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Actually, tactics usually base on what kind of army composition you have, but the role of each type of units is usually the same.

Infantry:
They are usually the majority or second majority of your army if you are not going for a horse archer based army.

In normal circumstance, their only purpose is to hold the line and to be the meat shield, but not to be the main attacking power. They only push when enemy infantry formation is broken, unbalanced, or when you are trying to prevent AI from regrouping, especially in a big pitch battle where enemy has reinforcement.

I usually deploy them in a deep column formation in front of my archer line as it is much easier to maneuver than a spread out infantry line, and also you generally want your AI opponent to half encircle your infantry line so your archers can shoot from their back. The best formation fpr infantry when deploying in this way is Square formation.

Line formation is only used for attack, deployment or regroupomg after a chase since Shield formation and Square formation really slow down the infantry movement a lot. Personally, I found Shield formation to be the least used one, I only use it when enemy archer line are still strong after enemy infantry line is broken, and it also depends on if enemy archer line is distracted by your other types of unit. A quick line formation charge will work better if enemy archers are distracted.

Shock infantry. If you are really playing the infantry game, then shock infantry should be put under a different group. Despite I never use them in a separate group, I know they are extremely effective when charging normal infantry unit from testing. They should avoid be in the line of sight of archer units, especially when in small groups. Beside that, a line formation or loose formation charge on the front or the flank (like cavalry) seems to be a reasonable use of this type of unit, but I am not really familiar with the use of shock troop so I can't say for sure.

Archer:
They can be the majority of your army, but you need to be awared of the fact they need meat shield to protect them, because their close combat skill is nowhere as good as a dedicated infantry unit. Unless, you are going for a full Battanian Fien army, then it would be very different, because Battanian Fien can be used as shock infantry too.

I believe most players will agree that in this game, Archer/Crossbowman's role on the battlefield is to be the killing power behind the infantry square or line. They should stay at a distance from your infantry line, so your enemy won't rush straight toward your archer line which can be disasterous. They are best deployed in 2-3 ranks, better on a high ground and in Loose formation. This would maximize their firepower while minimize the damage they take.

Base on my experience, Crossbow is usually a better choice than bow unit, especially when fighting cavalry or horst archers. You only need one bolt to kill a horse archer or a horseman, but Crossbow usually don't have that much ammo which means they are not always that great for a prolong pitch battle, unless you intend to turn your crossbow into a melee unit after they exhaust all their ammos or a bow-crossbow mixed archers unit is usually better.

In case you are fighting Aserai or Khuzait where horse archer is a thing, I would usually deploy my archers on the left wing at the begining before pulling it back since most Horse Archer attack from that flank. Archer can be incredibly effective in repelling horse archer if horse archer comes without any support unit. Or, if it is in the mid of battle and enemy horse archers emerge and start to circle around your formation, then I would simply charge the archer line or have a second line of archer in the behind to deal with it. Horse archer usually circle the closest formation, so having a second line of archer at a distance can be effective.

Now, if you are playing Sturgia, then you should probably abandon the idea of having a native archer line completely, because Sturgian bowman sucks so hard. It would probably be more effective if you just treat it as trash infantry unit with fancy bow skills.

Cavalry:
Cavalry can be a decisive force on the battlefield, but it also can take heavy casualty if it is caught in the mid of infantry line, so how and when to use them is always a good question to ask.

Base on my experience and understanding, cavalry can play multiple roles on the battlefield, it can be used to break enemy formation, or as screening force, the role it plays depends on the circumstance and also your playing style. If your army composition has a great number of shock troops and heavy cavalries, a frontal or side charge to break enemy formation after skirmishing, following by the charge of shock infrantry at the centre is very classic.

Though it is probably more common to use it as a screening force, to protect the flank of your infantry line and also to flank the enemy infantry line or the archer line from behind or from the side. I sometimes would just let AI to take it over, since it does a better job than me when it comes to micro, the downside is just that AI would only use cavalry to protect infantry line but not archer line, and they don't charge archer line unless you move the cavalry behind enemy main line.

Personally, I like to put Cavalry in skein formation, or sometimes even shield formation, so the formation looks tighter, but I don't know if that will give our cavalry any buff at all, probably nothing at all.

Horse Archer:
Horse Archers are the best unit in the game without doubt. They are best used as a very mobile archer unit that can quickly deploy at the flank or behind enemy line, they can also be used as a cavalry unit when you are fighting against enemy cavalry unit. Their role on the battlefield can be harrassment (forcing enemy to attack you), screening (defending your flanks against enemy cavalry charge), fire support (supporting your archer line) and flanking (shooting arrows from the flank of enemy infantry or archer line).

However, I won't charge straight ahead my horse archers without the support of other units in a big pitch battle like AI did. They can be vulnerable when facing a numerical superior archer line, especially when caught by cavalry unit at the same time. Horse archers can also be vulnerable if they got trapped in the middle of an infantry or archer formation, so you always want to manually control them to keep minimize the chance of being caught by infantries or archers.

I usually split my horse archer unit into 2 formation, that's partially because I usually will have more than 100 horse archers in my army, but I think 80 horse archers in an army is enough for any army if use carefully. I don't like to deploy it at the centre in the middle of two archer formations for that would block the maneuverability of horse archers, but I sometimes put my horse archer behind my archer line to give my centre a stronger kill power, and also this way I wouldn't have to micro it (because it's really hard to micro everything when there's no high ground on a map). I will usually lead my secondary horse archer formation to harrass or to flank enemy infantry line.

Due to the difficulties of replenishment in the vanilla game, I am usually very protective of my horse archer unit, and that's why I am against the idea of a horse archer charge, unless I am fighting for Khuzait which I rarely do.
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The battle mechanic of Bannerlord is really just about if you can find a way to utilize each type of unit and let them play the roles they should play, and i think that's why it's fun game.

This is probably due to

Stromming said:

Does this makes sense to anyone, or is it a bug?

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This is probably due to the amount of fiefs. Honestly, I don't think the amount of fiefs should be put into formula at all. It should really just base on the relative strength (as prisoners and sieges all contributes to it) between your empire and enemy empire plus the strength of other empires that are currently fighting them and that are currently fight you.

The size of a country really doesn't mean anything when it comes to peace deal. It has always been the your military strength vs. other potential military threats (+ war exhaustion comes from casualties) that make countries participated in a war considered signing peace treaty and paying tributes.

It's very hard to chase those bandits. You just can't chase a steppe bandit with 7.0 speed with a mixed army composition.

Apocal said:

I quoted the part where you said you have to use other units. In BL, right now you don't need to use other troop types and you can reliably beat every other army composition. You can win without losses if you put in a modest amount of effort.

It isn't historically accurate. Even in Agincourt, most of the actual killing was done in the melee and as for the Mongols, they held 40% of their tumen as lancers. Even in the prototypical horse archer dunkfest, Carrhae, the Parthians still needed to close in with their cataphracts and inflicted the the majority of the Roman casualties afterwards, once the Roman army had basically suffered morale collapse.

Furthermore, we're playing a game and battles in this game are supposed to be about the interplay between different troops, along with other factors, to create interesting tactical situations. Having horse archers and archers unabashedly dunk on everything else means that there is a single optimum, which is inherently less interesting.

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Well, in Agincourt, French levies were melee by their own knights, and as I said, common soldiers just don't have the same protection knights have, this is not to mention many knights were killed by arrows in the face. As for Mongols, I don't think the defining line between horse archers and lancers were that obvious, and horse archers were still dealing the most damage. I just don't see the reason why you wanna charge a formation when you still have bow and arrows on horse, and also, Asian cav rarely charged into infantry's face like European cav did. Same happened during Islamic expansion in 8th century where Arabic archers easily picking off armed Roman soldiers on desert. They damage morale because they actually can kill people AND IS A KILLING POWER if you don't have a proper armour or cover.

And the game is designed in a such way that, you are just commanding a bunch of individuals with a sword and spear, and you call it "infantry" because they serve the function of an "infantryman", but they still FIGHT AS INDIVIDUAL with sword and spear!! They are not AOE2 unit where pikemen are created with certain stats or bonus, so horse and bow (Speed and Range) are just naturally great advantages to have. That's the beauty of the game. How do you balance that? Nerf the speed of horse or the power of bow? Is that the best you can think of, to make the game more playable for you personally and sacrificing its good presentation of reality? It's fun and playable because it kinda present the reality that HA are powerful.

Abyssos said:

thats why u fight fire with fire not water best troops vs mountarchers?? mountarchers heheh

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HAH, if only everything is as simple as fire and water. Training your own horse archer to fight enemy horse archer was what ancient empires came to think of, maybe you should laugh at them too. How stupid to think of this idea, why don't they just invent a counter to it. Yeah, why don't they?

Monkey said:

Aren't Nord nobles (the last tier) supposed to be, at least in theory, the best counter to horse archers? They're high tier one-handed weapon and shield cavalry. While in theory I don't think they could chase horse archers, maybe they could break them away from the circle train of death with the threat of melee engagement. On the other pole (south), there are the Aserai nobles with the fastest horses in the game (not counting "noble" horses) and ****ing javelins which are horse killers. I keep saying I believe fine tuning of the troop AI (among other minor things, like troop stats and equipment - not nerfs, especially not to horse archer troops) could help improve balance. That said, I can't really say that I see the "rock-paper-scissors" element prevailing in Bannerlord, but I do believe there can be more incentives to diversifying instead of going 100% horse archers.

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I wonder why you wanna go for 100% HA... that kinda limits where you can go and what you can do, it's really not fun at all. And I feel the game already offered some good units to go against HA. For example, I would never want to go against a crossbow or heavy horse army w even just a 50~60% HA army, that would already be a micro nightmare. Though I would say if they just make those crossbow use the shield on their back as it should be used, or allow defending archers to place some barriers, HA would suffer even more.

Seems same bug still exist in 1.58
2021-02-06_00.10.54_726b10f377526eea35a55bf15f230493

Monkey said:

I live that myth and you can too if you choose your fights (which is easy with a 100% mounted troop map speed) and avoid sieges, villages and, preferably, forests too. Just try to stay in open fields.

It's technically possible to cheese with foot archers too, but if the enemy has cavalry there might not be enough time for your archers to leave the map (especially if you're trying to not have any casualties). Moving foot archers are indeed much more accurate than moving mounted archers, because foot archers quickly stop to shoot and then resume moving. If you order your mounted archers to stand still, however, while shooting, and only move them to reposition, that difference is gone.

I quoted the last phrase of yours out of confusion. Are you saying horse archers (horse and bow) are "naturally better"?

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Hmmm... I am pretty confused with your entire statement. Yeah, ofc I know how to play 100% HA, but if you can't take any territory, would it be fun?

Well, divided your 100% A/C into 3-5 control groups instead of one large line. Keep it at 3 ranks, length varies, loose formation and arrange it into a V-shape formation. You will have enemy inf. and cav. melt on sight. In case of large cav contingents, just add the thickness, so you can murder them once they charge in.

And yes, HA are naturally better, they are the combination of high maneuverability and powerful killing weapon. If you are going to build an organic combat system, then HA would always have an advantage over non-horse unit. Huns and Mongols, devastated the entire Eurasia for centuries. The easiest way to counter them is really just to have a similar attachment in your army, fight the way they fight you (as in ancient China). Or you just have to be creative, historically, HA can be countered by having wagons which you can quickly transform into fortification, having better muskets, invent fire wagons (likely some Korean Hwa-cha style battlefield weapon) to scare the horse (I heard that's how Ming dealt Mongol and Tartars, I don't really know how it works).

Apocal said:

First off, I quoted the exact thing I disagreed with, so to say I'm not reading the thread is ridiculous.

Secondly, yes, I have done the exact same thing with archers and I do complain that ranged power is too strong. This isn't a new thing for me:






This is about the 18th time I've had this same discussion and I have become exceedingly efficient at it.

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You deliberately quoted the part where I replied about F1+F3 everything and then asked me about something that's not related to F1+F3 horse archers.... what do you expect me to answer?

Besides, range weapon is always preferable, and it should be, and this is also historically accurate. I mean, not all armour can be penetrated by arrows obviously, but it is not common for soldiers to have a set of good armour, and so duhh... it should in some way work like a medieval bullet.

I dunno why you think bows and arrows are just used as something like disruption, morale failure or restrict freedom of action, instead of actually killing (it was actually actually effective, Battle of Agincourt? The 3rd Crusade? The Mongol invasion?). They should probably allow you to construct some fortification on battlefield or carry defensive wagons as in Hussite Revolt, which I would agree, and would've nerf Khuzait a lot, but won't happen, and it would still largely base on arrows.

Historically, archers were hard to train, crossbow took too long to reload, and arrows and bolts were limited and so ofc they didn't always get massively employed in medieval period, and thus you had better chance with melee, but Range was powerful historically. Hard to argue w nerfing the unit directly.

Gandamula said:

As I said before, archers on horseback, or any type of cavalry, running in a forest, hitting trees and staying on horses without falling is completely insane. The same applies to the player, sometimes I hit a tree at high speed and I just have to accelerate again.
On the map, the cavalry movement in forests or mountains should also have a speed penalty, greater than infantry, this would change the whole paradigm of the game, even in simulated battles, the forest or in mountains ones should give the infantry an advantage.

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I can get behind what you said. That's most reasonable, and I think falling from horse should have damage too. Much more real.

Monkey said:

That might change depending on difficulty settings, but F1+F3 horse archers kill everything without losses 80-90% of the time when not outnumbered. If you actually command them, repositioning, manually ordering salvos and managing ammunition (F4), they can take anything even double their size (limited only by the amount of ammunition). And that's not all. If you're willing to "cheese" by fleeing once your run out of ammunition or even once enemy melee cavalry gets near (which is the epitome of "cheese" but I've done that in desperate moments) only to "reset" starting position and ammunition without resetting casualties, you can take on any number/type of enemies (except maybe - maybe - horse archers) without a single ****ing casualty.

It's pretty safe to say that horse archers are like panzers (combat vehicles). They're able to hurt while staying safe at distance. The "rock/paper/scissors" element in Bannerlord, if it's even there, is not too prevailing. Horse archers are the best units in open field battles (where they can actually put their horses to use).

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I am just wondering, have you guys really played HA in 1.56 or 1.57B? Why do I feel like you are talking about the HA like EA just came out yesterday?

First of all, when not outnumbered, no player can ever get defeated (as long as your troop quality is only a bit lower than you enemy).

Secondly, F1+F3 HA killing without losses 80%~90% is a like a myth. HA battle AI now requires more distance to circle enemy formation and would randomly charge into enemy line if unwatched, so if you have HA only, F1 + F3 is death sentence to 10~30% of your HA units, not mentioning enemy Cav could distract your HA units, making them more likely to run into inf formation. It's really more of a mobile archer that can get shot into pieces by enemy archers, assuming they have some amounts of high tier archers like yours, (and this is not to mention high tier archer is easier and cheaper to get). It used to be that T2 HA can carry the entire battle, not these days. I tried, I know.

Thirdly, I don't see why you can't do the "cheesy" stuff with archer/crossbow unit. I can divide 100% a/c army (preferably Aserai archer) into a few control groups and just play hit and run, and wait till my quiver emptied and restarted again. It probably can do the same, just without maneuverability, and with much trouble because you have to micro everything. HA provides an easier way to micro, so what's the problem. HA rides horse, they are supposed to do that.

Lastly, I disagreed with Rock-Paper-Scissors elements. Battle is won by units functioning and working together. Inf. is a good meat shield to soak up arrows, archers offers a good firepower, cav works nicely as a counter balance to other horse unit and is super powerful when charge from behind, and horse archer is good at harassing and also offers a good firepower. You really just want them all, at least I do. The best of all, battle can be decided by the engagement of individual combat where the effectiveness of the weapon and skills of using it matters. There's no such thing as infantry must be victorious against cav, who said so, Total War? Bow and Horse are both merely an instrument that offers you advantage against your opponents, just like armour and shield, and Bannerlord's combat system illustrated this reality perfectly. Unless you say, Khuzait are dumb enough to only equip their elite HA with just some weak ass arrow when they can obviously offer better. That'd be ridiculous.

The fact is, due to how organic Bannerlord combat system is built, it is just impossible to do Rock-Paper-Scissors thing, because Horse and Bow is just naturally a better stuff to have.

Apocal said:

I don't use F1 F3. I can use 100% HA to fight a bunch of different groups though. There isn't anything that really stops it, especially not when 100% HAs take next-to-no losses.

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Then you are just not reading the thread...

Everyone can do that in a single player game. You can do it, I can do it. There's no reason why others can't. If you want, you can even try to use 100% archer/crossbow to do the same, with same micromanagement, and would you find that to be too strong too? How about dev just make this whole game into a dumb melee fighting game. Would that suit you guys better?

Don't be ridiculous! If AI couldn't kill your 100% HA army, that's because AI is dumb af, if anything needs to change, change AI. If you are smart enough you can beat any AI no problem with archer only too, with small or even no lost. If what you want is a multiplayer game experience, you should ask for a multiplayer experience.

with F1+F3 in a 1000 battle...? sure upload a vid, I wanna see how your AI under charge command did better than mine.

well, firstly you are not play a multiplayer game. If you are, then multiplayer ppl can tell you tons abt how to to counter it I believe.

Secondly, you can counter HA w enough archers and some cavs or even inf (to pin them down). You just have to learn to utilize the group systems really. I would understand if you are complaining abt how we can’t deploy our armies before battle, because we really just should.

Thirdly, you are playing a game where cav advantages can be actually visualized. No matter how they change the game, horse unit would always have and should have such adv over infantries.

Yertyl said:

Interesting. I guess I should have been more precise.I've played around with this a little bit -- archer vs archer compared to HA vs archer -- and: It depends on the distance.
A HA seems to be as precise, or a bit more, as a bow roughly at max distance. If archers start shooting at max distance (like with a pure "charge" command), battles seem to be about equally long with HA or normal archers (vs archers). If they run up to each other, archers kill each other much more quickly.
So I guess the problem really is more that HA will not dish out a huge amount of damage, but still far more than they take: A HA vs archer battle should IMO be roughly equal, but it is not even remotely. I guess making archers better against horses could be a solution, although then you would have to be careful to not make them too powerful overall. Hence me going the other way, making HA even less precise, though I have to admit that puts them in a weird spot as well.

Also, to be fair, you would have to do a similar test with other units. AI seem to take a pretty long time to kill a single stationary target in general. I tried it vs 5 cavalry + a lord. 1 cavalry managed to hit (but not kill) me in the first charge, then the lord threw all his javelins over my head, then I was finally killed in the second charge -- but that also took a pretty long time. Same with normal archers. Although HA did indeed seem to take the longest time.

I am pretty vehemently opposed to making one seemingly equivalent unit type just overall bad. So I guess a new player that plays as Battania and (like me) does not know you need to recruit fians from powerful village people is just screwed because he mostly has infantry? And Khuzait should just dominate everyone else forever? That's not a great solution.

Well, in my eyes melee cavalry should crush archers but get crushed by spear infantry (because otherwise there is 0 reason to have either unit type at all). Currently, they lose to some archers, but at the same time win against some spear infantry (see above). I guess you can say they are in a weird place (or more precisely: archers and infantry are, with archers being almost as good at melee as melee units), but I would not call them weak. At least not compared to infantry.
Also, while the player does need to buy horses, the AI dos not. And again, I don't think it's the best solution if the strength of an AI army just directly depends upon its composition (and thus culture), and Khuzait just rule eternally.

Each unit does pretty obviously not have their own role when horse archers are best against every other unit type. Otimal counter to infantry? Horse archers. Optimal counter to archers? Horse archers. Optimal counter to cavalry? Still horse archers. Your optimal strategy should not be: 1. Horse archers 2. F1 F3 3. Win.
And while the player does need to buy horses, the AI does not. Also, not all fractions have horse archers. Are you really OK with Aserai and Khuzait just generally being miles better than Sturgia?

EDIT: In reply to both: I think the overall best solution would be if both archers and melee dealt more damage to mounted units, but at the same time melee (both mounted and non-mounted) dealt more damage to archers. So a cavalry charging would take more losses, but at the same time deal more damage to archers & horse archers. Currently melee cav does also do not seem to be very good at actually hitting with their charge.

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That’s not entirely true. I tried that before, it’s a very very bad idea in general, especially the pathing of HA depends on the target they are firing. If they are firing at infantry block, good news. If they are firing at cav on the flank, then there’s a good chance they might run into enemy infantry formation and commit a massive suicide.

And you may win a single battle, but it doesn’t mean anything. If you are fighting a war, you want to continue fighting different group, and you can’t do that w 100% HA. So yes, Everything has its own role, and can’t function independently. Winning doesn’t mean anything unless you win with everything entacted. F1+F3 HA is the worst strategy ever.

HA gave you some advantages but not immunity. I defeated Aserai armies w their own HA 2 times my HA w my formation. I defeated them no problem, and I got defeated w more HA presented too, because my infantries and archers broke and ran away.

I am sorry, but 1 unit type vs 1 unit type test is just not very smart.

Antaeus said:

E.g. "Cavalry - charge" and they all go off towards what ever they see first. The results are entirely coincidental battles - where you might order cavalry to charge and most of them go towards where you want to go, but others go off in random directions, and some mill about as their desired target dies or runs out of range and they look for another target.

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I only charge my cav when I know the battle is in my pocket. I think cav works better when delegates or forwards. I think when you forwards your cav, it would target closest cav first (if it's in their sight), closest horse archers and then the rest. For this reason, I mainly use cav to drive enemy horse archers back.

I personally disagree with nerfing HA as a unit. Their aiming is practically ****, and they frequently spent all their arrows before the battle is over (big battle I mean), this is especially true with low tier horse archers, which are pretty worthless. I can feel my heart aching whenever I lost a HA, for it took so much time to train them to be something something. (I play 1.57 beta, and they made the required time to train high tier unit way longer).

AnandaShanti said:

They've already been downgraded a lot. Their best use is just as an archer you can quickly position, since there's no pre-battle placement.

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and I agree with what Ananda said here, and you almost have to use them the same way as you use archer, or you will face a problem where they just ran into enemy reinforcement and get killed by infantry or cav. There are few occasions when you can use it as cav, but it would cause some weird crush if the HA was placed in Group 5.

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However, I do like the idea of making them economically hard to sustain (which would make me drop tears even though I have tons).

I don't really think much about one on one scenario tbh. Each unit has their own role on battlefield, and there's no reason why they should be countering each other (horse and range unit naturally have advantages over infantry, you just can't deny that). It all just depends on how you use them tbh and that's how battle in reality works as well. Though I do hope spear men can brace spear when they are told to form into a shield formation.

Another thing is that Aserai Infantry is known to be the worst infantry, I am not surprised they got defeated by the second best Archer unit in the game.

also look into this one, because it just happened again!!

2021-02-02_13.05.10_726b10f377526eea35a55bf15f230493

Please look into this one, I just encountered this crash again.
2021-02-02_12.56.54_726b10f377526eea35a55bf15f230493

Ummm, I had sent the crash report when it happened last night, but as I said, I didn't have the number. That was last night. All I can do is to upload the save file before the crash happened which I did. Or do you mean you want me to recreate the crush again, and send it again? I am a bit confused.