Defence vs. Attack in English Swordsmen

[ChivalryUK]

I've been playing Medieval 2 for a while now, and perusing these forums just as regularly, but thanks to a habit of regularly restarting the game, I've only just got to a position with England in which I can recruit swordsmen.

I notice that some have 13 attack and 21 defence, and some have 21 attack and 13 defence (I think dismounted feudal knights are the former and armoured swordsmen the latter but I could be wrong). My question is this: what would you use the two different swordsmen for? Intellectually it makes sense that a swordsman with higher defence should be used for...defence but then I think that having a higher attack dispatches enemies quicker, and so is just as good a defence as good armour.

So if anyone could give their opinions on the two different swordsmen, which one to use where, or even if one is just simply better than the other all the time, I'd be grateful.

[Deadman1709]

If you're playing vanilla, whether on offense or defense, a head-on contact will leave the high defend win. I tested the amoured swordsmen against the equivalent of English knight. Result? the Swordsmen win, though with quite a bit of casualties. Wall battles usually ends in high def victories.

If you're playing stainless steel, which I'm playing now. They are quite ... balanced. Their attacks are reduced drastically, leaving neither an edge. Actually, everyone attacks were reduced and replaced by special capabilities. The crossbows aren't as strong. The English knight (one with 2-handed axe) have amour piercing bonus and cavalry bonus. Thus the result is no forgone conclusion.

So if you're playing vanilla, best use for the high atk units are in FLANKING moves as shock troops. They are less vulnerable to enemy attacks and can deliver stunning blows. This makes them more or less filing the role of cavalry. Plus they are not vulnerable to spears and pikes as the cavalry so in a pinch, you can slam them head on the the spears, who usually have crappy attacks vs. inf and crappy armor as well. However, I prefer not to use them when I played as the English. They are, like most heavy inf, slow while the cavalry are much faster.Especially when you have the demi-lancers. Spears are usually dealt with by means of missiles, musket fire, or same old infantry.
With all that said, however, the way you use troops depends on your experiences.

[ChivalryUK]

Good answer, thanks very much. I personally have noticed that high defence troops always have the upper hand in drawn out melees (I am playing vanilla), even if their opponents have absurdly higher attack scores. So yeah, I'll either use the higher attack lower defence swordsmen as flankers or just forget about them and rely on my cavalry

[Muagan_ra]

High attack heavy infantry are shock troops - they are similar in function to Heavy Cavalry, but with more melee staying power. They're supposed to break the enemy by charging in, hair flailing about their sweaty brows, weapons awhirling round in arcs of mayhem and carnage.

They're not line infantry; more of a flanking strike force, or an elite cadre of reservists.

[Jianadaren]

That's really interesting about the high-defense trumping high-attack. There must be some sort of breaking point. I don't think a unit with 21 and 13 would beat something with 5 and 14.

Anyways that notwithstanding, another principle to consider is unit turnover. Higher defense units will kill less and be killed less (lower unit turnover) relative to high-attack units. I'm thinking that high-turnover (high-attack) units would be useful in defending walls from laddered attackers (the high kill rates ensure that the attackers can't get a foothold). They would also be useful in punching through bottlenecks or holes in the line. And of course, as mentioned above as shock troops that can drop a devastating blow and turn the tide of battle.

Low turnover (high-defense) troops would be best at holding the line, exhausting the attackers, and increasing the effectiveness of missile fire. This would be especially valuable on top of tower-assaulted walls. The low turnover would exhaust the attackers and increase the pain inflicted by the towers by subjecting the attackers to fire for a longer period of time.

Basically, if you want to delay use high defense and if you want to assault use high attack.

[ChivalryUK]

All very good advice I had already started to favour the high defence units before posting here, but now I know that I need mostly high defence, with a few units of high attack for all the situations outlined above

[Muagan_ra]

Good point about the kill ratios, above.

Think of it as how you play chess. You don't just charge right in with your Queen, or Rooks - they'll get slapped down by the dense thicket of pawns - they'll make a good show of it, to be sure, but they'll still become trapped and destroyed. What you do is set up a situation with a solid line of pawns, and then bring in the big guns to spring the trap. It's all about expenditure - you will suffer casualties in any closely matched battle, but you need to choose who takes those casualties and who dosn't.

I'm afraid that, in the medieval world, it's the lowly guy with the spear. The armoured tank with a mace twice the size of himself steals the glory once the peasants have done their job. Unethical, surely, but very Medieval.

Besides, you shouldn't even be attacking the enemies strongest troops with your own - that's not gaining a tactical advantage. Your shock infantry should be causing routs amongst the weakest of your enemy, then their strongest will start to run soon enough.

[MooseUpNorth]

The other thing is that sometimes it's not even about the defense, but which troops you can most easily replace. I tend to play Venice, and retraining Italian Spear Militia, Italian Militia, and Pavise Crossbows is pretty easy, normally doable from any freshly conquered city (or within a few turns). Most/all of my cities can produce them.

But retraining my Venetian Heavy Infantry is a major chore, however, as only a few of my core castles have teched up enough to build them at all. Normally, I'd send a replenishment stack to top off my hard-to-retrain troops, but loyalty in this game makes that dangerous unless you also accompany the stack with a second (or third) general.

[Muagan_ra]

I know exactly what you mean, about replenishing troops. Two units of Italian Spear Militia is better than one unit of Venetian Heavy Infantry, simply because unless you've conquered a developed castle, or have a good train of reinforcements following you, your high-class infantry won't do you much good for long.

It's always a good idea to scout ahead, and know exactly what is in those settlements before you choose your army.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy setting off on campaign with modest armies, and then just picking up mercenaries on the way.

[Deadman1709]

I know exactly what you mean, about replenishing troops. Two units of Italian Spear Militia is better than one unit of Venetian Heavy Infantry, simply because unless you've conquered a developed castle, or have a good train of reinforcements following you, your high-class infantry won't do you much good for long.

It's always a good idea to scout ahead, and know exactly what is in those settlements before you choose your army.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy setting off on campaign with modest armies, and then just picking up mercenaries on the way.

I usually send spies far ahead of my armies to locate enemies settlements and force. I was like, fighting the HRE as Hungarians and my map was lit up over France , Italy, and even into Spain.

Make the point of getting a regional castle the first whenever trying to attack the enemy. The HRE are very good target since they have a bunch of castles right in the center.

The Italian is a PITA to take, since they have very few castles. and doing a Hannibal trip across the Alps is reeeeeeeeally slow.

The Holy land is fairly good. Acre and Gaza are 2 castles that cover Jerusalem. Taking the 3 gives you a good foot ho;d on the Holy Land as well. Then go to Alexandria for extra income.

I have the tradition to keep on being able to keep on fighting open field, even when most of my infantry are only 2/3 of their strength or less. So for as long as my artillery are still functioning and my cavalry are not less than 1/2 their original strength. Siege battles with such armies may not be very easy but I use quite a lot of artillery to knock armies off the wall. I also use crossbows who would stand on walls and shoot at AIs below [very effective].