How 'bout those peasants?

[Red Harvest]

Thinking out loud here and stepping "out of the box". After the first few years of a campaign, I no longer have any peasants anywhere (disband, use as fodder for castle assault, etc.) Feudal armies used a lot of peasants, correct? The AI likes to keep large peasant armies, but against a human they get slaughtered.

Where am I going with this? Should we be compelled to keep peasant units about as human players? Or should the AI be compelled not to keep peasant units about?

A step further...would it make more sense if peasant units were short term levies and primarily defensive or contiguous province attack in nature? Even with a garrison, if I invade a province, wouldn't one expect a number of ill trained peasants to come together to attempt repelling the invader...then disband themselves when that has been completed (perhaps reducing province loyalty in the process.) In essence they would be called up by local lords. Seems strange that peasant units would spend years (entire lifetimes) in other provinces. Perhaps they should begin to dwindle away over time and be only a short term army filler. I wonder if I'm playing the game legitimately by having no peasants around... I've always favored quality over quantity.

[chilling]

I hate peasants as units. I don't think they should be in the game as something that you can acctually build. I'd much prefer it if they worked how you suggested, if your province was invaded your defences were augmented with a couple of units of the local population as peasants. When the battle was over they were then absorbed back into the province to get back on with the work on the land.


You could still work this in the first few years when you'd have no 'real' units, just the locals to defend the land. The bigger the province the more peasants would be generated.

I use all my peasants up as soon as I can.

[Leet Eriksson]

peasants are good,as a last ditch effort when you don't have anything to flank with while your spearmen are holding the enemy.they have a good charge too

[Vlad The Impaler]

i use peasants only in early stages of the game and only as guards in territory that need big armies for not to revolt; i find them useless , they are not reliable at all;course , in a last stand desperate battle i could use them but i prefer smaller but better armies .

[Kraxis]

After a short discussion with the other modders because I couldn't change the appearance (the AI will to train them)of Peasants properly, I desided to simply make them untrainable. They are still in the game as rebels and Crusaders, and I think that is quite fitting. I haven't heard of that many Peasants in armies as frontline soldiers, but we all know about the peasantuprisings.

[Exile]

ah peasents, they run as soon as a unit of knights looks at them...

I use them to garrison my non-border territories becuase they are checp and 100 to a unit. Rarely do I fight with them, certainly not on purpose http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

It would be nice if the AI stopped using them in high-late era armies - they serve no purpose against anything stronger than UM.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I would like to broaden a little bit the question.

At some point, I was thinking that it would be really neat not to have any army at all on a permanent bases, but just to be able to raise armies, kind of like crusade or loyalist.

Composition and number would depend on where the army is raised, technology of the province, loyalty of governor, influence, etc, etc...
To raise too many armies in the same place would decrease loyalty. Armies would be temporary (alternative... province of origine loyalty decrease with time army is raised)

Side effect; scrap completly the tax/trade system which anyway is completly unrealistic... Divide revenue by ten and make loyalist army free.

That would make the player more dependent on his court, and give some better 'medieval' feeling.

Only unit I would keep on a permanent basis; art (BTW no art in loyalist army) and house of the king army.

Any heavy modder interested?

What do you think about it?

Louis,

PS; Not sure it would be good for muslim nations...

[LordTed]

peasants are a cheap garrison for provinces far away from the fight

[trader/warrior]

i think peasants are kinda cool in my present game. i got about 23000 in some HUGE loyalty rebellions and i invaded the polish and germans and utterly destroyed them. 6-7000 peasants survived. i like having many peasants

[rasoforos]

i like the peasants in the game not only because in the hands of a decend commander they are better than nothing ( they can charge the rear of the enemy with ok results) but also because there is nothing better than charging 4 lancers against 300 peasants and seeing the results http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif . If there is anyone like me here then in-battle massacres are a wonderfull thing and peasants offer just that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Kraxis]

Ohh yeah I love that too.

I used to practice making the perfect charge on invading Egyptian armies with my Kats. Worked perfectly.

Stand still... Charge... Pull back... Charge again. BAM V0 kats became V3 kats after the battle having killed 500 Peasants (no prisoners taken or executed by them) and 4 lost. I found it was important to keep the charge up on the Peasants or else you lose quite a lot of cavalry after having met the first 500 Peasants.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Peasants are good for dying, and that's pretty much it. It takes a bit of time and effort for the enemy to hack through them. I like to use them as shields for my archers. When the enemy attempts to attack, they have to cut through the levies to get to the bowmen. Meantime they're being struck by arrows. Reminds me of the quote from the movie Braveheart:

Sergeant: "Sir? Won't we hit our own men?"
Longshanks: "Yes. But we'll hit their's as well. We have reserves."

I once got some good results from a group of peasants under a 9-star commander charging downslope http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[econ21]

To go back to the original post, I've been doing some reading around and my impression is no, feudal armies did not use a lot of peasants. For example, the English in the Hundred Years War relied on semi-professional men-at-arms and archers. The French opposed them largely with similarly heavily armed men-at-arms and some crossbowmen. The French did use some less well-armed spearmen but may impression is that they were not the most important part of the army in numbers or role, and even then were not "peasants". Even at the beginning of the period, some historians argue that the Saxon Army at Hastings in 1066 was largely based around a well armed warrior caste; the idea of "Greater fyrd" like a mass levy has been challenged. Most of the fighting in the period was probably done by men equipped and trained to fight. When "peasants" fought, they tended to die as easily as they do in MTW. Sounds plausible to me. If I have a beef, it is that the AI has too many peasants, not that I use too few.

[LordKhaine]

They're too expensive to maintain to have any worth. If I want cheap filler troops Urban Milita do the job far better...

[Elwe]

Could always mod the game to make peasants on buildable in the Early era.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

Cheers.

[A.Saturnus]

I would say troops that were gathered quickly to defend a land were rather militia men, they had usually some experience with their weapons. The usual medieval army was build by knights and their squires as main force and mercenary troops as support. The Normans fielded in Hastings a lot Flemish mercenaries for example.
I`ve modded peasants to cost more inital and raised the AI-preference for other troops. Now, the AI uses peasants still in the beginning but far less when better troops are available.

[Nikitas]

Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe: That's an interesting idea, more realistic, but not practical for a game. Long term campaigns would be nearly impossibly, you wouldn't be able to tell the strength of the enemies defences or the strength of your offensive armies. Even though MTW's factions operate more like nations than fiefdom's and therefore not historically accurate, they are easier to handle as part of a game.

[Maniac]

I use peasants in some occasions:
1. Garrisoning safe central provinces
2. Cannon fodder/bait
3. With their charge they are pretty good for the final/routing attack.
4. I noticed that they often come with generals that have quite high acumen so I build some to get good governors and garrison the peasies...

[Portuguese Rebel]

You guys are nuts... you want to take my nice peasants awyay? what would i use for police? peasants with badges make the best police in the game. Remember you have to have at least 100 men garrisons to keep bandits out. 100 peasants are cheap and are good acumen governors, getting fat with gluttony...
You give this peasants a badge and say "you are now a soldier, go find some criminals and make your mum proud" and the peasant will act up like a bully and keep peace (he likes to think he is some kind of hero, cause that helps getting discounts at the local brothel).
Come on, for 50 florins and that upkeep what did you want?
About the real Medieval armys, the use of large amounts of peasants depended much on the culture and specific events. For instance, Nuno Alvares Pereira, a portuguese general, commanded an army wich included 1/3 of peasants (wich he wiselly placed in the rear) in the battle of Aljusbarrota, where he faced a superior spanish force of mostly knights and professinal soldiers. Nuno Alvares Pereira had few professional man-at-arms but he placed them with the peasants, mixing them. He then told the Man-at-arms to kill any peasant who dared to flee (i would love to be able to that in MTW:D). In the front he placed skirmishers (archers and xbows). The spanish charged and their knights got wasted because their horses broke their legs in the fields in front of the portuguese army (Yes... we digged some holes there http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ) and the fallen knights could hardly get up (too much armor) then the portuguese charged and the spanish infantry, seeing their godlike knights fallen and beaten bad, not wishing to suffer the same fate, runned for their lives. I guess they only stopped in spain. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
In medieval times, like in MTW, peasants where a last resource... the game is pretty acurate i think. But of course they wouldn't be in an army forever, but thats part of the game mecanics...

[A.Saturnus]

Nubians are a better garrison than peasants, so much is sure. When you play with large units, x-bows have 100 men and cost less upkeep than 166 peasants, so they are a better garrison. Why use peasants when you can have better units for the same price?

25 post to go http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[hoom]

I prefer to garrison with a unit that can be used should there actually be a revolt there or in a neighbouring province.

Militia Sergeants are a good example once you have better units available, or Urban Militia.
Mix in some spears and missiles around the place and you can have a fairly decent army ready to defend at a turns' notice. (also handy when you cock up an attack and wind up with your border exposed...)


On the issue of the usefulness of peasants, I have had a battle recently where my 80 strong unit of Kats killed 1700+ peasants/fanatics and took ~600 captive http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
The other 3 units managed about 2-300 each.

[BDC]

Many of the men who fought who were conscripted were normally there because they were under a death sentence, so they would have been quite good at anything involving violence anyway (ie smugglers, gangster, bandits etc).

[cugel]

Yes, some peasants fought in medieval armies, but they were generally useless. They weren't trained and didn't have good arms, generally speaking. A man without training would be about as useful as one of you players inducted into a modern army, given a rifle and told to fight the enemy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

I always think of the response by Alaric the Goth to the governor of besieged Rome, who threatened the Goths with the vast population of Rome: "the more tightly packed the sheep, the more easily they are shorn"

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

On the other hand, peasants with decent training and arms could be very formidable: as with the veteran peasant warriors of the Hussite rebellions of the 15th century. They defeated several HRE armies sent to crush them. Eventually the Emperor had to come to terms with them rather than attacking and defeating them. Those peasants were armed with long-handled flails with heavy iron weights attached to a chain, that could crush the heaviest armored knight

[A.Saturnus]

The wagon fort tactic of the Hussites gave them a huge advantage in defencive battles. They had also very good military leaders. In addition they were inspired by religion. In terms of MTW you could say they were well trained fanatics.

20 posts http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Hamburglar]

Peasants are great, and they are realistic. Hell, you could even claim a lot of them to be "camp followers" and such that would help keep the army running, and if it came down to it you'd throw them into combat to win.

I once had a Crusade go into Constantinople. It had a bunch of peasant units in it. I started out with like 4 units of 200 peasants each and at their final battle there were 35 survivors of valor 7 without the general. My general was 7 star so he boosted them up nicely.

It was a last ditch battle - I had about 40 Knights Templar, 300 Urban Militia, 130 archers, and like 200 spearmen, and those 35 peasants. The peasant unit had a GOOD commander. He had no command virtues but he had a ton that boost morale and he himself was some sort of uber warrior with Mighty Warrior, Pride, Natural Born Killer, and Argumentative. I was playing on Huge units which makes everything double size so I have a much weaker force than it would originally look. I was attacked by both the French and Spanish with about 4500 men between them and they had good troops. At least 300 knights and 500 men at arms between them, as well as around 500 sergeants and the rest being militia units and archers.

Well, I defended on a STEEP wooded hill and those peasants charged down screaming into a full 120 Spanish men at arms and cut through them, only losing 10 men and routing the 60 survivors. They then charged into a big pile of urban militia and sliced through them like butter, eventually causing a them to rout and the peasants flew down the hill into the enemy's archers and militia units. I lost the battle but those peasants ended up killing about 300 men with their mere 35.

[Maniac]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Wouldn't want such peasants in a rebellion