I tested every noble unit (x100) against an army of 199

With the help of dev console mod I decided to test every noble unit x100 against an army of 199 that I stumbled across.

Tested with everything set to realistic, and ai set to challenging, using the same save, scenario, settings, f6, etc. Tried veteran ai as well but the results were more or less the same. Tested on e1.2.1 with the unit stat fixes mod (v2.8).

Here are my results.

Noble Unit Name	Battle Duration	Win / Kills before loss	Casualties (wounded/dead/retreated)
Vlandian Banner Knight	4:19	48k before defeat	100 (74w/26d/0r)
Aserai Vanguard Faris	6:47	160k before defeat	100 (69w/23d/8r)
Imperial Elite cataphract	8:19	188k before defeat	100 (79w/21d/0r)
Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion	5:42	Won	77 (53w/24d/0r)
Khuzait Khan's Guard	2:21	Win	4 (4w/0d/0r)
Battanian Fian Champion	1:25	Win	0..

My observations:

• Vlandian Banner Knights are paper
• Faris make for decentish cavalry, probably better than Cataphracts offensively, but these guys are pansies, 8 of them ran away.
• Cataphracts are really tanky, not the greatest cavalry but definitely hard to kill. Probably more op with reduced damage settings if that's how you like to play.
• Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion are actually really good cavalry with proper unit stats, who knew.
• Khan's guard goes pew pew while riding around everywhere, then turn into okayish melee cavalry after running out of arrows. I got annoyed watching them even though I wasn't the one fighting them. Not the most accurate archers, nor do they have the most arrows but are great in short fights on the open field, skirmishing and getting around quickly on the map.
• Well.. Fian champs are overtuned to say the least. I didnt even hit f6. I literally just hit f3 and set them to loose formation where they spawned, not even on a hill or anything. Everything died then retreated before even really reaching them..

I was going to do tests with mixed noble units but I don't see the point anymore now that I see that you're probably off just going full fian champs or khan's guard.

So here's a bonus test instead. Only 50 Khan's guard, then only 50 Fian Champs.

​

Noble Unit Name	Battle Duration	Win / Kills before loss	Casualties (wounded/dead/retreated)
Khuzait Khan's Guard	6:14	146k before defeat	50 (39w/11d/0r)
Battanian Fian Champion	2:00	Win	13 (11w/2d/0r)

Only hit F6 for the Khan's Guard battle, but for the Fian Champs battle, I started with just setting a loose formation where they spawned, then hitting F6 when the enemies got close, but it didn't look like much changed from me hitting F6 here.

Khan's guard started out steady and strong it looked like, but then started getting absolutely demolished as soon as they started running out of arrows. These guys also kill things a lot slower than Fian champs. Observation? Not good for long drawn out fights, they're better in short fights and outside of sieges.

Fian champs on the other hand barely even moved.. a few of them pulled out swords, but the majority of them stayed put for the most part while shooting everything down, even once enemy troops were in melee range or behind them.

Sad but true story, 50 khan's guard is stronger than 100 banner knights. 50 fian champs is still better than 100 of anything. I already knew Fian Champs were stupid strong, but didnt think the difference was this huge.

TL;DR? Fian champs op. Set them on a hill or something behind a few infantry or spearmen in a shield wall, circle or square formation, though you probably won't need that much since everything will die before even reaching you. Ranged units in general seem to be a bit overtuned atm.

Submitted May 07, 2020 at 12:12AM by lemon07r https://ift.tt/3b8IIcr