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Yes, I know this sounds a bit weird, but hear me out. Right now my problem is dealing with cavalry (no Heavy Billmen just yet), so I was wondering either:
1) How do I deal with them early on
or
2) How do I enable recruitment of Armoured Sergeants in the campaing? (Supposedly the English have them available on the unit roster, but they are not activated for some reason)
1) Using cavalry, Dismounted English knights, even normal billmen, as long as you can keep them in melee. Otherwise try levy spearmen and spear militia.
2) Via modding. I've enabled them in my mod if you want to try it.
When I was playing un-modded 1.2 England, I would make sure that my spearmen (either type, preferably miltia to save on upkeep) took any frontal charge. Armored swordsman could almost take a charge in a pinch. The best option is to use longbowmen's stake ability. You deploy them when you deploy the units. Nothing stops calvary better. Put the stakes up front and then have the archers withdraw a bit and replace them with spearmen/billmen to fight.
When I first played as England in original vanilla 1.2, my main methods were Levy Spearmen and Longbow stakes. It was very cut and dry and it worked well.
What Galain Ironside said is what I've done in my campaign, plus a couple of spearmen mercenary if I feel the need for them.
You could use spears or heavy infantry, just remember to keep them still when they receive the charge, if theyre running towards the horsemen they can lose around 50+ in the first charge.
I thought about using Mercenary Spearmen (basically what I've done in my Denmark Campaign), but aside from that. . . the problem is having something that can take the charge. Nothing that I've tried has been able to survive a head on charge from cavalry (and I mean survive as in not rout, since even outnumbered 3:1 infantry can beat cavalry).
And yes, FactionHeir, I would like to enable Armored Sergeants for the English in my game (heck, they are already there (third level of barracks I believe), just not available for some reason).
Once you get to the middle of the map (SE of Paris I'd say), you can get merc pikemen. They seem to have the best anti-calvary weapons. Its even possible to edit them so they don't switch to their secondary weapon, but that makes them a bit too strong.
I agree with insane, keep your troops still. The merc/miltiia/levy spearmen can all take a charge if stationary and facing the right way. Even heavy horse don't take out too many.
Fully upgraded levies or spear militia have heavy mail. This means they have almost the same defense as armored spears. If you can get a swordsmith guild asap and upgrade levy spears then they can do the job.
If you want to mod them in the game just add england to this line in th EDB (export_descr_buildings): recruit_pool "Armored Sergeants" 1 0.5 4 0 requires factions { france, hre, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily, Normans, england, }
About Antwerp,does taking it mean that everyone will fight me for it? Just that in my present campaign Denamrk is using it as a base to launch irritating raid against Bruges and Caen,so I was looking to knock-out that threat ASAP,so I could concentrate on dealing with France and the main Dannish settlements,and I'd hate the HRE and MIlanese to declare war on me now..
yes
oz wwjd, it depends what the geography is like on your campaign. If Milan and HRE are close by, they will attack unless you have a decently sized garrison. Although you can probably expect the Danish to try and recapture it if you dont push up north and take other Danish settlements so they struggle economically.
If the Danes are attacking you anyway to start with, its pretty much a no-brainer on what you need to do.
About Milan and HRE, Milan usually attempts to expand into Italy and Central Europe, ive never had them expand north. HRE usually attacks the Danes and is preoccupied with them, so it really depends on what is going on in your campaign to determine what will happen.
Milan is unlikely to attack Antwerp at that stage. Althought HRE at times will attack the player for Atwerp, doesn't always happen though. Take Atwerp, or else the Dane will keep harrasing you and give you no peace.
Make no mistake. Levy spearmen and Spear militia are one and the same. They're pretty much crap, but they're better then nothing. They die quickly and have poor morale.
But take them along anyway, although they can't stand a cavalry charge they're still capable of killing cavalry. Pin 'em down and flank. Slap some armour on 'em though.
Longbow stakes are the best at killing cavalry, though the AI isn't stupid enough to blindly charge into them (most of the time I find, though knights are more prone to doing that then other units).
Billmen aren't the tanks they used to be in MTW1. Use armoured swordmen and lots of Longsbows instead. Billmen aren't good at anything except flanking (when they're bonus against armour really counts).
Heavy Bills are much more like it but are very expensive to finally be able to train them.
If you form spear troops into blocks instead of lines, they can take a charge without breaking. This is because only the first couple ranks get slaughtered by the charging cav before the spear troops can start taking on the cav. This generally also keeps the cav pinned until you can bring in swordsmen or more spears to deal with them.
It actually is possible that Milan will fight you for it. In both my England campaigns they are expanding north to Metz and they just captured Paris in my last campaign.
I guess that if they're close they can be a threat.