Questions about starting also horse archer=best?

[Koreth]

Hi Im kind of new to M&B as a whole and was wondering, what is the best class for playing with higher difficulty? I'm talking normal damage to player and allies, good AI, and normal -fast combat. Ive played about a week in orginal mount and blade and only played about 6 hours in warband, and can already tell Warband is more challenging, which is good, but I honestly just have no idea what to play as to adapt to the changes.

I was thinking maybe Horse Archer? getting enough power draw for a war bow then getting my horse archery up to like five, and then raising riding to get a courser. starting past as nomad>steppe kid>poacher>wanderlust

that would give me the following starting stats prior to adding my first stats after completing the past life profile(might be wrong suing wiki for this)
Male
STR 9
AGI 10
INT 6
CHA 6
1Hers 47
2Hers 18
Pole 34
arch 145
xbow 17
throw 34
and the following skills(main ones only):
riding 3
horse arch 2
power draw 2
path  2

I could use a 1her with a shield s my melee or a 2her, and by level 18 or so I couldhave my main skills to 5: horse arch, power draw, riding, with a few points in power strike maybe


WQhat do you guys think? id try this but im nto at home, posting from ipad.

if horse archer isnt best for survivng with max damage on what is? i plan to ride around enemies with my own khergit horse archers picking stuff of and only meleeing with stargglers that my main force doesnt get which means i wont get hit that often which is why i think it might be best. i tried the outrider style of heavy hunter with heavyISH armor, 2 Her, lancing, and bowing, but it was really hard starting out.

Im not interested in lowering difficulty so please dont suggest it

[Resurr3ction]

There is the extensive HA topic just the next to yours. Anyway, my conclusion which I also posted in that topic is that HA char is good for about mid-level and mid-game with somewhat steep learning curve. In the end however he starts to seriously lack as there are virtually no options for him to tackle on the huge lord parties and engage in regular war. He is indeed the best DPS and killer but that does not achieve you much late-game when your guy's combat proficiency does not really matter that much. Someone suggested that using mods like Floris could give you an extra boost making it almost viable but I still think it is not really worth the trouble. HA is fun but not really the guy for the world-conquest or serious war anyway.

That said I would recommend going commander-type character with slight investemnet in STR/AGI. Starting choices: travelling merchant, shop assistant, squire, forced out/loss of loved one/personal revenge. With those you will have no wasted points. The goal is...

Stat-wise:
- To get STR to at least 9 for full plate, optionally to 10 for full/winged helm or even 12 for masterwork light crossbow (may be used from horseback). 13 would give you masterwork siege crossbow which is great but might be waste of attribute points...
- To get AGI to 9 for riding of 3 and heavy courser or to 12 and riding 4 for heavy charger. This is a must have if you want to go hacking yourself. The first is sufficient for commander types staying behind.
- CHA to 27 for leadership and trade @ 9 and some prisoner management optionally (5 is a max imho).
- Rest goes to INT which you need to have at least at 10 for Essence of logic book which gives you 11 INT and enables you to read Treaties on Value of Things which will give you Trade to 10. Similarly Life of Alexinus the Great will give you Leadership to 10.
- Once you are all set you can decide if you want to improve your combat skills by going with STR/AGI to 15 or even beyond or will improve your command skills by going with higer INT.

Skills-wise:
- Max Ironflesh for HPs, PS for punching, WM for faster combat-stats, Riding is a must have at 3 or 4 (see above), Inventory management leave as is (at 2 from the start), Trade and Leadership max to 9 + books will get you to 10. Trainer is a must have (and it stacks with your companions) for faster leveling of your troops. Optionally prisoner management if you want to be extra rich (personally I don't use it so 1-2 points are enough for quests and some emergency cash or extra valuable prisoners; it is not needed for lords though).
- Rest depends on your choice of combat-oriented or command-oriented attribute investment. If combat then athletics and shield, if command then whatever you wish as there is plenty - wound treatment or first aid helps a bit. Engineer too. But you can get all of them easily covered by companions...

Equipment:
- Being full tin can is the best so lordly plate set + lordly winged helmet. Reinforced heavy heather shield gives the best protection size and endurance, does not obscure view such as Huscarl's shields and is wooden. Of course you may go for iron shield but that does not look very knightly. Masterwork light crossbow or regular light crossbow for mounted shooting (stop your horse before shooting as you don't have HA). For sieges siege crossbow and if you have strength you can go for masterwork siege crossbow (68+2 dmg) which one shots anything in sieges where you can only use it. And as a melee weapon I would recommend Masterwork heavy/tempered bastard sword. Versatile 1/2handed sword which looks bloody good.

Party:
- NPC parties of 6/9/10 depending on your choice and taste. You need companions to make up for some lacking skills such as medical etc. Also give all of them trainer skill so you level up recruits in no time. See Library for likes/dislikes and known sets of companions etc. Or disable interaction via TweakMB and have all 16-
- Swadian knights: the best of best. Hire those and you will never lose a field battle. 50 of them will solo several times bigger opponent parties without single death on hardest settings.
- Huscarls: slightly harder to manage. Needs to create packs (stand closer command) and micro-manage them a bit as they tend to die relatively often... But they are considered cavalry for campaign movement so they are viable options none-the-less.
- Vaegir knights: weaker cav with 2-handers but AI is stupid in using them and they die a lot more often than Swad knights due to lack of shields.
- Mameluks: arguably even stronger than Swad knights but they just look awful...
- Stay away from Khergits - worst units ever and Rhodocks - after some patching they got slightly better but are still relying too much on numbers.

Overally you can have big party with no worries for morale and may opt for mixed cav/x-bow/inf armies but they tend to be harder to manage. My advice is going with swad knights and when you want to siege train up some rhodock sharpies and nord huscarls. But even then it's best to pick out most enemies in sieges by yourself with your trusty crossbow and maybe the help from your x-bows.

[Koreth]

wow thanks! That really helps

[Ogrecorps]

O.o

Wow. That... was SO specific... I want to argue but don't have any suggestions even remotely that detailed.

Here's my story: I'm the guy who suggested Floris Expanded Mod Pack for a HA in no small part because it's just about all I play any more. I started on the huge HA thread he was talking about suggesting what really was a failed proposition but since starting my own HA monster I have been converted almost entirely.
Here's how you do it:

1) Get the above-mentioned mod pack. It is everything and more that Native should have been. Additionally, it includes some options that you DO NOT have to use but can be very, very useful, especially for new players. If you choose to use the banking system to its fullest after day 100 you will not have to worry about money every again. If you choose to disable companion complaints you can take every single companion available for party members and make them responsible for all party skills so you can concentrate on being a BAMF HA. If you choose to use a little glitch I found you don't have to worry about running out of food. These three features (two of which are already fixed in the next version of the mod pack that is due this month or next) allow a player to concentrate on the combat in the game instead of missing out on great big fun battles because they are scared to lose their forces or because they are running out of food and allow the player to build a war machine character who's party is still effective. Oh, also, Floris as some REALLY good tier 7 horse archers, the very best thing to use in concert with a HA character.

2) select hunter, steppe child, poacher, revenge. If you look at the information here you will see that maximizes archery skill as well as a doing something for AGI and STR.

3) Possibly before step 2, say yes to having all companions appear in the first tavern. Pick up Jeremus, Marnid, Ymira, Firentis, and Deshavi for free, and Borcha for 300.

4) You will be using every single companion but not all will have party skills that you care about. Upgrade intelligence in Jeremus and Borcha primarily and only up their STR and AGI when you need to up their ability to ride and wear heavy armor. Upgrade Firentis' AGI primarily and when you eventually get him Floris' CHA (he is an extra companion they added. Hireable for 20K but worth it.). Jeremus will be responsible for wound treatment, surgery, first aid, and engineering. Borcha will be responsible for spotting, pathfinding, tracking, and tactics. All 8 of those skills are INT-based and a character gets 2 skill points every time INT is raised giving 6 skill points every 3 INT increases and therefore every time a Skill is eligible to be increased. Since our two smarty-pants have only 4 INT skills they are responsible for that leaves 2 points available to increase riding and weapon master up to 3 and 4 or 5 respecively. Throwing in some PS once in a while doesn't hurt and I like to get their STR to 10 so they can get some good armor. Firentis also needs to get to 10 STR for good armor and then is responsible for Looting and Foraging (an added skill that allows you to augment you food supply). Floris will already be past 10 STR so you don't need to worry about that and given his high level is tough to improve upon but he has 6 Trade skill when you get him and lots of CHA, making him perhaps the best candidate for being the party trader. However, he also has 6 persuasion making him your best diplomat if you start your own kingdom. Katrin is the second choice for party trader because of her naturally high CHA and since she is much easier to level than Floris might infact be a better choice, I don't know. I just thought of it and haven't looked into it. Everyone else gets INT to 15, Trainer to 5, then every other upgrade is to AGI and STR to make them better warriors. Turning off companion complaints in the mod options (camp menu) allows a player to take an utilize them all but they are still sensitive to raiding villages and caravans and whatnot. But it's okay. If you threaten to hang them they won't every actually leave.

5) Take your INT to 15 right away and get your training to 5. This is a personal suggestion and can be ignored just like taking the companions' INT to 15 and training to 5. This does two things for you: Floris Mod has xp and proficiency bonuses for higher INT so leveling INT first makes levels thereafter easier to get. The other thing is with 14 characters (yourself and everyone not responsible for a party skill) at high levels with 5 trainer you will find that you are training recruits up to tier 4 in 4-6 days. After leveling up your INT go hog wild on STR (for PS, IF, and PD) and AGI (for WM and riding). You will soon find yourself with a huge amount of HP (I got couch-lanced at low speed for 70 damage, killed the lancer and moved on with my day) and a hefty ability to draw a bow and strike with power. I noticed that guys with shields were a problem for a HA so got a 125 long, 44dmg, 96 speed, 2h mace that crushes through blocks and I love it dearly. I take a bow that is a nice mix of speed and damage (strong war bow) and two large bags of +3 dmg arrows with that mace and I simply cannot be taken in combat. I could do with more STR for PD but I'll get there soon enough.

6) Buy heavy armor for everyone and armored horses (I'm using horses with 40 armor and 42 speed instead of the slower ones available with 57 and am convinced the armor is essential. A courser might not get hit much but when it does, man does it take a lot of damage and in Floris you have the option of that damage slowing horses down or not. I prefer for it to so I can shoot faster pursuing horses and make them not faster any more.). I outfit my companions with 1h, shield, light xbow (can be shot from horseback) and large bags of steel bolts because I like to use them as a shield wall in front of my shield wall and as hand-to-hand (melee) heavy cavalry. I want them tough and hard to kill so I can use them to soak up losses that might ordinarily be landed upon my mortal troops. 17 heavy cav is a force not to be ignored and often clogs up the enemy enough that by the time the enemy gets clear my HAs are all over the place and impossible to catch, dangerous to pursue. My choice of xbows over regular bows was a choice to save on PD and pump my companions up on PS, IF, Training, Shield, and other skills. I chose simplicity and stoic defense over DPS.

7) In large battles I ride in first with my horde following me. I get the attention of the lead elements of the enemy as I angle to the right and then tell my men to charge as the enemy turns to follow me while I ride right past them. That puts a wall of my troops right into the side of the enemy cavalry and a wall of teal text on my screen. From that point on the enemy is at a severe disadvantage since I have killed or at least severely damaged their cavarly and therefore their overall mobility. After that my melee cav do their thing, keeping the enemy occupied while I and my HAs circle and pump shafts into the enemy's backs. In the rare cases where my whole force bites the dust they have already extracted MASSIVE casualties from the enemy and it takes a solid 100 cavalry or powerful archers to do me in. By the time it gets down to just me the chances of the enemy having enough strong troops to stop me is almost none. So you understand, Native HAs suck, Floris HAs rock like they're supposed to.

8 ) All that being said, you don't really need a large party. If you have high training skill in your party and are a BAMF personally you can get a lot of good troops pretty easily and then it's all good. If you want to have your own kingdom you might need more CHA for persuasion but IDK, I'm a loyal Khergit vassal (soon to be marshall I think and hope!) so I just keep my head down and perpetrate mass murder.

9) Go look at that other massive HA thread and skim through to see some of my screenshots. They tell a pretty sweet story about being a HA.

Edit: here, I'll save you the trouble: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,178736.msg4331930.html#msg4331930, and http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,178736.msg4313035.html#msg4313035

[callahan9119]

I still don't know what you're going to do when you're fighting actual large armies eventually. Renown isn't gonna cut it.

No matter how bad ass you are, when you're fighting a large army with your small one (even if it is well trained) you can't deal with the numbers.

[Filou]

I still don't know what you're going to do when you're fighting actual large armies eventually. Renown isn't gonna cut it.

No matter how bad ass you are, when you're fighting a large army with your small one (even if it is well trained) you can't deal with the numbers.

You don't fight large armies by yourself?

With good reputations you can get lords to follow you.  When you're king of your own faction you can order others to follow you or be the Marshal and have plenty of help against other large parties/groups.


As for the initial question, my suggestion would be to first have a character that you enjoy playing, regardless whether that class is teh best.  I dropped a knight character about 400 days into a campaign just before forming my own faction even if I was in a really great positon.  I realized that I don't really enjoy hacking and poking people on horse and shoot them with a crossbow, I really prefer shooting them with a bow whether on foot or on a horse.  So I dropped it and started a new guy.

As for surviving, not acting as Rambo goes a long way to staying alive.  A good armor also helps.

[callahan9119]

I don't see how you can employ the kiting shenanigans which seem to be the only real way you can truly dominate. You're gonna have to lead more and run around less which kinda doesn't do much for a character with no leadership etc. If it's fun, whatever...it just doesn't seem like it would be that effective later on.

[Filou]

I don't know what your parameters for effectiveness are, but I'm on day 900 and my faction owns more than half of the map. I'd say I'm doing pretty well.

[callahan9119]

Yeah, I'm not good at the game, but in big battles I just couldn't do enough with my HA character to warrant all those points...I was wanting bodies. I was only level 19 or so, but I couldn't raise a good army and they were always pissed off about party size.

Can you use companions who are naturally opposed to each other? I'd like to form a more effective group of them, but I'm worried about morale..I know you can turn off complaints, but does that nullify their disposition to each other? I know a guy said you can threaten to hang them (or maybe that's exclusive to his mod?), but wouldn't it still be cancerous to your group?

I'm not disparaging the HA character by the way, I just can't see how it translates to domination when there are 500 men you're fighting against.

[fragonard]

I don't see how you can employ the kiting shenanigans which seem to be the only real way you can truly dominate. You're gonna have to lead more and run around less which kinda doesn't do much for a character with no leadership etc. If it's fun, whatever...it just doesn't seem like it would be that effective later on.

This is a valid observation but even a total leader character with 10 leadership is only going to have an army of 130 or so.
 By yourself, you'll never make the end game work on your own.  You'll need alignments and strategy. I don't think a HA with 80 top troops is at that much of a disadvantage.

[Resurr3ction]

I don't think a HA with 80 top troops is at that much of a disadvantage.

80 Swad knights would be quite enough unless you face all enemy lords at once. Couple hundreds would be killed without player's interference on good battlefield. But that's the point. Without Leadership HA char can't even get that big of an army because of morale penalty will send your troops desert every 24 hours... And with that size the morale bonus for small battles with raiders and such is not enough to keep it up as those parties are too small. Even 50 guys would be quite problematic (and one would have to be careful about battles then already) and once you get below 50 morale you get desertion... Therefore I stand by my arguement that pure non-leadership HA in Native is not really suited for anything serious and will need to compromise on his capabilities in order to stay efficient later in the game. On the other hand knight-commander chars are efficient both at the start and in the middle being capable of hacking with lances and all while being super-efficient sharpshooters in sieges later while being able to field and train huge armies of whatnot.

But of course the style one prefers is the valid point. I myself took a good while before I was able to dug in the HA char... now I have to yet to convince myself trying out infantry guy.

[Filou]

Yeah, I'm not good at the game, but in big battles I just couldn't do enough with my HA character to warrant all those points...I was wanting bodies. I was only level 19 or so, but I couldn't raise a good army and they were always pissed off about party size.

Can you use companions who are naturally opposed to each other? I'd like to form a more effective group of them, but I'm worried about morale..I know you can turn off complaints, but does that nullify their disposition to each other? I know a guy said you can threaten to hang them (or maybe that's exclusive to his mod?), but wouldn't it still be cancerous to your group?

I'm not disparaging the HA character by the way, I just can't see how it translates to domination when there are 500 men you're fighting against.

I get the feeling you're trying to do too much by yourself, I would never fight 500 men with only my party in the field.  I either find an ally or join a defending siege.

Also my army does most of the killing in battles against faction troops.  In sieges I do a lot more of it being able to snipe troops, but even there I don't I come close to killing 50% of the enemy troops.

[Gerin]

Yeah go for it.  The problem with horse archer characters is that they are extremely costly in terms of skill points to make effective.  I would say the easiest and safest is the old-fashioned lancer.  Switch to first person and mow down your enemies for the win. 

If you've never done a HA, go for it.

[callahan9119]

Filou, do you run with Khergit troops?

[Nikomakkos]

I recommend

Warrior
Page
Squire
Revenge

as backgrounds if you want to be a horse archer.  That way you don't get any wasted points on skills you won't invest further in.  Being a horse archer is very expensive skill and attribute wise.

Your most important stat is strength, for power draw.  Don't be fooled by that guy that recommended crossbows.  Bows are much much better if you have high power draw, but more importantly they are far far far more fun.  You say you want enough power draw for a warbow, be aware that 4 power draw is enough to equip it but you want your power draw level to be at the very least 2 points above the requirement, preferably more.  Not more than 4 though.

You want at least 12 agility for Charger and 4 horse archery, and weapon master.  Maybe even 15 agility, you will go faster that way and do more damage from horseback (there is supposed to be a damage penalty as well as an accuracy penalty for shooting from horseback, both of which Horse Archery counters).  Once you have 9 agility get your strength to 18 and use a nomad bow or maybe a strongbow.  Then get your agility to 12.  Mix in with Intelligence as needed for skill points, and get your strength to 21.  After that focus on Charisma.  Don't take Trainer skill right away, as somebody suggested, you're too low level to train anything.  Take that skill once your PD, WM, Riding and HA are good enough that you are killing stuff like Sea Raiders.

As for companions, I have a thread with a thorough comparison of them that you can read over, there are also some pointers there.  You could give them all Power Draw and bows, I think that's actually very good, they will become monster snipers later on.  Order them to hold position and shoot at the oncoming enemy as if they were foot archers (but order them to mount horses so they don't dismount).  Then when the enemy is closing in on them, tell them to hold fire and either run off to a safe distance and start shooting again, or simply charge (two handed weapons like War Cleaver go along nicely with archery, I find, because if you spend a lot of time shooting a bow, you're not using a shield that would just be wasting a slot that could be used for ammunition, and you don't really have enough skill points left for the shield skill if you're going for bows, plus they simply kill a lot faster with 2-handers).