Professional Armies

**dynamo** · February 17, 2009, 11:36 PM

Does anyone know what the point of these city-recruited units is? I mean like gendarmes and demi lancers. They are just as expensive and less powerful than the earlier feudal stuff, so why use them? Just for the convenience of having them in cities?

**D.B. Cooper** · February 17, 2009, 11:41 PM

If you're talking about militiamen, I use them because upkeep is free so long as they're in the city.

**Glory** · February 17, 2009, 11:54 PM

Originally Posted by D.B. Cooper

If you're talking about militiamen, I use them because upkeep is free so long as they're in the city.

He's not.

He's talking about professional units, Gendarmes, Demi-Lancers, etc.

**Nazgûl Killer** · February 17, 2009, 11:58 PM

I can find many reasons why to use them, the question is what do you want;
1) City-trained units can be very tough, and I personally love Gendarms.
2) They can be upgraded with armor and swords much further than other units I think.
3) They are a reliable quick source of reinforcements to the front lines if you don't have a castle near your battle grounds.
4) They are soooo coooool.
5) I can give you examples of strong city made units: Scots Guard are pretty rigged, Gendarms are wickedly sick, they freaking faced off with Templar knights and ripped them to shreds! The Italian Militia units, and so on and so on.
6) If you need to promptly defend your city at... Say Frankfurt, and your entire army is at Poland/Hungary/Italy/France/Denmark, what do you do? Summon those city-made units!

(This was all just an example)

Downfalls:
1) Expensive.
2) Cities don't have the proper bonus giving buildings in them like Jousting Fields or whatever, so they don't get a spawn-made bonus.
3) They are a, no variety.

So, for me, 6v3 (Actually, it's 5v3 since "they're so coool" isn't really an argument) makes it decisive, I can find more good than bad in making those units... It all depends on your style of game though, and how much you like those units.

GENDARMS RULE!

**dynamo** · February 18, 2009, 06:24 AM

I agree, a lot of the city units are really cool looking, I love the broken lances, I just wish they were a bit more powerful. Do upgrades late in the game put them ahead of feudal knights or something?

**sinosleep** · February 18, 2009, 07:09 AM

When using factions like Venice, Sicily, or Milan you can have an absolutely ridiculous economy by going with 100% cities being as you can recruit extremely powerful crossbowmen as well as fairly powerful heavy infantry and cavalry on top of top notch artillery and gunpowder units directly from your cities without having any need for castles at all.

**DeMolay** · February 18, 2009, 07:22 AM

i didn' test it in the game , so i'm probably wrong , but in theory , late city professional units should be more disciplined generally speaking ( maybe thx to buildings like military academies ) , meaning that when you are on the battlefield and assign them to attack a specific unit , they should obey your order and don't charge without orders another unit closer to them like it often happens with some feudal knight units or Order's units . Also like said Nazgul , city unit get access to better armour rating so that's always nice when your city is well developped

**Muagan_ra** · February 18, 2009, 12:18 PM

The Milaneese and Venetians have fantastic militia units, and the Turks best troops (among the best in the whole game) the Janissaries are all trained from cities. There are many factions for whom the reverse is true - what is the point in using "professional" troops from castles when your playing as Turkey, or the Italians?

**Nikos** · February 18, 2009, 12:21 PM

The Byzantines also get Byzantine Infantry and Varangian guards from cities.

**Nazgûl Killer** · February 18, 2009, 03:33 PM

I have a question, who repped me and what do you mean? o.o

**jsktrogdor** · February 18, 2009, 03:43 PM

If I remember correctly the demi-lancers have better stats than Hobliars (england was the last campaign I played). I always kept 2 units of Hobilars in my army even as I was using english knights and retinue longbowman because the light calvary can run down routers more effectivly and can catch generals on the run. I started replacing the hobliars with demi lancers as soon as I could.

**svenn42** · February 18, 2009, 05:45 PM

The Spanish get Tercio Pikemen, which are the best pikemen available to the Spanish, and the french get mounted archers, which are very useful for doing a lot of damage to infantry before other units engage them

**claudius2007** · February 19, 2009, 04:16 PM

City units can form pretty durable armies actually especially if you are playing as one of the Italian factions (maybe not so much Sicily that has superb professional troops) or Spain/Portugal. Gunpowder units, pikemen, Gendermes, even Knights Templar if you have a templar establishment can all be trained in cities.

**StalkAndStrike** · February 19, 2009, 05:21 PM

ALthough they look amazing, most of them dont even perform better than "unprofessional" units...but I use them anyways when I try to make an army of muskateers and cannons, they blend in with the new crew much better !