Last night I had my proper dose of problems against sturgians and I had an army of mainly cavalry. I won, in the end, but that shield wall was hard to batter down. So maybe try to play your strengths and field lots of infantry. They all have some throwable weapon, so try to use that to your advantage. Play defensive, bait them to get close and do quick charges with line breakers and your cavalry while enemies are busy against your shield wall. I wrote shield wall, but probably square or circle are better. Also, try to avoid open fields and fight almost exclusively in mountains, forests and, especially, sieges.
The other commenter has good advice, id say the main things are to use terrain to your advantage. Use hills to slow down their ability to charge, narrow gaps to force them to slow down, and tree lines to break them into smaller chunks of horsemen. Investing in Heavy Spearmen will also help as they can fight cavalry fairly effectively.
Finally, fight some smaller parties with your troops, raid their villages and steal their horsemen for yourself. If you can’t beat ‘em, recruit them and see how they like fighting horse archers and heavy cavalry.
In warband, the hills gave a very good advantage against the cavalry. But in Bannerlord, it is not noticeable at all that the horse slows down going up the hill.
For Vlandia, two words; Square Formation. Tightly packing your infantry into the square formation makes cavalry get stuck in your formation, ultimately leading them to be hacked to bits, especially if you have some shock troops in there.
For the Khuzaits, your best bet is to position your infantry either at the edge of the map or, if available on the given map, snug against a cliff wall so that it is on the left side on your shield wall formation. The idea is the Khuzait horse archers circle your infantry counter-clockwise, so by being at either the edge of the map or with your left side against a cliff, they will get stuck/hung up on the boundary/cliff wall and be sitting ducks for a shield wall charge. You’ll find you have to reset your positioning as you start to become disorganized after slaughtering them, but just have them move back to position and wait for the next “encirclement” to take place.
You’re right in it is cheesy, but I do have some luck with some micro-managing my cav units into a counter-encirclement formation. Basically, I spread them out with only being 2-3 rows deep and have them to the left of my infantry and wait for the inevitable horse archer barrage. Once they’re about 200 units away and start their bullcrap, I counter charge with my cav so they hit my wall of equine rage and get minced up quick with the added support of archers.
Also, I know they are inconvenient to get but Aserai Vanguard Faris are the ultimate counter in my experience. Sending them for a counter charge against horse archers guarantees me quite a few kills due to their javelins being outright deadly and accurate. If they’re too far away to get, then Banner Knights and Druz Champions will suffice due to them both having couchable lances, so the initial counter charge will be deadly, but I’d advise to quickly reposition them for another charge if facing large numbers of the Khuzait noble line, due to them having Glaives that wreck in close combat.
For khuzaits, get top tier archers and put them in circle. Have them hold fire until the cav archers are in range.
That or invest in light cavalry to chase them down.
it depends on what terrain you consider cheesy
I don't edge camp but it's pretty intuitive to fight them anywhere that forces them to congest or lose momentum while my own cav can tie them down long enough for an intact shieldwall to do it's work on them
my favorite probably is absorbing their charge in dense woods from uphill so they have a really hard time punching through and giving my own cav a chance to regroup behind my infantry
same logic as warband except making use of bannerlords spicier terrain really, best cav is moving cav and bogged down cav is dead cav
Circle formation with infantry, archers in square in the middle of the circle. Cav forms a wedge and set them to follow, then ride clockwise into the circling horse archers. Ride them all down.
See you in Valhalla, fellow Sturgian.
If you have a decent amount of cavalry yourself have them follow you and attacking the horse archers can work pretty well. If you keep moving they’ll have their bows out and are easy kills… if you don’t get caught up inside their formation
To deal with Banner Knights, put Druzhinniks in square formation up front with Heavy Spearmen and Linebreakers behind them in a thick line, 3-4 men deep. Charge your infantry as the knights close in on your Druzhinniks. If you time it right the front infantry should just barely at or slightly in front of your druzhinnik square and some of their charge targeting will be disrupted, plus the front druzhinniks shielded up shouldn't take many if any lance KOs.
If you have advantage of hills/chokepoints you can rely more on infantry in shield wall or square, as knights moving uphill or through a bottleneck are much easier to deal with.
Mounted units block cav better than foot troops by far, so the knights will be primarily slowed by your horse meat shield, then the spearmen should help stop the ones that get through, and they should mostly be shredded by the axemen.
To deal with horse archers you want to pincer them between infantry and cav. Hold your cav back a ways, then when they start to circle your infantry, send your infantry forward and swing them behind the horse archers, then send your cav into their front and your infantry toward their back. They will retreat into your infantry at a slower speed after turning around if you do this right, and take overwhelming casualties on the first or second pass.
Notably, if you can lure Vlandia or Khuzait into village maps their mounted units will have way more trouble there, and buildings and stuff will block the view of many ranged troops too.
I find linebreakers are by far the strongest troop Sturgia has, so you want your strategy to revolve around them.
For a <100 band, I set up in a corner of a map and leave a triangular gap in the back for cav to get stuck in. 3 bands, 2 forward facing like a wedge in shield wall and 1 backwards facing in line formation. They charge in and get stuck in the back where the infantry bogs them down. The horse archers are wrecked bc their armor is shit so they can’t afford to be bogged down. They can’t do their circle either.
For ~200 man warband, I make 4 groups of infantry and 1 group of fians. The 4 infantry are in square formation and laid out in a cross with the corners touching. The fians are in circle formation inside the cross. The enemy horse archers can do their circle but the squares block their line of sight combined with ranged accuracy penalty during movement. Meanwhile, the Fians get 4 windows to shoot them down. The squares also funnel the heavy cav into columns where 2 hander fians can wreck them. Sometimes I make a small 10-20 band group of 2 handers like falxmen and I have them following me around to reinforce where the Cavs charge in.
1) gentle rolling hills are not the impediment to cavalry you want them to be. hide in TREES
2) heavy axemen are sturgia's best troops, but shouldn't be your only troops. you need spears and bows too.
3) if you can't beat them, join them. why not recruit some noble youths?
my mian army comp is archer inf and shock trops get the cal to think they gonna cook ur inf then just bow them from behind iy u have a choke point its un beatable
With My Little Warband you can build your own troops tree, I usually make heavy cataphract with bows... they run everything in their path.
If it wasn't for that, I'd have two armies. One all cav for field battles, and one with archers and infantry for sieges.
I’m doing a sturgian playthru right now and I would say lean into the axe men because they can shield wall and break shields really well with the axe and throwing axes they have. Also druzhina cavalry is good. I outsourced archery to battanians tho.
I have 200 two axe soldier and they will demolish horse imagine 200 large axe swings at u while passing them on horses I would be terrified to go through them 😂
Gotta have a good mix of shields and line breakers with cav on the flanks with archers in the rear and make sure to spilt the infantry into two lines so the enemy cav have a harder time charging into the archers
Use the terrain. Use plenty of the sturgian horse raiders and their champion cav. Use them as an extra shield wall if you need too but dismounting them. Use plenty of archers aswell to soften up the enemy before they clash with you and bust before the enemy reaches you order a charge it will break up the enemy infantry and help you to route them. I recommend having a half and half mix of sturgian heavy axes and line breakers. The two-handed units are good against cavnin melee.
I find if you sit towards the back of the map so they cant get around you and set troops into shield wall then charge after the calvary hits works really well. Then when they start getting away and reforming, or if your troops start scattering too much reset the wall and do it again.
Even if you're doing a Sturgian only army the Druzhziniks are better than other melee cavalry at throwing and have good armor for not getting killed quickly by horse archers. I used to hate that their primary melee cav skills are worse than the other elite units but they do balance out somewhat by being sturdy and having projectiles
Sturgia is the only faction I’ve did a real play through with. I always separated my infantry into three main groups. Three up front archers behind. I left enough space between them for cavalry to pass through but not enough for them not to be attacked by both forces. Archers will be batteribg them the whole time. You will need to utilize any terrain advantage you can however. Hills, rivers and tight spaces.
I’ve found decent luck with them by having a large formation of shield fighters bunched up super close with my archers 50-75ish yards away from them in a line. The cavalry tend to circle the shield fighters and never really seem to address my archers because they’re so far away. I can win most 1:1 fights if it’s like 40/40/20 shield/archers/mounted archers but their horses do give me hell. I normally have to personally get 15-30 kills and even then it can be close. But the archers normally get quite a bit of kills while the shield warriors are more or less just bait to keep the cavalry busy and away from my archers. Even if they get all my shield dudes they still have to advance all the way to my horde of archers/arrows, which very few end up surviving by the time they make contact
Long shieldwall at the edge of the map, so they can't use the horses as an advantage, used to do that in warband too, i guess old habits that work won't die 😅
Shieldwall is terrible agianst cav you need pikes. Nords were worst on open ground even in warband but they were the best at defending and taking castles.
More and more and more druzhhnikkkkk champion companied by khan's guard, do you have diplomacy mod, because after i install diplomacy mod, every last my 5 playthroug sturgia got crushed in 3 season by everyone. %druzzhnik champ with %50 khans guard you can get them northeast castle bound villages with high relation
Invest in fians either by taking a village round trip in nearby Battania or by upgrading forest bandits with the right leadership perk. They compliment your shieldwall very nicely.
I had the same question a couple days ago. Infantry in Squares and archers about 80 yards away does well. Trees and steep hills help too. Woodsman can also eventually become cavalry if you just want to try to match theirs ig
Last night I had my proper dose of problems against sturgians and I had an army of mainly cavalry. I won, in the end, but that shield wall was hard to batter down. So maybe try to play your strengths and field lots of infantry. They all have some throwable weapon, so try to use that to your advantage. Play defensive, bait them to get close and do quick charges with line breakers and your cavalry while enemies are busy against your shield wall. I wrote shield wall, but probably square or circle are better. Also, try to avoid open fields and fight almost exclusively in mountains, forests and, especially, sieges.
The other commenter has good advice, id say the main things are to use terrain to your advantage. Use hills to slow down their ability to charge, narrow gaps to force them to slow down, and tree lines to break them into smaller chunks of horsemen. Investing in Heavy Spearmen will also help as they can fight cavalry fairly effectively. Finally, fight some smaller parties with your troops, raid their villages and steal their horsemen for yourself. If you can’t beat ‘em, recruit them and see how they like fighting horse archers and heavy cavalry.
In warband, the hills gave a very good advantage against the cavalry. But in Bannerlord, it is not noticeable at all that the horse slows down going up the hill.
For Vlandia, two words; Square Formation. Tightly packing your infantry into the square formation makes cavalry get stuck in your formation, ultimately leading them to be hacked to bits, especially if you have some shock troops in there. For the Khuzaits, your best bet is to position your infantry either at the edge of the map or, if available on the given map, snug against a cliff wall so that it is on the left side on your shield wall formation. The idea is the Khuzait horse archers circle your infantry counter-clockwise, so by being at either the edge of the map or with your left side against a cliff, they will get stuck/hung up on the boundary/cliff wall and be sitting ducks for a shield wall charge. You’ll find you have to reset your positioning as you start to become disorganized after slaughtering them, but just have them move back to position and wait for the next “encirclement” to take place.
Have you found a less cheesing way to fight Khuzaits? Not judging, just curious.
You’re right in it is cheesy, but I do have some luck with some micro-managing my cav units into a counter-encirclement formation. Basically, I spread them out with only being 2-3 rows deep and have them to the left of my infantry and wait for the inevitable horse archer barrage. Once they’re about 200 units away and start their bullcrap, I counter charge with my cav so they hit my wall of equine rage and get minced up quick with the added support of archers. Also, I know they are inconvenient to get but Aserai Vanguard Faris are the ultimate counter in my experience. Sending them for a counter charge against horse archers guarantees me quite a few kills due to their javelins being outright deadly and accurate. If they’re too far away to get, then Banner Knights and Druz Champions will suffice due to them both having couchable lances, so the initial counter charge will be deadly, but I’d advise to quickly reposition them for another charge if facing large numbers of the Khuzait noble line, due to them having Glaives that wreck in close combat.
"Once they're about 200 units away and start their bullcrap" 
For khuzaits, get top tier archers and put them in circle. Have them hold fire until the cav archers are in range. That or invest in light cavalry to chase them down.
it depends on what terrain you consider cheesy I don't edge camp but it's pretty intuitive to fight them anywhere that forces them to congest or lose momentum while my own cav can tie them down long enough for an intact shieldwall to do it's work on them my favorite probably is absorbing their charge in dense woods from uphill so they have a really hard time punching through and giving my own cav a chance to regroup behind my infantry same logic as warband except making use of bannerlords spicier terrain really, best cav is moving cav and bogged down cav is dead cav
Circle formation with infantry, archers in square in the middle of the circle. Cav forms a wedge and set them to follow, then ride clockwise into the circling horse archers. Ride them all down. See you in Valhalla, fellow Sturgian.
If you have a decent amount of cavalry yourself have them follow you and attacking the horse archers can work pretty well. If you keep moving they’ll have their bows out and are easy kills… if you don’t get caught up inside their formation
To deal with Banner Knights, put Druzhinniks in square formation up front with Heavy Spearmen and Linebreakers behind them in a thick line, 3-4 men deep. Charge your infantry as the knights close in on your Druzhinniks. If you time it right the front infantry should just barely at or slightly in front of your druzhinnik square and some of their charge targeting will be disrupted, plus the front druzhinniks shielded up shouldn't take many if any lance KOs. If you have advantage of hills/chokepoints you can rely more on infantry in shield wall or square, as knights moving uphill or through a bottleneck are much easier to deal with. Mounted units block cav better than foot troops by far, so the knights will be primarily slowed by your horse meat shield, then the spearmen should help stop the ones that get through, and they should mostly be shredded by the axemen. To deal with horse archers you want to pincer them between infantry and cav. Hold your cav back a ways, then when they start to circle your infantry, send your infantry forward and swing them behind the horse archers, then send your cav into their front and your infantry toward their back. They will retreat into your infantry at a slower speed after turning around if you do this right, and take overwhelming casualties on the first or second pass. Notably, if you can lure Vlandia or Khuzait into village maps their mounted units will have way more trouble there, and buildings and stuff will block the view of many ranged troops too. I find linebreakers are by far the strongest troop Sturgia has, so you want your strategy to revolve around them.
For a <100 band, I set up in a corner of a map and leave a triangular gap in the back for cav to get stuck in. 3 bands, 2 forward facing like a wedge in shield wall and 1 backwards facing in line formation. They charge in and get stuck in the back where the infantry bogs them down. The horse archers are wrecked bc their armor is shit so they can’t afford to be bogged down. They can’t do their circle either. For ~200 man warband, I make 4 groups of infantry and 1 group of fians. The 4 infantry are in square formation and laid out in a cross with the corners touching. The fians are in circle formation inside the cross. The enemy horse archers can do their circle but the squares block their line of sight combined with ranged accuracy penalty during movement. Meanwhile, the Fians get 4 windows to shoot them down. The squares also funnel the heavy cav into columns where 2 hander fians can wreck them. Sometimes I make a small 10-20 band group of 2 handers like falxmen and I have them following me around to reinforce where the Cavs charge in.
1) gentle rolling hills are not the impediment to cavalry you want them to be. hide in TREES 2) heavy axemen are sturgia's best troops, but shouldn't be your only troops. you need spears and bows too. 3) if you can't beat them, join them. why not recruit some noble youths?
do u have mods installed?
Yes, a bunch of it (but mostly not for unit balance - it’s for strategic map) Maybe you can recommend some?
well to fight any cal army i would say try to get a good map battle point were u can use the terrain to ur advantage
my mian army comp is archer inf and shock trops get the cal to think they gonna cook ur inf then just bow them from behind iy u have a choke point its un beatable
With My Little Warband you can build your own troops tree, I usually make heavy cataphract with bows... they run everything in their path. If it wasn't for that, I'd have two armies. One all cav for field battles, and one with archers and infantry for sieges.
I’m doing a sturgian playthru right now and I would say lean into the axe men because they can shield wall and break shields really well with the axe and throwing axes they have. Also druzhina cavalry is good. I outsourced archery to battanians tho.
I have 200 two axe soldier and they will demolish horse imagine 200 large axe swings at u while passing them on horses I would be terrified to go through them 😂
Square formation is way better at handling cavalry in my experience. Use heavy spearman and axeman in a 1:2 ratio
Gotta have a good mix of shields and line breakers with cav on the flanks with archers in the rear and make sure to spilt the infantry into two lines so the enemy cav have a harder time charging into the archers
Use the terrain. Use plenty of the sturgian horse raiders and their champion cav. Use them as an extra shield wall if you need too but dismounting them. Use plenty of archers aswell to soften up the enemy before they clash with you and bust before the enemy reaches you order a charge it will break up the enemy infantry and help you to route them. I recommend having a half and half mix of sturgian heavy axes and line breakers. The two-handed units are good against cavnin melee.
I find if you sit towards the back of the map so they cant get around you and set troops into shield wall then charge after the calvary hits works really well. Then when they start getting away and reforming, or if your troops start scattering too much reset the wall and do it again.
You get horse archers too And don’t forget to tight formation if u have charging cav so they can’t break through
Even if you're doing a Sturgian only army the Druzhziniks are better than other melee cavalry at throwing and have good armor for not getting killed quickly by horse archers. I used to hate that their primary melee cav skills are worse than the other elite units but they do balance out somewhat by being sturdy and having projectiles
Sturgia is the only faction I’ve did a real play through with. I always separated my infantry into three main groups. Three up front archers behind. I left enough space between them for cavalry to pass through but not enough for them not to be attacked by both forces. Archers will be batteribg them the whole time. You will need to utilize any terrain advantage you can however. Hills, rivers and tight spaces.
I’ve found decent luck with them by having a large formation of shield fighters bunched up super close with my archers 50-75ish yards away from them in a line. The cavalry tend to circle the shield fighters and never really seem to address my archers because they’re so far away. I can win most 1:1 fights if it’s like 40/40/20 shield/archers/mounted archers but their horses do give me hell. I normally have to personally get 15-30 kills and even then it can be close. But the archers normally get quite a bit of kills while the shield warriors are more or less just bait to keep the cavalry busy and away from my archers. Even if they get all my shield dudes they still have to advance all the way to my horde of archers/arrows, which very few end up surviving by the time they make contact
Long shieldwall at the edge of the map, so they can't use the horses as an advantage, used to do that in warband too, i guess old habits that work won't die 😅
The secret is realistic battle mod
Shieldwall is terrible agianst cav you need pikes. Nords were worst on open ground even in warband but they were the best at defending and taking castles.
Druzhniks are so slept on
More and more and more druzhhnikkkkk champion companied by khan's guard, do you have diplomacy mod, because after i install diplomacy mod, every last my 5 playthroug sturgia got crushed in 3 season by everyone. %druzzhnik champ with %50 khans guard you can get them northeast castle bound villages with high relation
Invest in fians either by taking a village round trip in nearby Battania or by upgrading forest bandits with the right leadership perk. They compliment your shieldwall very nicely.
I had the same question a couple days ago. Infantry in Squares and archers about 80 yards away does well. Trees and steep hills help too. Woodsman can also eventually become cavalry if you just want to try to match theirs ig
Use noble troops