don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

Why not? It's just like going naked to a gun fight to confuse your opponent; it can work

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

Why not? It's just like going naked to a gun fight to confuse your opponent; it can work

didn't work to well for the Zulu against the british. though that was a spear to a gun fight but close enough.

didn't work to well for the Samurai either. try as they might to drive the guns from their shore along with their corrupting westerners.

You need to bring, like, A LOT more soldiers. This is gunpowder warfare. Even an army of elites ( unless they're covered in the heaviest armor, like euro units, or your own custom units) will get one-shotted, so you need to compensate for that with sheer numbers. Also, spread them out. That tiny little squad of mercenary handcannons that the AI sometimes hires to defend their towns can kill scores of your soldiers by themselves because of their explosive rounds.

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

Originalmente postado por Kumorigachi:

don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

Why not? It's just like going naked to a gun fight to confuse your opponent; it can work

Going naked is fine, until you have to put away your gun. But that means you've survived, so it's OK.

Going without a gun is a different matter.

You should always bring a knife to a gun fight. Just make sure you also bring your gun.

As for the original question - I've united the map in Suvarnabhumi Mahayuth], and things work like in most mods - there are scenes where you want archers, and there are scenes where you want crossbowmen or gunners. But in general, you should be bringing your A-game to a siege, not mid level mercenaries like half naked Japanese with teppo or assorted cavalry.

To a siege, if you plan on shooting the defenders from under the walls, you bring heavily armored shield infantry to stand in front of your ranged troops, and then, depending on the scene, either high level archers, or high level gunners. Cheap but proficient crossbowmen also work well. Make damn sure they all are armored from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head.

Once you have your own kingdom, you can equip your troops perfectly for each role. Heavy sergeants and sharpshooters will make minced meat out of anyone. Until then, I recommend Laotian nobles as shield infantry, armored besteiro as crossbowmen, Lanna horse archers for quick firing archers, and any European musketeers, the Portugese Golden Guard being my favorites.

For defense, the Le dismounted nobles are a great choice. They are nearly top line archers, and still very effective in hand to hand combat because they each come with sword and shield. They have fewer arrows than most, but defenders get free refills, so it does not matter. Lanna horse archers, when they roll firecrackers are especially effective, as well.

Originalmente postado por Tuidjy:

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

Why not? It's just like going naked to a gun fight to confuse your opponent; it can work

Going naked is fine, until you have to put away your gun. But that means you've survived, so it's OK.

Going without a gun is a different matter.

You should always bring a knife to a gun fight. Just make sure you also bring your gun.

As for the original question - I've united the map in Suvarnabhumi Mahayuth], and things work like in most mods - there are scenes where you want archers, and there are scenes where you want crossbowmen or gunners. But in general, you should be bringing your A-game to a siege, not mid level mercenaries like half naked Japanese with teppo or assorted cavalry.

To a siege, if you plan on shooting the defenders from under the walls, you bring heavily armored shield infantry to stand in front of your ranged troops, and then, depending on the scene, either high level archers, or high level gunners. Cheap but proficient crossbowmen also work well. Make damn sure they all are armored from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head.

Once you have your own kingdom, you can equip your troops perfectly for each role. Heavy sergeants and sharpshooters will make minced meat out of anyone. Until then, I recommend Laotian nobles as shield infantry, armored besteiro as crossbowmen, Lanna horse archers for quick firing archers, and any European musketeers, the Portugese Golden Guard being my favorites.

For defense, the Le dismounted nobles are a great choice. They are nearly top line archers, and still very effective in hand to hand combat because they each come with sword and shield. They have fewer arrows than most, but defenders get free refills, so it does not matter. Lanna horse archers, when they roll firecrackers are especially effective, as well.

Does that mod permit you to edit the equipment/template of soldiers? notm any mods permit it. i know Pendor has it with its player created Knights Order. but most others usually stick to fixed units.

You can edit their equipment, but not their skils.

Originalmente postado por Lord Bumbleton:

You can edit their equipment, but not their skils.

eh skills are over rated. with the right equipment even a poorly trained- or a person with no training can still do some damage.

fo example give them a shield, and a spear set them on the front line since anyone can stab a charging horse to death!...admittedly with realistic physics that'd probably also mean severe injury but atleast they helped!

oh, yeah, don't mind not being able to change their skills. with the gear I've given them, even my low tier troops can do some serious damage, if not take very much, while my royal guard can take on an army 10-15x their numbers because the buggers are covered in full plate and mount royal horses.

Originalmente postado por Lord Bumbleton:

You can edit their equipment, but not their skils.

You cannot edit their skills, but the royal troops have a full tree, and you can set the equipment for each node. The low tiers can be made significantly better survivors than their analogues from other factions, because of heavish armor and shields. As for the top tier units, their skills and weapon proficiencies are very good, on par with the best on the faction troops. Not best troops of one faction - the best troops of all factions.

For example, the heavy sergeant has two-handed proficiency 195 which makes him as good as any shock infantry, and can be equipped with Portuguese noble three-quarter armor that is better than anything in the game.

As for the sharpshooter, he is a better shot than anyone but the Golden Guard, and is only 10 points beneath that. On the other hand, he can be armored even better, and in hand to hand is absolutely superior to anything but top tier faction infantry.

All royal troops can be equipped to be perfect in their primary role, and pretty damn good at anything else. They are frankly overpowered.

Originalmente postado por Tuidjy:

Going naked is fine, until you have to put away your gun. But that means you've survived, so it's OK.

Going without a gun is a different matter.

I had a Portuguese Matchlock rifle, the best one I could find apart from one that costs like 200k coin and had like 115 damage instead of 110. But being able to dodge the shots doesn't do that much when your units get destroyed and you try to re-take Ava from the Ming with the odds being 1:80

Originalmente postado por Tuidjy:

As for the original question - I've united the map in Suvarnabhumi Mahayuth], and things work like in most mods - there are scenes where you want archers, and there are scenes where you want crossbowmen or gunners. But in general, you should be bringing your A-game to a siege, not mid level mercenaries like half naked Japanese with teppo or assorted cavalry.

Well to be honest with you, it's hard for me to see a vast difference between the different kinds of gunners apart from maybe 5-10 profiency points. The reason I was bringing "mid level half naked Japanese mercs" was because I was expecting to get perhaps get attacked by more than one faction and didn't want to take the risk of taking too many unnecessary moral drops just because I had units from everywhere

Originalmente postado por Tuidjy:

To a siege, if you plan on shooting the defenders from under the walls, you bring heavily armored shield infantry to stand in front of your ranged troops, and then, depending on the scene, either high level archers, or high level gunners. Cheap but proficient crossbowmen also work well. Make damn sure they all are armored from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head.

Once you have your own kingdom, you can equip your troops perfectly for each role. Heavy sergeants and sharpshooters will make minced meat out of anyone. Until then, I recommend Laotian nobles as shield infantry, armored besteiro as crossbowmen, Lanna horse archers for quick firing archers, and any European musketeers, the Portugese Golden Guard being my favorites.

What is your definition of "high level archers/gunners" when your opinion on the subject is that pretty much any unit in the game can be upgraded to surpass all other units in the game, if I just give them masterwork gear? Also, there wasn't really much room for infantry standing in front of archers because of the flat map layout like usual in sieges and a giant trench of water right on front of my spawning point

"Laotian nobles as shield infantry, armored besteiro as crossbowmen, Lanna horse archers for quick firing archers, and any European musketeers, the Portugese Golden Guard being my favorites." - You would be right saying that these units are top-notch, but then again I would be stuck with units from many factions: Lan Xang (Laos), Lovek (Khmer), Portuguese, Lanna for the ultimate morale-drop, that being said I already had like 93 right to rule at this point, but it's not bad to be prepared

I have to agree however that I'm a bit lazy with upgrading the gear of my units and sometimes even my companions. I guess I'll be giving my soldiers some better armor and grinding some tournaments for more unit slots.


As a last note: I find it a bit ridiculous how nearly every faction puts heavy emphasis on gunpowder and hand canons in the 1500s of southeast-asia. I would understand it if the Portuguese were using a lot of guns, but as it is almost all mid to late-game army compositions seem to be based around rifles to some degree instead of crossbows or bows, except maybe factions like Manipur, Shan States and Lan Na.
But the sheer amount of gunpowderisation make it a bit difficult to find "good" crossbowmen or archers

its easier to find " ok" crossbowmen and archers, or just equip them yourself, once you get your own kingdom. I've only used the prtugese and my own soldiers, so I can't tell you very much about good crossbowmen, though Lanna archers have killed enough of my men to tell you that they're pretty damn good. As for the large use of firearms, its just the way it was. States that adopted firearms were able to generally win against states using bows/crossbows, because you can just give some peasant a musket and call him a soldier ( though not a very good one). Gunpowder wasn't universal like it was in Europe, but it was still in use in asia.

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

Originalmente postado por Tuidjy:

But in general, you should be bringing your A-game to a siege, not mid level mercenaries like half naked Japanese with teppo or assorted cavalry.

Well to be honest with you, it's hard for me to see a vast difference between the different kinds of gunners apart from maybe 5-10 profiency points. The reason I was bringing "mid level half naked Japanese mercs" was...

The difference is the precision of the weapon they are using, as well as armor and hit points.

It makes little difference if the trooper has 195 proficiency or 175. It makes a huge difference if his firearm is a pistol with accuracy 55, an Arabian gun with accuracy 82, a long musket with accuracy 88, or a finely tuned weapon with accuracy 90.

As for armor and hit points, a half-naked mercenary or a poorly armored local will die from one shot, or will be kept stun locked by firecrackers, hand grenades and hand cannon shot. A fully armored guardsman or better yet, royal sharpshooter will ignore most area effects, will survive most headshots, let alone body shots, and will probably down his current aggressor with a single shot. Then he will still be around.

Don't take my word for it. Train some Golden guards, and see how they fare against run of the mill locals, who often have just 30-40 chest armor vs the golden guards' 75. Properly equipped royal sharpshooters have nearly the same proficiency as Golden guard (10 less), no variation in the quality of their weapons, and armor at 57/82/63.

Which is still less than the 82/88/68 of heavy sergeants. And mine have a two handed sword for slaughter at short range, while armed with a shield and pistol for trading shots while waiting for the enemy to get to them.

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

Originalmente postado por Tuidjy:

Once you have your own kingdom, you can equip your troops perfectly for each role. Heavy sergeants and sharpshooters will make minced meat out of anyone. Until then, I recommend Laotian nobles as shield infantry, armored besteiro as crossbowmen, Lanna horse archers for quick firing archers, and any European musketeers, the Portugese Golden Guard being my favorites.

What is your definition of "high level archers/gunners" when your opinion on the subject is that pretty much any unit in the game can be upgraded to surpass all other units in the game, if I just give them masterwork gear?

I did not say you can equip every trooper. You can only change the equipment of the royal troop tree, and you can only access that once you have your own kingdom. The "heavy sergeants" and "sharpshooters" are two of the top tier troops on that tree.

Also, there wasn't really much room for infantry standing in front of archers because of the flat map layout like usual in sieges and a giant trench of water right on front of my spawning point

Yes, some scenes are like that. Even there, it is worth having a clump of heavy shield infantry in front. They survive a lot more arrows, firecrackers and grenades, and some of them may even survive a bullet. Probably just one bullet, but still.

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

"Laotian nobles as shield infantry, armored besteiro as crossbowmen, Lanna horse archers for quick firing archers, and any European musketeers, the Portugese Golden Guard being my favorites."

You would be right saying that these units are top-notch, but then again I would be stuck with units from many factions: Lan Xang (Laos), Lovek (Khmer), Portuguese, Lanna for the ultimate morale-drop, that being said I already had like 93 right to rule at this point, but it's not bad to be prepared

Once you have a kingdom, you will stick most of the faction troops in garrison, and recruit royal troops like there is no tomorrow. If you are attacked, let the enemy come close to your garrisons, take your elites out for a few hours, and put them back, victorious, in garrison before they start deserting.

As a last note: I find it a bit ridiculous how nearly every faction puts heavy emphasis on gunpowder and hand canons in the 1500s of southeast-asia. I would understand it if the Portuguese were using a lot of guns, but as it is almost all mid to late-game army compositions seem to be based around rifles to some degree instead of crossbows or bows, except maybe factions like Manipur, Shan States and Lan Na.

I agree, it is somewhat unrealistic. But it works to your advantage. Once you get truly powerful, you will no longer be afraid of gunpowder weapons. You will suffer most of your casualties from heavy cavalry and horse archers.

Why?

Because a good mix of area of effect specialty troops (Lanna archers, Arakanese hand cannoners, etc.) and heavy hitting sharpshooters with accurate muskets will easily knock enemy gunners off their reloading and kill them dead.

But the sheer amount of gunpowderisation make it a bit difficult to find "good" crossbowmen or archers

Look harder. Lanna horse archers, properly commanded are worth a few mid level musketeers each. Laotion huntsmen are only tier III, and practically naked, but keep them out of harm's way, and they punch way above their cost.

And by the way, where's the point in buying ships and sending them to different shores? I haven't seen an option to put trade goods into them so they can make profit at trading or anything like that.

Originalmente postado por Devran from Turkey:

And by the way, where's the point in buying ships and sending them to different shores? I haven't seen an option to put trade goods into them so they can make profit at trading or anything like that.

I have not found any real use for the ships except to quickly get places. I'm not saying there isn't, I have not looked too hard.

By the way, I should have mentioned it earlier. You can build a sort of refuge - with shops and the ability to store items and troops. That helps with building an elite force for your first assault.