-
If you are reporting a bug, please head over to our Technical Support section for Bannerlord.
Why is the Khan's Guard so much stronger than the Vanguard Faris?
- Thread starter strawmann
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
One comes from a horse culture and the other does not?
This isn't the whole story though - equipment is a big part of a units effectiveness.
However it makes sense that Khuzait has the best Horse Archer in the game.
However it makes sense that Khuzait has the best Horse Archer in the game.
It's not the skills, although some skill discrepancies are odd. It's that everything about the Khan's Guard takes maximum advantage of AI and equipment imbalances and quirks. It's got an absurdly strong swinging polearm that the AI can actually use effectively due to how oddly forgiving it is in terms of handling - it functions more like a two handed sword rather than doing little damage if only the pole rather than blade hits - on a heavily armored horse archer which archers and cav alike struggle to hit due to the way the AI aims at moving targets.
strawmann
Recruit
That's a reasonable explanation for the difference in riding skill, at least. Strangely, the Khan's Guard has a T4 horse while the Vanguard Faris has a T5. The two horses have nearly the same total stats, though.
This is also an interesting point. Khan's Guard has 51 head and 62 body armor; Vanguard Faris has 37 head armor and 65 body armor. Khans have a T6 glaive and a T4 bow; Vanguard Faris has (five) T6 javelins, a T4 one-hand sword, and T3 lance and shield.
The Khans seem to be objectively stronger not just in skills, but equipment too.
Yeah. I don't get it. There are six T6 units. Two of them are hand-crafted to be OP in stats, equipment and AI synergy (Khans and Fians). Two are basically lame T5 cavalry (Faris and Druzhinnik). Two are pretty well balanced (Banner Knight and Cataphract). Is this supposed to be a difficulty curve between the factions? Khuzait is easy mode, Aserai is hard mode? Has Taleworlds simply been unable to find time for a balance pass in the last two and a half years? I wish I understood their thinking.
Cuz **** the Aserai, that's why.
They've been doing balance passes, things used to be so much worse. I think they're focused on larger scale stuff though. After release they'll have more feedback from more casual players, which sometimes this forum seems to forget exist.
five bucks
Knight at Arms
Aserai are said by TW to be directly based on the Arabs, who are and were very big on horses. The Arabian Thoroughbred, one of the best horses in the world, comes from that region. "Faris" refers to Furusiyya, a martial tradition of horsemanship skills and arts. This is reflected in-game as well. The Aserai region is the best for buying horses.
As being a "horse culture" goes Aserai is a very close second to Vlandia and Khuzaits. All three are horse cultures.
This.
Khan's Guard's glaive needs to be taken away, or greatly nerfed.
The best horse archer should not also be the strongest melee fighter. It's dumb.
And it's so easy to fix!
+1.
Banner Knight has a good niche as "reasonably tanky couched lance 1hKO guy."
Cataphract has a good niche as "ultra tank".
Faris is a hybrid melee cavalry/ranged cavalry but not very good at either and they should be buffed a bit.
Druzhinik could stand to be better in dismounted combat perhaps.
Fian Champion would be balanced if armour worked properly against arrows. They at least are the only T6 unit that can't use a horse.
Khan's Guard is just a Mary Sue character who's good at literally everything and has no weaknesses.
Bluko88
Sergeant
It's literally cause of the glaive they have
With the glaive in melee (especially on horseback) any unit will basically turn into a tactical nuke and just melt enemies in melee. Seriously give the glaive to a unit that doesn't even have very good polearm skill, it'll still probably perform better. See TW nerfed Horse Archer's A.I. so that it doesn't skirmish very well anymore. Problem is in a lot of situations this basically makes them useless now. So TW probably over-compensated and gave them the glaive (might have always had it don't remember), so despite their poor skirmishing ability they'd still do okay when units catch up to them. And that's generally fine since Khan Guards basically skirmish whole battle in the hands of A.I. but for the player (if you know what you're doing) basically become an "I Win Button" in just about every single circumstance.
Also don't believe me? See Lyon's analysis:
Honestly this frustrated me enough that I just finally decided to mod their equipment myself. Here's what I did:
- Took away their glaive; replaced with lance
- Gave them saber to fight in close quarters melee (spears/lances only don't do well)
- Since only 1 arrow stack, changed to Stacked Steppe Arrows for 32 ammunition
- Gave them better Khuzait Horse Barding to increase survivability
Sad thing is I didn't even adjust their skill allocation (one-handed should probably be beefed a bit), and lo behold they still perform well, and are generally speaking still the best horse archer. They just don't dominate everything anymore when used by the player.
Here's results against Veteran Faris with them skirmishing, pretty bad, but they are Horse Archers
Here's results when switched to melee only, still don't win, but up a good fight at least
Now you might be crying foul, but guess what still best horse archer since they can beat T5 Mameluke Cavalry skirmishing
Suppose they could really nerf the glaive damage wise, but wouldn't be very good for player use then.
there's also the mounted stab / couched hitbox off-set - if you pay att you'll notice it's not on the reticle even for us - so obviously the AI will struggle with it.
Aserai mimicking arabian cultures means that they are more of a horse culture than the Khuzaits. But I won't start a gigantic historical discussion over this. Suffice to say that all modern horses were cross-bred with arabian breeds simply because their horses were bigger, stronger and faster. At least the game shows how pathetic mongolian horses actually were (dwarf horses / almost pony size), the sad part is that they were made just as effective and at times even better than the Aserai ones
Khan's Guards have always had the glaive.
pontaeri
Recruit
It's pretty ironic because the Mongol winning streak was ended by Mamaluke armies. But I think Battanian Fian Champions are probably the best tier 6 troop. A group of 50 will decimate standard op for armies of 400. I think its marriage of weapon with the right unit stats and how the AI is coded to fights is the reason. Talewords needs to test and retest . . but it isn't about balance the T6 would be boring if they were all the same like uber stats elite troops to walk over non T6. They should make T6 play to the strengths like cataphracts for not player hating but crush alot / good all around or vs opfor cav / rider archers / dragon riders (j/k), or faris for hit and run with javelins to the head (maybe make them better vs armored / shield enemies) . . ., khans guards for archer pincushioning and elven slicing glaive action, don't touch Fians they're good, and maybe vlandian knights better at melee lancing / breaking infantry spear lines (than say cataphracts but not as tanky etc) or better vs infantry (of all the cavs ). I
. On my Aserai campaigns, I've had much better success with foot archer centric mamaluke infantry than cavalry based centered around Faris, plus it's easier to develop the foot archer centered army.
. On my Aserai campaigns, I've had much better success with foot archer centric mamaluke infantry than cavalry based centered around Faris, plus it's easier to develop the foot archer centered army.
Last edited:
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
Aren't the Vanguard Faris quite lightly armoured too? Top that off with their bizarrely low skills for a noble and now contrast that to the Khan's Guard. Seriously heavy armour, great weapons, and lots of skill on a hybrid unit.
My takeaway from this is that the Khan's Guard ought to be closer to the Vanguard Faris. Lower armour and lower skills due to having to juggle across multiple combat styles. Hell, just make them barely anymore skilled than Heavy Horse Archers and call it a day.
My takeaway from this is that the Khan's Guard ought to be closer to the Vanguard Faris. Lower armour and lower skills due to having to juggle across multiple combat styles. Hell, just make them barely anymore skilled than Heavy Horse Archers and call it a day.
Antaeus
Squire
On the field, the apparent qualitative difference doesn't always pan out.
Ranged weapon plays a big role. When Faris get to within throwing range and aren't too distracted they can absolutely obliterate unshielded formations. But they have to get within throwing range, and not be distracted. KGs on the other and, fire off at range, but need to fire more shots to kill.
In practice, Faris and Mameluke cavalry end up attacking in sequence, one after another drifting around the left side of your line. And can be quite a handful because there is a level of unpredictability about whether they're going to charge home or float around your flank. KGs on the other hand always flank your line so you can depend on horse archer traps to eliminate them relatively quickly.
In that way, KG's relative individual strength can be nullified by their tactical deployment by the AI. I'd much rather face 30 or 40 KGs with mixed lesser horse archers than 30 or 40 Faris with Mamelukes ahead of them. I always take more deaths from Asari armies. In that respect, it should always be a conversation about the role units play within a mixed army. Not just their unit vs unit strengths.
Ranged weapon plays a big role. When Faris get to within throwing range and aren't too distracted they can absolutely obliterate unshielded formations. But they have to get within throwing range, and not be distracted. KGs on the other and, fire off at range, but need to fire more shots to kill.
In practice, Faris and Mameluke cavalry end up attacking in sequence, one after another drifting around the left side of your line. And can be quite a handful because there is a level of unpredictability about whether they're going to charge home or float around your flank. KGs on the other hand always flank your line so you can depend on horse archer traps to eliminate them relatively quickly.
In that way, KG's relative individual strength can be nullified by their tactical deployment by the AI. I'd much rather face 30 or 40 KGs with mixed lesser horse archers than 30 or 40 Faris with Mamelukes ahead of them. I always take more deaths from Asari armies. In that respect, it should always be a conversation about the role units play within a mixed army. Not just their unit vs unit strengths.
Or fix the damage scaling calculation with swing polearms; they swing slower than swords/2handers yet pull some serious numbers damages but in an equal window of time with the swing animations. Or if they are supposedly able to pull that kind of damage with a heavily weighted blade on an extended shaft, have it break after X uses (against body or shield or blocks); similar to some mods that had couch lances break sometimes in Warband.
Antaeus
Squire
In a battle, how often do you see massed KGs attacking with their polearms? More often than not they end the battle fluffing about the fringes in ones and twos firing off arrows at stragglers, or getting mopped up by what ever random cavalry you have running about the field.
This is what I was referencing above. The individual features a unit has should be judged based on how that unit is deployed and functions in the battle space. It's not a game of paper scissors stone. KGs might have a billion swing damage with a glaive. But they rarely use this in reality. The bigger impact on battles is their survivability thanks to their armour.
Human players can cheese the system and pump out armies of hundreds of KGs. But Ai armies don't/can't. So they end up being good horse archers that can take a hit and give you a black eye one on one if you get too close, but otherwise prone to scattering and range damage like all other horse archers. In battle, they do not end up as all conquering AI terminators destroying all in front of them. In that respect, their glaive is perfectly fine.
The Great Grub
Sergeant
i swear the faris has less arrows as well. My last run i used a small contingent of horse archers both khans guard and faris and the faris would run out of ammo very fast
That's true: the Faris doesn't have a bow at all. They are javelin cavalry.
Mameluk cav and heavy cav are the ones with bows, but they are common troops.
you're being disingenuously going out of context - I said that the chinese employment of crossbows made the Mongols adapt because they were being stopped with their HA-centric tactics - and I have implied that cultures that employed good bowmen did slow them down significantly - I didn't say they lost their flare, instead I said they've adapted their army compositions and tactics. Reading a lot of history helps, but ultimately not falling into fanboy bias's the key to not commit fallacies...
After the first wave of adaption the mongols went through, the chinese were forced to retreat their borders all the way down to swamp zones / rice wetlands - and that stopped the mongols for a long period of time (the terrain itself) - Than they've got the second wave adaption and started using boats - chinese were conquered.
As for the Mongol empire it was unsustainable because they were a tribal nomadic society, what ended them was incompetency of governing such a large territory - they simply couldn't deal with the logistics. Say, if they were a more structured society like, idk, Aztecs, Mayans (significantly less evolved than most eurasian cultures) they would've kept the empire for a long time. - Them being defeated and their "conquering" has nothing to do with HA (of course that contributed) but rather to do with a multidisciplinary context - like geopolitics at the times, mentality, spirituality, philosophical foundations of their culture, martial knowledge, technology, etc... Also, they've met not only a single really powerful empire when they started getting beaten, but 2 + the fortification centric kingdoms of Europe. They were being incessantly contested by the Arabian empire and the Byzantines, and up north they started encountering non-tribal people who lived in castles and castles were a nightmare for them - fortifications, indeed, played a big part at stopping their rampage - but it wasn't the reason why they've lost, the main reason was themselves.
Last edited:
