Millitia spearmen and sergeant spearmen

[The Glorious Moldovan]

So this bugs me a little bit,i thought sergeants being stronger a little bit than millitia were supouse to have atleast a small boost in morale.In my french campaign my sergeats get the bonus against cav yet when they charge they rout.How the heck am i supouse to fight heavy cav when my only spearmen are sergeants?

[Rowdytavern]

Wait for Pikemen??

[The Glorious Moldovan]

Wait for Pikemen??

there is this possibility,but i need that province asap,england or denmark could get it..
and its gonna take a while till i am able to create pikemen

[Silverheart]

Keep some light, spendable and easily replaceable infantry in front of them to take the charge - you don´t wanna waste your quality troops on the most dangerous things, you send them in to finish the fight when the enemy is immobilized.

Or, even better, try to counter enemy Cavalry by using Cavalry of your own - Infantry is all in all underpowered compared to Cavalry in this game, so it´s better to match the enemies horsemen with some good-quality riders of your own.
Just make sure not to charge into their charge, or you´ll suffer unnecessary casualties.

[The Glorious Moldovan]

Keeo some light, spendable and easily replaceable infantry in front of them to take the charge - you don´t wanna waste your quality troops on the most dangerous things, you send them in to finish the fight when the enemy is immobilized.

Or, even better, try to counter enemy Cavalry by using Cavalry of your own - Infantry is all in all underpowered compared to Cavalry in this game, so it´s better to match the enemies horsemen with some good-quality riders of your own.
Just make sure not to charge into their charge, or you´ll suffer unnecessary casualties.

hmm thanks i'll try that

[AJenny58]

Schiltron! Then flank with other spearmen and try to surround them so they can't charge again.

[PrestigeX]

The Militia & Sergeants are the standard infantry filler of the game. I would suggest that you get the blacksmith or atleast padded armor before using this troops past the first few turns.

If you keep them in a solid 6 unit formation, they can handle basically everything long enough for you to get your own Horsemen to help out. Thats the job of infantry in the field - protect the crossbowmen/archers, so they can continue firing, absorb charges & maybe take down some of the horse too - until supporting units can enage at will...

Spend money on your own horsemen, and spear militia with blacksmith - this can be your standard infantry troop the whole game - save money on the infantry, spend on the cavalry / missile troops.

The same way a 310 florin spear militia suffers heavy losses from a cav charge or enemy's xbows zoning in on them - is going to happen with the 650 florin infantry too.

The infantry of this game is most valuable in the siege scenario - but for the field battles it's better to go for the easy units like Spear Militia.

[Dave Strider]

Use Armored Sergeants. Or Mercenary Spearmen, actually, as they have better stats than Sergeant Spearmen and are able to be hired pretty much since the game's start.

[Aeratus]

Spearmen in vanilla are a bit underpowered. But one nice feature is that some factions' spearmen can be upgraded to gold armor.

[nhinhonhinho]

Use schiltron and watch their horses drop!

I once made a battle in KGCM (KGCM seem not different than vanilla) where 1 full stack of Estonian Rebel (240/unit) defeated a full stack of Gendarme (150/unit). I lost 2/3 and those Gendarme lost 4/5! There're no tactic just made a huge square of schiltron and some more micro

In the other cases I once used the same tactic in BC (BC famous for its overpower cav charge) and again spearman defeated heavy knights

[tudor93]

Oh well, I play retrofit1.0 + GUAM (vanilla with fixes and more balanced + all the kingdoms units) and the spearmen there are ok, I mean if I charge a unit of armoured sergeant spearmen from the front with mailed/feudal knights I get raped ; you should try it too

[Jianadaren]

...I mean if I charge a unit of armoured sergeant spearmen from the front with mailed/feudal knights I get raped ; you should try it too

Thanks, but I generally go about my day trying to avoid rape.

[... where did it run?]

Seargants do have stronger morale than spear militia. 3 vs 5. "Good morale" trait is shown in unit infocard only from morale level 9. But it doesn't mean it doesn't differ per unit.

Boost your seargants morale with general being near to them, or with greater numbers. This is not RTW, so quantity ussaly goes over quality.

[Double A]

Wait a second, are you charging the cavalry while they are charging your guys? If so, you are pretty much condemning your men to their deaths. Spearmen are only effective against cavalry if they are braced for impact, which is to say, completely still and facing the enemy. Guard mode helps a wee bit. Being on a hill is even better (but that's pretty much universal).

[The Glorious Moldovan]

Wait a second, are you charging the cavalry while they are charging your guys? If so, you are pretty much condemning your men to their deaths. Spearmen are only effective against cavalry if they are braced for impact, which is to say, completely still and facing the enemy. Guard mode helps a wee bit. Being on a hill is even better (but that's pretty much universal).

no,i am charging my spears into the cavalry to get the charge bonus.But from what i've read here and there i thought that spears are efective against cav only when charging

[AJenny58]

no,i am charging my spears into the cavalry to get the charge bonus.But from what i've read here and there i thought that spears are efective against cav only when charging

The cavalry have more mass than the spears. This makes them the unit that gets the most benefit from a head on collision. Imagine trying to stop a train at full speed with a few cars. If the cars drive as fast as they can straight into the front of the train they will get demolished. But if they are parked with brakes on in a dense formation they will have a better chance even though they will still get messed up. Schiltron is the densest formation you can have and therefore the best against cavalry charges. Once the enemy cavalry is stationary you want to charge other spears into their flanks for the bonus.

[spartan dude]

no,i am charging my spears into the cavalry to get the charge bonus.But from what i've read here and there i thought that spears are efective against cav only when charging

Dude heres some advice, when using infantry dont ever get them to charge at cav when they are charging you, have them stand still to brace for the attack, with spears ive always found them to be useful when attacking cav, charge bonus or not

[Aeratus]

Actually, that is not correct. Always charge spearmen into cavalry if the enemy cavalry is charging into the spearmen. Although it makes sense in real life that spearmen can better fight cavalry if they are stationary, this is M2TW, not real life. In M2TW, the only thing that matters is the mount crush effect, and the stats. Mount crush is not affected by whether the spearmen is stationary or moving. On the other hand, the charge bonus increase the stats of the spearmen, so charging makes you no worse off, but better off.

This is one of the aspects of the M2TW "physics engine" that doesn't make sense in real life.

Keep mind mind that the charge bonus for infantry in Vanilla is relatively poor. So in Vanilla, you might notice much difference, but in Kingdoms, it's clear that charging spearmen into cavalry improves their performance.

Also, the above doesn't apply for pikes on guard mode. This is because stationary pikes on guard mode have a different property than when moving (you can see by the diagonal pike of the crouching pikemen).

[AJenny58]

Aeratus, I'm afraid you are wrong. I just tested out your theory and after 15 trials (3 each of charging, stationary, stationary w/ guard mode, schiltron, schiltron w/ guard mode) the only way that I defeated one unit of Mailed Knights with one unit of Seargent Spearmen was in schiltron formation. Charging was by far the worst of the five. Schiltron gave me the most kills and the most time, which would be handy if I had another unit that I could flank with.

[spartan dude]

Yh everytime any infantry charges the charging cav, many bodies go flying the cav just destroy the inf