Cavalry Armies

[Eastside Character]

Just wanted to ask if you like cavalry armies. I like them a lot, especially light cavs. of eastern factions. Even the generic HA are great if properly used. Turcoman Horses, Szekey, Golden Horde Horse Archers, Heavy Steppies, Faris, Boyars, i just love them all. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-blush.gif

But heavier units are also good for me, i only dont like those slow Kathapraktoi and Gothic Knights.

I like to create armies composed of cavalry units only. Of course sometimes i need to use infantry, i try to use as many cavs as i can tho.

I think its all a matter of battle tactics, and since the AI is worse than a human player(and only pretends to be an expert) cavalry armies are capable to destroy any infantry(or mixed) armies.

Another reason i like cavs so much is that they move faster than infantry, battles are shorter and more dynamic.
I think i dont need to remind anybody how many enemies can be captured with all those cavs, infantry wouldnt do that so well.

And for the prisoners i come when i invade. I burn, i pillage, i take slaves, leaving only one woman per village alive so others will hear about my coming, and will fear me, and leave their houses, and flee before my coming only to be captured or killed a year later Let there be known to the world the name of the great Nogai Horde and her Khan GAH http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-party2.gif

Thanks for any replies,
EC

[crojo]

I had to fight a Novogrodian army made up of 6 boyars and 8 horse archers. It was the most annoying thing in the entire world.

Stupid skirmish, get back here http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[Crash]

Calvary armies are more fun, I agree, but can never defeat an army of elite infantry. I would never be able to defeat the Golden Horde with a calvary army, but I have defeated them many times with average infantry troops.

An army of arbalesters and elite archers protected by high morale spear, billmen, or pike units with armor and shields on high ground will slaughter any calvary army that is foolish enough to press an attack.

It is a matter of numbers really. Infantry units are larger than calvary units, and there is no such thing as a mounted arbalester in MTW. The calvary units will eventually be worn down by combat against against infantry units deployed in a good defensive position.

Calvary units are great for pursuing the retreating enemy and capturing large numbers of prisoners, or delivering a flanking or diversionary attack or overrunning exposed archers, but these are just speciality roles.

[Lord Armbandit]

I find you have to strike the right balance, as in all things. To crush your enemy comprehensively, (e.g. ensure the same army does not return to bother you) cavalry are essential to hunt down his retreating troops. Also, as when you come up against an army full of cavalry (Like poor frustrated Crojo)you need some at least in order to flank and trap them before they can withdraw and regroup yet again.

As Crash says though, it is on the defensive when you really need the infantry. Only they (spears) can soak up the punishment, only they (Longbows and arbalesters) can tear armoured units apart a hundred yards or more away.

It is more fun attacking with a large number of cavalry, but any army and any general worth their salt should be able to inflict massive losses on such a one-sided army, given the advantages over real life given by total war. (like the movable camera and having your back to the edge of the map so you can't be encircled)

[Robin Locksly]

Me and some player decided to create some good caverly tactics. We played 6 games in a row with cav ONLY and we lost 5 and only won 1 game

Its very very hard to win with cav only.

[Glory]

The best thing about cavalry armies is easily out flanking the enemy. There slow infantry wouldn't be able to keep up. Plus a cavalry charge can be very destructive on the enemy end.

[The_Emperor]

Cavalry Armies are great because of the mobility...

Hit and Run attacks, the ability to outflank with ease all make Cav Armies great fun to use http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ht_charge.gif

But of course they are not tanks, and next time you see a tight defensive formation of Swiss Armoured Pikemen your gonna wish you had brought some good infantry along

A good balanced mix of infantry and cavalry is equipped for most situations you can expect to encounter on the battlefield.

[Tepes]

I have never tried to use all-cavalry armies, but I guess that might be fun.
I think you have almost no chance of defeating a solid infantry army (composed of elite units like chivalric sargents or man at arms of all sorts)only with cavalry.
And these cavalry armies can also be a waste of money. It is cheaper to use armies based on infantry rather than have 16 units of knights.

[Seven.the.Hun]

if u know what u are up against, and u know u will win anyway, all cavalry will work perfectly...mobility and cavalry charges will take u a long way...to be prepared though, reserving 2 to 4 infantry units to back up the cavalry if need be is best

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-juggle.gif

[Black Arrow]

Agree that the mobility and striking power of good cavary is valuable but there are lots of situations where this will work against you

Bridge battles, sieges, heavy weather and heavily wooded slopes will not be much fun.

Harold held of the cavalry-heavy Normans at Hastings for nearly a whole day with Huscarls and fyrdmen

Katsuyori Shingen came horribly unstuck at nagashino losing four cavalry divisions to defended musketeers and his clan never recovered.

I needn't mention Agincourt... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-surprised.gif

MTW gives you quite a high degree of control over cavalry. Much more so than is probable historically in the medieaval era. As late as 1650, English cavalry just charged and ....kept going

[DeadRunner]

Quote[/b] (Black Arrow @ Feb. 18 2004,07:05)]
Katsuyori Shingen came horribly unstuck at nagashino losing four cavalry divisions to defended musketeers and his clan never recovered.

you can play this in shogun
choise oda campaing is the last misson i think

[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] (DeadRunner @ Feb. 18 2004,07:13)]

Katsuyori Shingen came horribly unstuck at nagashino losing four cavalry divisions to defended musketeers and his clan never recovered.

you can play this in shogun
choise oda campaing is the last misson i think
I played both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi campaigns, and yes i know that cavs have their weaknesses.

I just like them very much and its more fun for me to use cavalry than infantry. I like harassing the enemy in numerous skirmishes before i take a province. It's just my style.

Regards,
EC

[Crazy Duke]

I like cavalry very much, especially when they start chasing. Depending on terrain I use light or havy and also depending if I defend or attack.

Hobilars, Steppe and mounted seargeants are my faforite light cavalry, Fedudal Knights and Kataphraktoi are my best havy.

On the attack I use minimum 4 unit of cavalry to kill the enemy missile units, and minimum 2 when defending to do the same job.

[makkyo]

if you have an entire calvary army, simply suround and destroy enemy units that may become isolated from the main body of their army. SKIRMISH hehehe

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I love all cavalry armies...only problem is the maps are really too small. Also is fun to bring say 10 cavalry and 6 shock troops, hide the shock troops in the woods and lure your enemy to them with the cavalry.

Both of these armies work well, even in MP.

[Knight Keimo]

I would like to say, that all-cavalry armies are most usefull in defence. I agree, attacking against infantry army on a good defencive position ends up in misery too many times.. But a good defensive position means a hill terrain to me, cavalry is not suppose to use there. But on a good, flat cavalry terrain its quite tricky to loose.

Here´s how you do it:
Divide your cavalry into three part. When the enemy start aproaching, start surround it. Send one group (4-5 unit) to flank behind enemy, one group straight forward and one to near the enemys rear/wing. It´s all about timing, and here´s how it´s suppose to go; Command the group near enemy wing to wedge formation and charge it into enemy wing so that they form one huge wedge. And now Quickly charge your second group into head-on attack against enemys centre. At this time, enemys wing has taken heavy losses and has lost formation and wawering. Then simply attack to enemy flank with your last group (yeah, it has to get there first somehow, but that´s another story) and usually at this point enemys wing will run and center fall after that. Simple... If you are not confident with yourself, take one HA that will cause morale penalty to enenmy by shotin them. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif

[Brutal DLX]

I do like all cav armies, I will try to field Egyptian and Turkish all cav armies in Early and High in my next campaigns.
I often use cav heavy armies when playing the Byzantines or Hungarians.
For the Byz, 2 Kataphraktoi, 3 Pronoai, 2 Lancers, 3 Byz cav, then foot a contingent of 2 Byz Infantry, 2 Varangians and 2 Trebizond Archers. I usually open the fight with 4 or 6 horse archers that withdraw once they've spent their arrows.
It's quite fun and devastating too. Especially when you can beat the Mongols at their own game and rejoice when your Pronoais clash with the Mongol heavy cav utterly destroying them in the process. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[fruitfly]

I like using all cav armies when playing in early as the Turks.

Turcoman horse and HAs are perfect Katank/Varangian guard/byz inf killers, whilst a few units of AHC will take care of any enemy archers or light cavalry such as Alans.

Coupled with their mobility, there's not a lot the enemy can do to stop you.

The only problem cav-heavy armies have is fighting camel-heavy armies in the desert, but as the Turks you can train Bedouin camel warriors too and beat the Egyptians at their own game.

Armies composed of hordes of chivalric knights can be devastating too. If the enemy looks spear-heavy on the pre-battle screen, then you can simply dismount a few units into CFKs to give your army a better balance.

I prefer a more traditional approach when defending though, as camping on a hill and filling the advancing enemy with metal bolts and lead is a very efficient way of destroying their army.

[LoST RaiNDRoP]

cavs are cool.. but its a bad idea to use only cavs and nothing other else... one thing that can defeat the cav easily is the spears and the foot knights. even if the foot soldiers are surrounded they stand a big chance of winning... thats IF they are lined up properly in a circle (covering all flanks)... there was one time when i was up against a peron in MTW that used nothing but cav. his first front attack was a disaster for him. my spears held their places... then i was surrounded so i made a circle (reminds me of LOTR:ROTK, at their last battle in the gate of mordor) ...well.. he attacked but it still didnt do any damage to me.. just few casualties for me and large casualties for him... then only thing that made him win was with his allies help (i can imagine him going http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-help.gif) that used foot soldiers instead of cavs...

[Kulgan]

There's so many units who have bonusses against Cavalry, spearmen of all kinds, polearms, billmen, pikeymen...
I don't see how an all cavalry army can ever defeat a square of these troops with inside good achers and arbelasters ( when the cav is on the offense )

I'm an infantry guy, but I use several units of cavalry in most of my battles.

[makkyo]

Elemantry dear whatson http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
(and thinking) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Glory]

You use abunch of Calvary archers to destory much of their force. Then you try to surround them attacking from all sides. Usually they'll rout after a few seconds.

[Ragss]

I tried a all cav invasion against a crappy but large army. I came out on top but lost 80% of my best horses...ill never do that again.

[gaijinalways]

I think I like the idea of someone attacking with an all cavalry group. On level ground it can be quick, but if you are defending you have to keep your troops together as the cavs hit quickly but as long as you are protected you can keep raining fire on them. On attack it's more difficult to sometimes corner all the cavalry. Better to get them to rout if possible. Slowly press them and keep attacking, using the terrain to your advantage. Some of my archers even routed some of the feudal cavalry that attacked me in the woods in one battle

[Senta]

Hi everybody, this is officially my first post at these boards. I've browsed them for at least a month before actually deciding to take part in discussion.
Some good conversation going on here

On topic: armies consisting of cavalry only, are not always the best choice. Almost always, high valor, well trained and upgraded troops of riders can win any given battle, but losing a lot of people in the fight. Most of my Polish army is made out of cavalry, heavy knights, plus retainers, but i always keep a base of strong infantry units, i just don't like losing my troops in uphill forest chargers against swiss pike men :)

[Eastside Character]

Welcome to the Org. Senta http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Senta]

Quote[/b] (Eastside Character @ Feb. 21 2004,08:42)]Welcome to the Org. Senta http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
Hey
thanks a lot Eastside Character
btw my mom is Polish, and i lived in Olsztyn as a kid

[Ragss]

Since im playing turks and have 2 provs churning out nonstop heavy janissaries an all calv army is just meat for my meat grinder. I defended a 2 bridge level (kazzar err something like that i think) with 120 jan heavies, 60 futtuwas, and 40 turcoman horses against 2000 mongolians and came out WAY on top.

[katar]

i`ve done a couple of all cavalry and all Jinete battles.

the jinete battle is posted elsewhere on the site.

in another battle with the alhomods(sp) i was defending with cavalry (not something i like to do with cavalry).
i had a mixture of mounted sargents, jinetes and with four full units of Knights of Santiago.

even though i was defending i chose to use them offencively, and placed them as far forward as possible, opposite where i thought the enemy would deploy.

i alternated all of the units down the line; jinete, sargent, knight, jinete.... and so on.
all units were put into wedge formation, engage at will on.

as soon as the enemy appeared (luckily they were only slightly off from where i thought they would be) i made every single unit charge at a seperate enemy unit and then sat back to watch the fireworks. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

man... talk about a deathride, well it was more of a masacre really, those guys held together for about fifteen seconds and the whole lot routed, as my cav were already on engage at will they just followed their assigned targets all the way towards the edge of the map (i think about thirty or forty enemy troops made it safely, the rest were history).

i had to regroup all of my troops ASAP because the next wave of enemy troops were entering the map.

as the enemy just decided to sit there i was able to make a semicircle of cav around their entry point and ininiated another coordinated charge aginst them, as the horses were very tired i started to loose a lot of them, but in the end i managed to rout the enemy again and ended the battle.

i don`t usually do full frontal attacks, even when i`m attacking

but i think using cavalry offencively in a defenceive setting was the only real way i could have won the fight. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif

[Yussuf]

As an infantry man myself i would say that infantry is the backbone of every army, everything else is just for support http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Somebody Else]

I'm usually more of a shock infantry user, but recently I was forced to defend a bridge against two stacks of turks - a fairly balnced army, with saracen infantry, futuwwas, muwahids... oh yeah, and their Sultan. Arrayed against them was my Grand Prince, with his bodyguard unit, another unit of boyars, one of horse archers and one unit of archers. 6 stars on my side, 4 on theirs. I just made sure I kept hitting the flanks of whoeever came over the bridge. Having the boyars shooting helped. In the end, ~600 of theirs dead, ~200 captured and ~150 of mine dead.

It was on expert, so the AI supposedly wasn't at it's worst.

[Gregoshi]

Quote[/b] (Yussuf @ Feb. 23 2004,18:44)]As an infantry man myself i would say that infantry is the backbone of every army, everything else is just for support http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
That's kind of a Drive for show, putt for dough philosophy Yussuf. Sound thinking for sure, but cav are nice to have around in the middle of winter when the food runs short... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-chef.gif

BTW, welcome to the Org Yussuf. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[octavian]

depending on WHO your fighting lite cav armies can be great, unfortunatly, your soldiers get ticked if you run around to much (i donno if cav. archers have a bonus against this) but yea, against some enemies, cav. is great, i sometimes have a wing of about 18 to 20 cav. units with some of my huge armies (12,000 boyz when on default size):jawdrop:

[Eastside Character]

Exactly, a warrior with a bow and a sword, equipped also with a shield, riding a fast steed, is an ideal soldier for any eastern general


Regards,
EC

[nightcrawlerblue]

I love to use cavalry armies but I usually include 1-4 spearmen. I use the spearmen to soak up damage while I charge into the flanks with the cavalry.