Life as a foot soldier

[Badcritter]

I'm addicted to cavalry and basically always have been in M&B games. The mobility is so powerful, I find it really difficult to live without it. I also tend to mix troop cultures to get the strongest offering of each faction - even in Warband when there was a penalty for mixing cultures, I still found mixing Nord Hurscals, Rhodok Sharpshooters and either Swadian or Saranid heavy cavalry gave the best results and tended to play that way.

I see people talking about playing as infantry, and videos of it too (most infantry videos are multiplayer, but not all), and I'm well aware that many people choose to play as a particular culture in single player.

As a challenge I've decided to play a campaign "as Battanian", and play myself as a 2 handing foot soldier. At first I wasn't planning to use any cavalry at all and I haven't yet, but I've realised I will need them to dispatch fleeing enemies. Right now, that is the main reason I find it hard to stay off my own horse - I just can't bear to let those cowards get away!

Anyway the point of this post is to ask for people who have played this way to talk about their experience. I'm a competent player and can compete with the highest AI difficulty in a tournament setting without a shield, but I'm not a god of the game like good multiplayer players are and I find it hard to personally survive field battles of any significant challenge without a mount and a shield (granted I don't have decent armour yet so it may get easier). Hiding behind my infantry's shield wall seems lame, and usually isn't too effective anyway. Is there a secret to surviving field battles as infantry?

 

[hruza]

Shield. And stay in your infantry line, isolated you are there for enemy to pick off.
2H is very difficult to pull off because of all the arrows, bolts and javelins flying around the battlefield. Not impossible but difficult. And yes, you need to hide behind your men with shields as a 2H at last until infantry lines meet. Good armor helps a ton as well.

 

[TomaSkTemplar]

body armor does next to nothing compared to a shield big enough, a helmet isnt gonna do anything vs a a harpoon most of the times, unless you are on 1/3 damage. The Sikrit is use a wepon that has two modes of operation, so you can use it with shield and when you put it off or throw away for improved running performance. As a two-hander vs ranged, you are going to need to stutter step to sides to mess up enemy aiming, helps vs loters greatly. In melee, say, vs 15 looters, you throw shield away, start your swing when you run away from them, only turn to them or to the side, to let your weapon reach them. youre going to run in circles.

Another sikrit, is, when you start the game, as a melee char, you do the tutorial and level up your 1 hand weapon and athletics to sufficient levels. If you really want to be competent in infantry, your most valuable skill is going to be athletics. Because with 20 weight youll be able to run after retreating looters, something that will happen frequently if you use a two handed axe. If youre going to use one hander, long enough, they wont be that eager to run.

Using a shield for melee vs say looters will mean that they will have an easier time surrounding you. Perk for halving its weight is pretty significant. You dont wan tto block, you want to keep out of their reach and keep pounding at them, so athletics is essential.

If I wasnt clear enough, when doing tutorial, you take if you have access, or your brother to his club weapon. Then continue doing the hideout in a row as many time until you are really tired. 4-5 focus 4 attributes would mean youre getting there in 1-2 hours. Key is, dont kill raiders, only maul them with a mace. When youre done, retreat, dont beat radagos, let him beat you when you want full level health.

1 handed to level otherwise is very difficult. Same for athletics. It isnt like you can endlessly replay the hideout because after each time you get released money is taken away from you. Any inventory items will be also taken from you. However, if you kill the raider, a bare minimum of them in the hideout will be 8. If you dont kill them, there can be more of them, like 11, so each run will have more targets for you to mace through. It is hard work, you dont get any gold but pay gold when you go down. So, turn damage done to you to 1/3 for the grind to become faster.

Tutorial hideout can be used to level up your bow if you start with it, you can damage the raiders, then finish them with mace if you like. However, if you cut them, sword damage is generally higher when hitting the head than a mace, so at skill 125, when you take their broadswords, you can easily 1-shot them and you can take 8 of them in every run. It depends. Once you run out of money, I guess oyu will be normally captured for a few days, probably with army party disbanded. You solo the bandits. Sometimes there might be 3-5 of them at once, with improved ai not as easy.

when you are using ranged weapons, throw away used, empty bags of arrows, or crossbow, bolts as well, because it seems they have full weight even empty. Sheathe you weapon, throw away shield or when nothing equipped, empty/full bags.

in the tutorial, you generally dont need heavy armor, you need speed. Even if you could cheat in heavy armor, dont, because you wont evade blows and your blows wont have enough power behind them with lower speed of your character. Later on, with stutter stepping, you will easily make cavalry enemies take a wrong path so their hitting you will be that much harder.

 

[Maximum997]

I played as a foot soldier all campaigns in bannerlord.

The bigest problem for me was that stage of the game, when we cut all infantry, and now they have tons of archers, who just kite us to their respawn. And then enemy reinforcments just appear behind my back. And my reinforcments mile away from me.
Cavalry in big numbers was a pain too. Infantry just cant stop them or kill them.
I really didnt know what to do with that things, so i just hired a lot of batanian fians(with 125 leadership it is very easy to get a lot of them from forest bandits. And forest bandits themself are really good archers).
About armor for footman. I wear good armor only in sieges, on the field you need a speed - the best examples are Eastern lamellar 34 body and 5 weight. And nothern lamellar 28 body and 1.9!!!! weight.

I tried a throwing weapons. Axes are just a joke. 70 cut damage max and only 3 of them. So if you are lucky you can kill 3 guys with them from 5 meters. Just waste of slot.
Javelins - they are good(and can be even better with ammo perks actually working) but ffs 7 weight. So bow is meta choise as always.

So i agree with TomaSkTemplar. Two handed\one handed + shield is the best lodout.

 

[Badcritter]

Thanks for the input.

A two handed/one handed dual function weapon seems important. I'm still early game and haven't encountered one yet in this play through, seems there are less exotic items in towns at low levels in 1.3. So I currently have to switch to shield with no weapon if I need to stay alive vs missile weapons or multiple melee attackers.

Is it possible to craft such a weapon? I haven't done much with blacksmithing and I'm thinking of giving that some attention this playthrough as well. Otherwise I guess I'll just have to wait until later in the game when more item variety shows up.

 

[TKnight]

Just add some mods.
- there is a mod that disable the enemy running, so thet fight to the last man.
- also there is a mod for lifesteal after killing (or passive hp regen, heal values can be changed to be balanced )
- also a mod that buff armors so they actually do smth against different types of damage.

 

[bearmans]

I've played as an infantry this entire game but not purebred- I have a horse I use at the start of battles, because otherwise it's really impractical to set up your army well. I've been doing two-handed + longbow no shield all game and haven't found it that tough in large battles.

Some things that may or may not help:

Get the strongest armor you can for the least weight. You really, really, really don't want to get caught in a position where you can't get away. Sturgia has a really good armor that weighs nearly nothing, that one is helpful until you get your athletics up.

Don't overextend- ideally, you want the enemy not to be looking at you. Run in, kill a few people, run back out before you have a lot of attention on you. Don't get out where bowmen will shoot you, unless you're really comfortable dodging AI shots.

Watch out for cavalry. The quickest way to be incap'd is some lancer you didn't see running by from off your screen and hitting you in the head for 100.

When you do attack, get behind or to the side of the enemy (don't be in the middle of the pack) and use exclusively stabs and overhead attacks. Side attacks will almost always whiff on another troop.

Final pointer: if you want to level 2h skill, the bearded axe is common and wonderful. It has just the right balance of speed and reach to deal high damage at the most common melee distances, and also tends to cleave really well if you want to go ham on a pack of looters.


Hope any of that helps, good luck and enjoy! I know I have.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

I've pretty much play exclusively fighting on foot with a 2H axe, shield and a bow as a secondary weapon. I can't get enough of the play style.

I find Athletics the most important skill, followed by Two Handed. Being able to dodge in and out of melee range is crucial.

I tend to stick with our main infantry group on the flank and once the infantry clash, I chop into the enemy flanks and if they don't have many range, I'll get behind their infantry and go to town. You get cleaving multi-kills non-stop with the axe and I'll kill swathes of enemies until they lose morale and break.

 

[Maximum997]

I tend to stick with our main infantry group on the flank and once the infantry clash, I chop into the enemy flanks and if they don't have many range, I'll get behind their infantry and go to town. You get cleaving multi-kills non-stop with the axe and I'll kill swathes of enemies until they lose morale and break.

+1. Enemies just dont want to notice you before you oneshots them.

 

[Mik1306]

I found a decent loadout in 2h+1 spear + shield + thrown weapon, with skill points in 2h and not polearm.
The 2h is for general fighting, the polearm and shield is incase i get caught by cavalry or i need to have a shield against archers, and the throwing weapon to fill the slot.

I like to put a few melee troops in a separate command group to my main shield wall,hide behind it, and then flank around the side of the enemy when the 2 sides engage. Carving up peasants with a 2h axe is my bread and butter.

 

[Razdv]

I'm currently at my infantry 2h fine smithed sword playthrough. Never used ranged weapons. It was fine until I got a big army. My issue is only that I just can't see battlefield behind my soldiers and can't give them orders properly during combat. Trained athletics skill for about 100. So I decided to use a horse. In massive army clash I almost do nothing standing to see as much as I can, just giving orders to my formations. But in siege I'm acting like berzerker, cutting enemies, destroying barricades in town to help my men go through etc. Realistic difficulty, challenging AI.

 

[Badcritter]

Yeah it's surprising how much difference the height from being on a horse makes to issuing orders. When you're on foot that little bit less elevation makes it really tedious to accurately select locations for troops to move to.

 

[Razdv]

Actually I tried to challenge myself to play foot soldier and first person sight. It even worse to see anything You can forget about giving orders properly

 

[Maximum997]

You can forget about giving orders properly

Try RTS camera mod. It is awesome.

RTS Camera

(Updated to e1.9.0)Fix the companion formation bug in e1.9.0.Allows you to give orders in the sky, like a RTS game.Control one of your troops after you are killed in battle.All

www.nexusmods.com

As Footman i had 2 problems with comanding army:
1) Cant see anything. And i played 1,5 meters girl.
2) Have no time

 

[Razdv]

I

Try RTS camera mod. It is awesome.

RTS Camera

(Updated to e1.9.0)Fix the companion formation bug in e1.9.0.Allows you to give orders in the sky, like a RTS game.Control one of your troops after you are killed in battle.All

www.nexusmods.com

As Footman i had 2 problems with comanding army:
1) Cant see anything. And i played 1,5 meters girl.
2) Have no time

Thanks, but I'm don't using any mods for now. Yes I know that some mods are better than vanilla, but while game is under heavy development, I'm staying aside of mods. Except Russian localisation one though, I hope that it doesn't ruin anything...

 

[Maximum997]

Thanks, but I'm don't using any mods for now. Yes I know that some mods are better than vanilla, but while game is under heavy development, I'm staying aside of mods. Except Russian localisation one though, I hope that in doesn't ruin anything...

Ah okay. Just dont forget about it. I really was bored of vanila very fast.