Recent content by bansource

LuciusDomitiusAurelianus said:

I dig this play style. I do the same against Khuzait and Vlandia. I'll also wait until they're in two wars and committed then as an independent clan I'll go and raid their villages, kill villagers, and snipe caravans. This forces the AI to send parties or armies after you they'd otherwise use for field battles and sieges and lets the other AI kingdoms penetrate into their territories.

+1 on slashing polearms (and two-handed axes) - the AI seems to get confused when you steer a formation of skirmisher cav into HAs and then they slowly break contact at a trot. You can butcher a formation of 70 HAs with half that of light cav/jav cav and then send in your HAs to decimate their weak infantry.

Click to expand...

1 thing I might add is that polearms are better at kill khuzaits than any other weapon (including two-handed axes), not only do they have a longer reach, but they have 2 main advantages that axes don't, first is the chance to knock any mounted unit off their horse, which renders them useless until they find and get on another horse, this is a perk on the polearms skill tree and is fairly easy to get. Another advantage is the ability to carry a shield together with the polearm. This is important in protecting yourself against arrows and thrown projectiles, as well as enemy couched lances. Instead of switching to another weapon and equipping a shield then, you can quickly equip one when your wielding a two handed polearm. All in all, two handed polearms that can be swung around are the best khuzait killing weapons.

Apocal said:

lol why?

Click to expand...

Because having no cavalry against the khuzaits is a bad idea. Although they don't kill horse archers efficiently, they can provide as a distraction, so that your infantry and archers can use projectiles to mess them up.

Dabos37 said:

Are Khuzaits still dominating your campaigns? I find the map balancing really good since some patches ago, and Khuzaits are not a problem in any of my play thoughts, while they are still strong and able to defend their territory. They are pretty much balanced now in my view.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say they're dominating, we can thank the new patches for that. However, their armies are still a pain in the ass to deal with. They like to perform feigned retreats with their horse archers, luring your horsemen into their infantry. AI allies seem to not realize that they can use their superior archers to kill off any incoming horse archers and just charge straight into their infantry. This is annoying since my troops often made up 40-60% of all troops. I hope there's a way to order your cavalry to attack the enemies' horse archers specifically. It doesn't really sound that complex either. Yet if I order them to charge the incoming horse archers, some dip****s will go leeroy jenkins and solo charge 100+ infantry. I really wish ordering your troops to attack a specific class of your enemies' troops will be a thing, because once you cripple the khuzaits horse archers, they're just like any other army.

Sees historians talk about how well lamellar and brigandine armor can stop arrows.

*Me when wearing those armors* gets oneshot by some goat milk drinking khuzait raider

I think the weapons you're talking about that have over 200 reach are typically lances and spears. While those have high reach on paper, you can only thrust them at one direction, they have low attack speed, and have dead-zones that can sometimes render thrusts harmless.These are easy to use against slow moving ground units where you can anticipate their movements; facing fast moving khuzait mounted units though, its often hard to one shot them with thrusts and couching takes too long. Voulges, menavlion and glaives on the other hand, while not having 200+ reach, they still have roughly 160+ reach. Not only that, but you can swing them, allowing them to literally use more of weapon's length to attack.

With the way cav-on-cav melee battles usually happen, you kill enemy cavalry that are often charging towards you, hitting enemies running away from you just significantly reduces your damage. So say you're attacking an enemy that is charging towards you, landing a clean thrust on a moving target takes extreme precision and luck, since you both have the same angles of attack, so either you hit first, or you out-reach your enemy. Using a swinging polearm however, allows you to attack from angles that make it hard for khuzait lancers to hit you back with their lances. Not only that, I have never encountered an attack deadzone with my voulge, whenever my attack connnects, it always deals 100+ damage, unlike spears and lances that can't effectively hit enemies that are too close to you, or when couched attacks just miraculously deal 0 damage.

Dealing against horse archers is like committing war crimes, you're bascially killing unarmed enemy combatants.So ease of use is important, if I can consistently dish out damage, with low rates of failure, that's the weapon you should be using and swinging polearms fit that description for me. I just find thrusting polearms hard to use against fast moving khuzait mounted units. I know I'm just bad at lances and spears, but for other people who are having a tough time against these pesky khuzaits, polearms are your go-to weapons, use lances, spears, voulges, menavlions, glaives, just any polearm with high reach. Make your attacks count and disengage whenever things get ugly.

Update 2.0: This is a more technical view on how to kill khuzaits. I've learnt, through countless battles with the Khuzaits, that the voulge is the perfect weapon against them. It is a one handed and two handed polearm, so you can use it with a shield or hold it with both hands. Why I think this is superior to couch lances is because of the ridiculous reach of the voulge. In warband, you couldn't swing the voulge on horseback, while in bannerlord, you can. Even though it's swing speed is slow on foot, on horseback, swinging head-on against any charging khuzait units can deal 100+ damage on 1 swing alone, not only does it offer far more reach than 2 handed weapons but it can consistently one shot khuzait units and their lightly armored steppe horses. It's hard to miss a swing by a voulge because of the ridiculously long reach, but it swings pretty fast too, adding more damage to your swings. I'm a pretty bad melee player on horseback, my swings and thrusts always miss or do meh amounts of damage whenever I'm against enemy cavalry, but I've found myself getting 40-50 kills on mounted khuzait units exclusively throughout battes thanks to the voulge. Let's hope talewords won't nerf this amazing weapon and let me enjoy killling khuzaits.

I've learnt, through countless battles with the Khuzaits, that the voulge is the perfect weapon against them. It is a one handed and two handed polearm, so you can use it with a shield or hold it with both hands. Why I think this is superior to couch lances is because of the ridiculous reach of the voulge. In warband, you couldn't swing the voulge on horseback, while in bannerlord, you can. Even though it's swing speed is slow on foot, on horseback, swinging head-on against any charging khuzait units can deal 100+ damage on 1 swing alone, not only does it offer far more reach than 2 handed weapons but it can consistently one shot khuzait units and their lightly armored steppe horses. It's hard to miss a swing by a voulge because of the ridiculously long reach, but it swings pretty fast too, adding more damage to your swings. I'm a pretty bad melee player on horseback, my swings and thrusts always miss or do meh amounts of damage whenever I'm against enemy cavalry, but I've found myself getting 40-50 kills on mounted khuzait units exlucsively throughout battes thanks to the voulge. Let's hope talewords won't nerf this amazing weapon and let me enjoy killling khuzaits.

Quick update on my war with the khuzaits. I've been taking your suggestions, positioning my troops to the edge of the map and set up defensive positions. There is 1 thing I find interesting about khuzait armies, that is their armies mostly consist of unarmed peasants and lightly armored archers. Sure, 40-50% of their troops are mounted archers, but they have few cavalry. So when my heavy cavalry charge at their horse archers, their only response is to run back towards the infantry and archers. My method of beating them is kind of cheesy and wouldn't work in warband. I wait for the main khuzait army to approach me, then I send everything I have at them. Usually, their first wave of infantry and archers will get wiped out,while their mounted units mostly remain alive. Once a wave is wiped out,I call my troops back into defensive positions, ignoring the horse archers. Then rinse and repeat, once you're taking casualties, just retreat and fight again. Eventually, you'll burn through their infantry and archers, leaving a smaller army of horse archers for you to deal the final blow. This didn't work in warband, since retreating decreases party morale. But, in bannerlord, I can retreat as much as I want, eventually turning the tide of battle. I was out-numbered 1100:900, yet I still won with little deaths thanks to this cheesy tactic.

I see, so just use the same strategy as I always use. Pepper them with crossbow bolts, then move up the infantry when necessary. It's a shame the AI doesn't know how to properly control my cavalry whenever I press F6, they just charge straight into the enemy even though they are out-numbered. I'll try to command them point-to-point, using wedge formation to counter their horse archers.

Gandamula said:

The first wave of horse archers allways came from your left side, for obvious reason, they handle the bow in left hand, so place your cavalry in that side, when they approach send some cavalry after them, the rest of their army will made a frontal attack you just have to put archers in front and infantry just behind, when the enemy is almost at you send a infantry attack order. It's easy. Don't try to auto results.

Click to expand...

Don't worry, I never auto resolve, it takes away all the fun anyways. So what you're saying is, I should rely less on my cavalry charges and focus on playing as defensive as possible with my archers and infantry? If so, any formations that you recommend using? Is forming a circle with infantry and placing archers inside a good strategy? I don't think terrain will help either, since the North empire lands are flat terrain. However, like warband, I reckon defending on hilly terrain can mitigate their mobility advantage.