Best Anti-Cavalry Unit?

**Fluke** · November 28, 2006, 10:44 PM

I did a search and didn't find any discussion of this topic. When it comes to anti-cavalry (non-ranged) foot units, which ones in the game are the best?

**General Dissaray** · November 28, 2006, 10:58 PM

Pike men, realy dose not matter wich kind, so long as you keep them in formation and they are facing the enomy they will trun evin the most ditermand charge

**hellheaven1987** · November 28, 2006, 11:00 PM

Musketers are quit good too. I find out musketers have better performance when against cavalries... probably because horses are bigger than men?

**General Dissaray** · November 28, 2006, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by hellheaven1987

Musketers are quit good too. I find out musketers have better performance when against cavalries... probably because horses are bigger than men?

Ya that is why all the ranged wepons are more efective aginst cavalry beacouse you don't have to hit the man to kill him. Evin in real life if a man comes off a horse like that, all suden like, there is a good chance that he will get hurt or killed; compound that with the lower mobilaty broght on by the armor and the odds of dieing go up a little bit.

**Fluke** · November 28, 2006, 11:49 PM

I am trying to hold Antioch from waves of Mongols. They batter down my gates and come crashing in. I cannot find any English unit that can stand up to them. I just tried a bunch of different 1v1 custom battles and noticed the Portugese Aventuros absorbed a Mongol Heavy Lancer charge the best so far.

English armored swordsmen just crumple when charged by a unit of Mongol Heavy Lancers even though they have a 22 for defense.

I want a unit that will hold my gate. It looks like the best faction for taking and holding the Holy lands are the Portugese so far.

It would be nice that once we succeeded on a crusade to the Holy Lands we could recruit a strong Crusader pike unit to hold off the waves of Mongol cavalry.

**Jagger2007** · November 29, 2006, 12:36 AM

Pikes are great anti-cavalry but any spear unit is good against cavalry if in deep formation. They need to be backed up by good armor piercing anti-cavalry units which can chop up the cavalry when tangled up with the pikes/spears.

**HorseArcher** · November 29, 2006, 12:41 AM

Originally Posted by Fluke

I am trying to hold Antioch from waves of Mongols. They batter down my gates and come crashing in. I cannot find any English unit that can stand up to them. I just tried a bunch of different 1v1 custom battles and noticed the Portugese Aventuros absorbed a Mongol Heavy Lancer charge the best so far.

English armored swordsmen just crumple when charged by a unit of Mongol Heavy Lancers even though they have a 22 for defense.

I want a unit that will hold my gate. It looks like the best faction for taking and holding the Holy lands are the Portugese so far.

It would be nice that once we succeeded on a crusade to the Holy Lands we could recruit a strong Crusader pike unit to hold off the waves of Mongol cavalry.

I think there is a bug with the english anti-cavalry troops, mentioned somewhere in the bug thread. England suppose to have one of the best pikemen/billmen, but they are kinda "bad" until the patch.

**OG Grenadier** · November 28, 2006, 11:24 PM

Swiss Mercenary Pikemen... or Swiss Guard.

**HorseArcher** · November 28, 2006, 11:27 PM

It depends. If you just want to stop a charge, go with any type of unit that carries a big stick (town militia etc. )

If you want to actually kill them quick and easy, go with the unmounted feudal knights. They will do a quick job chopping them up and they won't rout too easily. I usually attack cavalry with them, despite they are heavy infantry, they are excellent horsemen-butchers.

**Ecthelion** · November 29, 2006, 02:17 AM

I've found that stopping cavalry charges is all about density.

The physics engine is actually quite accurate. No horse can move against a solid wave of men. So just pack as many armored sergeants as you can at the entrance. It works.

NEVER try holding against cavalry using:

Any unit without a shield (reason: two hander units get slaughtered by cavalry cause cavalrymen attack MUCH faster, this messes up the two hander animations)

Any unit that doesn't have a spear with a "bonus against cavalry" attribute. Even the best swordsmen underperform against cavalry.

Pikes and halbreds are actually quite terrible against a serious cavalry charge. The horses get between the pikes and since pikemen fight cavalry close up using swords, and not pikes, they are basically just a unit of swordsmen without shields after the initial charge. Try it yourself in custom battle, you'll see: pikes are ultimately useless against cavalry.

**Mooncabbage** · November 29, 2006, 02:45 AM

I have heard there are issues getting pikemen units to form properly, as well as other units. It seems to me against Knight units, just about everything is equally inneffective. Sheer weight of numbers seems to be the primary factor when dealing with Knights.

**Spart** · November 29, 2006, 02:52 AM

Knight just seem to crush everything on their way, once they get the charge right.. I just tried Turkish dismounted Sipahi lancers (spears, shields, bonus fighting cavalry) against some crappy French knights, and the knights just demolished my unit.. In 5 seconds, there was no single Turk alive, and the kights lost just couple of men.
I just try to get enemy knights messed up, so they don't get a proper charge. Then I can finish them even with spear militia or something..

**Darsh** · November 29, 2006, 03:00 AM

the combo Archers+spearmen is good to counter cavalery charge,
spearmen protect the archers, absorb the charge and kill the cavalery
Archers is here to kill some men but especially to break the cavalery formation and don't let the cavalery make a perfect charge.