I think the Pikemen were added to effectively stop charges rather than effectively kill cavalry. What I mean is, they can block cavalry charges from hitting other units and without getting totally steam rolled. So for example, put a line of pikemen in front of your voulgiers and crossbowmen, some khuzait heavy lancers charge, they get held up effectively by the pikemen, and the vougiers and crossbowmen cut them down. I think that's it.
yeah thats the main mission of pikemans but they should be at least more effective than archers in melee after stopping the cavalry charge. I see 2 big problems there. 1) Swinging attacks have 2x advantage over the thrusting. 2) Dudes not switching to shorter and faster weapons in close combat. I think they would perform much better if first 2 lines would switch to shorter swords, axes, maces and the third line would keep pricking cavalrists with pikes(thrusting damage doubled) from a range
like saracen said a line of Pikeman can do the job. But you will need to use them just for that very purpose and not more than 20 of them. unfortunately giving them even 330 polearm wouldn't be enough to make them act like a real pikeman. They would need even 330 Athletics to keep at distance from anyone. Thing is that even with that it's not enough to make them decent. the DMG won't be there. I used to play with a Twitch integration mod where the viewers could "buy" and "upgrade" their own hero. you could mess with a lot of the game sliders from the option and to make a Pikeman effective they needed some crazy multiplayer. They were good, until a shield stood in front of them.
@@LyonExodus well im totally fine with the fact that dude with 2m stick will be beaten by Sturgian Khabib by submission at 30cm range. Thats why i always keep saying that dudes should switch to suitable weapons. This alone will few times multiply the effectiveness of Pikemans. The other problem is that even if the range is long enough to make a 100% properly accomplished pike/spear attack it will deal ridiculous 48 damage(lol). It should deal 80-90 damage to any armor if not oneshot any unit. And i think there is also a problem with rough and big hitboxes which prevents the 2nd and 3rd lines of Pikemans to hit anything except friends.
@@ДжабраилБатаев-ж4д I use my cavalry to stop enemy cavalry charges, then send in the shock troopers to take down the horses. Banner Knights can do a solid Shieldwall. I cant waste party space for pikemen.
@@agroplode9680 yeah there are many options to deal with cavalry the easiest way is to join the battle with 200 fians and go to the kitchen to make some tea. But im saying that Pikemans should be much better
This was really informative, nice job! The results were kind of expected with the 2 T6's but it's nice to see Shock Troops getting value as a whole. KG are just absurd. I suspect the shielded infantry with shieldwall formations will be the equalizer here, especially the dismounted T6's.
yeah i want to see how they perform before giving my final judgement on the shock troops. But if i learned anything from this patch is that armor and skill is more important due to the new "formation fighting" but tests have to be done first to confirm that sensation.
@@LyonExodus id like to see Vlandian Pikemans performance with 260 Polearm skill but i guess it wouldnt change much because there is still 2x advantage of swinging attacks over the thrusting
So there where a few graphical glitches that i had to remove using the Editor function of YT. one of them is unfortunately still present in the video since in order to cut it out i would need to cut my voice as well. Mr. Glitch is around 22:35 . Please do not disturb him, he is still mourning the passing of his 4 glitchy brothers.
@@pikachudj8069 Don't know how you managed to watch it. it's still unlisted. I wanted to release it as soon as i woke up so i could respond to the comments. But thanks. Same to you
Still having fians is so damn op because if you split them, all Cavs and infantry charges are a free arrow target. Right ? This is the only batanian weapons so yeah maybe because all batanian units are so bad, fians is the only way batanian conquer calradia
Yeah, might be fun to collect them from bandits (with the perk) in decent numbers, just like forest bandits are easy fians. Raiders themselves seem very decent tier 4 troops too. I've heard there is a perk to make bandits join you, but it's 150 roguery so hard to get. That might be doable in a Fourberie playthrough, something I definitely wanna try anyway.
Oh, that explains why when they get cavalry on my archers when I'm playing battanians, all of the cavalry dies and my fians champions don't. I need more fians then
@@LyonExodus Would indeed be interesting. Also, at what point is it worthwhile to equip one and make 1 of your soldiers useless vs benefits of the effect. In a small team I guess not equipping it would benefit you. But maybe at 50 or 75 troops the benefits outweight the loss of 1 useful soldier?
good point. One way i can run tests for that is by using units in parties of 50 in 50: 50, 100. 150, 200 etc until 300 or more. Either today or tomorrow i will make a poll asking people what they want to see next.
pikemen really needs to be buffed. maybe give them shields and also make their pikes way longer, and code the ai to make sure they brace the pikes instead of stabbing with it. in my opinion the pikemen should just be a jugganaut that is very powerful against cav and has lots of armour, but is slow and also does low damage to infantry.
I feel the pikeman should hold the pike lower to hit the horse. The goal should be to halt the cav charge, not to get kills put a line in front of your sturgian infantry so they halt the charge then advance the heavy infantry to kill. They shouldn't be aiming for the person because then the horse runs them over
Still alive. Haven't streamed since August, 1.8. and the heat were too much together. I hope to be back eventually, right now i am doing more YT as you might have seen for yourself. Can't say it's going too well but hopefully this channel can stop being underrated soon enough, so i can hire somebody to help with the editing and come back to stream most of the week.
@@LyonExodus all the best luck towards that goal! i cant give you inciteful advice but know that i do, have and likely will continue to enjoy ur content. video or stream, be it on yt, twitch or whereever!
I think the Khan's Guard are annoying because the Khuzait Troop roster is already incredibly strong, so the Khan's Guard being the best melee unit despite being ranged feels even more OP. At least the Battanian Fian Champion is balanced by the other lackluster units in the Battanian troop line.
Basically, I think the way that Mount and Blade makes archers is wrong. Archers should have barely any armor realistically since it was expensive putting armor on units that weren't meant to fight on the front line. Shooting a bow professionally meant you didn't spend the same time mastering alot of other weapon types. If cavalry gets into archers it should be a slaughter of the skirmishers. Tldr; rebalance bow penetration values based on armor type, make excellent archers less functional in melee (2H swords and spears forbidden outside of steppe cavalry) and get rid of 90% of their armor. Add a shooting penalty for archers in armor
Interesting results esp the overall decrease in performance against low tier units. This has something to do with how units will try to maintain formation while fighting but I wonder if this negatively impact the performance of shock troops that are better at fighting all-out.
I think that's the reason, and also it does explain why they improved massively Vs High Tiers as well. Still, in order to understand where they place on the Melee Table i have to test all the shielded melee units first. If the results follow the same trend than we can figure out what troops are the best ones. I expect highly armored units to perform very well in that test.
From my captain mode multiplayer experience, ordering troops with throwable to cease fire improves melee performance drastically. Would really like to see if our 2h boys can compete with fians and khans with that order
They still wouldn't. they would be a bit better than what they got here but letting them throw was intended even if not very useful. the idea was figuring out what troops perform better in spite of commanding, so throwing was kept. If you go down in a fight your troops will be taken over by the AI and the AI will let them throw, i didn't want to find the best troops when used with the best commands or the best tactics, i wanted to find the best performer with close to no commands or tactics. For the AI taking over reason and the second being that if i were to use "custom tactics" even a second of difference would have changed the results. they would have been more RNG dependent. Obviously telling them to just hold fire doesn't change much At that point i would have needed to run more than almost 200 tests to trust the data, and the time it would take for that is insane. And as the video shows, you can't use some mods like RTS camera if you want to get accurate results. Only way to get more data is "hiring" people to help.
Pikemen can definitely be micro managed at the front line have like 20 or so of them and then the rest of infantry, I’ll try it and see but I know I can make a use for them in campaign
no, i didn't remember. I have the worst memory among the folk i know. But YT has this great feature for content creators where you can just type the username and you can see all the comments from that user. So in a way it remembers for me. But yeah, coming from you that's a great compliment and one i think is also deserved. Unfortunately i might have to halt production of the videos going forward as the time investment is not worth the return nor the stress and i have quite a lot of things going on IRL to keep myself busy.
@@LyonExodus sad to hear, but but quite understandable. Maybe you will find a different passion and can apply what you have learned on some future endeavor. All the best to you!
Amazing work. This AI is still crappy. If Voulgiers met cataphract charge with thrust attack they could swing the crap out of them after they stopped. Instead they tried to swing at them while in full speed
The Glaives need a bit of Cut damage nerfs. I even asked a few persons interested in Chinese warfare history and Glaives weren't even that useful. Why they are here useful? I dunno. Thurst Damage and functionability of other troops should also increase. Thrusting was the best thing for a sharp weapon like a Menavlion. The Rhomphaia and Falx should deal on Upper slashes piercing damage and not cut.
Don't think it's a matter of realism here. it's just that the AI finds it very easy to use weapons like them. And the Khan's have 220 polearm skill that further increases the DMG and Speed of the weapon. It's a combination of a few things, but for example. if we were to give the KG a 2H Axe and 220 weapon skill they would be even better than with the Glaive.
That's generally what the community think of a shock troop. Some units that don't have 2H weapons can also be referred as skirmishers or light infantry or Pikeman is the case of the 2 Pikeman. But for the T5 and T4 units with such weapons we generally call them shock troops.
Shock infantry is basically your troop that rushes in and does all your damage, whereas standard infantry is used for defense. For example, you want to use your shock troops to charge infantry because they counter their shields and have better weapons, but you want your infantry to hold your line and defend your archers because of their shields and (generally)better armor.
Is there a nice mod that lets you edit all rosters and load tweaked versions of rosters that others made? I know My Little Warband lets you create a troop tree for your own faction, that is very cool. Calradia Expanded Kingdoms has nicely modified troop rosters that have more logical progressions and some specific troops in separate lines. So it's definitely possible to edit rosters and I think the community could improve the balance in weeks were the developers need many months.
There are a few mods that can help you modify the in game trees. I can't remember the name of them but one allows you to equip your main character then copy and paste that loadout to replace the one of a unit. it is still fairly manual but there is that.
I love your videos but may i ask will you test these units aganist shield wall or a closer formation aganist melee and cav? Because i dont think the ai uses loose formation for melee troops at all.
Oh don't mind the formation. the reason i used loose is for try to get the troops more spread out in order to make the weapon and armor being more of a factor in performance. i say this because if i kept the units tight together the scores among all of them would have been very similar. that's mainly why. this way instead we can see the difference in a more clear way. If you were to use the right formation you can render enemy cav close to pointless. As far as how good they might be against your cavalry yeah, the AI will never use loose, if anything they might have a longer line. but i don't think the stats are going to be much different than the ones in the video. So be very aware of Fians, Linebreakers and Menavliatons
There is a good reason of why i state that the only units holding Battania together is their noble line. The rest ins't as competitive in comparison to what the other factions can offer
@@LyonExodus I think the Battanian roster is solid enough, key word being enough, if they gave the Battanian Horsemen a ridged helmet, full scaled barding and the Highland Spear, you know, the couchable one that the bloody Battanian Scouts have. They’d be at least on par with the Vlandian Vanguard, if not better.
well yes Battania is a very unique faction and i have a lot of fun playing with their skirmishing style. it's not an easy one to use or build captains for. I agree the horseman needs a lot of things to be changed, from the helmets to the lance before being decent. The rest of cavalry units are in a good spot right now, they could be better sure but they are ok. The only one still being not worth it is the Horseman.
Pikemen are by no means a shock troop, they hold a line and Stop a charge so the real shock troops don't get overrun. And better kept in tight Formation so they have more stopping Force.
don't think i have called them shock troops once in the video. As for them i have only run the Cavalry tests. This was just a good video to talk about their performance and show they can't win by themselves, aren't versatile and so on. what you say is by no mean incorrect. But why not using an extra line of infantry rather than a specialized Pikeman group that will need extensive micro, won't be good in sieges, and doesn't do the killing part well? As far as i am concerned, sure you can use 20 of them for covering that role. But they are way too situational of a unit and require some form of micro to be remotely useful while being way too vulnerable in sieges, and i am not just talking about getting shot by arrows.
@@LyonExodus please take a look at the description and title. Your whole video was about comparing shock troops. Yes you did not call them as such in the Video but it was like someone talking about the best Steaks and starting with Chicken Wings as the worst because ... (just a comparison) So my whole critic is just a misleading title, Falxman, Linebreakers, Menavilon (or how ever those Romans are written correctly), Khans Guards, they are meant to kill and cause mayhem in an enemy line, Pikemen are more a Bit of the opposite, keep their charges at Bay and buy Time. So i think instead of Pikemen the Vlandian Sergeants would rather fit that part. Though their best shock troop is without doubt their cav.
by your line of reasoning than Bruger King shouldn't sell you fries or salad, or ice cream or nuggets... as that would be misleading. Listen. the title is that because Best Shock Troops and Pikeman would not work as well. I misled nobody, as the shock troops are the main part of the video. I had to answer a question that i teased in the previous video about Cavalry and therefore i had to talk about the Pikeman in this one. My audience knew this video would have had Pikemen in it as well. If you are new, you got your information on the Shock Troops and the Pikeman as well. on top of that you now know that all of them aren't the best at what they do, as some other (a bit overtuned) troops can cover the same role better. Your critic on the title is like starting a book from chapter 2 and blaming on the writer he didn't start with chapter 1 or skipped over some basic aspects of chapter 1. The Cavalry video was part 1, and in that video i teased that the Pikeman performance improved. In this one i covered that part. Now that you have more context do you still consider the video misleading or would it have been better if i left the Pikeman out and let my audience down? You likely aren't a journalist or such. But a clickable title is often more important that the information of the video itself. Nobody cares about the Pikeman in this game, let's be honest. placing them in this video was more than fine and informed way more people that it mislead for sure. There is good clickbait and bad clickbait. Don't think any of my ThumbNails and Titles are the bad kind. The title didn't lure you in by saying this is the MOST AMAZING TROOP IN THE GAME. then proceeded to make a claim out of no evidence at all (like some people). I used data and a logical methodology. While avoiding most of the mistakes inexperienced people make when "testing" units. At the same time always considering my personal experience with the game as well. You might find the tile misleading but you got info of a quality you likely didn't expect going into the video. This is not a bad case of misleading, even if i stated it wasn't because my audience knew from the previous video about the Pikemen. As i said, not including the Pikemen in this one would have let them down. And me talking for 5m about the 2 units doesn't take the main focus of the video away from the others or the rest of the information that doesn't only regard the shock troops themselves. Like how the new combat system makes it so that troops are much worse than before against lower tiers, while improving against higher tiers. That was also not in the title... but a very important thing to consider as well. Sure it wasn't at the start, but a title is a title. The video focuses on what is written in the title and then other things as well. If the Pikemen took most of the video than i would be way more inclined to view your point as objectively true and the title misleading, but this isn't the case.
@@LyonExodus Yeah, just found you the first Time in a recommendation now, so i did not know about the Teaser in the last Video. And the Tests und everything Top notch. Just Sat there for the first part and wondered why are there Pikemen. Now i know the backround and have nothing more to say. And yes you are correct i dont work with journalism, i work with taxes, so my Perception may differ compared to yours.
Think you could do a video on the tier 4 bandit troops? I've been using them alot in my current playthrough an they been amazing so far. Some of them have insane proficiency for their tier; the sea raider chief has 160 in one handed for example.
for the archers i already run some tests for the bosses for example. i should be able to get something done for the Sea raider when talking about the Melee performance. For the rest i think a dedicated video is due. eventually.
@@LyonExodus Sorry. I was raiding Empire villages while watching your video and felt lucky to be chased by slow Empire Lords, that I can spot from a far. Compared to meeting horse lords and missile masters in the forest or steppes. Those are scary armies.
oh yeah. used to use mods to buff the Ai armies and perks. the scariest thing was an army of Menavliatons and Legionaries with Khan's Guards. They were such a pain to bring down, then imagine that not only they had like 300 T5+ troops but some lord had the 275 medicine perk as well. it was fun. Hope one day to get back to streaming and do it again
a lot yes, but i took my time and not overworked myself unlike the Cavalry one. a few hours each day felt much better than working 10 hours each day. that means videos will take longer to make but i still want to bring quality over quantity, for now.
You have to consider that it is the most expensive option in this video, by far. The lower end of war horses will cost you 500 to 600 denars, so not very cost-effective. Also, the AI doesn't ever use them like this, so it's not like it affects gameplay in any way. The only way it does is if you start doing it yourself, but at that point is it that different from using game exploits for easy victories? You have that option too, but we choose not to do it because it feels like cheating and ruins the fun.
considering the fact that this video would only matter in sieges (realistically speaking) i think when you really want to look at the numbers (campaign wise) you will likely spend much less upgrading an maintaining an army of full khan's than an army of Falxman or most other T5 untis. The important thing here to consider is the turnover rate. if upgrading and keeping a T4 Falxman for a season costs me 1/4 of a Khan's guard but they die 10x more than they will cost more regardless. Then i generally never buy war horses, i loot them. and the unit that requires a war horse is generally the T4/T5 (depends on the faction) The Khans line is also kinda cheap, since the T2 starts with a normal horse. As many veterans point out, the problem with the Khans is not that they are great or their cost. is that they don't die even if you try to get them killed. Their casualty % is less than 5% to 9% without the use of any tactics. As for surviveability they have the same % as a T5 to survive a killing strike, then medicine further improves that %. paradoxically, an army of them will safe you more money than an army of T5 units.
@@iamdanieloliveira You make a valid point about the initial cost and war horse requirement for the KG. My comment was more focused on the fundamental issues behind the KG - a point you raised when you mentioned that using them in such a manner is borderline synonymous with exploitation. Personally, I do not even use horse archers, let alone the KG. It is my opinion that they are fundamentally unbalanced and I much prefer a "fair" fight when I engage enemy armies. This is my play style, though it goes without saying people can play the game as they please.
haven't used a KG in over an year, as far as my party is concerned. Don't like how easy they can make an already easy game, for a veteran, be. With this said players can do whatever they want, as long as i don't have to see people (like in the forums) making fun of my work because KG and FIANS OP OP YoU DoN't NeEd AnYtHiNg ElSe. Anyone that does is dumb and such. it bothers me that some veterans, and very active members can say stupid stuff like that and find nothing wrong with it.
Lyon, if considering infantry vs cavalry would combination of shield infantry and pikeman would be better than shield infantry only? I am wondering if this would make pikemen use their range better (+benefit of brace)
from my experience infantry would be enough and better. Any Pikeman right now is the most "tech" of "tech units" and as far as i can tell their only and single utility is to stop the initial charge. They can do it fairly well but you will need to sacrifice about 20 slots for them and they won't be very effective at killing cavalry themselves or be worth for sieges. A tight shield wall of infantry or a square does a great job, especially if the unit in question doesn't have a spear. I will have to run a lot of tests to figure out the "new best spearman" in 1.0. but before they werw the Sturgian Heavy Spearman, the Darkhan and the Legionary. The rest performed worse Vs cav than the Axeman. But yeah, more tests have to be done on the matter.
Do the shock troopers run faster in test, with their lower armor than Legion and Spearmen? Some of them have the same Athletics of 130 and even the lighter armored tier 4 seem to have 100 Athletics which compares with the shield infantry. I guess lack of shield will make them move faster. I remember in EA 2020, they ran after fleeing enemies and caught many but these days I notice more often only my fian chase them. I have one T4 Line Breaker and he did run and catch 4 guys in a village but then again perhaps the enemies got stuck.
They should be faster, altough the difference is very small that having extra armor would be much better. The most of the movement speed comes from perks if you have them rather than the simple weight of the equipment and the athlethic skill of the units
@@LyonExodus Problem I have is I cant separate my foot troops based on speed. So when I want them to follow they seem to move at the speed of slowest member. And when i give charge order the fast ones run into enemy before the slow ones. Ruins my tactics :(
Yes they do unfortunately move like you say (slowest member) and the new battle order (altough in my opinion an overall improvement over the previous system due to being able to control troops outside of your party) Anyway the "new" battle order doesn't make it easy to do so. hopefully TW will improve it eventually. still waiting...
It hurts that the pikemen suck at anti-cav and even anti-infantry, even though they're historically great against them, particularly against cav. Medieval/Fantasy/RPG/Strategy games really seem to hate spear/pike weapons.😭 Also, when I see how TW does stats and AI and unit roles, makes me wonder if they do these when they're drunk or high. Seeing OP Khan's Guard is like the Mamlukes migrated to Khanate lands and didn't bother coming back to the desertlands. And they don't seem to have a specific role, but instead have several. 🤣
Falxmen T4 using a Falx 👍 Veteran Falxmen using a polearm, is fine except for the name 😊… you dont call someone a swordsman and give him bow either.. only Taleworlds 😂
Gotta start using unnecessarily complex fractions instead of percentiles lol /s Fr though, repeating "percentile" seems necessary for clarity. You could maybe use approximations if it's already clear which statistic you're referring to, e.g. "reduced about one third", "more than doubled", "cut in half" etc. Good work on the vid! I'll have to stack up more fians in my Battanian mercenary run, they do way better in melee than I expected.
You think using the "highlighter" like the one i use in the graphs or in the example of the data would be better? Cause i thought about that but i couldn't be asked to do the edits, that would have been a lot of highlighters. I'll try to mess around even more with the info and try to cut the most repetitive words out.
@LyonExodus what if you highlighted which table you were reading from? I found myself jumping through the video a bit in the data dump section, and every time I would have to pause for a sec to figure out which statistic you were referencing.
that's a very good tip. thanks. i always try to think about the most complex thing possible that i often forget about things that would be way simpler.
I did. they did worse Vs Cavalry in the standing test. With perks axes and such become really solid (9x better) but i had too little information to make anything out if it, so i will instead make a dedicated video in the future.
Altough the main reason i kept is is because if you happen to go down in a fight the troops would fire at will. I wanted to figure out the best "basic" troop among them. Perks and good commanding can make some even better sure. But if a troop like the Heroic Linebreaker performs that well with bad commanding and no perks you can only imagine how good they can become.
@@LyonExodus i rarely let them throw axes because how terrible it is compared to javelins. They just waste time throwing axes. Let them hold fire,i bet they will be even better. And this isnt "Bad commanding" F1 F3 is still the best tactic for cavs. Standing still makes them easy Target and lets cav circle.Unless you are bracing you dont have a reason to stand still at any form.
i don't let them throw as well, i only tend to use axes when the enemy is stationary and very defensive. in that situation they are quite good, with perks, with no perks they are awful. But in my limited tests even having 5 javelins didn't do much to T2 imperial shields. The Wildlings were the only one that got a decent amount of kills without perks. As i said, that subject needs an entire video to be better explained and compared. As for the commanding yeah, sure charging them is reliable and i agree. the only thing i do is telling them to shield wall and that's it, But telling them to fire at will in most of those situation wasn't good commanding. that's what i meant. If a unit can perform well despite the "handicap" then you know they are very good even without any perks. that's my line of thinking at least.
Hmm doesn’t it come down to the main Bannerlord issue… swing damage vs thrust. Yes the Khan’s Guard is OP as it both have T6 bow and polearm skill but the main OP issue is the 2H swing damage from Glaive. Also why Pikemen is useless.
Some weapons are indeed OP, But what makes KG and Fians so good is not just their weapons but also the over 200 weapon skill. Since having extra skill in this game doesn't only give a unit a better AI (more blocking %) but it also increases DMG and Swing speed of the weapon. So the Glaive in the hands of the KG has the same speed of a 2H sword in the hands of a Falxman. But even if you reduce their skill to 100 they would still be great, because the weapon AI is the best in the game. As some have tested the only way to rebalnce the Khans would be taking the Glaive away from them, and honestly, as much as i hate them, i don't want them to not feel unique.
@@LyonExodus yes i agree, but the other T6 with 200-260 skill in like polearm and having a lance is not OP because thrust is not OP as Swing. This makes Pikemen, spearmen and Cavs with Lance inferior which bring us back to thrust vs swing as the main problem. Giving Khan’s Guard a Shield would be the best solution (bow, arrows, glaive, shield) making Glaive 1H which is half the damage and slower).
People i trust the tests of already tried to lower their armor but kept the glaive. they could still destroy most T6 mounted cavalry and T5 infantry anyway. They even run the same tests by reducing the skill to 130 and the same happened. Glaive + Horse = Broken
At least both in Attack and defense in sieges they are crappy AF, Khuzhait garrisons are full of glaive but they suck and loose almost against anything with less reach(yeah even hired pikes i've seen One killing 3 guards alone) the only good Khuzhait troops for defense are the footman T2.
The AI get really stupid during defense sieges, really any unit that isn't ranged isn't as much of a threat on the walls as they are on the field. But thats kinda the thing, they have bows, and while they run out of arrows fairly quickly they can score some quick kills before the Melee fights happen.
it seems to make them worse against low tiers but much better against higher tiers. the theory here is that: since troops no longer go full "MINE MINE MINE" mode when given the charge command but stay more passive this leads to the front line taking more DMG resulting in more casaulties. All is relative to what the other troops will also rank, but that is the current observation. This seems to have made archers more powerful as a result, if that was even possible but it also made weapon skill and armor of the unit more important.
for tactics there needs to be an all other video. This one is simply aimed at figuring out the most versatile troops of type X, knowing how they might perform when facing lower or higher tiers or an army of mostly infantry or cavalry. It also keeps track if the unit improved or not between patches that bring big enough changes to the game. and i think it does a good job of that. I am not here teaching tactics. What this video is for is realizing that some troops aren't as good as others: Let that be melee or anti cav. Plus it explains how the AI changes of 1.9. impacted the performance of troops. This isn't your typical this troops is good because it beat troop X. It's more deeper than that.
@@LyonExodus Not for the video, ur study is respectable and awesome. I mean khan's guard, fian and legionary are too op and invincible while cavalry and pikeman are just piece of shit though they improve cavalry's AI after 1.9. The unbalance makes many tactics ineffective and helpless just like ant facing elephant, and also, tragically, makes ytbers who make these kinds of analysis video looks like idiot and in vain cuz optimal scheme is over there: settle down in east, then recruit khan's guard and empire infantry, in west, then recruit fian and empire infantry, and then infantry: F2+F2, archer: F2+F3, horse archer: F6. Although i know it's obstinate, I still think it's meaningless and lamentable to spend time on weaker units when predominant unit is apparent and simple. Maybe it helps for those programmer, i dont know, I'm just a player for pastime and just wanna express my resentment of the unbalance, no offense, ur study is respectable.
i get what you mean. And i know a lot of players just seek efficiency and couldn't care less about using worse units. Still, there are also those who do. Like the ones that want to RP or just want a challenge. Another goal of the videos, like you said, is to better help the devs in making this aspect of the game better. I try my best to give them all the info they need, provide explanations. Bluntly evaluating changes to the game while trying to keep my biased tamed. Might these videos never help? Yes, it's a possibility. But if they do end up doing nothing at least i can say i helped the players who care making better decisions. Understanding the weaknesses or strengths of their units, what perks they might require and such. All of that while getting way better at planning, writing a script, explaining my reasoning, improving my English, better evaluating data. Made a few bucks as well in the meantime. Nothing fantastic in comparison to the hours it takes to make one of the videos but i can't complain. all in all. it's a win win situation. I get to help other people while i improve myself.
Northern Italy. You might be hearing some latin like phonetics in some words but i have been told i sound Scandinavian and many others, so yeah. Maybe i as well have no idea what my accent really is.
Whatever the hell you are doing to fight cav is not what you’d want to do in practice. So all that number crap versus Cav is useless to me imo, lol. Let me just bend over with my pants down and fight this cav. But I understand if this is what you did long ago to test the units. You had to test them the same way so that you can see if results changed from how ever you tested the first time to the current version.
yeah, mate i know. It's almost like this was quite an old video and Cav was kinda never a huge problem in the game anyway. What the test did well tough, which you might have not realized, is that it tells you which enemy units you should be more aware of if you use a lot of cavalry yourself. As for the player anything works to beat cav so the difference is very slim and the tests are not that useful. But if you look at it in the way i told you, then you can get value out of them.
@@LyonExodus Not sure if you are going to read all this: You might know everything I’m about to say. Imo, the best use for cav, is to use them like walls. 2 groups, 2 rows long, on the left and right flanks of my two archer groups, in hold-ground shield wall, to protect against the enemy cav charge. I don’t really care what is attacking them, as long as it’s the enemy cav bs. I don’t use charge. I’m console. I don’t have RTS camera. I don’t have time to micro my cav that much when I’m trying to micro reposition my archers and movement-speed-banner-infantry to bait their infantry to chase mine. But when I do have time, I stretch my cav lines on-top of the enemy archers… or I just have them hold ground in shield wall to take the agro of the enemy archer group, while I’m microing my infantry around theirs. The reinforcement wave… I just move the cav to the side and let them take more enemy archer agro. As you probably know, the AI has two main modes… offense and defensive. For offensive, the AI always sends their horse archers first, and sometimes the cav will charge second depending on where things are positioned. The AI also always uses one group of horse archers, and two groups of cav on either side. Kill their cav then the rest is a cake walk… then, how ever you want to sandwich or agro bait the enemy infantry/archers.
As a warband player who finally bought Bannerlord. I am confused as there is no video where anyone presents the best troops of each type. And instead everyone gives % figures that mean nothing. WTF "There is no best cavalry" GTFO. Warband had Rhodok Spearman, Nord Huscarls, Swadian Knights, Valandian Archers, Saranid malamukes and least but not the worst the Khanate Horse Archers.
If you need help the Best Cavalry is an Elite Cataphract on shield wall + charge command. Other cav works as well but not as good. Just avoid Battanian Horseman. Hope this helps if you don't stand listening to the analytical percentages.
umm you do know that square formation is how you should take on a cavalry charge. Your tests seem to be utterly invalidated by the fact you are using wrong formations for the pikemen. You wouldn't put archers in a square formation and think you would get an accurate picture at how effective their kill rate is on an advancing enemy line would you? So why would you have pikeman meet a calvary charge in a loose line formation where they are the MOST vulnerable? Pike man should also charge from a square formation because the whole point of the pike is to allow support from the second and third row of the formation and to allow the back rows to fill in the gaps created by the fallen. Loose line doesn't allow pike to do what they are designed to do. Read a history book pike armed troops are always in square like formations they do not go into battle in a line formation.
because using the formation you say wouldn't yield different enough results among the units. the explanation to why i use those tactics is explained in the methodology part and in the comments. Which you definitely have skipped or not understood. So pelase, go listen to that part a few times to figure out why that was the decision i went for. Using the best formations would make all units behave in a similar manner. you wouldn't be capable of understanding which ones would be better in a bad situation or in one you happen to get sniped early on. Anyway, why don't you test stuff yourself and see how, even with the formation you say, the pikeman would still perform worse than the others. Because they don't work like in history?. You can run the tests yourself, you know the numbers of mine so that you can get a similar scenario just with a different formation. then you can judge for yourself. And yes, i know a bit about this game if you didn't notice. the game doesn't work like an history book, maybe document yourself first Mr. know it all. Have a little bath of this thing called humility, it doesn't hurt. If you were a bit nicer and handled the situation better, maybe by asking question or listening to the video itself (like the others) there would be no need for me to treat you like you are treating me.
@@LyonExodus I watched it sir i just think you explanation is bs. If it makes no difference, then you should use the correct formation with the correct unit and not make excuses. What a bloody snowflake. I kept my criticism to the video. Didn't attack you personally, didn't call you stupid nothing like that. But i wasn't nice? What? you wanted me to stroke you f'en ego? Are you that insecure? Grow up.
you invited me to read an history book about pikeman. That is called being passive aggressive as it implies i am ignorant on the subject "in your perceived opinion". Don't lie to yourself. the intent was clear as day. As your "opinion" on the test being bad was clear as well despite the multiple explanations to why the methodology was used in both the video and the multiple comments made by other users and my replies to them. Comments that i have addressed in a different way than yours for the simple reason that they weren't being passive aggressive. I also told you that testing in the way you are suggesting makes a big difference (as there would be a very small difference in performance among the troops (other comments will explain better)) and that the Pikeman would still perform worse than other troops with that tactic regardless. A tactic which you state would make the Pikeman perform much better, which is not to my knowledge true but you are free to prove otherwise with data and a video. Sorry if you don't have the time to test for yourself and make an informed opinion on the matter. But calling someone a snowflake is a classy choice well done. We are in the holiday season anyway right? Proving me wrong is simple, get me some data and explain it. like i said Bannerlord doesn't work like an history book. it's a game, with many flows in the combat category. If you want to call it BS on me and calling me a snowflake it's ok. Just maybe, present some evidence and read a few comments before getting passive aggressive from the very first line of a comment. Which was this: "umm you do know that square formation is how you should take on a cavalry charge". "Your tests seem to be utterly invalidated by the fact you are using wrong formations for the pikemen". The first is a clear (you are dumb because you don't know square is better against cav) And the second is a clear (Since you don't know how to test with the best formation you are wrong on anything you say, regardless if it's true even if i test myself.) Despite me knowing very well that square is good, even better a tight shield wall and that the reason i choose LOOSE was on purpose and explained several times. The thing is that i know, my friend, i do know. The reason i don't use it is because all units would end with no casaulties at all, or less than 20 overall in that scenario, which doesn't make for a good way to understand which troops perform better in a situation that isn't ideal. My advice to you would be to run tests yourself and make up your mind. You don't need to trust me or anyone else, run the damn tests and see for yourself. It's simple. no need to insult, be aggressive towards your clearly not favorite youtuber of the game and so on. Listen, i am sorry your day sucked, but i have done nothing to you nor started this discussion. Nor i was the first to being passive aggressive towards you. It was all you wanting to create someone to vent your anger towards. Hope things get better for you.
@@LyonExodus in the eyes of a guy who just fast forward to the conclusion.. the whole graph just doesnt tell me anything, just a bunch of numbers. KIA -50.4% huh? KD 62,9%... maybe add some more information
@@LyonExodus i would assume now that Vet. Falxman is fucking insane and better than every other infantry since he is on top on both graphs.. but i did see a bit of the vid.. thats just the changes compared to 1.8 right ? still its a bit missleading and many people like me just skip to the conclusion
have a look at 5:58 i know time is limited for a lot of people but there is a methodology section for a reason in videos like this ones... Other than trying to make the information as clear as possible there isn't much else i can do for those who chose to skip ahead. Sometimes to fully understand a complex topic you just can't take shortcuts.
Bannerlord has 6 unit types. infantry, archer, cavalry, horse archer, fian, and khan's guard.
what about the almighty Puppeteer?
@@LyonExodus Ah, Puppeteer is godlike...but remember. Blaze is mightier!
You can sense the burning passion of the Blazes. much respect for them
You forgot cataphrats, those guys don't die...
@@the_soggster3464 Catapracts die all the time too my heavy spearman lol
Spear brace was so strong against mounts back in prophesy of pendor. I invested on them in Bannerlord and found them just drawing their swords...
I think the Pikemen were added to effectively stop charges rather than effectively kill cavalry. What I mean is, they can block cavalry charges from hitting other units and without getting totally steam rolled. So for example, put a line of pikemen in front of your voulgiers and crossbowmen, some khuzait heavy lancers charge, they get held up effectively by the pikemen, and the vougiers and crossbowmen cut them down. I think that's it.
yeah thats the main mission of pikemans but they should be at least more effective than archers in melee after stopping the cavalry charge. I see 2 big problems there. 1) Swinging attacks have 2x advantage over the thrusting. 2) Dudes not switching to shorter and faster weapons in close combat. I think they would perform much better if first 2 lines would switch to shorter swords, axes, maces and the third line would keep pricking cavalrists with pikes(thrusting damage doubled) from a range
like saracen said a line of Pikeman can do the job. But you will need to use them just for that very purpose and not more than 20 of them.
unfortunately giving them even 330 polearm wouldn't be enough to make them act like a real pikeman. They would need even 330 Athletics to keep at distance from anyone.
Thing is that even with that it's not enough to make them decent. the DMG won't be there.
I used to play with a Twitch integration mod where the viewers could "buy" and "upgrade" their own hero. you could mess with a lot of the game sliders from the option and to make a Pikeman effective they needed some crazy multiplayer. They were good, until a shield stood in front of them.
@@LyonExodus well im totally fine with the fact that dude with 2m stick will be beaten by Sturgian Khabib by submission at 30cm range. Thats why i always keep saying that dudes should switch to suitable weapons. This alone will few times multiply the effectiveness of Pikemans. The other problem is that even if the range is long enough to make a 100% properly accomplished pike/spear attack it will deal ridiculous 48 damage(lol). It should deal 80-90 damage to any armor if not oneshot any unit. And i think there is also a problem with rough and big hitboxes which prevents the 2nd and 3rd lines of Pikemans to hit anything except friends.
@@ДжабраилБатаев-ж4д I use my cavalry to stop enemy cavalry charges, then send in the shock troopers to take down the horses. Banner Knights can do a solid Shieldwall. I cant waste party space for pikemen.
@@agroplode9680 yeah there are many options to deal with cavalry the easiest way is to join the battle with 200 fians and go to the kitchen to make some tea. But im saying that Pikemans should be much better
This was really informative, nice job! The results were kind of expected with the 2 T6's but it's nice to see Shock Troops getting value as a whole. KG are just absurd. I suspect the shielded infantry with shieldwall formations will be the equalizer here, especially the dismounted T6's.
yeah i want to see how they perform before giving my final judgement on the shock troops.
But if i learned anything from this patch is that armor and skill is more important due to the new "formation fighting" but tests have to be done first to confirm that sensation.
@@LyonExodus id like to see Vlandian Pikemans performance with 260 Polearm skill but i guess it wouldnt change much because there is still 2x advantage of swinging attacks over the thrusting
So there where a few graphical glitches that i had to remove using the Editor function of YT.
one of them is unfortunately still present in the video since in order to cut it out i would need to cut my voice as well.
Mr. Glitch is around 22:35 . Please do not disturb him, he is still mourning the passing of his 4 glitchy brothers.
Very good video i loved it. Playlist leaked ur video early XD. Hope you're doing well. I wish you all the best.
@@pikachudj8069 Don't know how you managed to watch it. it's still unlisted. I wanted to release it as soon as i woke up so i could respond to the comments.
But thanks. Same to you
kahn's guard balance moment
1,05... almost perfect.
Got some PTSD from that line.
Still having fians is so damn op because if you split them, all Cavs and infantry charges are a free arrow target. Right ? This is the only batanian weapons so yeah maybe because all batanian units are so bad, fians is the only way batanian conquer calradia
Yeah the Battanians are kinda justified in my eyes. Most of their troops are either underperformers or need some specific builds to function well.
Yeah, might be fun to collect them from bandits (with the perk) in decent numbers, just like forest bandits are easy fians. Raiders themselves seem very decent tier 4 troops too.
I've heard there is a perk to make bandits join you, but it's 150 roguery so hard to get. That might be doable in a Fourberie playthrough, something I definitely wanna try anyway.
@@williammarshal4043 Fians and Khans Guards are all you need to conquer Calradia lol
with the ammount of work you put in this you realy deserve more likes and subs
There is who gets too many and gets too few.
I must be making mistakes somewhere i can't fix. Problem is realizing where they are.
Oh, that explains why when they get cavalry on my archers when I'm playing battanians, all of the cavalry dies and my fians champions don't. I need more fians then
Same😂
Amazing data. As an engineer, I am geeking out on this =)
16:33 i can feel it bro
He did kill a guy as soon as he got up tho. he ballsy.
10:19 this poor guy died from Recapitation.
yeah, quite an interesting bug wasn't it?
lol his head was stuck inside the body; I have not seen this before.
YOURE BACK AYYYE
Edit: the video quality and editing is crazy, amazing vid
yeah, got me a while to get this one done, hopefully the next will take less than a full month
@@LyonExodus doing a more in depth review than taleworlds themselves
can you do a video on banner effects? that would be very informative. I didn't see anyone else test them
I think i could, yes. I'll have to test if it works with the mods i have been using.
@@LyonExodus Would indeed be interesting. Also, at what point is it worthwhile to equip one and make 1 of your soldiers useless vs benefits of the effect. In a small team I guess not equipping it would benefit you. But maybe at 50 or 75 troops the benefits outweight the loss of 1 useful soldier?
good point. One way i can run tests for that is by using units in parties of 50 in 50:
50, 100. 150, 200 etc until 300 or more.
Either today or tomorrow i will make a poll asking people what they want to see next.
Dude, I admire your statistic study
pikemen really needs to be buffed. maybe give them shields and also make their pikes way longer, and code the ai to make sure they brace the pikes instead of stabbing with it. in my opinion the pikemen should just be a jugganaut that is very powerful against cav and has lots of armour, but is slow and also does low damage to infantry.
Anything to help them perform better would be good in my eyes
Shields are very essential, great video comrade
I feel the pikeman should hold the pike lower to hit the horse. The goal should be to halt the cav charge, not to get kills put a line in front of your sturgian infantry so they halt the charge then advance the heavy infantry to kill. They shouldn't be aiming for the person because then the horse runs them over
I feel like if the hired pike had a swing able polearm they would be somewhat useable
It's almost like the Fian is the reason they added a "lock" button on your troop upgrades screen
yoooo lyon o/ wondered where u've been and here u are! good to know ur still around even if i havent seen you around over on twitch
Still alive.
Haven't streamed since August, 1.8. and the heat were too much together.
I hope to be back eventually, right now i am doing more YT as you might have seen for yourself.
Can't say it's going too well but hopefully this channel can stop being underrated soon enough, so i can hire somebody to help with the editing and come back to stream most of the week.
@@LyonExodus all the best luck towards that goal! i cant give you inciteful advice but know that i do, have and likely will continue to enjoy ur content. video or stream, be it on yt, twitch or whereever!
I think the Khan's Guard are annoying because the Khuzait Troop roster is already incredibly strong, so the Khan's Guard being the best melee unit despite being ranged feels even more OP. At least the Battanian Fian Champion is balanced by the other lackluster units in the Battanian troop line.
if you ask me the Khuzait top tiers are all not less than decent, in the sense that unlike most other factions, they don't really have a weakness
Basically, I think the way that Mount and Blade makes archers is wrong. Archers should have barely any armor realistically since it was expensive putting armor on units that weren't meant to fight on the front line. Shooting a bow professionally meant you didn't spend the same time mastering alot of other weapon types. If cavalry gets into archers it should be a slaughter of the skirmishers.
Tldr; rebalance bow penetration values based on armor type, make excellent archers less functional in melee (2H swords and spears forbidden outside of steppe cavalry) and get rid of 90% of their armor. Add a shooting penalty for archers in armor
Interesting results esp the overall decrease in performance against low tier units. This has something to do with how units will try to maintain formation while fighting but I wonder if this negatively impact the performance of shock troops that are better at fighting all-out.
I think that's the reason, and also it does explain why they improved massively Vs High Tiers as well.
Still, in order to understand where they place on the Melee Table i have to test all the shielded melee units first.
If the results follow the same trend than we can figure out what troops are the best ones.
I expect highly armored units to perform very well in that test.
From my captain mode multiplayer experience, ordering troops with throwable to cease fire improves melee performance drastically. Would really like to see if our 2h boys can compete with fians and khans with that order
They still wouldn't. they would be a bit better than what they got here but letting them throw was intended even if not very useful.
the idea was figuring out what troops perform better in spite of commanding, so throwing was kept.
If you go down in a fight your troops will be taken over by the AI and the AI will let them throw, i didn't want to find the best troops when used with the best commands or the best tactics, i wanted to find the best performer with close to no commands or tactics.
For the AI taking over reason and the second being that if i were to use "custom tactics" even a second of difference would have changed the results. they would have been more RNG dependent.
Obviously telling them to just hold fire doesn't change much
At that point i would have needed to run more than almost 200 tests to trust the data, and the time it would take for that is insane. And as the video shows, you can't use some mods like RTS camera if you want to get accurate results.
Only way to get more data is "hiring" people to help.
Pikemen can definitely be micro managed at the front line have like 20 or so of them and then the rest of infantry, I’ll try it and see but I know I can make a use for them in campaign
Don't know if you remember me, but this one was amazing!
no, i didn't remember. I have the worst memory among the folk i know.
But YT has this great feature for content creators where you can just type the username and you can see all the comments from that user. So in a way it remembers for me.
But yeah, coming from you that's a great compliment and one i think is also deserved.
Unfortunately i might have to halt production of the videos going forward as the time investment is not worth the return nor the stress and i have quite a lot of things going on IRL to keep myself busy.
@@LyonExodus sad to hear, but but quite understandable. Maybe you will find a different passion and can apply what you have learned on some future endeavor. All the best to you!
The maveliaton has the hardest hit in my experience
Amazing work.
This AI is still crappy. If Voulgiers met cataphract charge with thrust attack they could swing the crap out of them after they stopped. Instead they tried to swing at them while in full speed
situational awareness has never been quite there for this game
The Glaives need a bit of Cut damage nerfs.
I even asked a few persons interested in Chinese warfare history and Glaives weren't even that useful.
Why they are here useful?
I dunno.
Thurst Damage and functionability of other troops should also increase.
Thrusting was the best thing for a sharp weapon like a Menavlion.
The Rhomphaia and Falx should deal on Upper slashes piercing damage and not cut.
Don't think it's a matter of realism here. it's just that the AI finds it very easy to use weapons like them. And the Khan's have 220 polearm skill that further increases the DMG and Speed of the weapon.
It's a combination of a few things, but for example.
if we were to give the KG a 2H Axe and 220 weapon skill they would be even better than with the Glaive.
@@LyonExodus They can crush aswell with Axes and Polearms unlike the Fians.
Something to keep in mind
They are good at cutting away children from their mothers
Love your videos !
I'm still relatively new to this amazing game, so please help me... is a shock troop, just a two handed troop without a shield?
That's generally what the community think of a shock troop.
Some units that don't have 2H weapons can also be referred as skirmishers or light infantry or Pikeman is the case of the 2 Pikeman.
But for the T5 and T4 units with such weapons we generally call them shock troops.
Shock infantry is basically your troop that rushes in and does all your damage, whereas standard infantry is used for defense. For example, you want to use your shock troops to charge infantry because they counter their shields and have better weapons, but you want your infantry to hold your line and defend your archers because of their shields and (generally)better armor.
@@LyonExodus Thank you!
I see the title I see Battanian Fian
Inject data and spreadsheet to become better Bannerlord player.
Spread the Data. Infect the Minds. Better the Players.
That's some good information actually + the pikemen are mid not too bad and not too good
They do their job at stopping charges, just don't expect them to kill the cavalry as well or be any good in sieges
@@LyonExodus yep true
pikeman can be used to stop charges that's it
Is there a nice mod that lets you edit all rosters and load tweaked versions of rosters that others made?
I know My Little Warband lets you create a troop tree for your own faction, that is very cool.
Calradia Expanded Kingdoms has nicely modified troop rosters that have more logical progressions and some specific troops in separate lines.
So it's definitely possible to edit rosters and I think the community could improve the balance in weeks were the developers need many months.
There are a few mods that can help you modify the in game trees.
I can't remember the name of them but one allows you to equip your main character then copy and paste that loadout to replace the one of a unit.
it is still fairly manual but there is that.
I love your videos but may i ask will you test these units aganist shield wall or a closer formation aganist melee and cav? Because i dont think the ai uses loose formation for melee troops at all.
Oh don't mind the formation. the reason i used loose is for try to get the troops more spread out in order to make the weapon and armor being more of a factor in performance.
i say this because if i kept the units tight together the scores among all of them would have been very similar. that's mainly why.
this way instead we can see the difference in a more clear way. If you were to use the right formation you can render enemy cav close to pointless.
As far as how good they might be against your cavalry yeah, the AI will never use loose, if anything they might have a longer line. but i don't think the stats are going to be much different than the ones in the video.
So be very aware of Fians, Linebreakers and Menavliatons
So, making Battania rely even more on Fians. I would say good job, TW, but I would be lying.
There is a good reason of why i state that the only units holding Battania together is their noble line. The rest ins't as competitive in comparison to what the other factions can offer
@@LyonExodus I think the Battanian roster is solid enough, key word being enough, if they gave the Battanian Horsemen a ridged helmet, full scaled barding and the Highland Spear, you know, the couchable one that the bloody Battanian Scouts have. They’d be at least on par with the Vlandian Vanguard, if not better.
well yes Battania is a very unique faction and i have a lot of fun playing with their skirmishing style. it's not an easy one to use or build captains for.
I agree the horseman needs a lot of things to be changed, from the helmets to the lance before being decent. The rest of cavalry units are in a good spot right now, they could be better sure but they are ok. The only one still being not worth it is the Horseman.
Pikemen are by no means a shock troop, they hold a line and Stop a charge so the real shock troops don't get overrun. And better kept in tight Formation so they have more stopping Force.
don't think i have called them shock troops once in the video.
As for them i have only run the Cavalry tests. This was just a good video to talk about their performance and show they can't win by themselves, aren't versatile and so on.
what you say is by no mean incorrect. But why not using an extra line of infantry rather than a specialized Pikeman group that will need extensive micro, won't be good in sieges, and doesn't do the killing part well?
As far as i am concerned, sure you can use 20 of them for covering that role. But they are way too situational of a unit and require some form of micro to be remotely useful while being way too vulnerable in sieges, and i am not just talking about getting shot by arrows.
@@LyonExodus please take a look at the description and title. Your whole video was about comparing shock troops. Yes you did not call them as such in the Video but it was like someone talking about the best Steaks and starting with Chicken Wings as the worst because ... (just a comparison)
So my whole critic is just a misleading title, Falxman, Linebreakers, Menavilon (or how ever those Romans are written correctly), Khans Guards, they are meant to kill and cause mayhem in an enemy line, Pikemen are more a Bit of the opposite, keep their charges at Bay and buy Time. So i think instead of Pikemen the Vlandian Sergeants would rather fit that part. Though their best shock troop is without doubt their cav.
by your line of reasoning than Bruger King shouldn't sell you fries or salad, or ice cream or nuggets... as that would be misleading.
Listen. the title is that because Best Shock Troops and Pikeman would not work as well.
I misled nobody, as the shock troops are the main part of the video. I had to answer a question that i teased in the previous video about Cavalry and therefore i had to talk about the Pikeman in this one.
My audience knew this video would have had Pikemen in it as well. If you are new, you got your information on the Shock Troops and the Pikeman as well. on top of that you now know that all of them aren't the best at what they do, as some other (a bit overtuned) troops can cover the same role better.
Your critic on the title is like starting a book from chapter 2 and blaming on the writer he didn't start with chapter 1 or skipped over some basic aspects of chapter 1.
The Cavalry video was part 1, and in that video i teased that the Pikeman performance improved. In this one i covered that part.
Now that you have more context do you still consider the video misleading or would it have been better if i left the Pikeman out and let my audience down?
You likely aren't a journalist or such. But a clickable title is often more important that the information of the video itself. Nobody cares about the Pikeman in this game, let's be honest. placing them in this video was more than fine and informed way more people that it mislead for sure.
There is good clickbait and bad clickbait. Don't think any of my ThumbNails and Titles are the bad kind.
The title didn't lure you in by saying this is the MOST AMAZING TROOP IN THE GAME. then proceeded to make a claim out of no evidence at all (like some people). I used data and a logical methodology. While avoiding most of the mistakes inexperienced people make when "testing" units. At the same time always considering my personal experience with the game as well.
You might find the tile misleading but you got info of a quality you likely didn't expect going into the video. This is not a bad case of misleading, even if i stated it wasn't because my audience knew from the previous video about the Pikemen.
As i said, not including the Pikemen in this one would have let them down. And me talking for 5m about the 2 units doesn't take the main focus of the video away from the others or the rest of the information that doesn't only regard the shock troops themselves.
Like how the new combat system makes it so that troops are much worse than before against lower tiers, while improving against higher tiers. That was also not in the title... but a very important thing to consider as well.
Sure it wasn't at the start, but a title is a title. The video focuses on what is written in the title and then other things as well. If the Pikemen took most of the video than i would be way more inclined to view your point as objectively true and the title misleading, but this isn't the case.
@@LyonExodus Yeah, just found you the first Time in a recommendation now, so i did not know about the Teaser in the last Video. And the Tests und everything Top notch. Just Sat there for the first part and wondered why are there Pikemen. Now i know the backround and have nothing more to say.
And yes you are correct i dont work with journalism, i work with taxes, so my Perception may differ compared to yours.
Think you could do a video on the tier 4 bandit troops? I've been using them alot in my current playthrough an they been amazing so far. Some of them have insane proficiency for their tier; the sea raider chief has 160 in one handed for example.
for the archers i already run some tests for the bosses for example. i should be able to get something done for the Sea raider when talking about the Melee performance.
For the rest i think a dedicated video is due. eventually.
Thanks a lot baaabee
The two factions I don't raid for horses are the same as the last two in this video.
Vlandia and Battania or? Don't know if i got which one you mean
@@LyonExodus Sorry. I was raiding Empire villages while watching your video and felt lucky to be chased by slow Empire Lords, that I can spot from a far. Compared to meeting horse lords and missile masters in the forest or steppes. Those are scary armies.
oh yeah. used to use mods to buff the Ai armies and perks. the scariest thing was an army of Menavliatons and Legionaries with Khan's Guards. They were such a pain to bring down, then imagine that not only they had like 300 T5+ troops but some lord had the 275 medicine perk as well.
it was fun. Hope one day to get back to streaming and do it again
I'll be damned, this video must have been quite a lot of work! Thank you!
a lot yes, but i took my time and not overworked myself unlike the Cavalry one.
a few hours each day felt much better than working 10 hours each day.
that means videos will take longer to make but i still want to bring quality over quantity, for now.
@@LyonExodus completely understandable, grinding feels good sometimes but it's not sustainable over long periods of time. Either way, great stuff!
*loooks at Menavliation's performance chance vs infantry*
Look at how they massacred my bois T.T
bruh i hate the KG with passion, this video only reinforced that. Thanks for the great info though! :)
Same boat
You have to consider that it is the most expensive option in this video, by far. The lower end of war horses will cost you 500 to 600 denars, so not very cost-effective. Also, the AI doesn't ever use them like this, so it's not like it affects gameplay in any way.
The only way it does is if you start doing it yourself, but at that point is it that different from using game exploits for easy victories? You have that option too, but we choose not to do it because it feels like cheating and ruins the fun.
considering the fact that this video would only matter in sieges (realistically speaking) i think when you really want to look at the numbers (campaign wise) you will likely spend much less upgrading an maintaining an army of full khan's than an army of Falxman or most other T5 untis.
The important thing here to consider is the turnover rate.
if upgrading and keeping a T4 Falxman for a season costs me 1/4 of a Khan's guard but they die 10x more than they will cost more regardless.
Then i generally never buy war horses, i loot them. and the unit that requires a war horse is generally the T4/T5 (depends on the faction) The Khans line is also kinda cheap, since the T2 starts with a normal horse.
As many veterans point out, the problem with the Khans is not that they are great or their cost. is that they don't die even if you try to get them killed. Their casualty % is less than 5% to 9% without the use of any tactics.
As for surviveability they have the same % as a T5 to survive a killing strike, then medicine further improves that %.
paradoxically, an army of them will safe you more money than an army of T5 units.
@@iamdanieloliveira You make a valid point about the initial cost and war horse requirement for the KG. My comment was more focused on the fundamental issues behind the KG - a point you raised when you mentioned that using them in such a manner is borderline synonymous with exploitation.
Personally, I do not even use horse archers, let alone the KG. It is my opinion that they are fundamentally unbalanced and I much prefer a "fair" fight when I engage enemy armies. This is my play style, though it goes without saying people can play the game as they please.
haven't used a KG in over an year, as far as my party is concerned.
Don't like how easy they can make an already easy game, for a veteran, be.
With this said players can do whatever they want, as long as i don't have to see people (like in the forums) making fun of my work because KG and FIANS OP OP YoU DoN't NeEd AnYtHiNg ElSe. Anyone that does is dumb and such.
it bothers me that some veterans, and very active members can say stupid stuff like that and find nothing wrong with it.
Lyon, if considering infantry vs cavalry would combination of shield infantry and pikeman would be better than shield infantry only? I am wondering if this would make pikemen use their range better (+benefit of brace)
from my experience infantry would be enough and better.
Any Pikeman right now is the most "tech" of "tech units" and as far as i can tell their only and single utility is to stop the initial charge.
They can do it fairly well but you will need to sacrifice about 20 slots for them and they won't be very effective at killing cavalry themselves or be worth for sieges.
A tight shield wall of infantry or a square does a great job, especially if the unit in question doesn't have a spear.
I will have to run a lot of tests to figure out the "new best spearman" in 1.0. but before they werw the Sturgian Heavy Spearman, the Darkhan and the Legionary.
The rest performed worse Vs cav than the Axeman.
But yeah, more tests have to be done on the matter.
@@LyonExodus Great as always
Do the shock troopers run faster in test, with their lower armor than Legion and Spearmen? Some of them have the same Athletics of 130 and even the lighter armored tier 4 seem to have 100 Athletics which compares with the shield infantry. I guess lack of shield will make them move faster.
I remember in EA 2020, they ran after fleeing enemies and caught many but these days I notice more often only my fian chase them. I have one T4 Line Breaker and he did run and catch 4 guys in a village but then again perhaps the enemies got stuck.
They should be faster, altough the difference is very small that having extra armor would be much better.
The most of the movement speed comes from perks if you have them rather than the simple weight of the equipment and the athlethic skill of the units
@@LyonExodus Problem I have is I cant separate my foot troops based on speed. So when I want them to follow they seem to move at the speed of slowest member. And when i give charge order the fast ones run into enemy before the slow ones. Ruins my tactics :(
Yes they do unfortunately move like you say (slowest member) and the new battle order (altough in my opinion an overall improvement over the previous system due to being able to control troops outside of your party)
Anyway the "new" battle order doesn't make it easy to do so.
hopefully TW will improve it eventually. still waiting...
That's why they call it shock troops, shocking test results that they are losing to another 😂
They are truly shocking troops
It hurts that the pikemen suck at anti-cav and even anti-infantry, even though they're historically great against them, particularly against cav. Medieval/Fantasy/RPG/Strategy games really seem to hate spear/pike weapons.😭
Also, when I see how TW does stats and AI and unit roles, makes me wonder if they do these when they're drunk or high. Seeing OP Khan's Guard is like the Mamlukes migrated to Khanate lands and didn't bother coming back to the desertlands. And they don't seem to have a specific role, but instead have several. 🤣
Falxmen T4 using a Falx 👍
Veteran Falxmen using a polearm, is fine except for the name 😊… you dont call someone a swordsman and give him bow either.. only Taleworlds 😂
It’s a falx on a stick. The Japanese had similar weapons too
I don’t think I’ll ever want to hear the word percent ever again
sorry for the limited vocabulary. I'll see if i can make it less tedious for the next one
Gotta start using unnecessarily complex fractions instead of percentiles lol /s
Fr though, repeating "percentile" seems necessary for clarity. You could maybe use approximations if it's already clear which statistic you're referring to, e.g. "reduced about one third", "more than doubled", "cut in half" etc. Good work on the vid! I'll have to stack up more fians in my Battanian mercenary run, they do way better in melee than I expected.
You think using the "highlighter" like the one i use in the graphs or in the example of the data would be better?
Cause i thought about that but i couldn't be asked to do the edits, that would have been a lot of highlighters.
I'll try to mess around even more with the info and try to cut the most repetitive words out.
@LyonExodus what if you highlighted which table you were reading from? I found myself jumping through the video a bit in the data dump section, and every time I would have to pause for a sec to figure out which statistic you were referencing.
that's a very good tip. thanks.
i always try to think about the most complex thing possible that i often forget about things that would be way simpler.
Throwing axes are useless
I think you shouldve tested units with hold fire.
Imagine a throwing weapon dealing 10 headshot DMG to a t5 xd
I did. they did worse Vs Cavalry in the standing test.
With perks axes and such become really solid (9x better) but i had too little information to make anything out if it, so i will instead make a dedicated video in the future.
Altough the main reason i kept is is because if you happen to go down in a fight the troops would fire at will.
I wanted to figure out the best "basic" troop among them. Perks and good commanding can make some even better sure.
But if a troop like the Heroic Linebreaker performs that well with bad commanding and no perks you can only imagine how good they can become.
@@LyonExodus i rarely let them throw axes because how terrible it is compared to javelins.
They just waste time throwing axes.
Let them hold fire,i bet they will be even better.
And this isnt "Bad commanding"
F1 F3 is still the best tactic for cavs.
Standing still makes them easy Target and lets cav circle.Unless you are bracing you dont have a reason to stand still at any form.
i don't let them throw as well, i only tend to use axes when the enemy is stationary and very defensive.
in that situation they are quite good, with perks, with no perks they are awful.
But in my limited tests even having 5 javelins didn't do much to T2 imperial shields.
The Wildlings were the only one that got a decent amount of kills without perks.
As i said, that subject needs an entire video to be better explained and compared.
As for the commanding yeah, sure charging them is reliable and i agree. the only thing i do is telling them to shield wall and that's it, But telling them to fire at will in most of those situation wasn't good commanding. that's what i meant.
If a unit can perform well despite the "handicap" then you know they are very good even without any perks. that's my line of thinking at least.
10:20 falxman without head
Does line breaker do friendly dmg?
troop don't deal friendly damage in vanilla. not even archers.
the only thing i know for sure does is a catapult or trebuchet
H.Line breaker the best, change my mind.
The numbers agree on them being the best in that role as infantry. Fians and Khan's are way too OP but aren't pure infantry units
Hmm doesn’t it come down to the main Bannerlord issue… swing damage vs thrust. Yes the Khan’s Guard is OP as it both have T6 bow and polearm skill but the main OP issue is the 2H swing damage from Glaive.
Also why Pikemen is useless.
Some weapons are indeed OP, But what makes KG and Fians so good is not just their weapons but also the over 200 weapon skill.
Since having extra skill in this game doesn't only give a unit a better AI (more blocking %) but it also increases DMG and Swing speed of the weapon.
So the Glaive in the hands of the KG has the same speed of a 2H sword in the hands of a Falxman.
But even if you reduce their skill to 100 they would still be great, because the weapon AI is the best in the game.
As some have tested the only way to rebalnce the Khans would be taking the Glaive away from them, and honestly, as much as i hate them, i don't want them to not feel unique.
@@LyonExodus yes i agree, but the other T6 with 200-260 skill in like polearm and having a lance is not OP because thrust is not OP as Swing. This makes Pikemen, spearmen and Cavs with Lance inferior which bring us back to thrust vs swing as the main problem.
Giving Khan’s Guard a Shield would be the best solution (bow, arrows, glaive, shield) making Glaive 1H which is half the damage and slower).
@@LyonExodus keep the glaive and make their armor worse?
People i trust the tests of already tried to lower their armor but kept the glaive.
they could still destroy most T6 mounted cavalry and T5 infantry anyway.
They even run the same tests by reducing the skill to 130 and the same happened.
Glaive + Horse = Broken
Does this apply in August 2024?
Hi, can't tell since i haven't played in a while. you can ask a buddy RUclipsr of mine, Flesson19 if he thinks the videos are still up to date.
@@LyonExodus I tried it out, and I gotta tell ya…you’re on the money 😆
Hired not so elite pike🤣
At least both in Attack and defense in sieges they are crappy AF, Khuzhait garrisons are full of glaive but they suck and loose almost against anything with less reach(yeah even hired pikes i've seen One killing 3 guards alone) the only good Khuzhait troops for defense are the footman T2.
The AI get really stupid during defense sieges, really any unit that isn't ranged isn't as much of a threat on the walls as they are on the field. But thats kinda the thing, they have bows, and while they run out of arrows fairly quickly they can score some quick kills before the Melee fights happen.
@@killerrrr35 archers in defensive sieges never run out of arrows, they dont even need to take them from the refill thingys around the wall.
@@sarsante disregard then, I guess khan's can pretty much do anything.
that's the issue i have with them. they are way overtuned.
@@killerrrr35 they costs too much for sieges, Imperial xbows are way superior both Attack and defense, those maces are OP.
So tell me if I'm wrong, but the patch that should have fixed shock troops actually made them worse
it seems to make them worse against low tiers but much better against higher tiers.
the theory here is that: since troops no longer go full "MINE MINE MINE" mode when given the charge command but stay more passive this leads to the front line taking more DMG resulting in more casaulties.
All is relative to what the other troops will also rank, but that is the current observation.
This seems to have made archers more powerful as a result, if that was even possible but it also made weapon skill and armor of the unit more important.
@@LyonExodus Thank you for the hard work you put into these. It really has helped me in my games
Sadly, None of tactics will be meaningful when u face khan's guard. If there is, then add empire infantry and batania archer.
for tactics there needs to be an all other video.
This one is simply aimed at figuring out the most versatile troops of type X, knowing how they might perform when facing lower or higher tiers or an army of mostly infantry or cavalry.
It also keeps track if the unit improved or not between patches that bring big enough changes to the game. and i think it does a good job of that.
I am not here teaching tactics.
What this video is for is realizing that some troops aren't as good as others: Let that be melee or anti cav.
Plus it explains how the AI changes of 1.9. impacted the performance of troops.
This isn't your typical this troops is good because it beat troop X. It's more deeper than that.
@@LyonExodus Not for the video, ur study is respectable and awesome. I mean khan's guard, fian and legionary are too op and invincible while cavalry and pikeman are just piece of shit though they improve cavalry's AI after 1.9. The unbalance makes many tactics ineffective and helpless just like ant facing elephant, and also, tragically, makes ytbers who make these kinds of analysis video looks like idiot and in vain cuz optimal scheme is over there: settle down in east, then recruit khan's guard and empire infantry, in west, then recruit fian and empire infantry, and then infantry: F2+F2, archer: F2+F3, horse archer: F6. Although i know it's obstinate, I still think it's meaningless and lamentable to spend time on weaker units when predominant unit is apparent and simple. Maybe it helps for those programmer, i dont know, I'm just a player for pastime and just wanna express my resentment of the unbalance, no offense, ur study is respectable.
i get what you mean.
And i know a lot of players just seek efficiency and couldn't care less about using worse units.
Still, there are also those who do. Like the ones that want to RP or just want a challenge.
Another goal of the videos, like you said, is to better help the devs in making this aspect of the game better.
I try my best to give them all the info they need, provide explanations. Bluntly evaluating changes to the game while trying to keep my biased tamed.
Might these videos never help? Yes, it's a possibility. But if they do end up doing nothing at least i can say i helped the players who care making better decisions. Understanding the weaknesses or strengths of their units, what perks they might require and such.
All of that while getting way better at planning, writing a script, explaining my reasoning, improving my English, better evaluating data. Made a few bucks as well in the meantime. Nothing fantastic in comparison to the hours it takes to make one of the videos but i can't complain.
all in all. it's a win win situation. I get to help other people while i improve myself.
where are u from? i don't think i ever heard ur accent
Northern Italy.
You might be hearing some latin like phonetics in some words but i have been told i sound Scandinavian and many others, so yeah. Maybe i as well have no idea what my accent really is.
@@LyonExodus well it's definitely unique so it kind of makes u special lol
Whatever the hell you are doing to fight cav is not what you’d want to do in practice. So all that number crap versus Cav is useless to me imo, lol.
Let me just bend over with my pants down and fight this cav.
But I understand if this is what you did long ago to test the units. You had to test them the same way so that you can see if results changed from how ever you tested the first time to the current version.
yeah, mate i know. It's almost like this was quite an old video and Cav was kinda never a huge problem in the game anyway.
What the test did well tough, which you might have not realized, is that it tells you which enemy units you should be more aware of if you use a lot of cavalry yourself.
As for the player anything works to beat cav so the difference is very slim and the tests are not that useful. But if you look at it in the way i told you, then you can get value out of them.
@@LyonExodus
Not sure if you are going to read all this: You might know everything I’m about to say.
Imo, the best use for cav, is to use them like walls. 2 groups, 2 rows long, on the left and right flanks of my two archer groups, in hold-ground shield wall, to protect against the enemy cav charge. I don’t really care what is attacking them, as long as it’s the enemy cav bs.
I don’t use charge. I’m console. I don’t have RTS camera. I don’t have time to micro my cav that much when I’m trying to micro reposition my archers and movement-speed-banner-infantry to bait their infantry to chase mine. But when I do have time, I stretch my cav lines on-top of the enemy archers… or I just have them hold ground in shield wall to take the agro of the enemy archer group, while I’m microing my infantry around theirs. The reinforcement wave… I just move the cav to the side and let them take more enemy archer agro.
As you probably know, the AI has two main modes… offense and defensive. For offensive, the AI always sends their horse archers first, and sometimes the cav will charge second depending on where things are positioned. The AI also always uses one group of horse archers, and two groups of cav on either side. Kill their cav then the rest is a cake walk… then, how ever you want to sandwich or agro bait the enemy infantry/archers.
As a warband player who finally bought Bannerlord. I am confused as there is no video where anyone presents the best troops of each type. And instead everyone gives % figures that mean nothing. WTF "There is no best cavalry" GTFO.
Warband had Rhodok Spearman, Nord Huscarls, Swadian Knights, Valandian Archers, Saranid malamukes and least but not the worst the Khanate Horse Archers.
If you need help the Best Cavalry is an Elite Cataphract on shield wall + charge command.
Other cav works as well but not as good.
Just avoid Battanian Horseman.
Hope this helps if you don't stand listening to the analytical percentages.
@@LyonExodus Thank you. Finally a definitive answer.
umm you do know that square formation is how you should take on a cavalry charge. Your tests seem to be utterly invalidated by the fact you are using wrong formations for the pikemen. You wouldn't put archers in a square formation and think you would get an accurate picture at how effective their kill rate is on an advancing enemy line would you? So why would you have pikeman meet a calvary charge in a loose line formation where they are the MOST vulnerable? Pike man should also charge from a square formation because the whole point of the pike is to allow support from the second and third row of the formation and to allow the back rows to fill in the gaps created by the fallen. Loose line doesn't allow pike to do what they are designed to do. Read a history book pike armed troops are always in square like formations they do not go into battle in a line formation.
because using the formation you say wouldn't yield different enough results among the units. the explanation to why i use those tactics is explained in the methodology part and in the comments. Which you definitely have skipped or not understood. So pelase, go listen to that part a few times to figure out why that was the decision i went for.
Using the best formations would make all units behave in a similar manner. you wouldn't be capable of understanding which ones would be better in a bad situation or in one you happen to get sniped early on.
Anyway, why don't you test stuff yourself and see how, even with the formation you say, the pikeman would still perform worse than the others. Because they don't work like in history?.
You can run the tests yourself, you know the numbers of mine so that you can get a similar scenario just with a different formation. then you can judge for yourself.
And yes, i know a bit about this game if you didn't notice. the game doesn't work like an history book, maybe document yourself first Mr. know it all.
Have a little bath of this thing called humility, it doesn't hurt.
If you were a bit nicer and handled the situation better, maybe by asking question or listening to the video itself (like the others) there would be no need for me to treat you like you are treating me.
@@LyonExodus I watched it sir i just think you explanation is bs. If it makes no difference, then you should use the correct formation with the correct unit and not make excuses.
What a bloody snowflake. I kept my criticism to the video. Didn't attack you personally, didn't call you stupid nothing like that. But i wasn't nice? What? you wanted me to stroke you f'en ego? Are you that insecure? Grow up.
you invited me to read an history book about pikeman. That is called being passive aggressive as it implies i am ignorant on the subject "in your perceived opinion". Don't lie to yourself. the intent was clear as day.
As your "opinion" on the test being bad was clear as well despite the multiple explanations to why the methodology was used in both the video and the multiple comments made by other users and my replies to them.
Comments that i have addressed in a different way than yours for the simple reason that they weren't being passive aggressive.
I also told you that testing in the way you are suggesting makes a big difference (as there would be a very small difference in performance among the troops (other comments will explain better)) and that the Pikeman would still perform worse than other troops with that tactic regardless.
A tactic which you state would make the Pikeman perform much better, which is not to my knowledge true but you are free to prove otherwise with data and a video.
Sorry if you don't have the time to test for yourself and make an informed opinion on the matter.
But calling someone a snowflake is a classy choice well done. We are in the holiday season anyway right?
Proving me wrong is simple, get me some data and explain it. like i said Bannerlord doesn't work like an history book. it's a game, with many flows in the combat category. If you want to call it BS on me and calling me a snowflake it's ok. Just maybe, present some evidence and read a few comments before getting passive aggressive from the very first line of a comment.
Which was this: "umm you do know that square formation is how you should take on a cavalry charge". "Your tests seem to be utterly invalidated by the fact you are using wrong formations for the pikemen".
The first is a clear (you are dumb because you don't know square is better against cav)
And the second is a clear (Since you don't know how to test with the best formation you are wrong on anything you say, regardless if it's true even if i test myself.)
Despite me knowing very well that square is good, even better a tight shield wall and that the reason i choose LOOSE was on purpose and explained several times.
The thing is that i know, my friend, i do know. The reason i don't use it is because all units would end with no casaulties at all, or less than 20 overall in that scenario, which doesn't make for a good way to understand which troops perform better in a situation that isn't ideal.
My advice to you would be to run tests yourself and make up your mind. You don't need to trust me or anyone else, run the damn tests and see for yourself. It's simple. no need to insult, be aggressive towards your clearly not favorite youtuber of the game and so on.
Listen, i am sorry your day sucked, but i have done nothing to you nor started this discussion. Nor i was the first to being passive aggressive towards you. It was all you wanting to create someone to vent your anger towards.
Hope things get better for you.
ur graphs dont make sense to me
Can you elaborate on what doesn't make sense?
I might help you understand them better or give you a different explanation
@@LyonExodus in the eyes of a guy who just fast forward to the conclusion.. the whole graph just doesnt tell me anything, just a bunch of numbers. KIA -50.4% huh? KD 62,9%... maybe add some more information
@@LyonExodus i would assume now that Vet. Falxman is fucking insane and better than every other infantry since he is on top on both graphs.. but i did see a bit of the vid.. thats just the changes compared to 1.8 right ? still its a bit missleading and many people like me just skip to the conclusion
have a look at 5:58
i know time is limited for a lot of people but there is a methodology section for a reason in videos like this ones...
Other than trying to make the information as clear as possible there isn't much else i can do for those who chose to skip ahead.
Sometimes to fully understand a complex topic you just can't take shortcuts.