So anyone else given up completely on cavalry?

[Jacobin]

As the title says - I love cavalry and my favourite TW armies were all-cavalry Parthians or Byzantines - but so nerfed are cavalry in STW2 that I no longer recruit any at all.

I did experiment with a couple of yari or katana cavalry per stack but found them so fragile as to be next to useless.

I do miss slaughtering routers but I find once you've recruited good quality matchlocks and archers there are generally no enough left for them to need more than your general.

[Maltz]

Cavalry probably requires a completely different play style. It is worth digging into. For example, we have to ditch the concept of "line". We have nothing to hold the line. We have also to ditch the concept of archer duel. Our Bow Cavalry will be shot to pieces. We have to learn to love bad weather, because the opponent gets tired and routs more easily on bad weather.

But early game we probably still have to get through with Ashigaru, and only after getting rich can we start thinking about an all-Cavalry army. All-Cavalry army probably require a lot of micro-management on individual units.

[Nelson]

Cavalry is too useful to eschew altogether although I agree that you don’t need much. Yari armed infantry is so common that any cavalry must be used with caution.

I find that light cav is fine for whatever needs doing by horsemen. They can catch and kill command units and routers alike and are cheap compared to other cavalry. I do raise other mounted unit types but just for variety and fun. Horse archers can be a hoot if you don’t mind micromanaging them.

[Jacobin]

My point is that cavalry units are redundant even in a balanced stack.

The bow cavalry are useless in the mid-late game when you can recruit them as their arrows won't penetrate the armour of samurai units and their own crap armour and small unit size makes them incapable of winning a missile duel against foot archers.

If the AI was as dumb as in previous TW games and recruited whole stacks without archers or fast cavalry this wouldn't matter - but on the whole it does field balanced armies.

And the yari cavalry are too fragile to survive a melee with anything other than bow ashigaru.

Historically horse archery was dominant in the Heian and Kamakura period but little used in the Sengoku Jidai - but the Takeda did make good use of yari samurai cavalry.

Someone did say they recruited an entire stack of katana cavalry which routed everything in one great charge - but where's the tactics in that?

[Maltz]

If your "balanced stack" means "Bow infantry + Yari infantry + Shock infantry", and maybe plus camping in a corner, then Cavalry is indeed redundant. You can do better without them. Even in regular infantry-majority battles, Cavalry's roles are largely reduced, because "the line" is where the main action takes place.

So maybe try all-cavalry and see if you can figure out a totally different tactics. It must be fun!

[frogbeastegg]

They're closer to a luxury than a necessity IMO. Most of the tasks I use them for could be performed by other units, albeit at a slower speed, or can be left until a later phase in the battle. Convenience.

I have settled on 2 units of cavalry per army, either yari or katana depending on what infantry types I am focusing on. I don't tend to recruit them until I can get them a bunch of upgrades. They are primarily there for chasing routers, and for exploiting situations with speed. I'll use them to rush out and smash unprotected archers, or to run around the enemy line to hit it in the centre-rear whilst my flanking infantry descend on the outer edges. In defensive castle battles, I like to send them out one gate to hit isolated units outside my walls. That's about it.

I wouldn't use more than 2 plus general as that reduces the effectiveness of my army overall. It's not unusual for me to roll without any cavalry aside from my general for the first half of the game. There are battles where my cavalry is reduced to a spectator role until the enemy breaks. After most battles where they see action, each unit has lost over half its number, if not more. I'm terrible at keeping them alive!

[Jacobin]

Two does indeed seem the max for an effective army which is very different to previous TW games where even in NTW I'd have at least 4 (2 heavy and 2 light).

Plus most of my battles seem to be siege defences - the few field battles are usually so one sided I auto resolve and cav are worse than useless in a siege.

Would love to experiment with an all-cav army but I am slogging my way through each clan at legendary domination level so with time against me I've never had the luxury of experimentation...

Frogbeastegg - thanks again for the superb guide - your chequer board formation is the only way I've ever got matchlocks to work in this game.

[Jarmam]

Cavalry has 1 massive advantage over all other units - mobility. A unit of No-Dachis, apart from the whole getting-shot-to-pieces-before-they-even-connect-with-an-enemy, simply cannot threaten as many points in the enemy formation as a unit of cavalry can as they're much slower and thus much easier to zone. A group of Yari Cavalry can threaten the entire enemy rear from practically any position behind his line. This also means that they naturally get weaker as they get more numerous, since you don't need 4 squads to hit 1 weak point - 1 will easily suffice with perhaps another to threaten a counterattack at a new point if the enemy tries to rearrange his spears in accordance to your first charge. This is also why I always try to rush a stables for Light Cavalry as there is simply nothing in the game that can fill the role that Light/Yari Cav can (Katanas are way different as they're slower but can dominate a tough melee against non-spears). Its actually pretty brilliantly balanced and Cavalry feels very much in place in Shogun 2 compared to something like Rome, where Cataphracts/Praetorian Cavalry could counter absolutely everything in the whole game (except archer chariots but thats a whole other discussion) due to being practically free and virtually uncounterable for non-Egypt/Brittania on top of being lightningly fast for a muscle unit.

I played an all-cavalry army as Takeda on Legendary, relying on primarily Katana and Bow Cavalry with a few Yaris and Fires to rout weakened units and hit enemy generals, but I predict no future for it as its both incredibly tedious to micromanage and simply ineffective if the enemy has more than 1/3 of his melee made up of spears or Naginata (fewer than that and your Bows will pick them apart). More often than not my Katanas ended up jumping off their horses and charging in, so I ditched half of them and replaced them with Katana Samurai and it made things ridiculously easy compared to before. The primary advantage of an all-cavalry army is on the campaign map, as a 40%+ movement speed-general + nothing but cavalry can cover more than twice the ground that an infantry-army can. This is actually pretty huge if your stack can fight a defensive battle against the enemy as you can easily swing into favourable positions or pick off reinforcing stacks completely safely. I highly recommend it (maybe on hard if you're not used to cavalry) just for the experience it gets you in terms of campaign map positioning and stack manipulation.

There is no faction that I'd ever completely ditch Cavalry with. There is nothing that can fill their role. Any morale-reducing action will triple in effectiveness if followed up by a cavalry charge and the threat of this alone is worth at least 1 unit slot.

[Fagar]

For my playing style Cavalry in S2 are useful but only in a specific sense, used to mop up the mess and as a mobile and quick way to turn the enemy army in the direction I wish...My Cavalry are the carrots dangling in front of the enemies noses leading them where I wish on the battle field..
This and the fact that enemy horse (generals primarily) love to attack other horse I am often able to use my Cav to draw out the generals and finish them off early in the battle..
With a lot of trial and error I have found I do not need more than my general and 2 light Cav max to accomplish these things and rarely build yari or higher Cav unless the buildings already exist when I take over a province..

This still pains me as after years of playing medieval I had come to love the achievement of building some truly deadly heavy cavalry but alas for my total war style I do not need them in S2..

[Narcisista]

Hi, I'been lurking on these boards on and off for some eight or nine years now, but only now decided to join.

My own playstyle is infantry heavy, so I tend to recruit little cavalry, however since Rome the tatical map pretty much means that you can't eschew cavalry, and, if anything, it is somewhat tipped against infantry.

As for Shogun 2 specifically I just finished a Takeda campaign where I tried to field as much cavalry as possible.

Even with the Takeda discount it didn't seem financially viable to field cavalry only stacks, mostly because they have harder acess to sea trade, so I tended to use 6 YA, 6 BA, 2 YCav, 2KCav and 2Bcav, with matchlocks slowly phasing out bows.

It proved an interesting and solid make-up. I used the Bow Cav as decoys to either lure the enemy general or a centerline unit away from the main army and then either pin cushion the isolated unit to death or break it with a follow up charge. This tends to work best if we are on the defensive as the AI can't just, usually, camp out a forested hill. Like Jarman said cavalry can easily threaten a large area, 3-4 melee units can, probably, encircle any infantry force, and even feigned charges can tie up an high value units.

I suspect bow cavalry may be the most versatile units in shogun. If economically viable a stack of them can probably take out any other type of stack. Use their speed to avoid other cavalry, pepper melee infantry with arrows, and charge ranged units, and they also have the longest movement range on the strategic map. The downside is that they are micro-management intensive, I can barely manage 2 let alone 16+, and and it is unlikely that it is a viable option outside the Takeda.

In my normal armies I usually just keep a pair of YCav whose main role is as a fire-and-forget general killer. I would prefer to use KCav as they require less care to use properly, but the superior anti-cav performance and lower cost end up taking preference. Light Cav I usually ignore, their smaller number put me off.

BTW, Frogbeastegg, thank you for your guides, they were my universal go to wisdom source in MTW, and I greatly enjoyed both your Rome and Shogun 2 guides as well.

[jepp21]

jacobin.

U say that cav archers are useless because of their low armor and bad penetration? Thats prob. because u dont' skirmish with them. If you move them to the flanks of the enemy archers they will rip em' to pieces, but u gotta keep them moving

In RTW u could just sit there with your archer cav without having them to move and pwn the enemy foot archers. CA has wisely chosen to nerf cav archers so that they can't win a fight againgst foot archers while immobile

U just have to use skill and move your cav around instead of charging head on or leaving your arch cav immoble during a skirmish

[Catma]

Easier flanking, and distracting enemy units. If you can peel off 3 enemy units with 3 cav units, you haven't done much. But if you circle around wide and charge the enemy line AFTER you pull those 3 units out...

Despite their speed, in fact exactly because of it, cavalry don't facilitate fast victories. You can win an even, or even pretty losing, battle by microing cavalry correctly... but it will take time.

[Lemur]

I have settled on 2 units of cavalry per army, either yari or katana depending on what infantry types I am focusing on.

I arrived at the same tactic. Two is enough, and I usually wind up using them to counter the other fellow's cavalry.

[Jacobin]

I have used bow cavalry in STW2 and it is precisely the micromanagement that is the problem.

In legendary SP you can't issue orders while paused or slow the speed so this isn't really a practical option - much preferred Rome and Medieval where you could leave your stack of horse archers on skirmish and go off and make a cup of tea knowing that they'd probably have destroyed any infantry army by the time you'd finished.

I have started adding two katana cav to my mid-game killer stacks though and one notched up 775 kills chasing rioters so more than justified the cost.

Also experimented with a half stack of bow and katana cav to raid enemy castles behind enemy lines but they didn't last very long....

[Ca Putt]

I've always understood the point in Horsearchers in Total war and many other games, that they can defeat nearly every other unit when microed correctly, but can be defeated by most units if not.

What I find rather funny to do with cavalry is to take undefended settlements^^, a squadron of 6-8 cavalry(2-2-2 + general + Guard^^) units can defeat an AI driven Garrison with few problems. Not something I'd advise you to do when things are getting tight, more like an alternative to marching your Uber army all across Japan.

Generally I like to have the aforementioned 2 units, however I prefer to have them in addition to my general, as a very bad experience lately made me more cautious when using my general :/ Normally I use them to crush the enemy cavalry first and then charge the enemy from behind or Distort enemy archers. Dunno if it works on legendary but I never had problems with this agenda on normal(also in ROTS).

[GoldenToad]

I no longer go out of my way to train cavalry, I find that Light Cavalry is only useful occsionally on the battlefield. Hammer and anvils are very nice, but I prefer to wrap my troops around the enemies flanks instead.

[Sp4]

Cavalry is pretty useless because everything that counters cavalry easily is spammed in large amounts (bows and spears).

With this patch, you can't even chase down routers anymore, so even less point to have cav now. I used to take some along when I was using stuff like firebombs or matchlocks because enemies would rout in droves and you needed something to catch them, so you didn't fight the same army with 10% less men 1 turn later.

[Maltz]

Do you mean that when we end the battle in the first chance, all routing units are automatically killed?
I think that existed before the patch. And it does killed the importance of Cavalry right there.

Or there is something I missed about the new patch? Thanks.

[Sp4]

It doesn't automatically kill all routing units. If it ever did, I wasn't aware (but then, I manually did it anyways). Now it takes like a %age of routing units and kills them, the rest just goes somewhere else to fight again.

Only exception is when the army is out of movement points, then it all dies.

[Jacobin]

IIRC I had a katana cavalry unit kill 775 routers in a battle which was post-patch.

And in my current Hojo campaign I am still picking the continue option after the enemy rout and have my general (not in a position to recruit cavalry yet) chase them down and the size of the surviving enemy stack does seem to be reduced as normal compared to what it would be if I didn't give chase (i.e. I've seen outsized Ikko Ikki ashigaru units rout after getting only a few casualties and then chased them down - and as you'd expect whatever units are left in the stack that retreats from the battle are reduced to fragments which they presumably wouldn't be without the pursuit).

[Vladimir]

I arrived at the same tactic. Two is enough, and I usually wind up using them to counter the other fellow's cavalry.

Agreed. M2 made great use of mounted units but they don't have much of a place in S2. A couple solid Yari cav focused on anti cav works best for me in S2.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

I'd say a cavalry charge in close battles is often the decider still - a charge in the back on depleted, tired units will cause a chain rout - which is hard to do with infantry only. Just keep them in reserve and don't waste them earlier in the battle where they'll get done in.

[feelotraveller]

I agree with most of the comments in this thread. But I just thought I would share...

Early game and my General travelling by himself got ambushed.

"Taisho, enemy archers are ambushing us."
"Okay bodygaurds let's gallop at them."
"Taisho, they are preparing to fire."
"Walk the horses!"
"Yes Taisho. Now they release arrows."
"Charge."
"Taisho they are all dead."
"Hm, I wonder why they bring more than one arrow?"

[feelotraveller]

Oh, by the way, either the computer can't count or one of the enemy spontaneously reincarnated to die twice.

[Maltz]

Cavalry... YEAH!

[Sp4]

Yari cav is the only cav that has some uses as it gets a charge bonus. If I have cav, I try to use them like a wrecking ball, once the entire, or most of the enemy army is engaged.
As others have said before, for me to get more out of cav, I'd have to adopt a different play style and I am usually very infantry focused.

Another thing that annoys me about cav is that it is very expensive. You can get 2-3 units of Yaris for 1 unit of cav and that unit of cav is never going to outperform 3 units of Yaris, unless you are having a race.

[faker01]

Katana cav is still usefully, as they are more effective against infantry. They can outperform 3 units of ya, but only if they are high-end.(with much exp and upgrades they defeat any stack created by ki easily)