Ah, I thought that the spear bonus against cavalry was a double-edged sword which worked as a penalty against infantry.
Well, actually, they may get chevrons, but they do NOT have better stats. They are exactly the same.
And considering the vast difference in upkeep, the tiny advantage of getting maybe a chevron or two is quite underwhelming :-/
It seems that the game enforces a somewhat "old-fashioned" side to Byzantium : their units are a bit weaker and, more noticeable, they have much less upgradability than the ones from the west (militia, for instance, can not be upgraded into chainmail).Generally, it seems that the Byzantine unit roster is quite diverse, but the individual units are a bit weaker than other factions' corresponding counterparts. So you have to fight tactically sound, have every unit do what they do best and muster carefully balanced armies.
What vanilla Byzzies really lack is a pike unit, but there are mods for it. I never felt the lack of gunpowder to be a weakness though.
Anyway, you can always give the Byzantine spearmen the stats of armoured sergeants. And see how the Byzantine AI develops after that small change...![]()
In fact, a particularly jarring side is that many of the upgrade are barely visible in graphic terms, or even completely invisible : Byzantine Infantry upgrade 2 is simply one man out of maybe twenty who gets a chainmail helmet covering his neck, absolutely nothing else changes ; you don't really feels having upgraded unit at all :-/. And Dismounted Byzantine Lancer upgrade 3 is simply the whole unit having such chainmail helmets - their body armor looks even worse than the upgrade 2.
Many other Byz units have this problem, and barely change or not change at all with the upgrades.
I miss how we can get visibly heavily armored soldiers with sufficient upgrades when playing western nations.
I don't really mind the lack of pikes, considering how pikes are bugged and worthless in MTW2, or at least very irritating to use efficiently, but the Byzantine Spearmen definitely deserve to be at least on part with Sergent Spearmen. The in-game description definitely make them closer to these than to the regular Spear Militia.
Bookmarks