Sweynforkbeard
Squire
So, with some of the changes of late I finally decided to give an infantry based army a try.
Originally, I was going for an empire background and trying for medicine 275 but I ultimately abandoned both ideas. You need every bit speed so the Batanian background is more useful and, although massively improved, medicine 275 remains a case of accepting a huge handicap early in exchange for an advantage in the future when you are invinsible anyway. That aside
Some personal observations that I thought I would share.
In my observation infantry does seem to work considerably better these days. I had countless zero or minimal loss fieldbattles using a solid wall of infantry (the legion).
Infantry actually does well against everything else. Shields do their job against archers and I actually found that they did surprisingly well against cavalry in normal battles.
Infantry synegies with more infantry!
Basically, if you have the stronger/longer line then quality will do its job, you create gaps or break their flanks resulting in a one-sided slaughter. Maybe someone could make infantry and cavalry work, but from my experience, once the lines connect the battle is decided so rapidly that any type of flanking or tactics are wasted. The AI also seems pretty good at staying together so I am not sure luring half their army to the other side of the map or something similar really works.
You could probably make a case for infantry + archers, but really, the best combination of infantry and archers is still 100% archers.
The weakness of the infantry army
Numbers! As long as you fight opponents that are roughly even (or smaller) in size than you, you get a nice, more or less, even battle linje and your quality advantages takes care of the rest. When that is no-longer true the table is basically reversed and you are the one that face slaughter. Fighting with an infantry based army really has a 0 or 1 quality to it, dead or alive, total defeat or brutal slaughter.
My thought. I dont actually think that making infantry stronger or armor better, would really solve anything. I think what might actually help is that infantry would be able to fight effectively in formation, e.g. a shieldwall or square formation. Basically anything that would help the numerically weaker side stick together and avoid being swarmed.
Originally, I was going for an empire background and trying for medicine 275 but I ultimately abandoned both ideas. You need every bit speed so the Batanian background is more useful and, although massively improved, medicine 275 remains a case of accepting a huge handicap early in exchange for an advantage in the future when you are invinsible anyway. That aside
Some personal observations that I thought I would share.
In my observation infantry does seem to work considerably better these days. I had countless zero or minimal loss fieldbattles using a solid wall of infantry (the legion).
Infantry actually does well against everything else. Shields do their job against archers and I actually found that they did surprisingly well against cavalry in normal battles.
Infantry synegies with more infantry!
Basically, if you have the stronger/longer line then quality will do its job, you create gaps or break their flanks resulting in a one-sided slaughter. Maybe someone could make infantry and cavalry work, but from my experience, once the lines connect the battle is decided so rapidly that any type of flanking or tactics are wasted. The AI also seems pretty good at staying together so I am not sure luring half their army to the other side of the map or something similar really works.
You could probably make a case for infantry + archers, but really, the best combination of infantry and archers is still 100% archers.
The weakness of the infantry army
Numbers! As long as you fight opponents that are roughly even (or smaller) in size than you, you get a nice, more or less, even battle linje and your quality advantages takes care of the rest. When that is no-longer true the table is basically reversed and you are the one that face slaughter. Fighting with an infantry based army really has a 0 or 1 quality to it, dead or alive, total defeat or brutal slaughter.
My thought. I dont actually think that making infantry stronger or armor better, would really solve anything. I think what might actually help is that infantry would be able to fight effectively in formation, e.g. a shieldwall or square formation. Basically anything that would help the numerically weaker side stick together and avoid being swarmed.