Do you use under rated troops in mass?

[Lord Vetka 63]

I don't like to use spearmen very much, but at times a mass of them can be useful.

 

If you are short on gold and need some quick defenses, buy some spears and load up on spearmen, back them up with archers and you can save yourself sometimes.

 

I do have other less likely troops to use, what would you use? and how.

[EaglePrince 230]

Well, in Stronghold Crusader and in Stronghold 1 each units has its advantages. The only problem is when we don't see how we could use those cheap and weak units.

 

Spearmen are the ones that are the most underrated among all units perhaps! Besides slingers maybe... But still, in some skirmish games I have recently started to use spearmen: I always build several fletcher's workshop (for bows) and poleturner's Workshop (for spears). Spearmen are too weak when you send them outside our castle, they are especially vulnerable to enemy archers, but if you are aware of this, you will keep them away from enemy archers, and they will be able to defend your archers from enemy melee units. They are especially useful when opponent send slaves or other units to your castle, quarry, or something else. They are very useful when you need melee units to protect your granary, armory and other vital buildings, AND you can save more of your people and resources. When a swordsman kills few of your woodcutters, oxes and fletchermen, you also lose those goods they were carrying.

 

In fact, whatever units you use, you always have to pay attention to their vulnerability, because each of unit has them. :)

 

I could say archers are underrated as well, but they are better than crossbowmen in stopping spearmen army, or slaves on their way to burn down your castle.

[Lord Vetka 63]

There is another main use for spearmen, they are good at taking out horse units, if you are being invaded by knights, a large amount of spearmen can be effective in stopping them, a little harder with horsearchers but still effective, and when spearmen are fighting horsearchers then they come to a stop which helps the range units against the horses.

 

Another use outside the castle is to use them for decoys, as you attack, send them in first with range units following, this way the enemy range units tend to target the spearmen and give your range units a bit more of a chance.

 

Yes I agree with vulnerability, units in mass as well as backed up by range units can overcome it.

 

I found slingers can be useful as well, have you used flame throwers?

[Lord_Chris 251]

I often buy a load of cheap mercenaries (such as Arabian Swordsmen) and I sell things to get a lot of gold to pay for them. Another favourite trick of mine is buying mass horse archers, which get killed easily by other archers - but in number they're great. I'm sure EaglePrince remembers from multiplayer when I bought more and more and more horse archers and kept them in different groups (at least that was my intent)

 

At times (such as when I'm under attack without many troops available) I panic and buy a lot of the cheaper troops - so the answer to this question is probably a yes for me. But only when I'm desperate.

 

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but if you are aware of this, you will keep them away from enemy archers

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Or, a good tactic would be to send them in to get destroyed and then send some swordsmen in after who will survive.

 

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[...] slaves on their way to burn down your castle.

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In all fairness though, they don't take many archers to kill them. When I was playing multiplayer once, A load of slaves came charging to my castle and tried to go behind my castle, and I placed three or four archers and they basically all got killed - it was by the snake though (I think)

[EaglePrince 230]

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There is another main use for spearmen, they are good at taking out horse units, if you are being invaded by knights, a large amount of spearmen can be effective in stopping them, a little harder with horsearchers but still effective, and when spearmen are fighting horsearchers then they come to a stop which helps the range units against the horses.

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You're right, that's especially useful when you haven't enclosed your castle yet, and when horse archers come close to your keep and start killing your people.

 

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Yes I agree with vulnerability, units in mass as well as backed up by range units can overcome it.

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Although it will depends of how many archers does the enemy have on his castle walls. If he has lots of archers, like Snake or Caliph, I'm afraid you will have to destroy almost every tower before sending spearmen to attack him. Similar thing is when you want to attack a castle inside of which are lots of strong melee units - such as macemen inside Pigs castle.

Still, they can be useful, but in my opinion, you would have to quick fast all the time, and always to be ready to attack again. Also, you would have to refrain from sending those guys too quickly on enemy. But it is all possible, and perhaps it could be easier to kill the opponent this way than buying iron (if you have no irons mines) to train stronger units.

 

I used slingers a lot when I was a kid - I was combining them with Arabian bowmen, and they were doing the job. :) And speaking about fire throwers - the are far from underrated, at least to me. :)

 

I do remember :) , although I must say that horse archer are not weak units - they are stronger then European archers, and they can fire while riding which is great.

 

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Or, a good tactic would be to send them in to get destroyed and then send some swordsmen in after who will survive.

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Yes, it would be, but if you have swords and armors, and enough gold. :) Training macemen or knight is always better than training spearmen when you can train same amounts of those units, especially if we consider that the speed we can train our troops is limited. :)

 

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In all fairness though, they don't take many archers to kill them. When I was playing multiplayer once, A load of slaves came charging to my castle and tried to go behind my castle, and I placed three or four archers and they basically all got killed - it was by the snake though (I think)

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If those slaves are the only units attacking your castle, then yes, but certainly 4-5 archers are not enough for me to feel safe. But if your castle is under attack by horse archer for example and slaves at the same time, one of them can reach your granary and set it to fire. ;)

[Lord Vetka 63]

I do like to change things up a bit and relieve some of the boredom of playing to many games against the AI, I do like to attack the enemy castle with horsearchers about 100-150 running back and forth outside an enemy AI can clean the archers out of the castle is short time and it kills the enemy economy.

 

With someone like the Caliph I would use a ram and open the gate then send in a large army of spearmen and they get killed then I send another large army after a while the Caliph is no more, I might use slaves to get the pitch burned off before sending in melee units.

 

Slingers can be helpful to, some maps can be hard to start when invasions come from the start, about 20 or 30 slingers set back behind a group of melee units can save the day until you can get better defenses up and running.

 

If you have lots of gold and want the win, but if you want to have some fun, lesser troops en mass can make it interesting!

[EaglePrince 230]

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With someone like the Caliph I would use a ram and open the gate then send in a large army of spearmen and they get killed then I send another large army after a while the Caliph is no more, I might use slaves to get the pitch burned off before sending in melee units.

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Nice tactic!

 

When I attack Caliph, as I often use swordsmen as the only melee units, my tactic is to send them in groups of twenty men. I first attack him with catapults or trebuchets, and when I destroy few towers in front of his keep, I send the first group of swordsmen, and some crossbowmen. The job of crossbowmen is to take down engineers with boiling and flame throwers. Just after the first group of swordsmen I send another group, and after that one I also send the third group (if I have more then 40 swordsmen). This way it will not be possible Caliph to burn all my invading army at once - I can lose up to 10 or 20 men in fire - no more than that, before I make it to kill him.

 

I wasn't thinking about use of spearmen much (except in some war scenarios), but now when you said it, they might be very useful. :) Now when I think about it, in this case - when besieging Caliph, they could be better choice for the job not just than swordsmen (which is not very hard to notice) but than pikemen as well. Spears are being produced pretty fast as I noticed - one can easily raise a massive spearmen army...

 

By the way, I used spearmen in one multiplayer game yesterday - the map we played had no iron, and opponents were buying iron to produce swords and armors for knight, while I was attacking with horse archers, assassins and spearmen. It was pretty interesting and dynamic game. My team won, by the way. :)

[Lord Vetka 63]

Well I guess spearmen are not so useless as we think, slingers can save the day and horsearchers are very effective in the right environment, a mass of these troops can do well against most AI.

 

Thanks, the Caliph can be killed many ways, a small mass of Assassins can clear out many of the AI castles as well, like you said with melee units, send them in in small groups of 20-30 men and the AIs can't stand up to that, of course an online game would change that.

 

When I first learned how to play it was trebs and cats knocking down the towers and gates then advance with strong melee units backed up by range units, or another way I would make about 200 archers and send them in and spread them out to clear the towers, on a few occasions with the Wolf I would surround his castle with archers and let them whittle him to his death :-)

 

Nice to see that you can win online with real people using spearmen, good going!

 

After playing the game for a long time it can become boring and tediuos, so I like to change things up a bit, it makes it fun, have you tried playing using only one type of troop to attack with, I tried the trail with only horsearchers, it was good for a while but it gets to hard in the later maps, I've tried it with several types of troops.

[Lord_Chris 251]

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have you tried playing using only one type of troop to attack with

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Interesting idea.... I'll have to have a go of that.

[EaglePrince 230]

What I am do pretty often is to attack and defend with only two unit types - one range unit type and one melee units type. In fact this was my style of playing before I started playing in multiplayer. As a Crusader lord, I was finding it easier to decide what units I want to use before any fight begins, as I need to decide what weapons to produce.

Those are mostly archers or crossbowmen and swordsmen. I also use engineers every time, so it would make three unit types, but still - those three units are the only units I would use.

This always worked pretty well for me I must say. :)

 

As about attacking with only one unit - I guess it could be an impossible mission at some cases. Even if those units are horse archers or crossbowmen, unless you have already taken down some opponents and you are able to train more troops than your enemy can! For example, I believe ti would be pretty hard to kill Caliph only by sending swordsmen with no archers to backup them. Also, the smallest, but still the best defended Wolf s castle would be pretty hard to conquer using only those guys because he can have lots of crossbowmen on his castle, but even then you would have to send more crossbowmen than he has.

 

Maybe we could play a little with those stuff! I could start a game against some AI lords including Wolf and Caliph and to give them 8000 gold (crusader game). After I manage to build my defenses, I could send my save file to you guys, and we could see if some of those things are not possible? :)

I do remember very well how I was trying to win Principality of Antioch mission (the third Crusader States mission), when I was fighting against two Pigs which were across the river. This missions was almost impossible for me to win, because I didn't know how to construct catapults and how to train European army - I was trying to kill him with assassins and Arabian swordsmen, but most of those wee failures. In fact, I did manage to kill the southern Pig relatively easily, but the northern one was really hard to defeat. Oh, and by the way, this is the mission where I learn how to trade. :D I was building market, but I was expecting for it to bring me gold somehow (just like iron miners bring me iron without my commands), although I saw nothing was happening - in this mission I saw what options do I get when I click on my market. :) Sweet memories. :)

Perhaps in this same missions I found out how to produce produce weapons and how to train European units, but I'm not sure about that. I am certain about finding out how to get gold from selling goods. Also, I do remember how I was playing this same mission and how I was producing weapons there, but that could be some other attempt to win this mission again.

[Lord Vetka 63]

When I played age of Empires, I always had melee units backed up by range units, it makes the melee units so much stronger and I always do it with the SH games as well, I don't always use engineers, in SHC your troops can knock walls and gates down, sometimes I will use a few assassins to take the gate. You use a good setup!

 

I have used a single unit type to win against the AI, I have killed the Wolf with archers and I have killed the Caliph with Swordsmen to, you have to be patient and units will get killed! you just have to keep sending more!

 

When I first manged to win the trail I would go back and play some of the maps again, I went back and played the map with you in the circle and the Wolf was in the NE corner with his large castle and 2 Caliphs and the Sultan if I remember correctly, but I can't remember the name of the scenario, I went at him with large groups of archers until he was finished, it took a long time!

 

The idea of sending a save is giving me some new ideas!

 

I read this last night and thought why not give Antioch a try, I went into the wrong trail and quickly charged 2 missions then tried the right one and quickly charged the first 2 scenarios to get to Antioch, I quit before the end and will play more later, I was planning on taking out the south Pig with Horsearchers and assassins and the same with the next Pig. Some of the best part of these games is the learning curve!

[EaglePrince 230]

Now when I started that mission (Antioch), and even when I reached the final missions, I saw how easy those missions were. Nevertheless, it was a nice feeling to start those missions again.

 

I would like to add... At some moment I was trying to kill enemy lords with as little troops as possible - that was interesting too.

 

Also, speaking about Age of Empires, it is nice thing there than one cannot attack anyone with only one troops type, as each one is stronger than another, but it is weaker than another as well. That is the case in Age of Empires 3 at least... But I like it way how it was done in Stronghold Crusader - in Crusader we can actually see why is one unit better for something than another - it's just about some bonuses, and other things.

[Lord Vetka 63]

I found that mission easy now as well, I have the cfg files to unlock the trail if your interested, then you can play the ones you want instead of having to go through the trail again.

 

No doubt about it, Crusader is the best game of the series, I just hope they can add to the game without making the game play less than it is.

 

To win a scenario with the least amount of troops would be the hardest to do I would think, I might have to try that.

 

I do like to have ballistas on the ground for defenses against the AI, not to sure how they would be against a human player.

[EaglePrince 230]

I do have all the missions won at the moment - at least all Crusader and Warchest trail missions.

 

Speaking of ballistae, they are pretty effective against any kind of troops, and they are hard to destroy. That could be effective against some, but if the opponents builds catapults, he can destroy ballistae pretty fast. Still, it depends of the number of them! If you have lots of ballistae, I guess I would do the same with catapults, and since balliastae are slow, they wouldn't be able to avoid catapult fire. On the other hand, if you don't put too many of them on one spot, they would be harder to destroy, and you wouldn't provoke the opponents to attack them with catapults. :)