Some questions about the units.

[Akka]

I've had for a long time wondered about the stat of some units in the game, and in the end I come and ask the pro to have an answer.

The culprits are basic units : town militia, spear militia and byzantine spearmen.

Basically, these three units have the same stat. I've never really understood what was the difference between town militia and spear militia. The latter cost 20 more to create, but except that, I didn't see any difference. Can someone enlighten me ?

The Byzantine Spearmen is even more confusing. The description say that they're a step up from other militia. Ok, so I looked into the files.
Same attack, same defense, same moral, same discipline.
For now, the only differences I could see are :
- They cost nearly a quarter more in upkeep.
- Their armour can only be upgraded twice and not thrice.
- They are not a "free upkeep" unit.

So in other words... they are considered a step-up, they are more expensive, and compared to standard spear militia is that they have no advantage and are less upgradable ? :inquisitive:

You can guess I'm a bit at a loss here.

Sooo... anyone knows about something I may have missed ? ^^

[Nelson]

IIRC, town militia don't get an anti-cavalry bonus like spear militia do.

I'm not sure what the story is about Byzantine spearmen.

[Akka]

Ah, so town militia are a bit less specialized than spear militia ? Better against mélée but worse against cavalry ?
Ok, at least one question is answered !

Though the biggest one stay : what the hell is the point of Byzantine Spearmen ? :x

[Nelson]

Town militia seem to have no advantage over spear militia beyond the small initial price break. They are not better than spear at anything and are worse facing cavalry.

They do look different of course. I use them as garrison forces just for diversity.

Maybe the Byzantine spearmen just look different. Appearance is important. We wouldn't want every spear unit in the game to look the same! :smile:

[Flavius Merobaudes]

Seems as if apart from anti-cav abilities, town militia can have only one armour upgrade while spear militia can have three. That's for the western european militias.

Byzantine units are a different battlefield. While Byzantine spearmen are equal to western spear militia, they are indeed a step up from the Byzantine spearmilitia. They have better stats and get chevrons when being recruited - if you have advanced barracks in your castles.

Generally, it seems that the Byzantine unit roster is quite diverse, but the individual units are a bit weaker than other factions' corresponding counterparts. So you have to fight tactically sound, have every unit do what they do best and muster carefully balanced armies.

What vanilla Byzzies really lack is a pike unit, but there are mods for it. I never felt the lack of gunpowder to be a weakness though.

Anyway, you can always give the Byzantine spearmen the stats of armoured sergeants. And see how the Byzantine AI develops after that small change...:smash:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

The main difference is that Byzantine spearmen are recruited from castles and militia units from cities.

[Akka]

Town militia seem to have no advantage over spear militia beyond the small initial price break. They are not better than spear at anything and are worse facing cavalry.
Ah, I thought that the spear bonus against cavalry was a double-edged sword which worked as a penalty against infantry.

Byzantine units are a different battlefield. While Byzantine spearmen are equal to western spear militia, they are indeed a step up from the Byzantine spearmilitia. They have better stats and get chevrons when being recruited - if you have advanced barracks in your castles.
Well, actually, they may get chevrons, but they do NOT have better stats. They are exactly the same.
And considering the vast difference in upkeep, the tiny advantage of getting maybe a chevron or two is quite underwhelming :-/

Generally, it seems that the Byzantine unit roster is quite diverse, but the individual units are a bit weaker than other factions' corresponding counterparts. So you have to fight tactically sound, have every unit do what they do best and muster carefully balanced armies.

What vanilla Byzzies really lack is a pike unit, but there are mods for it. I never felt the lack of gunpowder to be a weakness though.

Anyway, you can always give the Byzantine spearmen the stats of armoured sergeants. And see how the Byzantine AI develops after that small change...:smash:
It seems that the game enforces a somewhat "old-fashioned" side to Byzantium : their units are a bit weaker and, more noticeable, they have much less upgradability than the ones from the west (militia, for instance, can not be upgraded into chainmail).
In fact, a particularly jarring side is that many of the upgrade are barely visible in graphic terms, or even completely invisible : Byzantine Infantry upgrade 2 is simply one man out of maybe twenty who gets a chainmail helmet covering his neck, absolutely nothing else changes ; you don't really feels having upgraded unit at all :-/. And Dismounted Byzantine Lancer upgrade 3 is simply the whole unit having such chainmail helmets - their body armor looks even worse than the upgrade 2.
Many other Byz units have this problem, and barely change or not change at all with the upgrades.

I miss how we can get visibly heavily armored soldiers with sufficient upgrades when playing western nations.

I don't really mind the lack of pikes, considering how pikes are bugged and worthless in MTW2, or at least very irritating to use efficiently, but the Byzantine Spearmen definitely deserve to be at least on part with Sergent Spearmen. The in-game description definitely make them closer to these than to the regular Spear Militia.

[O'Hea]

Town Militia have the light_spear attribute, which means they don't have a bonus against cavalry but do have a penalty against infantry (it's just a lousy weapon). Spear Militia have the spear attribute, which means they have a penalty against other infantry but have a compensating bonus vs. cavalry. If memory serves, they can also form schiltrom.

I agree about the Byzantine Spearmen though, they're lousy and I can't fathom why.

[fimiki]

From the unit files, most "light spear" units and halberd units get a spear_bonus_4, whereas most other spearmen get a spear_bonus_8 (and the "bonus against cav" in their unit description). What exactly does the "spear bonus" mean? Is it a strait stat upgrade to both attack and defense when fighting cavalry? That would be pretty potent. Or is it an upgrade to just attack or defense when fighting cav? I don't see anything that would imply it gives a penalty to fighting sword units.

It does seem that the Byzantines have the weakest lineup of spearmen out of any faction - something that was true in the original MTW as well. It's a liability when facing large numbers of heavy cavalry, but this can be remedied by intercepting cav charges with your kataphracts then sending in some Varangians to chop 'em up - also a solution from the original MTW :).

[Sebastian Seth]

Theres nothing wrong with Bysantine Spearmen. They are exacly pair with other factions Spearmen, Levy Spearmen, etc.

Attack 5
Charge Bonus 2
Defence 7
+ Bonus against fighting cavarly

I tend to have 2-6 units of these in every invasion army. They rarely go above 1:1 kill ratio but most of the time they protect the archers or just slow down the heavy cavarly charges.

Edit: And they are quite cheap too.

[Akka]

Theres nothing wrong with Bysantine Spearmen. They are exacly pair with other factions Spearmen, Levy Spearmen, etc.
And that's precisely WHERE the problem is ?

Didi you even READ the thread ?

(rhetorical quesiton of course, considering that the point is in the very first post and you very obviously didn't read it...)

[Flavius Merobaudes]

And that's precisely WHERE the problem is ?

Didi you even READ the thread ?

(rhetorical quesiton of course, considering that the point is in the very first post and you very obviously didn't read it...)

Come on, give him a break... You asked a question and he tried to help.

If we are talking about Byzantine militia, which you didn't make clear in your first post, then the main difference is that spear militia has more men per unit than town militia (75 vs. 60 on large settings).