pictish cavalry?

[RRMike]

What's the story on these guys? I just ran into some in an English army after a re-emergence. Didn't seem particularly tough but I couldn't find them in the unit roster here.

Another question, does the AI get a valor bonus on expert or just a morale bonus? I sure seem to be having a tough time with certain units at valor levels that should allow my units to hold their own or win and I can't. I put CS with +1 weapons and +2 armor against a unit of ILI with +2 armor and then I flanked with a unit of FMAA who got a good clean side attack and the result was the FMAA killed to the last man and the CS routed with 30 survivors and the ILI is standing there with 80 men left.

Shouldn't the CS be an even match with the +1 attack from metalsmith? Units had 2V each and were all on flat ground. I thought for sure there was some kind of hardcoded advantage for those guys but in that battle, the only one I had where I didn't have equal or better troops, I couldn't beat any unit of theirs with anything of mine. Hell, I saw a unit of vanilla spears beat a unit of KoS who were charging downhill (steep) at them, and rout the knights with 70 spearmen remaining.

[drone]

Pictish cavalry are in the VI expansion. They can't be recruited in the vanilla grand campaign, but looking through the unit_prod file I think they can show up in uprisings in Scotland, so it's not too farfetched that the English would have some after a reemergence. Their VI description is here (https://forums.totalwar.org/wiki/index.php/VI_Pictish_Cavalry).

The AI gets a bonus on both Hard and Expert. On hard, the AI gets +15% combat bonus (attack and defense, I believe), on Expert the AI gets a +30% bonus, plus the +4 morale.

[Trapped in Samsara]

I put CS with +1 weapons and +2 armor against a unit of ILI with +2 armor and then I flanked with a unit of FMAA who got a good clean side attack and the result was the FMAA killed to the last man and the CS routed with 30 survivors and the ILI is standing there with 80 men left.

Hi

For what it's worth, in my experience, Italian Light Infantry (like Saracen Infantry) are tough hombres who should be treated with respect.

That said, your account is of some very exceptional unit(s) on unit outcomes. What were the relative standings of the two generals? Did you count the number of valour flags of the AI units?

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[Gilrandir]

Another question, does the AI get a valor bonus on expert or just a morale bonus? I sure seem to be having a tough time with certain units at valor levels that should allow my units to hold their own or win and I can't. I put CS with +1 weapons and +2 armor against a unit of ILI with +2 armor and then I flanked with a unit of FMAA who got a good clean side attack and the result was the FMAA killed to the last man and the CS routed with 30 survivors and the ILI is standing there with 80 men left.

Shouldn't the CS be an even match with the +1 attack from metalsmith? Units had 2V each and were all on flat ground. I thought for sure there was some kind of hardcoded advantage for those guys but in that battle, the only one I had where I didn't have equal or better troops, I couldn't beat any unit of theirs with anything of mine. Hell, I saw a unit of vanilla spears beat a unit of KoS who were charging downhill (steep) at them, and rout the knights with 70 spearmen remaining.
You should also keep an eye on the generals' vices and virtues. I had an army headed by a four-star general which (i.e. the army) routed several seconds after the first impact just because the general had "a good runner" trait.

[RRMike]

Victor, 4* generals on both sides. The only unit with exceptional valor was the enemy general, who had 4v. I wish I had saved the replay so that I could go back and look at it again. It was simply amazing how badly every unit of theirs crushed every unit of mine. I had no particular problem with any of my other battles with the Italians but that one army was just amazing.

It was just like when you fight the Byz, with one of their 9* generals. All their units are just so powerful.