Gothic Sergeants

[Zarax]

Anyone uses them?
Personally i find having 60 instead of 100 men hurts them a lot plus the requirements are illogical (Baronial Court? They aren't nobles AFAIK )...
They are somewhat useful in sieges but then the halberds does a better job and the pikemen are more effective in the open field imho.

Do you use them? And how?

[CosmoSteve]

I don't bother with them. Both factions they are available to have superior anti-cavalry troops - Swiss Pikemen and Italian Light Infantry. Gothic Sergeants are too slow as well.

[mfberg]

They are a bridge/gap defensive unit. Slow, armoured, better than pike for small gaps (nice armour) not as good as SAPs because of unit size and speed.

mfberg

[Zarax]

Aren't halbs better as bridge/gap units?

[CosmoSteve]

I would say so. Better attack, better price and the anti-armour bonus. The only thing I reckon Gothic Sergeants have over them is from their shield bonus which gives them marginally better armour and defence.

[BAD]

Bah build and use Gothic Seargeants. Why? Cos you can (if you are HRE or Italians???). Or you could be boring and use Halberdiers (yawns) or Pikeman (dies of boredom) that loaaaaaads a people can build. . .

Just my two cents. (runs and hides)

[Zarax]

I'm modding the game so i'm more asking if people have any use for GS and i'm taking ideas on how to make them more useful.

[Procrustes]

Why wouldn't they be useful? They're like super-duper spears - even sturdier than chiv sgts. Halbs are just different (imo). Here are the stats (remember that sgts and pikes get an added rank bonus, halbs do not.)

Gothic sergeants.
Charge 5 Attack 0 Defence 5 Armour 5 Speed 4, 8, 9 Morale 2

Chivalric sergeants.
Charge 5 Attack –1 Defence 3 Armour 3 Speed 6, 10, 11 Morale 0

Pikemen.
Charge 4 Attack 1 Defence -1 Armour 1 Speed 6, 10, 11 Morale 2

Halberdiers
Charge 2 Attack 1 Defence 6 Armour 5 Speed 4, 8, 9 Morale 0

[Zarax]

There are only 60 of per unit, they got no armor piercing abilities and requires a wholly different production line to be built, unless you sacrifice GK and make them istead (which is a poor choice imho).
The only thing that makes them superior against halbs is the morale which is higher, even though i suspect a few crossbow/arbalest volleys would quite reduce it.
Finally, on a straight fight the halbs hurts them a lot thanks to AP while GS spears aren't very effective versus plate mail.

[Procrustes]

OK. Couple of comments, though - aren't halbs only 60 men per unit, too? And while they are armor piercing, halbs don't get rank or anti-cav bonuses. Also, I think the Gothic Sgts get a small bonus for their small shield. And unlike halbs you are likely to get Gothic Sgts with command stars. Finally, I think that a few blasts from some arbs are going to take a bit of the fight out of any unit, and will probably hurt some halbs more than it will some gothic sgts.

Heck, if you want you could get away with a lot fewer units than are available in MTW. That would take a lot of the fun away from the game, though. I'm not generally in a rush to conquor the world when I play - I like the variety. And to me polearms and spears are just different - I don't use them interchangebly. (If I did I guess I could get rid of chiv sgts, too - just start building halbs when high starts.) Spears are my (primarily defensive) anti-cav unit, polearms are my more expendable and generic anti-everything troops. Gothic sgts are the sturdiest of all spears just like halbs are the sturdiest of all polearms - the fact that they are only available to a couple of factions and hard to build just makes it more fun to get a few if you can. If they were the same as another unit already in the game then I wouldn't care. As it is I can choose to build them or not - and if I have the time and money I will because it's fun.

What are you thinking of modding? Were you thinking of making the unit size bigger, or making them available to more factions? Or were you going to replace them with something else?

Best,

Procrustes

[Zarax]

I'm modding the game in order to offer more differences between factions by playing with the existing roster (MTV+VI, i'm not an expert modder so no custom units) and giving each faction "bonuses" and "penalties" in unit building, a bit like the old good AOE2...
Along with this i'm trying to making some units a bit more appealing by making them easier to get or giving perks like CA did with the Druzhina Cavalry.
I'm currently finishing working with the Italians (a militia based faction, though they will still get gothic level units in late) and trying to evaluate if a player would replace the trusty Italian spears with the more advanced gothic ones with the current requisites...
So far i get the feeling that by the time you're able to build them they would be made less worthy by the competition of halbs, especially those trained in Tuscany who gets iron upgrades.
Upping the unit size to the standard spear one helps offsetting this and helps them competing on a more equal footing with pikes (especially SAP).

[Procrustes]

I see, that makes a lot of sense. IMO there doesn't seem to another unit that's as good of a buy as the poleams. Just plain old militia sgts are really deadly and versitile, and very cheap to build - you can still build an effective army with little money and tech. If you want people to build more variety, then perhaps you could up the reqs for milita sgts and halbs.

Good luck! Will be interested to hear how it turns out for you.

P.

[Zarax]

Hmm, i've got something a bit different in mind...

Each faction will get one or more of those attributes:

Heavy Inf (Danish, HRE, Almohads)
Heavy Cav (HRE, French, Spanish, Byz)
Militia (Italians, Swiss, Papacy) (this means they gets UM, MS and Halbs)
Anticav (English, Turkish)
Medium/light cav (Polish, Hungarians, Eggys)
Steppe/mounted missiles (Novgorod/Hungarians)
Advanced (HRE, Italians, Spanish) (means that they will get one or more gothic level units, lancers are counted as gothic level)

The classification is not yet 100% complete, but to give you an idea of how things works the only playable faction with vanilla halbs will be the Italians, making the swiss or mercs halbs quite valuable.
This is compensated by the fact the Italians gets no other heavy inf until late (and they will be GS or pikes, so no heavy duty guys), plus they can produce only light cav (again, until late)...

[CBR]

Halbs get att/def +3/+1 v cav.


CBR

[Budwise]

I was reading and love playing British and all. I love the Billmen. Although I have never walked into combat with anything gothic, I do find that my Billmen usually mop up the whole field. I seen them outnumbered against stuff they shouldn't win against and all I see is "Winning Easily" across the map. Not to mention Bridge maps.

Anyways. I'm not saying that G.S. don't have a use, I'm sure the rank bonus would be great on defence but mass charging the enemys front line is Billmen all the way.

[Zarax]

Ok, i knew people loves polearms, so i restricted them a bit in my mod...
Now the question is: would you use GS instead of pikes or SAP?

[King Edward]

Good Moral, Big Charge Bonus, Ideal Counter attack units if you ask me. Pin a unit with some spears then slam these guys into the flanks. should carve them up nicely!

[Procrustes]

Ok, i knew people loves polearms, so i restricted them a bit in my mod...
Now the question is: would you use GS instead of pikes or SAP?

Well, pikes are harder to manuver, and they like more ranks so the frontage they cover is a little less. Pikes are better on static defense than GS, but GS is a little more versitile. (Though I think that GS will hold up against missiles a little better, but I'm not sure about that.) So again, I'm not sure I could pick one over the other - though if forced to I'd probably pick the GS. Just my $0.02....

[DisruptorX]

(Though I think that GS will hold up against missiles a little better, but I'm not sure about that.)

I don't think it would really matter, in any event. Halberds are decked out in full plate and are almost immune to normal arrows. Having better protection than halberds is almost redundant.

[mfberg]

GS are cav defense (like all the other spears), with rank bonus they chew up anything coming at them, but are too small for a spear unit. Their support costs are less, and late in the game, that may be what matters. If you mod them to 100 instead of 60 men they become worthwhile.

mfberg

[Zarax]

I just did so, currently testing with HRE on early...
It's getting an interesting play, i'm currently on high and i've witnessed the rise and fall (by civil war) of the French as superpower, greatly reduced on high by the resurgence of both English and Spanish, while the Hungarians killed the Polish and are now dealing with the horde along with the Byz, with the Italians becoming the amphibious assault masters after having killed the papacy... They will surely get headhaches later.
On the north the Danish are slowly expanding, having invaded finland and preparing to continue the assault on a surrounded Novgorod.
In the meantime the HRE (me) slowly but steadily expanded in central Europe, benefitting from rebellions in France and twarthing the English expansion ambitions on one side while keeping the horde remnants on the other...

I'm now approaching late and thinking about some more faction balance... Maybe the English will receive a slight penalty on Heavy Inf (CMAA doesn't really fit with their strategy, but we'll see) as they fare better with their historical units...

[sephirothno12000]

I use swiss pikeman for the most part, but i do use goth sergeants in armies not close to Swizzerland because though slower and less dmging...i use them in the front line or in a pincer tactic to support pikeman, then run cavalry in from the flanks.

[Zarax]

Ok, i upped the GS to 100 and now they are quite improved, especially with a bit of valour...
I noticed they also make quite good assault troops along with halbs and chiv/goth knights, being impervious to arrow fire.