Zweihanders

[Cheetah]

Does anyone know (or has a source about) which other nations used zweihanders other then HRE and the Swiss?

I am asking this because at the moment zweihanders are under used. The HRE player simply does not need them as he has other cost efficient infantry and no other factions has them. So the idea would be to give zweihanders to other factions, however unfortunately the Swiss are not in the game.

Of course the problem is twofold:
- which faction has any historical base to get the unit? AFAIK HRE and Swiss, any others?
- which faction would benefit from it in terms of faction balance. IMO mostly Poland an Hungary as they have no late era specific inf units (only cheap heavy cavs but there are other western factions with good heavy cavs and pikes and musketeers).

[AggonyDuck]

Well anyone who hired Landsknechts could possibly have access to them.

[Orda Khan]

Are factions unbalanced?

......Orda

[RTKBarrett]

Are factions unbalanced?

......Orda

Just a case of some are more effective in certain eras than others...

[Cheetah]

Are factions unbalanced?

......Orda

Obviously some factions are more competitive than others.

In general the picture is not bad since there are many competitive factions in each era. The high era is better in this respect IMO since almost all of the factions are competitive except England, Turks, Mongols, Timurids (if you dont count rush) due to the weakness of archery (as these are the factions that heavily depend on archery).
In late western factions with pike+musket(arq.)+heavy cav combo dominate. Other factions receive little to compansate for this, though at least the muslim faction and russia get some moderately useful units (Moors and Egypt gets sudanese handgunners, good kills but short range; Turks get JHI and Jan. Muskt, very high cost can cripple the turksih players though; Russian gets cossack muskt, again high cost). On the other hand Hungary and Poland only receives a cheap heavy cav (hussars) as a late era unique unit (they get halbs and arquebus but that is not unique), and while hussars are indeed good and cost efficient, other western factions have good cav and pikes and musketeers. Also since both Hunagry and Poland losing it is faction specific heavy ranged cav in late era (i.e. Hungarian and Polish nobles respectively) there is very little point taking them.
England has a somehwat similar problem as it receives only a good cav (demi-lancers) and heavy billmen as faction specific late era unit, but assuming the archer problem to be fixed an arquebus+LB "spam" could be an efficient late era tactic for them.

[Fenix7]

Late era, 12k no musekeet units. Anyone tryed this? I'm asking this becaus atm matches are regulary played on high era 10k florins.

[Orda Khan]

It sounds pretty much like MTW. Pavs rule the archer stakes, some factions are disadvantaged by their unit abilities and a unit stat spreadsheet, recently published that will result in certain factions being used.
Archers should not be disadvantaged in Early or High and definitely not by a unit that should take ages to reload.
If HRE have an option that they can ignore due to there being adequate other options, yet some factions struggle for choice, it seems the factions are unbalanced

.....Orda

[Cheetah]

Well anyone who hired Landsknechts could possibly have access to them.

The problem is that as far as I know only HRE has access to Landsknechts in the game.