French Unit Questions

[Musashi]

I'm currently playing a campaign as the French, and doing quite well. I'm getting into the higher pre-gunpowder tech tiers however, and I'm trying to figure out which unit is the best defensive infantry unit, and which is the best ranged unit.

The defensive infantry question seems to be between the Armored Sergeants, Voulgier (Not the militia version), and Pikemen.

The Armored Sergeants are the most well armored and survive the best under archer fire. Voulgier do a lot more damage, but have slightly less armor and don't have the bonus vs. cavalry (They seem to do alright though, I assume it's due to their ability to form the spearwall). Pikemen are the worst armored, and tend to take rather heinous losses under archer fire, but probably repel cavalry the best, having the advantage of the spearwall and a bonus vs. cavalry.

They all seem to be useful, but I find myself using the Voulgier most, if only because they can handle themselves against shock infantry as well as cavalry.

On the ranged front it's clearly down to the Aventurier and the Scots Guard... The Aventurier have more raw killing power at range, but the Scots Guard have a higher rate of fire and their kill rate doesn't suffer as badly when they have to utilize a parabolic firing trajectory. They're both darn strong in melee as well, with the Scots Guard having a slight edge if I remember correctly. Still, they're both basically heavy shock infantry that can shoot, so it seems like a bit of a toss-up.

Any more experienced players have opinions on which are the best?

[Aracnid]

I tend to use the Aventuier simply because they are castle bought as opposed to the town bought Scots Guard. In battle they are probably about equal, I personally use Armoured Spearmen, Voulgier are just a bit to flimsy for my liking.

[JeffBag]

Besides their most obvious differences, pikemen are the fastest moving foot units, voulgier the slowest moving, and armored sergeants somewhere in between. It is because of this that I favour pikemen the most, since I find them most capable of keeping up with my cavalry, exploiting gaps in the enemy line, as well as keeping the battle fluid with lots of manuevering. Honestly, they do die alot under missile fire, but the problem is reduced with the application of some armour upgrades. Armoured Sergeants don't seem to be capable of taking a 'perfect charge' from cavalry too well either, since I've often seen an entire unit destroyed from a single 'perfect charge'. Voulgier, with their 'spear wall', do seem to take charges significantly better, but suffer from their lower unit numbers; I find them more useful behind my pike line, advancing into it to slaughter the cavalry and heavy infantry once those cheap, expendable pikemen have stopped them.