Celtic Warriors- Sword or Spear?

Is the Celtic Warrior a sword or spear unit? Unit picture has them with a spear but on the battlefield they have swords. Which do they really have?

I think they are swords. IIRC, they are rather like a unit of 100 Highlanders. In otherwords, very nasty to basic spears. On expert, they ate up a unit of my armoured spears. An "all tubes" target for my archers if the AI fields them.

they are swords.

I set them up in single file and charge them in giant crisscross on the battle field.

two of them in this formation will instantly destroy a unit of enemy spears.

I ripped up an enemy fyrdmen in seconds using that setup.

one moment they were marching towards me and the next, they were 16 men and running for dear life.

their charge is devastating so use them but don't expect much from slugfest due to horrible defense.

either break the enemy upon impact or risk losing the unit but they are cheap anyhow.

Interesting tactic Katank;

My second most beloved cheap unit after the Highlander, which has speed on his side. I use them through all the game, giving him armor as fast as I can and weapon upgrades too possible...

Try to lure the enemy into the woods, thanks to this my V0 celtic warrior eliminated three spears in a row loosing hardly any men...

yep.

the celts are good cheap units like highlanders with same usage except for size for celts and speed for highlanders.

celts are better for my cross-shredder system though as I have them in 1 rank deep and the 100 man has such a long line that there is no way that the enemy can resist getting flanked.

since I also use engages, it's possible to get you shredder to hit two units when they march one behind another.

it's similar to stunting in football and is a surprisingly offensive defense tool for me

the AI tends to pile up their units when marching towards me and I just shred em this way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif

@katank - are you doing this with 2.01? I'd understand it working well with 2.0 and the swipe bug, but with 2.01 I wouldn't think it would work quite as well.

this isn't swiping.

I am doing this with 2.01

this is more like uber long lines auto flanking.

this works well but I actually charge directly at the target unit with one and charge the other unit at a target slightly off.

the second unit doesn't get infinite charge bonus but is simply meant to go so that the real target woudl be either flank attacked on both wings or would be rear attacked by one.

the AI often freezes and gets both flanks mauled, hence instant rout.

this is especially effective against spears as killing so many so fast spells instant rout and when rapidly they are reduced to 16 men or so, they can't get rank bonuses even if they run. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif

Interesting... but my tactics will beat that Katank, I crowd all my hardest men in one corner and wait.
*coughs longbowmen and CFK*

the idea is cheapo force and making the most out of it.

on VI map, you don't have longbows and CFK.

besides, those units you mention take quite a while to build up to.

celts, however, can be produced instantly on VI map while on the MTW map need only keep level while your units need castle and citadel level respectively.

true but i like playing my moded game where all units are available in all eras as long as you have the right infrastructure, i've also made the longbowman a good fighter and made a new unit recycling another archer for the english but with a longbow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg.../gc-jester.gif

available in all eras???

that's way overpowered.

this means that you'll not find much use for units like feudal sarges or vanilla archers as they are no longer the best you have in early.

also, getting chiv knights etc. right away isn't cool.

did you know you can thus also hire gunpowder mercs at the start of the game? how's that game balance?

if you didn't have event dependence, then it would be bad as the gunpowder units can be built quickly and you'll never need mangonels etc. for siege.

if it's still event based, then the balance is again skewed as you don't have those gunpowder boys to help counter high tech units.

I find armor piercing on handguns etc. to actually be quite good and they can actually kill pinned CKs very well when firing point blank range into their rear.

Gah who said i liked game balance i'm a n00b for flip's sake http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg.../gc-jester.gif

lol, so true.

game balance can go out the door but I think it's necessary.

I agree with Katank. A modded game like that would quickly lose it's luster. You never have a use for the low level stuff and part of the fun of this game is using what you have until you get what you want. It takes away the ambition to build new structures and get the better units. Kind of creates a stagnant situation in my opinion but hey, noobs do as noobs do. I have been playing since Shogun and have never modded a game yet. I must be old fashioned... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/gc-toff.gif

i have modded the game in several ways.
given poland, hungary and denmark access to crusades. who cares if they have never actually crusaded.
given the russians a decent hev infantry.
made lith cavs requirements slightly lower and given lithuania a better starting position as well as giving it to the russians, but made it more rebellious.
given the less noticed factions some more heroes and such.
made khazar royal cav buildable.
increased moldavias starting position and gave it to the polish.
gave denmark sweden and a naval presence.

each faction starts off 4000 florins richer.
thanks, dessa

russians already have druzhina which dismounts into FFK any time.

what better heavy inf can you ask for?

crusades is ok, but this detracts from the fact that these factions have the annoyance of excomm but no benefits which makes them harder.

lith cav and heroes I agree with.

moldavia to Polish? this means no more easy grab for avar nobles? boo.

It should be equal opportunity for those heavies among Polish, Huns, and Byz as well as who is willing to bribe their way there (ie. me).

Lithuania to Russians also makes RUssians a lot easier.

why 4k more florins? This detracts from the charm of many factions as Polish and Early Nov are hard due to cash poor state.

These economic challenges are far less if you have more cash.

what do celtic warriors have to do with modding??? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...s/confused.gif ??? this is OT http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif

ah_dut first mentionned longbows and CFK in response to my Celtic warrior cross shredder tactic.

I thought infrastructure and era availability made celts more realistic than those units but ah_dut said he modded his game, yaddeeyada.

I've modded build times and have a 'homelands' system like medmod so you can only build crap units outside of your homelands and what aplies to me applies to the AI so i don't see the problem