you to believe that that kind of attitude was going to help you get more advices? Hell, good luck both for Pendor and for the advices. You're going to need it (at least for the advices, if you're half as good as you seem to believe you won't need luck for Pendor).

Wtf is wrong with you? The guy was responding positively to your response and you attack him? You should apologize.

[Huillam]

It definitly felt like a "Thanks for nothing, your advices are useless".
Maybe I overreacted and in that case, yes, I'm sorry. And if I haven't I stand by what I said.

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Huillam:

It definitly felt like a "Thanks for nothing, your advices are useless".
Maybe I overreacted and in that case, yes, I'm sorry. And if I haven't I stand by what I said.

They were grateful for the tip, you definitely read it wrong.

[Bukalaka]

Originally posted by Huillam:

It definitly felt like a "Thanks for nothing, your advices are useless".
Maybe I overreacted and in that case, yes, I'm sorry. And if I haven't I stand by what I said.

Ahh I see. Well its all good mate. I can see why would you would interpret it as a sarcasm but it was merely a dumbfounded reaction from forgetting the obvious method which I have used countless times in the past; years ago.

In order to commemorate this exchange. Let me leave this hilarious skit for you to enjoy in your mean time. https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo

[Khalunka]

Originally posted by Huillam:

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

Ah yes there is that! I can always focus on doing quests early on. Thats a very handy tip cheers!
[...]
Hence I am asking around in the forums for advice.

And there's anything in your life or in your education that led you to believe that that kind of attitude was going to help you get more advices? Hell, good luck both for Pendor and for the advices. You're going to need it (at least for the advices, if you're half as good as you seem to believe you won't need luck for Pendor).

You are smoking indeed. What a random interpretation.

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

Any advice or additional tips is welcomed and appreciated.

It is actually quite fun to be a footsoldier and in PoP is even easier in the early game because you have a great way to level your early stats and get some money: Arena. Arena in PoP is boosted which you can easily farm it to get your first companions and mercenaries. My tip is: grind arena.

[Multifaced]

One of the things that works for me when playing as a foot soldier is creating squares of units and surrounding yourself with them, making them as dense as possible

then in the centre you can kill any units that manage to make it to you in that small space, it is really good if the mod saves the formation so you do not have to set it up repeatedly, I can't remember if that was possible with pendor or not

Include some anti cav units in your formations to help deal with cav

if you still allow yourself a small group of ranged units, they can hold a line in the back and also help to shoot at horse units that get stuck or make it through, and they also distract other units away from you

It is a type of turtle strategy, and you need the stats and units to pull it off. Can be a little tricky getting it to work in the early stages while you don't have many troops or the stats to back it up to be consistent with it

Another little trick I used to do was to setup the cavalry at the front, get them to dismount and then turn them into one of the foot units. Their dismounted horses would act as a barrier to absorb charges, then they got pelted with my skirmishers and other ranged units. So by the time them and the infantry make it to my dense formation, they are already weakened. Then it becomes a crazy dense battle. You can deploy more troops to the front unit. That one can be a rectangle, then the ones on the sides are square and the back formation can be smaller and also rectangular so it leaves less gaps.

But I have not tried it on Pendor. You will still need to choose battles carefully, it won't just work on everything in that mod, as you no doubt know when Opponent have a large ranged contingent, you can setup a side unit for arrow absorption and it is a sacrifice unit for that purpose. Place it ahead of your turtle formation to absorb as much of the arrows as possible to preserve your battle formation to later kill the archers in melee.

[Bukalaka]

Originally posted by Khalunka:

Originally posted by Huillam:

And there's anything in your life or in your education that led you to believe that that kind of attitude was going to help you get more advices? Hell, good luck both for Pendor and for the advices. You're going to need it (at least for the advices, if you're half as good as you seem to believe you won't need luck for Pendor).

You are smoking indeed. What a random interpretation.

Originally posted by Bukalaka:

Any advice or additional tips is welcomed and appreciated.

It is actually quite fun to be a footsoldier and in PoP is even easier in the early game because you have a great way to level your early stats and get some money: Arena. Arena in PoP is boosted which you can easily farm it to get your first companions and mercenaries. My tip is: grind arena.

Ah yes indeed. That is exactly what I did and even managed to win some. I also did quests to gain levels which helped.
I sort of had to start using a cross bow to counter few types of mounted units but other than that things are proceeding smoothly.
I do plan on becoming a mercenary soon which will aid me financially and protection wise. I'll carry on with that until I am around lvl 20 then graduate to a Valkyrie as planned and thats going to make this lot more easier. Cheers!

[Bukalaka]

Originally posted by Multifaced:

One of the things that works for me when playing as a foot soldier is creating squares of units and surrounding yourself with them, making them as dense as possible

then in the centre you can kill any units that manage to make it to you in that small space, it is really good if the mod saves the formation so you do not have to set it up repeatedly, I can't remember if that was possible with pendor or not

Include some anti cav units in your formations to help deal with cav

if you still allow yourself a small group of ranged units, they can hold a line in the back and also help to shoot at horse units that get stuck or make it through, and they also distract other units away from you

It is a type of turtle strategy, and you need the stats and units to pull it off. Can be a little tricky getting it to work in the early stages while you don't have many troops or the stats to back it up to be consistent with it

Another little trick I used to do was to setup the cavalry at the front, get them to dismount and then turn them into one of the foot units. Their dismounted horses would act as a barrier to absorb charges, then they got pelted with my skirmishers and other ranged units. So by the time them and the infantry make it to my dense formation, they are already weakened. Then it becomes a crazy dense battle. You can deploy more troops to the front unit. That one can be a rectangle, then the ones on the sides are square and the back formation can be smaller and also rectangular so it leaves less gaps.

But I have not tried it on Pendor. You will still need to choose battles carefully, it won't just work on everything in that mod, as you no doubt know when Opponent have a large ranged contingent, you can setup a side unit for arrow absorption and it is a sacrifice unit for that purpose. Place it ahead of your turtle formation to absorb as much of the arrows as possible to preserve your battle formation to later kill the archers in melee.

Haha funny that I am in fact using most of these tactic already, through trial and error. The only unit type I have no answer for is the cav archers at this point. Perhaps I should seek aid from my people and enlist few Fierdsvain units who can eventually become a reliable frontliners.