Jarl Cavalry

Overall strategy
The noble caste of Norse society, Jarl Cavalry form the civic and military elites of their communities, and as such, have a variety of special abilities associated with the culture and world they live in.

While they do deal added damage versus Norse Hirdmenn and Vikingr, Jarl Cavalry, in truth, are extremely poor fighters, if pitted against Lancers or superior heavy cavalry. This means that Jarls in general are good for ploughing over early game Norse armies, and defending against light infantry and cavalry, but perform poorly if attacked by Lancers - and should be kept away from heavy infantry wherever you find them.

Still, this heavily discounted metal cost has its own perks: Spearmen and Longships should be easier to obtain. Equally, this lower production cost also means that Jarls can be nearly created by mere trading alone, since their metal costs are fairly meagre as heavy cavalry units go &mdash; but because of the difficulties in amassing Wealth and Metal, it might be better for the Norse player to ignore training Jarl Cavalry altogether, and instead train Horsemen and Javelin Cavalry units instead to supplement the ranks of Axemen and Vikingr which would have been amassed earlier on. On the other hand, their attack bonus against low-tier Norse infantry should not be overlooked.