Best Late Era Unit Roster

[Rhyfelwyr]

What faction do you think has the best unit selection in the late game? Say from around turn 110 onwards, when your gunpowder units are just becoming available.

It's not necessarily the unit selection that performs best on the battlefield, but maybe just the most interesting, diverse, or unique.

My votes going to the HRE. Armour is useless against these guys late on. Dismounted Imperial Knights, Imperial Knights, and then eventually (pause for effect)... Gothic Knights, its mace-mania with these guys. Not to mention Reiters.

Anyway, hopefully this will trigger some discussion...

[Ramses II CP]

Turks, far and away. If you don't know why, go start a Turkish campaign.

[Korlon]

I agree about the Turks. What you want in the Late Era are gunpowder units, and the Turks have that aplenty.

[BananaBob]

Hmm. For me their are defiantly four factions that have power house endgame rosters. Spain has an amazing roster: musketeers, high end pikemen and amazing swordsmen, can train amazing calvary in cities(gendarme), and the uber-powered conquistadors. The Jinnetes are also a boon, being amazing and cheap general killers.

The HRE is a huge powerhouse late game as well because of the Gothic Knights, large amounts of Two-handers and the mercenary Landersneckt. But the main unit of the HRE late game is defiantly the Reiter. Doing the historical and useful shooting charge is one of my most fond memories and the tactic that got me my first heroic victory on VH

However much that those two late-game rosters rock, The two factions that are really untouchable are France and Turkey. France has one of the best and most versatile rosters, with mounted longbowmen and the super-heavy Lancers. Even better then can recruit Gendarme and the aforementioned HA's in a city. As awesome as this seems, however, Frances list almost pales in comparison to Turkey's. The monster bombard makes sieges a joke. With 2 or 3 you can almost level an entire city. By the time I'm in the late game playing as turkey, I have a massive line a janissary muskets, clusters of Ottoman Infantry and Janissary Heavy Infantry, with two two-unit wings of Sipihi HA for flanking. After a few volleys from the muskets I can confidently charge all my units in knowing that they will annihilate every gunpowder-low morale troops. Rinse and repeat and the world is your oyster.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

The Turks. Because they have:
Janissary heavy infantry
Janissary musketeers
Janissary archers (Stakes!!)
Quapukulu
Horse archers

[Galain_Ironhide]

Turks, far and away. If you don't know why, go start a Turkish campaign.

I agree about the Turks. What you want in the Late Era are gunpowder units, and the Turks have that aplenty.

The Turks. Because they have:
Janissary heavy infantry
Janissary musketeers
Janissary archers (Stakes!!)
Quapukulu
Horse archers

Agreed on all accounts. The Turks kick Butt

[Dead Guy]

I agree on the Turks, but I think Portugal and/or Spain deserves honorable mention.
Portugese Arquebusiers and Musketeers are great, and they have a good mix of other units, including good pikemen if they only worked better, to back that up. They also have the lovely Serpentine if my memory doesn't fail me...
Plus great ships!!!!1

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Not much contest here... pretty much hands down Turks and Ports for me...no other factions have gunpowder units as deadly or as best suited to both offense and defense (Jannissaries/Muskets and Arbs)

Gunpowder units pretty much make any other infantry obselete IMO because a musketeer or Jannisary has range and movement and an arb has some range,extremely powerful missle attack (16) and "staying power" if engaged. The only thing that I fear with gunpowder units is a mass of cavalry...nothing else will beat them.

I voted Port...mainly since I dont have alot of exp with the Turks. And I like slaughtering Aztec..which are closer to the Ports. Also the Ports are one of the few factions that can train nearly everything out of a city and most of them being decent at least. Spears/Swords/Pikes/Missles/Cav (w/chapter house) and eventually Gunpowder troops as well.. I do rather appreciate that.

However, it can be said that there are other factions with good late units... obviously gunpowder units arent the 1st choice for defending cities/castles.

[Quintus.JC]

My vote goes to France, despite not having the best gunpowder units but their overall selection of late-era roster is excellent. Their melee units are quite superb and artelliary is also world class. Spain and Portugal are also some of the great powers of the later eras. No doubt the Turks have the best later-era gunpowder units but lets not totally forget the Italians.

[Abokasee]

Well to me its a split desicion between russia and turkey

Lets have a look

Similar Pro's:
~Great Cavalry
~Good Late game gunpowder
~Good starting position
~Late game infantry are pretty good
~Not catholic

Similar cons:
~Near mongols
~Early game infantry are generally fail
~Not catholic

Russia Pro's
~Cossack gunners!
~Mounted Cossacks!
~Tsar Guard!
~Good Early game cavalry (Boyar sons and Druzhina!)

Russia Cons:
~Often ends being the only orthodox faction in a sea of catholics and muslims
~Provinces are generally not that wealthy

Turkey Pro's
~Janissary heavy infantry! (PWNZORZ!!!)
~Janissary muskets (W00T!!!!)
~Janissary Archers (ZOMG!11!ONE STAKES)
~Great early game horse archers
~Monster Bombard
~Rich provinces

Turkeys Con's
~OHSHI ITS THE TIMURIDS
~Early game infantry? no chance
~Pope dosnt like you much... this may lead to crusades
~Egypt is next door and there quite strong in early game

[PBI]

For me it's Portugal, the Turks a close second. I find their gunpowder a bit more versatile and I prefer elite pikes to elite halberds, plus better access to heavy cavalry. And since it's the late game, it has to be a faction with javelin cavalry to counter those Timurid elephants. That's the one glaring weakness in the Turkish arsenal.

Plus, if you install Retrofit, Portugal gets dragoons.

I toyed with the idea of Scotland, but I think they're more of a mid-game faction, with all those pikes but barely any gunpowder.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Aren't pikes useless? Unless cavalry charge them head on I genearally find them to be. Although I do usually take maybe 3 units in late period armies to mix in with my main infantry and take the cavalry charges for them, since even Dismounted Feudal Knights disappear like peasants when charged head on by decent cavalry.

Or are you playing a mod?

Or are they sorted in Kingdoms?

[PBI]

Aren't pikes useless? Unless cavalry charge them head on I genearally find them to be. Although I do usually take maybe 3 units in late period armies to mix in with my main infantry and take the cavalry charges for them, since even Dismounted Feudal Knights disappear like peasants when charged head on by decent cavalry.

Or are you playing a mod?

Or are they sorted in Kingdoms?

Bit of both. I always mod out the pikes' secondary weapons which makes them more powerful (but is what I would do in real life if my men were being stupid enough to drop their main weapons; I would have their hands nailed to the pikes if that's what it takes), and I'm playing Retrofit which I think boosts their stats a bit as well, so pikes are now very powerful in my current game. But I did my Portugal campaign in vanilla, and I still found Aventuriers pretty powerful. There is a big difference between elite pikes like Aventuriers and Tercios and rubbish like pike militia.

EDIT: I think possibly I mean Aventuros, whichever one is the Portuguese pike unit and not the French crossbow unit.

[Jason X]

i voted for the turks, the whole janissary roster plus qupulukus for mongol general killing plus naffatuns was just too much fun. lack of jav cav the only downer on them

i liked spain too - almost all your army from cities (only needed castle for sword & bucklers) plus the useful in any era jinetes

never got round to playing HRE

[Dead Guy]

Aventuros are the portugese pikemen, yes =) And they are pretty good even when their formation fails. They can for example be used to charge a flank of medium quality troops and accomplish more than diddely-squat, but they're not ideal exactly :p Definetly a lot better than militia though as you said.

[Duke Bart]

Personally i like spain and france late game

Spain is right by the new world so their roster is great for killing off those areas and making a nice bundle if u need to go that far.

Same idea with france, also they are near the middle of the map so that you can really use those nice late game units without risk of some mongols or timurids in your back door.

For me its really versitility that matters with a roster nd the turks just never did it for me, spain and france really felt the most balanced at the end.