French and Sergeant Spearmen - Bug?

**Bodom2005** · 01-16-2007, 11:22

Hello , although I am new to the forum I have had some previous experience with M2:TW, since i ve already finished the game with the Spaniards on M/M...

Ok , so this is my second game, this time with the French and although I am still in the beginning I have the impression that this time my infantry gets killed quite more easily than in my first game... The worst situation of all occured with French sergeant spearmen who seem to get slaughtered by everything they encounter : they first time they got owned by muslim archers on melee (!) during the siege of Palermo I dismissed their loss as bad luck , but after playing the game a little more it seems as if a pattern is being formed here : trying to storm some other castle last night , I equipped my Sergeant spearmen with ladders and ordered them to climb up the walls and attack some poor peasants. Well it seems after all that the peasants werent that poor after all since after some time they routed my "professional" sergeant spearmen while taking minimum losses!

Is this a bug, or is it just that French early infantry sucks majorly?!

FIY , I finished the first game unpatched which i installed just before the French game...Has the game balance changed so much since ver 1.0?

**Von Nanega** · 01-16-2007, 11:31

Peasants in vanilla seem to be overpowered. I think this is due to their fast andd simple attack animation. So all in all I think this helps the AI vs Human players since the AI tends to build units like peasants. But also remember the French in M2TW are set up to be a Cavalry faction. Make use of this!
As far as peasants, make them yourself! I have several gold chevroned peasants running around in almost all of my games.

**Bodom2005** · 01-16-2007, 11:33

So even if the french infantry has the same stats as other infantry its less effective?

**Von Nanega** · 01-16-2007, 11:48

Originally Posted by Bodom2005

So even if the french infantry has the same stats as other infantry its less effective?

As stated in other threads, stats do not tell the whole tale. Attack animation seems to trump unit stats. Sending spearmen up ladders no matter the faction will get them killed. Muslim archers are very good in melee. I have played Sicily on several occasions. In these games my Muslim archers had to be ordered into melee to save the day. They performed very well. In their description it says they can fight well in melee, and I have found this to so.

**FrauGloer** · 01-16-2007, 11:51

Originally Posted by Bodom2005

So even if the french infantry has the same stats as other infantry its less effective?

No, the stats for "Sergeant Spearmen" units are the same for all factions that can build them. What makes them less effective than peasants apart from their slower animation is the shield bug, which acutally makes their shields a disadvantage in melee. For more info, view the Shield Problem(s) thread.

Edit: As for them dying in siege assaults, defenders get a huge bonus against troops attacking with ladders. Heck, even Dismounted Feudal Knights take a severe beating by peasants in this case.

**Bodom2005** · 01-16-2007, 12:00

It's rather surprising that CA hasn't already addressed this bug , given all their experience with previous Total WAR games... Equip Sergeant Spear men with better physical armor and a submachine gun perhaps?

**FrauGloer** · 01-16-2007, 12:52

It's not only Sergeant Spearmen that suffer from this bug, it's virtually all shield-bearing units. The fact that Sergeant Spearmen don't have much armour to begin with only makes it more noticable. I'm also quite amazed that CA didn't notice this earlier, but even in the community the issue didn't come up until recently.