although i agree that Sturgia may need some love i still think that Battania if any is by far the weakest. we like to complain about the Sturgian Spearman but the Wildling is not far better.
I agree Battania, and basically every faction, need a troop tree tweak or rehaul.
In Battania's case it's because their mainline units are weak, their high proportion of cavalry doesn't fit their lore/inspiration, their lack of a greataxe unit doesn't match their culture description, and the Wildling and Oathsworn are too similar.
As soon as the throwing, cav & spear AI is improved Sturgia will no longer have this many issues (who even others have btw, let's not be selective here).
That will help a lot. But armor also needs to be fixed. Even still after that Sturgia's troop tree will still need help since they don't do anything "best", they don't have the best infantry, or the best archers (not by a long shot - ha ha), or the best cavalry, or horse archers full stop, and they are worse at being generalists than the existing generalist faction (Empire) who outclasses their infantry and archers and cavalry.
Sturgia should have the most effective T5 shielded infantry in the game, and good shock infantry too. Whether that means nerfing Empire's options in their troop tree, or buffing Sturgia's.
As far as the archer goes there needs to be a faction taking on the weight of having a poor bowman, and if any that should be Sturgia. I am pretty sure we never heard of the great vikings, the best bowmans of history, instead we always looked at them as terrific warriors with axes.
I actually agree. I've suggested in the past that every faction should have a unique weakness, and Sturgia's unique weakness should be its bowmen;
I'd like to see a troop tree where they don't have T5 bowmen at all, instead getting horse archers.
Though it's worth pointing out that Scandinavians are only half of Sturgia's inspiration, they are also Slavic, but moot point since I read a bit into the Kievan Rus and their thing was noble horsemen/militia spearmen/border horse archers, with not much mention of bowmen either.
Infantry is not week, it's like stating that the human body doesn't need a spine to stay up right. infantry is what makes archers work better and is what you want to absorb damage to allow your skilled warriors to thrive (and not die) on the field. They are the only one who can reliably get kills in confusing forest fights or when things go south.
Infantry is definitely weak. They kill in roughly the same amount of hits as archers (2-5 hits), but only at close range. The only thing stopping archers from being a straight upgrade is that shields exist. You only need a small amount of infantry to sit in front of your archers so that enemies drop their shields and allow your archers to slaughter more. That's the only reason you would recruit them at all, and the fact you have a single reason to recruit something doesn't make them not a weak option.
You can't live without a spine. You can live without infantry. If you're using all horse archers, or the (now reasonably easy-to-get) Fians or Khan's Guard,
you don't need infantry at all, because horse archers can escape from anyone trying to fight them in melee, Fians are competent melee units (assuming anything ever gets in melee range), and Khan's Guard can outrun anyone trying to fight them in melee
and are the best melee fighters in the game. When you look at all of this, you cannot say infantry are not weak.
However, if armor's protection against ranged damage was to be fixed, infantry would not be weak.
My Gameplan and style is all about limiting casualties while using poor troops, cause noble ones make the game not enjoyable to me, if i weren't using infantry i would lose most of my men instead of ending battles with a few casualties when things go right. you just need to use them in a smart way like squaring up and allow the archers to pick the enemies from the sides once the enemy infantry gets close.
Using poor troops really makes you understand more what works and why it does.
So you're saying infantry aren't weak
if you don't use everything in the game that makes them weak. Do you see how that might be not relevant to a balance discussion though? I'd prefer to be able to use everything in the game without artificially limiting myself, since the AI isn't going to stop using noble units.
This guy sure love to exaggerate and most of his posts are just rants over the game feeling unbalanced to him, while all it takes is some getting good or lowering the difficulty
Yes, he does love to exaggerate, and a Chad wouldn't be here discussing balance with us nerds lmao.
However, getting good or lowering the difficulty does not change the fact that the game is imbalanced. Balance exists so you can use all the options in a singleplayer game without having to remember to artificially limit yourself (because that's annoying+immersion breaking+means you get to enjoy less content).