Infantry in BI

**Zorlag** · 10-10-2005, 16:40

No, Frankish axemen don't have armor piercing modifier and neither do fransisca men. Axe and sword are same besides sword has 3 more defense skill and 20 gold more maintenance...

**Dutch_guy** · 10-10-2005, 16:43

well still , I would choose the swords , the 20 gold more in upkeep is nothing , even in the beginning it isn't.
Plus if you need to assault walls , the low morale spears wouldn't do well , in my experience swords and axe's ( especially francisca's with their ranged attack ) do way better.

**Zorlag** · 10-10-2005, 17:04

repost

**A.Saturnus** · 10-10-2005, 17:22

Originally Posted by Zorlag

Now you make a good point...

The stats for un-upgraded units is this:

Levy Spearmen: attack 7, charge bonus 4, missile 11
armour 2, skill 5, shield 3, (=defence 10)

Axe Heerbann: attack 9, charge bonus 5
armour 7, skill 4, shield 6 (=defence 17)

With an extra experience point, the spears are almost equal in attack, but 6 short in defence. For sword heerbann even 9. That makes a huge difference.

**Kraxis** · 10-10-2005, 17:31

Not to say that the swords and axes attack with full speed (1) while the spears only attack at (0.73). Meaning the swords and axes land more than a third more attacks than an equal number of spears. Or said differently, the spears are 27% slower.

But it is the stronger morale that makes the difference. The bigger unit will suffer losses faster and suffer moralepenalties faster than the smaller unit in this case. Thus you can always expect the swords and axes to last a whole lot longer.

**Zorlag** · 10-10-2005, 17:39

I did some testing and indeed melee units (in 1vs1) outlast spears because they attacked faster and have better defense. Spears didn't route easily though, many times there was less than 10 men left when it happened. Tried vs Chosen Axemen for fun and axemen won but only with 29 men left, 3 volleys of javelins really tore them up. Shielded infantry stood up to them better. So these guys are finally worth something but not "overpowered" and that makes me happy. ;)

**Kraxis** · 10-10-2005, 17:44

1v1 isn't good to check for morale, it is good for unit to unit tests.

If you want a more proper test you should test 4v4 or similar. There is a need for changes that can happen in a battle. Trust me if you don't try to overpower one side (such as halting and using up all the javelins) then you will see some good effects.

You shouldn't have used all the javelins as if you had been the other unit you wouldn't have let you opponent do that. One volley and that's it.

**Dorkus** · 10-10-2005, 21:18

Originally Posted by Zorlag

Tried vs Chosen Axemen for fun and axemen won but only with 29 men left, 3 volleys of javelins really tore them up. Shielded infantry stood up to them better.

This is the only significant weakness of chosen axemen: pitiful armor. Having said that, it's easy to avoid missile fire.

And once they get into a melee, there's no stopping them. In BI, most units have had their armor upgraded significantly; this means ap units have become even more powerful.

warcry + ap = routing enemy

I think CAs might lose to the 60 man 1500g 700 upkeep first cohort unit, but that's about it.

For 450 gold and 100 upkeep, that's not bad at all....

**Zorlag** · 10-10-2005, 17:01

lag report

**A.Saturnus** · 10-10-2005, 17:03

The spearmen are good against light and medium cav and are almost good supporting units but against commitatenses or other tough inf, Heerbann are more usefull. Besides spearmen have only armor of 2 and small shields, so they are vulnerable to arrows.

**Dorkus** · 10-10-2005, 16:56

repost

**Zorlag** · 10-10-2005, 16:59

Originally Posted by Dutch_guy

well still , I would choose the swords , the 20 gold more in upkeep is nothing , even in the beginning it isn't.
Plus if you need to assault walls , the low morale spears wouldn't do well , in my experience swords and axe's ( especially francisca's with their ranged attack ) do way better.

Now you make a good point. Fighting in a place where you can't utilize your numerical superiority (walls or maybe streets) have some options to use these units. I'll drop down here stats of aforementioned infantry units when trained from large barbarian city with some upgrades:

Spear Levy:

Men in unit: 120

Melee: 10
Missile: 14
Charge: 4

Total Defense: 13
Armor: 2
Defense: 8
Shield: 3

Shield Wall
Combat Bonus in woods or snow
* Spears have bonus vs cavalry, I think it was +4 to attack?

Recruit Cost: 333 gold
Upkeep: 115 gold

Axe and Sword Heerbann (2 chevron)

Men in unit: 81

Melee:11
Missile: none
Charge: 5

Total Defense: 19 (sword 22)
Armor: 7
Defense: 6 (sword 9)
Shield: 6

Recruit Cost: 459 both
Upkeep Cost: 124 axe, 144 sword

Axe and sword guys can take some beating with their higher defense but get flanked more easily (which leads to morale penalties and backstab attacks).
So what should be done is that most of your infantry are spears, put 2-4 swords or fransisca on wings. That should be good for winning most field battles. I'd rather have 120 men sword and axe units with higher cost and upkeep, spears are just so tempting.

**Dorkus** · 10-10-2005, 16:55

Chosen axemen are the best infantry unit in the game. I believe they beat every unit in the game head to head (including bodyguard cav units, catas, etc), and they only cost 450 (with a ridiculously low 100 or so upkeep).

BI is still cav dominated, however. So imo all infantry units are a waste (you only need 1 unit to use a ladder and open up the gates for city assaults).