View Full Version : Best Cavalry Killer
Cavalry is a strong force in the right hands. We see history repeats itself from Agincourt (finest French Cavalry, out numbering English force by at least 3/1) to M:TW MP battle where tempetious knights charge blindly straight from the front the defence. With same disastrous results.
However, in the right hands, cavalry with its speed, strong charge, good armour and good fighting skills is an awesome force. History again repeats from Mongol Horde which is predominently cavalry to M:TW's finest generals.
Since there are many types of spears/halbardiers/pikes that could do the job staving off the opponent cavalry (including fielding your own cavalry), one must be careful to pick them.
The best Anti-Cav unit is the Janissary Heavy Infantry (Jan.H.). This all a round, stable unit has 3/1 att/def agaist cav bonus, bonus vs. armour (most fearsome heavy cav has armour, so this could add from 2 to 3 to the attack). The combat stat is more than decent: 4/5/3 charge/melee/defense. This unit does not only stop but kill horses. It has high morale of 8, so this guy won't run away.
The Jan. H. has several problem though. It is one of the most expensive units (750), it is not available in Early era and it is only exclusively Turkish.
Let's use the Jan. H. as the base for comparison. Let's have Jan. H. fight Lancer, the best Cav of comparable cost. Jan.H. has 0.019*1.2^(5+3+3-7) ~= 0.04 (edit) while Lancer could kill Jan.H. at the rate of 0.022. This is to have mano-amano fight. The almost double kill rate of the Jan.H. makes the numerical superiority even larger when the number of Cav dwindle.
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I need to go now, will come back later to continue this discussion
Annie
After stating the obvious in a length post, I'll try to keep it terse.
The Catholic Factions has the Chivalric Sergent (Ch.Serg.) at 40% of cost (300), this unit has 100 men (vs 60), slightly slower (6/10/11 vs 6/12/13) worst combat skill (5/-1/3 vs 4/5/3), less lethal anti cav. (1/4 vs 3/1), no bonus vs. armour, and coward (0 vs. 8), (edit: shield bonus +1 in melee).
The -1 in melee is problematic, also the morale of 0. The chance to kill are: 0.005 and 0.013 for Ch.Serg. and Lancer respectively. We see here that the Ch.Serg. merely hold the Lancer in place. The Ch.Serg. must make use of the +5 charge to improve the chance of initial impact to 0.015.
As such and put on 'F' and 'H', the Ch.Serg. would simply hold the cav in place, not really kill it.
Since we are looking for anti-cav property, let's not upgrade the armour of Ch.Serg. Let's consider upgrade valour and weapon.
valour/weapon cost melee/def morale
0/0 300 -1/4 0
1/0 510 0/5 2
2/0 867 1/6 4
3/0 1473 2/7 6
0/1 414 0/4 0
0/2 575 1/4 0
0/3 788 2/4 0
1/1 703 1/5 2
(edit: add 1 to the def. due to shield bonus)
We see that upgrade to comparable cost with valour 0 Jan.H.(2/0 or 1/1) the Ch.Serg. would be able to hold Cavalry in place and win the war of attrition (due to 2.5 to 1 numerical superiority). But it surely is not a Cav. Killer.
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more on different units later...
Annie
Nice Post
As cav killers I have found JHI to be awesome. Also Billmen and Halberdiers fare well.
svnguyen
12-04-2002, 22:04
To defend and also kill Cavalry, I use a combination of 2 units.
100 Order Foot Soldiers 0/3 1/4 Cav Bonus + Large Shield to hold the cavalry unit in place. So their stats against cavalry is 1Att/9Def.
40 Chivalric Foot Knights 4/6/ 3/1 Cav Bonus to flank the cavalry and kill them. So their stats against cavalry is 7/7 which is plenty to kill those stupid charging cavalry units.
u think the cav attack ur spears?
or u try to attack with ur spears the enemy cav?
well, both wont work
Let me clarify a bit about the purpose of the original post: to identify the units that are best to hold off cav. The title of "Cav Killer" is perhaps a bit misleading.
Let me digress a bit here about the tactics:
Using two units to kill a cav is economically not feasible. If you use 2 units for 1 cav, the enemy would have 1 unit lose somewhere else to flank you, right there or somewhere else.
Kocmoc is right: there are "stupid charging cav" but in the hands of even below average general like myself, the Cav would not charge into spears nor let you charge spears into them (cav is faster, so they run away).
One of the cav tactic is to lure your spears units out to the open with 1 or 2 cav units feigning charge then retreat slowly.
I just played a game yesterday when I face a horde of cavalry in the hands of one of the top general. I was trying to bait the lancers but still with disastrous results. Should have chosen Turks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.
I wouldn't say that it won't ever work (trying to trap the cav and kill with another unit). In fact, using supped up pavise for such purpose was discussed earlier. Plus the fact that the arbalesters second row can still shoot at the cav make it a quite decent anti-cav unit.
Annie
i favorit unit to counter cav are spears or helbadiers or any other armoured bonuss unit.
but u cant hunt a cav with a h2h unit, thats clear
u have to make ur enemy attacks u, thats the trick, stretch the spears and u will win, just go slow, dont rush
Now that the Order Foot Soldier (Ord.Foot) is mentioned, let take a look at them. Ord.Foot has the following stats:
400/100 cost/men, 6/10/11 speed, 5/0/3 combat, 1/4 against cav., +1 shield bonus, 0 against armour bonus, 3 armour, 2 morale.
Against Lancer, it translates to: 1/8 against lancer's 5/7 stats. Mathematically, this translates to: 0.064 vs. 0.096, Ord.Foot vs. Lancer. The lancer still has some edge at the beginning and may lose out the war of attrition. Charging the cav from afar doesn't work, but charging it while it is about to attack would gain the Ord.Foot +4, but lose the defense bonus.
Howabout an upgrade or two?
An upgrade of 1/0 costs 680, gives 2/9 against cav.
An upgrade of 1/1 costs 938, gives 2/10 against cav. (even killing chance 0.019 *1.2^(2-7) against 0.019 *1.2^(5-10)).
An upgrade of 0/1 costs 761, gives 1/9 against cav.
Compared against Jan.H., the Ord.Foot is a bit pale in attack and clearly more defensive (reduce dead rate by half).
Compare the Ord.Foot to the Ch.Ser.: they have virtually identical stats, except Ord.Foot costs 100 (33%) more and have better melee (0/-1) and better morale (2/0). That means Ord.Foot is better buy, because at a weapon upgrade (to about same cost with Ord.Foot) the Ch.Ser. has worst morale.
And I was parading with the Ch.Ser. for a long while now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. At least I achieve partially the objective of this exercise, I can eliminate Ch.Ser. in many circumstance from my army selection.
Annie
Yes you can eliminate the Chiv Sgt and use Order Foot.
Note:
The shield bonus for the Order Foot is +2 defense.
I'm wondering if it is worth considering the rankbonus for the Order Foot if it faces only one unit of horse.
That would make them (and we work from the correct 1/9 values) 2/11... certainly not bad. But then again the full bonus would only apply in about half the fighting, still I would say that is a good bonus.
Why does the Charge detract from the defense? I mean, the anti-cav bonus is inherent isn't it? Are there situations where it doesn't work? Then the charge should be worth it if you can manage it (unlikely)... but of course the charge itself would disrupt the formation a good deal.
Spears can get up to 2 supporting ranks. Pikes can get up to 4 supporting ranks. Add +1 to defense for each supporting rank and +1 to attack for every 2 supporting ranks. Add +1 to attack for each supporting rank if charging.
The Strategy Guide is ambiguous on the charge bonus from ranks because in another place it says add +1 to the charge for each supporting rank. If you do that then you would have 2/1/2 chg/att/def for two supporting ranks.
Another factor is the pushback effect. Each man has a chance of pushing back his opponent as they fight and rank support increases this chance. Also, a charging cavalryman will always pushback any infantryman who is not facing him with a spear, pike or polearm. When a man is pushed back, his attacker gets a +6 att on the next combat cycle.
What I meant about "losing defense bonus" is "losing supporting rank bonus" when you charge (out of formation). Well, I am trying to learn the rope here and some of what I said was wrong. Thanks guys to correct it, I will have to edit my post to make it right again. Euwww... Going through all these maths before... *** Whip out a calculator ***
Annie
nice thread http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif i seen lately many ppl bringing no spears at all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
LadyAnn,
If you charge over a short distance straight ahead, the spear or pike will remain in good order even if switched to engage-at-will, but the question for me is "Do I want to expose the flanks of the spear/pike unit?". You can see in the rank bonus thread that it's dangerous to expose the flank to attack, so these spears and pikes should fight as a group protecting each other's flanks. Also, these units are primarily defensive in nature, and are best used to hold a unit rather than destroy it. Since cav can disengage anyway, to kill cav you have to get another unit attacking the cav from behind. An alternative is to use a more powerful cav unit, and take on the enemy cav 1 on 1.
You can use spears in 50x2 deep formation and still retain +1 defensive and +1 charge bonus, although, the defensive bonus will drop off as you take casualties. An advantage of deeper formations with well protected flanks is that the unit will take casualties at a slower rate since the rank bonus is primarily defensive. This incurs less morale penalty and helps compensate for the lower morale that these spear and pike units have.
The point that LongJohn was trying to make and got ridiculed for, which seem to have become a passtime around here, is that if you have 8 spear units in deep formation, they will defeat 8 spear units in wide formation straight up because men in different units don't give each other rank support. It goes without question that you have to match the enemy's frontage, have some reserve units to effect a counterflanking maneuver or adopt a horse shoe or echelon shaped defense because this game is about flanking and the individual men in a unit can and do make flank attacks. However, thin lines have so little flank exposure, that it's not effective to hit them on the ends since it takes too long to break the unit that way. You have to beat them straight up or get on their backs.
I have lately come to the conclusion that the spears needs to be in Engage for them to utilize the charge bonus from the ranks, same for pikes btw.
I have so often seen nothing come of a spear charge into peasants or other low quality troops (yeah it was SP but we all know Peasant rebellions are weak). And I think the reason is that in Hold the unit might not charge into the enemy if the first spearman/pikeman does not pushback or kill his adversery. Besides this it is good to get the extra 2 to attack.
So from now on I will always let them go in Engage and set them back into Hold Formation when the charge is out.
vexatious
12-18-2002, 21:59
Quote[/b] (LadyAnn @ Dec. 04 2002,16:23)]Now that the Order Foot Soldier (Ord.Foot) is mentioned, let take a look at them. Ord.Foot has the following stats:
400/100 cost/men, 6/10/11 speed, 5/0/3 combat, 1/4 against cav., +1 shield bonus, 0 against armour bonus, 3 armour, 2 morale.
First of all, great thread Anne. I've enjoyed reading it immensely. Of course I am at work (with the door closed), so take that with a grain of salt. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Second, I have a question (and I do not mean to derail the thread by asking this here):
Elsewhere I have asked about sheild upgrades and been told that each sheild upgrade confers a +1/+1 bonus to defense/shield, respectively. I've also been told that shields only have an effect on incoming missiles and nothing else. In your post, however, your calculations include a "shield bonus." Can you explain this bonus? Is it different or the same as the "sheild" that is used to limit the effect of an incoming missile strike?
Thanks
vexatious
12-18-2002, 22:01
I think that I just found the answer to my question in the very next thread http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
I am, in no uncertain terms, an idiot.
No Vex, any question is great. I often found myself answering a question with half-knowledge and learn the other half when other people answered the same question, with full knowledge.
For completeness, even though you already found the answer elsewhere:
Shield bonus is the bonus added to the the defense stat when in melee (hand-to-hand combat) because the unit can use the shield to protect itself in a sword fight.
Shield bonus factor is either 0 (no shield bonus when melee), 0.5 (can use a bit) or 1 (full use of shield in melee). The factor is multiply by the type of shield (large=2, small=1, none=0) to give the shield bonus.
Just another way the dev throws into the picture to confuse the mass. It didn't take people long to figure out the imbalance http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Annie
Dionysus9
12-19-2002, 01:08
Quote[/b] (Kocmoc @ Dec. 04 2002,15:06)]u think the cav attack ur spears?
or u try to attack with ur spears the enemy cav?
well, both wont work
It's easy enough to pin enemy cav with some alans for long enough for spears to arrive and mop up.
Hmm I have just relized we have not discussed Hold Formation...
Order Foot fighting cav in three rows and is in Hold Formation:
Starts out at: 5/0/3+2
Add in the anti cav: 5/1/9
And then the Hold Formation: 5/-1/11
Finally the rank bonus: 7/0/13...
That is really some power in defense isn't it?
But we can't expect the rank bonus to count at all times and the cav will push into the formation of Order Foot.
But even if it only counts for the first 20 seconds or so it has great value in keepin your unit from taking any heavy losses.
If you manage to carry out a succesful charge while in Engage and in formation you can expect the cav to crumble before them. It would look like this: 7/2/11, so the hit on the cav would be 9/11... how many units can stand up to this.
Nobunaga0611
12-21-2002, 23:55
One of the things I like to do if I acutally have the possibility of not rushing my actions is, plant a unit of spears behind an arb unit. Use the arbs as bait to draw in the cav, get one shot off, then run them behind the spear line. The cav usually won't get out of range before the arb gets off another shot. It helps to move up the spears while the arbs are retreating, because each time you do this, it cuts down on the area the arbs have to travel while shortening the available area the cav has to retreat to.
Knight_Yellow
12-23-2002, 02:02
Dont know if any1 else realy remembers my armies but i take no spears at all in anyshape or form and yet i do better vs horses than almost any other general ive seen.
1 v0 merc gen
4 v4 chiv maa
4 v4 fued footknights
4 v4 1-3sword militia seargents
3 v3-4 catapults
well i usualy defend so heres my typical strategie
form the maa and knights into 1 line, each unit with 4 ranks then group the cats and put them about 3 unit spaces behind ur inf line, then group the militia and put them infront of ur cats but behind ur inf. keep ur gen well back.
when the enemy enter range target their front line with cats (hits more men) then charge them with ur inf and send ur militia round the flanks. usualy the enemy has 2-3 units calv send the militia straight into them and flank with anything u have available and almost always the calv loose 80% and ur militia only loose 10-2% plus militia r realy fast and great vs armour and excellent in the woods and vry cheap.
shingenmitch2
12-23-2002, 22:01
Yellow,
you seem to toot own horn a lot, but don't recall ever seeing u in foyer before.
You need to show me these camping techniques in a 3v3 sometime.
CaPeFeAr
12-24-2002, 05:25
i havent been posting at the org much recently....but i find this thread very interesting and i might be able to help in some small way. yuuki knows the stats far better than i do but if i remember correctly each indivdual troop has his own stats...the unit stat we see is the combined total of that unit ...not the stat for each soldier... picky eh? not really.... in a lancer unit with 7 attack and 9 armour....that would make each troop have a attack of 7/40 or around .19 (rounding cause no calculator handy) and a defense of 9/40 almost .23... but in an order foot soldier that value per soldier is much lower...say the have a defense of 10.... the each troop only has a defense of .1 ... this is one of the reasons that cav are so strong...
but that being said id also like to state that cav are just fine....they arent too strong..... its the spears that are too weak... imho the att and def values vs. cav should be about +4 higher than they are now.... 1 unit of spears should be able to kill 1 unit of cav twice the value of the spear...or 2 units of cav costing the same florin.... i cant rattle off stats for mongal or stw...but i think that was the feeling i had playing them....
btw ladyann.... the awnser to your original question is sacren infantry.... i believe they are the best anti cav unit... at v2 they have a cav defense of 11... costing about 900 florin... a bit low on the moral but so are other comparable units...ie sergents and foot soldiers.... but if you are using christian units i think u should try fudal sergents.... when u are testing cost and and stats..ect... look at their moral and compare that with other anti cav prospects...if u can stand up to the inital charge of a cav unit then u have won half the battle.
Orderfoot/Intianlight Infantry.....they have better melle than saracen.-1.....Orderfoot 0
Best cav killer is Swiss Pikemen cost 900....+2 attack against cav and +6 bonus versus Cav......So these IMO have got to be the best unit to stand up to kill..Maybe not the fastest cav killer though...I not tested these against Cav yet..Still workin on the weak faction first http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
But when lookin @ stats they do seem pretty good.Maybe somebody can tell me otherwise?Id be interested in hearin from ppl who use them..
Also another good cav killer has to be the Halberdiers...armour piercing....attack +3 against cav with a +1 defence against cav...cost 300 base...use around v2 or v3 should do a good job http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif
heheh maybe after i been plyin for more than a week i will know more about units..Many to test yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif
The best anti-cav unit is hard to say. You have spears/pikes at a 100 unit size, which cav don't get a charge bouns head on and slowly die off when fighting head on. You have other units, which have armor piercing and a bouns vs cav that kill cav faster, but most of those are 60 and 40 unit sizes that don't stand up to cav charges well. So, really i don't think there is a best cav killer unit, it's more like a combination of the two.
I would use the following units to block cavalry (other then cavalry of course http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ): chiv.srg, orderfoot, italian inf., saracen inf., and pikemen. I would use the following units to kill cavalry once blocked: billmen, swiss halberdiers, chiv.foot knights, janissary heavy inf., and pikemen http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Facing a full cav charge, I'll put my v2 orderfoot or v3 chi.sgt at the centre on hold, and high morale v2 swiss halberdiers, v3 halberdiers (very ex) or v1 jan h.inf at the flanks, backed by cavs to attack when enemy cav flank around (not earlier). The halberdiers has weak morale so gotta watch them closely.. they need to have buddy by their sides to be good. The morale 6 orderfoot/chi.sgt at the centre protected on the flank should hold good and long I think. Have never use feudal.sgt or spearman cos I dont quite like them vs cav.
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