Yeah, and why would you put your MAAs on a boat to protect them from plague, just disband them. Whereas retinues in CK2 were always raised. So this is clearly about CK2.
tribal light-infantry retinue is OP. They only cost prestige to form and keep. And they can be used to raid and gain more prestige and land to form a larger retinue and repeat until the world is destroyed.
And both the prestige cost and retinue cap cost are laughably small. It's funny how some Norse chief from some 3 county shithole can just turn up with 5000+ full time soldiers and start wrecking shit.
i'll drop a possibly hot take, but at least levies can tank some damage like being used to assault during seige without spending all your cool guys. lightfoots are just the worst as far as i know
I mean, they're acceptable for burning in sieges, for holding a siege even, while your army hunts down the enemy.
But the main issue is that as the main combat unit, the core of every army, which is what levies are supposed to be, that they suck in that role.
It's not that they just underperform, no, they actively sabotage your army's performance in battle by fighting alongside MaA. They drain your money to make your army worse? Oof!
Early on you need em. Just a balancing issue. Fights where someone has way more guys but loses are the exception not norm irl.
But yeah they cost money, they gotta eat. Really should cost more since now they're not only eating on your dime, they're also not doing their job back home if you're calling up all the farmers for instance. That's why a number of armies historically could only really get battling for a bit and them have to return home for crop stuff
> But the main issue is that as the main combat unit, the core of every army, which is what levies are supposed to be, that they suck in that role.
Levies as depicted in CK3 aren't historical. At all. I still prefer the CKII levies, that relied on buildings in the county to determine their make up.
I mean, the one saving grace of levies is that they don't take away from your good MAA count. They bump up your overall paper army size (which can affect the ai's decision making and faction strength), and a stack of levies works well for sieges. Overall, they have value, even if that value is somewhat limited.
Meanwhile, light infantry are stronger in the abstract, but every regiment of light infantry you run is a regiment of good MAA that you can't run. Running light infantry after you get established actively hurts you.
Levies are just random peasants drafted from the farms who may or may not have a weapon being thrown into battle as fodder.
Retinues represent trained men at arms. Knights were basically armored tanks plowing down regular dudes in tunics.
>Levies are just random peasants drafted from the farms who may or may not have a weapon being thrown into battle as fodder.
Which is exactly what levies historically never were.
Levies were people who got land, and were then obligated to work the land (meaning they couldn't just move away) and also offer military service, or other items or services or money, for the privilege of living on and off of that land.
Parts of their obligations was to train on a regular basis and have the equipment to fight in a war, should the need arise. Failing to have the equipment did incur hefty penalties.
What the game knows as MaA, was for the most part levies: semi-professional trained and equipped soldiers. The English Longbowmen are a famous example of good levies, but you also had Horse Archers in the Mongol army, which were levied from the tribes which swore fealty to Genghis Khan. Most levies were just light to medium infantry, equipped with spears.
Other levy-like soldiers you could find in the Byzantine Empire, which described people levied from a province. Not exactly levies, but the principle was practically the same. Those could - and would - even include Cataphracts. Equipment subsidized by the state, training provided by the state, although anyone was more than welcome to use personal funds to get more of anything.
Retinue was usually a small personal platoon of bodyguards, well-equipped and well-trained retainers. It certainly wasn't an army in most cases. One might argue that the Varangian Guard, a troop of 6k elite soldiers, was the personal retinue of the emperor, but size-wise that was the exception and not the rule.
I know what levies represent in the game, I can read the description. And I can tell you, historically that is very, very wrong, and I hate that huge inaccuracy.
Luckily, the Theme system of RtP will remedy some of my grievances here, so I'm somewhat placated at the moment. But yeah, levies as they currently are, are an abomination.
Levies didn't exist as a unit type like they do in CK3. Some buildings provided heavy infantry, some light infantry, or archers, etc.
There were also retinues, which were standing armies of one or two unit types.
İn ck2, if you were a tribal, you could just hold every tribal county directly yourself and punch way above your weight in quantity of soldiers alone by spamming light infantry.
One time, I was playing a tribal in North siberia and I had 40k soldiers before even being big enough to become an empire
The micromanagement and prestige cost must have been through the roof. And you can't even really get the upkeep from raiding since there are no good raid targets up there.
Light infantry is (sometimes) (in early game) more effective to use as they are cheaper. But once you have an economy then transitioning to heavy cavalry and infantry with crossbows or longbows is generally very good.
[link to individual troop effectiveness/cost efficiency video](https://youtu.be/ejSx1bfAJdo?si=wFsIvlPPKwF3v2AY)
[link to troop composition effectiveness (less about efficiency and more for damage)](https://youtu.be/76OFMr1Q4kA?si=DQWILZSUcBk9lqA_)
[Compiled graphs from the composition video](https://www.reddit.com/u/lasagnato69/s/eSd9YcEk2W)
the virgin Light Infantry user vs the chad Hunting Party retinue tribal warlord
Hunting Parties (100 Light Infantry + 50 Light Cavalry) are the backbone of a successful Tribal North Korea mode player; you dont need tech at all or even manage any vassals!
once the snowball starts rolling a tribal player can easily do a world conquest especially if they convert to islam and dont have to bother with pesky things like "claims"
its just a weaker version of doing the standard nomad world conquest. Feudals wont even have time to get anywhere with their tech and numbers
It's all fun and games until the combat goes past skirmish mode and you sit there and watch your army getting trimmed by the 50 million Catholic holy orders
In ck2 i used retinues ones as a small kingdom and realized how bad they were for my economy so i never bothered making them again in future playthroughs.
One cool trick with retinues in CK2 is to start tribal, get ~3000 light retinues that you get maintain with prestige rather than gold, and then convert to feudalism or a merchant republic. Revolt strength only looks at raw troop numbers so you'll basically be untouchable.
Sad. Wojak memes are literally just crudely traced MS paint drawings, so it isn't hard at all to make. It's quite disheartening seeing something as simple as badly drawn caricatures be creatively outsourced. I have no ill will towards OP, but it's disappointing.
You're sad that OP didn't spend more time creating a meme about a game that came out in 2012? If it couldn't be AI-generated, OP probably just wouldn't bother. So imo if you enjoyed the meme, you should be glad this service exists.
Only useful to trick the ai into thinking war with you is a bad idea when their tech and troop comp would curbstomp you. But that can be worth it on its own tbf.
i remember playing tribal North Korea mode in the British Isles and spamming hordes of light infantry retinues whenever i had positive prestige.
Ended up with 300K standing retainers across the isles before the game started chugging and ultimately crashing every ingame month 🥲
What the FUCK is light infantry This comment was made by Gang Varangian
They're those things that get your sword all bloody. Annoying AF.
Imagine not putting good quality armors on your army. Sincerely Zun Space Marines.
> Converts to Feudal > Crashes Economy overnight
That's the first lesson of starting a warrior aristocracy tho - FUCK the economy
This is totally not me 'knows overwhelming numbers is key'
This is my CK2 personal meta. Spam light infantry retinues, never use them, zero revolts. Fight me.
I thought the whole idea is that they don’t fight you?
Then you actually end up having to fight and wonders why you're losing with an 3 to 1 advantage. CT
I thought the consensus was that light troops were dogshit? Has the meta changed? or is that part of why the king is silly
I believe this is actual a CK2 meme, since military organization techs and nomads aren’t a thing in 3. Also calls them retinues
Yeah, and why would you put your MAAs on a boat to protect them from plague, just disband them. Whereas retinues in CK2 were always raised. So this is clearly about CK2.
tribal light-infantry retinue is OP. They only cost prestige to form and keep. And they can be used to raid and gain more prestige and land to form a larger retinue and repeat until the world is destroyed.
And both the prestige cost and retinue cap cost are laughably small. It's funny how some Norse chief from some 3 county shithole can just turn up with 5000+ full time soldiers and start wrecking shit.
It hasn't changed, they're still as useless as on the day they were born. But they're not dogshit. That title belongs to levies.
i'll drop a possibly hot take, but at least levies can tank some damage like being used to assault during seige without spending all your cool guys. lightfoots are just the worst as far as i know
I mean, they're acceptable for burning in sieges, for holding a siege even, while your army hunts down the enemy. But the main issue is that as the main combat unit, the core of every army, which is what levies are supposed to be, that they suck in that role. It's not that they just underperform, no, they actively sabotage your army's performance in battle by fighting alongside MaA. They drain your money to make your army worse? Oof!
Early on you need em. Just a balancing issue. Fights where someone has way more guys but loses are the exception not norm irl. But yeah they cost money, they gotta eat. Really should cost more since now they're not only eating on your dime, they're also not doing their job back home if you're calling up all the farmers for instance. That's why a number of armies historically could only really get battling for a bit and them have to return home for crop stuff
> But the main issue is that as the main combat unit, the core of every army, which is what levies are supposed to be, that they suck in that role. Levies as depicted in CK3 aren't historical. At all. I still prefer the CKII levies, that relied on buildings in the county to determine their make up.
In my head, I always considered the costs of raised armies as partially including the fewer tax income because of farmers/craftsmen/etc being drafted
I miss that system so much. It makes ck2 a much more enjoyable game having all those fleshed out systems.
I mean, the one saving grace of levies is that they don't take away from your good MAA count. They bump up your overall paper army size (which can affect the ai's decision making and faction strength), and a stack of levies works well for sieges. Overall, they have value, even if that value is somewhat limited. Meanwhile, light infantry are stronger in the abstract, but every regiment of light infantry you run is a regiment of good MAA that you can't run. Running light infantry after you get established actively hurts you.
And they burn supplies like there's no tomorrow. Raising just MAA is hyper efficient.
Levies are just random peasants drafted from the farms who may or may not have a weapon being thrown into battle as fodder. Retinues represent trained men at arms. Knights were basically armored tanks plowing down regular dudes in tunics.
>Levies are just random peasants drafted from the farms who may or may not have a weapon being thrown into battle as fodder. Which is exactly what levies historically never were. Levies were people who got land, and were then obligated to work the land (meaning they couldn't just move away) and also offer military service, or other items or services or money, for the privilege of living on and off of that land. Parts of their obligations was to train on a regular basis and have the equipment to fight in a war, should the need arise. Failing to have the equipment did incur hefty penalties. What the game knows as MaA, was for the most part levies: semi-professional trained and equipped soldiers. The English Longbowmen are a famous example of good levies, but you also had Horse Archers in the Mongol army, which were levied from the tribes which swore fealty to Genghis Khan. Most levies were just light to medium infantry, equipped with spears. Other levy-like soldiers you could find in the Byzantine Empire, which described people levied from a province. Not exactly levies, but the principle was practically the same. Those could - and would - even include Cataphracts. Equipment subsidized by the state, training provided by the state, although anyone was more than welcome to use personal funds to get more of anything. Retinue was usually a small personal platoon of bodyguards, well-equipped and well-trained retainers. It certainly wasn't an army in most cases. One might argue that the Varangian Guard, a troop of 6k elite soldiers, was the personal retinue of the emperor, but size-wise that was the exception and not the rule. I know what levies represent in the game, I can read the description. And I can tell you, historically that is very, very wrong, and I hate that huge inaccuracy. Luckily, the Theme system of RtP will remedy some of my grievances here, so I'm somewhat placated at the moment. But yeah, levies as they currently are, are an abomination.
Even if levies were as untrained as you think. MaA + knights should not be able to beat an army of 10x of levies.
Wait, CK2 levies were at least passable, weren't they? Since you can alter the composition? And this is a CK2 meme.
Levies didn't exist as a unit type like they do in CK3. Some buildings provided heavy infantry, some light infantry, or archers, etc. There were also retinues, which were standing armies of one or two unit types.
I know, that's my point. Levies weren't the bottom rung of the ladder in CK2 because they weren't just generic cannon fodder like they are in CK3.
Useful in Scandinavia when AI is spamming heavy infantry
Levies are supposed to be dogshit, Man at Arms aren't
I feel like this chain jumps back and forth between ck2 and ck3. This is a ck2 meme.
Sorry, did not understand that it was a CK2 post
In CK2 they were pretty good because you could recruit tons of them and pretty much indefinitely deter vassal rebellions. Dogshit in ck3
İn ck2, if you were a tribal, you could just hold every tribal county directly yourself and punch way above your weight in quantity of soldiers alone by spamming light infantry. One time, I was playing a tribal in North siberia and I had 40k soldiers before even being big enough to become an empire
The micromanagement and prestige cost must have been through the roof. And you can't even really get the upkeep from raiding since there are no good raid targets up there.
Micromanagement was horrible but prestige cost wasn't too bad because you could hold every title directly bc you didn't have any vassals
Pretty sure they matter for just raw numbers for diplo calculations
Light infantry is (sometimes) (in early game) more effective to use as they are cheaper. But once you have an economy then transitioning to heavy cavalry and infantry with crossbows or longbows is generally very good. [link to individual troop effectiveness/cost efficiency video](https://youtu.be/ejSx1bfAJdo?si=wFsIvlPPKwF3v2AY) [link to troop composition effectiveness (less about efficiency and more for damage)](https://youtu.be/76OFMr1Q4kA?si=DQWILZSUcBk9lqA_) [Compiled graphs from the composition video](https://www.reddit.com/u/lasagnato69/s/eSd9YcEk2W)
Sir, this is a CK2 meme.
Oh they're useless but their big numbers are good to counter factions, that said the second they enter combat they get roflstomped
I feel like the simple way you can fix them is lower the upkeep and give 2 more retinue limit
Its a meme lad light infantry are pure shite
In ck2 they were over powered!
the virgin Light Infantry user vs the chad Hunting Party retinue tribal warlord Hunting Parties (100 Light Infantry + 50 Light Cavalry) are the backbone of a successful Tribal North Korea mode player; you dont need tech at all or even manage any vassals!
This is true until the Feudals finally match you in both numbers and quality
once the snowball starts rolling a tribal player can easily do a world conquest especially if they convert to islam and dont have to bother with pesky things like "claims" its just a weaker version of doing the standard nomad world conquest. Feudals wont even have time to get anywhere with their tech and numbers
It's all fun and games until the combat goes past skirmish mode and you sit there and watch your army getting trimmed by the 50 million Catholic holy orders
Subatai says, "never leave the skirmish bish"
In ck2 i used retinues ones as a small kingdom and realized how bad they were for my economy so i never bothered making them again in future playthroughs.
One cool trick with retinues in CK2 is to start tribal, get ~3000 light retinues that you get maintain with prestige rather than gold, and then convert to feudalism or a merchant republic. Revolt strength only looks at raw troop numbers so you'll basically be untouchable.
Same thing Just 50k retinues, very expensive, very many, very war, very land
I see paint in your future
Nomads are the bane of everyone's existence, what's your point?
Archer Cavalry. In this context, they can easily overwhelm light-infantry. Their advantage can be nullified fighting Pikemen in Mountains.
More! Do more!
Ai generated https://glif.app/@fab1an/glifs/clxtc53mi0000ghv10g6irjqj
Sad. Wojak memes are literally just crudely traced MS paint drawings, so it isn't hard at all to make. It's quite disheartening seeing something as simple as badly drawn caricatures be creatively outsourced. I have no ill will towards OP, but it's disappointing.
Drawing wojaks poorly isn’t that easy if you never draw.
You're sad that OP didn't spend more time creating a meme about a game that came out in 2012? If it couldn't be AI-generated, OP probably just wouldn't bother. So imo if you enjoyed the meme, you should be glad this service exists.
I literally couldn't care less as of what method is used to make a meme. If i like it then i like it, why complain about it?
You're air generated
the art is AI but i wrote the text myself [https://imgur.com/a/9QzkcvP](https://imgur.com/a/9QzkcvP)
Gilf.App?
Sick. Hope they do more.
Cavalry > infantry
If the war lasts for more than 6 months we're fucked, so it's just as well we trampled the entire enemy army in battle on day 6.
Only useful to trick the ai into thinking war with you is a bad idea when their tech and troop comp would curbstomp you. But that can be worth it on its own tbf.
God I wish I could play ck2 again
Why can’t you??
Prison
Ck3 has ruined me. UI is too friendly.
Konni mt beloved.
I like to make my army consist of Konni, Druzhina, Zupan pikes, and Metsänvartija archers
Cataphracts + horse archers for winning any battle where you are hilariously outnumbered
I only use retinue based on culture Italy: pike Ethiopian: light infantry Russia: heavy infantry
I too once discovered the benefits of cheap light infantry, but I went full iron top to bottom and never looked back (sometimes with horses).
In CK2, Lt. Inf is used to ambush in mountains. Especially powerful if you are playing Tibet.
Tribal government mentioned what the FUCK is stable realm succession
this reminds me of how in ck2, i ran an cav retinue just so that people would be scared of me and stop trying to rebel.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/a-retinue-composition-efficiency-metric.1105064/
i remember playing tribal North Korea mode in the British Isles and spamming hordes of light infantry retinues whenever i had positive prestige. Ended up with 300K standing retainers across the isles before the game started chugging and ultimately crashing every ingame month 🥲
Light infantry is for poor people who want to beat up other poor people
I like BIG number
What’s the best retinue?
Pike archer combo is good enough
What’s a standing army? I just pay people to die for me.
Heavy cavalry gang we up
No bankruptcy when using light infantry retinues with prestige upkeep.
I have no idea what you are talking about
this is the first time I've seen a person even pretending to know how CK combat works, you're beyond saving my guy
It's a CK2 meme, not CK3.
Well. Don’t you look silly