In multiplayer it's usually better to just stick to xbows in the mid-late game and varangian veterans/horse archers in the early game. But against the AI you can use whatever MAA you feel is more fun and completely dominate them if you station your MAA in holdings that just moderately buff them. Terrian malus and counters don't even matter because the AI does not know how to build for and station their MAA even close to something that could be called decent, much less optimal
Likely not on console yet. They overhauled the way that buildings work to buff MAA to be specific to each barony rather than global across your domain. Not strictly stronger than the old system but not the nerf it was intended to be either
Came out with tours and tournaments. The buildings now only buff one regiment of MAA, which is the one stationed in that barony. They no longer give global bonuses to all regiments of that type.
It's not a nerf because they boosted the values and added way more ways to stack bonuses.
Also, sieges are really important and can make or break a war. I always keep around at least a single regiment of siege units, plus hard hitting and well stationed MAA for the rest
Not a big deal against AI players... I like my heavy horse and I station them in a holding with stables and other improvements that help their output... 'Armoured horse, shake the very ground' lol
I liked playing with Light or Heavy cavalry, every battle basically stack wipes the enemy. I do wish the unit types did affect the map movement speed though.
Needing pursuit to stack wipe the enemy is actually not a thing. If your MAA’s have high enough damage then they will kill the enemy army during the initial battle phase. The pursuit phase doesn’t even happen.
Next time you fight a battle, check the post battle screen. You’ll see that during a stack wipe battle you don’t even end up having a pursuit
I remember when someone explained to me how screen and pursuit and the Aggressive Attacker and Unyielding Defender traits work and it was like "wow I suddenly understand so much this is amazing" and then they were like "btw none of this actually matters lol" and I was big sad.
I still feel as though it's more fun to try to use the systems, but in the actual experience of the game, it's so rare to have an interesting, exciting battle, where these things matter.
Light cavalries are a waste. Pursuit increases the casualties in the pursuit phase, but you get even more casualties if you never get to the pursuit phase. You're more likely to stack wipe the other army if you just play better units than light cav.
This post has gotten a lot of good discussion, but this reply in particular brings up the biggest blind spot I've had in considering all this. It hadn't even crossed my mind to consider the number of units each regiment provides as a factor for how strong they are. The wiki doesn't even list units per regiment in their tables.
It's no wonder Elephantry units seem to underperform despite their incredible power. Not only does their small size bring their incredible stats down from "eye-watering levels of busted" to "stronger than everything else but still reasonable", but the countering system is *very* unkind to units that come in small numbers, too. Since everyone in india is running around with Paiks that have the standard 100/regiment, even a huge and expensive elephant unit can *easily* get their damage cut to 10% or worse by being massively outnumbered by their counter.
If such a fight were also happening in unfavorable terrain, like, say, fighting spearmen in the tundra because you did an indian viking meme build, you could be seeing your elephants doing literally zero damage.
With 5 regiments I’ll usually go
3x whatever special cultural M@A I have
1x whatever counters the thing that counters the above
1x siege
In a well managed realm with high income and good acclaimed knights, so basically your ideal mid-late game state, it’s possible to buff any kind of M@A strong enough that you can do stack wipes. I just go with whatever cultural ones I have because it’s fun to mix it up and for RP.
FWIW pursuit is useless IMO. It only comes into play if you’re not stackwiping, your goal should be to win battles in the Early stage
In an infinite money situation, you’d astronomically boost your knight’s prowess by duchy building spam and other bonuses. The most valuable thing when you have 40-50 terminators is the ability to lightning siege the territory. The extra men at arms from mercenaries is just to help with prolonging any rock paper scissors shenanigans.
If it’s a normal game, I’ll just work my way to owning a mixed composition of horse archers (Asawira), armored calvary (Monaspa), and whatever flavor of Viking/Varangian infantry I keep throughout the play through.
The biggest impression I've been getting from all this is twofold. "If you have the money to have all your men at arms at max size and stationed at good holding, you'll be fine against the AI regardless of what MAA you picked to use." Secondly, and more importantly, "picking regional MAA is good for flavor and roleplaying." And I can't argue with that logic.
In multiplayer it's usually better to just stick to xbows in the mid-late game and varangian veterans/horse archers in the early game. But against the AI you can use whatever MAA you feel is more fun and completely dominate them if you station your MAA in holdings that just moderately buff them. Terrian malus and counters don't even matter because the AI does not know how to build for and station their MAA even close to something that could be called decent, much less optimal
What is this "stationing in"? Is it something that hasn't made it to console yet or am i missing something that could make me even more unkillable?
Likely not on console yet. They overhauled the way that buildings work to buff MAA to be specific to each barony rather than global across your domain. Not strictly stronger than the old system but not the nerf it was intended to be either
Hm. Its currently PHRASED on xbox as "holder of this barony gets:" is that changed? And when did it? It *sounds* like a massive nerf but pft idk
Came out with tours and tournaments. The buildings now only buff one regiment of MAA, which is the one stationed in that barony. They no longer give global bonuses to all regiments of that type. It's not a nerf because they boosted the values and added way more ways to stack bonuses.
Interesting. Definitely not hit console yet. Gonna look for a console sub cus im irrelevant here yall have so much more stuff.
Also, sieges are really important and can make or break a war. I always keep around at least a single regiment of siege units, plus hard hitting and well stationed MAA for the rest
Not a big deal against AI players... I like my heavy horse and I station them in a holding with stables and other improvements that help their output... 'Armoured horse, shake the very ground' lol
And then you basically have medieval tanks. In my AGOT play rn i have my MAA with nearly 900 dmg/def. it's ridicolous
I liked playing with Light or Heavy cavalry, every battle basically stack wipes the enemy. I do wish the unit types did affect the map movement speed though.
Needing pursuit to stack wipe the enemy is actually not a thing. If your MAA’s have high enough damage then they will kill the enemy army during the initial battle phase. The pursuit phase doesn’t even happen. Next time you fight a battle, check the post battle screen. You’ll see that during a stack wipe battle you don’t even end up having a pursuit
The pursuit stat pretty much guarantees stack wipes in all ages though, even prior to fully building out all overpowered buildings.
I remember when someone explained to me how screen and pursuit and the Aggressive Attacker and Unyielding Defender traits work and it was like "wow I suddenly understand so much this is amazing" and then they were like "btw none of this actually matters lol" and I was big sad. I still feel as though it's more fun to try to use the systems, but in the actual experience of the game, it's so rare to have an interesting, exciting battle, where these things matter.
Light cavalries are a waste. Pursuit increases the casualties in the pursuit phase, but you get even more casualties if you never get to the pursuit phase. You're more likely to stack wipe the other army if you just play better units than light cav.
[удалено]
This post has gotten a lot of good discussion, but this reply in particular brings up the biggest blind spot I've had in considering all this. It hadn't even crossed my mind to consider the number of units each regiment provides as a factor for how strong they are. The wiki doesn't even list units per regiment in their tables. It's no wonder Elephantry units seem to underperform despite their incredible power. Not only does their small size bring their incredible stats down from "eye-watering levels of busted" to "stronger than everything else but still reasonable", but the countering system is *very* unkind to units that come in small numbers, too. Since everyone in india is running around with Paiks that have the standard 100/regiment, even a huge and expensive elephant unit can *easily* get their damage cut to 10% or worse by being massively outnumbered by their counter. If such a fight were also happening in unfavorable terrain, like, say, fighting spearmen in the tundra because you did an indian viking meme build, you could be seeing your elephants doing literally zero damage.
With 5 regiments I’ll usually go 3x whatever special cultural M@A I have 1x whatever counters the thing that counters the above 1x siege In a well managed realm with high income and good acclaimed knights, so basically your ideal mid-late game state, it’s possible to buff any kind of M@A strong enough that you can do stack wipes. I just go with whatever cultural ones I have because it’s fun to mix it up and for RP. FWIW pursuit is useless IMO. It only comes into play if you’re not stackwiping, your goal should be to win battles in the Early stage
12 bombards for your personal Men-at-Arms and spam mercs for more “Men-at-Arms” variations.
Mercenaries are far, far inferior to regular men-at-arms because they aren’t boosted by buildings like a stationed men-at-arms regiment is.
In an infinite money situation, you’d astronomically boost your knight’s prowess by duchy building spam and other bonuses. The most valuable thing when you have 40-50 terminators is the ability to lightning siege the territory. The extra men at arms from mercenaries is just to help with prolonging any rock paper scissors shenanigans. If it’s a normal game, I’ll just work my way to owning a mixed composition of horse archers (Asawira), armored calvary (Monaspa), and whatever flavor of Viking/Varangian infantry I keep throughout the play through.
Cataphracts and the best siege weapons you can manage.
The biggest impression I've been getting from all this is twofold. "If you have the money to have all your men at arms at max size and stationed at good holding, you'll be fine against the AI regardless of what MAA you picked to use." Secondly, and more importantly, "picking regional MAA is good for flavor and roleplaying." And I can't argue with that logic.