Infantry in BI

I've been playing BI first with Sassanids and now I'm trying to play with Franks. I've noticed that spearunits seem to be much better in BI. They don't rout so easily and are capable of tearing light and medium horse units to pieces in longer melee.

Now I'm faced with the dilemma: Why should I train axe or swordsmen? They are worse against horses and when fighting against other infantry they have only 2/3 of the spearunit size. Spears can do shield wall just the same as axe or sword and gain one extra experience level compared to other types due to hall bonus. Addionally spearunits carry throwing spears, which is quite devastating when throw by 120 soldiers (large unit size). On top of that both Axe and Sword Heerbann are more expensive to maintain... Am I missing something? I also noticed that Fransisca Heerbann have Warcry ability instead of shield wall which makes it harder to incorporate in frankish battleline.

well the spears may be cheaper and larger, but the swords and the axe men ,are way better, plus I think the axe men have an armor piercing ability - just like the spears have a ''spear'' attribute.
So I use swords and axe men , later francisca axe men to from my battle line , and use spears for support of some better quality garrisson.

:balloon2:

No, Frankish axemen don't have armor piercing modifier and neither do fransisca men. Axe and sword are same besides sword has 3 more defense skill and 20 gold more maintenance...

well still , I would choose the swords , the 20 gold more in upkeep is nothing , even in the beginning it isn't.
Plus if you need to assault walls , the low morale spears wouldn't do well , in my experience swords and axe's ( especially francisca's with their ranged attack ) do way better.

:balloon2:

Chosen axemen are the best infantry unit in the game. I believe they beat every unit in the game head to head (including bodyguard cav units, catas, etc), and they only cost 450 (with a ridiculously low 100 or so upkeep).

BI is still cav dominated, however. So imo all infantry units are a waste (you only need 1 unit to use a ladder and open up the gates for city assaults).

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Originally Posted by Dutch_guy

well still , I would choose the swords , the 20 gold more in upkeep is nothing , even in the beginning it isn't.
Plus if you need to assault walls , the low morale spears wouldn't do well , in my experience swords and axe's ( especially francisca's with their ranged attack ) do way better.

:balloon2:

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Now you make a good point. Fighting in a place where you can't utilize your numerical superiority (walls or maybe streets) have some options to use these units. I'll drop down here stats of aforementioned infantry units when trained from large barbarian city with some upgrades:

Spear Levy:

Men in unit: 120

Melee: 10
Missile: 14
Charge: 4

Total Defense: 13
Armor: 2
Defense: 8
Shield: 3

Shield Wall
Combat Bonus in woods or snow
* Spears have bonus vs cavalry, I think it was +4 to attack?

Recruit Cost: 333 gold
Upkeep: 115 gold

Axe and Sword Heerbann (2 chevron)

Men in unit: 81

Melee:11
Missile: none
Charge: 5

Total Defense: 19 (sword 22)
Armor: 7
Defense: 6 (sword 9)
Shield: 6

Recruit Cost: 459 both
Upkeep Cost: 124 axe, 144 sword


Axe and sword guys can take some beating with their higher defense but get flanked more easily (which leads to morale penalties and backstab attacks).
So what should be done is that most of your infantry are spears, put 2-4 swords or fransisca on wings. That should be good for winning most field battles. I'd rather have 120 men sword and axe units with higher cost and upkeep, spears are just so tempting. ~:cool:

lag report

The spearmen are good against light and medium cav and are almost good supporting units but against commitatenses or other tough inf, Heerbann are more usefull. Besides spearmen have only armor of 2 and small shields, so they are vulnerable to arrows.

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Originally Posted by Zorlag

Now you make a good point...

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The stats for un-upgraded units is this:

Levy Spearmen: attack 7, charge bonus 4, missile 11
armour 2, skill 5, shield 3, (=defence 10)

Axe Heerbann: attack 9, charge bonus 5
armour 7, skill 4, shield 6 (=defence 17)

With an extra experience point, the spears are almost equal in attack, but 6 short in defence. For sword heerbann even 9. That makes a huge difference.

Not to say that the swords and axes attack with full speed (1) while the spears only attack at (0.73). Meaning the swords and axes land more than a third more attacks than an equal number of spears. Or said differently, the spears are 27% slower.

But it is the stronger morale that makes the difference. The bigger unit will suffer losses faster and suffer moralepenalties faster than the smaller unit in this case. Thus you can always expect the swords and axes to last a whole lot longer.

I did some testing and indeed melee units (in 1vs1) outlast spears because they attacked faster and have better defense. Spears didn't route easily though, many times there was less than 10 men left when it happened. Tried vs Chosen Axemen for fun and axemen won but only with 29 men left, 3 volleys of javelins really tore them up. Shielded infantry stood up to them better. So these guys are finally worth something but not "overpowered" and that makes me happy. ;)

1v1 isn't good to check for morale, it is good for unit to unit tests.

If you want a more proper test you should test 4v4 or similar. There is a need for changes that can happen in a battle. Trust me if you don't try to overpower one side (such as halting and using up all the javelins) then you will see some good effects.

You shouldn't have used all the javelins as if you had been the other unit you wouldn't have let you opponent do that. One volley and that's it.

I've just started a campaign as the Franks having finally won my ERE campaign. Anyway, I like the default spear unit, but they do get whittled down very fast by archery. They are a good filler unit though, but I prefer having a mixed line up if at all possible, with a few of each infantry type so as to be adaptable.

I have started doing a three row thing with the Germanic troops for defense. First row is spear troops in shieldwall three soldiers deep. Second row is archers. Third row is axemen (or other assault troops). With some infantry and or cavalry to protect the flanks this works very well.

The archers do a little damage and give a morale penalty to the enemy troops during their charge and the shieldwall appear to be able to absorb just about any charge without taking significant damage. Just ensure you keep the archers out of the way (leaving them on skirmish helps) and then charge in the axemen anywhere the line is under pressure. If you are lucky you can break the enemies attack, if not you should hold them long enough to win on the flanks and roll around them...

If the enemy pushes out skirmishers or archers of their own I would push my archers to counter, but you have to be careful because the AI in BI is hugely aggressive toward your archers if they are out in front.

I did experiment with a mixed line but I found that the swordsmen suffered a larger number of casualties when absorbing the assault than the (cheaper) spearmen so I put an end to that...

My offensive strategy is similar, pinning the enemy with the spearmen and looking for weaknesses to exploit. But it is no where near as tested as the defensive strategy (that says something about the AI tweaks in BI I think)...

So I guess I am saying that I find use for both troops types together...

In my Frankish campaign I first thought the levy spears were pretty cool with their nasty javelins and the massive upgrades you get with the wotan temples. However, after only a few significant battles it became clear that the few heerbann units I kept round as assault forces were much more useful, if only because they don't get slaughtered if you leave them for a few seconds.

A sample battle would be my 8 levy spears and 3-4 heerbann (and some supportive archers and cavalry), versus an evil force of 7 Alemannic warlords and some peasants. Now warlord cavalry are unreasonable strong, and seven of them is just about too much for a proper battle. However I felt confident with my army having 4, 5 chevrons (heerbann 3), and enough javelins to beat up the horses.

It turned out a little different, as my left flank of three spears was crushed in a matter of seconds, while the center with the other spears was getting beaten up harshly. Apparently, when a powerful cavalry unit charges infantry they kill like 20 men in an instant. To sum up; I was able to win the battle with not a little luck, but afterwards most of my spears were annihilated, while the heerbann had pretty much saved the battle, simply by _not_ dying and _not_ fleeing.

after some more rather disastrous experiences with the levy spears I've ditched them and degraded them to garrison and rebel-mop-up duties, as they don't have the morale and surviving ability to hold the line at all and survive a long battle.

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Originally Posted by Zorlag

Tried vs Chosen Axemen for fun and axemen won but only with 29 men left, 3 volleys of javelins really tore them up. Shielded infantry stood up to them better.

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This is the only significant weakness of chosen axemen: pitiful armor. Having said that, it's easy to avoid missile fire.

And once they get into a melee, there's no stopping them. In BI, most units have had their armor upgraded significantly; this means ap units have become even more powerful.

warcry + ap = routing enemy

I think CAs might lose to the 60 man 1500g 700 upkeep first cohort unit, but that's about it.

For 450 gold and 100 upkeep, that's not bad at all....

I saw on other forums that some spear units are not currently receiving their spear bonus, has anyone dug into game files to check this yet? This could partially explain why some cavalry units still hammer spears head on.

Levy Spears have the attribute of light_spear. That grants some amount of resistance towards a cavaly charge, but the spear attribute (make sure that it is not the old 'spear') is much much stronger. Light spearmen do not get that one, while heavier ones do. Add to that the woeful defensive capabilities and it is obvious why the Levy Spears can't stand up to the Warlords.