Viking Units overpowered?

[caravel]

I shouldn't have been so lazy when I wrote the section you responded to. I forget that exacting language is always the best course of action. I meant that perhaps CA modelled the Huscarles to be so powerful to help emulate those particular tactics. With reference to the Saxon Huscarles they were given land to stop previous raiding and had similar units so they would also get Huscarles. I'm unsure of why the Mercians would have them.

The problem is that the English factions can train Huscarles as the Vikings and they are not a raiding faction. The Vikings get the raiding bonus, wheras the English don't. The other issue is that though you say that the huscarles are as they are to simulate those particular tactics, they can also be used effectively to simply destroy and conquer. So in simulated one thing, the developer has created another.

Mercians were a bad example. Insert Welsh, Pict, or what have you in their place. Although in the end weren't the Mercians (or maybe it was the Saxons) the ones that came closest to uniting Britian. And the game has given the Mercians and the Saxons access to a unit that could very well achieve those ends. Coincidence?

The Mercians were apparently the closest.

Then the tactic is, to dispose of the Huscarles first. Everything else is an afterthought. If you saw 1000 modern troops and 10 tanks in an enemy's army your first thought should be to disable the tanks. If your a technologically inferior force than it should be hard, maybe impossible to do.

Modern warfare doesn't relate to medieval warfare. It is just not the same thing, but of course archers would prioritise as to who was going to get shot down first, i.e. the general and the elite cavalry/infantry.

Considering how badly I botched this post when I first wrote it then hopefully you'll excuse me of this infraction as well.

No worries, I'm not sure why you're apologising as I don't see where you've done anything wrong.

To Mithrandir: I sincerely apologize for initiating the references to history. From the look of my post I managed not only to screw up my whole point, but then managed to open a door, turning it into a historical debate, which definitely was not my intention. I hope you'll allow the response as my vain attempt to clear the whole matter up, and I will desperately try to refrain from historical postings in the Main Hall.

This is another point. This thread is about the game, not history. There are some points as to where the game relates to history, which it will do because MTW is a game based on the history of medieval europe, but it's not a purely historical thread. Creating another topic within the historical discussion forum and linking back and forth from this thread to the other whenever a reference to history is made would be ridiculous.

I suppose to at least do my best to tie all of this back to the initial thread I will say this. I do not think the Huscarles are overpowered units. As players playing any of the other factions they are difficult to defeat, and sometimes impossible for the resources we have at hand.

So we disagree, which is not a problem. Funnily enough I usually found myself at the .com arguing for greater difficulty within MTW and not what appears to be less, though I do feel that the Huscarles make it too easy for me as the player to conquer the map. This isn't too much of a problem as I don't overuse them anyway, but also when facing them, I despise using those sort of tactics mentioned previously against them.

Typically when I play VI I play as the Welsh, and I will admit it is sometimes terribly difficult to stop Huscarles. Sometimes I must throw unit after unit to stop them and sometimes I don't succeed. I consider that part of the challenge of the game. It does sometimes mean I will lose the game, or that my end of battle tally won't look pretty, but I don't think every battle I wage should be won at overwhelming odds. On occasion, time proves that winning a particular battle is what caused me to lose the war.

I've conquered the whole map as the welsh several times on expert. Each time I've found that archers were of vital importance when shooting the huscarles to pieces combined with royal bodyguards and mounted nobles (one faction doesn't get mounted nobles at all, and I can't remember if it's the Irish or the Welsh?) to run them down.