Did the game just screw me over?

**Unbreakable212** · May 15, 2012, 02:41 PM

After a travesty of a battle that I felt extremely confident about against scotland, i'm gobsmacked by how powerful the border horse unit actually is, although it seemed scotland had massive help from the game itself. Here's the army setup, playing as england.

My army with my faction heir 3 chevrons, 6 spear militia 2 chevrions and 5 peasant archers one chevron for 4 and one without. Scottish armies (3 of them) Garrison consisting of Family Member and one town militia, town militia had one chevron, 2nd army had 4 highlanders one chevron each, 3 town militia and 3 spear militia, two decimated border horse (Under 20 men each) and one highlander archers at about 66 men. Last army had One unit of border horse at 80 men and two town militia.

So those were the armies lined up to do battle and the battle begins! The garrison army immediately sallys out, as their FM charges in I send my general against him and immediately support him with FOUR units of spear militia, after awhile the town militia unit draws near so I withdrew my general and sent him against them. Town militia takes huge losses (down to 30 men) and withdraws, whilst this is going on the border horse units from each reinforcing army are drawing near, my last two spear militia I place in their way and put them in schiltrom formation and wait for them to throw themselves against our shields and spears.

Wrong. The border horse unit of 80 hits the spear militia in schiltrom, and plow straight through it, take 10 losses and completely eradicate the spear militia, the other two units of border horse are having a tougher time but manage to do the same, but both are down to under 10 men. Whilst this is occuring both main forces from reinforcing armies are drawing closer so I line my archers up further back, I notice my four remaining spears are taking massive losses against the single general who has lost about 5 men, after roughly 2 minutes of fighting, 3 units are down to under 50 men and one is down to 90 or so (I understand how powerful the general unit can be, but bogged down + surrounded by four units of spearmen, even militia? Really? Though i zoomed in on the carnage to notice my units not really attacking, just stuck on the enemy horses constantly running in the "charge" animation, couldn't get them to stop)

Anyway, send my general in to fight their general as I use my peasant archers to fire on the 70 border horse who are oddly just idling behind the mass of spearmen, get them to about 40 men before they charge into the spears causing two to rout, as i redirect my archer fire to the highland archers that had just gotten within firing range, quickly rout them with minimal losses. Two spear units left, one gets eradicated, last one has about 60 men left with Shaken morale, manage to get the border horse unit to about 7 men before they rout and the general unit is at about 20, still fighting, whereas my general is at about 27. Soon after my spear unit routs, with about 50 men, try to Rally, doesn't work, enemy general then goes on to fight my general, killing him, but losing all bodyguards except the general himself, he routs, Main enemy army arrives, send bodyguards against it (Now with 5 chevrons) cause huge losses to 3 units of highlanders. The rest of the battle was the enemy trying to get to my archers before routing and failing, end of the battle I managed to win although with losses to my archers, each at about 100 with one that had only 47.

Anyway, massive rant & wall of text over. Are border horse really that strong? I know a cavalry charge is powerful but against spearmen in schiltrom? I understand militia are easily not the best units to be using (This was very early, about 10 turns in) but they usually beat enemy cavalry without too much trouble unless its a general. And my four units of spearmen who were "Fighting" but actually just endlessly charging, what the hell was that about? I couldn't get them to stop, once they were engaged/stuck on the enemy general they just ignored any order i gave to them. Massive rant, /over.

**Ferdiad** · May 15, 2012, 04:39 PM

One question, what difficulty are you playing on?

**Unbreakable212** · May 15, 2012, 04:52 PM

Hard campaign and Very Hard battle difficulty, the AI don't get damage,defence & morale bonuses like in Rome... do they?...

**Ferdiad** · May 15, 2012, 05:18 PM

Not sure of the exact numbers but they do get some sort of bonus.

**Sitalkes** · May 15, 2012, 06:32 PM

Well I thought that border horse were javelin cavalry but I would not expect schiltron to be a good anti-cavalry formation as you need all the spears pointing at the cavalry in depth (four ranks I think) and superior numbers to defeat them. A schiltron can still move, perhaps the cavalry hit the schiltron while they were moving? Militia spears either get no anti-cavalry bonus or a bonus of +4 as opposed to +8 for other units. You also mentioned charging cavalry with spears - you should be standing still if the cavalry are charging you. Tell the unit to "stop"and it will fight the cavalry best.

**Unbreakable212** · May 15, 2012, 07:02 PM

Border horse are scotlands light cav - I thought schiltrom would be effective as historically it was a formation to ward off cavalry attacks + a ring of shields with spears poking out everywhere, Though it would decimate border horse seeing as they ARE light cavalry.. Hmm i thought spear militia got "Bonus fighting cavalry"?

Yeah about my spearmen charging it was weird, the enemy general was already in combat with mine, surrounded him on 3 sides with my spearmen, told them to attack and then they just... charged and never stopped really, wouldn't stop or move away even when I ordered them. (Just for the record, enemy general wasn't charging at my spears, my spears were just... stuck on their units charging doing nothing but running even while being attacked)

**tudor93** · May 16, 2012, 06:20 AM

Originally Posted by Ferdiad

Not sure of the exact numbers but they do get some sort of bonus.

they get only stamina and morale bonuses

Originally Posted by Sitalkes

Well I thought that border horse were javelin cavalry but I would not expect schiltron to be a good anti-cavalry formation as you need all the spears pointing at the cavalry in depth (four ranks I think) and superior numbers to defeat them. A schiltron can still move, perhaps the cavalry hit the schiltron while they were moving? Militia spears either get no anti-cavalry bonus or a bonus of +4 as opposed to +8 for other units. You also mentioned charging cavalry with spears - you should be standing still if the cavalry are charging you. Tell the unit to "stop"and it will fight the cavalry best.

schildrom (or whatever ...) is a very good formation against cavalry
and the spear militia get +4 bonus I think (+8 get the professional spearmen like seargents from castles, right ? )

I'm also surprised how powerful the light cavalry is ... in SS (yeah, I know you are talking about vanilla, but RR (submod for SS) is supossed to reflect the RL stats of the units) border horse defeated my upgraded spear militia that were in schildrom formation; I know they are just militia, but come on ! they had 3 armor upgrades and were charged by light cavalry, LIGHT God damn it !
well I trust the SS moders and historians, so maybe militia really were pure crap back then

**Kabeloko** · May 15, 2012, 07:26 PM

do you have kingdoms 1.5 installed? because m2tw 1.0 is very unbalanced and got some bugs... so expect these kind of things on very hard...

i wish i understood the engine better to give you a decent explanation, but all i can suggest is buying the expansion and download mods that fixes that kind of stuff...

**Duke Dolphin** · May 16, 2012, 09:29 AM

I can second this, Border horse seem to destroy my units, or at least halve them before withdrawing.....many dfk's have been lost to them:'(

**Maklodes** · May 16, 2012, 10:25 AM

Most spear militia have a +8 anti-cavalry bonus. Only Eastern European spear militia (used by Hungary, Poland, and Russia) have a +4 anti-cavalry bonus. (EE spear militia is basically identical to the town militia of NW European countries like the HRE, England, etc. Eastern European town militia is even worse.)

However, given the poor base stats of non-Italian spear militia, even a +8 anti-cavalry bonus only goes so far.

**Ferdiad** · May 16, 2012, 04:19 PM

Spear Militia are people that got some a spear and shield shoved into their hands. They are barely better than peasants and any cav would be capable of defeating them.

**Maklodes** · May 16, 2012, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by Ferdiad

Spear Militia are people that got some a spear and shield shoved into their hands. They are barely better than peasants and any cav would be capable of defeating them.

And Border Horse are untrained Scots on ponies looking for loot rather than battle. They are barely better than a herd of feral ponies and any spearmen would be capable of defeating them.

In all seriousness, Border Horse and Spear Militia are almost comparable in cost and maintenance. Spear militia costs 310 and has 125 florin maintenance. Border horse costs 390 and has 150 florin maintenance.

Spear militia are supposed to be especially good against cavalry, compared to their general performance level. I'd say that, unless the border horse is very well lead and experienced, or the spear militia very poorly lead and experienced, it should be a tough fight. Border horse should not be able to easily defeat spear militia -- maybe after a grueling fight that leaves both sides depleted, one could emerge victorious, but that doesn't sound like what Unbreakable212 wrote.

However, given that this was very hard difficulty, I'm not too surprised. The AI does get pretty big bonuses at that point.

One thing to keep in mind: spear militia are unarmored by default. They can upgrade all the way to heavy mail, but just upgrading to leather makes a big difference. The armor claims to be upgraded from 0 to 1 on the unit cards, but tests seem to indicate that the armor goes from something more like from 0 to 4 when upgraded to leather/padding. (Leather to light mail is more like 4 to 5, and light mail to heavy mail is more like 5 to 7) So if you're going to use lots of spear militia, a 600 florin leather tanner could be a very good investment. Border horse already has leather armor.

**Sitalkes** · May 16, 2012, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Maklodes

I'd say that, unless the border horse is very well lead and experienced, or the spear militia very poorly lead and experienced, it should be a tough fight.

Maybe that's the explanation? I note that the enemy commander was a family member, perhaps he was a good commander and that explains why the enemy troops fought well

**Unbreakable212** · May 17, 2012, 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by Sitalkes

Maybe that's the explanation? I note that the enemy commander was a family member, perhaps he was a good commander and that explains why the enemy troops fought well

Didn't think about that, I think he had about 3 command stars, 2 chivalry and about 5 piety, he was quite young aswell. I'm playing vanilla M2 atm as I need to go pick up my kingdoms order sometime. (YAY) Then i'll probably download SS.

I was just a bit surprised that light cav walked through my spearmen, I might just mod in armoured sergeants for england if i'm determined to continue, hopefully they'll put up a better fight.

**Ishan** · May 16, 2012, 04:41 PM

Militia by default means irregular army made from peasants and commoners. Mounted warfare was feared in the medieval times and could weaken the stomach of even professional infantrymen. Moreover light cavalry had the advantage of agility due to their light armour.

The myth of cavalry might faded when pikes were revived and used successfully by commoners:

In the Middle Ages, the principal users of the pike were urban militia troops such as the Flemings or the peasant array of the lowland Scots. For example, the Scots used a spear formation known as the schiltron in several battles during the Wars of Scottish Independence including the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and the Flemings used their geldon long spear to absorb the attack of French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, before other troops in the Flemish formation counterattacked the stalled knights with Goedendags. Both battles were seen by contemporaries as stunning victories of commoners over superbly equipped, mounted, military professionals, where victory was owed to the use of the pike and the brave resistance of the commoners who wielded them.

^Source