I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion, since Fians can still be run down on bad terrain, when heavily outnumbered or against masses of cavalry, while Khan's Guards don't really have that issue. You can just tell KGs to move and they'll reliably outrun anything except tier 5 cavalry.
-
If you are reporting a bug, please head over to our Technical Support section for Bannerlord.
Faction Troop Trees - an analysis as of 1.5
- Thread starter Anushtegin
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion, since Fians can still be run down on bad terrain, when heavily outnumbered or against masses of cavalry, while Khan's Guards don't really have that issue. You can just tell KGs to move and they'll reliably outrun anything except tier 5 cavalry.
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
They only have a single quiver yes, but again their heavy armour, superior progression, bow and skill gives them quite a few more advantages than everyone else. I'd honestly rather they had their ****tier old bow and average skills if it meant they gained a second quiver. As they are now, their ranged burst outclasses everyone else's noticeably, and in close combat they'll pretty much have no trouble cleaning up survivors.
I don't think any of the top-tier archers will have trouble, to be fair.
ElCrisp
Sergeant at Arms
Yeh even while suggesting it, the thought of shielded archers being better suited to Sturgia did cross my mind.
I think Its cool how good skirmishers are in this game. I just think its dumb how every heavy infantry line now pretty much doubles as a skirmisher. Having the two seperated out (except in unique cases) is more interesting to me. However I suppose that ties into some of the points @Telyon was making in that heavy infantry dont really exist, at least effectively.
Dabos37
Sergeant Knight at Arms
I disagree, skirmish units being so good just brings a lot of issues:
- It is one of the reasons because battles ends in seconds.
- Skirmishers are clearly outshining other kind of units making them feel useless.
- Two handed units are OP and useless at the same time. They are OP because they are too good in melee but at the same time they are useless because they are pretty vulnerable against skirmishers. This could sound nice in theory but in practice, the result is that they get wrecked everytime. The player is able to use two handers effectively but the AI just gets its unshielded units killed in seconds.
- A lot of battles end without units engaging in melee.
The thing is that most of the people are not really aware of how much effective skirmishers are because it takes some time to realize about it.
Concerning the main topic, these are for me the most cost-effective units in the game:
- Archers: All archers are pretty damn effective, even sturgian veteran archers. I find Palatine Guard the most effective mostly because they are easier to find and they are also OP in melee and against other archers due to heavy armor. Marksmen are also pretty good.
- 1H infantry: Sturgian Veteran Warriors. Legionaries could perform better in sieges sometime.
- 2H infantry: Aserai Palace Guard - They completely wreck everything in melee.
- Heavy Cavalry: Vlandian Vanguard - After making cavalry units tests, I was surprised to see their performance compared to other cavalry units. They are not stronger than nobles but they are easier to get.
- Hose Archers: Khuzaits Heavy Horse Archers are pretty good. Not sure if they are the best though.
Last edited:
I've come to favor the Fian champion because of two quivers! However in a oh **** scenario both problems/weaknesses are solved by a retreat!
ElCrisp
Sergeant at Arms
But imagine instead skirmishers have ****ty armour and melee skills, and that ai become more competent with shield wall and units use their shields better in general, as this is desirable for the balance issues that will be ongoing with archers.
Also if heavy infantry no longer duel class as skirmishers this means you will need to actually recruit skirmishers indepently which in all likelyhood means far less of them, so that change would provide even better odds for two handers to actually survive. As right now shock troops get ****ed by archers and Heavy inf (because they double as skirmisher) Where as two handers in my mind are to counter heavy inf, or be of use in the second rank which is not really a thing as far as I can tell.
It should be:
- Skirmisher beat Archers and Shock troops with their shield and throwing weapon respectively
- Heavy inf can hold best against archer fire, and and skirmishers and beat both in melee fairly cleanly
- Shock Troops kill anything they can get into melee with but its the getting there that is the hard part.
- Archers are dangerours to anything without active shield cover facing, and of course have range advantage. Will likely die in melee 1v1 but can pick of those they have already wounded.
All of this hinges on armor being on a meaningful gradient mind you. Like 0-20 armour does nothing for how many hits it takes to kill you, 20-40 barely makes a difference. 40-60 you start to feel something. But any feeling you get from armour is non existant for blunt damage and no substantial difference for pierce.
If you changed armour to be stronger in general while simultaneously making a good margin of difference between heavy units meduim units and light armoured units all of the unit roles would express themselves so much more meaningfully in my opinion.
In summary I think the lethality of skirmishers is a good thing, it is everything around them that I think has to change.
Last edited:
I don't like many of the troops and troop trees, Battania being the worst offender. Nobles with bows while the majority of the people don't use bows at all? Crazy. Till now I only changed the Battanian troop tree totally (based on mods available, like an archer line, less armor, different clothes, less cavalry, changed equipment, etc.) and some of the top tier Empire units which have unrealistic heavy plate armor for normal infantry. I will change all trees after the game goes out EA, less armor overall, more shields, more spears, less tiers, less cavalry, less artificial diversity, more straightforward "realistic" design, or so. I don't care the slightest for multiplayer, so it's just personal SP taste, I think.
Anushtegin
Sergeant
some good points beign brought up by everyone, which largely confirms some obersavtions i made myself, notably:
- i don't have a problem with archers beign really good at what they do, but the fact that top tier archers still do very good in the melee as well is an issue. they should probably not get access to top tier armor (including horse archers).
- i also think skirmishers are superior to heavy infantry, as their javelins give them an edge before the melee and their heavy armor and shield carry them through the actual melee. they should probably also not get top tier armor, but still better armor than archers.
- two handed heavy infantry has the distinct disadvantage of not getting a shield and therefore gettign decimated before the actual melee. i think they should get a standard one handed weapon and shield to get them through missile fire and then use their two handed weapons in the actual melee.
- generally, heavy infantry and skirmishers should not get mixed in terms of equipment and troop tree progression.
If you're going to just cheese retreats then quality differences between archers are irrelevant.
I don't see a problem with this? This is actually perfect.
So far Sturgian archers have proven underwhelming in exploiting this due to them not hitting their targets all that much or not one hit killing like forest bandits do. It absolutely does matter if there is a quality difference between the archers, it's the difference of only killing 2 or 3 enemies before hitting retreat or killing 10+ enemies before hitting retreat, it's the difference of retreating 10 times during the battle or 25 times
I've gone ahead and started a new campaign where my army will only be sturgian veteran warriors and ulfhednar. With forest bandits present to reload the save, redo the battle and simply exploit the retreat when more than 1 of my infantry get killed instead of knocked out in the original battle. (Still have a really hard time accepting the death of my core units)
Off course when besieging someone and facing the AI army spam I'll also default to the retreat tactic. If the AI is a massive cheater, then I am allowed to use battle exploits to farm morale and renown by besieging and fighting of the army spam
Last edited:
How do know if I'm going to retreat or wipe them out? If I bring the best units I'm morel likely to blow them out but I can still retreat if I feel something is off. If I bring sub-par units I will have to retreat and whittle the enemy down,
or just f7 them and kill em all myself.
Even with more armor the KG is his own enemy by riding into arrows and attacks and suffering (too much) speed damage.
There is no limit to the number of retreats you can do. I suppose your personal tolerance for cheese could be a limiting factor but there are no archers so bad they are only getting two or three kills on approach, unless the situation involves only very small numbers. The difference between Sturgian archers and BFCs is probably more like two or three retreats vs. one or two. And you won't take any losses in either case.
edit: Yes, this applies to the player as well. Although at least there it involves some skill in actually hitting the enemy yourself without getting hit hard enough to go under the 20 health threshold.
Last edited:
You obviously never tried this with your band of 18 sturgian archers vs 500+ Khuzait......
I actually had to save, alt tab out of the game and go watch some youtube and netflix for a while to break the monotony of the retreat grind
You're right: I don't cheese the retreat mechanic. I just lose and spend the half-hour rebuilding my party or strip one of my garrisons for more troops.
Are...are there actually people justifying the retreat exploit? What?
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
No archer save for one gets access to top tier armour. Fian Champs are actually surprisingly light, and Khan's Guard are a bit of strange melee cav/horse archer hybrid. I wouldn't really mind if archers were worse in melee, but I don't think they should be useless. And I certainly don't think Fians should suck in melee either.
Who are the actual skirmishers in the game, and who are the heavy infantry. In Bannerlord, there's considerable overlap between the two. Just about any heavy infantry that isn't a Vlandian Sergeant has access to a shield, heavy armour and something to throw at people.
Eh, maybe for some. But if you're actually smart about using your units, its not hard to just hide them behind shield walls. Also as AI tends to be atm, they'll be tempted to use that sword and shield and ignore their two hander. Especially if their two hander is a polearm. I'd rather TW fix their ai first.
Should it? Most of the cultures present in the game tend to like using throwing weapons as a preamble to melee action. It would be hard to justify most of them not having something to throw as they wade into battle.
I don't mind some Skoutatoi style infantry, but I hope you know that turning their legionaries into spearmen might just straight up ruin them. Spears still suck, and besides that Calradia is a fictional setting. It takes inspiration from history sure, but its not meant to be completely accurate. The Calradian Empire is not literally the Byzantines.
Also crossbowmen fight differently to archers. It fits the 'all-rounder' style that the Empire has going for it.
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
I also ask everyone this: who are the actual true skirmishers in this game? No faction actually has a dedicated javelin tosser, at least as things are. And are you actually asking for all heavy infantry to lose their skirmishing potential? Because that wouldn't make sense for some factions. Only Vlandia and the Khuzaits can really be justified to have infantry with zero skirmishing ability. It wouldn't really make sense for everyone else.
Explain how.
This is how it’s suppose to be played. Other methods are not the intended gameplay loop. Nothing wrong with them but they should balance things based on the intended gameplay loop.
I think when you retreat it should just use the “try to get away” mechanic on the remaining troops like a real retreat instead of letting you choose what to do again
Anushtegin
Sergeant
well, i was goign off the premise that all top tier footmen should be useful and there should be no clear outlier before anyone else (archers before footmen, skirmishers before pure melee) and that there shouldn't be a single footman that can do it all, because why have anything else? the idea of having a troop tree is to have variation and choice, to mix troops to best effect. otherwise me might skip this thign altogether and only have fians, khan's guards and whatever and laugh at people that want balance and diversity...
footmen by that time period were essentially grouped in to categories: line ('heavy') foot and light foot. line footmen were supposed to fight in formation and give a base to rally behind and protect from cavalry charges. skirmishers are part of the light infantry that can't wear heavy armor because it would slow them down/tire them faster and make them less agile. they were not supposed to withstand infantry or cavalry charges but retreat behidn actual line infantry.
in bannerlord, some heavy infantry classes get javelins for no reason other than makign them better or not letting that extra weapon slot going to waste i guess. likewise skirmishers get equipment with which they can compete with heavy infantry on equal footing.
which brings me back to my OP: some factions clearly have different branches of footmen that can be categorized as skirmishers and heavy infantry, however the progression doesn't always make sense, and the battanians get various types of footmen that are often both heavy foot yet also skirmishers but to varying degrees.
let's take sturgia: there are two main branches that can be classed as 'melee' and 'ranged'. do you want to get the best skrimisher? guess i gotta go into the 'ranged' tree and upgrade that javelin foot. wrong! the javelineer ultimately upgrades to mounted skirmisher. the best foot skirmisher meanwhile is in the melee branch...
empire? tough luck, no dedicated skirmisher, even though they were well known for it. they were however not really known for their crossbowmen. therefore it makes sense, IMO, to replace the crossbowmen line with skirmishers armed with tzikourion axes. that would also give the faction more flavor.
battania? as said, one muddled mess. there are two branches that can be liberally categorized as 'heavy' and 'light', but the equipment is all over the place and they have two nearly identical final heavy infantry/skirmisher upgrades, just in case someone made the wrong upgrade choice earlier i guess.
aserai? the. worst. first you branch off into two virtually identical infantrymen, only to find that you are ****ed either way, because the tier 3 upgrade javelineer turns into the archer eventually, and the best skirmisher is, as usual, the heavy foot with shield.
khuzaite darkhans used to have eastern javelins, but now they only get one triangular throwing spear, makign them eastern legionaries essentially...
in summary, yeah there aren't exactly dedicated skirmishers, which IMO is a big issue...
