HRE Knights and Their Ineptness

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Ditto. HRE seems to be surrounded with factions having better cavalry. The French, who have the best cavalrymen in the West from the time they can recruit Feudal Knights on, and even the Italian urban factions have better quality cavalry than them. At least when it comes to Feudal Knights.

To my surprise, not only are HRE Feudal Knights notoriously poor in quality (in pair with nations recognized for a general ineptness in cavalry such as Scotland and Denmark), but that also applies to their later Knights too! Imperial Knights are inferior in moral and discipline stats from practically all their neighbours, and Gothic Knights stand no chance against equal level heavy cavalry.

Is there any justification for the suckiness of HRE cavalry?

[VINC.XXIII]

if it was only the stats or unit name...
probably all the vanilla knights should be just forgotten, included jousting lance, 1250's healmes with plate armor, and such heresy

The terrifiying french knights():
http://www.playingzone.com/images/je...al_war_sc2.jpg

50 euros for play the Blue Forces, the Red Forces, the Purple Forces....we players are good samaritans for CA,

God Bless the Modding

[k/t]

Historical accuracy, according to Point Blank himself.

Imperial and Gothic Knights will still do rather well because of their maces.

[Amakusa Shiro]

What evidence is there of unreliable gothic knights? Even so, they may have been caught in bad situations or bad leadership. Defeats shouldn't be indicative of ineptitude, given the volitile nature of pre modern warfare.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

probably all the vanilla knights should be just forgotten, included jousting lance, 1250's healmes with plate armor, and such heresy

A total reskin would be desirable, but demand a lot of labour.

Historical accuracy, according to Point Blank himself.

Interesting. Which sources say this?

[k/t]

You'll have to ask him.

[ITC]

Who is Point Blank?

Google says nothing.

[Gogolometro]

Blasfemy!

[Phil of Loreauville]

Who is Point Blank?

Google says nothing.

You don't know who Point Blank IS?????????

Google says nothing.

Of Course Not!
He's Un-Googleable!

[Ichon]

I don't know if it is a matter of HRE having such poor cavalry as French were famous for their knights and Poland also. Hungary with Magyars does have great light cavalry but nothing special heavy. Denmark, England, Norway, Aragon, Hungary, Rus factions... none have outstanding heavy cavalry compared to the best French, Polish, and Italians. Of course the Italians have crap cavalry until nearly 1500s while Castile gets access to normal cavalry and very good religious orders which HRE also has access to some of those. Basically only French, Sicily, and Polish have anything special heavy cavalry and Sicily and Polish only because of how early they get it. HRE cavalry are still better than any others with AP melee weapons except French, late Italians, and Knight Orders. HRE also has nearly the best selection of cavalry getting nearly every type of cavalry available except horse archers.

Aragon, Portugal, Hungary, Lithuania, some others have great light cavalry but not so amazing heavy cavalry by stats. Thought they have some of the coolest looking heavy cavalry with better special abilities. If you look at the 1 vs 1 battles HRE Gothic Knights are one of the best cavalries. Less than 2-3 others can beat them.

[DochtorGajo]

Ditto. HRE seems to be surrounded with factions having better cavalry. The French, who have the best cavalrymen in the West from the time they can recruit Feudal Knights on, and even the Italian urban factions have better quality cavalry than them. At least when it comes to Feudal Knights.

To my surprise, not only are HRE Feudal Knights notoriously poor in quality (in pair with nations recognized for a general ineptness in cavalry such as Scotland and Denmark), but that also applies to their later Knights too! Imperial Knights are inferior in moral and discipline stats from practically all their neighbours, and Gothic Knights stand no chance against equal level heavy cavalry.

Is there any justification for the suckiness of HRE cavalry?

Is this a joke? HRE has best cavalry in game from experience. (no math involved)

Both Gothic knights and Imperial knights are extremely cheap for what they can do. Both can defeat lancers without problems not to speak about anything else. The only other as strong and cheap cavalry in game are english knights and scholarii (stronger, more expensive.)

Discipline and big number for attack with lance are both useless in game. You dont need discipline if other unit has no chance to defeat them and I have almost never seen GK running from my cavalry unless theyre really outnumbered despite their on-paper extremely bad discipline. It happens and you can defeat them badly with most of them running through morale impact but thats fairy tail situation that never happens in real battle be it mp or campaign. And GKs 5 or lancers 8 for lance attack make no difference...either its ordered charge that wipes out whole unit or theyre not ordered and kill like 10 men, no difference, at least no visible difference.
(I still dont understand how unit in musketproof armour cost about 1400 just as some crappy 14th century french knights just because of some labels and +1/-1 things)


From historical point of view I can speak only for period of about 1430-1600 as thats my area of interest- well there are really few examples of french cavalry (I cant name single one) running from german cavalry in battle untill the appearence of reiters. (Ironically theyre useless in SS while they should be ultimate cavalry) It was french pride in this period as they had professional and well organized cavalry force unequalled untill the adoption of pistol (for details look into french religious wars where there are plenty of examples of pistoliers defeating lancers without problems) If my understanding is right german nobility was more plentifull but poorer than french so they basically werent able to put significant numbers of men with high quality armoured horses to the field and preferred deeper columns to en haie formation of french gendarmes (single rank plus additional ranks of lighter cavalry as support)

Actually if you play as HRE just get either GKs or IKs into wedge and either avoid enemy cavalry charging your unit head on or just run to the side as they attack and theyll stop without doing damage (little dirty trick) Then just run through them from one side to the other several times and theyre finished with almost no casualties (GK) or light to medium ones (IK). And for the best result when charging infantry allways charge from such a distance that they dont run just lower their lances and then start to charge. This works like charm at least for me.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Is this a joke? HRE has best cavalry in game from experience. (no math involved)

Just to prove what I am saying, I have pitted Imperial Knights against equivalent level heavy cavalry from the HRE's neighbours.

Imperial Knights vs. French Chivalric Knights: French win, Imperials got massacred.
Imperial Knights vs. Polish Knights: Polish win.
Imperial Knights vs. King's Men: King's Men win.
Imperial Knights vs. Denmark Chivalric Knights: Denmark Chivalric Knights win.
Imperial Knights vs. Italian Men at Arms: Imperial Knights barely win.

What does that mean? Combine this with the all too apparent stat weakness of HRE Feudal Knights, and you get uncontrovertible proof of HRE cavalry inferiority, at least on the 1 vs 1. The Feudal Cavalry of the HRE, in fact, is on the level of Professional Heavy Cavalry accessible to all their neighbours, except they cost more.

So, as a matter of fact, HRE has all the weaknesses of a feudal army minus their strongpoints. The French might have sucky infantry until they can pump in professionals and mercenaries at a decent rate, but at least their cavalry, from Feudal Knights on, is the best cavalry in the West.

HRE, however, have weak infantry compounded by an uninspiring missile roster and weak knights accross the game's timeframe. They have nothing to truly rely upon. This is only offset by the cheaper cost of HRE knights, but even that is irrelevant given that their recruitment rate is equal to all Feudals.

In sum, HRE is indeed, at a disadvantage.

[Polycarpe]

Better to do a major research on that matter, it is true France had the best cavalry in the West but were pretty bad in early period.

• France had 3 major military reforms, only the third one has finally put France to his golden age in military warfare and finally pushed back England from France in the Hundred Years War.
• France was based on non-professional troops, mostly militia called "The Arrière-Ban". The core of their armies and were pretty pathetic.
• The social status of France compared to England was a great distinction and one of the main reason why France had weak armies. If you were born in a non-noble class in France, only under exceptional cases, you couldn't advance in the hierarchy therefore being too poor to own decent equipment and training. Compared to England which you could advance from a freemen to even nobility.
• France had many internal conflicts (as the HRE), they were so scared of peasant revolts that the French Lords didn't allow the peasants to have a crossbow in their possession.
• French Cavalry was their main strength but only really the nobility (aka knights) were the cavalry force of France. Vanity was their weakness, thinking they are superior therefore very less disciplined than English of German knights. (The best example is the "Battle of Agincourt")
• France; they have suffered more defeats than victory in their history (Middle Age speaking), German were more dangerous than the French but due to the Empire instability, their superiority decreased slightly.
• I don't get the idea that German knights were weaker than any other Western knights, in fact the only difference was their were more independent than other kingdoms due to the Empire's organisation. More difficult to summon them with the Call-to-Arm but were very disciplined and equivalent to those of England and fairly very well equipped (thanks to the conquest of Italy)

So we could do a better research on the HRE cuz imo, they have the worst Western roster (aside Scotland) in SS and quite innacurate as well. So what do you think?

[ITC]

If you've tested this on vh/vh, then it's ok )
Even Ritterbruders will lose to Polish Knights on vh/vh, because of AI bonuses gained.

[ihranator]

But they look so cool!

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

IIRC, the Arriere-Ban was mostly for emergency situations (it was actually called for defensive purposes for the last time in the 17th century). Same for all feudal levies: it was nigh impossible to conduct a lasting offensive campaign with them.

So there were not really "hordes and hordes" of light infantry together with the Knights. The core of most armies from the period is already that of heavy and small semi-professional mercenary forces supported by Knights.

In many exceptional cases, eg. Legnano, there's mention of only knights on the Imperial side.

In Bouvines, however, we see militias formed up from urban contigents. These were good militias, carrying pikes, spears, and crossbows; so your theory that commoners could not be well armed simply doesn't make any sense.

And it should also be noticed that French cavalry was not exceptionally more hot headed than the others. There are several occasions where they wanted to get the glory's share alone (Courtrai and Crecy), but that did not mean compulsiveness was on their list. In the battle of Muret, for instance, instead of charging headlong, they formed a tactical reserve.

BUT in fact, going back to the thread's main focus, yes, I haven't seen or read anything yet about the weakness of HRE knights. If anything they should be at least average, not on pair with the French and Poles, but at least better than Scandinavians, Scots and Italians.

[Polycarpe]

IIRC, the Arriere-Ban was mostly for emergency situations (it was actually called for defensive purposes for the last time in the 17th century). Same for all feudal levies: it was nigh impossible to conduct a lasting offensive campaign with them.

So there were not really "hordes and hordes" of light infantry together with the Knights. The core of most armies from the period is already that of heavy and small semi-professional mercenary forces supported by Knights.

In many exceptional cases, eg. Legnano, there's mention of only knights on the Imperial side.

In Bouvines, however, we see militias formed up from urban contigents. These were good militias, carrying pikes, spears, and crossbows; so your theory that commoners could not be well armed simply doesn't make any sense.

And it should also be noticed that French cavalry was not exceptionally more hot headed than the others. There are several occasions where they wanted to get the glory's share alone (Courtrai and Crecy), but that did not mean compulsiveness was on their list. In the battle of Muret, for instance, instead of charging headlong, they formed a tactical reserve.

BUT in fact, going back to the thread's main focus, yes, I haven't seen or read anything yet about the weakness of HRE knights. If anything they should be at least average, not on pair with the French and Poles, but at least better than Scandinavians, Scots and Italians.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough cuz I've wrote too quickly

It depends on which timeframe we talk about, what I mean "commoners" also include the militia which did form a large part of French army. But they couldn't be relied upon due to their lack of professionalism or their availability (harvest season of the most part). The lords would rely on mercenaries until the mid 14th with the rise of professional armies.

But it also depends on the culture, for instance, the Leidangr, a scandinavian levy organisation was mostly based upon these levies and were superior than other levied force in Europe due to their innate military culture. A great portion of their army was made of Leidangr but men who haven't war as their main job is more expensive and difficult to control.

When I mean the lack of equipment, I mean their equipment couldn't be compared to professional troops, the Men-at-Arm or the nobility due to the cost of equipment. But again, culture will influence this, think of Flanders or the Italian which had a magnificient militia organization, very well trained and could even be compared to sergeants!

Back on HRE, in the current EDU, the "German knights" have the same stats as Scotland, Denmark and Italian feudal knights. I would suggest to compare them to English Knights at least, they did have a strong cavalry in Germany. But really, it was in Late Middle Age and renaissance that France, and HRE become very strong, the Reiter or the Landsknecht (Maximillian Military Reform -1490).

[Ichon]

Are Imperial Knights so weak? I never noticed it actually. HRE has access to most types of cavalry except Chivalric Knights and the Imperials have AP and only 3 less attack but AP makes a huge difference. Imperials also have more armor than Chivalric. HRE has a bit of weakness in the early professional period but not too bad and grows in strength later. If Imperials get some XP their AP ability scales up much stronger than Chivalric Knights. French Chivalric Knights should be quite strong... before that I agree with Poly that French weren't that distinguished by battles won or lost at least in Europe. If you look at Normans as 'French' and different Frankish mercenaries all over the world though they had quite good reputation so I don't know if you can say the losses in France were due to the knights or the command structure and use of support troops.

I do think Imperial Knights could get at least +1 stat in the melee attack since the Imperial Foot Knights have 6 and they should just be foot versions of the mounted so it doesn't quite make sense. Otherwise Feudal knights are a bit weak but the same as Denmark, Norway, and Scotland while Poland and Teutons have uniques instead of Feudals which have quite low armor. So with 13 Catholic factions HRE has Feudals in the lower 5 but it has Imperials which are actually quite good in my opinion but could be improved to match the Imperial Foot Knights and they would be much more dominant with that change. Later periods HRE has some of the best cavalry- Gothic Knights, Reiters, access to Teutonic knight order, Mounted Aquibusiers, etc.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I haven't tested the Foot Knights. Actually, it might be even better to recruit them for the HRE, since I don't believe they share the mounted cavalry's many weaknesses.

And theoretically, of course, the Imperial Knights could crush their neighbours due to AP maces. That's why I've chosen to test them instead of the HRE Feudal Knights, which are just watered down cavalry. To my surprise, on Medium, they lost all their attempts against equal level Feudal cavalry.

As such, there's really no justification for the HRE player to resort to a backbone of mounted forces. Instead, the HRE is a kind of weaker England in this regard, until they get decent pikemen at least.

[merocaine]

Imp Knights should not engage in lance on lance charges with enemy knights, esp French Knights, who are excellent in the charge. Melee is the key for Imp knights, this is where there AP maces put them at a big advantage against sword armed Knights.
German Feudal on the other hand are rubbish.