Have you ever tried taking the Elite Galine infantrymen and as soon as you spawn tell them to hold position against the edge of the map? If the opposing party has no horse archers anyone charging that group is slaughtered instantly. I choose the horse archers as they are less likely to form a clump of horsemen bashing at each other... dispersing the opponent makes them easier to take down and mounted archers do that the best. As far as weapon balances go there is not much in terms of difference amongst all the one hand swords. The short swords are slower than good bastard swords and nothing, nothing beats the extravagant sabres (for pure one hand swords) which I think are a bit too strong. It would be nice to see the shortswords fasters and silver/cruciform lean toward reach or speed trading off other attributes to obtain them. I played Band of Warriors and devestated opponents with horse archery but I find that my tactics from there do not hold up well in this mod. It takes too long to draw, aim and fire a bow which is too large an opportunity to be taken out by other ranged units. Some faster bows would help. Compare that to the infinitely faster bodkin javelins for more damage while you have a shield at hand to boot. There is no comparison as far I am concerned... the AI does well with horse archery (their aim is stellar on elite units) but as far as the player goes its not as effective. 2 slots for bow/ammo and 27 arrows at 24dmg combined with no shield versus 18 javelins 34 damage which are much faster and you can keep a shield up and ready. So for the bow players it would be nice to have faster mounted bows to make them comparable. For polearms... their increased speed means they get couched alot faster... gone are my days of wading in amongst a few horse in top gear and fighting through... the speed on polearms assures my future of being shish-kebab real soon. I do like not seeing any ridiculously long polearms 170 is a nice top end, I would say slow them down a wee bit but otherwise they are fine. I was looking throught the items_kinds1.txt file and there are things there I have never seen in merchants (ancient items). Saving those for a rainy day are we? The twohand swords are great. I managed to find a watered steel extravagant one which I break out when I know Ill be facing the masses of unwashed footsoldiers. No shield, superb reach and damage. I like the high damage in general (bows seem a bit lacking given their slowness) as this means you have to take real care in facing opponents.
On a side note... day 44 in my campaign 2 siege armys against one town so I thought Id join til I saw the 1100 defenders!
Delmarinen(sp?) seems to have suffered a massive mudslide burying the armorer and tavern.
This is one of the harder mods to level up in... no quests means pure combat XP and opponents in general are tougher than many mods.