Case study: Gunpowder beeline & Janissary rush

[AcaMetis]

I'm actually not sure. Way too often I find myself next to a leader like Monty or Shake or Ragnar or whoever else, so I actually don't have that much experience with unit bravery beyond "as suicidal as can be".

 

[TheMeInTeam]

won't the cannons defend against the knights anyway.

Combat 2 knights are a coin flip vs cannons, and with stables it's a very common promotion to see on them. Combat 3 knights beat cannons outright, same for if they attack muskets in the open field. Of course rather than janissaries you can use pikes. Janissaries can be drafted and don't have an easy counter unit though so their composition is a bit sturdier.

Major problem for cannon path if enemy builds cuirassers, since these do flanking damage to cannons and even janissaries will struggle a lot to hold up.

Pikes can certainly defend cannons against Knights, and cannons can definitely weaken city defenders enough that pikes are enough to finish them off, but that leaves your stack with two rather big vulnerabilities, namely Maces and Crossbows. I don't know how many of them AIs build and are willing to use offensively, especially when they don't have Horses to build Knights, but either way I think I'd take fewer Jens over more Pikes. Depending on the situation, of course.

Bigger risk is collateral initiative (even enemy catapults) followed by large number of combat 2 knights. Pikes damaged even a little bit will cede defending to cannons then, even if they took formation promotion. Cata/knight can actually straight up win a trade this way if they have enough bodies nearby to clear out the cannons/polish off the pikes after. AI has a big hard-on for knights so it's a risk unless you have a sizeable stack.

 

[Fish Man]

seems like pikes + macemen + cannons would be efficient than jans + cannons.

The problem with pikes is that they're still not that good against knights. A c2 pike vs c1shock knight on an open field is 11.7 vs 11. The knight still wins about 40% of the time...and the pikes won't even defend, the cannons will, because 12 > 11.7. Not to mention pikes are literally trash against everything else (longbows, crossbows, maces...they can't even kill trebs and pults reliably). So if you build pikes you're sinking hammers into a "counter" unit that doesn't even do its job, and is mostly useless for anything else.

 

[rah]

Yeah, melee units with cannons are preferred sinde they can get up to CRIII cleaning up after the cannons and then upgraded to rifles.

 

[pi-r8]

The problem with pikes is that they're still not that good against knights. A c2 pike vs c1shock knight on an open field is 11.7 vs 11. The knight still wins about 40% of the time...and the pikes won't even defend, the cannons will, because 12 > 11.7. Not to mention pikes are literally trash against everything else (longbows, crossbows, maces...they can't even kill trebs and pults reliably). So if you build pikes you're sinking hammers into a "counter" unit that doesn't even do its job, and is mostly useless for anything else.

Sure, they're not ideal, but nothing is ever ideal unless you're ridiculously far ahead. The cannons can defend themselves decently enough against c1shock knights, the real problem is c2 or c3 knights, and the pikes defend first against those. Also collateral, like TMIT mentioned, and the only real defense to collateral damage is just building more damage.

The janissaries do have some advantages over pikes, I just don't see it is making much difference. Either way, the cannons do most of the work. Drafting + janissaries is pretty great though.