Of Azabs and Turkish Barracks...

[mir]

I have to admit that my favourite faction is the Turkish Sultanate... And having played them both in MTW and M2TW, it's fairly obvious their greatest strength lies in their deployment of light/medium cavalry. (Where are my Sipahi's of the Porte dammit?!)

And it stands that one of their weaknesses is their lack of decent infantry. Of course, the Janissaries make up for this a great deal.

But!

It seems that the Turkish Barracks in the Castles is almost useless. I say "almost" because it does give me access to Naffatun but little else! I don't find the Azabs particularly useful at all... Javelin throwers? In a Horse Archer-heavy army? What the-?

So I end up building Barracks only in Cities and Stables and Ranges in Castles.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but does anyone else find this true for themselves? And has anyone found a use for the Azabs?

[phonicsmonkey]

Both Naffatuns and Javelins are highly useful against Elephants...whether that alone is sufficient reason to build the barracks I'm not sure.

[Viking]

I built barracks the castles of Yerevan and Tbilsi in order to prepare for the mongol invasion, but once the mongols came the dread from these Khans caused the azabs to panick way early, and so on....Better to build cities in the eastern provinces once the area is under control for the Jannisary infantry.

[PseRamesses]

I built barracks the castles of Yerevan and Tbilsi in order to prepare for the mongol invasion, but once the mongols came the dread from these Khans caused the azabs to panick way early, and so on....Better to build cities in the eastern provinces once the area is under control for the Jannisary infantry.

Agree. I only have 2 castles for my Turkish empire that stretches from Kaukasus, Bosphorus to the Gibraltar: Aleppo and Dongola. Works like a charm and thoose eastern cities rakes in cash to my treasury.

[FactionHeir]

The only time I hired Azabs was to boost a garrison of a castle with a deplenished unit pool. They actually managed to help hold the gate and take out the enemy general and win me the battle.

Overall, they are slightly better than peasants and worse than town militia, but having a unit is better than not having one if you have space.

[Mete Han]

Agree. I only have 2 castles for my Turkish empire that stretches from Kaukasus, Bosphorus to the Gibraltar: Aleppo and Dongola. Works like a charm and thoose eastern cities rakes in cash to my treasury.

well then you do not use Qapukulus which you can only produce in castles. Pity...

[DVX BELLORVM]

I used Azabs only for garrisoning castles away from borders, just to maintain civil order. For my main infantry forces I used saracen militia and janissaries.
During my hole campaign I think I built only one or two barracks, just to recruit nafatuns.
I used javelins a couple of times against the elephants, but wasn't too impressed.