PROOF That Fians Are OP In 1.1.3 - Bannerlord Archer Tactics

[@Nolan0314]

Definitely would like to see the battle against the cav heavy army. Doing a battania playthrough right now and fighting Vlandia has been tough.

[@TheSturgian]

Battania's weakness is Vlandia, Vlandia's weakness is Sturgia, Sturgia's (kinda) weakness is Battania. And the cycle goes on. B < V < S > B (in battles against each other)

[@enjoythestruggle]

I've put that banner of 30 percent bonus vs cavalry on my archers and they murderize those cavalry, especially when just inside a forest in loose formation.

[@friendlycrusader8892]

@@TheSturgian If you're called the Sturgian I should be called the Vlandian, that's my main faction since Swadia; all praise the butterlord. I dont really use battania but how is it Sturgia's weakness? I know Sturgia is strong against Vlandia (I've suffered it) but their infanty are really strong against my xbowmen so wouldnt they also be able to stand against Fians?

[@jdizzygames7018]

@@friendlycrusader8892 yeah flans have more range, more ammo and higher damage while wielding a two handed sword. They are extremely good against all troops besides khan guards. I’ve done many matches of 100 khans guards vs 100 champions and khan guards usually win

[@TheSturgian]

@@friendlycrusader8892 Trust me, they can't stand against Fians because they have a higher fire rate and Fians are basically invincible, even in melee. Unlike Sharpshooters who are infantry fodder in melee. Fians are very effective against all factions. While easily counterable though.

[@andreasschone5383]

Make more of these elite units only armies, it would be interesting to see their strengths and weaknesses.

[@mathiasH9108]

Fians have no weakness ngl. they shred everything

[@garrett0509]

They always have always will

[@drifterofwind4160]

@@mathiasH9108 they have a weakness AI Usage.

[@Sirbacon.]

Best elite unit is without a doubt the khan guards

[@camiloalonso3709]

I'd love a T6 Infantry tbh

[@inquisitive3951]

My favorite campaign so far has been a fian champion style king. His personal escort is ~350 Battanian nobles, over 300 of which are fian champions; no infantry, no cavalry. It's wildly overpowered, especially when combined in armies with the more diverse parties of the faction's lords.

[@zacharyreichert5035]

Just split them into a couple of groups in mutual support range, keep them out of melee until you either run out of arrows or ground to give, then just retreat off the map and reset the battle having knocked their numbers down hugely. Can easily use that cheese to take out armies that outnumber you by *thousands*.

[@eveei]

Hope mods can bring massive invading armies or something for late game. like 10k+

[@milzmilz5202]

Bro your very first decision (command) gave me goosebumps, it really shows what you know of battle tactics🙏 I've been very interested in battle and ear tactics from medieval upwards to the 21st your channel has been on my to watch list mate proper solid content!

[@MercAgentVinny]

I love the editing and I’m glad you’re being so consistent and posting more :)

[@That1J1]

Whelp looks like I'll be running a fian campaign again. This was the last nail in the coffin. Thanks Strat!

[@Sigfried033]

Join the club, I'm about halfway through mine. He also coaxed me to finally finish KCD. I don't know how he does it.

[@digitalempirellc6118]

Why would you play singleplayer with anything else

[@haokylan04]

Another great vids, i started to get more confident when have to fight with enemy that have 2-3 times than mine , but with your guide on tactic , the result is awesome

[@Strat-Guides]

Nice, I'm really happy to hear the videos are being helpful :D

[@2naPhish]

Thanks for all this content man i recently picked this game up and im in LOVE WITH IT!!! love to see your battlefield prowess and giving me the confidence to take on enemy forces with overwhelming numbers!! What a feeling!!!

[@ImaITman]

200 fian champions are absolutely disgusting. What's wild is they have 2 handed swords & decent armor so they act like middle of the road shock troops....which is nuts for the best archers in the game.

[@williampanagopoulos656]

This is a interesting comparison between this and my archer only campaign Force was, i think 3/4 fians, a small % were crossbows for the extra range ajd the shields and the rest was horse archers, primarily khans guard. The resulting battles required a very interesting tactical placement Against a army with a LOT of cav. Id have the khans guard dismount in front of our line and shield wall, and id have a small unit of fians also in square , and the stationary horses plus the tightly packed khans guard would foul up and SHRED the cavalry, Id order almost all the archers to turtle up in square or shield wall and hold fire to shred any cavalry, and then immediately by put back into loose to begin shooting once again

[@aimlessgun]

Really demonstrates how the AI decisioning is so heavily tied to the position of player infantry and ignores other conditions to it's detriment. It's a 'good enough' logic when put against vanilla tactics but it interesting to think of ways it could be improved.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, I wish the AI was more dynamic and responded to threats more logically.

[@idontthinkso5966]

Thx for the vids. Helps a ton transitioning a Shogun player into BL. The biggest thing is losing units as I can win 1v2s in Shogun easily without losing a battalion, which just means I technically lost nothing in a battle. Here, however, each unit’s death felt like my army was getting crippled until you get used to it and start pulling off more daring maneuvers and stop focusing on soloing the entire enemy army to avoid big losses.

[@Ryuko-T72]

Idk I still can't get over losing units. Personally, I'm more of a fan of using small forces, so having a battle where I lose even a single guy hits me hard (also because of how long they usually serve my forces). I am the same way in Shogun 2, I hate taking losses, especially those of my veteran units

[@juliandebie4580]

I once had a siege defense of my 250 against 1000 peepz, i had about 60 fian champions in my army, i eventually ended up with 21 soldiers left, they even breached the gate at some point. But the fians did all the heavy work, shooting wise and melee wise, fighting off on the walls and at the gate. Best troop in the game fr.

[@anubisftn]

Thanks for sharing! Sure, I'd love to see the other battle as well.

[@thepunisher4356]

Always have been. Even a sturgian shield wall quakes before a well placed arrow.

[@ethan7122]

I wish there was a more indepth army composition system, that way I could effectively split up pike troops and 2h shock troops to make cav less of a headache

[@heimskr2881]

Yeah I was very dissapointed to learn that I can't properly group my troops like in warband.

[@jarredlucas4000]

@@heimskr2881 are you being willfully ignorant or are you just stupid? Split them in the battle command screen and put our heroes on the correct troop. Fucking whiner with no god damn brain is what you are.

[@brainletfag]

you used to be able to do that, then they removed it and replaced it with the current system.

[@treyfolkmen7942]

I think lower level difficulty is actually harder in these situations. If AI have massive number advantage they just charge with all their army, and if you fail to deal with this huge blob - you're dead. Archers have time only for few shots before enemy crash into your line with overwhelming numbers

[@Killercrit93]

I've had the same problem. End game fights become huge blobs of mixed units.

[@sebasstein7014]

Just have about 30-40 heavy infantrie units with shields (I use sturgian heavy spearman) make them form a shieldwall and place them in front of your archers. The enemy army will focus on your shieldwall first while you can position your archers on the left and right flanks and snip them down. Won open field battles with 110 fian champions and 40 sturgian heavy spearman against 500 enemies. The only thing you have to deal with is their cavalry, that`s why I ride out at the beginning of the battle and snipe down as many enemy horseman as possible before they reach my lines and the enemy barely has more than 30 cavalry units anyway, even in large armies.

[@christianmunkjensen8817]

Ad sebasstein says. Usually I have one main infantry unit and two smaller ones blocking in case the enemy splits up. And they cant really envelop the small shield wall because the fians shoot them to pieces. For me the harder fights was actually when I was not at a massive numbers disadvantage because I couldn't just pick a good defensive spot and wait for them there

[@sebasstein7014]

@@christianmunkjensen8817 Actually you can still trigger them even if you are the one attacking and outnumber them. Just position your Fians like normally, then take your character and ride out alone with a bunch of arrows and start sniping down the enemy. If the enemy starts losing too many men from your attacks, the AI will start moving and going from defense to offense. I have 3 36 arrow quivers amounting to 108 arrows I can shoot at the enemy and therefore easily kill 70-80 enemies. They always move before I run out of arrows and then I lead the remains directly into my waiting Fian army.

[@GuidenYT]

What if I told you that Fians have that dawg in them.

[@Strat-Guides]

I would say it's probably a Cerberus lol

[@eoghansmith7253]

Great video as always. I'd love to see a "Blooper Reel" video where youve compiled all the horse and soldiers rocketing into the sky. The guy getting shot in the foot gave me the idea.

[@Creaform003]

I've been using this strategy for a while. I strongly recommend the "Face that way!" command. You don't need to draw lines. Just f7 the enemy shield wall every time you issue a move order and they will remain perpendicular. 3 lines of archers feels optimal too. 2 on the left (non shield side) and 1 on the right. Make sure 2 groups are shooting and a 3rd is repositioning pretymuch the whole time. Get your second left side archer group to work their way onto the rear. Edit: If your archers are about to get hit by cavalry, tell them to hold fire, they will do a lot more damage and save a lot of ammo.

[@nam430]

you know its a strat gaming video when the first thing he does is throw jav at his troops 3 times in a row

[@Sigfried033]

Hey, if they didnt want to get harpooned don't look like the enemy. Wear an armband or a headband or something at the very least. 🤣

[@philjohnson1744]

It's the same obedience tactics that Darth Vader uses.

[@Garmonbozia-nc7mm]

It’s not just the units. The tactics are brilliant. Kill cavalry, close gap and retreat/reposition when they get too close.

[@RubberToeYT]

And I’m now convinced to do a battania campaign, great video

[@Strat-Guides]

It's definitely a challenge if you're trying to keep Battania from imploding lol Good luck!

[@maroou]

Bro's playing with Khalid ibn al-Walid is a perfect, historically accurate experience. I would love it if you could do a complete playthrough with him or Amr ibn al-As.

[@Johnomonster94]

I think the only unit that’s more broken are the khan’s guard. Basically mounted fianns

[@aristospagang2446]

same flanking and sliding retreats with mid tier horse archers would change how you view them forever, this is how the horse archer tests should have gone, is like this but without the "it's too late, need to charge" moment in this video, can take armies of 1000+ with 200-300 horse archers and take virtually zero losses

[@jg62190]

I use the same tactic when I use infantry. This current playthrough, I'm doing it with all cavalry. I have 3 groups of khans guards and and 2 groups of Cataphracts and Banner Knights. I bait them in and slowly box them in which us super easy with horse archers. Send my heavy cavalry around the back to deal with the archers and then back through their main line from behind. Works like a charm.

[@Chapdadddy]

LOVE SEEING THE RETURN OF 2010 IMPOSSIBRU MEME, my high school humor will never die

[@Strat-Guides]

Haha yeah exactly!

[@cba46]

The first part is good but if you had more cav you should place the bowmen behind the enemy line as they are pinned by infantry. Then use your cav to attack his arches or drive off his Calvary.

[@xj40002]

Cool strat it does break down vs valadian and other cav heavy armies as the archers just get pressured too hard, in my experience anyway. That said I usually F2:F2 my Fian doom stack and wait at the back of the deployment zone (preferably on a hill) for the inevitable Valandian special (them throwing their cav at you with no support). Fians do work v cav in cc.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah cavalry heavy armies require a different approach and it's a bit harder to handle 4 to 1 odds like this

[@keerf255]

​@@Strat-Guideshow did you counter it? I ride around distracting them to pull one of the flanks of horsemen into the other one to disrupt their charge while placing my Fians on a troublesome hill so the cav can't mass charge into them. Cav likes to flank my guys so they get put into a loose square formation that covers a lot of the hill. It's not perfect by any means but this way I can use terraind and Fian's firepower and shockpower to break down the cav's shock power. Currently works in my Fian only game, haven't dealt with a true vlandian cav spam yet though. Pain awaits.

[@SnotSjambok]

I prefer using horse archers because they can move around a lot faster. Additionally, I can tell them to hold fire and do a cav charge when the need arises.

[@GruesomePizza1992]

Pincer maneuvers are very effective against the Ai. Even on bannerlord difficulty. I have my archers bait them in with ‘engage’ once the get close and magnetize to my shield wall I have both archers elements flank the sides and eventually the entire rear becomes exposed to my archers. I’ve won many battles this way. If they have Cav units I keep them tucked into dense tree lines to get the Cav stuck, they become sitting ducks. I stick to mainly infantry based. Very small contingent of elite Cav and at least 10-15 shock troops that flank with the archers once the enemy is softened up I send in the shock troops from the rear.

[@avivio0]

incredible battles, may noble longbow be with you at all times.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol thanks! The Longbow is part of my soul now :)

[@pennding3415]

The crazy thing about the fians is they have 2 handed swords so they do a ton of damage per hit compared to other archers if a group of actual two handed shock infantry got to them they would lose that fight, but fians put out so much range damge that infantry barely touch them. You would think the answer would be cav, but if you have even a small wall to blunt the charge it feels like cav even the noble cav are useless.

[@TheGeehanlolShow]

"they have 20 people left so we don't have to be too scared" - sun tsu

[@Ragatokk]

Pretty sure the fians has been OP since the first patch.

[@kolpere1625]

strat be like: "wait, fians are op in this patch?" me, an intellectual: "always has been, and you know it" *proceeds to order my railgun fians to blast him to space*

[@accentedreality]

Protip for anti-cav with an army like this: Toss in a few raiders or billmen for middle-tier support on flanks. That infantry line is dense enough to stop most cav as it stands and archers will chew through slow-moving cav!

[@JakeBass]

IMPOSSIBRU!! Great stuff Strat 👌🏻👌🏻

[@peteredwardcox]

Just like the famous battle of Cannicourt, where King Hannibal V employed the archer-pincer movement to defeat the Fromanch.

[@JanWaltVesely]

F3 F1 Face to the enemy, and You no need to rotate the flanking archers 😉

[@Strat-Guides]

The problem is sometimes they will start facing the roaming cavalry and get confused :(

[@drifterofwind4160]

Fians are a funny case. When I Gave Sturgia a fitting archer, they seemed to go head to head with them pretty well. if you played your cards right you can stop them with full T5 archers or crossbows. it boils down to strategy over mass at that point. hell half of bannerlord is like that (I have used bridge cheese to fight off armies of 2k with a bridge and only had 300 units.). if we are talking Sun Tzu levels of F1 + F3 or F2 + Loose + High ground. then yea fians are mindless in spam levels. there effectiveness though...I think it has to do with AI range finding with skill levels. something doesn't feel right. Fians start shooting at ranges that normal archers don't. heck any unit with 200+ Bow or crossbow does. I don't have time to run the numbers on this to confirm. most of this is from general observation of the AI when you fighting a defensive battle. (I tend to Hold fire and then release a volly in the 100 - 120 range now) and (50-60 for throwing). that might be something to look into, that may also be where the advantage of fians lie. the AI is programmed to stay defensive if you start shooting arrows or if the balance of power is close. (Shield wall to draw arrows.) or if you have terrain advantage in some cases. I'll end the rant here. good analysis over all, but I feel like we are missing something about ranged combat on the AI side(Individual unit) that may explain the effectiveness of Fians.

[@quincyames2014]

great video, would it be possible to also have like an overhead view like in the rts camera mode, so we can see more of the overall battle?

[@Strat-Guides]

This was recorded during an actual campaign, but for the tactics videos I'll be sure to include the overhead view as well!

[@itsorcacraft9037]

I knew it was worth having 80 Fians and only 50 infantry. One thing I love about Fians is their arrow capacity. It is super annoying in long battles for my archers ammo to run out because it means I'm going to have to fight head on.

[@Jacob-un3ql]

I think Khan's Guard might be better. Worse bows and arrows than Fians so they don't have quite as much ranged power, but the addition of horses for movement in battle AND campaign, as well as a HUGE polearm really makes me prefer them. Using them like you use standard archers is also a great idea, instead of letting them skirmish and do that circle of death, just move them to the flanks while your main line is engaged and let them pepper the formation. I also often only have an army of Khan's guard, just split your forces 50/50 and create a crossfire, the AI won't be able to effectively counter it. The only thing you need to worry about is the enemy cavalry will try and tie you down, but again, very effective polearms make them hard to deal with.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it's pretty crazy how long they can shoot arrows before running out!

[@itsorcacraft9037]

@@Jacob-un3ql I kinda of agree but unfortunately I haven't really had that many Khan's guards in my army(most is about 15) because I'm generally fighting on the other side of the map. But both are OP

[@Scoob609]

@@Jacob-un3ql ive always enjoyed using Vlandian sharpshooters but not enough factions utilize crossbows to keep their meagre starting quiver full of shoot back bolts. Might swap to Khans.

[@Nerazmus]

The good thing about FIans is that they are actually very serviceble in melee. So when they run out of arrows, just charge them in the flank or back.

[@gabrielswanson6145]

I want to see the battle that you lost against the cav heavy army but I would then also like to see you winning against a cav heavy force as well. Very cool to see.

[@combrade-t]

Reminds me a bit of a campaign I did a while back in a modded version of Warband that made the AI actually use some tactics and expanded the options, Possibly Diplomacy 4.litdum just quickly looking at game files matches the dates pretty well. Really satisfying to move around archers and Infantry, albiet even with the better options the mod gave the command system is fairly scuffed in that game. Main weakness was kinda like how you mentioned Cav heavy armies - although tbf I got distracted from the campaign before I really started to put together an army to try experimenting more with the army, and the terrain variation in the game is much less interesting. Knowing the strategy is strengthened by nice elite archers seems like it could be a lot of fun to try and and play out a game with it. Bannerlord seems to be getting quite well polished now may actually pick it up soonish.

[@brandonfrancis1941]

@1:10 If that's not a "SIT DOWN BOY" moment I don't what is.

[@luciferhenk858]

Great videos man. Really helps my own strategies.

[@mikev4135]

Love it! I have to say though, while you can annihilate with this tactic i find that more often than not the ai in these later patches like to spam cavalry. Especially the empire factions with the super annoying cataphracts. The cavalry heavy armies usually thwart me as while i can mitigate losses, the ai usually throws in the cavalry right before the infantry to severly disprupt my formations and archers. Have you seen similar outcomes?

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's what happened to me as well lol If it was cavalry only and no infantry, it would be an easy win and if it's only infantry, easy win. When they combine the two and attack together is where the problem arises

[@AndrewTheFrank]

@@Strat-Guides Do you think it would work to attempt to soak up the initial cav charge by shieldwalling, with no fire at will for the archers, everyone ont op of each other. Break the cav charge and attempt to kill most of them in the formation. Then the archers can be pulled around for the flank. Also I tend not to like having archers on my right flank. That is the shield side for enemies so i figure its less effective then shooting from the front and much less effective then standing on the left flank. That is that i feel that many enemies don't put their shield up to their front until they have about engaged the battle line.

[@mikev4135]

@@Strat-Guides thanks for responding! I truly admire your engagement in the comments. To respond, I guess that's why I like fighting Sturgia and the "eastern" factions haha. I recently got my archer heavy army crushed by Vlandia where they fielded an astonishingly well balanced army for ai standards. This was right after I absolutely dominated the Khuzaits and was perhaps a little to cocky haha.

[@Zuu4MH]

Hey thank you for the great video as always! Just wondering do you use RBM? Also if you use it what setting of ranged weapon speed do you use?

[@Strat-Guides]

Thanks! This video was without RBM, but when I do use it I leave everything on default. If I recall, default is "semi-realistic"

[@BlackMatt2k]

2:01 yeah, that's a labor lawsuit.

[@storm0fnova]

dude ur like a wizard with those javelins. personally i prefer to grab the longest spear and charge at riders full speed. it just feels amazingly satisfying for me to skewer them one after another, but infantry always pose a huge threat to me even when they have tiny short spears... smh

[@bunyslayer]

"When it doesn't go to plan" would be a cool video series as that seems to be 50% of the game haha

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol so true!

[@bunyslayer]

@@Strat-Guides your videos have been a huge help while also being funny, keep up the good work man!

[@allaltitudeproductions454]

yeah ive noticed that archers pretty much carry a battle in bannerlord. their like air superiority and Close Air Support (CAS) in HOI4. sure you can have as many normal infantry and what else on the ground but if you dont have range, distance and an ability to strike your enemy from afar then its either one sided or a dead battle archers win battles

[@nunyadambidness8568]

I love fians, but my current army is like 90% sharpshooters with whatever else i can lay my hands on, as long as its not cavalry or horse archers. With a tactics skill of 200 i took about 250 sharpshooters into a city and me and the garison of like 60 dudes took out 1500 in auto resolve. tactics is op.

[@fleivor5359]

Man i'm in my first playthrough and i'm going battanian, after 50 hours i heard the community talking about how op the fian champions were, i tested and they seemed pretty good, but today i saw how really powerful they are, went to help two armies against the sturgians, 500x500, max difficulty and 1000 troops. we got DESTROYED, i only saw the ally infantry going down while my 50 fian champions were staying in a hill trying to get some kills, after all my allies were dead it was only me and my troops agains 400+ pissed off sturgians, 50 more champions joined in and i grouped them up on another hill, they started demolishing their troops, i swear i was getting like at least 7 kills per second, i kept circling around the enemy making them turn their backs to the archers and they turned into swiss cheese, their cavalry tried to stop them but also got destroyed with ease, they got 430 kills by the end of the battle and i only lost 2 champions, i saved captured lords, two armies, and even helped conquering the castle that was being besieged by another ally, after that the sturgians wanted peace, it was amazing

[@thegheymerz6353]

Nice video! I really wish there was a player voice volume option. Its like 40 dB louder than any other sound in the game.

[@Strat-Guides]

Oh sorry, I was trying to normalize the audio but must have gone too high on the voice over. I'll adjust it for the next one!

[@haydenattew2414]

@@Strat-Guides I think he means the character call outs rather than your voice mate keep up the amazing work 🤌🏻

[@thegheymerz6353]

@@Strat-Guides haha no in the game! Youre all good man :)

[@O.LEO.N]

Oh god, hearing Strat laugh for once is awesome! By the way, what is your real name Strat? If you wanna share it with me of course. 🤗

[@Strat-Guides]

When I livestream or post let's play content I actually do it often! Not so much for guides though because it's scripted and something about a scripted laugh just seems awkward lol If I ever start a finance channel, I'll do a face reveal and share my real name :P

[@O.LEO.N]

@@Strat-Guides Well okay! Seems like a good plan, understandable as well. You could also JUST reveal your name only, and THEN later on reveal your identity, maybe that way, you won't have to deal with too much stress/pressure, but obviously, you do you man, thank you for your videos and your communication with your followers!

[@ArturMakowski-lj4bh]

Can confirm, they are as OP as heck itself

[@LCInfantry]

This is what I do. My infantry have a movement speed banner though.

[@cook279]

Whenever I feel like having the top right corner of my screen green, I load up my Battanian archer save.

[@SnakeTheCowboy]

Fians are the most imba in this whole game. I did managed to do almost same, it was around 360, against 1100. But I did it with around 220 Fians + 100 high tear cav with no infantry. Then I did tryed the same against 1500+ and that is pretty nuts. But depends on map layout where you actually can have multiply bottle necks it seemed to me pretty manageable. But I ended up my Fians run out of arrows always in fight like that. And that is where I struggle always even when trying to control their fire, managing teams even having few good lvled heroes with high archery set as leaders.

[@theodoresp7841]

you should try fire and maneuver. It's a new strategy game set in the victorian period, I have been playing it a lot recently and I would love to see a video on it.

[@Camarda9Francesco]

nice and informative video can u pls do one about khan guards. that would make my day

[@aesirgaming1014]

Pure Fian Champions has been broken since I can remember. The missile fire alone is super strong when spammed. What makes them completely OP is that they have decent survivability and high damage output in melee too. Since the AI usually has a balance of troop levels in their army (the AI rarely 'doomstacks'), the Fian Champions literally tear everyone up. I found you don't even really need infantry, you can just use the Fian Champions, one small group of 'skirmishers'. Ultimate lazy smith's solution to combat.

[@dtly50]

Just be careful of the vlandian cavalry storm. Without shields they lack the density to fully resist a heavy cavalry charge and can receive alot of couched lance damage before they can chop up cavalry with their 2H weapons. If you can dampen the charge with infantry or even sacrificial horses though fians can even chop horses up good in melee.

[@derkylos]

@@dtly50 That's what forests are for.

[@dtly50]

@@derkylos yes. Lots of infantrees.

[@Gabriel-wn6oc]

As op as they are, the poor Battanians are still getting destroyed in every playthru.

[@Strat-Guides]

Their location on the map and autoresolve really seal their fate sadly

[@crawdaddy.actual]

I would like to see a video on combating a cavalry heavy army with a lesser manned force. I can take on some pretty staggering odds unless they have hundreds of cavalry on the field. We just kinda get picked apart.

[@robertthomas-ball9416]

This is why I play Battania, but they tend to suffer against cav armies. I'm working on a setup to counter it and would like to see what you come up with.

[@Strat-Guides]

It's a tricky thing - If they have like 90% cavalry and outnumber 4 to 1, it's not a problem. The problem is when they have a ton of cavalry and infantry, which swarm and overwhelm the archers. I'm working on something for this though!

[@robertthomas-ball9416]

@Strat Gaming I've had moderate success playing keep away with my archers and infantry, but the slightest mistake will quickly erase any advantages I've gained. I love the challenge, though. Every battle gets my heart pounding, and each victory is more meaningful.

[@RogerS1978]

Against a cav army I tend to do a corner to corner infantry with a fian square behind. Suffers against infantry but shred cav

[@Griggs58]

Get on hill, fians in square formation, infantry in skein shield wall, keep both formations TIGHT to one another, win. Every time. jk I have no idea if that would work but it sounded like a fun meme lol

[@robertthomas-ball9416]

@@Griggs58 Using a hill does help, so do thick forests if you have them available.

[@DarkHawkeLP]

I am curious, there is no question about the best archer unit. What i am curious about. In your opinion which unit is the best for a shield wall and which one is the best shock troop? I am currently thinking about a Infantry/archer only campain as i have learned to hate microing cav. I will probably just completely stop using cav as long as they are as stupid as they are.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed with the cav. I think for infantry, legionary and heavy axemen are in the top end. For shock troops it won't matter as much which you pick unless you're fighting a lot of other shock troops, which the AI doesn't do. Even the worst shock troop will beat any shielded troop by a big margin

[@eaglegamer9270]

Is this video a part of a playthrough? Bcz I would love to see it all but I'm unable to find it

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it is! It's on the second channel where I was posting Let's plays: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqXcpKB5brionrM&ab_channel=StratPlays

[@DeadDrunk2]

Love the battle playthroughs

[@StandingWithUkraine]

Can you make a post listing the top tier of units of each type (archer, cav, infantry) for each culture, and ranks between culture?

[@Strat-Guides]

I'll add it to my list over video topics! I'm not 100% sure when I'll be able to get to it, but as time permits I can do it.

[@StandingWithUkraine]

@@Strat-Guides I was thinking just an informal word post, so it would be fast. Then a video when you have time 😁

[@emmeirrt]

He is a 10/10 commander that can defeat armies 5 times his size, but cant differentiate between his own guys and enemy. What's his new rank XD

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol such is life :D

[@jglez96jg]

I personally love your siege videos

[@frankie5480]

another banger keep up the great work

[@makingmercien9642]

Deadliest enemy of your cavalry turned out to be yourself! Fians OP. It's always tough for me to start a new game and not be Battanian, purely for this OP archers.

[@Ragatokk]

I want to see the cav loss if it is an interesting battle.

[@gbond1010]

I use fians and cataphracts predominantly, rarely infantry. What infantry would you recommend besides a modgepodge of units that I can use for archer protection or baiting/kiting that you used. I tend to be specific with same type units. Costly but I smith for millions when I start a campaign so money isn't an issue.

[@gargean1671]

I still love my crossbowmen.

[@circleofsorrow4583]

Ok, now show how to build an entire army of them. I went looking for villages to recruit Battanian archer units from, and haven't found any yet. On a quick search, I have found discussions which have suggested they are only available from a couple of locations. I'll hopefully find some soon.

[@HontounoShiramizu]

Ally markers may not be very "realistic" but neither is the fact that your units look exactly the same as any other lords units or that the AI can always tell friend from foe. So I keep them on.

[@AllyMonsters]

All the tier 6 units will demolish armies of ai. I've tested with each of the nobles lines, they each wreak armies of ai easily three times their size, no matter the culture they are from. I think the real reason for this is most ai armies aren't all tier 5 or 6 units (ignoring the tactics skill obv), while most players will max as many of their troopers as possible. Even with the new update that strongly nerfs the auto battles of the Khans Guard, your companion parties will easily be unstoppable with tier 6 units too. Though the Empire, Sturg, and Aserai seem to be the best as of 1.2 update for auto battles/send troops. You can only really depend on the Khans guards now for your own party reliably, assuming you avoid send troops as they do die more often now in auto resolve battles.

[@MrFisherman1323]

I would like to see hot to deal with cavalry and horse archers.

[@DeclanMurphyDM]

10/10 Thumbnail!

[@robertbeckmann8361]

I usually run a fian heavy roster but like you said at the end cavalry heavy armies will hurt you

[@Entroxity]

I love that your character name is Khalid ibn al-Walid (RA)

[@splash8846]

can you bring back historical tactics i really miss those

[@Strat-Guides]

Those are still going! I'm posting the pike and shot (Spanish Tercio) tactic video tomorrow :)

[@dubbeking]

Would very much like to see that cavalry battle.

[@Sigfried033]

Just relinquished my Sturgian holdings I got expanding Battanias borders to go independent last night. So I didnt need any more convincing to play Bannerlord Strat, thanks. 😆😂

[@LionBlood]

Hey strat. I have trouble telling my troops to use siege equipment in battle. Like if they run to use the ladders how do I direct them to use the ram? I try go to location and hover over the ram and that doesn’t work. Same issue telling troops in siege defense to target certain things. Thank you

[@Strat-Guides]

On offense, your mouse cursor should turn into blue cogs when you hover over siege equipment. If you click, that should assign them to it. On defense they usually do it automatically. On defense, try putting them in scatter formation first, sometimes that fixes it

[@FatLittleButterfly]

we still need proof after all these years? xD i deal with cavalry by placing a line of pikes behind/within the archers

[@ravivarmaa4500]

The thumbnail is hilarious 🤣

[@barcibus]

I knew they were overpowered when I didn't see a birds eye view in this video.

[@Strat-Guides]

I only use that for guides or explanation videos - this was from an ironman unmodded campaign :)

[@samuelrussell5760]

How are you allowed to have so many troops on the field? When I get into battles outnumbered this badly, I am only allowed to deploy 100 troops at the start and the enemy gets 300.

[@XDEICHX]

Sounds like your unit cap is lower. In the settings there is an option to have 1000 units on the field at a time

[@Strat-Guides]

If you're on PC, there's an option at the bottom in the graphics setting to set the battle size. Minimum is something like 200 and max is 1000.

[@samuelrussell5760]

This changes everything. Killing a 1500 man army 200 troops is such a drag because the reinforcements just keep coming in randomly behind my lines or on top of me. The game is so much better 1000 at a time.

[@b_rob3318]

Any word of you doing another play through series?

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

I don't think it's a problem with fians so much is with AI not recognizing the fact it is currently being f*cked. I remember riding behind enemy's infantry as they move to close with mine, putting headshot after headshot after headshot into the poor suckers and they don't even blink.

[@artistindependent4591]

I just took a fighr nearly this odd in my new campaign, 300vs 1100 stugar, i was underestimated my bois until they pulled it out with 17 death n 70 injured, even with enemy anoying shield those men still able to pin them down 😢

[@noegodinez1777]

How do you get the green battle feed to just show the simole text and not the whole names of troops?

[@Strat-Guides]

It's in the options menu - something like battlefield casualty report. It's a dropdown menu and you want to pick the one that's icons only (SP only)

[@CFFVidde]

can someone link me the rts camera mod? I cant find one with a recent update

[@ShilohMorris]

Would love to see the cavalry loss.