Heavy Infantry CKO : Thoughts and how to optimize it ?

[Veolfen]

Hello everyone ! I just joined the forum today even tho i've read a lot of topics for a long time.

But after playing a lot of m&b, especially Pendor, and not finding a topic on the subject of heavy infantry CKO, i thought it was time to register and join the forum community.

Now back to the main subject :

-Many people tend to go for archer CKO &/or heavy cavalry CKO. I myself did it once, but I think there are enough KO orders based on heavy cav that i wanted to create some real heavy infantry. The Kraken Riddaris are strong, but i admit, i hate their helmet, and also, i wanted a CKO to optimise the weaponry.
So i wanted to share what i did to optimize it, my thoughts and the subjects where i struggled a bit (like 1h weaponry) and i'd like to have your thoughts & reports of your own testings.

First : CKO troops :
-For pure stats reason, and also to go against the usual way of building CKOs, the Knights have to be the main Frontline unit. It's a heavy infantry CKO, so the heaviest has to be the Knights !
-The sergents could be 2 thing : A 2nd line troop wielding 2 handers/polearms to help the main frontline once engaged, or an archery support troop.

Second : Trainers :
-Sir Alistair & Jocelyn : Perfect trainer, alternating between each other will avoid clashes between them and they are both quite the same statwise. Alistair will give them the highest shield skill & polearm proficiency (for sergeants for example) while Jocelyn better athletics & one handed proficiencies.
-Lethaldrian : Good trainer once you start getting qualis gems : leveling up his int to get trainer make him a very good trainer for stats and proficiencies.

Those  3 trainers are well known for being the bests anyway.

-Boadice : Trained for Powerthrow : Throwing weapons are very effective in the hands of a skilled infantry.
-Diev : If you want archers sergeants, he can be a way better powerdraw trainer than Lethaldrian.

Qualis gems will play a good part in this, one of those trainer will need a lot of strength, so your CKO gets a lof of HPS and hits hard.


Third : The stuff/loadout :
That's the most important part that will differenciate them from typical archery/heavy cav orders :
-In the beginning it doesn't matter, their stats are too low to give them decent stuff, if you have money to spend, you can start giving them gauntlets&boots & some decent armor.
-Midway through their training, they'll get better proficiencies & strength, and that's where it gets interesting :

For Knights :
Heavy Board shield (HBS) tend to have the best result for the CKO once you get it : They cover your entire soldier and so, protect them from the murderous archery of Pendor. The other nice shield is the Kraken Shield, it covers a lot of parts of the knights too, but the legs. So it's a matter of taste, but after testing both, i enjoyed more the Heavy Board shield
Lategame the most optimised shield may be the noldor enchanted shield : It covers a bit less, but it's faster & and tougher. But i'm not that sure, i wonder if the extra area protection from HBS isn't more worth it than the overall way better stats of the noldor enchanted shield.

For the armor I forbid myself of using Noldor armors : I don't want my troop to look like elves, or i rather not bother and keep those qualis gem to recruit noldors. So take a powerful armor, but don't forget to go for a nice skin too, 2-3 armor difference won't change much in the end : Peasants & brigands won't scratch them and they'll take hard hits from decent to elite archery and other elite units anyway.

For the weapons, that's where i think we need to discuss the subject a lot. What's the best one hander for a frontline ? I thought of Axes because of the lack of thrust + bonus damages on shield, like Curved Fierdsvain axes and their speed & range (first weapon i tested, it had nice results but a tad long at killing armored targets, also my CKO wasn't endgame trained) ? Or a mace for blunt damages, but which one ? Their damages are quite low, and their range too. Doom maces maybe (are they too long) ? Military hammers ? I'm having nice results for the moment with Morningstars as 1 handers, but i feel they could have better results. Tried Battle Hammers, but used 1 handed, they are too slow.

Also, giving them throwing weapons is a very powerful addition, throwing axes or anti shield spears grant them a very cleaning power. Just tell them to hold their fire at the beginning of the battle and to fire at will if you see a cav charge that is too strong to be dealt with by your archers only, or if the cav isn't a problem, once the big part of the infantry start to get close.

For sergeants :
2 settups :
-Second line with poleaxes & and other 2 hander axe/sword/hammer for close quarter engagement. You can opt for a big shield to protect their back too, something big and not too heavy, like a kite shield. Last slot could go for throwing axes/spears like the knights. I went for throwing axes for them and throwing spears for the knights.

-Archers/Crossbowmen with 2 handed weapon : DPS vs accuracy & ammo economy, matter of taste, they'll clean way faster with bows tho and everyone knows how archers gets really strong. For their melee weapons, second line are much more effective with a big 2 hander to protect themselves : Free slot for a second ammo stack and if cavaliers reach them, the archers will make them eat their teeth. A good bardiche (not too long, they don't need to stop the cav charge, and they won't try they'll be busy shooting when they'll get charged) does the job well early.

For armor & stuff : well same thing that we did for knights, but it's always nice to make them look different than knights.

What are your thoughts about this ? About heavy infantry CKO overall also ?
Who else did heavy infantry CKO ? What are your thoughts for the best shields ? What's the best weapon would you suggest to use alongside the shield ? How would you build the sergeants ?

Together guys, let's promote the power of the heavy infantry !!!

 

[sher]

CKO sergeants already can be better than any infantry so there's no sense in wasting knights for this role. Knights can be extreme crossbowmen (rifles if they're better) to benefit from high archery pro and improved rate of fire but best application for them is mounted troops.

 

[Veolfen]

I understand that thinking, and it's actually the most effective way. But in the end, it's min-maxing and everyone end up doing the same thing : Archer noldor CKO or noldor heavy cav CKO.

I'd like to avoid this case and make the knights the heavy infantry.

The point of this topic is going against the usual way. 

 

[Pacific_Salmon]

I really like your idea!

I would say one thing to be careful of is giving them throwing weapons that that can also be used as melee.  (I am thinking of throwing axes and Great Gaffig here).

I don't know what the algorithm is but they will use these throwing weapons in melee sometimes, this is annoying.

Maybe for throwing use empire light pila?

For armour use one of the heraldic armours.  This will look cool with the HBS.

For weapons the heavy curved axe is great. 

for sergents the Silver two-handed rune axe will look pretty awesome.

 

[Kentai]

What's the best weapon would you suggest to use alongside the shield ?

I've always preferred pairing a Doom Mace with shield for prisoners and some extra damage against armor. I think an axe could work as well. It comes down to your preference. Do you want to break shields faster and do more damage to lightly armored enemies or do more damage to heavily armored enemies and take prisoners?

 

[Pacific_Salmon]

The doom mace is usually the "min-max" weapon choice and very often used by CKOs so for that reason I would avoid it.  Plus your CKO should be a feared killing machine, not a slave taking machine.

Leave slave taking for the peasants.

 

[sher]

I'd like to avoid this case and make the knights the heavy infantry.

Well, best heavy infantry is Doom Mace/Ebony Long Sword (or other lethal 1H) + Netherworld Shield (or other best shield) + Sarleon Halberd + Old Empire Light Pilum. But you already can have similar infantry just with worse eqiupment. Rifle instead of halberd and throwing weapon would make unique heavy infantry with strong ranged option - they will be better than EGK.  Problem is training of high pro I guess, since you'll have it low or will have to train it => dismounted companion which is not good.

 

[Veolfen]

For the armor yeah the heraldic one is cool since they will have your heraldy on them. Went for the silver ornate armor in the end with veccavian helm (the closed one)

Gonna still give a try to ebon swords & doom maces too, see how it does.

Netherworld shield is too small to be a decent protection, even tho it has amazing stats.

The Sarleon Halberd are actually a good advice, since right now my sergeants are using range weaponry, i'm already using halbardier with my knights and they do well vs cav.

And for the Throwing weapon, my knights are indeed using the empire light pilum.

Here is a screen of how they look in their current state :

-Knights (the throwing spear isn't the right one on the screen, i'm doing tests with gaflaks) :

-Sergeants (I prefer the ancien rune axe  , in terms of look and their range make them efficient vs cav AND infantry) :

 

[sher]

Netherworld shield is too small to be a decent protection, even tho it has amazing stats.

Shield skill increases cover while you cannot affect shield resistance and it affects chance of shield penetration. But it's not a big deal and better to use visually appealing shield to match rest of equipment. For knights Doom Mace is absolute best due to high PS and pro - reach 104 is decent enough.

Noldor Enchanted Shield would match their silver armor much better.

 

[lconracl]

@OP
CKO is for player to have some extra fun. Design them as you like, whatever is cool for you, because with enough training they will perform good anyway.

 

[Sarin]

If you are really determined to have CKO knights as infantry, what I would do is to reverse the usual field setup. Arm sergeants as super-heavy crossbowmen: arbalest, bolts, morningstar and halberd, and put them as first line, so they have both clear shot and take more damage as more expendable troops, and place knights in second line to countercharge the enemy as they reach the sergeants.

Frankly, I do not find foot archers to be the best option. Well trained sergeants with arbalest will drop most enemies before coming into melee contact, and have higher firing endurance than archers.

 

[Veolfen]

Yeah converted my sergeants from the polearm second line to the archers you see in the screen. They are very effective but gonna try to turn them into crossbowmen to see the result too.


For the Noldor Enchanted Shield i thought so that it would suit well with the silver armor, but defeated Aeld' like 4 times with prisonner management 8 and he escaped every time lol.


For IconracI yeah the point is to make them very tough to deal with, and the advices i see are good, like Sarin suggested with sergeants in the frontline to take the charge than make the knight charge in.
So tips to optimize it a bit (without relying on noldor armor) are always welcome.

My biggest question was the main weapon but looks like the doom mace wins hands down.

 

[sher]

Yeah converted my sergeants from the polearm second line to the archers you see in the screen. They are very effective but gonna try to turn them into crossbowmen to see the result too.

They'd better to stay archers since sergeants archery pro is usually not so high for a long time - acceptable rate of fire and they will have better bows and arrows while with crossbows they will be similar (at best) to already existing regular ranged troops and upgraded EGK will dominate them really hard. In the end it all depends on the way you prefer to use CKO sergeants.

 

[Veolfen]

Well they're already at 360 bows and 390 crossbows, qualis gems into training leth&jocelyn have very nice results.

 

[sher]

Well they're already at 360 bows and 390 crossbows, qualis gems into training leth&jocelyn have very nice results.

EGK have 520 right after founding and upgrading.

 

[ttl]

You could try doom mace versus warhammer. The AI likes to face-hug so the speed and short reach of the latter might win out. Not sure, though. I'm fairly sure the warhammer wins in sieges, though.

It's also an interesting choice between 2 throwing weapons and a polearm+throw for the front line (together with shield+one-hander). Throwing is certainly better against infantry, but cavalry is usually the only real threat. I got a feeling the one-hand+pole+throw loadout will not be able to switch weapons in time to meet the cavalry charge, and you are better with 2 pack of throwing weapons, cutting down as many horses as possible before reaching you.

Blunt weapons totally dominate overall due to money-making. If you prefer to kill rather than maim, my feeling is that one-handed cutting weapons are quite inferior against other heavy troops, which is where it counts. So in keeping with piercing, you might even try a fighting pick instead of the morning star. At least a drunk adventurer at high level with a pick is surprisingly spirited...

 

[Veolfen]

OOoh the warpick, totally forgot about it ! Gonna check if it could be a good option, but i think the damages are too low and would perform worse than the best cutting weapons.

Polearm + throw was for the sergeants to do a second line support troop A good axe like Ancient Rune Axe can do the job well vs cav AND infantry so I could avoid the AI issue you mention with having to much weapons to switch with. Because yeah, the combination of throwing + polearms + one handed weapons might be too much to handle for the AI.

But if we create a "second line infantry" order, just for sergeants, so we give them different behaviour than the main line. Like telling them to hold fire so they take out their polearms, and give them one handed maces for close quarter once infantry reach the frontline so we can ask them to use blunt weapons only. A lot of management but could be a fun experience.

Thanks for your tips and thoughts !

 

[sher]

Halberd just as deadly to cavalry as it is to infantry so there's no AI switching problem - troops switching to polearms only when cavalry is close. Problem will exist if you'll try to be smart and use Blunt Steel Polehammer to get riders prisoners instead of killing - reach is crucial for halberd and BSP cannot act in same role so riders will be escaping too often. Also with halberd infantry don't use shields and may suffer more damage from missiles but enemy don't shoot that often into crowd to avoid friendly fire. But in the end with high PS and pro CKO troops can just smash everything to pieces with maces - only Netherworld Chargers will not go down in a few swings => two slots can be used for ranged option.

 

[Mutineer]

Kraken ridari work very well in sieges.

 

[Veolfen]

Yeah, Kraken riddari are well armored, have a good shield, use throwing weapons + axes (so they are strong vs shields and don't have too much range so they can swing easily in siege) and have high stats. So they really are a powerful heavy infantry troop. I think going Riddari + ranged CKO could end up being the most powerful settup.  But anyway => Here's about a heavy infantry CKO, so let's keep them out of the picture. But we can inspire ourselves from them tho'.

And yeah Halberds are good. I made a second line of sarleon halbardiers that i put 1 step behind the frontline and it does really well.