Free Knights Forever: Why You Should Never Go Professional

[dopp]

When I first got M2TW I played the Spanish. Four times. They were that fun. I spammed Jinetes and Mailed Knights from my castles and unleashed them on my foes. Trotting sedately into combat, my overweight knights bludgeoned the enemy to death through sheer weight of numbers, while the Jinetes threw sharp objects and cheered. It was great fun.

Then the modern age arrived and I discovered the designers' personal gift to me: they made firearms capable of actually hitting something. Yes, guns can kill people in M2TW. I raced to assemble shot-and-pike armies. Tercio Pikemen, Musketeers, Swordsmen, Basilisks (a little heavy for my taste, but nevermind), the future seemed golden. Then I built my first Royal Officer Academy and saw the game's miserable excuse for professional cavalry: Gendarmes.

These guys have to be the most underpowered and unmotivated heavy cavalry in the game. They have a lower attack than Mailed Knights, lower defense than Feudal Knights, poor discipline, unexceptional morale and cost a bomb to recruit and maintain. Despite being professional knights, they get no experience bonuses from Tourneys and Master Swordsmiths. Their only advantage is being produced in a city. City life must be even more corrosive than I thought, to produce such lackluster specimens of knighthood. Chivalric Knights, considerably easier to recruit and maintain, are far superior in every way. Advanced knights, supposedly the contemporaries of the Gendarmes, will take them to pieces without breaking a sweat. One has only to look at Imperial Gothic Knights, Demi-Lancers and French Lancers to see the *true* standard of advanced heavy cavalry (even then, none of these supposedly more advanced knights have better defense than Feudal and Chivalric Knights).

Gendarmes are "superb professional armored cavalry armed with a lance". Superb is laughable, professional is debatable since neither their morale nor their discipline is in any way superior to that of earlier knights (it is in fact lower than that of advanced knights, 9 vs 11). Armored perhaps, but stupid enough to leave their shields at home. Even the lance part is questionable as they much prefer to use their swords. They should be sued for false advertising, and for pretending to be shock cavalry instead of the baggage train attendants they truly are.

The story of the Gendarme is a lesson to us all: knights are meant to run wild and free over the wide battlefield. Any attempt to instill professionalism in them is doomed to failure. Tear down those military academies: they will avail you not. Return to the Glorious Age of Chivalry, when knights were REAL MEN, strong and untamed, and not the mindless stormtroopers of a tyrant emperor.

[Rilder]

Ok am I the only one who wants to see a stormtrooper on a horse now?

On topic, I supose it was more of historacle thing, knights were becomming harder to come buy so they needed a professional force, but what do I know :p I hate calvary.

[lezniefek]

The thing about Gendarmes and their defense compared to Feudal Knights is the fact that they have 11 armour compared to the FK's 7. Although the FK has a total of 16 defense and the Gendarme 15, the Gendarme has the benefit of the higher armour value (11) in effect from all directions + defense skill(4) from the front and right, where the FK has his shield (4) from left side and front only + his armour (7) + defense skill from the right and front alone.

[lezniefek]

sorry to double post, but i have to point out that for some reason, i totally looked over that second to last paragraph that addressed what i said :P

[IrishArmenian]

Ok am I the only one who wants to see a stormtrooper on a horse now?

On topic, I supose it was more of historacle thing, knights were becomming harder to come buy so they needed a professional force, but what do I know :p I hate calvary.

Ah, heresy!
I smell a new post on the patch wish list...

[Rilder]

Ah, heresy!
I smell a new post on the patch wish list...

Eh, Imma not worry about bugs in M2:tw and will focus on having fun, never worried about bugs in RTW

[ForlornHope]

As another note on the topic of "use (or lack thereof) of advanced cavalry units" (sorry if it doesn't fit in here), why does high era France have two identical cavalry units: Chivalric and Noble Knights?

Both have the same attack value, same charge, same defense (armour/shield/skill all identical), same recruitment cost...the only difference I can see so far is that Nobles are much more expensive to maintain (320 florins/turn compared to 250 for the Chiv Knights) which doesn't exactly benefit them...and I don't think that huge cost difference is compensated by their apparently better horse armour (their horse seems to be wearing mail), they might just have a more expensive taste... . So, what's the reason to recruit those stubborn nobles?

[dopp]

Erm, actually there isn't any difference between the two except perhaps mailed steed for French Nobles instead of barded. The unit entries are completely identical. I also can't see any difference between mount types. They all have mass 6 and there doesn't seem to be any difference in armor values between them. Strange. Maybe someone can run a peasant archer missile test between the two and see if the nobles survive better?

[ForlornHope]

Well, I just did that test...yes I know, dumb AI behaviour in custom battles and the unrealistic one-on-one situation might not be very indicative, but whatever...

I put a unit of HRE peasant archers (AI controlled) against one unit of French Nobles and Chivalric Knights respectively, 3 teast runs with each unit, no upgrades on any of them, no weather or terrain influence. I let the archers walk up to my knights and expend their 30 volleys of arrows head on into my formation.

Result: The Chiv Knights suffered 40/39/39 kills, the Nobles 39/39/38. I think it's fairly safe to say that at least against missiles, the horse armour doesn't really do anything. I hope I can be proven wrong on that though, as I like as much diversity in terms of units as I can get in campaign, but at the moment there seems to be no point for France to recruit nobles.

[Handel]

The city produced cavalry is good only to be build and destroyed next turn until you get a horse breeding guild.

[ForlornHope]

At least that is the case for catholic/orthodox factions (muslims get racetracks and good cavalry in their cities so they have it easier), in fact i've never succeeded in getting a Horsebreeder's guild at any city yet playing as any faction.

Some of the city cavalry is quite good though. Coming from a Milanese campaign, I sure wouldn't miss out on those Famiglia Ducale. Excellent heavy cav. I see the point on Gendarmes though.

[Revenant]

Ok, as I am interested in such things, I did some testing:

First thing: Feudal knights vs. Gendarmes

I ran 20 combats on grassy plain, normal difficulty. One unit against one unit. In the first ten engagement, I was in command of the Gendarmes and vice versa. I only single clicked on the enemy every time and watched as two lines of armoured horsemen charged and killed themselves.

And I have to say that Gendarmes wiped floor with Feudals easily in every of this combat.

So... they are better than Feudals I thought, and that is probably enought, but I tried one combat with Gendarmes vs. Chivalrick knights. And to my surprise, Gendarmes were victorious again :o

So I ran another ten combats, with Gendarmes under my command and the score is 7:3 for them !!! I have to say this all were very hard fought battles virtually to the last man, but the point is obvious: They are vastly superior to Feudal Knights and better than Chivalric also. They cost less to muster and are vastly more expensive to maintain, but they are trainable in cities. And we are talking about singleplayer only... In multiplayer, you can have heavy cavalry slightly superior to Chivalric knights for less money and the high upkeep does not bother you.

[BigTex]

For starters Gendarme's have 11 armor. Nearly the highest in the game. They also have a higher charge bonus. From 6 for the fuedals, and 8 for the gendarmes. That alone means they can charge through nearly anything. But they also have a mailed horse as a mount, so they have a higher mass. Which means they'll be able to charge through quite alot, and push their way through alot of men.

Don't let the stats fool you, they are a better unit. Much like everything in M2TW the stats shown are near meaningless in their actual performance.

[katank]

Armoured horses are huge. They help greatly against missiles. Gendarmes are not impressive statwise but can punch through enemy lines with ease.

As for the noble knights thing, I think they have lower build reqs than chiv knights. This might be the only justification for their increased cost.

[Jagger]

While we are talking about mounts, what file contains the stats for horses? I looked earlier and couldn't find them.

[Musashi]

descr_mount.txt

[Jagger]

Thanks!

I am a little surprised they couldn't come up with a bit more descriptive file name though.....

[Spark]

The "professional" English demi-lancers are also a bit underwhelming. At least their attack rating is up to par, so they can hold their ground as well as other top cavalry can. The fact that they can't benefit from jousting lists, swordsmith guilds and horsebreeder guilds (or so I hear, haven't given it a try yet) is really disapponting.

Famiglia Ducale are the real star, but I don't know if they should be considered professional cavalry, what with them being the family of the duke (the Milanese equivalent of a king) and, I believe, them getting a valor upgrade from a swordsmith's guild.

BTW, I always thought armored mounts had a larger mass and therefore more effective charge. Seems strange that they'd assign all horses the same mass.

[PaulTa]

Armoured horses are huge. They help greatly against missiles. Gendarmes are not impressive statwise but can punch through enemy lines with ease.

As for the noble knights thing, I think they have lower build reqs than chiv knights. This might be the only justification for their increased cost.

Not quite.

( I know that it's heresy to disagree with the great Katank, but here I go anyways )

I've been trying to figure out why some factions have clone units, such as the moors and their spearmen. Since each unit has a "pool" that it recruits from, having multiple clones of one unit means that you can effectively produce twice as many of the same unit at any given time. For the french, this means that they can produce huge bulks of cavalry in a relatively short amount of time compared to the germans, for instance, who don't have multiple clones of high level cavalry.

[dopp]

Gendarme charge bonus is no higher than that of Chivalric Knights, which are superior in every other way except for 2 points of armor. They have a whopping 3 points more attack, 4 points of shield, 1 more defense skill and 2 points more morale, all for being slightly impetuous, which doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

Katank, I'd really like to believe that Gendarmes are worth something. I use them all the time just for the modern flavor, but they really don't seem all that great compared to their knightly equivalents. Their armored horses also seem just for show. Mass of all horse mounts is exactly the same. Horses don't have separate hit points or defense values from their riders. I know in MTW and perhaps RTW the type of horse ridden made a difference (for example armored cataphract horses had 50% more mass), but it really doesn't seem to be the case now in M2TW.

Gendarmes may be able to punch through enemy lines with ease, but you could say the same of any cavalry in the game at the moment, including light horse archers.

Despite appearances, I didn't start this thread to rant. I'm wondering if perhaps there are some 'hidden' factors to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of a given unit. As someone pointed out, the raw stats of a unit alone doesn't tell the whole story. Does their two points of armor really compensate for 3 points less attack, 1 point less skill and 4 points less shield? Even so, why is their attack so much weaker than other professional lance cavalry such as demi-lancers? 3 points is huge, making them the weakest of the professional lancers by a large margin.

Oh, I retract my claim that Gendarmes and other modern lance cavalry are not knights. They do have the knight attribute. They just can't be built in castles, so they miss out on 2 experience from jousting lists and such.

[PaulTa]

Gendarme charge bonus is no higher than that of Chivalric Knights, which are superior in every other way except for 2 points of armor. They have a whopping 3 points more attack, 4 points of shield, 1 more defense skill and 2 points more morale, all for being slightly impetuous, which doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

Katank, I'd really like to believe that Gendarmes are worth something. I use them all the time just for the modern flavor, but they really don't seem all that great compared to their knightly equivalents. Their armored horses also seem just for show. Mass of all horse mounts is exactly the same. Horses don't have separate hit points or defense values from their riders. I know in MTW and perhaps RTW the type of horse ridden made a difference (for example armored cataphract horses had 50% more mass), but it really doesn't seem to be the case now in M2TW.

Gendarmes may be able to punch through enemy lines with ease, but you could say the same of any cavalry in the game at the moment, including light horse archers.

Despite appearances, I didn't start this thread to rant. I'm wondering if perhaps there are some 'hidden' factors to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of a given unit. As someone pointed out, the raw stats of a unit alone doesn't tell the whole story. Does their two points of armor really compensate for 3 points less attack, 1 point less skill and 4 points less shield? Even so, why is their attack so much weaker than other professional lance cavalry such as demi-lancers? 3 points is huge, making them the weakest of the professional lancers by a large margin.

Oh, I retract my claim that Gendarmes and other modern lance cavalry are not knights. They do have the knight attribute. They just can't be built in castles, so they miss out on 2 experience from jousting lists and such.

Ok, Gendarmes have some obvious bonuses that come to mind right off the bat.

First off, they are buildable in cities. That makes their extra recruitment and upkeep cost negligable because of the added income of a city.

Secondly, higher armor is much more significant than a shield, since more armor is effective no matter which direction your unit faces.

Being impetious means that it's harder to withdraw your knights from hand to hand combat and have them charge again, since they are always running back into the enemy instead of following orders.

Since they can be built in cities, they get the direct bonus from the horse breeders guild, and then can be retrained in castles for the extra experience. Not only that, but being buildable in cities means that it is easier to get the horse breeder's guild in the first place, which is a huge advantage.

Melee attack really doesn't count for much anyways. It's all about the charge, the ability to stay alive through the charge, and then the ability to move out of the ensuing melee and charge again. With more armor, the same charge bonus, armored horses, and no impetious attribute, these guys are excellent for the above.

[Yanar]

I did quite a few custom battle tests between different cavalry, and it seemed to me that both demi-lancers and gendarmes beat all other western knights save gothic knights and lancers. They are close to templars and teutonics(but still win), and they're also pretty much dead even when pitted against each other. They both destroy feudal knights.

I repeated each fight several times from both sides and the outcome was usually the same every time (except a few times when the AI goes crazy). I didn't re-charge or micromanage anything, just attacked and let them fight to the death.

[Quillan]

A question, Yanar: Did you control the gendarmes in every fight? If so, try the same fights except with you controlling the chivalric knights instead. There is a definite tendency for the human-controlled unit to win 1 on 1 fights when the units are roughly equal, because you can usually make better use of them than the AI does.

[Varangian Berserker]

Speaking of Spanish Calvary, is there anyone else here who's disappointed that El Cid is nearly impossible to bribe? For crying out loud, he fought as a merc for BOTH the Spanish and Moors (despite being labeled later as a legendary hero of the Reconquista)!!!!

[Spark]

Ok, Gendarmes have some obvious bonuses that come to mind right off the bat.

First off, they are buildable in cities. That makes their extra recruitment and upkeep cost negligable because of the added income of a city.

Secondly, higher armor is much more significant than a shield, since more armor is effective no matter which direction your unit faces.

Being impetious means that it's harder to withdraw your knights from hand to hand combat and have them charge again, since they are always running back into the enemy instead of following orders.

Since they can be built in cities, they get the direct bonus from the horse breeders guild, and then can be retrained in castles for the extra experience. Not only that, but being buildable in cities means that it is easier to get the horse breeder's guild in the first place, which is a huge advantage.

Melee attack really doesn't count for much anyways. It's all about the charge, the ability to stay alive through the charge, and then the ability to move out of the ensuing melee and charge again. With more armor, the same charge bonus, armored horses, and no impetious attribute, these guys are excellent for the above.

I'd think being buildable in cities is a disadvantage if anything - chivalric knights require a citadel (4rd tier castle) of 9000 population, whereas gendarmes require a large city (5th tier town) of 24000 population and a 2nd tier military academy to produce. The former is much quicker, cheaper and more common than the latter.
Sure you get more of them, but who really needs that many cavalry? I never have a shortage of heavy cavalry, it's always the infantry that are in short supply. I certainly don't need every city pumping out heavy cav.

I agree about the other points, although I believe knights trained in castles can similarly retrain in a city, and I find myself having to train & disband lots of cheap cavalry to get the horsebreeder's guild, since by the time a city naturally accumulates horsebreeder guild points, it's far from the front lines. Melee attack rating is also very nice to have, since there will inevitably be times where knights will have to duke it out, and attack rating has a strong effect on the outcome.

[Hamburglo]

Just for kicks I upped the attack, charge and armor stats of Gothic Knights (excuse the HRE bias) a little and gave them a test run.

Charge seems to make no apparent difference. Mounted Sarges seem to kill just as many infantry in the charge.

In melee, however, even +2 attack points makes a hefty difference. Combined with the AP bonus, they'll absolutely clean house against Gendarme cavalry (and theoretically, all other heavy cav), making them the "ultimate" knights.

Consequently, I've upped the stats of Gothics, Familias and Gendarmes by 1. Makes you feel better about the huge outlay required to get them, only to have Chiv Knights match up statistically.

[Revenant]

So i did more tests. It seems computer is sometimes unabel to deliver charge successfully with his cavalry.

But if I simply right single click on enemy, the charge is good.

So I confronted Chivalric with Gendarmes, it was about 50 / 50 if I controlled Gendarmes but otherwise Chivalric alvays won, Gendarmes were unable to charge properly - at the last time before charge they formed disorganized mob :(

So the only advantage for them is their availability from cities.

I think it is hard to balance units abilities with their building requirements + price in multiplayer + the fact some factions should have worse cavalry.

[Yanar]

A question, Yanar: Did you control the gendarmes in every fight? If so, try the same fights except with you controlling the chivalric knights instead. There is a definite tendency for the human-controlled unit to win 1 on 1 fights when the units are roughly equal, because you can usually make better use of them than the AI does.
I did a couple from both sides, but I didn't touch any controls after I ordered the cavalry to attack. As long as the AI did a proper charge it seemed the outcome was the same (this was not a long scientific test, just 3-4 repeats for each fight).

I did see the same effect that Revenant mentioned, sometimes the AI formation breaks down just before the charge and those fights can have very different outcome (so I ignored those fights). It seems to happen only in fights where the AI thinks the odds are against it, so I guess this means that the AI considers Gendarmes weaker than Chivalric Knights. :)

I did 3 more of each and wrote down the number of kills (unit size 80, grassy plain). Score is <gendarmes kills> - <chivalric kills>

Me controlling Gendarmes:
79-68
78-51
80-70

Me controlling Chivalric:
79-42
80-81
81-79

[dopp]

I want Lancers for Spain (they had them in MTW and were incredibly overpowered). Gendarmes can go back to latrine duty.

Comparing the two games, Gendarmes have been buffed considerably but still not enough to match their new status as 'professional knights'. In MTW they were the equivalent of Merchant Militia Cavalry and were a sort of 'cheap knight'. Now they are supposed to be advanced knights but they fail to perform really.

[supadodo]

Tear down those military academies: they will avail you not.

Why would you want to tear down military academies? They give your generals inside a Officer Training trait which gives them +2 command.
Oh and I can't really comment on Gendarmes cause I never played as Spanish. But when I do fight against the Spanish in campaign, the AI always spams chivalric knights instead so even the AI must think that Gendarmes suck.