I felt it worth chiming in for the Becelarii. I use the crap out of them, at least with my Southern Empire campaign. I use them in 2 ways. First is as a personal retinue (I basically set them to follow me and leave them). Secondly, I'll use them as horse archers to skirmish. They work really well for providing the mobile ranged support to thin down and eliminate enemy cavalry (while my foot archers shoot the enemy foot. Maybe I'm just RPing too hard, but that's what I've observed.
yep i too use horse archers for the screening and skirmishing role, as they are able to apply constand pressure on the enemy. for anti cav i will use horse archers in combination with low-mid tier cavalry to tie down their cav
The pilum is actually one of the best spears in the game. Short enough that you don’t get your soldiers whacking their haft around, super fast, and takes no space to use. Absolutely murders cavalry in melee. I’d try using it, it’s more like the concept of a Gladius than an actual spear
@@thomasdenkers5854 When soldiers with a long spear are too close to an enemy, they attempt to thrust, lightly brushing them with the haft and doing zero damage. If you are watching it sped up, it looks absolutely hilarious.
@@karatekan2182 oh thats what you mean. yeah its pretty bad for infantry on infantry.. i hate those sturgian tournaments. i had also found using your javelin as a spear with a shield is pretty devastating as long as you dont take on too many at once
2nd the meele jav. my loadout for my sturgian/battanian infantry character is 2jav stacks (22 with perks), a shield and a 2h axe, always keep the last jav so I have an anti-cav/closerange weapon for when I don't have space to swing my big axe XD
Agree. Pilum is slept on hard. The "short" length of the spear is a massive strength. I feel like Spartacus here refuses to acknowledge speed as a component, and when it comes to speed vs length, the AI will always perform better with speed. Not to mention, like you said, the AI sucks at using long spears because they don't quite understand yet how to keep their opponents at max length to take advantage of the benefits.
Love this series. All the info I need to get back into the game, excellent presentation, well rounded arguments behind the ratings and I had good laughs once per episode so far as well!
I think if the Empire had great spear infantry too they'd be a bit TOO perfect as a faction so I'm actually okay with that being their, quote unquote, "weakness", but as it stands I've seen tightly packed formations of legionaries and menavliotons massacre cav that charged into them. The only perfect army in Bannerlord is one built of the best units cherry picked from every kingdom, but the Imperials come fairly close along with the Aserai just for how well rounded and hard to kill they are. Answers for most threats, a roster that's complimentary when taken as a whole rather than specialist with afterthoughts, and that Byzantine aesthetic is just the cherry on top.
I agree about the part about the best army being a mix of the best of each army. Which is why my current army consists of 120 Legionaries, 100 Fian Champions, 60 Elite Catraphacts and 50 Khan Guards. XD
Just feel so weird that the cataphrac lance can't be couched. It seems to me that the Banner Knight's charge is far more devastating than the Imperial Elite Cataphrac
I rarely progress the trained infantryman, because I need those javelins. And it seems to me that when I auto-resolve battles, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS loose a few Imperial Legionaries, and those are far too expensive to loose. I think that the upgraded versions (veteran and legionary) should have a throwing weapon like a plumbati (darts) to mimic late era legionaries. Funny fact about the trained infantry man: The picture shows 6 javelins but the stack number is 4.
Love these videoes my bro. Would it be possbile to get a weapon tier list? What are the best ones to go for, how you can get them etc.? Or would that not make much of a video? Wont makes sense of course if it would only be 5 min long.
The menavlions are my go to for infantry and i actually don't mind the bucarelli sometimes when fighting horse archers you wanna be able to match theirs they might not be as impressive as other horse archers but they suffice well enough in larger numbers
My playtime simple revolved around Hammer and Anvil Tactics with my Infantry (mostly Legionary and elite menaviliton) and Cavalry because of how tanky my infantry is i know they can hold out long enough for my highly survivable elite cataphracts to sweep around the flank, decimate the enemy cav. And than swing around from the flank and crush both Archer units and infantry between 2 walls of steel. P.S. no I don't have any archers in my Army I send them to work in castles and towns.
Empire's roster is so good, that it might just be the faction that requires the least doomstacking its best unit in order to punch above its weight. If you're tired of your units' paper armor getting shredded as Vlandia, play recruit autoresolve zerg. If you're struggling with your ranged options being absolutely worthless as Sturgia, play INT+END 200+ HP, 60+ armor infantry blob. If you constantly get beat down from all sides as Battania, stack those fians with as many bow boosting perks as possible. Khuzait - spam KG. Aserai - cav ball... As Empire, however, you can play whatever you want and still have incredibly powerful armies, with high unit variety and rewarding tactical decisions. No matter which playstyle you pick, you will always have one amazing unit formation, and a few very solid ones. And, if you still want to doomstack, you have not one, but two great unit lines to pick from!
I just jumped into Bannerlord and I waited for the game to smooth out before playing. I started with Imperial forces an went solely Cataphracts and I obliterate everything before me. Even in situations where I'm outnumbered 1to 4 I've single handedly crushed variety of units. Guiding your forces appropriately and then when the odds even out just let them loose and watch your screen with green notifications.
If i might make a small suggestion.. At the start if the video could u tell us which version you are on .. Because as u know this game keeps getting updates.. Thanks
How is war horse availability now? It was one of the main drawbacks of getting Bucellarii. With two stacks of arrows, I don't mind them having slightly worse damage than other archers. While silly, I used them mainly as archers that stand a little higher, behind my other archers. Just like my horse archer companions. This keeps these lemmings from getting killed and give them great line of sight. They can also help killing enemy cav first, if you have the numbers anyway. Switching between follow and give command they should do nice damage without getting killed. And you can reposition them faster than regular archers. Even though Khuzait horse archers are better (they are supposed to), I don't think it's worth travelling for if you're not on that side of the map.
I’ve noticed that elite catapult acts use their lances in two hands and only use their shields when they switch to their swords. The druzhnik champions and banner knights charge with lance in one hand and shield in the other. Is that a feature of the catalog racy lance that it is too long for one handed use? Seems like a pretty big consideration in favor of other heavy cav since it makes them quite a bit more vulnerable while charging.
@@italianspartacus awesome thank you for the reply I can't get how to play as them. Besides Fians all my other troops get wiped in fights against other nations
Apparently the Romans didn't actually use Pilums! I'll have to make sure to let my Ancient History professor knows that because she said something different.
my standard pure imperial composition is for every 4 Legionaries - 1 Menavlioton, 1 Paletine gaurd - 2 Sergeant Crorrbows, 2 Cataphracts and 1 Bucilari On bannerlord difficulty this has worked in almost all scenarios only failing when significantly outnumbered
Good ratio, I personally like having more cavalry and if I can afford it I make roughly 33% to 40% cavalry. Because the cataphracht is just that good, they easily stomp on every enemy cavalry and are armored enough to survive archer harrasment. The bucilari is an extremely underappreciated unit, at worse they are extremely mobile archers with portable high ground at best they make for amazing skirmishers protected by the cataprachts.
@@frking100 Agreed on the under appreatiated part, they actually have higher bow skill than non noble line Khuzaits and yeah I always get the Cataphracts over the Banner knights they have a slightly lower sword skill but you don't get heavy cav for swordsmanship you get them for their polearms and ability to be a hard hitting hammer for an equally solid anvil
Please, don't talk about historic accuracy with a fantasy game. Bannerlord is clearly not a historic game. if they had wanted to make a historic game, they would have. They did not, so they have all the artistic license they want. There is a time and a place to talk about historic accuracy. Talking about historic accuracy with games is dubious, talking about it with fantasy games is nonsensical. Sorry but I am a bit allergic to the matter.
Looking forward to the Aserai video on this, because the Aserai were completely and still are neglected by TaleWorld, and have the absolute weakest, least skilled, hardest to use, impractical units across the board. TaleWorld seriously dropped the ball with the Aserai.
I do not agree with this stance at all - they have the best non-noble archers, the best non-noble infantry, comparable to Khuzait if not better horse archers, and the Palace Guard is amazing! :D
@@italianspartacus - All of the Tier 5 Aserai units can only take on T4 units of the same class. None of their tier 5 units match other tier 5 units, and their "skirmish" ability with javelins you have to use very carefully. The Aserai Master Archer is extremely mediocre. Do 50 vs 50 with Aserai Master archers and other archer units. I think they beat the sturgians T5 archer from a distance, maybe but I'm not sure, and that's it. If you try to use them with the "Follow your captains" order, they suck ass. The Palace Guard's axe is way too short, they get massacred by other polearm infantry that have longer polearms, which is about every polearm unit that's tier 5, if not all of them. Their soldiers get massacred by the Battanian Fian Champion, and crossbow units can massacre them as well. The Aserai Veteran Infantry has one of the weakest melee weapons in the game, but does ok against T4 cavalry. Even as javelin centric as they are, I don't think they have more than 1 unit that's double stacked with javelins. Sorry dude, I couldn't disagree more with you. I can easily find ways to massacre the Aserai with any other faction, and that's not the other way around.
@@italianspartacus- I'm not trying to be a downer, I really wanted to like the Aserai, they were the most anticipated faction for me until I played them and other factions. Vlandia and the Empire are like playing the game on the easy setting 😂 The Khuzaits are fun af, and the Sturgians. They're the most fun imo. Mass cavalry armies with horse archers, and on the other side, spear walls and axemen, so cool!!!
@@thant0s damn I feel like we don't even play the same game, I would love to play your game haha my game is like recruit troops, F1 + F3, upgrade troops, get horses, upgrade troops, F1 + F3, always winning, always normal difficulty (bannerlord one), no cheating, CEK + Realistic Battle mod on. Do you think I will find trouble once I reach Vlandia? I started my new playthrough with taking Baltakhand (i have around 200 hours in 1.7.1 and 50 hours on 1.0.1 but I was playing old realms so different game basically)
Please do khuzait next! I’m a good few hours into my first play through on PS5 (playing as khuzait yes you guessed it). Trying to cross-examine stats for every troop type I come across is very tedious imo. Your reviews are so in depth and spectacular, it would really help a lot!
if it helps: their infantary is amazing for garrisons. pn the field I tend to stick to the lancers and noble archercav. they crush in field battles even if you just charge the archer cav and charge the lancers when enemies close in (and are distracted by archers) their foot archers are decent but the noble line outperforms them even on foot in sieges so I tend to not recruit them or use them just for garrions. cav only kuzait is still king in my book
@@elwourmo993 kuzate horse archers, imperial cataphrats, asari faris to skirmish. make each troop type a different formation and charge in order of faris, then horse archers, then cataphrats. i do it every time and it works better than actual magic.
@@caseykeller4713 well I mean I can see that working, but I think OP asked about khuzait specifically. Also play the game how you want but if you just dump in all the noble units and call it a day, why cataphracts and not bannerknights? they are numerically better and can hold a lance AND shield at the same time
Mm maybe some can help me with this .. I'm on ps5 and it look like the Imperial Palpatine Guard has only one Quiver of arrows.. As far as i know the release versus is 1.0 ? What am i missing anyone? Found out myself.. Needed an update .. Has the two now .. Tks nobody for helping 😢 Hope it helps others
The great thing about the Empire troops is that it’s easy to recruit them regardless of your faction because of the position of their settlements and their top tier units are good too
I am loving these!!!! I would love the Asserai kingdom next! They seem cool. Also, I would love advice on how to use these troops tactically. I keep finding myself doing better when I just tell my troops to follow their commanders. That means I suck. I am always losing big battles. Any advice on tactics for each empire?
For empire I like putting my infantry in front and the archers in the back but in an elevated position so they can shoot down into the melee. Your cavalry should have the "follow me" command. With your superb cavalry you should stomp on basically any opposing cavalry (I also like the imperial mounted archer since they are tanky and provide mobile skirmishers). Once you have bloodied the enemy cavalry disengage and let them choose between following you or dying to your archers and infantry. Lead your cavalry to the back of the enemy army and start hit and running their archer lines, you can give the "advance" command to your infantry. The rule of winning with empire is having your archers/crossbows on a relative high ground while your infantry tank and your cavalry hunts the enemy archers. Having a balanced army comp greatly helps empire try to split it into 33/33/33 with cavalry and infantry having priority
For me, I do better if it's my own party fighting and nobody else as I hate only being able to control 5 archers and have a mixed movement to the ai troops. Or I'm the army commander, that way I can control my troops better. Also I tend to favour 400v400 fights with a max troop on the field of 400-600. If it's max 1000, and it's a massive fight, you will be fighting a cavalry platoon of 100. That's too much for me to chop through versus 15 that I can take my time. Khuzaits blobs tend to send like 200 Cavalry over straight up and that's so hard to counter unless you have equal amount of horses. So bringing the max troop on field helps a little.
FootSpears are terrible for player character due to low damage. But for line infantry the extra range, don't require swing room, and how they kill horses make them valuable. Though you could easily argue that archers are better at anti-cav as long as they don't get hit first.
Empire having good armor, combined with almost every troop type makes them very flexible. I think the only thing they really are lacking is throwing weapons but it's not usually that big of a deal since the AI loves to use shield walls.
Hey @Italianspartacus since you have Taleworlds ear can you tell them to do something about the prisoner system. I'm tired of being captured, taken to a settlement, ransomed and then immediately getting captured again and having to ransom myself again. There should be a timer where you cant attack the people who ransomed you and they cant attack you for a certain amount of time. Just to give you time to get away to friendly territory.
"There's no other tier 2 archer" (laughs in Battanian Highborn Youth) ... itsjustajokedontkillme I quite like the Empire military in terms of design. It's sort of the Bannerlord equivalent of Mario in the last couple Smash Bros games- basic, easy to pick up and use at any skill level or stage in the game, but can still hold its own in the highest tiers. They have an answer for every situation- oftentimes not the best-in-class, but they won't ever be caught flat-footed. One advantage that I often don't see talked about is that when you're playing in Imperial territory, you will have faster access to many of the better specialized units that other cultures have. Parties in the North and Western Empires can easily slip into Battania to grab some of those wonderful noble-line archers, for example. Really brings together the "strength in unity" theme Istiana likes. Perhaps not a conscious decision by TW, but it does add something.
If the empire troops are supposed to be medieval Roman (Byzantine) in flavor, they should have spears and maces all over the place. The bows should be recurves all the way down, and two stacks of arrows was standard historically (60 and 40 per stack, with reload bundles apparently in 40s for mid-battle restocks). It's super odd to me how frequently the cavalry paramerion ends up in the hands of infantry. Bucellarii should really have partial horse armor. Cataphracts should have bows or spears, and maces or paramerions, as weapon set variants.
I feel like the Aserai are just a better version of the empire. Better line inf, better archers, which are just the backbone of any viable army comp. Cavalry is just so weak in melee on realistic now that I think the Faris is better than the cataphract now(but who really cares cav is pretty shit in 1.9.0.)
Just a fun concept use one unit of any non empire faction for example heavy sturgian spearmen, fian champions, Khans guard,and banner knights. Or your own combination if if you're looking for a legitimate run it may not be the best for that.
Troops Ranked Worst to Best. Starts with Tier 2, and continues with Tier3, 4, 5, ending with the noble line. It is hard to argue there, but also not unexpected...
Please start factoring weapon speed into your ratings. These long weapons on infantry are not as good as you think, because with the length comes reduced attack speed - and the AI rarely use length to their advantage.
Can you do a video on how to properly get rid of factions they just raid endlessly and because the parties are so small you can't catch them. Execution needs work.
So I have noticed that Sturgia and the Southern Empire are the first to fall, so your Sturgia playthrough inspired me to play Southern Empire and take it over
Is there a reason they didn't just make the pilum a single stack high damage with plus damage to shield throwable rather than a spear? I feel like that would've made a lot more sense
The pilum is actually op don't listen to him. The AI sucks at using long spears since they never take advantage of reach and when engaged in melee will go into very short range which makes the spears useless. The pilum is long enough to threaten cavalry but short enough for the melee ai to use correctly and it is a very fast weapon.
Heavy horseman is one of my favorite units. They already use war horses so if you recruit them you don't need to spend any horses on further upgrades. And being tier 4 they can sometimes be found in villages and aren't to hard to recruit from prisoners.
This is a huge consideration in upgrade lines that get overlooked. The imperial vigla recruit needs a mount to get to equite and a war mount to get to heavy horseman. Yet recruiting a heavy horseman directly is not more expensive than recruiting any other t4 troop. The same is true of the Kuzait Torguud. It already has a war horse at T4 and can upgrade all the way to khan’s guard without any more horses.
I felt it worth chiming in for the Becelarii. I use the crap out of them, at least with my Southern Empire campaign. I use them in 2 ways. First is as a personal retinue (I basically set them to follow me and leave them). Secondly, I'll use them as horse archers to skirmish. They work really well for providing the mobile ranged support to thin down and eliminate enemy cavalry (while my foot archers shoot the enemy foot. Maybe I'm just RPing too hard, but that's what I've observed.
yep i too use horse archers for the screening and skirmishing role, as they are able to apply constand pressure on the enemy. for anti cav i will use horse archers in combination with low-mid tier cavalry to tie down their cav
The pilum is actually one of the best spears in the game. Short enough that you don’t get your soldiers whacking their haft around, super fast, and takes no space to use. Absolutely murders cavalry in melee. I’d try using it, it’s more like the concept of a Gladius than an actual spear
do u mean the menavlion? cause i dont think you would whack with a pilum shaft
@@thomasdenkers5854 When soldiers with a long spear are too close to an enemy, they attempt to thrust, lightly brushing them with the haft and doing zero damage.
If you are watching it sped up, it looks absolutely hilarious.
@@karatekan2182 oh thats what you mean. yeah its pretty bad for infantry on infantry.. i hate those sturgian tournaments. i had also found using your javelin as a spear with a shield is pretty devastating as long as you dont take on too many at once
2nd the meele jav. my loadout for my sturgian/battanian infantry character is 2jav stacks (22 with perks), a shield and a 2h axe, always keep the last jav so I have an anti-cav/closerange weapon for when I don't have space to swing my big axe XD
Agree. Pilum is slept on hard. The "short" length of the spear is a massive strength. I feel like Spartacus here refuses to acknowledge speed as a component, and when it comes to speed vs length, the AI will always perform better with speed. Not to mention, like you said, the AI sucks at using long spears because they don't quite understand yet how to keep their opponents at max length to take advantage of the benefits.
Love this series. All the info I need to get back into the game, excellent presentation, well rounded arguments behind the ratings and I had good laughs once per episode so far as well!
I think if the Empire had great spear infantry too they'd be a bit TOO perfect as a faction so I'm actually okay with that being their, quote unquote, "weakness", but as it stands I've seen tightly packed formations of legionaries and menavliotons massacre cav that charged into them. The only perfect army in Bannerlord is one built of the best units cherry picked from every kingdom, but the Imperials come fairly close along with the Aserai just for how well rounded and hard to kill they are. Answers for most threats, a roster that's complimentary when taken as a whole rather than specialist with afterthoughts, and that Byzantine aesthetic is just the cherry on top.
I agree about the part about the best army being a mix of the best of each army. Which is why my current army consists of 120 Legionaries, 100 Fian Champions, 60 Elite Catraphacts and 50 Khan Guards. XD
I would love to see an Aserai video, they have always been a favorite of mine.
Love seeing the mount and blade content.
Just feel so weird that the cataphrac lance can't be couched. It seems to me that the Banner Knight's charge is far more devastating than the Imperial Elite Cataphrac
Nice, just got this game and was watching your older video and then found this one👌🏼
Instantly notice the change from your mic quality
Hahaha yeah the older one is a blue yeti, this is a AT2020 with XLR connection :)
@@italianspartacus it’s great! Question which unit is the best for capturing units? Trying to do a slave trader run
I rarely progress the trained infantryman, because I need those javelins. And it seems to me that when I auto-resolve battles, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS loose a few Imperial Legionaries, and those are far too expensive to loose. I think that the upgraded versions (veteran and legionary) should have a throwing weapon like a plumbati (darts) to mimic late era legionaries. Funny fact about the trained infantry man: The picture shows 6 javelins but the stack number is 4.
Love these videoes my bro.
Would it be possbile to get a weapon tier list?
What are the best ones to go for, how you can get them etc.?
Or would that not make much of a video? Wont makes sense of course if it would only be 5 min long.
The menavlions are my go to for infantry and i actually don't mind the bucarelli sometimes when fighting horse archers you wanna be able to match theirs they might not be as impressive as other horse archers but they suffice well enough in larger numbers
Loving this Guides !!! Good Job Mate
My playtime simple revolved around Hammer and Anvil Tactics with my Infantry (mostly Legionary and elite menaviliton) and Cavalry because of how tanky my infantry is i know they can hold out long enough for my highly survivable elite cataphracts to sweep around the flank, decimate the enemy cav. And than swing around from the flank and crush both Archer units and infantry between 2 walls of steel.
P.S. no I don't have any archers in my Army I send them to work in castles and towns.
Empire's roster is so good, that it might just be the faction that requires the least doomstacking its best unit in order to punch above its weight.
If you're tired of your units' paper armor getting shredded as Vlandia, play recruit autoresolve zerg. If you're struggling with your ranged options being absolutely worthless as Sturgia, play INT+END 200+ HP, 60+ armor infantry blob. If you constantly get beat down from all sides as Battania, stack those fians with as many bow boosting perks as possible. Khuzait - spam KG. Aserai - cav ball...
As Empire, however, you can play whatever you want and still have incredibly powerful armies, with high unit variety and rewarding tactical decisions. No matter which playstyle you pick, you will always have one amazing unit formation, and a few very solid ones. And, if you still want to doomstack, you have not one, but two great unit lines to pick from!
I just jumped into Bannerlord and I waited for the game to smooth out before playing. I started with Imperial forces an went solely Cataphracts and I obliterate everything before me. Even in situations where I'm outnumbered 1to 4 I've single handedly crushed variety of units. Guiding your forces appropriately and then when the odds even out just let them loose and watch your screen with green notifications.
Battania next please!
Thanks for making this videos
The Empire main advantage is that they have the money to give all their decent troops great armor
hope to see some play throughs.
If i might make a small suggestion..
At the start if the video could u tell us which version you are on ..
Because as u know this game keeps getting updates..
Thanks
Helpful vid Cheers!
How is war horse availability now?
It was one of the main drawbacks of getting Bucellarii. With two stacks of arrows, I don't mind them having slightly worse damage than other archers. While silly, I used them mainly as archers that stand a little higher, behind my other archers. Just like my horse archer companions. This keeps these lemmings from getting killed and give them great line of sight.
They can also help killing enemy cav first, if you have the numbers anyway. Switching between follow and give command they should do nice damage without getting killed. And you can reposition them faster than regular archers.
Even though Khuzait horse archers are better (they are supposed to), I don't think it's worth travelling for if you're not on that side of the map.
I love how the empire really takes alot from Rome. I mean Rome always had auxiliaries
Eastern Rome definitely, plus can always say it’s mercenaries and get you a Sturgian Line Breaker or “Varangian Guard”
I’ve noticed that elite catapult acts use their lances in two hands and only use their shields when they switch to their swords. The druzhnik champions and banner knights charge with lance in one hand and shield in the other. Is that a feature of the catalog racy lance that it is too long for one handed use? Seems like a pretty big consideration in favor of other heavy cav since it makes them quite a bit more vulnerable while charging.
as archers if play imperial or non imperial use mostly fians for archers as for horse atchers changaurd or mass kcheings.
Take this, youtube algorithm
I have spent time on the battlefield against them and have found them to be dangerous opponents
Could you make a video of what is the best combination of units when taking towns. Cuz my troops gets wiped before we reach the walls 😂
Is it just me or does italiansparticus sound like Xbaeu gaming now that I think about it?
I am huge Mountain Blade fan.
No tier 2 Archer? Where do you think Battanian fian champions come from?
As mentioned in the video, we're talking about the non noble line for comparison points :)
I have had Vigla recruits in my army for 60 days, been fighting with them, have war horses, yet I can't get them to upgrade. Whats up with this?
Are these random states to be used for arena fights so the unit is not a wet noodle if they are given a weapon they are not primary for?
did Palatine Guard got nerf? when I play yesterday, it's bow and arrow amount decrease
The Aserai bro!!
Idk man… you ever tried to charge a line of imperial heavy infantry? You’re gonna lose a decent amount of health from those pilums lol
Any chance we can get an upgraded Battanian guide?
literally just finished filming it :)
@@italianspartacus awesome thank you for the reply
I can't get how to play as them. Besides Fians all my other troops get wiped in fights against other nations
Wilding, fian, and Flaxman!! Those are the best
So good. Empire Strikes Back good.
Apparently the Romans didn't actually use Pilums! I'll have to make sure to let my Ancient History professor knows that because she said something different.
👍
I am an Empire boy all the way!
You keep hyping up the Aserai in these videos and I’m wondering if you are saving the best for last
Thanks for the tips. What is a "Charly"? Please consider language editing, my kids don't need to hear about "Give head" or "F in'". Thanks
my standard pure imperial composition is for every 4 Legionaries - 1 Menavlioton, 1 Paletine gaurd - 2 Sergeant Crorrbows, 2 Cataphracts and 1 Bucilari On bannerlord difficulty this has worked in almost all scenarios only failing when significantly outnumbered
Good ratio, I personally like having more cavalry and if I can afford it I make roughly 33% to 40% cavalry. Because the cataphracht is just that good, they easily stomp on every enemy cavalry and are armored enough to survive archer harrasment. The bucilari is an extremely underappreciated unit, at worse they are extremely mobile archers with portable high ground at best they make for amazing skirmishers protected by the cataprachts.
@@frking100 Agreed on the under appreatiated part, they actually have higher bow skill than non noble line Khuzaits and yeah I always get the Cataphracts over the Banner knights they have a slightly lower sword skill but you don't get heavy cav for swordsmanship you get them for their polearms and ability to be a hard hitting hammer for an equally solid anvil
Is it me, or does it just seem like the Aserai are the best at everything?
I find the Bucellarii to be kind of a waste of resources. If I'm using up a horse I'd rather have more heavy cavalry.
I like to f1+f3 my life away in this game.
A man of wisdom!
When in doubt, F3!
@@naphatveraphong2735 same, F3 Bandits!
That works up until horse archers show up
Man be bashing poor Vlandia🤣
Please, don't talk about historic accuracy with a fantasy game. Bannerlord is clearly not a historic game. if they had wanted to make a historic game, they would have. They did not, so they have all the artistic license they want. There is a time and a place to talk about historic accuracy. Talking about historic accuracy with games is dubious, talking about it with fantasy games is nonsensical. Sorry but I am a bit allergic to the matter.
polearm infantry suck anyway
Looking forward to the Aserai video on this, because the Aserai were completely and still are neglected by TaleWorld, and have the absolute weakest, least skilled, hardest to use, impractical units across the board. TaleWorld seriously dropped the ball with the Aserai.
I do not agree with this stance at all - they have the best non-noble archers, the best non-noble infantry, comparable to Khuzait if not better horse archers, and the Palace Guard is amazing! :D
@@italianspartacus - All of the Tier 5 Aserai units can only take on T4 units of the same class. None of their tier 5 units match other tier 5 units, and their "skirmish" ability with javelins you have to use very carefully. The Aserai Master Archer is extremely mediocre. Do 50 vs 50 with Aserai Master archers and other archer units. I think they beat the sturgians T5 archer from a distance, maybe but I'm not sure, and that's it. If you try to use them with the "Follow your captains" order, they suck ass. The Palace Guard's axe is way too short, they get massacred by other polearm infantry that have longer polearms, which is about every polearm unit that's tier 5, if not all of them. Their soldiers get massacred by the Battanian Fian Champion, and crossbow units can massacre them as well. The Aserai Veteran Infantry has one of the weakest melee weapons in the game, but does ok against T4 cavalry. Even as javelin centric as they are, I don't think they have more than 1 unit that's double stacked with javelins. Sorry dude, I couldn't disagree more with you. I can easily find ways to massacre the Aserai with any other faction, and that's not the other way around.
@@italianspartacus- I'm not trying to be a downer, I really wanted to like the Aserai, they were the most anticipated faction for me until I played them and other factions. Vlandia and the Empire are like playing the game on the easy setting 😂
The Khuzaits are fun af, and the Sturgians. They're the most fun imo. Mass cavalry armies with horse archers, and on the other side, spear walls and axemen, so cool!!!
Battania has a tier 2 archer.
One thing I dislike about this video is your pronunciation of Bucellarii. Letter C isn't C but more like sh. Like Bush-ellarii.
Thanks for watching!
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You can hear him cream himself whenever he talks about the Aserai 😂
HNNNNG OH BABY
I dont blame him 😅
😂
Soften them up before the big blow and charge in haha
Battanian next please!
The other thing about the elite cataphract is it gets a MUCH MUCH better horse.
GREAT point
@@thant0s they are heavily armored, very skilled and have fast horses...scary combo 😂. I always thought the banner knight would be better, but nope.
@@thant0s damn I feel like we don't even play the same game, I would love to play your game haha my game is like recruit troops, F1 + F3, upgrade troops, get horses, upgrade troops, F1 + F3, always winning, always normal difficulty (bannerlord one), no cheating, CEK + Realistic Battle mod on. Do you think I will find trouble once I reach Vlandia? I started my new playthrough with taking Baltakhand (i have around 200 hours in 1.7.1 and 50 hours on 1.0.1 but I was playing old realms so different game basically)
@@thant0s I recruit a looot of noble troops BCS I can't think of reason why should I recruit normal troops instead
The empire is just so good. It's hard to counter them because they are so well rounded
Vlandian cavalry charge go brrrrrrrrr
@@knightofashfeld7095 I dunno a 3 deep line of legionaries pulls them off and kills them pretty easily
@@saintjames1995 I hate the pike man
Well, that's why there's three Imperial factions in the game. What's not the best counter, if not themselves?
@@knightofashfeld7095 vlandian Calvary is the most overrated unit path in the game
Please do khuzait next! I’m a good few hours into my first play through on PS5 (playing as khuzait yes you guessed it). Trying to cross-examine stats for every troop type I come across is very tedious imo. Your reviews are so in depth and spectacular, it would really help a lot!
if it helps: their infantary is amazing for garrisons. pn the field I tend to stick to the lancers and noble archercav. they crush in field battles even if you just charge the archer cav and charge the lancers when enemies close in (and are distracted by archers) their foot archers are decent but the noble line outperforms them even on foot in sieges so I tend to not recruit them or use them just for garrions. cav only kuzait is still king in my book
@@elwourmo993 kuzate horse archers, imperial cataphrats, asari faris to skirmish. make each troop type a different formation and charge in order of faris, then horse archers, then cataphrats. i do it every time and it works better than actual magic.
@@caseykeller4713 well I mean I can see that working, but I think OP asked about khuzait specifically. Also play the game how you want but if you just dump in all the noble units and call it a day, why cataphracts and not bannerknights? they are numerically better and can hold a lance AND shield at the same time
@@elwourmo993 banner knights far away from khuzaits
Mm maybe some can help me with this .. I'm on ps5 and it look like the Imperial Palpatine Guard has only one Quiver of arrows..
As far as i know the release versus is 1.0 ?
What am i missing anyone?
Found out myself..
Needed an update ..
Has the two now ..
Tks nobody for helping 😢
Hope it helps others
The great thing about the Empire troops is that it’s easy to recruit them regardless of your faction because of the position of their settlements and their top tier units are good too
yep you always end up having imperial soldiers unless you go out of your way to not have any hahaha
@@simongloutnez589 they are just perfect for a solid core to any army especially since Vlandia got nerfed too much
I am loving these!!!! I would love the Asserai kingdom next! They seem cool. Also, I would love advice on how to use these troops tactically. I keep finding myself doing better when I just tell my troops to follow their commanders. That means I suck. I am always losing big battles. Any advice on tactics for each empire?
For empire I like putting my infantry in front and the archers in the back but in an elevated position so they can shoot down into the melee. Your cavalry should have the "follow me" command. With your superb cavalry you should stomp on basically any opposing cavalry (I also like the imperial mounted archer since they are tanky and provide mobile skirmishers). Once you have bloodied the enemy cavalry disengage and let them choose between following you or dying to your archers and infantry. Lead your cavalry to the back of the enemy army and start hit and running their archer lines, you can give the "advance" command to your infantry. The rule of winning with empire is having your archers/crossbows on a relative high ground while your infantry tank and your cavalry hunts the enemy archers.
Having a balanced army comp greatly helps empire try to split it into 33/33/33 with cavalry and infantry having priority
@@frking100 thank you!
For me, I do better if it's my own party fighting and nobody else as I hate only being able to control 5 archers and have a mixed movement to the ai troops. Or I'm the army commander, that way I can control my troops better. Also I tend to favour 400v400 fights with a max troop on the field of 400-600. If it's max 1000, and it's a massive fight, you will be fighting a cavalry platoon of 100. That's too much for me to chop through versus 15 that I can take my time. Khuzaits blobs tend to send like 200 Cavalry over straight up and that's so hard to counter unless you have equal amount of horses. So bringing the max troop on field helps a little.
You should do an overview over all kingdoms and the main tactics for them in a single video
I did!
You massively overrate how good spears actually are in this game.
FootSpears are terrible for player character due to low damage. But for line infantry the extra range, don't require swing room, and how they kill horses make them valuable. Though you could easily argue that archers are better at anti-cav as long as they don't get hit first.
@@revelence9128 nah they really are trash and get slaughtered
@@revelence9128 Everything is good against cav. Strat Gaming who was mentioned in this video did a bunch of testing.
It’s why I use the realistic battle mod, it gives spears some lifespan but maces and high velocity weapons are still better
Honestly to me, depends on how you use them in formation.
But in regards to the polearm as a whole? Yes, very overrated.
60 legionary 60 paletine 60 elite cata absolute devastation on the map
40 legionaries and 20 Menavliaton for the extra spice
06:11 step(pe) arrows, what are you doing??
Empire having good armor, combined with almost every troop type makes them very flexible. I think the only thing they really are lacking is throwing weapons but it's not usually that big of a deal since the AI loves to use shield walls.
Throwing weapons really help with bandits, brittians and 1/2 tier troops
Have the javelins hit them in the back
Empires biggest issue is no throwing weapons, and tier 3 with javelins is useless against tee 4 and 5s that do have thrown weapons.
I love how the YT algorithm has become the nightmare of the people who use the platform...
Ever thought of doing these videos with the DRM and Realistic Battles mods?
my battanian oathsworns murder vlandian cav like nothing.
Bucs is most terrible mounted archer in game bc they are friking glass cannon
Commenting for the Algo!!
Hey @Italianspartacus since you have Taleworlds ear can you tell them to do something about the prisoner system. I'm tired of being captured, taken to a settlement, ransomed and then immediately getting captured again and having to ransom myself again. There should be a timer where you cant attack the people who ransomed you and they cant attack you for a certain amount of time. Just to give you time to get away to friendly territory.
i like the billman :(
"There's no other tier 2 archer"
(laughs in Battanian Highborn Youth)
...
itsjustajokedontkillme
I quite like the Empire military in terms of design. It's sort of the Bannerlord equivalent of Mario in the last couple Smash Bros games- basic, easy to pick up and use at any skill level or stage in the game, but can still hold its own in the highest tiers. They have an answer for every situation- oftentimes not the best-in-class, but they won't ever be caught flat-footed.
One advantage that I often don't see talked about is that when you're playing in Imperial territory, you will have faster access to many of the better specialized units that other cultures have. Parties in the North and Western Empires can easily slip into Battania to grab some of those wonderful noble-line archers, for example. Really brings together the "strength in unity" theme Istiana likes. Perhaps not a conscious decision by TW, but it does add something.
If the empire troops are supposed to be medieval Roman (Byzantine) in flavor, they should have spears and maces all over the place.
The bows should be recurves all the way down, and two stacks of arrows was standard historically (60 and 40 per stack, with reload bundles apparently in 40s for mid-battle restocks).
It's super odd to me how frequently the cavalry paramerion ends up in the hands of infantry.
Bucellarii should really have partial horse armor. Cataphracts should have bows or spears, and maces or paramerions, as weapon set variants.
I feel like the Aserai are just a better version of the empire. Better line inf, better archers, which are just the backbone of any viable army comp. Cavalry is just so weak in melee on realistic now that I think the Faris is better than the cataphract now(but who really cares cav is pretty shit in 1.9.0.)
Just a fun concept use one unit of any non empire faction for example heavy sturgian spearmen, fian champions, Khans guard,and banner knights. Or your own combination if if you're looking for a legitimate run it may not be the best for that.
Troops Ranked Worst to Best.
Starts with Tier 2, and continues with Tier3, 4, 5, ending with the noble line.
It is hard to argue there, but also not unexpected...
Please start factoring weapon speed into your ratings. These long weapons on infantry are not as good as you think, because with the length comes reduced attack speed - and the AI rarely use length to their advantage.
Can you do a video on how to properly get rid of factions they just raid endlessly and because the parties are so small you can't catch them. Execution needs work.
So I have noticed that Sturgia and the Southern Empire are the first to fall, so your Sturgia playthrough inspired me to play Southern Empire and take it over
What did he rank the Becelarii?
Mid.
Recap at 27:00
Is there a reason they didn't just make the pilum a single stack high damage with plus damage to shield throwable rather than a spear? I feel like that would've made a lot more sense
Need a guide on field battles on console. Feels impossible if you have multiple units.
Woo-hoo! Coming in clutch for my Empire Campaign! Thank you Sir!
Question: how do u get your infantry to throw their pilum? Do they throw before being charged and before charging themselves?
The pilum is actually op don't listen to him. The AI sucks at using long spears since they never take advantage of reach and when engaged in melee will go into very short range which makes the spears useless. The pilum is long enough to threaten cavalry but short enough for the melee ai to use correctly and it is a very fast weapon.
Heavy horseman is one of my favorite units.
They already use war horses so if you recruit them you don't need to spend any horses on further upgrades.
And being tier 4 they can sometimes be found in villages and aren't to hard to recruit from prisoners.
This is a huge consideration in upgrade lines that get overlooked. The imperial vigla recruit needs a mount to get to equite and a war mount to get to heavy horseman. Yet recruiting a heavy horseman directly is not more expensive than recruiting any other t4 troop. The same is true of the Kuzait Torguud. It already has a war horse at T4 and can upgrade all the way to khan’s guard without any more horses.
23:25 which kind of horse do j need to upgrade from tier 1 to tier 2 ? Because warhorse doesn’t