Best Swadian Castle Defender?

[Stildawn]

Hi All

Loving the new troop trees in Floris mod...

Im just wonder as swadian, what do you guys use as your castle defenders? At the moment I am building up Longbowmen/Selfbow combined with Jacobite/Jocks...

But then I noticed Swadian Guards and Swadian Skirmishers... And am I right in thinking that they might be better? As they both can do archery and infantry? Swadian Skirmishers look even more appealing cause not only are they archers but they also carry shields and swords for melee?

Your thoughts?

 

[imgran]

So many units...

Just pick one, jack it up to T5-T6, and turn it loose.  Really hard to go wrong as long as you can get 'er above T4. 

If the Sergeant-At-Arms had an upgrade change flowing from it though it'd be the most interesting unit in the game.

 

[MrExpendable]

Swadian rangers seem to be quite powerful, as some of them have 2handers.

 

[Stildawn]

Rangers? Dont think Ive seen them?

 

[Nicholas Bell]

For castle defense I would recommend troops with shields - if you are going to participate in the combat.  Troops without shields will not survive long enough to use their offensive weapons against the enemy at the breach.

If you are not planning on being around to participate in combat (castle is not in your general area of operations) or if you want to deter attacks altogether then availability of shields is not important due to how both the auto-calc combat works and the "attack or not" calculation function.  Numbers and troop level are critical there.

Imgram's comments are true - you can't go wrong with level 5 and 6 troops.  But you can break the bank because of their cost.  Finding a financially acceptable mixture of troop levels which accomplish the mission is difficult.  I've had been besieged by Sarranid forces and their H5-7 (Sarranid and Khergit) units take out everyone without a shield on the wall no matter what their level.

 

[Stildawn]

Ah so weapon load out doent affect auto cal?

Im basically after a garrison and forget make up... Something that I can be sure could defend a place even if I cant make it back to defend it in person.

 

[Patone]

In general terms, if you can train higher tier troops (got the cash + training skill to do it) use T6/T7 heavy cavalry (Chevalier Banneret/Barons Mineures) and T6/T7 archers (yeoman/retinue longbowman). Those swadian troops are da best.

However, if you can only get to T5, you totally gotta use Skirmishers. They have 3 power strike (like the I4 jacobites), but 142 weapon proficiency (more than the I5 jock!), plus they have 4 power draw and 180 archery proficiency (the same capabilities of a A5 selfbow archer! their bows are slightly weaker though but that's a very little difference), and did I mention they have shields to top it off? Their only downside is lack of an upgrade, so they will be defeated by more advanced T7 units. Other than that, they are almost like specifically built for sieges.

 

[Stildawn]

Yeah I thought the skirmishers would be a good choice... Im packing my castles with them as we speak lol.

Random off topic question though... How do you make your Lords (Im a king) put men in their castles? I gave a few empty castles to some new lords and after like a week or two of game play they only have like 4 men in them, so when ever we go to war I basically have to ride back and forth between the near empty castles to ward off attack after attack.

 

[Ogrecorps]

Ah so weapon load out doent affect auto cal?

Im basically after a garrison and forget make up... Something that I can be sure could defend a place even if I cant make it back to defend it in person.

Another option (I think skirmishers are swell but... if memory serves they only have 2-handed swords... you might check that.) would be to load up on very low-level units where you don't want to defend - I'm talking 700+ - to prevent the AI even wandering over there then leave one castle defended by fewer units with much higher stats to draw them there. You should be ready to assist by either bringing reinforcements from other castles or dropping all your troops somewhere and plugging the gap with whatever you have that's fast.