I do not get French lancers

I do not get French lancers. I must be missing something.

They are supposed to be the ultimate development of the heavily armoured
knight, and the most devastating charger. They take an awful lot of
infrastructure and do not come until quite late in the game. But statwise,
they are no better than hospitalier knights that I have been building since
the first crusade, and they are inferrior to chivalric knights, at least in castles
where I have well developed armourers.

They have great armour, but that is offset by the lack of a shield. They are
no faster than hospitaliers, and charge without orders. I have trained a few,
and so far, I do not see what would make me build more.

What am I missing?

Shield bonus isn't as good as total armor bonus, imo. If you get flanked, IIRC shield does not apply while armor does.

Also, I think the horse barding is not upgraded from whatever is the default for the horse. So, the lancers should be quite a bit tougher when you also consider that their defence is based on armor alone (no shield).

Test some archers vs. lancers and vs. vanilla knights (the ones you say are as good or better) in custom battle...

Welcome to France, were cavalry gets progressively more expensive but act and look pretty much the same.

I haven't seen anyone try to increase the effect of a certain cav unit yet, but it'd be interesting to see the 'ultimate' live up to their name. Give them like 15 attack and a 10 charge and see what happens.

To the mod mobile, batman!

Stats doesn't tell the whole story, many units are far better(JHI) or far worse(Varangians) than their numbers imply. The Lancers have armoured mounts, which only a preciously few units have in the game. If you really want to test their strength, run a few Custom Battles and compare them to other cavalry.

Also, when comparing to your Hospitallers, what exactly are you paying for those, in terms of recruitment + armor upgrade? I'm guessing the total cost is close to that of the Lancers.

Lancers of the end all be all of the heavy cavalry charger. They have more armor then almost any other cavalry, and they have the ultimate armoured horse. Just try them against hospitallers, or even chivalric knights. You'll see the difference very quickly.

Yeah, I have been experimenting with lancers, and they do seem to resist
missiles much better. The horse barding must make the difference, indeed.
On the other hand, in hand to hand, they seem no better than fully upgraded
chivalric knights. This is from fighting the English. I would test them in custom
battles if I could force myself to load Total War and not continue my campaign.

The great thing about hospitaliers is that I have so many guildhouses that I
can replenish their numbers pretty much everywhere, city or castle. Furthermore,
their upkeep is less than 80% of that of other knights.

On the other hand, I have noticed that I get MUCH better milieage out of a cavalry
stack with 15-20 chargers than one with 40. It is amazing how much better
they wheel and charge, and of course, how much faster they get experience.

Well the problem is, any cav kills any footman through sheer charge. So, in that regard, Lancers are no better, no worse than Hobilars.

Where lancers have an edge is against missile fire (high armour all around so same resistance from front and back, plus armored mounts), and other, non-armor-piercing heavy cav (such as... Hospitalers :yes:).

Against armor piercing heavy cav (gothics, war priests...), high armor and AP nullify each other, and the field is evened. Not sure AP breaks shield, or that shield is taken into account in melee at all for that matter.

So the horse barding make any difference?

So there is actualy some difference betwen Chivalric Knights (barded horse) and Noble Knights (mailed horse)? Or just the unkeep cost?

Well, we don't know for *certain*. There is an entry for mount type (ie horse, heavy horse, mailed horse, barded horse) in the unit files, but since we only get that, and not the actual battlefield mechanics, we can't be sure wether it's factored in, or wether it's just to tell the game which type of horse to display.

I guess I'll have to test this more thoroughly when I have the time :book:.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Well, we don't know for *certain*. There is an entry for mount type (ie horse, heavy horse, mailed horse, barded horse) in the unit files, but since we only get that, and not the actual battlefield mechanics, we can't be sure wether it's factored in, or wether it's just to tell the game which type of horse to display.

I guess I'll have to test this more thoroughly when I have the time :book:.

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IIRC the mounts armor is related to the units armor.