Tips for melee units (swordsman)

[Expirium]

**need some tips for handling these units, they die like flies but I want to get some to full level, to see if they are eventually worth it.

It's very easy to get the mounted archers to max, even knights, healers and regular bowmen are a piece of cake when you handle them manually in fights.
- this is not the case with swordsmen. In fact I keep losing them in water terrains (obviously, but I'd rather sacrifice that "meatshield" than lose a bunch of archers: dem murrmades hurt a lot) and vs any ranged behind walls.

So far I win games by hit and run moves with horses.

I don't really see a use for swordsmen if I can't get them upgraded; once I get my gold up and running I don't even bother with normal archers.

Yeah, they're cheap, but 125/100 food as max price is the only way I see them as a valid defense resource- otherwise it's much more cost efficient to just dodge with your ranged units.

I currently only use them to block ranged attacks by charging with them- but if I can dodge missiles with ranged units, then I will do that instead, saving resources.

I play the druid mainly, he's efficient for mounted range and build/repairing walls- I use this to get early high ranked ranged units.

[LuminousGames]

They can be useful for massing vs circles that you arw sure you can defeat with them. Especially if you have excess food available.

[Mcswagbags]

i use swords men just as meat sheilds. i spam swords men which = food and then i spam horse archers which = wood + gold. this way i am using all of my resources and keeping my horse archers safe to do all the work. in my mind the swords men are highly expendable dont worry about trying to level them up just let them die. i also throw in a bunch of healers to keep my guys topped up on HP. and late game i start to throw in dragons and wizards along with necros into the mix.

hopfully what i said makes sense

[Hotcake Tiny]

It seems that they are mostly supposed to be just that, meat shields. Their health to cost ratio is really good, and mid game it becomes a good way to dump food.

If you get one to level up in a fight, get them an extra life and then they are more likely to survive the next fight and snowball.

[AdtrL]

True their meatshields but some of us want to level them to max for the achievement.

[ZeroDivide]

Swordsmen shine for early game rushes with Wilberforce the Wizard. If you get a start with 2 training dummies you can quickly train them up from 280hp and 5 damage to 500hp 15damage.

Although, it is a bit of a toss up if you want to train your archers or your swordsmen.. as the archers are significately better in mass... But maybe you need the wood to reinforce the walls?

But beyond that, Yeah, they feel like a waste of food to me. Infact almost all melee units feel like a waste to me.