Couple of questions

[JuJooGuppy]

Hi there!,

These are just a couple quick questions I never really figured out on my own while playing thus far, so I thought I'd ask. This is on vanilla game, HRE is my faction.

1. Halberd militia - Are these guys worthwhile at all? How do they compare to town / spear militia? Any bonuses / disadvantages?

2. Forlorn hope - I did read somewhere that these guys are pretty weak compared to almost everything else... Is this true? I noticed only 45 units in a group, so that is kind of a worry, especially if they are not very effective to begin w/..

3. Dismounted Imperial knights vs Fuedel Knights - I noticed the Imp. knights have lower stats, but they also say they are effective against armor, so how true is this? Are they a lot more effective against armor than the F. Knights?

Eh, I think that is it for now. Many thanks!

[Avatar]

1. Personally I think Halberd militia, at least the HRE incarnation, are some sort of joke put in by the developers, but then I've never been a big fan of pike units to begin with. Other people will tell you that they make a quite effective defensive unit if managed correctly.

2. Forlorn Hope are far from being a weak unit, you just have to bear in mind they are a smaller unit size. Also if you are playing the vanilla version of the game they may be suffering from the infamous 2 handed weapon bug with severely limits their effectiveness on walls and similar.

3. "effective against armor" basically halves the armor stat of whomever the unit is fighting. Against other knights or similar tin cans, that makes a very big difference. Its one of the major reasons that many people consider Venetian Heavy infantry to be the best infantry unit in the game, even though many others have higher raw stats.

[Silverheart]

1. Halberd Militia is pretty much the forerunner to Pikemen - they are useful for stopping charges, and can be very effective when defending gates and wall breaches.
Disadvantages over Spear Militia is that they have lower stats, are less disciplined (however that´s possible... But what I mean is that they often switch to their secondary weapon, rendering them nigh worthless - disabling their secondary weapon makes them much more reliable) and often die quicker.
Advantages are that their halberds make them very strong against armoured and mounted foes, two things which can easily overrun common militia.
Personally, I always use both Halberd Militia and Spear Militia in tandem with each other - you can use the Spears to soak up damage, while having the Halberds march through their lines and press the enemy back.

2. Forlorn Hope are your typical two-hander unit - they pack a big punch, but are too slow to survive in a real melee against other professionals.
Their low numbers also puts them at a disadvantage. They work best as frontline soldiers, charging in first with more well-rounded soldiers following directly.
I have once taken a Large Town with two units of Forlorn Hope doing most of the killing by sending one unit around to attack the defenders in the back.

3. Dismounted Imperial Knights are effective against armour because they wield maces - regular Dismounted Feudal Knights are not effective against armour, because they wield swords. DFKs are more effective standing on walls and fighting infantry of the same or less quality, while the DIKs are better for charging and for taking out enemy elite troops.

[JuJooGuppy]

Perfect, your responses were clear and to the point, and re-affirm what I had kind of already seen while playing, I just wanted to know more about it.

I guess w/ the Forlorn Hope thing, where I had stated I hear they were weak, I think I had just read that there was that animation bug that could severally cripple them. What exactly is that if I may ask, what is the bug and what triggers it typically?

I had loaded up a quick battle of 1 Forlorn v 1 French Armored Sergeants, just on High difficulty (wasnt sure if game difficulty gave the AI boosted stats or just better tactics) and let them duke it out pretty much straight out, and actually won the battle, so I was actually fairly impressed w/ them. I mean it was 45 v 112. They were down to about 16 though, but a lot of that had to do w/ the charges I think. Seemed like once the two were dug in and fighting, the Forlorn stopped dying and the A. Sgt's started taking losses quickly, and would retreat to charge again. Just what I saw.

I am glad they are not useless though, I've always had a special place in my heart for claymores/greatswords


Thanks again for the fast and precise responses. Even though I have been doing good against the AI, these are helpful to know, especially if I ever make my way online.

Are there still quite a few playing online? More accurately, playing Vanilla online?



Thanks!!,

Sir JuJoo Guppy

[Avatar]

Units with 2 handed weapons suffer from the attack animation speed not being as fast as it should be, so they are less effective in attack than they should be. In open battle if they can charge at their opponents it doesnt usually matter so much, but it becomes a nightmare in sieges because fighting on walls reduces the space they have, and less individual soldiers can get involved.

[Aeratus]

The problem with the two-handed weapons is not only because their animation speed is slow, but also because their attack is easily interrupted during the attack sequence. That's why two handed units all lose badly to top one-handed units such as the dismounted chivalric knight. Of course, two handed units can still beat armored sergeants, because the latter is a spear units, which is weak in infantry melee to begin with.

In addition, the charge mechanics in vanilla is bugged in that the "charge bonus" has little or no effect. So two-handed units aren't any better than one-handed units in charging, despite their higher charge bonus.

In the Kingdoms expansion pack, two-handed weapons are rebalanced by giving them much higher stats than one-handed units, to compensate for the inferiority of the two-handed animation. Furthermore, the "charge bonus" is fixed, giving twohanders much better charges.

[JuJooGuppy]

Awesome. Thanks a lot everyone.