Knights are too weak

[amrcg]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Beavis:
[B]Thanks for the support last two posts.

>The Romans used auxilia, which were spear->armed troops able to fight in looser >formation than the legion, which was >unsuitable to the forests of Germany which >broke up their formation. The DBM medieval >miniature rules include auxilia as a unit >type (spears in looser formation). I`d >give these spear units strong attack but no >defense bonus against cavalry since the >formation was loose.
Hey! That's not the same! Medieval "spearmen" did not fight in loose formation. Instead they were massed together which greatly contributed for them being static. What we need in my opinion is simply the following:
- "Spearmen" units should loose cohesion when running or charging more than a few meters.
- "Spearmen" units should loose cohesion when attacked from flank or rear, even if they manage to wheel to face the attacker.

>Finally until the Swiss pike later in the >period, there was no battle that was won >because spears defeated mounted troops in >the Middle-Ages. The mounted soldier >dominated warfare of the period and >infantry was secondary until later on, it >would be nice if the game could reflect >this better.
This is not true. In other threads I have posted many examples of dismounted knights beating mounted knights in English/French wars of the XIIth century. Besides in Spain, moslem armies (sometimes people use to forget armies other than the christian) relied greatly on spearmen and these managed to defeat christian knights in many a battle. As such I disagree that the knights in MTW should be given more strength. My only objection was simply towards the current mobility and maneuverability of "Spearmen" units as well as their cohesion during flank and rear attack.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Ligur]

Quote Originally posted by Soapyfrog:
Beavis, you tend to ignore a great deal of historical fact.

Cavalry's importance in the medieval period is inflated by the fact that the Nobles glorified their roles in combat. In reality the armored knight was in good part a status symbol.

Dozens of historians can cite dozens of real-world sources who confirm the limitations of cavalry, i.e. horses will not charge into a densely packed group of men, a dismounted man who keeps his wits about him is very dangerous to a mounted man, cavalry does poorly in close melee with resisting troops.

Although in those days cavalry was more important, it probably never accounted for more than 50%. It's possible that heavy knights should have more of a morale impact on the charge, but the rest amount to Lew Nolan-esque fanaticism about the power of cavalry.

Cavalry's main strengths are:

a) mobility around the battlefield
b) imposing maneuver restriction on the opposing force
c) pursuit
d) scouting

Cavalry may have had a 50-50 share on the battlefield in Medieval times, but probably not even that much, in the end.[/QUOTE]

Good post, exactly my thoughts but better put =)

[amrcg]

> Quote Originally posted by Ligur:
> Good post, exactly my thoughts but >better put =)
>[/QUOTE]

I second Ligur. That's exactly what I think about the fame of mounted troops. In practice things were much different with knights dismounting several times to fight on foot as early as the XIIth century. Sometimes those who remained mounted would not ammount to even 50% of the total number of knights. For the Germans in special, please refer to William of Tyre when he describes the IInd crusade's attempt to conquer Damascus:
"While the king of Jerusalem and his men struggled vainly, the Emperor, who commanded the formations in the rear, demanded to know why the army was not moving forward. He was told that the enemy had seized the river and that they were blocking the progress of our men. When be learned of this, the Emperor was angered and, together with his lieutenants, he speedily made his way through the French King's ranks to the place where the fight for the river was going on. They dismounted from their horses and became infantrymen-as the Germans are accustomed to do in the crisis of battle. With shields in hand they fought the enemy hand-to-hand with swords. The enemy, who had earlier resisted valiantly, were unable to withstand the attack. They relinquished the river bank and fled at full speed to the city."

Cheers,
Antonio

[Galestrum]

heh i agree with parts of both sides of the argument, but not wholly with either

Knights were more important than just mop up forces but less than gods incarnate as well

additionally anyone can find someone, or some snippet supporting this or that battle or time period

on a pure economic sense however, one does not go to the great trouble (and it was great) to arm, armor, and train a knight if the Knight as provisioned did not equal and/or exceed the cost associated

therefore, if i can pay (1) florin and train a guy (1) month to hold a spear OR

pay (1000) florins and train (15) years for knight

and the spear is more or equally effective/useful Knights would NEVER have been developed

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by Galestrum:
on a pure economic sense however, one does not go to the great trouble (and it was great) to arm, armor, and train a knight if the Knight as provisioned did not equal and/or exceed the cost associated therefore, if i can pay (1) florin and train a guy (1) month to hold a spear OR
pay (1000) florins and train (15) years for knight and the spear is more or equally effective/useful Knights would NEVER have been developed[/QUOTE]

But the knight is worth the cost. The horse allows him greater mobility. He could flank a mass of spermen before the latter were able to wheel and face them. Moreover, spermen had to remain almost static or move very slowly. This made them vulnerable to archery. Once the arrows broke their formation, knights could charge through the gaps and completely smash the spearmen.

What I think is that several of you think only in terms of horseman vs spearman, spearman vs swordsman, etc. You forget that tactics is combined arms. A static square of spearmen can eternally resist mounted knights. But it will be defeated by mounted knights + archers/crossbowmen. On the other hand, a mass of spermen in line of battle would be easily flanked by mounted knights if the flanks were not protected.

Hence my sugestions. Make spermen slower, less maneuverable and unable to charge/run long distances without loosing cohesion, and all problems will be solved.

Cheers,
Antonio

[amrcg]

P.S. And we are forgetting that the main advantage of mounted troops was strategic, i.e. mounted troops could travel faster. This was very important in an age when castle sieges were more frequent than decisive pitched battles.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Galestrum]

heh im not forgetting, im just trying to analyze the different points of view (of which there are many, and i might add differing points of view among the various spear supporters and detractors themselves)

furthermore, i would suggest *if* knights (1)HAD to ride all over gods green earth (2) to get a flank and/or rear charge (3) against even the weakest "professional" soldiers (spearmen) which made up the bulk of armies (4) to be their most effective

i would say that the *knight* unit is a complete waste of resources

i can (and do in-game)(1) screen (2) pursue and (3) charge with near equal effectiveness (4) and be more mobile with ANY of the lighter horse units at a FAR cheaper price

additionaly for lesser price i can equally purchase the same spear units and have an equal fight with a 50/50 chance of winning all things being equal - which begs the question why even risk the purchase of said unit *knights* IF i have to go through all the rings and hoops of having to get the perfect situation to make a charge and *possibly* be successful

i personally do think Knights are a waste of money, plus i prefer infantry based armies in general anywho, so it doesnt really bother me personally

also im not too sure the "mobility" of knights (one of their advantages) is very well illustrated in-game

[Galestrum]

btw you were suggesting changes, therefore you are not contradicting me, you were showing that obviously spearmen have advantages that they shouldnt =P

[Galestrum]

P.S. And we are forgetting that the main advantage of mounted troops was strategic, i.e. mounted troops could travel faster. This was very important in an age when castle sieges were more frequent than decisive pitched battles

while it was an advantage to be sure, it is NOT even reflected within the confines of the game and therefore is moot in linkage to discussion of the game

[FacelessClock]

A problem with light calv is that they have little defense. I don't know how many times i've had my light calv smashed by heavy calv. Ok, yea....I win it on a price per performace ratio, but that doesn't matter when ALL my calv routs and he still has half his left.

[Soapyfrog]

Umm... then heavy knights are WAAAY better at flanking than the lighter cav. I always build them (both actually).

e.g. mounted sergeants and hobilars routinely take casualties while PURSUING BROKEN UNITS, which is almost unheard of for feudal, chiv, and royal knights.

Feudal, chiv and royal knights have the charge bonus needed to DECSIVELY turn a flank or tip the scales in a supported frontal assault.

Light cav, IMHO, do not. OTOH Light cav are good because they are cheap and therefore expendable... they can go hunting enemy siege engines, chase down enemy cav archers and generally make the enemy pay for not adequately protecting it's missile/shock troops.

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Galestrum:
i personally do think Knights are a waste of money
[/QUOTE]

EXACTLY.

In the game, as it is now, knights are largely a waste of money. Perhaps one or two units are handy, but not many people buy even say, 50/50 knight/foot units.

Note, knight units are outnumbered so a 50/50 unit ratio is really around 30% knight/foot ratio per man.

Ok, who here buys as many or more knight units than they do footmen? I would bet hardly anyone...

And that's the problem. Knights are 8-10 times more expensive than the popular foot units but at best they are only equally effective in combat (when employed well).

Why buy more than 2 or 3 of them per stack?

But in reality, they were far more important than they are in this game.

Knights need to be made more handy so that, AT LEAST in game terms, people can use them in larger quantities.

bif


[This message has been edited by AgentBif (edited 10-03-2002).]

[Galestrum]

Light cav, IMHO, do not. OTOH Light cav are good because they are cheap and therefore expendable... they can go hunting enemy siege engines, chase down enemy cav archers and generally make the enemy pay for not adequately protecting it's missile/shock troops

my point exactly! hehe

ill take sergeants and/or hobbies over knights any day, why? Beacuase i can chase down artillery, broken units, archers, all more efficeintly than knights do, and Still go through the hoops and get a pretty darn good flank/rear charge for less money

additionally to deal with enemy heavy cavalry All i need is one spear unit to take out the enemy knights and my light cavalry rules the field

thus i get far more versatility with (2) units spearmen and hobilar/sergeant for 1/2 the cost

why bother with a knight at all, those filthy nobles =P

[Soapyfrog]

Why would you want 50% of your units to be cavalry?

Try 25%-33%, that is more realistic. In the Late period it is declining probably to 15-20%.

A 16 unit army I field will have from 4-8 cav units in it, depending on the opposition I am likely to face.

[Soapyfrog]

Oh yes, also you are talking about Multiplay where battles take place in a bizarre vacuum with no cause or consequence.

Since one of the very important jobs of cavalry is causing hideous pursuit losses and this is fairly irrelevant in multiplay, then their imprtance will be similarly reduced.

[Soapyfrog]

Galestrum, how is your spear unit going to take out the knight unit?

Is the knight unit going to obligingly stand still and wait to get slaughtered?

Light cav has it's uses, and I always include some. Heavy cav has it's uses and I always include some.

[Galestrum]

a single spear unit will make mince meat out of knights

how you ask, well, that of course depends on all the circumstances surrounding the actual battle i find myself in, of course

but generally speaking, ill lure a heavy cavalry into charging somehow, (feigned retreat, wait till they commit their cavalry or whatever) and then luanch a well-timed spear attack and bye bye knights, its not that difficult really

i also like well-balanced armies myself, and actually will have on occassion knights, but to be honest i find their usefulness to be very little in relation to their burdensome costs

i much prefer my "hedgehog armies" of mostly spear and archer units with a few light to medium cavalry - i find them to be more versatile, effective, and economical

[Galestrum]

and yes they do stand still, Knights cant just charge and turn tale very well, they often give as good as they get, then they have to turn tale and disengage (if they choose to) during which they take some nice casualties, and during this whole time a nice flanking force can be sent against them and poof! bye bye knights

[Hakonarson]

someone made a comment that talking about Hoplites is not relevant to "spearmen" because "spearmen" are one step above peasants, etc.

Well what do you think Hoplites were?
[lecture]
In fact medieval spearmen were often quite rich in terms of the day, often armoured, equipped with large shields, helment, usually a sword - and only called up in time of need.

Pretty much the same as teh vast majority of Hoplites - excepting Spartand and a few small elite units such as the Theban Sacred Band, Argive Epilikotoi (??), tyrant's bodyguards, etc.

For the most part hoplites were NOT drilled - Athenian hoplites assembled once a year by tribe, otherwise went on with their daily business.

spearmen in medieval times were often similar - farmers or city dwellers with enough wealth to affort a decent panalopy, which they KNEW they might have to use some day, and called up as required.

But most importantly - both troops are "just" men - their motivations and behaviour aer not much different from our own today, and parallels can easily and reasonably be drawn between their behaviours.

Time and time again we see behaviour simulated by peoples thousands of years and thousands of miles appart - accounts of Chinese battles are often not so diferent from European ones.

Occasionally a substantial sociery manages to break the mould - Spartans, Samurai for example, but they are so few and far between that they are recognised as exceptions and receive considerable study BECAUSE they are different from the norm.

There's a saysing "those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat its mitakes" - well the Greeks were history to Medieval Europe!!

[/lecture]

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Soapyfrog, you`re wrong. Cavalry was the backbone of medieval armies. Don`t beleive me? DBM miniature rules has done a good job of describing what the armies were composed of. Refer to them.

amrcg, my auxilia suggestion was a compromise.
However the Housecarls at Hastings had spears of different lengths for longer for defense and shorter for offense.

As for the quote about the German crusaders I have two things to say. First the terrain was a riverbank not the best place to charge. Second the Germans ( as well as the English) had a reputation as having inferior quality cavalry.

No one has yet mentioned a battle where spearmen (not Swiss pikemen) changed the tide of battle defeating knights, the lance during the period outreached the spear.

If cavalry is unable to defeat infantry why did the Vikings in the North of France abandon being infantry and adopt fighting as knights? To give their enemies a chance?

If cavalry can`t defeat infantry why was Tannenberg essentially a cavalry battle, 50 years after Crecy, even though veterans of the Hundred years` war took part?

[Galestrum]

well the athenian hoplites drilled one week each month, which isnt bad

but be that as it may - the reason they are not comparable is this...

in hoplite warfare the hoplite was the "elite" unit, whereas the "spearmen" in MTW is the bottom unit

the spearmen was not the equivalent to an "elite" unit in his day whereas the hoplite was

[Galestrum]

heh yeah

spearmen are/should be fodder units

note i didnt say sergeats and pikemen

spearmen with a stated stat of poor morale

should not hold up to the elite knights units

afterall take a look at the pic, they have a 5 foot point stick not a 15-20 foot pike

lets go back in time, ill take my chances on horse back, in heavy chain and shield

you get in your quilt armor and a pointy stick

i like my chances

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Soapyfrog:
Why would you want 50% of your units to be cavalry?

Try 25%-33%, that is more realistic. In the Late period it is declining probably to 15-20%.
[/QUOTE]

What you don't understand is knight units have 20-40 men, spear units have 100 men. So a 50% unit ratio is around a 30% manpower ratio.

bif

[Hakonarson]

Beavis you'er joking right?/

Battles where non-wiss spearmen defeated knights?

Bannockburn, Courtai, the whole Flemish rebellion thing...there weer many, many such battles.

I don't understand the comment about Hoplites being the elite.

They weren't - they were the citizen body in arms - indeed the definition of citizen was someone who could provide a hoplite panalopy.

So they were a small part of the total society - so what?

Look at the Fyrd at Hastings - maybe 1/5th of the available troops in the whole country had "proper arms and armour" - but they sure as heck weren't "elite" as people ehre seem to think of the term.

All fighting men have many, many more supporters at home.

spearmen may be sh1t troops in MTW but they represent the very best of the lower classes - almost exactly the same as Hoplites were. for every spearman there are probably 5-10 other men who would be classed as peasants.

[Galestrum]

hoplite was the top of the line warrior in ancient greece, if not, please tell me the greek unit that was better trained, equipped, and armed than the hoplites in ancient greece?

its not a matter of whether they were citizen armies or not (btw the roman legions were part time citizen armies in the republic too), its a matter of relative comparison in time and place

spearmen are bottom of the line when compared to other medieval period units

hoplites were top of the line units in ancient greece period - elite units

furthermore it would be a mistake to say spearmen and hoplites are equal merely because they were both "normal" citizens

that would be like saying army a is the same as army b because they both have nobles

the depth, degree, and quality of the training is what matters, not their social class

for instance knights arent suppossed to be the top dogs because they are nobles, but rather, because they spent all their time training for war and were equipped and armed better

[Galestrum]

furthermore to be a "citizen" was the top of greek society, the highest rank. they were the best trained, armed and equipped people in their day

i never said the fyrd was elite, or mention them at all

[Vlad007]

This is my first post on tehse boards

First of all i totally agree that HC do not have enough momentum. I joust in RL and i have full plate armour and let me tell you my horse can charge at least 90% with me and my armour and its tack. In MTW the HC are to slow and do not penitrat formations well at all. What needs to happen is when the Cav charge they should have the ability to break a formation in half so that the target formation loses all its formation bonuses. The Wedge formation is next to usless it should have the most penertration but its crap. HC ned more penertaion powe and for all you dudes out their there has been no weapon in the history of warfear that has the abbility to dominated a battlefiled for so long.

[Hakonarson]

Galestrom I guess English isn't your native language, because I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.

However to teh best of my understanding we are going tot have to agree to disagree.

My point about the Fyrd was to show that even low-grade spearmen need to have a largge umber of supporting "civilians", and so they ARE an elite - compared to 5-10 times their number of unarmed people with no training at all.

In hoplite Greece there were nobles - in Athens they weer required to serve as cavalry, in Sparta they had various classes of citizen Spartiates, etc) and the higher ones served as officers as they didn't field their own cavalry until near the end of their hegemony.

To take a medieval analogy in Norman England the knights would often serve on foot among the fyrd to "stiffen" them.

The bulk of the hoplites in both cases were "ordinary" citizens.

I completely do not understand your point about the equipment of knights, but I maintain that there are useful comparisons to be made between the structure of societies and how troops were raised, ranked and performed.

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
Soapyfrog, you`re wrong. Cavalry was the backbone of medieval armies. Don`t beleive me? DBM miniature rules has done a good job of describing what the armies were composed of. Refer to them.

No one has yet mentioned a battle where spearmen (not Swiss pikemen) changed the tide of battle defeating knights, the lance during the period outreached the spear.
[/QUOTE]
In the official TotalWar forum I have once posted the description of several XIIth century battles which hapenned in France and England and where the victorious side dismounted many knights who were - alone - able to resist the enemy cavalry charge. In at least one of those instances the small mounted contingent was left behind to pursue the routed enemy knights. I will bring the references next week. Like it or not knights dismounted very often not only to face enemy infantry but also to face knights, and this alone may sugest something concerning the power of a cavalry frontal charge. Now, if knights were enough by themselves to defeat other troops (including spearmen), I wonder why archers, crossbowmen and other infantry were hired.
Concerning those who say that spearmen of the Middle Ages were cannon-fodder I don't think so. I think that they were very effective defeating frontal charges by mounted troops. Again, my only point is that they should be slower and less maneuverable, which is not such a major depart from what the game currently presents.
As to the question "are knights worth their money?", for me they are. Of course they would be even more worth if they could dismount in the middle of the battle, so that they could ride to occupy important spots on the battlefield. Anyway, I use them a lot mounted (I use to play the Spanish). Of course I try to avoid unsupported frontal charges on enemy infantry unless the latter is already depleted by archery and/or Ginete skirmishers.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Hakonarsen, I said spears not pikes. The Scot schiltron is long enough to be considered a pike.

amrcg, I can give you more examples where cavalry stayed mounted and were victorious. I never said the other units were useless, but their role was supportive, just like modern armor needs infantry to counter anti-tank units. I also mentioned in this post that horsearcher units should also be more effective.

BTW why didn't the Burgundians at Nicopolis who knew what happened at Crecy, not dismount and fight as footmen against the Turks? Nicopolis was lost by poor tactics and discipline by the Burgundians, they overran the Ottoman infantry, only to be swamped by the Sipahis, when the Hungarians came to their aid, they were hit in the flank by the Serb heavy (and very effective, performing well at Ankara as well agaainst Timur) cavalry.

[This message has been edited by Beavis (edited 10-04-2002).]