Knights are too weak

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

This game is great but knights and knight-type cavalry are too weak. The medieval elite, from Europe, the Mamlukes and Ottomans, the Mongols etc were made up of heavy cavalry relying upon a lance armed charge. In the game spearmen can put up a pretty good fight against them. Historically the knights' achilles heel was also their greatest strength: their charge. This made them unable to pull away when things were against their favor and separated them from other elements of their army which made them easily outflanked and surrounded. Most armies of the period were cavalry dominated until the English in the Hundred Years War and Swiss revolts. We can argue that the mountainous region of Switzerland was unfavourable to cavalry. Note that the Poles lengthened the lances of their hussars which made them able to defeat pike formations in the 16-17th centuries. These re the changes I would make in an expansion or mod/patch/whatever.

1. Knights and knight-type units (kataphractoi, polish retainers, etc) cause fear by their charge. This would reflect that peasant spearmen would be easily overwhelmed but well trained pikemen would be able to put up a fight.

2. These cavalry-archer units would have bonus against armour:
mongol horse archers
sipahi of the porte
mamluke horse archers
boyars
byzantine cavalry
turcomans

This would balance out the knights improvement. My reasons are these. The composite bow used in the middle-east and asia was powerful and these cavalry were extremely accurate shooting. (the Russians are included because their use of bow from horseback was adopted from the mongols, before the mongols invaded, the Russians used lance-armed charging cavalry, it would be really cool if you couldn't produce boyars until the Golden Horde event)
This would reflect the western knights disastrous performances at Manzikert, Hattin, Khalka, Legnitz, Nicopolis, Varna, etc. as well it would probably favour the use of light cavalry to chase down the horsearchers which is exactly what the Hungarians and Poles did.

3. Take away the charge bonus of the spears.
Spears were usually poorly trained and needed tight cohesion to be effective against cavalry or infantry for that matter. A charging unit can't keep tight cohesion. Even Hollywood knows that. Just look at Braveheart, they defended with the pikes, but charged with swords, axes, etc.

[Vanya]

He-he hum he-he...

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

GAH!

[Gringoleader]

Personally I reckon most folks have an inflated opinion about how good knights really were historically. Against light infantry there was no contest, but well formed infantry and spearmen could hold cavalry and knights. Think about it, on a horse you are very vulnerable in close quarter fighting, although you get a good swing at the heads of the enemy they get a better swing at the legs of your horse, so it evens out.

Knights are good, and used properly they can cause immense damage, but they were not that hot, and they are rightly not so hot in the game.

The most successful armies in ancient and medieval history have almost all been based on good infantry. The Huns and the Mongols were obvious exceptions to this, but then there are no hard and fast rules to the fighting of a war.

[chunkynut]

Im sorry composite bows have accuracy but no armour piecing properties. Horse archers used very small bows and they were certienly not AP.

As such many of your points may be historical but your summary of these points is warped .... sorry

[Austaro]

The "problem" is exacerbated by the slowness of cavalry generally.

They definitely need to speed cavalry up a bit.

[Niccolomachiavelli]

Mounted knights were the equivalent of ballistic missiles. Used against disciplined spearmen or pikemen, they simply crash into the ranks, and if outnumbered, are surrounded. Their only real purpose was to gain speed, momentum and rocket towards enemy formations, in the hope of breaking them and causing them to retreat. In fact, alot of historically impressive troops used this tactic. Berserkers of any nation did this--the running and the crashing, but if the troops held formation, the guy was screwed after the initial crash.

Anyone have good experiences with the Armenian Heavy cavalry? I recently had to fight this: http://216.136.200.194/auction/Oct/20021015032019862480282.jpg
(mostly peasants with a few abyssinian guards I think) And yes, I lost, even though the cavalry fought hard, long and had a great kill ratio.

[This message has been edited by Niccolomachiavelli (edited 10-01-2002).]

[Soapyfrog]

Beavis:

DON'T cite Braveheart for historically accuracy, you seriously undermine your case.

Pike/Spear units could and did charge, maintaining unit cohesion over short distances, and losing it the futher they had to go... JUST like in MTW.

Read up on the battle of Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce's pike armed schiltrons charged the English army after defeating the Heavy cav.

The introduction of the pike as a weapon was dependent on units being able to move and fight (and yes, charge) as a disciplined mass.

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

I have attracted only naysayers.
Chunkynut, your claims are not supported by any facts, and if what you claim is true, the Mongols should have lost in Europe, their army being mostly horsearchers, as well Manzikert should have been a Byzantine victory. These horsearchers were extremely effective, period. Gringoleader, most armies of the period were cavalry based with the exceptions being the Swiss and English of the hundred years war in the later middle ages. You neglect the military successes of the extremely successful Ottomans, Timurids, Lithuanian-Poles to name but a few. Soapyfrog, the reference to Braveheart was sarcastic, but I bet they tried to run with the pikes and couldn't when they filmed the movie. Remember how William defeated Harold at Hastings, he feigned retreat and when the housecarls broke the shield wall to pursue, they were defeated: spears good on defence, bad on offense. Further east, the Teutonic knights had defeated the infantry-based Prussians but were unable to defeat the nimble Lithuanian cavalry. My points are that heavy cavalry was the elite of almost all armies of the period, and the game should reflect that, as well horsearchers were just as deadly to heavily armored knights as were the longowmen.

[Galestrum]

Beavis:

As far as Manzikert, it would be wrong to assume the defeat of Manzikert was caused due to horse archers

Factors such as:

(1) Emporoer Romanus' western mercs failing to show up
(2) his turkic mercs switching sides the day before the battle
(3) his skirmishers being greatly outnumbered by turkish skirmishers
(4) poor unit cohesion and that one of his nobles failed to support the general advance and in fact betrayed and left his emporer on the battlefield

among other reasons were the reasons Manziket was a loss, not any "superiority" of the horse archer, furthermore, Manzikert was not decided until the end of the night, after the main body was entirely surrounded. It was hardly a foregone conclusion that this was the only possible result of this engagement.

Manzikert was the result of a bad series of events and mistakes for the byzantines, good tactics of the turks, as much as anything else

[Galestrum]

Beavis:

In your defese, I do agree that Hv Cav should be tweeked

(1) causes morale loss against undisciplined - poor morale units when being charged

(2) more speed

maybe a few other changes

[Boleslaw Wrymouth]

To say Knights "weren't that hot" during the time period we are discussing is to live in the a fantasy world of Keegan. Agincourt(and later battles) introduced the idea that horsemen armed with a couched lance were neither effective nor even shock troops. Any cursory reading of eyewitness accounts should disabuse latter day historians of this fallacy but apparently being a contrarian is more profitable.

Tiny numbers of Knights routinely routed huge armies of disciplined infantry and lightly armored cavalry during the Crusades. Relatively small groups of lancers routed highly disciplined pikemen in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. If used well, they were unstoppable.

The only point in which I would argue with beavis is the idea that knights couldn't disengage once in melee. It depended on how far into the enemy formation they were. A good article that discusses multiple charges in the middle ages can be found here:
http://www.deremilitari.org/mcglynn.htm

A list of great articles from this site:
http://www.deremilitari.org/articles.htm


All that said, I think the knights are o.k. as is. My only problem is that casualities may be to high. If you take a good look at casuality lists from the largest medieval battles it becomes very clear that knights were very difficult to kill and that most troops would rather capture then kill them anyway.

A last point about the armor piercing qualities of the Mongol bow. At the range in which it was typically fired, it had no problem penetrating chainmail.

[Kraxis]

This going to be a hot topic for some time...

But what I want to see is the knights having a weightfactor.

If you notice, Chivalric Men-at-Arms can actually stop the heavy cav charge, yes they will lose a few men, but the chrge won't run over them. That is because a really heavy charge adds 8 to the attack value. So a unit with good defence can soak up the charge without having spears.
I would like for that to change.
Heavily armoured men would get pushed aside if they were not killed when the charge hit. That is where the weight of the knight comes in, a lighter cav such as the Feudals will still have a good chargeas it is now, but won't be able to push the heavy infatry aside, while very heavy cav such as the Kataphraktoi would be able to push them aside a bit, so they would break the formation. That would give the very heavy cav a much more powerful charge without actually changing their stats.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Soapyfrog]

I agree that in William the conqueror's day, there did not exist the level of training required to attack cohesively over any great distance.

OTOH, cavalry could not break a shieldwall, noway nohow short of blind luck or really nervous spearmen who turned and fled at the approach of a big scary heavy horse.

Pikemen require a great deal more training and discipline, and so it is much more likely that they would be able to charge en masse.

ANYWAY:
Point 1: the impact of a HC charge DOES cause fear, and can often cause peasants to route right off, and sometimes spearmen too if their are other factors present.

Point 2: AP bonus for horse archers... this is mainly the effect of the horse archers being able to kill or wound the horses, instead of the actual knight... it would be cool if the game could convert mounted knights to foot knights when their mount gets killed http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif As it stands the horse archers can do a pretty good job of exhausting the HC as it chases them willy nilly across the map...

Point 3: Spearmen charge bonus... why take it away? 100 men bearing down on you is a scary charge, whether they are armed with spears or very small rocks. That's why peasants have a strong charge. I don't think it is neccessarily spear related.

[Soapyfrog]

Yes it would be good to see a heavy charge better able to have a chance to dirupt the target unit... forceing them into an engage at will mode, breaking ranks etc.

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
But what I want to see is the knights having a weightfactor.

If you notice, Chivalric Men-at-Arms can actually stop the heavy cav charge, yes they will lose a few men, but the chrge won't run over them.[/QUOTE]

Now I would LOVE to see that... hvy knights overrunning a block of infantry: *CRASH*, crunch, CHRUNCH, whoosh .... out the backside of the formation leaving only carnage behind. Then they wheel around for another pass...

They'd be quite handy then.

bif

[Hakonarson]

IMO knights are lacking kinetic energy - I guess that's what their charge factor is supposed to represent, but imagine 1000 lb of horse and man chargine into infantry on foot at 15mph (23 kph) - they don't just stop and fence with their lances!!

As for horse archer bows - every tried to pull a replica?? those things can be as strong as longbows.

Yes they are short, but their compound and recurve construction makes them much, much more efficient than longbows.

And they did have AP arrows - almost exactly like English Bodkins.
However like longbows they needed to get in close to be effective, and they weer dead scared of European crossbowmen, who outranged them and could easily penetrate the light mail armour that was about as much as they ever wore.

Early Crusades mention knights looking like porcupines because the asiatic archers shot from long range and so their arrows lacked power to penetrate.

IMO this is another interaction that isn't really represented in MTW - Crossbows should cause fear among horse archers who are within their range - they should move away from them when shot at, and be reluctant to get within their range in the first place.

[Grifman]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
[B]Remember how William defeated Harold at Hastings, he feigned retreat and when the housecarls broke the shield wall to pursue, they were defeated: spears good on defence, bad on offense. [/QUOTE]

Uh, wrong. The shield wall at Hasting was not manned by spearmen. The housecarls were primarily armed with battleaxes, while the levies would have been armed with a mixture of battleaxes, swords, spears, javelins, even farm implements. When they broke to pursue the Normans it was not a disciplined advance as a Greek phalanx but an undisciplined attack on what they thought was a routing army.

You can't use Hastings as an example of spear formations inability to advance offensively.

Grifman

[Hakonarson]

Yes yuo can - most of hte Saxon army at Hastings was Fyrd spearmen, not Huscarls.

And you also need to consider teh wording - it's "Shield"-wall - not "Spear"-wall or "Sword"-wall.

It is the close formation and overlapping shields that give the shieldwall it's name and it's resistance - to some degree teh weapons the men carry behind it are irrelevant.

However a shield wall isn't much use againt charging cavalry - the shields dont' actually injure the other guy, horses CAN be trained to charge into it if you really want them to, and couched lances will impact the men in it before their own spears or axes can hit the horsemen.

Hence the move to longer hand weapons - firstly longer 1-handed spears (Scots, Flemings), then 2-handed pole-arm axes such as Bills and Halberds, and finaly pike.

For an indepth and controversial analysis of Ancient Greek shield walls (Hoplites) see if you can find a copy of "The Western Way of War" by Hanson.

[cart6566]

I have been very pleased with the chivalric knights. Not good in the desert, but dominate other units other than spears. They can't chase anything down, but bring some hobilars if you have room for that and need the speed and maneuverability. Mounted seargents, on the other hand, I have found useless.

[Grifman]

Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:
[b]Yes yuo can - most of hte Saxon army at Hastings was Fyrd spearmen, not Huscarls.[/QUOTE]

Wrong. As I pointed out, the Fyrd was armed with a mixture of weapons, swords, spears, battleaxes, javelins and farm implements (1066: The Year of the Conquest, by David Howarth). Being a levy, it is hardly likely that they were all primarily of one weapons, since it was up to each man to arm himself. And again, the housecarls that manned the main part of the line used primarily battleaxes or swords. Neither they nor the fyrd was a force made up primarily of spears. And your source is . . . ?

Quote And you also need to consider teh wording - it's "Shield"-wall - not "Spear"-wall or "Sword"-wall.[/QUOTE]

And your point is . . . did anyone suggest otherwise?

Quote It is the close formation and overlapping shields that give the shieldwall it's name and it's resistance - to some degree teh weapons the men carry behind it are irrelevant.[/QUOTE]

I don't think anyone has argued this point one way or another, so I don't see its relevance.

Quote However a shield wall isn't much use againt charging cavalry - the shields dont' actually injure the other guy, horses CAN be trained to charge into it if you really want them to, and couched lances will impact the men in it before their own spears or axes can hit the horsemen.[/QUOTE]

Again, what's the relevance? See John Keegan as to whether horses will charge into a packed formation of men . . .

Quote Hence the move to longer hand weapons - firstly longer 1-handed spears (Scots, Flemings), then 2-handed pole-arm axes such as Bills and Halberds, and finaly pike.[/QUOTE]

Again, relevance to the argument at hand . . .?

Quote For an indepth and controversial analysis of Ancient Greek shield walls (Hoplites) see if you can find a copy of "The Western Way of War" by Hanson.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I've read it, but I don't see its relevance to Hastings.

Grifman



[This message has been edited by Grifman (edited 10-02-2002).]

[dej2]

Quote
The most successful armies in ancient and medieval history have almost all been based on good infantry. The Huns and the Mongols were obvious exceptions to this, but then there are no hard and fast rules to the fighting of a war.[/B][/QUOTE]

Actually the Mongols carried a number of weapons into battle, not just the bow. Each warrior carried a battle axe (effective against armor), a scimitar, a lance, and a light compound recurved bow, and a heavy recurved bow (that was not used on horseback). They also carried a variety of arrows... which included armor piercing, weighted blunt nosed arrows which could knock a rider off his horse, whistling signal arrows, as well as incendiary arrows... from what I've read though some knights were more heavily armored than others, they would shoot horse instead of the knight. Once the knight was on the ground use the lance or axe to finish him off.

Though when the Mongols started this conquest with mostly cavalry... as they conquered other armies they would incorporated them into there own. By the time they reached Russia they had quiet a large infantry. as well as siege equipment, including iron bomb, rockets and fireworks from China... But they won on tactics, the "fiend retreat". By hiding their infantry in the woods or over a hill they would use the light cavalry to harass their enemy over and over. Without the heavy armor they used speed and endurance to wear their enemy down. When they thought them sufficiently angered, exhausted and disorganized they retreat back to where they had the heavy cavalry and infantry waiting. Usually the knights thinking the tied had changed for the better would race ahead chasing the retreating foe. The Mongols even used smoke bombs to obscure the view on the battle field as the knights raced ahead into the ambushed, their own infantry units would be unaware of the massacre just a few hundred yards in front of them. What it boils down to is that the Western armies would place high emphasis upon strength and heavy armor and most importantly Chivalry, the Mongols mobility and swiftness, attack when the enemy when he is weak avoid the enemy when he is strong.

sorry for the long post

[This message has been edited by dej2 (edited 10-02-2002).]

[Boleslaw Wrymouth]

Grifman,

Yes..see John Keegan if you want to entirely ignore 1000 years of eyewitness accounts. I choose to ignore him. I don't really need a 20th century historian describing a 19th century battle who completely invalidates a thousand year history of combat, well described by soldiers who were the victms and victors of these tactics. A lot of these chroniclers were soldiers...they knew what they were talking about.

A horse will charge anything, if trained. It's even a misrepresentation to say they wouldn't charge dangerous obstacles as late as the Napoleonic Wars. Someone was training them to go over a sea of bayonets at Somosierra or even Borodino.

Keegan is a popular historian, but he gets lazy when infantry is not involved. And if his description of Agincourt is any measure, he doesn't even try to understand medieval warfare. He is much more interested in making his point.

[Boleslaw Wrymouth]

One other point:

"No way knights could defeat a shield wall, no way no how". That's a patriotic Saxon for you. How can you possibly defend that when the battle of Hastings was decided by mounted knights crushing the Saxon shield wall?

I thought you were joking. Are you serious?

[Hakonarson]

Grifman my sources are:

The Battle of Hastings, edited by Stephen Morillo - a series of essays on the battle, the social and military situations and institutions in England and Normandy, and the lead up and aftermath.

Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066, and Armies of Feudal Europe, 1066-1300, both by Ian Heath and published by Wargames Research Group.

The Fyrd were divided into classes - the Selct Fyrd comprisd up to 45,000 men in Saxon England (based upon 1 individual serving per 5 hides of land, and over 230,000 hides of land known to exist in the 10th century).

These men were expected to serve with helmet, shield, mail coat and spear.

The remainder of the Fyrd - the greater Fyrd, were indeed armed with an assortment of weapons - they were the peasants of MTW.

While many great fyrd were present at Hastings the front ranks were made up of hte Select Fyrd and Huscarles.

As for Keenan and horses charging home - re-read it. He clearly says that horses could be trained to do so and were expected to do so.

I quote from page 83 of "The Face of battle":.....the horse trained to charge home, while it was the principle function of the riders to insist on the horss doing what their nature rebelled against." (Italics are in the original).

My point about "The Western Way of War" is solely for information - anyone wanting an insight into how a shieldwall functioned should read it.

[This message has been edited by Hakonarson (edited 10-02-2002).]

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by dej2:
Actually the Mongols carried a number of weapons into battle, not just the bow. Each warrior carried a battle axe (effective against armor), a scimitar, a lance, and a light compound recurved bow, and a heavy recurved bow (that was not used on horseback).
[/QUOTE]

Where the heck would you put a lance when you're not using it?? Seems to me that it would be more likely that those who elected to carry lance would store their bow until the lance was expended... But that's kinda wierd to charge with lance and then switch to bow later, so perhaps the lance and bow were used by diff troops? Also, the lance guys would want armor while the archer guys could get away with less armor... Just speculating.

Quote weighted blunt nosed arrows which could knock a rider off his horse,
[/QUOTE]

No arrow is gonna knock a 200lb man off a horse... Perhaps a headshot would stun him and he'd fall off on his own?

(One of my pet peeves about Hollywood... 150 grain 9mm bullets that blow men on their asses.... heh!)

Very interesting stuff about the variety of arrows though. I had no idea the Mongols were that sophisticated.

bif

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Finally some supporters.
Galestrom, you have mentioned other factors that have contributed to the Byzantine defeat, but in the end it comes down to the individual soldiers, if the horsearchers were inffective against the kataphractoi they would not have won. How do you explain the Mongol victories at Khalka, Legnitz, Mohi. If their arrows didn't penetrate armour there is no way they would have won. Arrows fired from compound bows could penetrate armour, and the mamluke horsearchers had longer range and could fire quicker than ''longbowmen''. Soapyfrog, the Housecarls were the elite and were disciplined enough to perform a shield wall of tight cohesion. Don't forget that the Greek phalanx was defeated by the flexible legion as the phalanx formation was disrupted. Phalanx/pike tactics were a steady push in unison rather than a charge, which would easily disrupt the formation. Grifman you are wrong, the battleaxes and swords were sidearms, and the shieldwall is a formation similar to that used by spears and pikes: very tight.
So I think that the knight-type units should be beefed up, as well as the horsearchers and the spears should be toned down, they are defensive units. Even after the hundred years war the knight dominated European armies, Tannenberg one of the largest battles of the middle-ages was essentially a cavalry battle. Interestingly some ''longbowmen'' took part in the Baltic crusades without any success. I guess that's why you don't hear about it.

[Soapyfrog]

Boleslaw, the Saxon shieldwall was defeated by plunging arrow fire, which caused just enough confusion for the knights to break through...

[Niccolomachiavelli]

Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:
IMO knights are lacking kinetic energy - I guess that's what their charge factor is supposed to represent, but imagine 1000 lb of horse and man chargine into infantry on foot at 15mph (23 kph) - they don't just stop and fence with their lances!!
[/QUOTE]

I think Hakonarson hit the Knight issue square on the head. No way that a unit weighing as much as a knight does, and having the momentum that it has, will just suddenly come to a complete halt (as if it were evenly physically possible with the momentum involved)and start to tickle the enemy with his lance/spear. There has got to be some display of momentum. I saw somewhere a guy complaining that his knight units dont break through enemy formations often, and I think he had a point. If the enemy formation is thin enough, and you hit it on the right side with Knights, it absolutely should crash right through, tight formation or not. Now if we were to stay realistic however, if the Knights charged a pikemen or spearmen formation, they should crash through, but the first few knights in the charge would probably be A) thrown from their horse and B)dead, very dead. Of course that goes for the first row of soldiers in the formation, who would be killed by the impact, rather than a good lance tickling, as is currently the case.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

The success of a cavalry charge depends on the use of combined arms. The cavalry charge was best timed when archers had already disrupted the enemies formations. Here's a bit from Nicholson's The Knights Templar : a new history, p. 67; material in parentheses is original, brackets editorial:

"[A set system of manoeuvres] had been described in Vegetius's famous treatise De re militari (On military matters) written in the late fourth century AD, which was the standard written work on warfare in the West during the Middle Ages. Vegetius had suggested various ways in which battle could be joined, but by the twelfth century commanders generally used only one. First the [archers] would fire ... with the aim of breaking up the enemy lines. Then, when the [archers] had run out of ammunition, the cavalry would charge and break through the enemy lines. They would be followed by the footsoldiers, who would kill the soldiers knocked down by the mounted knights."

While the engine in MTW keeps units together until they rout, the morale system ameliorates that somewhat because less disciplined unit have lower morale & will be more prone to run when charged after being decimated by archers.

Also, sometimes a charge must be nursed to the enemy line because charging too soon quickly tires the unit. Quite often, however, I've set a unit of heavy cavalry to attack at a walk & seen them break into a charge on their own shortly before contact.

While I have my issues with some of the unit attributes & have some sympathy for improving knights a bit, I think on the whole it works pretty well.

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Once more into the breach, dear friends; once more consign their parts most private to a Rutland tree! & men in London, still a-bed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here & hold their manhood cheap while others speak who fought with us on Ralph the Liar's Day!
--Richard III
The Black Adder: Ep. 1-The Foretelling

[Kraxis]

My goodness...

Never have I seen so many people be right and wrong at the same time...

Yes William used the feinged retreat after he saw his far left break and the Fyrd over there persue. That brought down the rest of the Fyrd (an overstatement but the effect was the same), the heavy cavalry (equivalent to the Feudal Knights in MTW) trampled them, but had had many problems getting at them earlier in the battle when cohesion prevailed.
The Housecarles never left their position on the top of the hill, they knew the dangers of persuit, and they were far to heavy anyway. They had to be killed to a man, and never were their ranks broken until they were about 30 left, when a certain noble charged in and speared Harold (dead or wouded at that time, another discussion but it is not really known for sure).
He was later stripped of all titles for his breaking the order of not harming Harold, or something like that.
Now could that noble have charged in and done that if there were still a good number of Housecarles left? Perhaps, but he would not have lived to tell about it.
And that was the first account of the knights breaking the Housecarles ranks.

Wether the remnants were killed by archers (who had now collected many of the arrows spent in the early battle) or they were killed in man to man or man to knight combat... I sure don't know, perhaps somebody could tell me?

It is interestingly that a group of Fyrd (most likely Selected Fyrd from what they were supposed to be) managed to kill a whole group of about 40 knights after the battle (they had been late for the battle itself), by luring them into a ditch.
They had been taunting the knights who were running down fleeing Saxons, the knights knew that such as small group could not stand up to them and thus they charged... right into the trap.

So even the victors can be made fools off.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

I think making the knights charge "cause fear" like certain artillery units, naphtha, etc would reflect the force of their charge and cause the enemy's lines to waver.

[Galestrum]

Beavis:

Finally some supporters.
Galestrom, you have mentioned other factors that have contributed to the Byzantine defeat, but in the end it comes down to the individual soldiers, if the horsearchers were inffective against the kataphractoi they would not have won. How do you explain the Mongol victories at Khalka, Legnitz, Mohi. If their arrows didn't penetrate armour there is no way they would have won.

(1) i did not comment on any other battle than Manzikert, and the events of those other battles have nothing to do with Manzikert

(2) the arrows really only played part in the initial skirmish engagements.....the battle came down to a slug out melee, Manzikert was not an archery contest only

(3) if you dont think that having large parts of your army (a) failing to even show (b) betraying you and joining the other side (c) not supporting the general advance and leaving the field of battle are THE DECISIVE factors in the loss, i would question your military judgment

(4) the byzantines DID HAVE turks and other steppe people archers and cavalry....turk bows were not a shock or suprise, they in fact had the same and comparable bows

(5) how do i explain the mongol victories...fairly simple the mongols fought a war very different than their opponents were used to, they were disciplined, experienced and well led, thier strategic and tactical strategems were superior, it wasnt "hey i have a nifty bow here, the war is over"

(6) and finally the surrounding circumstances of a battle are in medieval times far more important than just what weapons they had or did not

(a) quality of leaders
(b) quality and experience of troops
(c) logistical support
(d) ability to adapt
(e) the actual situation (ambush, prepared defensive position, etc)
(f) cohesiveness of units (did they act as an army or as indfividuals)
(g) a million other things and even just plain old luck

a single battle at a certain time proves nothing in and of itself, merely proves that with the given leaders, troops and situations that battle was fought in equalled the given result

for example: some think the battle of hastings was proof of Knights over infantry.

If i were there and able to tell the saxons "hey guys, dont chase after the cavalry, you are the defenders, hold your ground and make them come at you"....

Willaim the Bastard may very well have been a footnote in history and not the founder of "england"

Hastings merely proved that the Duke of Normandy was able to defeat a depleted and tired army (they came directly from a great victory over harald haldrada), that lost many men due to the harvest season, and after an ALL DAY battle, was just able to beat the saxons

if you go to west point or any military academy they dont go "mongols won because of bows", they study tactical and strategic stratgems, logistics, leadership, training experince, and the events and situations surrounding the engagement

mongol bows are nice, yeah, but they needed to be employed properly, as any other weapon. there have been numerous battles of "inferior" troops defeating "superior" troops

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Kraxis, the shield wall made the Norman archery ineffective. My source said it was the disruption of the formation that done the Saxons in. Harold may have had some problem with discipline as some of his troops broke rank to chase routing Bretons, and they themselves were cut down as they were exposed.

[Galestrum]

btw I NEVER said the arrows were ineffective or worthless

i said there were FAR more important issues at Manzikert besides "we got nifty bows"

[Kraxis]

Well, back to the point...

I think that it is sad that units that could not stand up to a heavy charge can do it to some degree in MTW.

The Chivalric MAA would never have been able to just stop the knights/whatever with a few men lost, they would at the very least have been thrown aside or trampled, no matter how heavy their armour had been.

The problem is the the knights get 'only' (certainly a good charge) 8 on top of their attack value.
If the defender had good defence because he wears a lot of armour, the knight won't have enough surplus (it seems there has to be a certain difference for the 'breaking ranks' to happen)in the charge to actually go beyond the first rank.

While I think the charge value itself is good and quite fitting, I think the momentum is broken too fast.
So why not have a weight system? It would work well with infantry as well, so we don't see Fanatics go rampaging among the heavier units (have seen them breaking ranks on Chivalric Sergeants from the rear).
If I have a little club, I can't kill a heavily armoured man in one blow, not even from behind if I'm not trained (and they are not). I will need a few blows to incapacitate him, I will do it, but I need more time, so breaking ranks there don't really work.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Niccolomachiavelli]

Anyone with a calcultor want to figger out the K=mv, then convert K to pounds per square inch and compare that to the breaking point of bone? Cause I think my point will bear itself out better if someone did http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif By my mental calculations a solid charge should turn the bones holding those shield/pikes into sand, not to mention the squishy bodies which host said bones


I also might add that utterly shattering the first row or two of the enemy should not be compensated by just making them more likely to retreat/lower moral. It should do that *and* kill a good chunk with the initial charge

[This message has been edited by Niccolomachiavelli (edited 10-02-2002).]

[Jikahn]

Quote Originally posted by Soapyfrog:
[B]Beavis:
DON'T cite Braveheart for historically accuracy, you seriously undermine your case.
B][/QUOTE]

He didn't use braveheart as a supporting fact. He was just saying how Hollywood understands this basic concept that the game does not seem to adhear to. I hate it when people twist my posts, so I had to say something.

Anyways, I think Knights are fine the way they are. If you leave them to fight it out after a charge, you are using them wrong anyways.

[Nelson]

Quote
(6) and finally the surrounding circumstances of a battle are in medieval times far more important than just what weapons they had or did not

(a) quality of leaders
(b) quality and experience of troops
(c) logistical support
(d) ability to adapt
(e) the actual situation (ambush, prepared defensive position, etc)
(f) cohesiveness of units (did they act as an army or as individuals)
(g) a million other things and even just plain old luck
[/QUOTE]

Galestrum, I couldn't agree more. Especially about "the million other things...". And any of these factors could change from day to day. War is the riskiest and most fickle of human endeavors.

I wouldn't mind losing commanders from time to time just for the day as bedridden. When the battle screen opens you'd get a message that reads:
"Your commander is ill today and can not take the field. His second will stand in his place."

What a difference that could make!



------------------
COGITOERGOVINCO

[Soapyfrog]

Jikahn: Hollywood doesn't understand shit about shit. The next time that someone suggests that Braveheart is a good reference for historical fact, I will ride my horse into their bedroom and smack them on the head with a bigass flail! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Galestrum]

*suggests braveheart is a good reference for historical fact* =P

[Soapyfrog]

Bah!

[longjohn2]

One point that none of you mention is that Medieval knights routinely got off their horses to fight on foot. Surely a foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled over as easily as some of you suggest.

I've modelled the game on the assumption that cavalry cannot break into a close packed infantry force, provided that the infantry keep their nerve.
Therefore when cavalry first hit infantry, the infantry recieves a big morale minus, and will often break immediately. If this doesn't happen then it depends on the relative quality of the cavalry and infantry, whether or not the cavalry can force their way into the formation. If they do, it's likely they'll win as the infantry unit will continue to get large morale penalties for losing to cavalry.
If they don't break in, the cavalry and break off, and have another go.

The game depicts spear pikes and polearms as being extra effective against cavalry, but this is largely a game simplification for the wider market. In reality I don't think it mattered that much what the infantry were armed with. Greek hoplites, Roman Legionaries, and Saxon huscarles could all defeat cavalry charges.

In terms of momentum, cavalry will always force back non spear infantry, unless the infantry are able to make a succesful strike on the cavalry. Thus it's the quality of the infantry that's the deciding factor. You could rationalise this saying that it's the bold stance ( or lack of ) of the infantry that determines how much the cavalryman really goes for the charge, and how much he pulls up at the last moment.

[amrcg]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by longjohn2:
[B]One point that none of you mention is >that Medieval knights routinely got off >their horses to fight on foot. Surely a >foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled >over as easily as some of you suggest.


I completely agree with your statement and I believe that in what concerns cavalry vs spearmen MTW should be kept as it is now.
What some people say is that in MTW there is no big advantage dismounting knights as spearmen seem to be too strong against foot knights, and men-at-arms. Namely, spearmen seem not to disrupt their formation even when they charge or run, and when they are attacked on the flank or rear, they are able to quickly about-face and face the enemy to the front. It is well known that masses of poorly trained spearmen would not be able to keep formation when wheeling or charging. This is what in my opinion should be fixed but (ATTENTION) without falling on the plain rock/paper/scissors solution. Spearmen only need to loose the rear-rank bonus during charge and they should be more slow when wheeling, specially while being attacked from flank or rear.

Anyway, the battle engine seems in my opinion to be quite realistic taking into account technical limitations. Congratulations!

Cheers,
Antonio

[Hakonarson]

Hey - Braveheart is THE most historical movie since Monty Python's "The Life of Brian"!!

Phil Barker said so (author of the BDM/A/R/HotT rule series & general historical guru), so it must be true!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Hakonarson]

Quote Originally posted by longjohn2:
One point that none of you mention is that Medieval knights routinely got off their horses to fight on foot. Surely a foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled over as easily as some of you suggest.
[/QUOTE]

that's a simplistic comment not really worthy of the research that has been put into MTW!!

There are a vast number of reasons why knights dismounts, and the vast majority of knights did NOT dismount.

Primary among the reasons for dismounting was adoption of a defensive tactical stance a la the English system.

Mounted knights have to charge to get maximum effectiveness, so aren't much use standing in line with longbowmen.

A second reason was trying to attack such a defensive stance that was effectively impervious to cavalry. Longbowmen at Crecy showed that horses were very vyulnerable to archery - not news but it had to be discovered afresh by the French!! Armouring a horse to withstand archery was very, very expensive, so the simlest solution was to get off the horses - the men were already fully armoured so dismounting removed the most vulnerable part of the fighting unit.

Knights also dismounted vs pike on occasino - eg the Italians at Arbedo(?? - I think it was in 1422) vs the Swiss - after several charges they decided the pikes weer a bit much mounted so they got off their horses in the middle of battle.

also knights dismounted to stiffen the resolve of "peasant" infantry - the English did this a lot in the years after the Norman conquest, the Scots did so (their front ranks at Flodden were dismounted nobles so heavily armoured that neither bill nor bow made any impression on them according to the English chroniclers of the battle)

Steady infantry have always had at least an even chance vs cavalry - that doesn't mean that a horse crashing into them doesn't do anything, it means they are able to absorb the impact and casualties without panicing.

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by longjohn2:
One point that none of you mention is that Medieval knights routinely got off their horses to fight on foot. Surely a foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled over as easily as some of you suggest.
[/QUOTE]

Only foolish if they did that in the face of an opposing regiment of charging heavy cavalry http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Now, of course you have reasons for having designed the game the way you did. But the fact is, heavy cavalry were a major and often dominant factor in many many battles of this era. But in the game as it is now, they are not. They are simply not cost effective, while in history they were quite powerful for a long time.

The fact is, many people, if not most, want to play heavy cavalry. Most people believe they should be able to route or deliver devastating blows to measly footmen and peasantry. Gamers _want_ to build up massively expensive powerful cavalry and have fun with them. But the game as its balance is tuned now just doesn't oblige.

Please, give people some significant bang for all the bucks it takes to field these units and I think the game will be improved measureably, just in terms of fun factor alone. (Not that it isn't fun now.)

While there can be debate about just how effective heavy cavalry really was, the overall perception of gamers is that as a massively costly unit, they SHOULD be powerful. And I think people would just have a blast playing them if they were balanced that way. It would greatly improve the tactical variety in the game.

Personally, I'd like to see more of a morale hit to infantry, especially the lowly types. And I'd like to see occasional overruns.

bif

[Galestrum]

hmmmm perhaps we can mod it =P

[Grifman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hakonarson:
[B]Grifman my sources are:

(snip)

Ok, I agree, I stand corrected - to a point http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Yes, the fyrd were armed probably primarily with shield and spear, along with swords, axes, etc.

But that doesn't change the fact that Hastings is not an example of the superiority of heavy cavalry over spears. At Hastings the English infantry held as long as they held formation. In fact they drove off in confusion at least one Norman charge, maybe another (depending upon whether one believes this was planned or not - the sources are not clear). It was only when the English infantry broke formation to mistakenly pursue Norman retreats that their infantry were vulnerable. In addition, they had no response to Norman archery, which depleted their ranks as the Norman archers started firing OVER the shield wall at the men at the rear. It seems pretty clear that the English could have held the hill all day if they had held formation and there had been no Norman archers - the Norman heavy cavalry could not substantially penetrate their postitions unaided.

Grifman

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

I reiterate my points as I think there has been some digression.
1. Knight-type cavalry should have a ``cause fear`` bonus added when charging.

2. Certain horsearcher units should have armor penetrating bonuses. (Where is that Magyar Khan?) The Mongol bows were able to do so, and the Mamluke horsearchers had longer range and fired at a faster rate than the ``famous longbowmen``. Those incredulous please refer to the Osprey Men-at-Arms series. This change would make the Golden Horde more deadly when they come by in 1220-1240, in my games they just die off pretty easily.

3. Spears/pikes should not have high charge values. Even the spearophile Grifman admits that when the Housecarls broke formation and ran after the Normans at Hastings they were defeated. Therefore: SPEAR GOOD FOR DEFENSE BAD FOR OFFENSE, yet in the game I see Spears charging my units and routing them. There is no way you can keep cohesion running at full speed which is what spears had to do to be effective.


Gaelstrum you are right that the Mongols and Middle-Eastern nations had better tactics and leadership, I was defending myself against someone ( I thought it was you) who thought that arrows fired from composite bows couldn`t penetrate armour. This is a fallacy. My point was that you can have the best tactics but if your weapons can`t inflict damage, you can`t win, period.

I think the changes I propose would make the Order of Battle more representative of what actually occurred in the Middle-Ages. Armies were cavalry-based with infantry being used in a supporting role or in sieges( I think cavalry should get more of a penalty in sieges but I digress) with the exception being the Scots, the (true) Prussians, the English in the Hundred years war and Swiss. We can argue that the Swiss had unfavourable terrain to cavalry, don`t forget the Swiss also made good use of halberds and two-handed swords, and the English also made excellent use of terrain and generally took defensive posture. My changes would make a player of a Middle-Eastern faction send out his horsearchers against heavy cavalry, which is what happened historically, instead of sending out spears. The defense against the horsearcher was light cavalry able to chase them down, this is what was done in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Spain, Albania,Byzantium, the Balkan states.

Mr Longjohn2, I hope you seriously consider my suggestions, I think the knights need a bit more power, certain horsearchers should be more effective against armor, and spears should not be good assaulting.

[This message has been edited by Beavis (edited 10-02-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Beavis (edited 10-02-2002).]

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

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

[Grifman]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
I reiterate my points as I think there has been some digression.

Knight-type cavalry should have a ``cause fear`` bonus added when charging.[/QUOTE]

Uh, if you read LJ's post, they already have this:

"Therefore when cavalry first hit infantry, the infantry recieves a big morale minus, and will often break immediately"

Same thing.

[quote]3. Spears/pikes should not have high charge values. Even the spearophile Grifman admits that when the Housecarls broke formation and ran after the Normans at Hastings they were defeated. Therefore: SPEAR GOOD FOR DEFENSE BAD FOR OFFENSE, yet in the game I see Spears charging my units and routing them. There is no way you can keep cohesion running at full speed which is what spears had to do to be effective./quote]

I could be wrong - again - but didn't Greek hoplite spear armed phalanx's charge? Didn't Macedonian sarissa armed phalanx's charge? Didn't Swiss pike formations charge? Weren't these units effective at charging? Maybe it wasn't at a full gallop, but they did charge and manage to keep to formation, at least over even ground. And they were effective. A well trained infantry can charge offensively and keep formation - it's not always like Braveheart, right? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Grifman

[Hakonarson]

Quote Didn't Macedonian sarissa armed phalanx's charge? Didn't Swiss pike formations charge? Weren't these units effective at charging? Maybe it wasn't at a full gallop, but they did charge and manage to keep to formation, at least over even ground. And they were effective. A well trained infantry can charge offensively and keep formation - it's not always like Braveheart, right?[/QUOTE]

Certainly Greek, Macedonian and Swiss troops armed with spears of various lengths charged.

but just what as a "charge" by a pike block or a hoplite phgalanx??

Hoplites, for example apaprently made their initial thrust underarm on the run, and they could get enough energy into the spear to push it through an enemy shield or cuirass. The combination of a well timed thrust plus the running charge gave them this.

Clearly then the 2nd rank wouldn't have been clsoe behind because those underarm thrusts usually had a butt spike on the other end that was just as lethal as the spear point and the 2nd rank wouldn't be interested in getting those in their groins!!

For the Macedonian "charge" we know it was a bit more deliberate - against the Romans at Pydna it was more a measured walk forwards with the ranks close packed. we have descriptions of Romans being slowly pushed back by the "weight" of half a dozen spear (pike) points in their shields - by which I mean there would be 6 guys on the ends of those 6 pikes all pushing that one sheild backwards.

both pike and Hoplite would stand to receive cavalry.

I don't know about the Swiss much.

As for Hastings - yep, I think the English could have stood on the hill top all day. I don't think the archery was all that important really - Harold may have been wounded by an archer but he was killed by a Norman knight after the shield wall broke up - it wasn't so much the Huscarls who pursued as the elss experienced Fyrd on the wing IRRC - and even after that the English remnants retreated rather than routed.

The Norman cavalry of the time was the best in the world - but it wasn't equipped for a charge "en haye" like later knights were - even uphill I think the Saxons would have been crushed by a charge of 13th century men at arms with heavy lances - the Normans just didn't have that equipment - their lances were rather light and as likely to be thrown as thrust, and thrust overarm as well as underarm, and they were not couched underarm. Their saddles also didn't ahve the high cantles required to transfer the momentum of the horse to the lance tip through the rider.

Essentially at Hastings the Normans did not charge into the shield wall - they trotted up to it, and then fenced with it using the advantage of their greater height from being mounted.

As you say though - when the infantry no longer had a shieldwall the cavalry could easily ride down individuals or small groups - basically a man is no match for a horse - it can just knock him aside.

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

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
Even the spearophile Grifman admits that when the Housecarls broke formation and ran after the Normans at Hastings they were defeated.[/QUOTE]

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

Just ignore my post about Hastings...
The Housecarles stayed put all day! They were not only highly skilled troops, but they were highly disciplined as well. Further it was better that the Fyrd chased the enemy as they were much lighter than the Housecarles, and they knew it.

I still think my idea of weight has some merit for the game, it could even be adopted by the infantry as well.
That would make the heavier units more effective, units such as Heavy Jannisaries and Gothic units just to name a few. That would go a long way to even the odds against buffed up low quality units.

But remember, when the charge hits the same number of enemies dies as they do now, but then the weight factor comes in and calculates how far the charge will go further into the unit. It doens't directly kill anybody (though the man/knight has a chance to kill the target with his normal attack).
So in effect we could perhaps see a unit of Royal Knights run all the way through a unit of Peasants, and given they don't turn tail at once, only a certain number of the peasants are killed, the rest that was in the way were pushed away (or killed by the normal attack).

Of course this makes the very good knights even better against Peasants as they basically kill any Peasants in one attackround, so the knights would most likely kill all that faced them.
But it would be great when MAA stood up against them.
The MAA can at times stop the knights even at the first rank, but now that would not happen, a few ranks would be broken and the knights would have a better chance of killing the rest. As it is now, the MAA stop the charge sometimes, which is bad enough itself, but then they engage the knights from the side (due to numbers) and they can win... But luckily they don't all the time.
I want to see that end, if the MAA should win, they should win when the knights have done all they can...
Not just "ohh this guy has a big shield... DAMN my lance can't get through it, I better stop my horse."

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Grifman, I think the morale penalty Knight-type units inflict when charging, if it exists, isn't enough. I think the knight-type units charge should be more powerful somehow.

As to the "charging spear" issue, my stance is like Harkonen's, spear-armed units cattack by advancing, keeping cohesion, not by running at full gallop and taking advantage of their momentum, which is what a charge hopes to accomplish. Run fast lose cohesion. Spears and pikes should still be good defensively. Although lances soon became long enough to outreach spears and in the 17th century the "winged hussar's" lance could outreach pikes, but I think this would be too hard to implement in the game

Maybe I should start another link for the horsearcher issue.

[amrcg]

>[QUOTE]Originally posted by Beavis:
>[B]Grifman, I think the morale penalty >Knight-type units inflict when charging, if >it exists, isn't enough. I think the >knight-type units charge should be more >powerful somehow.
In my opinion a compromise solution would be to look at experienced miniatures rules such as DBM and try to follow the same balance in MTW.

>As to the "charging spear" issue, my stance >is like Harkonen's, spear-armed units >cattack by advancing, keeping cohesion, not >by running at full gallop and taking >advantage of their momentum, which is what >a charge hopes to accomplish. Run fast >lose cohesion. Spears and pikes should >still be good defensively.
I fully agree. Furthermore, cohesion of untrained spearmen masses should be lost when wheeling to face a flank or rear already being attacked.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Galestrum]

*throws in 2 cents*

as i can observe most people are for the most part, complaining about the *spearmen* unit, not pikes, sergeants etc

the spearmen unit is a *poor morale* unit and refelcts a less than professional/noble complement of men

therefore, under those assumptions, they should have bigger morale problems, et al as they were not *professional, hardened, elite, full time guys*

comparing the *spearmen* unit to hoplites, pikemen etc is not a valid comparison in terms of training/quality

spearmen may hold up against a hobilar charge, royal knights, thats another question

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Thanks for the support last two posts.

I have seen feudal knights, armenian cavalry etc, taken out by spears- who were moving. The spear was only effective against cavalry when it was "set" (braced in the ground). Used overhead it would`nt be as effective against cavalry charge as the momentum of the horseman would knock the spear out of the weilder`s grip.

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.

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.

What`s neglected to be mentioned about the success of the English at Crecy and Agincourt was the use of field fortifications such as caltrops and stakes as well as the muddy terrain that took the momentum out of the French charge. The French charged blindly and stupidly to defeat, which they did at Nicopolis against the Hungarians advice which cost them the battle. I guess I should start another topic about field fobstacles.

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

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
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.[/QUOTE]

Not only that, it would just plain be a lot more FUN.

Right now, why spend 8-10 times more for heavy cav units when they just get bogged down 1-on-1 and die?

Making knights effective would add more tactical richness to the game... cavalry would become a viable weapon!

bif

[Ligur]

Odd, why is it that in my SP campaign Knights are a very good unit. Heavy armour, fast and break weak formations. Just as long as they don't charge straight to a wall of spears.

Or how many of you are talking about multiplayer again? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif

[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.

[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?

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!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[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).]

[CBR]

Ok I might be repeating what other people have said and what I have said in a few other threads too.

-How did infantry defeat cavalry? well in most cases by standing in deep and dense formations on top of a hill.

I pretty much do what I want with my infantry. Terrain is nice but I dont need it. Just give me some order/italian foot and Im happy.

-Infantry started to use pike to increase their odds against cavalry...the Swiss being the best known example of pike men I guess.

Well I dont need pikes really. The disadvantages of pikes (no shield and low armor) is not worth the better defense/attack against cavalry. Again give me order foot...chiv sergeants I guess is good enough.

I have used heavy cavalry for several days now as I got tired of my standard rush army...now ist a bit more fun to play with but this so called balanced army is a lot weaker.

And lets just take a look at troops costs. I have several rulesets for miniature wargaming(as miniature wargaming and multiplayer MTW is very much alike its fair to compare them) and they all have a very different prices compared to MTW. The difference between the worst infantry and the best cavalry is about 1:8 in cost. If we assume spearmen and woodsmen are the worst (forgetting about peasants as they are just really bad heh) then 40 Lancers(most expensive 40 man unit royal knights are actually more expensive per man) should only cost 400 florins and not the 1100 they do now. The same with the good infantry units: the price will go down compared to the basic spear/woodsman

And that I think is the biggest problem...cavalry could be better in stats at least when doing flank and rear attacks but it is the price the really do them the most harm.

CBR

[MajorFreak]

hmmm...well, i personally never assume heavy cavalry is worth more than it's weight in gold. *g*

I'm pretty schooled on MTW tactics since STW instructs pretty well on the rock, paper, scissors approach.rock = spearpaper = archersscissors = horse[/list]I'm the sort of player that tends to cluster alot and doesn't afford any space for supporting cavalry charges. (since the AI usually has enough spears to counter charges)

There has been a few times where cavalry has won the day: mainly by flanking the spears to charge the archers, then charging the rear of the spears engaged in close combat with my infantry...I've never actually had the opportunity to frontally assault anything but archers, it's just suicidal to do anything else involving enemy spears.

The one thing i do need to practice is the spacing of my infantry to allow cavalry charges/disengages/repeats...That i will attempt perhaps.

I do like my Byzantine Cavalry, especially for chasing routers...better survival rate. *g* (though i'm surprised i still have horse archers around for that express purpose, even though they die like flies)as for my strategic preferences? 200 spears, 200 Byz Infantry, 60 Varangian guards, 240 trebizond archers, 120 pavise arbalesters, 80 Byz Cavalry, 40 kataphrakoi (general/king/prince), and usually 12 naptha to round off.

i'm not really sure whether Bulgarian Brigands are better to help rout an enemy line than Trebizond archers...i'll take "good attack" any day of the week over "fast" (fast is for my bloody horse)and, oh yeah, i'll buy briton longbowmen as mercenaries any day of the week[/list]Plus, i still need to learn not to run my units when out of range of charge...must learn patience.

------------------

[amrcg]

I would just like to direct you all towards an article by Sean McGlynn titled "The Myths of Medieval Warfare": http://www.deremilitari.org/mcglynn.htm

Some interesting passages:

" All writers, whether military or clerical, came from the first ranks of the social order. It is this social aspect that explains the relative omission of lowly foot-soldiers and archers in the sources: they were always present in war but were afforded little mention. This has mistakenly been taken as evidence for their very limited value before the end of the thirteenth century."

"A royal act from France in 1188 stipulated that Tournai had to provide 300 heavy infantry (predites bene armatos) when summoned by Philip II, a substantial number from one source, and one of many cases to rebut the view that medieval foot-soldiers only became a significant and effective force in the fourteenth century. Articles by Matthew Bennet, Jim Bradhury and John Gillingham reveal the 'vitally important' role of infantry by such telling examples as when the spears of Henry II's foot-soldiers saw off the French cavalry at Gisors in 1188 ('not the kind of thing that is supposed to happen in medieval warfare before the battle of Courtai in 1302') and the series of battles in England and Normandy between 1066 and 1141 which display the tactical combination of cavalry, dismounted knights, archers and infantry."

Cheers,
Antonio

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

We're digressing from the issue a little. I went back to my books and concede that Western European armies did have quite a bit of infantry. Interestingly my DBM miniature rulebook classifies some spear units as "auxilia" having no anti-cav benefits.
I still think that the knight units were used as the main assault and this should be reflected in the game. Interestingly they staed that the Swiss used halberds early on until 1400 when the pike was introduced. The historical formations that the game allows you to deploy your units with all have cavalry to the front. Wheras what happens is the spears attack first.

So my points are the knight-type units should have a more powerful charge able to sweep away most infantry and inferior spear units.
Secondly the horsearchers should also be more powerful. I don't know about you but the Golden Horde event isn't more than anuissance and should really wreck havoc.
Third is that anti-cav spear units should be defensive only, so take away their charge benefits.

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:

I still think that the knight units were used as the main assault and this should be reflected in the game.
...
So my points are the knight-type units should have a more powerful charge able to sweep away most infantry and inferior spear units.
[/QUOTE]


I agree with all of this. There are three reasons to enhance the value of heavy cavalry:

1) Historical realism.
Knights and HvyCav were far more prevelant in reality than they are in the game. Why? Because in the game they cost FAR more than they are worth. This will become worse when high buildings start pumping out high valor peon units in the patch. Why would pikes and all that training expense have ever been developed if stupid peasant spears were as effective as they are in this game?

2) Game balance.
Right now (after some testing), a 0 valor spear can ravage a 0 valor Chiv Knight before breaking... around 20-30 kills unit vs unit. Why would anyone ever spend 1000 for more than 2 HCav when spears cost 1/10 that much? Only reason to do so is to satisfy some frivolous desire to have an intellectual challenge. In terms of the game, it's just foolish vanity to try a cavalry dominant approach.

3) Fun
Let's face it, gamers love the notion of fielding massively expensive and capable armored tanks against hordes of unwashed peons! The armored knight is the image of medieval warfare... What's the picture on the game box? People just expect knights to be devastating, but as it is now, they are a travesty. The game's fun factor would be vastly improved if HCav were a viable strategic approach. As it is now, an HCav dominant approach is just not feasible and this hurts the game significantly, IMO.

Note: nobody is lobying for Knights to become an uber unit. Nobody wants knights to replace all the spears. We just want HCav to be one possible viable tactic, as effective as the spear-heavy knightless approach everyone is using now.

Sure, most people use a couple of HCav in their ensemble now, but does anyone try 40-50% knight units effectively? (40-50% knight UNITS is really about a 25-30% knight manpower ratio).

The game needs some rebalancing to correct this flaw.

Other possible suggestions to fix:

+ If cavalry charge really does cause a morale hit as longjohn says (I have never seen it happen, but maybe the code is there...), then that morale hit needs to be much higher.

+ Make valor more expensive (both single and multiplay). In the upcoming patch, high level buildings will add to the valor of lower level units... that valor should increase the cost of the unit produced, otherwise the game will become more unbalanced than it is now.

+ Allow cavalry to disengage without taking such a heavy backstab penalty. Also, minimize morale penalty for disengaging or maneuvering cavalry.

bif


[This message has been edited by AgentBif (edited 10-05-2002).]

[AgentBif]

oops

[This message has been edited by AgentBif (edited 10-05-2002).]

[Hakonarson]

Beavis taking history from wargaming rules is not a gret idea!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I'm a long time DBM player too - the first person to import hte rules in NZ that I know of.

Yesr some Auxilia are called "spearmen" - but any man with a spear is a spearman - a definition used within a particular context (DBM or MTW) isn't necessarily valid for any other context!!

However note that in DBM there ARE Auxilia "spearmine" who are good vs cavalry - they're Auxilia (X), defined as thse with long spears used 2-handed and no or ineffective shields and resisting cavalry when clumped.

I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is, but there it is!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Cyricist]

I think the knights are wel presented the way they are. The idea that knights were dominant and 'the' elite on the battlefield is something almost pre-medieval. Very soon Europe learned that infantry with spears was the best one could have. And bowmen. Especially the British picked up on this, whacking the french with it. The French nobles were, even after 100 years of war, still convinced knights should rule the battlefield. They got their arse kicked in Flanders (the Golden Horde story). Get over it. There is no dominant unit in the game. Except perhaps princessess.. yeah.. they rock..

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Right-on Agentbif.

Hakonarsen, for someone from New Zealand you are butchering the Queen's English. You have to admit the guys at DBM did a whole lot of historical research and I suspect they influenced the Total War developers. What they did is translate historical events into a game, which is what we're doing here.

Cyricist, your opinions are based solely on Western European experiences, the knights defeat at Crecy and Agincourt was in part because of the use of terrain, field obstacles which negated their charge and a muddy field also the French didn't expect the English to fight 'dirty'. Armour-piercing arrows existed in the orient and middle-east before the longbows. Aside from pikes there has been no medieval battle decided by spearmen, the game doesn't reflect this. Further after the dismal performance at Crecy why didn't the veterans of the battle dismount at Tannenberg and Varna against a cavalry dominated opponent. Don't forget the best disciplined and most successful armies of the middle-ages also included cavalry dominated ones: Timurid, Ottoman, Military Orders.

BTW I'm working on a mod to beef up the knights and take away the spear charge, anyone interested?

[This message has been edited by Beavis (edited 10-06-2002).]

[cihset]

Hell yes..

Been doing this myself lately, though in a rather rude and trial by error fashion.

------------------
Remember 11th september, 1973!!

[Jemasze Toda]

Guys, i can only talk about the actual game "Medieval" and especially about the multiplayer-aspect of it and i won't comment at all about strange things like "historical accurateness": http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

In multiplayer the Knights are NOT (i repeat: NOT) too weak, it is quite simple a question of how to use them.

If you use them like fast light cavalry ( Alan Mercenary, Sergeants etc.), don't be surprised if their cost stands in no positive relation to their actual value in battle.
If you send them in at the wrong time of the battle, for example when the enemies ranks are still fresh, in good moods and closely together, don't be surprised if their cost stands in no positive relation to their actual value in battle.
If you run with them foolishly around the battlefield and in that fashion tire them dramatically, don't be surprised ....

Hehe

How to use Knights?
Figure that out by yourself i would say....

Hey! I am not saying that Knights rule every single battle, sometimes they simply fail (wasn't that the fact in history as well?) but under the right circumstances and in the hand of a skilled general they are a deadly weapon.

Talk less, play more.....seems to be the first step in becoming a true Master-Knight!

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

The last sentence was of course "just kidding".....hehe

yours Jemasze alias TheFool

Watch out for TheFool!!

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
Right-on Agentbif.
Cyricist, your opinions are based solely on Western European experiences, the knights defeat at Crecy and Agincourt was in part because of the use of terrain, field obstacles which negated their charge and a muddy field also the French didn't expect the English to fight 'dirty'. Armour-piercing arrows existed in the orient and middle-east before the longbows. Aside from pikes there has been no medieval battle decided by spearmen, the game doesn't reflect this. Further after the dismal performance at Crecy why didn't the veterans of the battle dismount at Tannenberg and Varna against a cavalry dominated opponent. Don't forget the best disciplined and most successful armies of the middle-ages also included cavalry dominated ones: Timurid, Ottoman, Military Orders.
[This message has been edited by Beavis (edited 10-06-2002).][/QUOTE]

Beavis, there are several instances of battles being decided by dismounted knights who were able to defeat cavalry as early as the XIIth century. As such, why should a spearmen formation not be able to do the same? Courtrai in 1302 is the proof that a well led, well armed and determined militia army was able to defeat knights.

You also ask "Further after the dismal performance at Crecy why didn't the veterans of the battle dismount at Tannenberg and Varna against a cavalry dominated opponent".
I would say that terrain not always favours passive defense. When the defender was able to use suitable terrain features to protect the flanks, an able commander would use infantry (if few were available, knights could dismount to increase their number) to receive the enemy's frontal charge, keeping a reserve to pursue the defeated enemy horsemen.
But if the terrain was plain and the enemy had big numbers of cavalry, there was the risk of envelopment, which would also prevent retreat. In this situation it was better to couter with mounted troops which could be used to attack the enemy's weakest spots and avoid envelopment much easier.

Cheers,
Antonio

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by AgentBif:

3) Fun
Let's face it, gamers love the notion of fielding massively expensive and capable armored tanks against hordes of unwashed peons! The armored knight is the image of medieval warfare... What's the picture on the game box? People just expect knights to be devastating, but as it is now, they are a travesty. The game's fun factor would be vastly improved if HCav were a viable strategic approach. As it is now, an HCav dominant approach is just not feasible and this hurts the game significantly, IMO.
[This message has been edited by AgentBif (edited 10-05-2002).][/QUOTE]

Well, maybe graceful victory is fun for players like Mr. President George W. Bush, but I'm sure that most faithful fans of MTW are here to play history and they demand historical accuracy and tactical challenge on the battle engine even to the detriment of the strategical part (unit costs, etc.).
I'm sure that in the day that MTW is turned into a "shoot'em up" game, many people - me included - will not buy it anymore.
Anyway, you can always mod the game in order to bless your knights with super-human powers like those described in Chivalric legends and the descriptions of battles made by upper-class chronicles.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Bob the Insane]

Last night I had a couple of heirs that really shouldn't get the throne, so sent them on a tour of the rebel provinces in the North Africa...

The battle was like this, 40 Royal Knight (late period) against 720 enemy soldiers, 4 crossbow units (including the enemy general) and 2 archer units..(using huge units..)..

Force of habit made me play the doomed battle...

I put the two units into skirmish formation and charged the enemy lines... The formation really helped reduce casulaties and the charge struck home... The enemy kept trying to retreat and I kept pressing, ensuring all units where on the move.. Then I concetrated on the enemy general who was dispatched in short order... they it was a case of pursing the routing enemy to a surprise victory (such a surpise I had the strip the garrisons of other provinces to keep this one..

On the other hand, was a victory agains the Egyptians.. There army was mainly cavalry (including camels but no archers..) and mine was 6 Feudal Sergeants and 2 Feudal Men-at-Arms..

I out numbered the foe but victory was hard, those G-whatsit Guards are as hard as nails... but the Sergeants pretty much devisated the other cavalry.. Victory was becuase of attrition and my superior numbers.. But the bulk of my casualties where caused by enemy infantry and the Egyptian King's Guards...

The morale is that cavalry is devastating in the right circumstances as they are, but in the wrong circumstances they can be as big a liability as any other unit...

[CBR]

Quote Originally posted by amrcg:
Beavis, there are several instances of battles being decided by dismounted knights who were able to defeat cavalry as early as the XIIth century. As such, why should a spearmen formation not be able to do the same? Courtrai in 1302 is the proof that a well led, well armed and determined militia army was able to defeat knights.

You also ask "Further after the dismal performance at Crecy why didn't the veterans of the battle dismount at Tannenberg and Varna against a cavalry dominated opponent".
I would say that terrain not always favours passive defense. When the defender was able to use suitable terrain features to protect the flanks, an able commander would use infantry (if few were available, knights could dismount to increase their number) to receive the enemy's frontal charge, keeping a reserve to pursue the defeated enemy horsemen.
But if the terrain was plain and the enemy had big numbers of cavalry, there was the risk of envelopment, which would also prevent retreat. In this situation it was better to couter with mounted troops which could be used to attack the enemy's weakest spots and avoid envelopment much easier.

Cheers,
Antonio

[/QUOTE]


Well that is exactly the problem: Infantry could defeat cavalry if standing together in dense formations with their flanks/rear protected. In MTW you dont have to worry about flanks or about your infantry units not being ready to recieve the cavalry charge.

I have lots of time to turn my units because cavalry is not very fast and even if they do hit my spearmen in the flank/rear the effect is too small... my unit will turn and slaughter the cavalry very quickly..only if they are already engaged in a fight will flanking cavalry will be a problem.

I have seen swiss armoured pikemen (ok I know..they are the best pikemen you can buy) in a formation I would describe as a loose ordered mob pursuing another infantry unit, hit by a cavalry charge in the flank with no real effect...seconds after they reform and start killing the cavalry. Maybe they got lucky but my experience is that cavalry should never hit a spear/pike unit unless that unit is already engaged...flank/rear attacks are simply not good enough and infantry fight cavalry nicely even when moving.

Terrain doesnt matter much..a nice flat plain should give cavalry better odds but its not good enough: cavalry is too slow and the flank/rear attacks not good enough.

Courtrai(and most other battles where a pure infantry army defeated a cavalry charge) was not a battle where infantry happily marched forward and engaged cavalry at will. But thats how infantry does it in MTW.

CBR

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by CBR:

Well that is exactly the problem: Infantry could defeat cavalry if standing together in dense formations with their flanks/rear protected. In MTW you dont have to worry about flanks or about your infantry units not being ready to recieve the cavalry charge.

Courtrai(and most other battles where a pure infantry army defeated a cavalry charge) was not a battle where infantry happily marched forward and engaged cavalry at will. But thats how infantry does it in MTW.
CBR[/QUOTE]

Courtrai is a very good example of a frontal charge of knights smashing itself against infantry spears/polearms. While it can be argued that the French left had not enough distance to gain momentum during the charge (due to broken terrain), the right wing was able to gain more momentum and still was unable to pass through the infantry's deep formation. As to the Flemish centre, it suffered more than the wings, probably not only because the greater momentum achieved by the French, but also because the French charges on the left and right were able to push the Flemish back a bit, exposing the centre.

That's why I think that the problem of MTW is not really with cavalry. The problem is that spearmen infantry (all types of spearmen, not only "spearmen") and pikemen is too fast/maneuverable and able to keep cohesion even if charging/running long distances. If spearmen/pikemen took more time to wheel and face a flank attack, at the same time loosing cohesion, cavalry would be in fact able to serve its puspose.

Cheers,
Antonio

[olaf]

After playing a while, I also think heavy cavalry/knights are too weak.

My knights take WAY too many casualties for starters. I will lose a man or two pursuing a routing foe sometimes, that shouldnt happen. Secondly, they need a higher charge modifier or perhaps base attack value. When I see a cavalry charge into the flank/rear of a densely massed formation, their ought to be a lot more casualties.

olaf

[NARF]

You know, its not hard to search through and change their attack value and florin cost.

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What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we'll never know.

[CBR]

Quote Originally posted by amrcg:
Courtrai is a very good example of a frontal charge of knights smashing itself against infantry spears/polearms. While it can be argued that the French left had not enough distance to gain momentum during the charge (due to broken terrain), the right wing was able to gain more momentum and still was unable to pass through the infantry's deep formation. As to the Flemish centre, it suffered more than the wings, probably not only because the greater momentum achieved by the French, but also because the French charges on the left and right were able to push the Flemish back a bit, exposing the centre.

That's why I think that the problem of MTW is not really with cavalry. The problem is that spearmen infantry (all types of spearmen, not only "spearmen") and pikemen is too fast/maneuverable and able to keep cohesion even if charging/running long distances. If spearmen/pikemen took more time to wheel and face a flank attack, at the same time loosing cohesion, cavalry would be in fact able to serve its puspose.

Cheers,
Antonio

[/QUOTE]


So basically you are saying the glass is half-full and Im saying its half-empty http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif


I want the consequenses of being flank/rear attacked to be bigger, so a player has to think a bit more how he moves his infantry..with cavalry being faster or infantry slower to maneuver..and easier to lose cohesion when infantry maneuvers and the effect of lost cohesion is something to be felt more than it is right now.

Lots of small things that all will add up to make the game more realistic and more balanced.

And we should not forget the pikes. That why I want spear units to have bigger problems against the real heavy knights. Because if they dont have any big problems..why have pikes at all.

Oi repeating things again heh

CBR

[CBR]

Quote Originally posted by NARF:
You know, its not hard to search through and change their attack value and florin cost.

[/QUOTE]

And how is that gonna make my multiplayer experience any better? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

CBR

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by amrcg:

I'm sure that most faithful fans of MTW are here to play history and they demand historical accuracy and tactical challenge on the battle engine even to the detriment of the strategical part (unit costs, etc.).[/QUOTE]

If you want yourself some tactical challenge and historical accuracy, go play with 50% cavalry units ratio. Do you?

If you want historical accuracy, why aren't you clamoring for some kind of justification for the use of pikes when bargain basement spear peasantry shred cavalry with little effort?

If you're so big on accuracy, why aren't you complaining about the lack of momentum in cavalry charge and the capacity to crack a sword foot unit in half or even overrun it?

If historical accuracy is important to you, why aren't you making the argument that charging cavalry should cause a much more significant morale hit than regular units do?

If you cared about historical accuracy more than your spear hordes, you'd be on our side man.

bif

[Galestrum]

whats wrong with you cavalry people?

of course a guy in quitled toilet paper with a 5 foot stick should utterly thrash a knight with a 12 foot stick on a big horse, afterall he spent at least 2-3 days learning how to keep his formation and point the sharp end at the enemy.

those idiot knights and rulers, spending tons of cash to train knights for years, and equip him with 4-5 horses, a small fortune worth of armor and weapons

didnt they know all you need is a relatively untrained force of loin cloths and twigs to defeat you?! and at a fraction of the cost too!

also lets remember to make faulty analysis of a battle and say there you go spears > knights and forget to mention : leadership, terrain, quality, deployment, strength of defensive position etc because those had no bearing on the outcome of the battle surely

afterall the french did win the 100 years war, with their dopey, idiotic, wimpy cavalry, ack lets forget that lil point

i wonder do we hear about the battles spears, et al actually won of because they were in fact rare, or because they were common. surely pikemen didnt come into their own because cavalry ruled the day to that point, of course not

just remember sticks beat swords, horse, and arrows and you will be ok - no worries

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Right on Agentbif. If Spears were as effective in real life as they are in the game there would be no reason to develop pikes. I don't know much about Courtai, but I never said pikes should be ineffective...defensively, but draw any spear-armed unit out of formation and they're toast.


It's pretty easy to mod stuff, I'm also beefing up the horsearchers and the most expensive unit for its worth the Lithuanian cavalry. Pikes will remain good anti-cav units, spears will damage cav units when used defensively, but will not defeat heavy cav on their own.

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
Right on Agentbif.
It's pretty easy to mod stuff, I'm also beefing up the horsearchers and the most expensive unit for its worth the Lithuanian cavalry. Pikes will remain good anti-cav units, spears will damage cav units when used defensively, but will not defeat heavy cav on their own.[/QUOTE]

Well, at Courtrai that hapenned and it was indeed a quite demonstrative scenario of knightly frontal charge against spears+polearms.
You can read a brief description of it at http://www.liebaart.org/gulden_e.htm

Cheers,
Antonio

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Umm, amrcg your source said the militia used pikes not spears.
I think we all agree pikes should be effective against cavalry, but spears shouldn't be as effective as they are now.

[DojoRat]

I think one aspect of the Cav vs. Spearman debate that has been overlooked is the power of the warhorse itself.

THEY WERE HUGE.

If the defender was anything less than totally commited to meeting the charge his spear would be ripped from his grasp. Or more likely they would've done their best to get out of the way. The initial shock would've been tremendous and I don't think this is accurately presented.
Even after the horse had lost its momemtum it would be thrashing and kicking and as much of a weapon as the knight itself. I would think you would need 5 or 6 ranks to absorb a HC charge and maintain formation.
It would also make a difference in morale if there were more defenders behind you but you never hear about setting up 'in depth'. I don't know but I would guess that in most of their defeats HC units faced multiple rows of units many ranks deep.

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He moves, you move first.

[Hakonarson]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
Umm, amrcg your source said the militia used pikes not spears.
I think we all agree pikes should be effective against cavalry, but spears shouldn't be as effective as they are now.[/QUOTE]

Don't get too hung up on the term "pike" - IIRC Flemish spears at this time were quite long (12 feet??) but used 1 handed - I've got some sources at home I can check later.

People tend to get all excited about spears vs pike - but what is the actual difference? Both are nothing but a long bit of wood with a sharp end.

Suer longer spears had to be used 2 handed, but in the middle there'sa wide range that could be and were used both 1 and 2-handed, so from about 8 feet long to 13 feet.

Eg Welsh and Pictish infantry used 8-10 foot spears 2 handed, Flemings at one stage at least used 12-13 foot ones 1 handed.

It doesn't matter whether you use it with 1 hand or 2, a spear can be braced against het ground to receive cavalry regardless. Indeed when braced against the ground even the longest pikes require only 1 hand to hold!!

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Thanks for the support DojoRat

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Hakonarsen, who cares if the pikes were used with one, two hands or with both feet.

We assume spear-type weapons are classified as such in increasng lenghth:

javelins
spears
pikes

Lances are about as long as pikes so should easily outreach the spear and send its wielder to Paradise before the spear could do any damage, common sense no?

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:
It doesn't matter whether you use it with 1 hand or 2, a spear can be braced against het ground to receive cavalry regardless. Indeed when braced against the ground even the longest pikes require only 1 hand to hold!!

[/QUOTE]

I doubt even an idiot would argue with over that, but the point is that the spears are around 6-8 feet in MTW, while the knights lances are if not longer than at least the same length of effective length.
If I placed my spear in the ground it would be able to stop a knight, but only if he missed me with his lance for it outreached my spear. Also putting the spear into the ground is not very good in terms of length of the spear.

I don't really mind that the spearunits are good, it is important for balance, but knights are just not good enough. I have said it before, I only want the knights to be more effective when charging, adding a bonus of weigth to them would be enough I think. They would break the spearunits ranks, while not actually killing them, but then the individual knights would not have to contest with the rankbonus and would thus inflict more casualties on the spears, perhaps even breaking them on impact... It all depends on the quality of the spears.

In all the spears would have to fight for the victory rather than just walk all over the knights. But better yet, swordunits would no longer be able to completely halt the knights/heavy cav, which I think is quite fitting.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Right on Kraxis.

[Didz]

Seems to me that a knight with a lance is a one shot weapon.

If he can break the enemy formation with the initial charge then he will win because he can ride down or pursue the enemy. However, if that initial strike fails then the lance just becomes an encumbrance and having driven himself deep into the enemy formation he is a sitting duck.

His only hope of salvation at this point would be to drop the lance and reach for his sword. If he and his horse managed to survive that long he might then be able to fight his way out and regroup from another go.

Personally, I think knights should be upgraded so that they carry 88mm quick firing HE cannon and that their horses should be equipped with twin miniguns strapped to their ears. Perhaps then everone would be satisfied.

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Didz
Fortis balore et armis

[Cheetah]

Listed in the TC

[Grifman]

I think the real problem, if there is one, is the number of men in a cavalry unit. Not only are they more expensive, but you get fewer troops per unit. I think if there were equal numbers, the knights would win - but there are just too few against the spearmen to win, even if they are individually superior. The lack of numbers is what kills them more than anything else.

Grifman

[Hakonarson]

Ther are a number of issues here - Spear length didn't stay constant - it increased as lance length increased - as you point ouot a spear with reach shorter than a lance isn't much use at all.

But then bills and halberds, etc are all generally shorter than lances and seem to have been useful!!

IMO units that are unable to stop cavalry are peasants - regardless of spear length.

Spearmen are those men who are able to stop a cavalry charge - spear length is only part of the equation - collective guts to stand up to cavalry is the first and most impotant criteria.

So they might well carry single handed spears long enough to be of use vs cavalry, but it is more important that theyhave the gumption to hold formation and use them when required.

[This message has been edited by Hakonarson (edited 10-08-2002).]

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[Bob the Insane]

What is the technical difference between a spear/pike and a lance other than one is carried by a infantryman and the other by a cavalryman???

And, I always assumed the game simulated the horses stopping and refusing to impale themselves on the wall of spears (even if it does look a bit odd on screen)...

Has anyone tried altering the bonus recieved for charging to see if it has any effect??

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by spmetla:
Don't lances break after the intial impact? or is that just in jousting tournament movies (hollywood)
[/QUOTE]

Tourney lances were made to shatter given a direct hit so that they were unlikely to kill the contestant.

I would imagine that real lances would often be abandoned on a charging hit since it would be difficult to extract it without being unhorsed.

bif

[amrcg]

My last comment - hopefully - in this thread is: look at the battle of Courtrai. Hastings may not be a good example as the infantrimen stood in high ground. But at Courtrai the spearmen stood on the plain and it was really a face-to-face knight vs spearman match. Pay special attention to the right wing where the French were able to gain enough speed. Their charged penetrated the infantry ranks, but the depth of the latter (8 men deep) was enough to stop the momentum of the knights and then make a carnage out of them. I rest my case.

In MTW, make infantry slower and less maneuverable, loosing cohesion when running/charging more than a few meters, and - here's the compromise - increase the momentum of cavalry just a little bit with the length of charge in flat terrain (enough to penetrate a little deeper in the enemy ranks, but not enough to allow it to beat a wall of spearmen or pikemen in a frontal charge) in order to simulate the situation when cavalry has no space to gain enough momentum due to broken terrain (this also hapenned at Courtrai on the French left).

Cheers,
Antonio

[Lord Krazy]

Quote Originally posted by AgentBif:
Tourney lances were made to shatter given a direct hit so that they were unlikely to kill the contestant.

I would imagine that real lances would often be abandoned on a charging hit since it would be difficult to extract it without being unhorsed.

bif[/QUOTE]

---------------------------------------------
You imagine wrong real lances often broke
on impact because of the impact with shield
and armour.

I do agree with the removing bit,
way too hard.

LK

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by amrcg:
Pay special attention to the right wing where the French were able to gain enough speed. Their charged penetrated the infantry ranks, but the depth of the latter (8 men deep) was enough to stop the momentum of the knights and then make a carnage out of them. I rest my case.
[/QUOTE]

Well this is all we want (at least what I want). I want the knights charge to actually carry some weight, not just be stopped by man who has trained a few days/weeks. Let the Spearmen keep their bonus, but let the knights be able to actually press into the formation.
This would let the fight be more equal as the knights has disrupted the formation, but still has to contend with the bonus. Much like Courtrai.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote Originally posted by amrcg:
My last comment - hopefully - in this thread is: look at the battle of Courtrai. Hastings may not be a good example as the infantrimen stood in high ground. But at Courtrai the spearmen stood on the plain and it was really a face-to-face knight vs spearman match. Pay special attention to the right wing where the French were able to gain enough speed. Their charged penetrated the infantry ranks, but the depth of the latter (8 men deep) was enough to stop the momentum of the knights and then make a carnage out of them. I rest my case.

In MTW, make infantry slower and less maneuverable, loosing cohesion when running/charging more than a few meters, and - here's the compromise - increase the momentum of cavalry just a little bit with the length of charge in flat terrain (enough to penetrate a little deeper in the enemy ranks, but not enough to allow it to beat a wall of spearmen or pikemen in a frontal charge) in order to simulate the situation when cavalry has no space to gain enough momentum due to broken terrain (this also hapenned at Courtrai on the French left).

Cheers,
Antonio[/QUOTE]
I agree, spear units maneouvre to easily and rapidly (especially changing direction: rotating). But at Courtrai there also were a few additional aspects playing:
1) the Flemish didn't use pure pike formations, the Flemish were armed with pikes and goedendags, which was a combination between a pike and a heavy mace which was extremely effective against heavily armoured knights.
2) the normal shock effect of a cavalry charge wasn't present at this battle because the Flemish knew this was their last stand, defeat would mean certain death after the ruthless massacre the flemish had inflicted upon the french at the Brugse metten. Normally such a pike/spear formation would turn tail and flee upon impact (often even before that) because they thought they didn't have a chance (even though they often did stand a chance). So I think that infantry that gets charged by knights should get a short but heavy morale penalty, maybe making the later-era pikeman immune to this effect.

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http://users.skynet.be/fa307901/sig_org.jpg
Proud member of the OOOO (http://www.oooo.freewebspace.com)

[cihset]

In 1100-1299, knights should rule the European scene of war. You who quote your precious battles should look further away than your own clouded horisont.

If any battle should be quoted as a representant for war in medieval Europe, it should be the battle of the Bouvines(1214)

Not battles such as Agincourt, crezy and courtrai which marks the beginning of the end of the Knightly era. (though courtrai is more in context then the later ones)

[amrcg]

Quote Originally posted by cihset:
In 1100-1299, knights should rule the European scene of war. You who quote your precious battles should look further away than your own clouded horisont.
If any battle should be quoted as a representant for war in medieval Europe, it should be the battle of the Bouvines(1214)
Not battles such as Agincourt, crezy and courtrai which marks the beginning of the end of the Knightly era. (though courtrai is more in context then the later ones)[/QUOTE]

There you are! At Bouvines you saw the mounted knights shattering the German and Netherlandish pikemen who were CHARGING! They had just beaten the French militia infantry and were advancing. They surely lost their cohesion during the combat/charge, which allowed the French knights on the 2nd line to charge through and beat them.
That's why I defend that in MTW spearmen should loose the extra rank bonuses when charging/running or being charged from flanks or rear.

Now, at Courtrai you have infantry which are militiamen just like in Bouvines, and armed with similar weapons. Knights are even better armoured (almost 100 years have passed). What happens is that at Courtrai the Flemish infantry was static and well formed when the French knights charged.

Cheers,
Antonio

[the Count of Flanders]

Also in the early parts 100-yrs war there was the battle of Westrozebeecke where Flemish pikes (that were victorious in earlier confrontations) were beaten by a French cav army because the Flemish pike formations charged the French (the Flemish were overconfident because of their earlier victories against French heavy cav) which reacted with a counter charge and slaughtered the Flemish army. Had the Flemish held their original position on the hill the French would have had a real hard time beating them (all historians agree on this).

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Proud member of the OOOO (http://www.oooo.freewebspace.com)

[This message has been edited by the Count of Flanders (edited 10-08-2002).]

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Hakonarsen, pikes were developed to counter cavalry. Pikes and spears existed at the same time in history, you being a DBM player should surely know that. Pikes never made it to Eastern Europe until the early renaissance. I don't even think the Hussites used them, but I may be wrong.

[Hakonarson]

Quote Originally posted by amrcg:
My last comment - hopefully - in this thread is: look at the battle of Courtrai. Hastings may not be a good example as the infantrimen stood in high ground. But at Courtrai the spearmen stood on the plain and it was really a face-to-face knight vs spearman match. Pay special attention to the right wing where the French were able to gain enough speed. Their charged penetrated the infantry ranks, but the depth of the latter (8 men deep) was enough to stop the momentum of the knights and then make a carnage out of them. I rest my case.

In MTW, make infantry slower and less maneuverable, loosing cohesion when running/charging more than a few meters, and - here's the compromise - increase the momentum of cavalry just a little bit with the length of charge in flat terrain (enough to penetrate a little deeper in the enemy ranks, but not enough to allow it to beat a wall of spearmen or pikemen in a frontal charge) in order to simulate the situation when cavalry has no space to gain enough momentum due to broken terrain (this also hapenned at Courtrai on the French left).

Cheers,
Antonio[/QUOTE]

A good post, and yuo solution is a good one IMO - yes infantry moving should lose rank bonuses, but ALSO only get charge bonuses against other infantry.

Unfortunately MTW doesn't really deal with momentum of a mounted charge (or even a foot one) at all - they give charge bonuses, but that doesn't really give the same effect - if you set a spear foramtin to hold position and hold formation then cavalry just doesn't break into it at all http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

BTW I checked my source for eth Flemish "pikes" at Courtaia - "Armies of Feudal Europe 1066-1300" by Ian Heath, published by WRG, and he has no doubt that the "pikes" were 10-12 feet and used 1 handed with shields.

Beavis - yes, and your point is?? I don't get it at all I'm sorry.

[Hakonarson]

While Courtai was the first instance of a predominantly infantry defeating an army of predominantly knights, it is by no means the first occasion where infantry resisted knights for a long time.

However in previous battles what often happened was that the infantry's cavalry would be defeated (usually included the CinC). The Infantry was then left on the battlefield and could either flee or resist - many fled (but that's not unreasonable - after all their elite cavalry had already done so!!), but there are many cases where they stood and fought dourly until wiped out or they finally broke.

some examples are:

Lincoln, 141 - King Stephen's infantry and dismounted knights were hemmed in and surrounded by flank and rear attacks by cavalry combined with frontal attacks by the rebel foot knights - they surrendered when Stephen got knocked on the head with a stone & stunned and captured.

Legnano, 1176
Frederick Barbarossa with 2500 cavalry and 500 infantry faced a larger Lombard League army with maybe 4000 cavalry and more infantry.

Fred's cavalry routed most of the Lombard cavalry, but were only making slow progress against the milanese infantry when the Lombard cavalry rallied and charged his troops in the flank and rear - Frederick escaped almost alone.

Las Navas De Tolosa, 1212
A Spanish Crusade vs the Almohades. 2 huge armies alegedly 460-600,000 almo's, and the Spanish starting with 60-100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry - but many non-spanish crusaders deserted on the march and only 730 knights were present at the battle.

The battles started with a Spanish mounted charge agaisnt the Almo infantry, which was repulsed, then the Spanish infantry repulsed an Almo mounted charge.

The almo's Andalusian contingents then deserted (troops from Spain - Spain being "Al Andalus" to the Moslems - these guys may have been Moslem and Christian), a Christian charge defeated one flank and the rest of the line got rolled up.

However the Moslem infantry and Negro guards were tied ankle to ankle so couldn't flee!! they put up a stiff fight!

Muret, 1213
Main battle of a Crusade agaisnt Albigensian heretics in Sth France. The heretics were allied with Pedro II of Aragon.

The initial Allied mounted charge was repulsed by the Crusader infantry

It's a confusing battle, which includes a town/castle on the battlefield, and King Pedro beign killed while fighting as an "ordinary knight" and the Allied cavalry fleeing upon this.

The final act was the Allied infantry sortying because they thought the battle was going well (!), but being assailed on both flanks and front, and then finally breaking when some victorious crusader cavalry returned from pursuit and were about to fall on their rear.

Bouvines - 1214
700 Brabancon infantry (spearmen) and a few knights continued to fight after the rest of the Imperial army had fled, finally being wiped out by repeated charges on front, flanks and rear by 3000 French cavalry.

Cortenuova, 1237
An imperial army defeated the vanguard of a Lombard army, which then fell back on its infantry. The infantry were not prepared for battle, but resisted until the arrival of the main body of the imperial troops.

The Germans (Imperials) had several thousand Saracen horse archers, and these pepered the Italian (Lombard) infantry alternately with German cavalry charges, until the italian infantry abandoned their positions in the night.

Montaperti, 1260
A Siennese army including 800 Mercenary German cavalry caught a larger Florentine army unprepared. Many Florentines panicked and ran, including all their cavalry, but most of the infantry gathered around their Carrocio (standard wagon) and fought on until another Sienese division launched itself into their rear.



[This message has been edited by Hakonarson (edited 10-08-2002).]

[Grifman]

FYI, I posted this in the thread "The myth of the cavalry charge" - thought I'd post it here in case anyone misses it there. I think it is relevant http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

*****************************************

I don't claim to know the answers here, but I want to throw out some thoughts and possibilities, feel free to discuss
First off, were knights used because they were effective, or effective because they were used? Think about that question for a moment . . .

Point is, the Frankish army in the 700's was primarily an infantry army fighting close to the Roman style - close order heavy infantry. This can be seen in their victory at Poiters over the Muslims. The Muslim light cavalry could not disrupt or penetrate the formed heavy Frankish infantry - all the chronicles tell us this. So how and why did an infantry based Frankish army become a cavalry based (assuming this is true for the moment) French army in the later Middle Ages? How did this total transformation occur? And why did this army also appear to become more feudalized over time?

Well, one theory is that the great Viking raids of the 800's and 900's led to this change. First off, heavy infantry could not mass and respond to lightening raids off the coasts and up rivers by the Vikings. Instead, cavalry based forces were required for rapid response, much in the same way Roman armies moved to cavalry in the face of barbarian invasions in the 3rd century.

This also apparently increased the rate of feudalism. Rather than more centralized forces, which could not respond to rapid, small raids over wide areas, people had to rely upon more localized defense - their local lord with his forces on the spot - not the king or one of his generals. These came to be built around armored locally based knights who could respond with speed to Viking incursions in a way that infantry could not. In the end, society invested it resources in the mounted knight. And once developed the upper echelons of society - made up of the knightly aristocracy - had a vested interest in maintaining that position .

My point is is not whether close order disciplined infantry could stand off cavalry (I tend to believe they could as I think history did show again and again) - but that Medieval society did not use such infantry because it (or more accurately, it's leaders) didn't WANT TO. It wasn't a matter of military effectiveness of infantry vs. cavalry, but the inherent interest of the ruling classes to maintain their position. Effective infantry can be more easily trained and maintained compared with a knight and horse - yet to do so would mean that the aristocracy no longer had a purpose, a reason for ruling over everyone else.

My point is that knights were effective because they were trained and used - and infantry was generally ineffective because they were not trained and used. Yes, specialists such as siege troops, bowmen, castle guards, men-at-arms attached to a knight, etc. existed - but only to support the knights - not to supplant them. Knights were the key because they were the weapon of choice - not necessarily because they were the best or only weapon.

Is this unusual or strange? No, certainly not. Think of the Japanese, the inspiration for a game a few of us might be familiar with They gave up gunpowder weapons because of what it would do to the position of the samari. I think the situation with the knight was similar. Knights were the weapon of choice because of what would happen to the aristocracy if horse based forces were supplanted by infantry based ones, not because infantry were not effective.

In the end, it was only a combination of events - the development of pikes, better trained infantry such as developed by the English and Swiss, supported and eventually supplanted totally by the key development of firearms, that lead to the knights demise. Gunpowder was the key, as it took even less training to load and fire a gun than train a soldier how to use a shield/sword/spear -and with one shot he could blow a heavily armored, expensive knight out of the saddle. The heavily armored horseman could only stand so long before the winds of history and progress . . .

Of course, this is just one theory, and not one of my own creation - it could be totally off http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif But it sounds plausible.

Grifman

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Your theory doesn`t make sense Grifman. It implies that warriors would accept extra risk by being mounted instead of being infantry. Most of the Eurasian elite was mounted. Any commander would take the best approach he knew how to be victorious. After contacts with the mongols the Poles developed used mounted cavalry and light cavalry, the Hungarians used light cavalry as well. Most of the disasters to knight-based armies was when there was poor leadership, ie Nicopolis, Hundred Years War.

[Hakonarson]

It makes sense to me Beavis - rationality is often short in military thinking, and preservation of social status, "honour" and all those sort of things have often driven outcomes that seem utterly daft.

[Grifman]

Quote Originally posted by Beavis:
Your theory doesn`t make sense Grifman. It implies that warriors would accept extra risk by being mounted instead of being infantry. Most of the Eurasian elite was mounted. Any commander would take the best approach he knew how to be victorious. After contacts with the mongols the Poles developed used mounted cavalry and light cavalry, the Hungarians used light cavalry as well. Most of the disasters to knight-based armies was when there was poor leadership, ie Nicopolis, Hundred Years War.[/QUOTE]

I didn't say infantry was nessarily better, I said cavalry was preferred for a number of societal and military reasons. And logic does not always rule. Western armies never developed horsearchers, despite seeing the power of them in any number of engagements with Eastern armies for example. The French never developed viable archery despite seeing what the English repeatedly did to them - they didn't like their peasants having that powerful of a weapon. The US Army was less than excited about machine guns initially, but they were rapidly embraced by European armies.

Grifman



[This message has been edited by Grifman (edited 10-12-2002).]

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Grifman:
And logic does not always rule. Western armies never developed horsearchers, despite seeing the power of them in any number of engagements with Eastern armies for example. The French never developed viable archery despite seeing what the English repeatedly did to them - they didn't like their peasants having that powerful of a weapon. The US Army was less than excited about machine guns initially, but they were rapidly embraced by European armies.
[/QUOTE]

In terms of horsearchers, I wouldn't know, but perhaps they were simply not impressed or considered their own cavalry more than capable of countering them.

Someone else already pointed out that the French longbow example is faulty... Apparently they DID develop the longbow after exposure to them at Agincourt, etc.

And the MG example does not support the "romance over logic" argument either, since MG's were readily adopted as soon as they were demonstrated in combat to be useful (at a new role). This particular example is a case of lack of insight or faulty analysis rather than stubborn refusal to adopt a new methodology in spite of it's proven effectiveness.

bif

[Grifman]

Quote Originally posted by AgentBif:
In terms of horsearchers, I wouldn't know, but perhaps they were simply not impressed or considered their own cavalry more than capable of countering them.[/QUOTE]

If you don't know, then why are you posting about them http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif And history shows that their own cavalry were not capable of dealing with them - just see what the Mongols did to western knights.

Quote Someone else already pointed out that the French longbow example is faulty... Apparently they DID develop the longbow after exposure to them at Agincourt, etc.[/QUOTE]

And they were wrong. I've read from several sources that the French made no real serious attempts to develop archery (not the longbow) - they were all half hearted. An armed peasantry/yeoman was not in the interest of the French aristocracy.

See this link and his source:
http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/longbow/longbow-chronology.html

At the bottom of his chronology:

"French allegedly create an archer force superior to the English longbowmen, but the archer army is suppressed by the king out of fear" Hardy, Robert, Longbow: A Social and Military History, copyright 1992, Robert Hardy

Quote And the MG example does not support the "romance over logic" argument either, since MG's were readily adopted as soon as they were demonstrated in combat to be useful (at a new role). This particular example is a case of lack of insight or faulty analysis rather than stubborn refusal to adopt a new methodology in spite of it's proven effectiveness.[/QUOTE]

Actually the source I read said that Americans WERE enamored with the myth of the rifleman, and didn't readily adopt machineguns because of that. And anyway, the previous posted said that the best weapons were always accepted - the reason was irrelevant - and the machinegun disproves them.

Grifman



[This message has been edited by Grifman (edited 10-12-2002).]

[AgentBif]

Quote
And history shows that their own cavalry were not capable of dealing with them - just see what the Mongols did to western knights.
[/QUOTE]

I just don't buy it. First, I was under the impression that western peoples had little exposure to the Mongols... They gave up their raids after the death of their Kahn and never came back. Secondly, horse archery is a tremendously skilled means of warfare, one that can easily be explained away as being judged non cost effective or just plain infeasible because it is easily countered by light cavalry or archery, both of which are well developed in western style warfare.

Quote
And they were wrong. I've read from several sources that the French made no real serious attempts to develop archery (not the longbow) - they were all half hearted. An armed peasantry/yeoman was not in the interest of the French aristocracy.

See this link and his source: http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/longbow/longbow-chronology.html

At the bottom of his chronology:

"French allegedly create an archer force superior to the English longbowmen, but the archer army is suppressed by the king out of fear" Hardy, Robert, Longbow: A Social and Military History, copyright 1992, Robert Hardy
[/QUOTE]

If you actually read that source (Hardy), you will see that that guy who brought up the French longbow adventures was right on almost every count.

According to Hardy, the reason the King suppressed the longbow troops at this time was his kingdom was suffering severe unrest against him and he feared for his own power. He does quote an author of the time saying that the king feared the archers might join the unrest and become more powerful than the "Princes and Nobles". Anyway, this case apparently is an example of a specific political struggle rather than a general cultural thing. Finally, Hardy says that there were many attempts by the French to employ the longbow, both before and after this particular event.

Clearly all those attempts failed, I would guess because of the cost-effectiveness issue... A highly skilled methodology that is not already pre-established in the culture of the people of the region is very difficult and expensive to develop by artificial motivation. But at least we see that they made significant efforts to employ the Longbow.

Quote
Actually the source I read said that Americans WERE enamored with the myth of the rifleman, and didn't readily adopt machineguns because of that.
[/QUOTE]

The term "myth of the rifleman" refers to a faulty confidence in the capability of a mode of warefare. This is a case of unsound logic, not refusal to take the logical approach over some cultural preference.

bif

[AgentBif]

Also in regard to the horse archery thing...

It was my impression that the Mongols weren't so successful simply because they were horse archers, rather it was because they were multi-functional troops. If you fielded lots of archers against them, they'd go to melee. If you went after them with heavy cavalry or infantry, they wouldn't melee but stand off and employ archery. Against light cav, they'd play light cav and go melee again. They were generally capable of many techniques and had answers for a variety of threats. My understanding is they had medium and light cavalry and employed conquered peoples as infantry in the big battles... But I don't think their use of horse archery was the sole source of their success.

Also, a lot of other people's employed horse archery and some westerners had exposure to these units. Yet those horse archers were not clearly demonstrated to be an inherently superior mode of warefare... Perhaps this style has handy uses in certain regions and certain situations, but it does not apparently render Eurpoean techniques immediately obsolete since there were existing counters for this type of unit.

Wooded and hilly European countryside is not good area for horse archery, but wide grassy plains that span whole provinces are more ideal regions for such techniques. Finally, if the game is to be believed, apparently those peoples who lived in open countryside in the areas where the Mongols were a threat DID employ mounted archery (Russians, Turks, Byz)... but I don't know how prevalent such units were in reality.

bif




[This message has been edited by AgentBif (edited 10-13-2002).]

[Grifman]

Quote I just don't buy it. First, I was under the impression that western peoples had little exposure to the Mongols... They gave up their raids after the death of their Kahn and never came back.[/QUOTE]

German and Polish knights were crushed at Leignitz. Hungarians were defeated in at least two battles. All fought in the western style - heavy cavalry. How much exposure do you need? Surely if they were so adaptive, then they would have studied these victories and learned - and the European power that did so might have gained a huge advantage. All of this was known in the West - much of Europe was concerned by the Mongols at this point - while early on they thought of them as possible allies - they sought to gather much information on them. Here was an effective military system (and the Mongols were just one example - Muslims also used it) never adopted by the West.

Quote Secondly, horse archery is a tremendously skilled means of warfare, one that can easily be explained away as being judged non cost effective or just plain infeasible because it is easily countered by light cavalry or archery, both of which are well developed in western style warfare[/QUOTE]

So horse archers are less cost effective than mailed/plate armored knights riding large horses into battle, men who have trained most of their lives for this? If you assert horse archery is not as cost effective as heavy knights, then I can assert that horesarchers are cost effective, especially given all the expense in the West that went to supporting an armored knight (and his retinue) on horseback http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Also, this was not the only exposure of the West to horsearchers. The 6th century Romans/Byzantines invaded Italy during the reign of Justinian. After their conquest, the Franks made several attempts to invade northern Italy. In at least two separate battles was crushed by Roman horsearchers - the Frankish infantry were cut down without any subsequent effective response (other than to stop invading Italy http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif ), much like the Romans at Carrhae.

Muslims also used this weapon extensively, especially the Turks. Yet, once again, there was no adaptation of this weapon system in the West. Examples centuries apart, yet the response was the same - nothing.

Quote According to Hardy, the reason the King suppressed the longbow troops at this time was his kingdom was suffering severe unrest against him and he feared for his own power. He does quote an author of the time saying that the king feared the archers might join the unrest and become more powerful than the "Princes and Nobles". Anyway, this case apparently is an example of a specific political struggle rather than a general cultural thing. Finally, Hardy says that there were many attempts by the French to employ the longbow, both before and after this particular event.

Clearly all those attempts failed, I would guess because of the cost-effectiveness issue... A highly skilled methodology that is not already pre-established in the culture of the people of the region is very difficult and expensive to develop by artificial motivation. But at least we see that they made significant efforts to employ the Longbow.[/QUOTE]

Yes, they made efforts but failed. I could just as well assert (as well as you can) that it was just not attractive to the French nobles as trying to run down the English with cavalry charges http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif If they didn't trust peasants, why not arm their men-at-arms? Why didn't knights take up the bow? Why not the urban militias if not the peasants - after all they were already armed?

You can toss out cost effectiveness all you want, but the system they had was losing them battles, and badly. So the system they had wasn't cost effective at all! Better an expensive system that led to victory than any system that consistently led to defeat! So unless you consider defeat "cost effective", I don't see that as an explanation.

And your political point above actually supports my theory. A political reason is a social reason (my term for the preference for heavy cavalry was not "cultural" but "social")! My point is that for any number of societal/social reasons armored knights were preferred. The King of France's political problems were a "social" problem -the nobility was more concerned about armed peasants rising in revolt to arm them effectively. This doesn't refute my argument - it only confirms it! Whether it was because the nobility felt archery was beneath them, or they worried about armed peasanst supplanting them, it fits perfectly within my theory. As I said above "it was in the interest of the ruling classes to maintain their position".

Quote The term "myth of the rifleman" refers to a faulty confidence in the capability of a mode of warefare. This is a case of unsound logic, not refusal to take the logical approach over some cultural preference.[/QUOTE]

No, the unsound logic is driven by the cultural preference! You can't separate the two as neatly as you would like. Obviously they were confident in the ability of the rifle, or they would have adopted machineguns earlier. But you are assuming that presuppositions did not inform their "faulty logic", and I don't think you can make the break as neatly as that.

Grifman



[This message has been edited by Grifman (edited 10-13-2002).]

[TenkiSoratoti]

knights are for finishing of and last minute rear attacks

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"The good fighters of the old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an oppurtunity to defeat the enemy."

[Vlad007]

Its funny how all you infantry loving people like to put down the effectiveness of HC. You all say that their effectiveness is over inflated. You quote these few battles were infantry managed to stand against HC. You forget at all the battles were HC ran straight over the top of infantry. MTW does a bad job at molding the impact that a HC charge creates. The momentum that a charging unit of HC creates is immense and yes the war horse of the medieval times was a rabid beast capable of breaking your neck with a simple bite or taking your head off with a kick. They could be trained to charge home against a wall of spears. If a pike formation was hit in the rear or flank by charging Cav it would get butchered. And Winged Hussars could charge home front on in to swiss pike man and defeat them. So don’t tell me that HC weren’t effective or they are over inflated, as it is simply a misleading truth. If they weren’t effective they would not of stayed around into the 20th centry. Personally I have a full suit of 16 cent plate Armour its services are so angled and I have such good movement in it that I can personally testify to its protective value

Also nobles were a lot bigger and stronger people than peasants because of their high protein diet making them more imposing. Stick that already imposing person on a big horse with an attitude and a lance. Know what I would rather be

[Sainika]

Actually pikemen with long pikes can crush easily any type of cavalry. The main reason for succes was that pikemen were killing horses first and than finishing knights. Lances were not so long as to protect horses, so spearmen and pikemen could win a lot of battles vs cavalry. That's the real war.

[ick_of_pick]

i dont know it this was said before, but kataphraktoi histoically did not use lances, but used a weapon called a Kontos, which was a very sturdy pike sort of weapon that was sometimes 16-20 feet long, and were designed to fight against spearmen that the bulgars employed en masse, but it turned out that the knontos not only beat up spearmen, but also made cavalry with lances useless against kataphraktoi.

just some info you might like to know.

[ShadeHonestus]

I think we are missing the nature of the game and its culpability in the effectiveness of heavy cav/knights when compared to history.

Command and Control where the biggest issues of the day and dictated the outcome of most battles. Do you think that advances in Command and Control are directly parrelled by more speed and less heavies in any era just by accident?

Knights were their most effective when the fog of war was possibly at its highest. Untrustworthy foot units, peasants, and the like all added to the knights success, but most importantly was the inability of historical generals to have the GOD's View that we have in MTW and other wargames.

Further proving this fact are the effectiveness of light cav. We are able to manipulate units, dance around, disengage and practically anything we want with the grand scheme of the battle in mind. In a real battle the subordinate would have to make these decisions and would not know what swam in the mind of the commander(who was at ground level) nor did the subordinate know what was going on elsewhere.

Another factor to the knights' success is their highy individualistic style of combat once engaged. Quantifying knights in a unit strength for battle and expecting an outcome exact to history is implausible.

The knights effectiveness is compromised due to the nature of the game, not their lack of battlefield strength. Considering this I would have to say the design team did an excellent job representing as close to history as they could with the nature of the game in mind.

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Total War Assembly (http://www.totalwarassembly.com)

Clan Shades (http://www.totalwarassembly.com/clanshades/)

There is a true glory and a true honor; the glory in duty done and the honor in the integrity of principle.

[dej2]

From this site Heavy Cavalry was obsolete by the time the pike was used by infantry units. I say that the game balance is fine.
http://users.wpi.edu/~dev_alac/iqp/indepth/weaponsandtactics.html

History of Tactics
When studying the emergence of plate armor from mail it is necessary to look at the uses for armor, which mainly would be warfare. The tactical changes during the transition may give some more evidence for the factors that caused this change.


Cavalry Tactics and the Use of the Lance
Early cavalry techniques involved the knights on horses with or without stirrups, equipped with a long sword and a long spear or lance. The spear or lance was used as a thrusting weapon against both cavalry and infantry. When used against infantry a downward thrust was applied to hit the soldier. When used against a mounted knight the spear or lance would be used in an upward thrust to puncture or dismount the knight. These tactics changed to those known as mounted shock troop sometime around orbefore the middle of the 12th century. The lance, instead of being used as a thrustingweapon, was placed firmly under the arm and used along with the force of the horse to charge into the lines of infantry. This tactic was more likely to allow the cavalry to break through the front line and cause the infantry to lose formation leading to major casualties, as the confusion allowed the cavalry to take advantage of the infantry. (DeVries 1992, 12-13)


Infantry and the Emergence of Staff Weapon Tactics
Calvary's domination of the battlefield began to change in the early 1300s when infantry tactics began to improve. For ages the standard in infantry weaponry was a spear, some shorter or longer depending on who and when, and a sword, again the type varying with the culture and time period. In the 14th and 15th century the spear evolvedinto a longer pike. The extra length added onto the pike made it better suited for use against the charge of cavalry. Staff weapons, which combined the length of the spear with the melee power of a mace, axe or hammer, can be dated far before the late middle ages but for the most part these weapons didn t become widely used until the 14thcentury. (DeVries 1992, 15) Staff weapons made their mark on infantry-based armies starting in the early 14th century, when infantry armed with these weapons began toeffectively defeat cavalry-based armies. Staff weapon tactics used by the Swiss were so effective that foot soldiers were often seen overpowering mounted knights. To deploy troops in this way the infantry had to be of high morale and trained well as a unit to resist a charge from the well trained and armed cavalry units that would bear down on them. A well-formed infantry unit could stand against cavalry when deploying spears and missile weapons as long as there were no infantry as well helping the cavalry. This in essence made infantry and archers necessary to complement the use of the cavalry. (Keen 1999, 76-78)

The Scots defeated the English with the use of staff weapons at Loudon Hill 1307,and Bannockburn in 1314. The Swiss also defeated the Austrians at Mortgarten 1315, and at Laupen 1339. The armies of the Flemings successfully defeated the French at both Courtrai 1302, and Argues 1303, by deploying successful staff weapon based infantry. (DeVries 1992, 29-30) At Courtrai the French deployed crossbowmen to inflict casualties on the Flemish pikemen. The French then deployed their cavalry to charge the pikemen. Because the French general called the charge too soon, the Flemish pikemen were allowed to devastate the oncoming French cavalry. (Keen 1999, 113-114)


Men-At-Arms
The use of men-at-arms, that is knights dismounted for combat, was a tactic mainly used by the English. In the mid 14th century the English began using a three-man lance unit instead of the traditional knight with two squires, one with the knight's lance and the other leading the spare horse. The three-man lance was two knights and a squire: the knights would dismount and fight side by side in combat and leave the horses with the squire till the end of combat when the squire would bring back the horses. (Prestwich 1996, 49)

The battle of Cráy in 1346 is a good example of the English knights dismounting to fight side by side with the infantry and of the English use of strong defensive bow tactics to support the infantry. The French deployed their crossbowmen in front of their cavalry. The English archers were spread out in a defensive formation around the infantry, consisting of both the normal foot soldiers and the English men-at-arms. The English archers used the firing rate of the long bow to overpower the French crossbowmen. The French cavalry could not then effectively mount a charge upon the well-placed English men at arms and ended the day with defeat. (Hooper & Bennett 1996, 120)


The Crossbow
The crossbow is believed by some to be the major factor in the change from mail to plate armor. The crossbow has a violent force behind the bolts that are fired. It is capable of penetrating shields and mail and keeping enough force to continue moving. Reports from the 12th century say that bolts fired from a crossbow could pierce througha man's shield and armor and into the wearer. (Hardy 1976, 35) The church saw the power of the crossbow and how it challenged the dominance of the knight on the battlefield. This prompted the Pope to make a stand against crossbows and he declared the Anathema, which stated that the use of crossbows against Christians was against God's will. For those that chose to follow the new law set forth by the church, the onlyvalid use of the crossbow was against non-Christians, but even then it was frowned upon. (Hardy 1976, 35) The belt and claw, consisting of a hook attached to the belt that could be used to set the crossbow allowing for a more powerful bow, were first recorded in the late 12th century. In the 14th century the windlass, which was a mechanical device attached to the crossbow to allow you to crank the string back with pulleys, and the screw winder, which was a shaft that could be attached to both the bowstring and a turning screw, brought increased power to the crossbow. (Richardson 1997, 43-44)


Longbow
Technological advances in the bow were slowed by the emergence of the crossbow in the 10th and 11th century but still made significant improvements. (Hardy1976, 35) The bow of the 11th century was the short bow which still had the power to pierce through some mails when used right. The arrows were standard 4-feathered shafts with a tanged head. Into the 12th century the development of smaller heads allowed forarrows to be better at piercing mail armor. (Hooper & Bennett 1996, 161) There were cases of longbows powerful enough to pierce through a mailed leg and then into the mount of the knight and inflict a mortal wound on the horse. (Bradbury 1985, 16) The longbow, even though proven effective in battle by the English in the 1300s, still required immense training and did not prove to be a major component in the armies of continental Europe.

[CBR]

Quote Originally posted by dej2:
From this site Heavy Cavalry was obsolete by the time the pike was used by infantry units. I say that the game balance is fine.
[/QUOTE]

Just one small problem...in MTW you dont need pikes at all to defeat cavalry..

CBR

[Hakonarson]

And there's a differnce betwen "being able to defeat" something and making it "obsolete".

There has always been a means to defeat cavalry - but it wasn't "obsolete" utill the advent of rapid firing small arms!!

[AgentBif]

Quote
German and Polish knights were crushed at Leignitz. Hungarians were defeated in at least two battles. All fought in the western style - heavy cavalry.
[/QUOTE]

You have neglected to establish that horse archery was the primary cause of these defeats. You have also neglected to rule out other factors being the significant source of the Mongol victories here. See my second posting on this issue where I pose a number of questions and issues regarding the Mongols.

In general you have also neglected to establish that Horse Archery is an inherently superior mode of warefare (which would thereby necessitate adoption by those who don't employ this style). And finally, you have avoided dealing with what most people would consider to be obvious counters to horse archery: foot archery with it's superior range and lower cost, light cavalry with it's comparable mobility, superior melee, and lower skill requirements.

Quote
So horse archers are less cost effective than mailed/plate armored knights riding large horses into battle, men who have trained most of their lives for this?
[/QUOTE]

You raise a good point, but yeah, horse archery would initially be very cost inneffective. It seems to me that such a style is even more training intensive than even the longbow... And we have established, for example, that the French made many attempts to field longbows and failed. Horse archery seems to be a feasible mode of warefare for a plains dwelling nomadic people who's culture centers on their animals. But for Europeans to adopt this technique, which did not previously exist, would require years of trial and error and development before large scale training could be attempted. And even then, it is such a highly skilled mode of combat that it would require lords who could afford to take hundreds of men out of their normal deployment and sink them for years into a training regimen during which they would be unavailable for combat. All of this adds up to high cost which may have not been considered affordable, especially considering that it may well have been perceived as being easily countered by existing techniques.

Crossbows and muskets were radical new techniques that were easily adopted because the necessary training was short. This translates to high cost effectiveness. Horse archery requires immense riding skill (hands free), new weapons, and high strength archery skill combined.


Quote
You can toss out cost effectiveness all you want, but the system they had was losing them battles, and badly. So the system they had wasn't cost effective at all! Better an expensive system that led to victory than any system that consistently led to defeat! [/QUOTE]

Non Sequitur dude. The fact that the French lost some battles due to their initial conflict with English longbows does not mean that their existing style of warfare was "not cost effective at all". To esablish this untenable conclusion, you'd have to point out that the French never won any conflicts and that it was all due to their style of war.

Furthermore, the term "cost effective" doesn't ammount to simply the price of a longbow and some arrows... One must factor in the cost of training, the lost effectiveness of those men in training not being avialable for active duty, etc. Cost is not just material, but is a general measure of total effort. Clearly they were unwilling or unable pay the price necessary to field effective longbow troops.

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And your political point above actually supports my theory. A political reason is a social reason (my term for the preference for heavy cavalry was not "cultural" but "social")!
[/QUOTE]

Well, fluid semantics aside, the point I was making is that it was a military decision to deny his potential enemy an effective weapon system. And, of course, you neglect to acknowledge that after this particular event, Hardy states that the French continued to make attempts to field the longbow.

So, does this particular example constitute evidence that sometimes superior modes of warefare are decided against by some people due to factors other than pure military effectiveness? Yes, I'd have to concede that. But with a larger perspective over a longer period of time, the fact that the French continued to make attempts to correct the problem only supports my side of the argument: That the dominant factor in whether or not a mode of combat is adopted or abandoned is that style's effectiveness. If an existing style of warefare is maintained over multiple generations of usage, this is a clear indication that that style of combat was reasonably potent. Plain, simple, straight-forward.

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No, the unsound logic is driven by the cultural preference!
[/QUOTE]

There was no "culture" in this decision at all! The argument against the adoption of the MG was entirely rational:

1) When firing a machinegun at full auto, it is very difficult to hit anything beyond 50-100 yards. When using it to "snipe" in 1-3 round bursts it's still less accurate than a rifle. If you've had any experience with high powered riflery or even with handguns, you'd realise just how much skill and precision it takes to hit something beyond 50 yards (15 yards with a handgun).

2) The MG's being considered were heavy and would take 2-3 men to port and operate. That's 2-3 fewer rifles putting pain on the target.

3) The ammunition logistics were horrifying to one used to thinking in terms of bolt-action rifles with 5 round clips. One MG could chew through a 50-100 rnd belt in a minute or two and still not manage to hit anything.

4) Early MG's were notoriously flakey and unreliable.

It took actual combat demonstration to make it clear that the machinegun was not primarily valuable as a killing weapon like a rifle, rather it satisfied a new role on the battlefield: suppression and area denial. It would make significantly heavier demands on logistics, but these were necessary costs which were shown to be worthwhile once the MG was combat proven and the new mode of such tactics were understood.

So anyway, the rejection of this system was a rational choice rather than some irrational romantic notion.

bif



[This message has been edited by AgentBif (edited 10-15-2002).]

[Hakonarson]

I was a pretty ordinary rifleman in my time in the military (part time), but I generally could hit a man sized taget at 250 yards without TOO much difficulty!!

and one of my jobs was on a tripod mounted MG - we had no trouble hitting man sized targets at 800 metres, and "area" targets at 1600 meters!!

Dunno what military yuo'er thinking of!! lol

I like your arguments about why Europeans didn't adopt horse archery - IMO you are spot on - the whole social framework wasn't there to support it - Charlemagne (Charles the Great) of France tried to get some nobles to carry bows as well as lances in 840-ish AD, but it never worked.

However mounted X-bows WERE very common!!

[AgentBif]

Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:
I was a pretty ordinary rifleman in my time in the military (part time), but I generally could hit a man sized taget at 250 yards without TOO much difficulty!!

and one of my jobs was on a tripod mounted MG - we had no trouble hitting man sized targets at 800 metres, and "area" targets at 1600 meters!!
[/QUOTE]

Rereading what I wrote, I probably overstated the inaccuracy issue, but that was one of the arguments. The fact that the MG was nonetheless much less accurate than a rifle while expending far more ammunition was one of the key sticking points.

On the rifle marksmanship thing, once you have had some training, just getting on the paper at even 100 yards is still not a sure bet, much less 200 and beyond. It's definitely not the "point and click" deal that most people imagine.

And in terms of the MG experience you have... "no trouble" hitting point targets at 800 yards on full auto? I find that hard to believe. The bullet spread at a couple hundred yards of an MG mounted in a vise is a rather large area. Hell, it's hard enough just to SEE the target at 800 yards http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif However, I don't have any actual experience with automatic weapons, I'm only going from third hand experience (writings) and some 1000 rounds of rifle at 100-600 yards.

bif

[Cheetah]

PAF