two questions!

[eric virgo]

ok. first off.
which is the best one handed weapon? i want a weapon with a decent reach and a whopping damage... (the best i ve seen so far was a watered steel sabre.


and the second.
why is it so hard to maintain a decent army.?
i got 20 footmen. i made 15 skirmishers out of them, then i managed to create 12 archers. and from them i made 7 marksmen.

after three battles i am left with 3 marksmen and some random skirmishers and one horseman and a few footsoldiers and a knight.
my army looks like a bunch of losers. and i dont have a slot for any more changes...

is there a strategy when creating units?
how do you do it? do you wait and train them off-battle until they reach the best level or keep fighting and buying new recruits?

want an army with 20 marksmen and 10 knights. thats all i want!

(isnt it the coolest thing when you have all you marksmen/archers on the side of a hill and you see 40 or so bandits walking towards you??? they usually have their shields up but when they put them aside to throw javelins...

BOY OH BOY THEY GET SOME SERIOUS ARROW ACTION.
this one bandit got 5 arrows at the same time. it was horrible... in a sexual kind of way!

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

I find the best way to maintain my army is, when fighting River Pirates, just tell them to hang back for a while and weaken the enemy myself first from horseback with a javelin (or club if you're looking to collect the rewards). Then when they're a couple less, have your guys charge in and attempt to finish them off.

 

[Lancer]

As far as maintaining an army goes, make sure you or someone else in the party (ie Borcha or Marnid) has a high surgery skill. The higher this skill, the more likely your troops will get knocked unconscious rather than killed outright. I have a game where Marnid has a surgery of 7, and deaths in my party are extremely rare.

For your first question, I'm not sure off-hand what the most powerful one-handed weapon is, but try checking Effidan's Equipment Database.

Lancer

 

[compfreak]

i'd say that the watered-steel nomad sabre is the best 1h weapon. some people like polearms, but i'm not counting those. and about the army, i agree with the last couple posts, with a slight change. what i do is get a weak weapon or a hunting bow and get every enemy's health down, but don't kill them/ko them. then order a charge.

 

[DaLagga]

As for the best onehanded weapons, the watered-steel nomad saber is great, or a balanced longsword (not as much damage, but slighty better reach and you can thrust with it). Now, when it comes to building an army its very hard if not impossible to get mounted units to work well with archers or infantry of any kind. The knights run ahead and die and or at the very least block your archers from firing. From my experience the best armies are those consisting of a single unit type, all knights or all archers for example. The best strategy is to keep them all together and attack in one big mass. Do your best to keep them together and protect those little rambos who run off by themselves and your losses will be next to nothing. With my army of 50+ vaegir knights i lose one of them about every 3 battles, same goes for my army of 50+ sergeants. But it depends alot on what you're fighting as well, so try to avoid frequent melee's with dark knights...or you're not going to have much of an army after long. The AI and unit options just aren't quite good enough yet to make using a balanced army practical, but you can try if you wish. Oh, and of course surgery helps ALOT, max it out as soon as you can.

 

[Rando]

The one handed weapon seems pretty much answered. I only have these 2 things to add about keeping army size up.

Wound Treatment: Right after you finish fighting that war party, you probably want to run away from those annoying steppe bandits but, sometimes you aren't fast enough. So when you do end up fighting multiple battles, it's best to have your troops as healthy as possible.

Training: Just do a couple of caravan missions to obtain a couple thousand denars. Then you can just sleep at the taverns a couple of nights and turn a large portion of your Swadian peasants into skirmishers/footman. Despite what I have been reading around the boards, peasants do die faster than knights. Higher the level of units, the longer they stay alive.

But really, surgery is gonna be your best bet. You may end up with 15 unconscious skirmishers but, they'll wake up as 15 crossbowmen.