So, another Aserai playthrough, this time not going multi-faction (much) for my party. Cool. Aserai have some cool troops, once you get past the sacrifice tiers. But they do have an issue with getting to their high-tier mounted units, specifically T3 (Mameluke Regulars) for their main line and T2/T3 (Youth, Tribal Horsemen) for their noble line.
The problem is that they have serious issues killing things.
They have lances or spears but don't couch and cannot aim a thrust to save their lives, in some cases quite literally. As often as not, they make their approach so the target is on the LEFT side, meaning a very tight angle to successfully connect with their thrust, instead of having the common sense to keep them on the right. That is, when they aren't bowling him over with their horse. Even when they have their swords out, they'll routinely knock over their target rather than keeping him off-set. And even when they do get the approach right, cavalry mistime their sword swings consistently. They go riding with their sword cocked back, ready to swing, go sailing past their intended target, then cut loose and hit nothing but air.
So, I've just discovered that the 'easiest' method for levelling units past their awkward phase (lance-and-sword, with no ranged weapons) is to ride them forward a bit, dismount, step forward a bit more and have them fight on foot. In the case of Mameluke Regulars, Youth and Tribal Horsemen, they aren't actually bad units for their tier; it is just being on horseback makes them terrible melee units. On foot, they go for swords and cut down bandits and other low-tier units perfectly fine, allowing them to rack up enough kills to level quite a bit faster than otherwise. Both in the sense of the number of battles required and also how long in real-time those battles take me to complete.
The only downside is that you miss out on a few kills when the enemy breaks and they have to spend time mounting back up to ride them down.
Anyone else had similar experiences with other troop trees or is this sour-spot specific to Aserai?
The problem is that they have serious issues killing things.
They have lances or spears but don't couch and cannot aim a thrust to save their lives, in some cases quite literally. As often as not, they make their approach so the target is on the LEFT side, meaning a very tight angle to successfully connect with their thrust, instead of having the common sense to keep them on the right. That is, when they aren't bowling him over with their horse. Even when they have their swords out, they'll routinely knock over their target rather than keeping him off-set. And even when they do get the approach right, cavalry mistime their sword swings consistently. They go riding with their sword cocked back, ready to swing, go sailing past their intended target, then cut loose and hit nothing but air.
So, I've just discovered that the 'easiest' method for levelling units past their awkward phase (lance-and-sword, with no ranged weapons) is to ride them forward a bit, dismount, step forward a bit more and have them fight on foot. In the case of Mameluke Regulars, Youth and Tribal Horsemen, they aren't actually bad units for their tier; it is just being on horseback makes them terrible melee units. On foot, they go for swords and cut down bandits and other low-tier units perfectly fine, allowing them to rack up enough kills to level quite a bit faster than otherwise. Both in the sense of the number of battles required and also how long in real-time those battles take me to complete.
The only downside is that you miss out on a few kills when the enemy breaks and they have to spend time mounting back up to ride them down.
Anyone else had similar experiences with other troop trees or is this sour-spot specific to Aserai?
