Saracen or Murbatin infantry?

[Quasi]

After playing as the Turks in early for a while the two main staples of my armies are Saracen and Muwahid Infantry units with a few Gazi, half of us die when the wind blows too hard, Infantry thrown in for some muscle. What I want to know is, which spear unit is better in the long run? Saracens are well armored and they can hold out against some fairly strong units for a while with few casualties but the problem with them is after they lose about 25-40 men (out of a fresh 100 man unit) they start to break and run, causing a domino effect. Muwahid, on the other hand, hold out till they have 15 or 20 men left (60 man unit) but they are unarmored and fall much quicker in battle (not to mention being a much smaller unit in the first place). So if I had to choose one over the other which would it be? As it stands I mix them together (at least until Rum can start cranking out Janissaries in 10 more years) just wondering if that is the way to go or shoudl I favor one heavily over the other?


Edit: My bad, Murbatin should have been Muwahid. Murbatins are the ones that toss javelins.

[Panther]

The main problem with the Turks is that they dont have any real good units that can hold their own until they have Jannisaries which takes a LONG tiem so i modded ottoman infantry to be available from the start and have better morale and armour and melee http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

You may want to have both for different purposes.

Saracens shall be your main wall. As good as Chiv Searg, and available in early, they are very good.

As you pointed out, their morale is low. Mosque is important for those. Given their high number and high def/ arm, they will stand some times before routing and are not very good at actually killing things.

Muwahid are good at killing / flanking/ charging cavalry. They shall be your firefighters, just in case, and your cav killer, once you have pinned ennemy cav with saracen. They can also hold cav a little bit, but their charge bonus is judt too good for that. You want to use it
Don't use them against sword unit. They will die way too fast...

Saracen will also hold ennemy sword for some times, but not defeat it, so against sword, you also need something, neither Muwahid, nor Saracen.

Ghazi. Or Futuwwa.

If you have 4 spears in your typical army, I would go 3 saracen for main line/ 1 Muwahid behind ready to go.

Louis,

[BatkoMahno]

For me in the long run the saracen are the answer for the hardcore of your troops before you get the janissars. You do mean muwahids not murabitin inf? I used muwahids and Ghazi just for repelling and suicide missions of clearing the back of saracens because they die to easy and not last long enough but have good initial punch. But work hard on teasing the enemy with archery both on horse and foot (not horse archers). Build mosques as many as you can for highering moral of saraceninf and go for Armenian heavy. You have got to support closely saracen inf as their moral is not the shiny one but they hold better and stay alive longer(just don't leave them alone http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ).

Crack janissaries in 10 years? Are you already building academy? Or its not needed? Correct me someone.
You can read more here (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=5704)

[Quasi]

Yes, I already have the Academy in Rum, now I just have to build the appropriate Swordsmith and Spear upgrades. I estimated about 10 more years till those are finished.


Wish I could edit the Topic as well as my post....

[Monk]

take it from me...when the Mongol Hordes come marching over the Hill, dont depend on your Saracen Infantry to hold them off.

[Quasi]

Right now its about 1208 in my current campaign, I own everything the Russian plains, the Greece-Constantinople area, the entire middle east, N. Africa, Spain, and a couple French provinces. Since I'm only at war with Italy and France on the water only (I don't have any borders with them on land and I have yet to understand the reason the AI wants to always initiate naval warfare for NO reason), so I can safely concentrate my forces on the plains. I MIGHT have Jannisaries by then time the Horde rolls around, but I'm not betting the Empire on it. If not I plan to use a few camels for flanking and hope like hell It works. Usually I get lucky and end up with a bridge battle or two when fighting the Horde.

[Wizard of Evil]

I have been playing with the Turks for some time, saracens and muwahids have totally different roles. Saracen infantry is the best defensive unit for a very long time for the Turkish faction, whereas muwahids are totally no good at defence except defending against cavalry. Even then they wont take too long. You have to attack with muwahids and defend with saracens, so in my campaign the quantities of these units depend on whether i am on attack or defense. I do keep both units in the army in both situations. Saracens lack morale, but with morale upgrade and with a good general staying close to them they can really last for a long time. I had many saracens not routing even if they lose 80 % of their men. You have to keep an eye on them every time, because they tend to be too 'emotional' when they are flanked and lose morale quickly.

Quasi,

I recommend you to be very careful when using camels. They are not so good even against cavalry when you take them out of their desert, and they suck against anything except cavalry. I have had camels routing against the charges of archers.

[Alrowan]

niether....

the turks were renown for thier cavlary only armies, being able to shoot arrows then run, then reappear in the enemies rear and so on.

and it works well in the game, lots of turcoman horse and light cav does the trick


as far as the other muslim factions go, it all depends where i am fighting. If its the desert, then i take muwahid, if its not then saracens. Muwahid last longer in the heat then your enemies, and therefore can take them out when it comes to the crunch.

[Praylak]

I can relate on that with Alrowan's point. Half my Turkish Kings army is composed of cavalry and it works very well against many factions. Turcoman horse are great, and even with all that armour those dreaded Vargarian Guards die when arrows hit their rears.

[Quasi]

Well I too have had good experiances with Turcoman Horse but my main problem is that I can't get them to simply charge and melee while they still have arrows. Turning off Skirmish doesn't seem to fix that nor anyhting else I can think of. This is especially irritating If I just want them to chase down routing enemies(Turcomans are best this since they are so much faster than most cav). Any trick to get them to stop using bows?

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quasi,

For troups with two possible weapons (all missiles...), just press Alt to change the Icon and now you can go h2h with your turco horse

Hope it helps,

Louis,

[Kristaps]

On upping the stats of Ottoman infantry: if that's done -- the janissary infantry become kind of obsolete... I mean: ottoman infantry has armor piercing and a shield which they use in fighting; adding attack, defence and armor to these makes them superior to janissary infantry which would be historically incorrect.

[Panther]

i know i noticed so i upped the stats of the jannisaries and made them more available (no grand mosque but high armoury and spearmaker)
Weel even so i upped the stat of the byzzies which is bad because in late they wiped out my faction http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif and i didnt have one province i had Rum,2 armenias ,ANTIOCH , anatolia and edessa http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
but still lost (heres a tip dont upgrade constatinople with resources they were getting 4,000 a turn http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
but then constantiople was always really really rich http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[kataphraktoi]

Alrowan is right.

Use light cavalry they annoy the hell out of my byz armies, grrrrrrr. I hate their pestering arrows against my precious heavily armoured troops. Thats I made the kats a missile shock trooper so they can keep those turcomaniacs at a certain distance and then charge when the time is right.

But anyhoo light cavalry armies are the tops - utilise them well and you will romp thru Europe taking all the Christian women as your concubines to your hearts content.

[Michael the Great]

Quote[/b] (kataphraktoi @ Feb. 05 2003,07:58)]taking all the Christian women as your concubines to your hearts content.
Ok,I'll do that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif