Pics & History of your Empire

[caravel]

Secondly, a "bashkort" is a unit type that I am not familiar with (having thus far only played vanilla MTW and MTW:VI). What is it exactly?

A people from around the Ural region. In the XL mod they are represented as either spearmen, javelinmen or a spear/javelin hybrid, can't remember which now.

[Geezer57]

They're a spear/javelin hybrid, as you thought. They have four javelins, and have 5/1/2/1/4 for stats (charge, attack, defense, armor, & morale). The numbers come from the MTW_XL_EARLY_UNIT_PROD11.TXT file, so might vary in later periods.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Bamff: I am playing the XL mod, and so is Cowhead. The bashkorts are a really nice hybrid between spearmen and javelinmen, and I personally find them to be the best javelin infantry in the XL mod. True, almughavars and armored almughavars are even better, but the Bashkorts are cheaper and have a far greater impact, especially for the two factions that can use them - the Volga Bulgars and the Cumans. The Volga Bulgars lack any missile units other than vanilla archers (unless they get to certain provinces and build them up quite a bit), and the Bashkorts provide some very effective range attack, when used properly, especially in defensive battles. The cumans lack any spearmen other than vanilla spearmen, and the bashkorts can act as a high morale spear unit if necessary - they will not do wonders, but a unit of them can hold a MHC long enough to allow another unit of Bashkorts to pepper the enemy with armor piercing javelins. The bashkorts also have a low upkeep and require only a spearmaker's workshop and nothing else, and the Cumans and Volga Bulgars can build them everywhere they go. The only downsides are that they are available only in early and high, and their lack of armor.