As much as I like the empire. That same flavor of Roman style on three "different" factions tends to whittle my enthusiasm for them. It's just one big faction with a different shade of color. I just wish that the troop composition reflects what ideology each have. One being that of a senate, one is hereditary imperial bloodline and one is a meritocratic military rule. Small changes that is specific to each can give quite a lot of flavor to the empire.

I like empire because the troops is abundant and easily replenished. I feel more comfortable to auto the battle with the knowledge I can replenish them easily.

Like the other comments, I wish that the Empire versions are different - may be an example would be: - Western Empire: Really good legion troops (Garious would surely have that) and melee troops - Southern Empire: Maybe better than normal Cataphracts (as they are serving the Empress who is the wife of the former Emperor) - Northern Empire: A less combat focused and more politically focused faction - maybe if they were different, it might emphasize something like better anti-cavalry (they do border the Khuzait) The point is that there would be differences between the factions

Awesome video. I like these deep dives into the factions. Very enjoyable overall.

Fantastic content, as usual. Keep up the great work.

I agree pretty much 100% with everything you've said in this video. Hoping for a Khuzait video next.

You are 100% wrong about Menavliatons. They are THE best if not the 2nd best shock troop in basically every test you can do for them since 1.0 and the update to infantry formations and AI. In practice they are absolute beasts when paired with some shields to keep them from getting rocked by archer fire. If you are going archer heavy they are less effective since you want boards to soak up missile fire. If you are going hammer anvil style they are literally the best unit on the field and will take home the highest kdr from all your troops everything being equal. People use them wrong and let them sit around getting shot in their 200 fian formations, of course your unit with no shield doesn't work in that playstyle. They have been tested and tested and your anecdotal feelings about them is just incorrect.

I love the Empire, cataphracts and bucelarii are a potent wombo combo.

I always have a ton of Empire troops even though I never play the Empire. Maybe I will with my next sandbox. Although that has never stopped me from stacking cataphracts DEEP and steamrolling the empire with them. Very satisfying.

With the Imperial Legionaries they can be very effective against cavalry if you don't thin your line too much and you take the perk that reduces charge damage for your captains your Legionaries will halt a decent charge or at least trade in a balanced way. Legionaries switch to their pilum when against cavalry for its reach and I have noticed them decimating heavy cavalry charges if the line was thick enough that the charge didn't break the line. My last Empire game I decided to switch to exclusive Legionaries in 3 groups and man it was a nice time. Did lose a little but it cost the enemy dearly for what I lost.

Wtf man, when was the last time you tried empire troops? Manavliatons outperform legionieries most of the time. At least in open field battles, but even for sieges I do 50/50. Legionaries are meatshields while manavliatons are dps. Never tried running just manavliatons, maybe then they would suck.

Empire is a great first playthrough... If you are naturally good at and drawn to war... If you're not, I don't recommend the Southern empire at very least. Once the Empress gains some territory, she wants it all.

I love this game so much, it's crazy. I just want the conversion mods to start rolling out soon.

The empire infantry will struggle against Vlandian infantry. Vlandians have a really high concentration of mace infantry, which means heavy armor is actually a weakness. They eat through shields reasonably well, too. I have found that Vlandian troops offer the most trouble so far, at least for my troops. That was before the switch to what I have now. I essentially have the empire version of the foreign legion. Mostly Kuzait horse archers, sprinkled with Aserai, a ton of Empire and Vlandian cav, a bunch of Sturgian infantry sprinkled with Aserai and empire troops, and a mix of empire/Battanian/Kuzait/Aserai archers.

While the other factions generally specialize in an army style, the Empire is more of a jack of all trades, they aren't great at anything but they can do every role just fine [edit] never mind, made this comment while half way through the video, then you mentioned it too XD

The biggest advantages to the empire is the they are adaptable and numerous like I kill a 700 army and 2 more show up

I enjoyed this video very well the strength and weaknesses but there is still one question I have for certain army if I want to have them if I want the imperial bucellarii, what kind of horses would I need to recruit them any horses named in the specific, and maybe not too expensive hopefully?

Thank you for your guides they are really fun to watch. What do you consider the "appropriate" difficulty level?

If we leave roleplay scenario, which this video seems to lean heavily on, aside, very few things in this video end up making sense. Cataphract is THE best shock cav in the game, due to having infantry-level armor while being a cav unit. They don't have a couchable lance unlike banner knights, so they don't kill as many units if you charge them in and leave them to their own devices, but that's just the virtue of cav AI setting you up for a failure and requiring lots of micromanaging in Bannerlord. Vlandian noble line troops, which this video compares them to, do get more weapon skills and easier upgradeability than cataphracts, at the cost of using vlandian golden standard paper armor at every tier. Legionary IS specialized, since 2 out of 3 of his sets use blunt damage in conjunction with one of the best armors in the game on an infantry unit. Sturgians, while still being overall better infantry, don't have access to blunt damage, and MUST rely on their shock infantry to do main bulk of their damage against high tier enemy troops. Elite menavleaton, in an open field battle scenario, will wipe the floor with any other T5 shock infantry, as community tests show. They do lose their effectiveness when not utilized in a vacuum somewhat, but calling them a bad unit just for that is a stretch and a half. As of 1.0 version, there's no such thing as "bad against cav", due to afforementioned cav AI being incompetent at just about anything. Outside of player fighting the Empire, there's no scenario where these troops can face a cavalry formation under player's micro. I do completely agree on everything said about their global map positioning, tho. That info reflects how a typical campaign would go relatively well.

I have once raider bandit play and have war with hole empire and have mln deneras from raiding caravans and vileges in and level rougery to 300 becuse how large empire is.

Strengths: Aeterna victrix. Weaknesses: Barbarians never learn.

On a side note, My Little Warband is out so you can start a Bannerlord stream with custom troop trees👍😆 Wishful thinking

There's a lot of misinformation here. Cataphracts and menavlions in practice competes for top spot. Are you perhaps using pre release beta performance? I know they were really bad prior to full release due to ai issues. For one, the Menavlions are wielded like glaives and voulges, and as such they wreck shielded formations just about as well as other shock troops. In fact they will even break the line breakers. Those "spears" aren't poking spears, they swing for insane damage. Don't believe me or the other comments? Try it in a custom battle then. What the hell is going on with this level mistake. Sorry to say, but this is an objectively bad review of the faction.

I had been playing this game almost 20 hours and i could say its really well done, i didnt knew anything and the hints and the curve of difficulty is correct, i had been playing with the empire, i never seen this kind of videos but my troops are 25% of everything and thats the best way to use the empire, i use Infantry to support long range infantry, i say stay to those two and grab the ranged and cataphracts just to flank and distract the enemy so the ranged infantry keeps shooting. Until now i fight against the desert factions, the sturgians and the one like the mongols and only that last one takes out a bit of my troops only if they attack me with a bigger army than mine and full of mounted archers, you know, i just recruited their own mounted archers and problem solved hahah, long live the empire!. Let me tell you about my journey, i knew i could be a merchant just because of some videos i saw, so, the first 5 to 10k were hard to get because i had to be carefull of not having to much troops or to few. I faced looters from time to time but the first 4 hours were just me travelling. After a while i gathered 50 men and had 15k, i had some offers to be a mercenary but i wasnt interested on becoming a mercenary for the sturgians, so i started doing caravan quests because having 50 elite men was enough to survive the attacks, thanks to those quests and the fact that i combined trading with following the caravan y ended up having 70men and 70k but the cost of having those men were to high so i never had more than 70. Some day the empire offered me to become a vassal and i accepted, it was the southern empire, well.. I would prefer the northern or western but it was enough. Faster than anything the queen declared war to the mongol style civilization and almost wiped out the entire civilization after an hour or two, for some reason i was granted with a castle, and after a few hours another one, it was to much for me, those castles were empty, almost no defenses so i putted some soldiers on each castle! That wasnt enough and one army tried to conquer my first castle, i got there fast only to find an army of 650 and i had 100 sodiera. That wasnt enough so i escaped, but my allies came! So together we defended the castle. After that for some reason the war ended just when we were close to conque= the entire civilization Today the queen starts wars to anyone, the empire is weaker, i was granted with 2 more castles so i have 4 castles and 8 farms and in some moment i was granted witth a city capital but the rebels taked it 2 times.

Pronounced Buk-Kuh-Lar-Ree-E (Bucelarii)❤

In other words empire is decent everywhere except in twohanded linebreaker. I prefer a nieched kingdom like the Sturgian. Going in with an army of heavy axemen is very satisfying.

I feel like the Empire are like the Aseri a jack of all trades no real strength but good at all.

Long live the Empire!

Banner Knights better than Cataphrats? Only if the banner knight successfully couches the lance, which is rare for the AI. Armor, weapons, skills are all better than the banner knights.

YEET

The only thing Banner Knights have on Cataphracts is that they can couch lances. The problem is the AI almost never does that so it's not super relevant. Cataphracts are heavier armoured, do about the same damage, and have much better armoured horses. In practical terms, they're by far the better unit. If the game gets patched so that couching becomes more common that would change but as it stands Banner Knights are just slightly worse across the board.

empire is rly balanced why they didint nerf it aserai tho

I find it interesting that you use the crossbows over the archers, when in all the tests I saw and the ones I conducted myself in almost all scenarios archers seem to be superior to crossbows in bannerlord.

I hope that it was a joke when it was said that the manievlation was a bad unit?

I wish 3 different faction of the empire has special units. These 3 imperial faction is just same with different purple hues....

Even Vlandia is a better place to start you campaign

Flaw number 1 no imperial red

I wish the empire was a little bit more explicitly Roman. The aesthetic would be much more appealing to me that way.

Menav troops absolutely shred cav

I find the empire to be a little too easy.

The cataphract is the best cavalry unit.