Spear Militia vs Town Militia

[Zanfib]

Other threads on this topic claim that Town Milita is better against infantry, but is weaker against cavalry. However, when I tested this in custom battle the spear milita were consistantly the victors. This was true with no-upgrades and with max upgrades (the later is not supprising as spear milita can upgrade their armor higher than town milita).

Do town milita have any advantages?

[totalwar_legend]

They are just light infantry. Their stats are lower than spear militia. The only units they can beat normally are peasants and low grade archers. They do alright against light cavalry though.

[ShockBlast]

Did you do your tests with the medium difficulty?High and very high affect the morale of units so every test should be done at medium difficulty.

I hope you tried some mods mate.Vanilla feels like an alfa compared to some of the mods here.

[shikaka]

Do town milita have any advantages?

Free upkeep with basic barracks, while you have to pay upkeep for spear militia.

Generally, try not to use either, except when there is no other choice (like Denmark - no early spearmen to throw against a cavalry charge, just spear militia)

[Zanfib]

They are just light infantry. Their stats are lower than spear militia. The only units they can beat normally are peasants and low grade archers. They do alright against light cavalry though.

Their visible stats are identical to spear milita.

Did you do your tests with the medium difficulty?High and very high affect the morale of units so every test should be done at medium difficulty.

I hope you tried some mods mate.Vanilla feels like an alfa compared to some of the mods here.

I tested them on medium, yes.

As for mods, I normally use concentrated vanilla. I did not use it for the tests as for some reason it does not allow armor upgrades in custom battles.

Free upkeep with basic barracks, while you have to pay upkeep for spear militia.

Generally, try not to use either, except when there is no other choice (like Denmark - no early spearmen to throw against a cavalry charge, just spear militia)

I didn't know that spear milita do not get free upkeep. Kind of makes me wonder why they call them 'milita'.

[Sir Adrian]

Their visible stats are identical to spear milita.

Not true. Also spear militia get free upkeep with level 2 or 3 barracks.

[Zanfib]

Not true. Also spear militia get free upkeep with level 2 or 3 barracks.

French Town Militia

• Soldiers: 75
• Attack: 5
• Charge Bonus: 2
• Weapon Type: Melee
• Total Defence: 7
• Armour: 0
• Defence Skill: 1
• Shield: 6
• Hit Points: 1
• Recruitment Cost: 290

French Spear Militia

• Soldiers: 75
• Attack: 5
• Charge Bonus: 2
• Weapon Type: Melee
• Total Defence: 7
• Armour: 0
• Defence Skill: 1
• Shield: 6
• Hit Points: 1
• Recruitment Cost: 310

The only difference I can see is the cost. Obviously they are different, but the stats don't show this.

[Aeratus]

Spear militia has +8 vs cavalry while town militia only has +4. So right from the start, the stats are different. In addition, I think (but haven't confirmed myself) the spear militia has a higher mass rating than the town militia. Mass affects how likely the soldiers die in the push-back effect of cavalry charges.

Furthermore, for Eastern European and Muslim factions, the town militia has a smaller unit size than the spear militia. The Eastern European town militia further has reduced stats compared to the town militia of all other factions.

[shikaka]

I didn't know that spear milita do not get free upkeep. Kind of makes me wonder why they call them 'milita'.

No-no, they do get free upkeep, but not with BASIC barracks.

I usually use town militia as garrison when I don't have barracks. That's it, otherwise never.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

Spear millitia is always better than Town Militia, no doubt, especially their morale.

[Vampiresbane]

Spear Militia get free upkeep once you get tier 3? barracks. At that point, there's really no point in getting town militia unless you just need extra numbers and are about to sieged.

[Highlander of Scotland]

yeah spear are better i think they get cav bonus and schiltron

[FioRe]

Town Militia cannot be better than Spear Militia.Whatever difficulty or any other factor you change. That's why spear militia can be trained with a higher lvl barrack. They are meant to be better. And their upkeep is free as long as your barrack has the appropriate level.

[Aeratus]

In terms of non-visible stats, spear militia have +8 vs cavalry, while town militia only has +4.

So as mentioned above, town militia has no advantage over spear militia other than early availability.

[Steward Denethor II]

You cant see the more advanced stats when you right click on the unit card but go into export_descr_units and you will see that what the people above have said is true. You need your game unpacked though.

[Aeratus]

I already knew that spear militia have a larger bonus vs cavalry, does this bonus also make them more effective against infantry?

I just checked and the spear militia has a mass of 1.0, while the town militia only has a mass of 0.8 (these are the western European versions of the units). So the spear militia is slightly stronger when charging and taking charges (including infantry vs. infantry charges), and is more pushy in melee than the town militia.

So theoretically, spear militia is slightly better even when fighting infantry. However, I doubt that this difference in mass is easily noticeable in terms of performance. Other than the mass stat, spear and town militia (Western European versions) are identical when fighting infantry.

Another hidden stat is the attack animation speed. But I think the two units have the same animation, but haven't confirmed.

Does any of this explain why spear militia beat town militia in every scenario I ran?

It's hard to comment without knowing what your testing conditions were. It is possible, for example, that the formation of your unit was wider than that of the AI, which would give you an advantage. Also, even if you have a 50% chance of winning, it is quite easy to win 5 times in a row.

[Zanfib]

My tests worked as follows.

One unit on each side. The unit I controlled would copy the actions of the AI unit; immediantly ordered to attack the enemy and charge when the AI did.

1st test: me as scottish spear militia vs english town militia
2nd test: me as scottish town militia vs english spear militia
3rd test: me as english spear militia vs scottish town militia
4th test: me as english town militia vs scottish spear militia

In all cases the town militia had less than 10 survivors, while the spear militia had 40-50.

However, since my last post I have done more tests. In the new tests the unit I controlled would not attack but instead wait to recieve the enemy charge. In these tests the battles have been much less lopsided and the winner so far has always been whichever unit was on the defence.

This leads me to a theory. I looked in the game files and I found that the anti-cav bonus was listed as a 'spear_bonus'. Perhaps this spear bonus is applied whenever the unit takes a charge? That would mean that when both units charged each other the town militia would get a plus 4 bonus and the spear militia would get a plus 8 bonus, whereas when one unit stayed on the defensive only that unit would get a bonus. Which would explain why the spear militia were always the winners in the first scenario, but could be beaten by the town militia in the next scenario.

[Aeratus]

I did some tests of my own. (Test conditions: I control town militia, single-right-click at start, default formation, grassy flatland, medium difficulty)

Test 1: Town militia wins
Test 2: Town militia wins
Test 3: Spear militia wins
Test 4: Spear militia wins
Test 5: Spear militia wins, kills: 71 (for Town Militia) - 76 (for Spear Militia)
Test 6: Spear militia wins, kills: 87 - 90
Test 7: Spear militia wins, kills: 71 - 88
Test 8: Town militia wins, kills: 88 - 64
Test 9: Town militia wins, kills: 84 - 73
Test 10: Spear militia wins, kills: 75 - 89

Total kills: 476 - 480 (so spear militia had 4 more kills)

So the two units are about the same in infantry vs. infantry. I think the spear militia has a slight theoretical advantage due to higher mass, but it is not that significant.

This leads me to a theory. I looked in the game files and I found that the anti-cav bonus was listed as a 'spear_bonus'. Perhaps this spear bonus is applied whenever the unit takes a charge?

I think the spear bonuses are only against cavalry, and are not directly related to the charge mechanics.

[eugenioso]

you are comparing other factors as well, right? charge, fatigue? successful charge? when charged, spear units have a higher resistance thanks to their spears (body mass) and as thus suffer less casualties.

town militia is a spear unit if i remember correctly, but they do not get the fighting malus of spear vs infantry.

all spear units get a penalty to infantry combat and a bonus against cavalry, but town militia apparently get no said malus. that means that man to man, town militia is BETTER than spear militia than infantry. try it: send a unit of town militia to charge a unit of dismounted feudal knights. the knights will of course kill off the militias, but check who kills more. i did a test, and town militias kill more than their spear cousins. note this is the militia charging against a DFK unit from the front, no upgrades and on flat ground.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

There stats are really bugged in my opinion, Spear militia has a way better shield, yet it is the same value as town militia.