Cavalry Charges

[Mr. Stuka]

Hopefully they'll be toned down quite a bit from vanilla M2. I mean, you could kill 50+ men with one charge of 30 knights, just from the impact. Obviously, ancient cavalry didn't have hitting power of medieval knights(without stirrups and all that), so will charged be toned down a lot?

Sorry if this has already been addressed.

-Stuks

[bobbin]

Yes it has been majorly toned down from those ridiculous M2TW charges.

[Mr. Stuka]

Thank god. And thank YOU for the fast reply.

-Stuks

[vartan]

Obviously, ancient cavalry didn't have hitting power of medieval knights(without stirrups and all that)

Is that so?

P.S. Welcome to the Guild.

[Mr. Stuka]

Is that so?

P.S. Welcome to the Guild.

Yes? and thanks.

[Constantius III]

Yes?

I think his point is that it's not that simple.

[Pedro]

i didn,t think that i mean Obviously the ancient cavarly isnt better than the medieval but in every battle the cavarly has to be important dont you remeber that alexander win all his battle with the" hummer and the anvil " dont you think that the hummer is the most important? . and remember in medieval cavalry the impact was strong but with all de armor the horse and the knight were so tired , and remeber that in de medieval age who have horses was the rich poeple not everyone... that makes the cavalry so dessicive , becuase the ordinary people hasnt the equipment necessesary to hold on a cavalry attak ! . so i think that maybe isnt necessary to toned down the cavarly if you want a more realistic battle you need to :
1- investigate about what units hold on the calvary ( spearmen wolud be more effective against cavarly ) like the javelins are effective agains the elephants and chariots
2-when the cavarly attak the firist line of the horses wolud die and the horsemen fall and die or continue fighting like infantry and the firs line of infantry if thay are simply soldiers no bonus calvalry they die at least two of his entire lines just in the impact , but if they are spearmen they must to hold on and die only the first line
3-the spears didnt break in the crash that makes the palahnx ( in the rtw and eb) invulnerable and they didnt separe his lines in a unlikely territory like mountains or forests when they sholud be separe and vulnerable to the normal infantry.

----- my final point is : if you want the game realistic make the calvarly dessicive (that's why they are always the half number of the infantry) and think in my point about phalanxs

[vartan]

i didn,t think that i mean Obviously the ancient cavarly isnt better than the medieval [...]

I did not know that. Could you elaborate?

The bolded word seems to be quite the popular one. By the way, the only reason Alex drove in hard with his Hummer was cause he liked his tools big so it would hurt hard.

[Pedro]

i didnt understant what is your intention but i can explain more the quote ! it apearrs the medieval cavarly is better because his damage and his armor but the fact is that in the medieval time most of the soldier were vasal(vasallos no se como se dice en ingles) and they havent enough money to buy his own armor remember that in medieval europe everything is poor !! the only who can buy a horse or armor were the lords so the attak in the battle is unsttopable, so that create the miyth about the powerfull medieval cavalry but if we look the crusades! the arabian wins at least 2/3 of the battles. so my point is that in every post something si going to talk about the powerfull medieval cavalry and i dindt want to start a discussion about it so y overrated like the other post ! but i think that the cavalry is descisive in all times and the ancient cavarly is powerfull becuase in a time when a lot of territory was unkown they win , example : alexander's cavalry agains the unkown indian army , and the powerfull persian army also cartaghinian cavalry was very effective against roman infantry ( yes hanibbal was military genius but still)

[Oh! TheLastDays!]

It's true, cavalry was adecisive force in any age and most armies (not all though), but the cavalry charge in vanilla M2TW is ridiculously effective, no matter what age the cavalry comes from, it was overrated for medieval knights and it wouldn't fit cav in the EB timeframe either...

On a sidenote, I think a few hummers going full speed into the back of a uni enganged with a phalanx would be extremely effective....

[bobbin]

Most ancient cavalry came from land owning nobles too, so they weren't that different from the medieval knights in that respect.

Also the Cataphract was considered extremely heavy even by medieval standards, so not all ancient cavalry was as light a you might think.

[Omegoa]

The power of medieval knights came from the way they held their lance -- couched beneath their arms. If I remember correctly, this was a tactic unique to the medieval era and beyond, and it lent more force to the lance by focusing all the momentum of horse and rider behind that single point.

[antisocialmunky]

I brought up the idea of giving certain heavy infantry units caltrops. Did you guys consider the idea at all?

[Arjos]

The power of medieval knights came from the way they held their lance -- couched beneath their arms. If I remember correctly, this was a tactic unique to the medieval era and beyond, and it lent more force to the lance by focusing all the momentum of horse and rider behind that single point.

Several mosaics portray ancient cavalry men with couched kontos...

[WinsingtonIII]

I brought up the idea of giving certain heavy infantry units caltrops. Did you guys consider the idea at all?

How would the caltrops work in the game engine?

[moonburn]

in mtw2 there´s the possibility to place stakes in the ground so i can only imagine it would be something similar

[Oh! TheLastDays!]

Well, but I'm not sure if you can mod in a special ability like the stakes... and caltrops would need to work different from stakes, so you can't just change the model of the stakes to caltrops...

[bobbin]

It would be possible to just remodel the vanilla stakes although they have a directional effect which wouldn't be there with caltrops.

Also the AI handles them pretty atrociously in M2TW if I recall correctly.

[Oh! TheLastDays!]

It would be possible to just remodel the vanilla stakes although they have a directional effect which wouldn't be there with caltrops.

That's what I meant... of course you could just change the model, but it wouldn't make sense.

[kaptainplanet]

Resurrecing this thread, I would like to say that I havent played Empires, so I dont know how cavalry charges may be in EB2. But what I dodnt like in EB1, is that cavalry often doesnt penetrate into the enemys formation, even if it is an extremely loose/scattered formation. Instead, they immediately manage to halt all this immense speeding mass of horse and man just because a javelinsman is in their way....

[bobbin]

We can't help the issue of cavalry charges on loose formations, its the way the game is designed, they will continue charging for a bit but after a certain point the unit as a whole will switch to melee mode and stop charging.

As for tight formations, well cavalry shouldn't be able plough straight through them, men many be smaller that horses but if there are enough of them and they hold their ground a horse will only make it so far. Sadly the game engine doesn't allow charges to be portrayed accurately so its the best we can do.

[jirisys]

The power of medieval knights came from the way they held their lance -- couched beneath their arms. If I remember correctly, this was a tactic unique to the medieval era and beyond, and it lent more force to the lance by focusing all the momentum of horse and rider behind that single point.

No one couched their lances in antiquity? I had no idea about that.

Are you sure? No one couched their lances? It just seems weird to me.

I feel I need a shower.

~Jirisys ()

[vartan]

No one couched their lances in antiquity? I had no idea about that.

Are you sure? No one couched their lances? It just seems weird to me.

I feel I need a shower.

~Jirisys ()

I see you still haven't perfected English prepositions. Omegoa's sentence means that the tactic was used before, during, and after the medieval era. This includes antiquity.

gg

edit: epic necro-quote
edit2: ah. i read 'used to the med. era and beyond' (read: used until, and beyond)

[bobbin]

He says "unique to the medieval era and beyond", which implies it that started in the medieval time and continued from there.

I don't think anyone knows when couching became common but it probably came in with the stirrup as IIRC the technique makes use of them. We'll be keeping the unchouched in EB.

[Ibrahim]

He says "unique to the medieval era and beyond", which implies it that started in the medieval time and continued from there.

I don't think anyone knows when couching became common but it probably came in with the stirrup as IIRC the technique makes use of them. We'll be keeping the unchouched in EB.

I know the Arabs and Persians in the early Middle ages couched their lances. In Europe it was probably form the 11th century onwards (Norman knights c. 1066 usually threw theirs, but some couched their lances). but as far as I can find, no one used the method in EB's timeframe.


EDIT: the possible depiction of a Norman with a couched lance? (the one on a black horse, center of section):

[Leon the Batavian]

It always amazed me how they managed to conquer England on those "rocking-horses" :P

[Elthore]

that guy before had it right. The couched grip really shines when the rider can transfer the force of the attack/impact through the horse from his legs via stirrups. wait..unless the lance was secured to the saddle via short chain. wasn't this mentioned in that bbc docu with that short historic weapons guy?? ...anyways, not sure what the Persians were doing but unless they had ssome kinda trick, a grip too tight like that during a charge would plop the rider on the ground.

[Ichon]

that guy before had it right. The couched grip really shines when the rider can transfer the force of the attack/impact through the horse from his legs via stirrups. wait..unless the lance was secured to the saddle via short chain. wasn't this mentioned in that bbc docu with that short historic weapons guy?? ...anyways, not sure what the Persians were doing but unless they had ssome kinda trick, a grip too tight like that during a charge would plop the rider on the ground.

Well the truth is probably alot more complicated than any single thing. Most likely some cavalry couched soon after there were cavalry and Numidian cavalry are reported to use both couching and overhand methods. Stirrups for the shock of a blow are only somewhat important, the saddle the largest factor in what keeps a man on a horse more than the stirrups after you hit something very hard. Stirrups allow better aim and a longer spear/lance to be used and do absorb some of the blow but if you try to lance something hard sitting in an english (flat) saddle with stirrups you are still likely to fall off the horse. If you lance with a high saddle without stirrups you won't fall off though your hits will be less accurate and you'll recover after the hit much more slowly(if you get knocked far back without stirrups and you are wearing armor is extremely difficult to rock yourself forward while with stirrups its quite easy). So as with most weapons its a system not a single component which adds to the total effect. For example the gladius sword of legions was an effective weapon on its own but not enough to explain its success. It was the system the legions used it in that made its total effect so noticeable.

The bigger effect of cavalry in battles was mobility and distraction even in medieval eras though frontal charges when lances were longer than opposing spears and there was few if any well trained and drilled infantry could be decisive on their own even at the height of heavy cavalry most battles depended still on combined arms.

If a formation of men is concentrated on an enemy only to their front its easy to maintain cohesion and everyone knows their role. When suddenly there is enemy on the flank and rear and cavalry due to size and movement usually appears to be many more than there actually are unit cohesion breaks down as the men are focused not just on one direction but worrying if the enemy is at their rear are they about to be surrounded, did the rest of their line already break etc? Its quite chaotic in a battle fought melee style and infantry who aren't experienced and very well trained and constantly drilled have alot of difficult maintaining cohesion in circumstances where they feel isolated and trapped.

For MTW2 that would probably mean most cavalry have the scare infantry attribute but doing a frontal charge isn't so decisive for most cavalry (maybe cataphracts but most indications are they didn't charge lancer style but used the weight, armor, and strength of their mounts to push apart or separate enemy formations for the rest of their army to dispatch now that cohesion is broken.

Cohesion is basically a unit fighting as a unit rather than fighting as a group of men. Rome and most professional armies win battles not by being better individual warriors but fighting as a unit and being better organized in command structure as well as drilled to prepare for different situations.

If two strong well trained ancient armies came together then the side which managed to sow confusion or break down their enemies cohesion usually won the battle. Roman civil wars, Greeks, etc there are more than a few examples so focusing on just Roman expansion would be misleading.

By far the biggest advantage of stirrups would be in melee however. Without stirrups its relatively easier to knock a man off a horse from the side and also with stirrups a cavalry man can lean farther forward or to the side giving more range to his weapons. Although there were far fewer weapons designed specifically against cavalry in ancient eras compared to medieval overall cavalry as a shock arm was nearly non-existent (depending how you view cataphract and some scythian lancers using primitive high saddles and strirrups).

There is also some question if lancers were developed in the late Imperial cavalries. I've seen speculation on rings attached to saddles that would allow a man to hold on while lancing and this way hit much harder without being thrown from the saddle(though it would still be much more awkward than the medieval cavalry).