Total War: MEDIEVAL II - Definitive Edition The Militia Gude

The Calvary

Why would you want calvary militia ?

-calvary is fast, good for hunting down those pesky rebels.

-also having some calvary in a town makes you much more resistance to assaults, as the power of stupid AI vs your calvary in this game (especially when paired with an archer unit or two) is insane.

For these reasons it is the best militia unit to have around.

The list , from best to worst :

1 calvary militia 32 man, 8 attack, 9 attack, 15 defence (Venice, Papal, Milan, Sicily)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Cavalry_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

2 Merchant calvary militia, 32 man, 6 attack, 14 defence (denmark, england, france, HRE, Hungary)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Merchant_Cavalry_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

3 calvary militia 32 man, 7 attack, 7 attack, 11 defence (russia)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Cavalry_Militia_(EE)_(M2TW_unit)

4 militia calvary 32 man, 7 attack, 7 attack, 10 defence (byzantium)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Militia_Cavalry_(M2TW_unit)

NO calvary : egypt, moors, poland, portugal, scotland, spain, turks. mongols, timurids

-having a civ without calvary militia is a nuisance, as it is near impossible to get out, kill the rebels and get back in the town without them. So think twice before playing those.

You can compensate by either place a few units of normal calvary in the town, hire some mercenary units, build forts and place units in them, or lower tax levels when your army needs to go rebel-hunting, but each of those options costs money, not ideal.

Clearly the italian nations win by a long shot, they are better in all regards.

But as for the number 2 :

-some may prefer the number 3 or 4 in this list over number 2 because of that higher attack value but you can see it this way while 2 does 15% less DPS, it can absorm 27% more damage than number 3 and 40% more than number 4.. so while it will hit softer, it's higher survival rate, will in the dure of a battle actually in most cases cause more damage and lower losses.

If you compare them to the number 1 :

the number 2 unit has only 67% of it's overall performance, number 3 only 60% and number 4 only 54%

So this alone makes italian staes worth serious consideration... lets continue to archers who wins there.

Archers

Archer militia can also help out good, while sadly no archer calvery militia excist, having archers in a battle is always good.

-the ai is stupid and with a bit of skill in lure and closing the trap, you can take out many treads, including their generals, without ever suffering a loss at all.

-archers on a wall are also a great way to defend city's and thats why in many cases you keep those militia there in the first place, even if the enemy is to strong for a lure and trap style of battle, you can use your archers from the walls to aim at their siege weapons, making them unable to enter your city at all.

-and one also never should underestimate the power from attacking with archers from high ground.

So archers are the 2d best units, point made, now the list :

Archery :

1 Genoese crossbow militia 48 man, 12 ranged attack @ 160 range, 6 attack, 15 defence (milan)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Genoese_Crossbow_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

2 pavise crossbow militia 48 man, 12 ranged attack @ 160 range, 6 attack, 14 defence (hungary, papal states, venice, sicily)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Pavise_Crossbow_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

3 crossbow militia 48 man, 9 ranged attack @ 120 range, 6 attack, 8 defence (moors)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Crossbow_Militia_(ME)_(M2TW_unit)

4 crossbow militia 48 man, 9 ranged attack @ 120 range, 6 attack, 7 defence (polland, russia)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Crossbow_Militia_(EE)_(M2TW_unit)

5 crossbow militia 48 man, 9 ranged attack @ 120 range, 2 attack, 1 defence (denmark, france, HRE, portugal, spain)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Crossbow_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

6 Archer Militia 48 man, 5 ranged attack @ 120 range, 6 attack, 3 defence (byzantium)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Archer_Militia_(SE)_(M2TW_unit)

7 Archer Militia 48 man, 5 ranged attack @ 120 range, 2 attack, 1 defence (england, russia, egypt)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Archer_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

No archers : scotland, turks, mongols, timurids

what we see here is that again four factions have no militia archers, since they also did not have calvary I would have to advise against playing either scotland, timurids, mongols or turks.

-while it is easier to play without archers than without calvary, having neither is just no good.

As for the rest : well milan takes the crows here by a small margin (only 1 more defence) compared to 2.. where the other italian states are..)

So milan so far is the best civilization, though the other italian states are not far behind.

Some may not agree with me placing number 5 above numbers 6, seen as it has a meager 2 attack in melee, and only 1 defence, but archer are not ment for melee, so the 9 ranged attack matters a lot more for theirfunctionality

For the same reason i will refrain from calculating a relative performance, if you get your archers in melee, most times you're using them wrong, and since all have 48 man, and 30 arrows, the only real difference that matters is ranged damage and range

and that places the italian states even more ahead, as they have 33% more range than all the others and 33% more damage than the number 3-5, and even 140% more damage than number 6-7

*this makes england, egypt and byzantium in this regard rather weak, strange since england is suppose to be an archer civilization.

-because egypt had no horses, and now also has weak archers, I have to advise against picking them.

-byzantium is not much better, while they have horses and archers, they score weakest in both area's... unless they make up in the next chapter, not pick them.

-england might still be worth it, it still has reasonable calvary after all, though it's not a match made in haven.

well lets go to polearms and see what happens next

Polearms

Polearms are the staple of militia units, good to block horse charges, but generally not good for countering any form of infantry, and totally unable to hunt down horses that run away from you, and slaughter by archers on a hill.

In fact I can only imagine 2 reasons why you might want to keep 1 or 2 of them in your city´s.

-they can protect your archers a bit in the open field (since the AI goes straight for your infantry, and there are no militia horse archers)

-opening your gates, placing your polearms inside it... makes a great chocking point... the AI stupidly tries to squess everything through that one open gate, horses first, making them an easy kill, while your wall defenses and eventually archers on the wall rain hell down on anything behind them. `you shall not pass`

I have won battles againt full army´s with only 4 of those militia for this gatewatcher tactic.

ok, so they have some use, and they are available early in the game, now the list

Polearms :

1 saracen militia 60 man, 7 attack, 8 bonus vs calvary, 14 defence +2 morale (egypt, turks)

2 heavy pike militia 60 man, 9 attack, 8 bonus vs calvary, 8 sword damage (second weapon) 11 defence, +2 morale (scotland)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Heavy_Pike_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

3 italian spear militia 60 man, 7 attack, 8 bonus vs calvary, 13 defence +2 morale (milan, papal states, sicily, venice)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Italian_Spear_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

4 Heavy bill militia : 48 man, 15 armor piercing attack, 10 defence +2 morale (england)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Heavy_Bill_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

5 italian militia 60 man, 7 attack 4 bonus vs calvary, 9 defence +2 moral (milan, papal states, sicily, venice)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Italian_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

6 spear militia 60 man, 5 attack, 8 bonus vs calvary, 7 defence (byzantium, denmark, england, france, HRE, portugal, scotland, spain, moors, mongols, egypt, timurids, turks)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Spear_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

7 Sword Staff militia 48 man, 7 attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 10 defence +2 morale (denmark)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Sword_Staff_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

8 halbert militia 48 man, 7 armor piercing attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 8 defence +2 moral(egypt, timurids, turks)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Halberd_Militia_(ME)_(M2TW_unit)

9 town militia 60 man, 5 attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 7 defence (denmark, england, france, HRE, portugal, scotland, spain)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Town_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

- spear militia 60 man, 5 attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 7 defence (hungary, polland, russia)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Spear_Militia_(EE)_(M2TW_unit)

10 town militia 48 man, 5 attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 7 defence (byzantium, mongols, moors, timurids, turks)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Town_Militia_(SE)_(M2TW_unit)

11 Voulge militia 48 man, 6 armor piercing attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 6 defence (france)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Voulge_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

12 town militia 48 man, 5 attack, 4 bonus vs calvary, 4 defence (hungary, polland)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Town_Militia_(EE)_(M2TW_unit)

13 Scots pike militia 60 man, 7 attack, 8 bonus vs calvary, 6 sword damage (second weapon), 1 defence (scotland)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Scots_Pike_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

-Pike militia 60 man, 7 attack, 8 bonus vs calvary, 6 sword damage (second weapon) 1 defence (france, HRE, milan, papal states, portugal, venice, spain, sicily)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Pike_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

14 bill militia 48 man, 13 armor piercing attack, 1 defence (england)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Bill_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

15 halbert militia 48 man, 5 armor piercing attack, 4 bonus vc calvary, 1 defence +2 moral (HRE, hungary, papal states, polland, sicily)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Halberd_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

So many units, hard to pick an order from best to worst, any many would make a different order, but lets start with the strong ones

The top 3 is clear, as the distance with the number 4 is quite large, though many debate can be had over who is 1, 2 or 3, and it really is very dependant on the oponent and battle.

Two has a sword weapon as backup making it also a good melee unit, handy in some situations, but it also has slightly less armor, still it clearly has the best stats against infantry units.

If I however just look at max damage against horses (their primairy oponent) it goes performance wise 1 100% 2 89% 3 93%

If we look how their spears perform without the calvary bonus (not taking into account the swordweapon 2 has for that)

1 100% 2 101% 3 93%

So while 1 generally IS better than 3... 2 can be both above 1 and under 3, depending on oponent.

So from this we can now conclude

This makes Milan BY FAR the best civilization to play with the nr 1 horse and archer, and still a very well performing poleman in 3d spot

The other italian states do follow just behind that with their number 1 horse number 2 archer and number 3 poleman and are also very good options to play.

I personally like the versitily of number 2 than the relative stronger power of number 1... but scotlands lack of horses and archers, regardless of this excelent pike does not qualify picking them.

Turks are also bad, no calvary, no archers, is NOT compensated by the most powerfull militia pike, have to confirm my advise against picking them.

Egypt on the other hand is viable again, the most powerfull pike, at least backed with an archer, even though it´s a weak one, doe at least enable proper city defence. while the calvary is still missed, one can play with that.

Now as for the rest of the many units.

I did not take armor piercing into consideration when making this list, nor did I do that for morale, some may value those features much more and place units with those higher.

And training I did not even list here.

-I can see how when facing heavy armored units, having armor piercing make those units perform much better...

-and I can also see how to gain experienced units having 48 better units sometimes is much more favorable than 60 weaker ones, and 48*10dam@5armor and 60*8dam@4armor is not always the same thing.

-and after armor and weapon upgrades these numbers ofcourse will change too.

So feel free to use the data to make a different pick if you have such preferations.

Likewise I calculated as follows : if armor of unit A is 10, and armor of unit B is 9, than B is 10% worse, likewise a unit with 48 unit in it is 20% worse than one with 60.

with these numbers the damage is multiplied (... so example.. unit A does 12 damage, has 48 units, and 9 armor, while B does 10 damage, has 60 units and 10 armor.

that A is only 12*0,8*0,9 = 8,64 effective... so B is 14% better.

so if I now calculate performance relative to 1 :

4 = 122% againt infantry 57% against calvary (gets added armor piercing damage)

5 = no use to use those, you have better units for those factions.

6 = 36% against infantry 43% againt calvary

7 = 57% against infantry 42% against calvary

8 = 46% against infantry 34% against calvary (gets added armor piercing damage)

9 = 36% against infantry 30% against calvary

10 = no use to use those, you have better units for those factions.

11 = 29% against infantry 24% against calvary

12 = no use to use those, you have better units for those factions.

13 = no use to use those, you have better units for those factions.

14 = no use to use those, you have better units for those factions.

15 = 4% against infantry 3% againt calvary (gets added armor piercing damage) -> so low effiency forget it has armor piercing do not use this.

That should give an impression about the other civs more about that in the next sheet.

Polearms 2

Well lets continue with out polearm-conclusions.

Now we already concluded that

*milan is the best civ to play

*venice, sicilia and papal states follow just after that with little margin.

*turks, timurids and mongols are the worst thing ever, and should be evaded like the plague

*scots do have the best pikeman, but lack everywhere else, and are also a no-go

*egypt is very hard to play, without calvary and weak archers but thanks to the best pikeman at least playable, though there are better picks.

*england has the number 4 polearm, and with 122% against non calvary items not even a shabby one, to bad it can only be build in city's that have a mason guild in it, and that that one is sheer impossible to obtain. it all likelyhood you will use option 6 for england, giving only 36% against infantry 43% againt calvary. England had the weakest archers but 2d place calvary, so england is viable, and perhaps even one of the better picks given it atleast has acces to everything.

*these 36% vs infantry 43% against calvary is the go to option for four other civilizations :

byzantium, france, HRE, portugal, spain, moors will all use this option.

What does that do for them?

Byzantium did have the weakest calvary and archers (but at least it had it) paired with these weak pikeman it does not look good for them, yes they have everything but without strenght to offset weakness, I will have to say no, no byzantium.

Franceand and HRE are better off, 2d best horses and 2d best archers damage wise, not ideal, but miliatia wise properly playable though england would be an slighly better option.

portugal and spain I also have to say no to, yes they have 2d best archer damage wise but they have no horses and these crappy pikeman to boot, no good.

moors on the other hand, yes they to have the 2d best archer damage wise, but theirs have 8 defenceinstead of 1 making them much more usable, ok they have no horses, but with a decent archer and a decent pikeman, even though nothing is perfect, it is at least playable, be it though hard.

Note I did not list denmark, option 7, is better for them as it has only 1% less againt calvary, but does a whole lot better against infantry, however like england, thats their special mason guild only unit, so unlikely for them to have. with 2d best calvary and 2d best damage wise archers it scores somewhere between france and england game wise...

The timuruds gt the nr 8 unit, with 46% and 34% with no calvary and archers to add to that, they are the worst civ in the entire game.

That the hungars, they have a surprise, they share number 2 with the italian states... giving them an excelent multitask pikeman,they add to this the 2d best archer with the best damage and range possivle, and they have the number 2 horse unit too, this make hungars the italian states EQUAL.. sharing 2d spot with them and making it a very good civ to play, only milan is better by a tiny bit.

that leaves just polland and russia and those do only get a pikeman under number 11 as their best pick, with 29% vs infantry and 24% against calvary it is a VERY BAD one, and they have the dissatisfaction of owning the WORST pikeman of all civs.

Russia on top of that has rather weak calvary, barely better than the weakest sort, and has the weakest possible archers, it has everything but so weak, I have to say no, do not play russia.

Polland does even worse, as it does not even have calvery, and while it's archrs at least have 2d best damage, they have the lowest type of armor to pair with them. with two weaknesses and one barly adequate, polland is also a no-go zone.

while you now have a fairly good idea what are the best miliatia units and civs, there is one more chapter after this..

Swordman

While a rather rare unit, few nations have acces to one, it is nice to have and hence to list, will it improve a nations position on the earlier list?

1 urban militia 48 man, 11 attack, 18 defence +2 moral (moors)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Urban_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

-swordsman militia 48 man, 11 attack 18 defence +2 moral (portugal, spain)

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Swordsmen_Militia_(M2TW_unit)

No swordsman : england, france, denmark, scotland, papal, venice, milan, sicily, HRE, polland, hungary, russia, turks, egypt, mongols, byzantium)

These would count, compared to the #1 pikeman as a whopping 162% against calvary and 75% against calvary, making them actually quite good!

sadly both those units are masons guild units... and thus very hard obtainable.

But portugal and spain become with them at least playable, and moors becomes actually quite decent.

Conclusion

The best civilization to play for their militia in order are :

Very good :

1 Milan

2 Hungary, Sicilia, Venice, Papal States

Acceptable :

3 england

4 denmark

5 france, HRE

Probable

6 Egypt

7 moors

Unlikely

8 Portugal, Spain

Unplayable :

X scots, timurids, mongols, turks, Byzantium, russia, polland

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=940206861

The Militia Gude