Explain Why the Landcrap (Landsknecht) Is Terrible

From http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/938800-sid-meiers-civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword/faqs/59870:

This is another UU that looks a lot more powerful on paper than it actually is in practice. The problem is that if you want to use them on offense, they’re going to run into longbowmen, in which case you’re better off with mostly macemen to go with your siege units. As stack defense, they’re decent but not quite as good as crossbowmen against macemen, and you still need knights or crossbows/longbows to protect your stack from enemy crossbowmen. Your primary use for the Landsknecht will still just be for defense against mounted units.

So, as others have said, its a unique unit that isn't unique enough to shift the balance of power. If you find yourself with little to no use for pikemen, you will find yourself with little to no use for the landskernatcherstienzerputz.
 
It's ridiculous that axes get a melee bonus and are superior to spears at melee in the first place lol.

I'm not sure a halberd is materially better in these kinds of battles either.
 
Landsknechts are terrible because they counter units that are from the past. If landsnknechts had bonuses vs. units that were from the future they would be a lot better. Landsknechts are like pikes when taking bonuses against the only threat from the past, war elephants.
 
I upgraded it a while back from "worst UU candidate" to simply "bottom tier", as it is clearly better than things like the Panzer.

I agree. For me, better than the ballista elephant, carrack (I rarely play watery maps), and seal I think, and possibly phalanx or even berserker too, and maybe others I can't remember.

The reasons LK are crappy:

1. They are no better at anti-mounted than pikes
2. They are only marginally better against melee than maces
3. They are no better than pikes at all against the most common defenders in cities (longbows)
4. They get completely ruined by xbows and thus you still need the anti-xbow component in your army.

Not so sure about this though.

1. So what? They still hard-counter mounted
2. Marginally better is still good, considering their anti-mounted bonus
3. If you you have pikes, you have trebuchets. Trebuchets are better than maces for attacking cities, so maces are a bit redundant
4. They need to be countered by something. In this they are no different from any other medieval unit, which is why medieval armies need more careful stack composition than other eras. Just bring the usual mix of Lbow, Xbow, horse archers etc.


So what role do they serve? They're worse pure attackers than maces, worse against enemy maces than crossbows, and don't beat knights better than regular pikes. They get slightly upgraded over pikes because they can attack offensive stacks a bit more effectively (mace defenders don't ruin you, just xbows), but all they amount to is a slightly more powerful version of a role player in a standard stack...but they also come in one of the harder time periods to war.

I agree with all of this, except for picking on them for not having a well-defined role. Partly for reasons mentioned earlier, and also because the aspect of war that involves attacking offensive stacks and cleaning up stray units is often undervalued I think.


Now I've convinced myself to give them a go in one of the stupid AW team games I've been playing recently.
 
I agree. For me, better than the ballista elephant, carrack (I rarely play watery maps), and seal I think, and possibly phalanx or even berserker too, and maybe others I can't remember.

...


Now I've convinced myself to give them a go in one of the stupid AW team games I've been playing recently.
If you play AW, try playing as the Khmer some time. It's one of the few situations in which the Ballista Elephant really shines.

The Panzer is the worst UU for me, although it looks darn cool. The Gallic Warrior is a close second.
 
The problem is that they don't really replace anti-melee units, Crossbows or Maces are usally better against melee threats.
Landsknechte let one get a balanced stack defense on less hammers so we can go a little heavier on siege. That's only marginally useful though, because the anti-melee units we can replace are the best cleanup units available. At least until gunpowder.
 
It's ridiculous that axes get a melee bonus and are superior to spears at melee in the first place lol.

I'm not sure a halberd is materially better in these kinds of battles either.

what so ridiculous about it > ? smash his skull untill he cannot move a spell. Nothing complicated about axes ! :D just watch for Your legs , one bad swing can cost You ! :lol:
 
If you play AW, try playing as the Khmer some time. It's one of the few situations in which the Ballista Elephant really shines.

The Panzer is the worst UU for me, although it looks darn cool. The Gallic Warrior is a close second.

Ok Khmer next :). I don't mind Gallic Warriors, as long as there are some hills about...

The problem is that they don't really replace anti-melee units, Crossbows or Maces are usally better against melee threats.
Landsknechte let one get a balanced stack defense on less hammers so we can go a little heavier on siege. That's only marginally useful though, because the anti-melee units we can replace are the best cleanup units available. At least until gunpowder.

I'll go with "marginally useful". I just had a game where I bulbed towards engineering before CS, and attacked with mainly them, xbows and trebs, and I can't say I either noticed their effectiveness or missed maces. So that was inconclusive for me anyway. Obsolete units work for cleanup after siege, I don't find you really need maces.
 
I'll go with "marginally useful". I just had a game where I bulbed towards engineering before CS, and attacked with mainly them, xbows and trebs, and I can't say I either noticed their effectiveness or missed maces. So that was inconclusive for me anyway. Obsolete units work for cleanup after siege, I don't find you really need maces.

This is the thing. seige unites are so powerful, generally it doesn't matter what you have with them, you're going to go send your stack to roflstomp anything in its path anyways. Spam out the seige and follow it up with whatever. The question ends up does the unit do well on defense? And Landgesundheit are not bad.
 
what so ridiculous about it > ? smash his skull untill he cannot move a spell. Nothing complicated about axes ! :D just watch for Your legs , one bad swing can cost You ! :lol:

Lines of soldiers with spears can, and did (repeatedly) completely slaughter melee weapons that requite a wide swing. Even one on one an axe is pretty unwieldy compared to a spear...but in organized combat spears were largely king until shooting the enemy with guns became practical.
 
Doing the numbers, landsknechts are superior to maces for attacking melee when the defender's modifier is between 0 and 100% (don't include the -50% or -100% adjustment coming from the attacker's melee bonus in that modifier). Otherwise the maces perform better. Of course, the real problem would be they suck at attacking anything else than mounted/melee? I guess that's where siege comes in.
 
Doing the numbers, landsknechts are superior to maces for attacking melee when the defender's modifier is between 0 and 100% (don't include the -50% or -100% adjustment coming from the attacker's melee bonus in that modifier). Otherwise the maces perform better. Of course, the real problem would be they suck at attacking anything else than mounted/melee? I guess that's where siege comes in.

If you are relying on siege to do your heavy lifting though, the marginal utility of the LK compared to an ordinary pike or an alternative unit plummets sharply.

That is exactly the problem with the unit. Even berserkes/samurai carry more oomph because they can the full spectrum of defenders harder and lean less on collateral damage (berserkers have cute nice things too). LKs just tend to draw those longbow defenders, before or after collateral.

What they really offen then is slightly more stack security when in transit, as they can defend against mounted and melee so you can afford to build more of them as stack defense than usual and be slightly more efficient.

"slightly more efficient" on a unit you have to wait to utilize and does not help to end wars quickly is not even mid-tier though. Also, I don't believe LKs are generally superior to crossbows against melee, which is the sensible anti-melee choice in medieval. Maces are more city attacker types.
 
If I was going for a medieval war, I would much, much rather have pikes/landsknechts and trebs than maces/berzerkers/samurais and catapults. You can probably get them quicker than maces too, it's just that in a non AW game it rarely makes sense to do so because of Bureau/lib and all that.

Edit: Having said that, even if the medieval period was like, the best time to war, landsknechts would still be barely average I think.
 
Lines of soldiers with spears can, and did (repeatedly) completely slaughter melee weapons that requite a wide swing. Even one on one an axe is pretty unwieldy compared to a spear...but in organized combat spears were largely king until shooting the enemy with guns became practical.

You may be right , yes You are probably right but in one on one it would be easier to recover from a missed swing than a misssed thrust ;) One missed thrust and You're dead one missed swing heck... You can probably have a shield and an axe :D
 
it would be easier to recover from a missed swing than a misssed thrust

Not sure what you're talking about. A swing takes much longer than a thrust even if you're just using a small hand axe and is more committal. Spear guy can and should have a shield too. Shields are actually dangerous weapons unto themselves.

pikes/landsknechts and trebs than maces/berzerkers/samurais and catapults.

The issue here is "how much better are LK/xbow/Treb than pike/xbow/treb". The answer is "somewhat, but not a lot".

BTW, you're underestimating samurai in civ a bit! You barely need any collateral at all before you start getting ridiculously good odds with just combat I CR II (toku samurai will have that at 5 xp). Berserkers aren't quite so crazy, though they *do* retain the swordsman 10% vs cities while normal maces do not so even they're a bit better than maces.
 
I agree LKs are not much better than pikes.

I've always thought Samurais were really good. Even in the AI's hands, along with prats, one of the units I find slightly scary coming at me. But I played another AW game with them after LKs (but not with Toku), and found they were pretty much obsoleted by trebs, and massacred by knights of course. You still need xbows, pikes, lbows, trebs, and horses, so maybe any medieval unique suffers from being a relatively small part of a stack.

After them I tried Ballista Elephants in another AW game, and they were ****ing awesome! It almost seemed unfair, the ease with which they removed all of the knights and HAs out of enemy stacks - eg. with crossbows and only a little luck, they could destroy big stack of Knights, maces and Pikes without loss. Thanks to Doshin for that recommendation!
 
After them I tried Ballista Elephants in another AW game, and they were ****ing awesome! It almost seemed unfair, the ease with which they removed all of the knights and HAs out of enemy stacks - eg. with crossbows and only a little luck, they could destroy big stack of Knights, maces and Pikes without loss. Thanks to Doshin for that recommendation!

:D

In my one AW/Khmer game, I eventually had a Combat V, Formation, Flanking I Ballista Elephant trampling over Cavalry. That was without a GG and the Leadership promotion.
 
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