English infantry bugged?

[Nemo84]

Hi everybody.
I just noticed something very strange in my English campaign. Units with short two-handed weapons such as billmen or dismounted English knights perform very poorly against cavalry, even though their description says they are dangerous to cavalry. So I ran a couple of tests 1vs1, and found something very strange.

First test:
My unit of dismounted English knights vs CPU militia cavalry. We both charge, and take about 20 casualties each. Bit of fighting with only casualties on my side, enemy breaks off without casualties, charges again, 5 casualties each side, rinse repeat until my unit is dead. Cavalry takes no casualties outside of charging, except 4 who were killed by my captain (who has a longsword).

Second test:
My unit of militia cavalry vs CPU English dismounted knights. I walked my unit in front of the enemy and then stopped. I suffered again about about 20 dead cavalry from the English charge, and then I just stayed in combat. End result: English unit routed, 25-30 dead cavalry, all of those either from the charge or the captain. And I didn't even have to perform a charge.

All charges were head on, units were all with base experience, no upgrades. And when I zoomed in on the English, I saw the problem: none of the knights were actually fighting!
They blocked attacks and moved around but not once did I see a knight actually swing its big warhammer (or whatever that weapon is called) outside of them charging. They move up to a horse, then just float a bit back, and that's it. Billmen and French dismounted noble knights give the same results, while zweihanders just slaughter the cavalry. I searched these forums, but couldn't find anything about this.

Is it a known bug, is it WAD or is it just me?

[Mikelus Trento]

Put the infantry in "guard" mode, make sure they are infantry with long weapons (spears, bills, pikes), and don't charge with them. Try the tests that way and check the results.

[Nemo84]

I know how to use my infantry, what I am talking about is that the specified units never actually fight. I would like to ask you first actually read my post before replying, or maybe do some tests of your own. Guard mode made no difference in these tests.

[warblah]

I know how to use my infantry, what I am talking about is that the specified units never actually fight. I would like to ask you first actually read my post before replying, or maybe do some tests of your own. Guard mode made no difference in these tests.

Yep, I noticed that too, often that their unit card will show them fighting, but when you zoom in, you will see that they are sitting there, getting killed 1 by 1 by the enemy units. Which is really annoying.

I saw this happens to cavalry unit sometimes, but not nearly as often as with Billman/Dismounted English Knights

Oh by the way, this happens even when they are fighting other infantry.

[Wingman]

I was curious when I read this so I went and tried it myself. I did about a dozen unit vs unit trials on the grassy plane map. I matched up a unit of AI merchant militia cavalry against various types of halberd/bill units. After the battle began I single clicked my halberds on the enemy cavalry and watched the show.

As it turns out, none of the short pole arm infantry units actually attack the cavalry after the initial charge. That is, the don't do their combat animation, they just walk around and get hit by the enemy. Thus the inflict no casualties and eventually route. The longer pole arms like those of militia halberdiers and Janissaries do hit cavalry after the charge. The shorter pole arm units also don't suffer the same difficulties against infantry.

The units affected by this 'no attack' syndrome are all the English bill units and the French chivalric foot knights. This isn't as big of a deal for the French but it renders the English kind of unplayable. It's hard to enjoy the game when half of your roster doesn't do what it's supposed to. I hope the patch fixes this. Until then I'll enjoy the other factions in peace.

A mod ought to put this in the "bug" thread.

[2ltben]

I was wondering why I lost a 3:2 battle against traitor cavalry when I had an army of Billmen and Levy Spearmen.

[crazyj]

Yep, why I quit playing as the English. Becuz no matter how you set up your billmen, whether charging or stationary, guard mode or not, they get slaughtered by every other unit in the game (cavalry and otherwise).

[Stalins Ghost]

Completely agreed. I find the English particuarly vulnerable to head on cavalry charges against prepared lines, which frankly is rather annoying!

Its rather odd because with billmen for example, they survive the initial impact, then seconds into the combat, they are hacked down. I must say this is entirely inaccurate really!

[Sammyboi]

Ahhh..... my very first campaign I tried to use England, got as far in the tech tree as Billmen and decided this faction sucked and gave up. I was trying to hold higher ground with Billmen against light cavalry and getting massacred.

[2ltben]

I usually suck so much on the battle map that I just let the computer handle it. I can win, but I can't minimize my casualties as well as Lanchester's laws can. And I'm probably not going to play another seige until patch, the last one I played I spent five minutes sitting through a 45 second speech.

[savage_rabbit]

This is a gamebreaking bug and I hope that it has been brought to the attention of the developers with all haste.

[GODzilla]

I just did three test battles but the results were mixed...

a) English armored seargants vs. french mounted seargants: The english were in guard mode and they lost the battle. As you described, they did nothing but to stand still.

b) English armored seargants vs. french mounted seargants: This time I didn't switched to guard mode and really, the english were fighting! I saw them striking at the horses. In the end they lost, but the french had only 5 horses left at the end.

c) Englisch armored seargants vs. scotish highlanders: No guard mode, they did strike at the enemy, they lost *g*.


So my conclusion is, that this has to do with the guard mode. I have to admit that the guard mode don't left them much more to do then....to stand still and do nothing. Because the horse are to far away to strike at them were they stand.

So in the end I'm confused, weather it's a bug or just a limitation of the animation. They cannot reach the enemy from were they stand, but the player forces them to stand still due to the guard mode.

Me <-- Confused.

[Nemo84]

I just did three test battles but the results were mixed...

a) English armored seargants vs. french mounted seargants: The english were in guard mode and they lost the battle. As you described, they did nothing but to stand still.

...

So in the end I'm confused, weather it's a bug or just a limitation of the animation. They cannot reach the enemy from were they stand, but the player forces them to stand still due to the guard mode.

Me <-- Confused.

You're not the only one . But I didn't have problems with armoured sergeants yet, I'll run some tests on them later. But it probably is the animation that is to blame.

I tested some more units with two-handed weapons in the mean time, and it seems it's only billmen and dismounted English or French Noble knights that exhibit this bug. Guard mode makes no difference. I can't believe this one got through beta unnoticed.

EDIT:

I think the main thing with the english infantry such as billmen and dismounted knights is the fact they use slow 2handed weapons, so units with shields and swords/spears have an advantage over them once the billmen have charged. Plus billmen no longer have a bonus against cavalry like they did in MTW.

It's not just that they're bad against cavalry, it's that they effectively do absolutely nothing against cavalry. If peasants can kill heavily armoured knights, then my billmen should atleast inflict some casualties on cavalry when in actual combat. Now they inflict none at all, except during charges.

[Rædwald]

Ok I have just had a go using the units that the OP described.

With the knights, it seems to be as Lusted says, they cannot seem to swing their weapons fast enough, they are always hit mid swing, which means they start the whole motion again. they definately did attack though as they managed to isolate my captain, so to speak, and as he was fighting one the others attacked and killed him.

as for the Billmen they just don't seem to attack cavalry at all although against infantry I had no problems.

[EyebrowsMulligan]

I just did three test battles but the results were mixed...

a) English armored seargants vs. french mounted seargants: The english were in guard mode and they lost the battle. As you described, they did nothing but to stand still.

b) English armored seargants vs. french mounted seargants: This time I didn't switched to guard mode and really, the english were fighting! I saw them striking at the horses. In the end they lost, but the french had only 5 horses left at the end.

c) Englisch armored seargants vs. scotish highlanders: No guard mode, they did strike at the enemy, they lost *g*.

Unfortunately the English don't get armoured sergeants in the campaign for some reason. The English have no better spear unit than levy spearmen.

[crazyj]

Don't be confused. Your tests confirm what we all know. Bugged.

Mounted sarg's aren't supposed to beat armoured sarg's, but the other way around. As you said, they lost regardless of in guard mode or not.

[Lusted]

I think the main thing with the english infantry such as billmen and dismounted knights is the fact they use slow 2handed weapons, so units with shields and swords/spears have an advantage over them once the billmen have charged. Plus billmen no longer have a bonus against cavalry like they did in MTW.

[Lee1026]

I think that these bugs creped in AFTER the beta. I don't think that these problems are in the demo.
I think that what happened was that they fixed a few bugs from the beta, and then decided that they don't have enough time to actually test the fixes (besides, they will sale the game anyway), but then, the fix broke a lot more stuff.

[GODzilla]

What exactly are billmen? I play the german version...

[Rædwald]

What exactly are billmen? I play the german version...

Billmen are English troops armed with Billhooks, a farming instrument that was sometimes used as a weapon Wiki on Bills