Why Don't The Byzantines Have Armour Piercing Ability?

[Exarch]

save for the varangian guard, the byzantines don't have any armour piercing units, which makes mid to late game battles against enemy catholic factions that much tougher?

it almost seems like the byzantines are scripted to 'die'

don't believe me?
check out their stats
http://totalwar.honga.net/faction_un...tw&f=byzantium

the upsides to this is the historicity, since it's encouraged me to have to rely heavily on mercenaries-which the historical byzantines relied on a lot

[Silverheart]

I totally agree. And perhaps the byzantines are designed to rely on mercenaries, for historical accuracy - many of their professional soldiers are mercenaries (Trebizond archers, Latinkon, Varangian guard).

ps.
"historicity" - that´s a new word

[Exarch]

I totally agree. And perhaps the byzantines are designed to rely on mercenaries, for historical accuracy - many of their professional soldiers are mercenaries (Trebizond archers, Latinkon, Varangian guard).

ps.
"historicity" - that´s a new word

an old word
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/historicity

about the need to hire mercs, i don't really mind it come to think of it lol, but by the 1300s, it starts to seem anachronistic pitting latinkin with plate armour wearing knights from the west; at least the serbian knights are pretty cool lol

it'd be nice if the vardariotai had AP ability<sigh>

[D00d]

Cataphracts have AP secondary weapons (maces). You don't need many types of units with AP as your army will most likely consist of one heavy infantry type, one archer type, one heavy cavalry type... Use Varangians as your inf and Cataphracts as your cav and you'll have plenty of AP attacks.

[Exarch]

ah, not my style
i like to use a lot of archers, and supplement them with merc crossbows for their AP ability and 4 units of HA or vardariotai with 3 units of heavy cavalry latinkon for speedy smashing; kataphracts are too damn slow and they don't always follow orders.
varangians are very very good. they're so badass

[Double A]

ah, not my style
i like to use a lot of archers, and supplement them with merc crossbows for their AP ability and 4 units of HA or vardariotai with 3 units of heavy cavalry latinkon for speedy smashing; kataphracts are too damn slow and they don't always follow orders.
varangians are very very good. they're so badass

They're slow because they are literal tanks. One unit of Kataphractoi can pretty much single-handedly supply the anvil for hammer and anvil tactics, assuming they aren't being attacked by spearmen or AP cavalry.

They are INSANE.

And do you really need AP weapons as Byzies? In my experience, 19 Horse Archers and a high-dread general will kill anything short of elephants in about 10 volleys. AP really isn't that important. It's nice to have, but swordsmen are still a good alternative.

Oh. And you forgot Greek Fire. That has AP. Because, you know, it's fire.

horse archers are effective but without AP, enemy crossbowmen can lay waste to them;

and sometimes some classes of crossbowmen can be fairly tough so that alan cavalry may end up the loser in an engagement with crossbowmen

You see, there's this thing I like to call "alt+right click." Viola, no more pesky crossbowmen.

[Ezilkannan]

Well maybe they thought that it would best to be more historical accurate so that byzzie players would recruit mercenaries as byzantine always used to do that.

If you are still worried about that, edit your units by adding ap ability, then you would become unstoppable

[Silverheart]

I actually don´t think the varangians are powerful enough. But that might just be because I´ve never seem perform very well myself, not even when the enemy uses them.
Only once, in the Kingoms: Crusades-campaign, when they defended a city gate admirably.
That actually made me wonder: were they changed/improved in any way in the Crusades campaign, or is that just my imagination?

[D00d]

It's not your imagination. All troops with 2-handed weapons are better in version 1.5 (Kingdoms or any mods based on Kingdoms) than in 1.3 (vanilla Med2).

[Silverheart]

So it IS the "2H-effect" that holds them back in the original!
Then that´s why they´ve never done anything impressive in my games...

Too bad, though. I really like the Varangians (both the historical and the ones in the game), so I like recruiting them as byzantines, but in the game they always perform much worse than I expect.

[painter]

They weren't that bad. The Varangian Guards were about on par with Unhorsed Knights.

[Leaf-Fan-Forever]

In the Crusades campaign, the Varangians defense is bumped up to 20, and there attck is lowered slighty to 19. There also like this in the Retrofit Mod, so I prefer playing the Byzantines in that Mod than Vanilla.

[Surgeon]

You can always get a mod which adds the new Byzantine units from the Crusades campaign, they get a bunch of AP units there.

[Medkirtys]

Who cares, use HA and rule the world

[Czin]

Who cares, use HA and rule the world

Then encounter the speed bump that is a walled city or castle. It takes no small amount of skill to be able to use horse archers with proficiency (as in not dying in large numbers and hitting your own troops more than the enemy) inside of a city or castle in my experience, though once you get used to it, it becomes much easier to use them in the confined space that streets offer. But of course, cities are where Siphonophores and Varangian Guardsmen truly excel, just make sure you know what you're doing when you're using the Siphonophores, using them in a mediocre fashion makes typically results in them becoming rather expensive dead weight, using them poorly typically results in triple digit friendly fire casualty counts. Of course I'm just going off of memory here since it's been a while since I last played the game.

[Miroslav Klose]

With or without those AP's, the Byzzies just rule.

[Exarch]

horse archers are effective but without AP, enemy crossbowmen can lay waste to them;

and sometimes some classes of crossbowmen can be fairly tough so that alan cavalry may end up the loser in an engagement with crossbowmen

[PrestigeX]

Byzantine Kataphractoi have maces do they not?

I realize they're quite awlful in Vanilla, but in some of the mods I've played where 2-handed units have been fixed, and pikes work, and horse units are A - more expensive , but B - far more effective (Afterall, they're on horses!!) the kataphractoi are like tanks - they're slow and easier targets for archers but once they enter the fray you'd better use 2 heavy cav units to have any chance of taking them out.

Besides, they can recruit trebizond/byzantine guard archers which can Fight effectively in melee, recruit very good units in cities, and have some of the best horse archers.

You can make a byzantine army full of heavy horse, horse archers, and foot archers -- mimic of the mongols and beat the pants off any european faction. Use byzantine infantry or dismounted latikon for sieges...

[Exarch]

lol, nah i prefer to be as realistic as possible and the infrequent availability of mercs makes playing the byzantines a lot of fun

[Double A]

Merc-heavy armies typically cost a lot more to recruit and maintain than ones you recruit regularly. Plus the greedy bastards take all the loot from sieges.