Sturgia is based on the Kievan Rus. The actual Kievan Rus culture was highly effected by Norse culture due to it being a combination of Slavic and Norse Culture. Meaning the Sturgians you can easily play as norse or slavic without being historically incorrect.

Nothing beats the Sturgian shieldwall. I have decimated way larger forces locked in a shieldwall, and even stopped numerous heavy cavalry charges dead in their tracks. Its good to have an even split of axemen and spearmen for it.

Kermit talking about bannerlords showing up in my recommend was not something i expected. But I'm glad it did

Heroic line breaker just sounds badass

Great video. I love Sturgia as a faction. Offers a very unique, and sometimes quite challenging playthrough.

Sturgia strengths: everything Weaknesses: FOR STURGIA!

In my current khuzait playthrough. The Sturgians rolled over like a fur blanket so I agree with that weakness of their territory being wide. Almost in a line. Speaking of trading. I could never grasp what is profitable. Head of a khuzait caravan going to battania and vlandia doesn't always give me the prices I'm expecting.

Interesting video, thanks! I always find with Sturgia that a 75/25 inf/noble cav split works the best, with 1/3 of the infantry being line breakers. If you get more cav you weaken the shieldwall in my experience and the cavalry can break through it as you said. If you keep the shieldwall ~~5-6 ranks deep even the heaviest cavalry will get stuck and killed, if you don't have enough infantry to do that, cavalry can become a pain

Still loving the Bannerlord content. This is great stuff, and i find it both enjoyable and useful.

Obviously the culture is Baltic with a heavy influence of the Kievan Rus, but in the Calradia lore the Vlandian's defeat the Empire and Battania, Battanian refugees flee north to Sturgia and then the Nords sail south and conquer much of the western snowy region. Later the Sturgians become the Vaegir who are the medieval Kievan Rus with great archers (thanks to the Battanians joining them) (Also Vlandia then splits with the Empire region becoming Swadia and the western regions become Rhodok)

These videos are awesome. Just binged your other ones then saw you posted this!

I definitely think sturgias noble line should have a tier 6 infantry unit instead of cav.

I have effectively utilized Sturgian Cavalry, you just have to do it right. The skirmishers have to be controlled, especially if you want to try to use them against khuzait or aserai mounted archers, but it can be done.

Sturgia is based because: - Heroic Line Breakers - Sturgian Heavy Axemen - Sturgian Heavy Spearmen - Druzhinnik Champions - Raganbased - Grandpa Godun - Chad players - Cool af armoury and weaponry - Based Svana - Brutal aesthetic (Vlandian blood bath)

Sturgia is my next playthrough so this’ll be good

I'm just relieved you can say sturgia, sturgian properly.

I love the infantry factions since I used to play age of mythology back in 2000's. When I first saw Sturgia I was so excited untill I started playing a year a go and they pretty much got wiped by any other faction specially late game. but now they're pretty in a good shape i would say

Nice vid. Easy to understand tactics suggestions.

I was about to make a comment about your voice, then I saw your PFP. Well played

Now i am ready for my next playthrough. I want to try a Sturgian pure playthrough.

I always find horse archers, especially Khans to be the main threat with any faction, they will just run circles and shoot, plus the fact that their glaive kills in one hit without the need to charge. I faced about 40 Khans in my last battle, while I won with vastly superior force they gave me the go around for far too long.

In my current Sturgian playthrough Sturgia have lost most of its towns because of unfortunate situations while it had to fight against Battania/Vlandia/Empire and Khuzaits simultaneously, so Khuzaits got 3 towns an a castle and Battania got the capital and a castle. If it continues this way, I'll have to restart(

When doing a single-culture Roleplay run, assuming you expand into territories held by other nations, there’s a hefty loyalty penalty in all the places you conquer. How do you deal with that, especially if you only recruit companions and wives from your own culture?

People seriously underestimate how good varyags and varyag veterans are for their price. I run them as the back bone of my infantry until I'm rich then they all get to be Druzniks

AH the one ive been needing to fix all my sturgia only games

Came back after a long break was playing on max difficulty with some mods and got shit on for like 2 hours tell I finally got a foot hold of high teir troops and better gear for me fel like I was getting 1 tapped by rocks then my armies broke down every battle

Great video, but it's super confusing that you beat the map and used it to explain everything. You should have used the base factions locations, not everything empire.

I just started on the playing Bannerlord and previously playing warband. This is like completely different for me, at least. Like in Mount&Blade Warband, Viking Conquest there is few things you need to win the skirmishes. If you play as Nordic, put infantry in the shield wall, archer on the higher ground, and wait for the enemy to come close, as the enemy comes close, realse the javelins and archer's to fire and after the contant is made by infantry move 10 paces bit by bit until frontline is dead and then charge. Simple, easy to remember. Now, all this micromanaging of the troops seems like too damn much. I just want to hack and slash through like a damn berserker, but now i need to pay attention to 10 different things. And all horse archer things, how to control them, control cavalry, flanking, etc. Im not even sure how smart AI is. Does AI understand that if you have a shield wall of all the infantry in, it should put spearmen first, axmen second and line brackers behind? It's still very confusing. And critic for the Sturgia is definitely the archers. In the first game, Nordic had the best archers. Strong armour with shield and sword. So they can be infantry when out of ammo. And no cavalry is needed here tbh. Dhruznik should be just some heavyweight mobile infantry with 200 athletics 260 throwing and 260 two-handed. And 180 one-handed. Give them shit ton of armour, with a huge axe, 2 sets of throwing axes, and a shield. GG. Also, one more thing that I would change about the army is to remove the cavalry. F the cavalry just full beast on foot soldiers. Have two lines for archers. One similar to Fian Champion but with huge two handed axe and lower stats. And other tree with better bow and arrows, but shield and one handed axe. This way, full on foot soldiers equipped with axes, shields and throwing weapons. With little to no archery. Only way to beat them is to never fight them directly.

video helped me a lot, good video

I cant wait until you do your wives guide for sturgia. I want to see all those big sturgian beauties ranked.

i use these heavy infantry as my main troops that i target to form an army around

as a sturgia player, i never realized there were strengths!

Sturgia can hard counter any cavalry in the game, I love a massive stack of Varangians, Heavy infantry, Mounted varangians and battanian fains and vlandian crossbows, That comp will delete any cavalry and most Mounted archers. Their only problem is population and their leadership early game is pretty awful, but overall they have definitely been the most fun do far

How do you effectively put the skirmisher in their own Formation? When i try it with Javelin Pref. it still mixes them and puts Druzhinnik in that group aswell because both count as Cavalry. Same problem i have with separating the Linebreaker from my normal Shield Units.

I started as vlandian lord on realistic difficulty. For some reason we wiped out batanian very easily. But when we go on the north, Sturgian infantry is just relentless...

You said you liked using the horse raiders as skirmishers. Could you make a video on how to actually use skirmishers in general? I tend to ignore them since it's a hassle always sorting units and such

Legionnary are still the best heavy infantry in the game. They will steamroll heavy axeman without much difficulty

I can get behind everything about a role playing angle except the companions. Gotta have 1 of every other Kingdom.

still needs buff in sp, field battles are a massacre on sturgian side if the ai is in control

Which playthrough do you enjoy the most?

How can u have 800 troops by yourself?😨

When sticking entirely to one faction, how do you deal with the loyalty penalties when taking foreign cities?

I played a Sturgian but became a Battanian by taking Corein as a wife, so yeah me my brother and my retainers became early Gallowglasses.

Disagree with your 'axemen are best heavy infantry'take. Imperial legionaires are just as strong if not stronger and got a spear to defend themselves against enemy cav. Theyre not reliant on other units to protect them and can kick ass and take names. Only drawback is they can have various melee weapons and the sword is kinda crappy.

Was listening to you talk and just happened to glance down at your profile picture and my brain immediately made the connection and now I can't listen to you without laughing lmao

When i kniw i want heavy infantry, there is no substitute for being a Sturgian.

Ive never fully committed to a playthrough that wasnt sturgian or very norman-twisted vlandian

“Smash them in the rear” lol😂

Any strategies for ensuring a composition for your army? I always end up with a wacky mix after a while with a few troops from here and there even when I'm trying to stick with one faction's troops. Do you just discard those troops? And recruit from towns/villages to replace your losses?

Tier 4 minor Clans make Better Archer than the Sturgians they loose only on armor but get same or more bow skill with Better bow and costs less, with Sturgia i try to fill my Archers with as many Chosen Wolfs as i can, they fit a lot in style and are really good and cheap.

I've been stuck fighting a sturgisn death wall for days now. I try everything, flanking with heavy cav, archery, both. I've tried splitting my forces and surrounding them. I've tried just dog piling them. Nothing works, the sturgian ball of death just decimates my entire force despite us being evenly leveled and exact same numbers.

I know the sturgians are Kievan Rus beveause the Druzhnik(дружник) means companion or vigilante

I go 66% heavy axe and 33% heavy spear

Idk if it’s just me but sturgian troops are over powered I almost one like a 100 vs 500 battle after the battle there were about 50 of the enemies left I forgot what faction it was

stugrian pros: shieldwall .... now lets go to cons.

I would like to see a unique role play instead of Playing one faction to get the troops and other stuff what about 2 factions and have a role play there like let's say their father was a sturgia and their mother was a Valentine and their kid wanted to Unite both factions into one I would like to see that but i don't Imagine people doing that but it would be nice if someone did

It's the combat ai not the troops. I've seen low lvl take down a max troop easy. the game dumbs them down when fighting each other but more for your troops also the campaign ai doesn't have a goal so their just doing random stuff...

bro who ever says that you will win are high I struggle fighting of three looters now I mean I just started my campaign but still

Aserai the most neglected and terribly made faction by TaleWorld. They aren't even close to any other faction, can be easily outclasses by all other factions, and can only beat other factions with sheer dumb luck with javelins, extremely careful tactics that no other factions would have to use on the same level, and relying on perks for the player and captains. TaleWorld needs to majorly buff all Aserai troops and armor.

YEET

Drew jinn ick

Sturgia let me tell you it's a weak force to reckon with because you have smaller numbers of forces. No fun since Sturgia only limits to less than a thousands of troops. No fear than that also Sturgia only limits to a 500 to only 600 troop count. Not to mention Sturgia has little Cities/Towns and tiny Castles that are very little in amount and their ownerships and their principalities or the amounts of territories they own. Also Sturgia is weak because not only you have weaker Battanians/ your also bordered to the North with the North Empires/Western Empire/Eastern Empire/and the Norman's to the West and threats of Vlandia. Most strongest countries already with largest forces are: Khuzaits/The Empires/Aserais/and Vlandia. Apparently you may think the Vikings were strong by in fact they were but why the Kievan Rus still managed to survive like today's Russia? Weird and coincidental since Sturgia and Kievan Rus had started in simple towns and cities and if they expanded territorial wise and work hard together are they now a force to beckon with. Kievan Rus are or would be a today's powerful force. But Mount and Blade Warband/Fire and Steel/or Viking Sagas? No better than the Mount and Blade 2 BannerLord.😅 As a Different Asian I prefer playing rhe Khuzaits or Aserais.😂

Yeah they ain't vikings they're based on the medieval Rus peoples

Player always wins huh? Try having your cav outnumbered against the western empire. The AI isn't exactly Sharp... But in difficulty above freebooter, it's not dumb either. Don't know legit formation tactics? Don't crank the difficulty too much.

You sound like Kermit the frog for sure lol

So by making these faction guides you're essentially promoting virtual racism?

It doesn't matter what faction i use, i always have 70% horse archers and 30% heavy horse. If i run out of ammo. I retreat and run it again. Hit and run.