How Good Are English Knights in Medieval 2: Total War?

[@tlf7674]

I think the main place English Knights shine is against Feudal Knights and similar. Anything else is dealt with as effectively by Feudals, but the AP secondary is really good against other armoured cav.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. A good point :)

[@insane5375]

A tip that might be useful for someone - if you see ai having two lines of units, for example they often have range units in front, use charge of your heavy cavalry on the back unit. Thus you use your cavalry charge ability to the fullest and instantly wipe the front unit. If you click to attack the range unit instead, they’ll be able to run away partially and hide behind the 2nd line. The ai simply knows when it is targeted. A regular archer units ability when they’re approached by the enemy too close.

[@insane5375]

What I hate about MTW2 is when you try to assassinate an enemy general in the battlefield, even when you surround him with all your units he is able to simply walk through your units and flee. Especially when it’s some high lvl general with many stars. But for a player it’s really hard to pull a unit out of the fight because once your unit is in contact with enemy units it stops and pulling them out is really hard.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

A very good point :) Thanks for the comment.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

@@insane5375 Thanks for the comment. Yea, that can be nasty. Imo it is even more brutal in Rome as charging enemy spears from the rear can get the general killed at some point :)

[@timothyernst8812]

English knights are basically the same as the HRE's imperial knights. One of them has "good stamina," but I don't remember which. It's a feudal knight with better charge and an armor piercing melee attack.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Yea, pretty much :) Thanks for the comment.

[@Killertron_2]

This unit is a bit odd on first glance it's a reskinned Imperial knight that costs more florins upfront for some reason but there's some minor differences. It's secondary attack is actually 11 compared to the Imperial knights 10 and they use the attack animations of sword wielding cavalry instead of mace/axe ones probably cause of an oversight so they're slightly better in melee than overall advertised. The Primary attack and charge you see on cavalry unit cards is always the attack of the lance they use unless they don't have one. Armor piercing doesn't apply to this lance only to the secondary. The secondary attack is always around the same attack of the lance often 1 attack higher or lower. Imperial knights have mailed cavalry armor while English knights have barded horses but in the basegame this is purely visual and doesn't impact gameplay. It does change the mass of the horse in kingdoms though. Lastly Imperial knights have better stamina and have slightly worse morale cause of low discipline instead of normal like the english knights so they're more likely to start running away. Overall the units are still in the same ballpark in terms of performance and in Multiplayer the Imperial knight is preferred cause it's just cheaper and has better stamina.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the interesting comment and details. Imo overall, the late-game heavy cav is rather obsolete, as feudals and even mailed knights can do quite well :)

[@napoleoncomplex2712]

I always hate charging into dismounted knights, because I know that even though I'm going to win, I'm going to lose a lot of mounted knights doing it. If you're lucky and outnumber them, you can sometimes get them in the rear or side and then hit them again while they're still in melee, but some of your soldiers are still going down. You really need crossbows or longbows to deal with them safely.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. Agreed, especially with high tier units like these. Retraining them (or rather finding a place to retrain them) can be painful :)