Byzantine Cavalry

[Jon von]

I really like Byz army even if they don't have other anti cavalry units than simple spearmen. This is a great disadvantage against western factions that use heavy cavalry. I think that this should be counter-balanced by using a skirmish-tactic (in the same way as muslim factions were used to use); Byz cavalry, of course, should be the right unit for this. I played a lot of battle using it in many different situation, but I still got a lot of doubts about it.
As skirmisher, I found byz cavalry is not faster than many heavy cavalry units, so if an enemy cavalry unit starts charging it, they will probably succed to reach it and slaughter it. As close-combatant, they are not good; they can be used only for attacking routing units or for a back attack. Their morale is not very good (so it seems).
My question is: is this unit balanced? It costs double than horse archers, it's not better than them as skirmisher, and it's not so more efficient in close combat than them too.
What should Byz cav be? Faster, heavier, harder-hearted, or cheaper? Has anyone tried to compare it with Turcoman horses?
Bye

[Orda Khan]

I can't agree with you here. I have used Byzantine cav on many occasions and they are a very useful unit indeed. Do you really find them not much better than horse archers ?? I found them to be closer to Boyars. They have range, they are a handy melee unit and they are fast enough. No don't send them after Chivalric Knights but Alans they can handle. Add Pronoiai Allagion and Kataphractoi.....how much stronger do they need to be?

.......Orda

[Leet Eriksson]

simply enough,Byz cavalry are pretty useful to tire slower heavy infantry that can't catch them.well at least i used a bunch of byz cavalry against CMAA and cserjants,tired them soo fast i could easily outmanuevre and charge from behind eventually routing them.watch out for heavy cavalry you'll need faster cavalry(ie turcoman horse)to tire them out.

[Jon von]

Well, I think that the greatest problem of Byz army is the lack of good anti-cavalry units, not anti-heavily armoured infantry... what can spearmen do against a charge of Teutonic Knights? Maybe the Violets would be more competitive in High and Early periods if Byz Cavalry were faster; and I think it's logic that a medium armoured cavalry is faster than very heavily armoured knights...

[hoom]

I'm currently suffering badly from western heavy stuff http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Do I get anything better than Byz Inf (aside from Varangian Guards which are necessarily rare since I play max unit size and they take 4 turns to train) at any point?
Or am I just going to have to put up with losing far more troops than I kill?

[Kongamato]

War horses have to be strong enough to charge with all that armor, and Byz cav have less armor, so I would not be surprised that they ride simply weaker horses and would carry the same speed.

However, maybe the heavy armored horses should have a slower acceleration, which would help limit their use.

[ShadesWolf]

I have found that Byzan Cav as a unit on its own is quite weak, however as a combination with either KAts of Pron's they are very useful indeed.


http://www.shadesmtw.com/gaminginfo/byzanbattleformation.gif

A standard Byzan army setup as above they would be placed on the outskirts of the army to drawn the enemy in, and they would be protected by heavy cav incase the opposition's cav charged them.....

For more info on this, check my web site out.....

Byzan Tactics.... (http://www.shadesmtw.com/gaminginfo/byzantactics.htm)

Where you will also find a number of online/ offline replays of this tactic......

[Cazbol]

Let's not forget that there's a point to having different units for different factions and the difference isn't meant to be purely cosmetic. Knights are among the greatest strengths of the catholics and to just improve the cavalry of everyone else to counter would be pointless. Then we might as well do away with faction differences.

Many RTS-games use a simplistic combat system in which there is always a unit which is stronger than some other unit, so it's just a matter of engaging each unit with a unit of the right type. This is fortunately much more complicated in MTW and you have use the whole army in a combined tactic to win.

The weakness of knights is their cost, while the Byzantines are swimming in Florins and can allow themselves outrageously large armies. Since the catholics usually can't afford large armies of knights in every province, an obvious strategy would be to attack their weak provinces and let their knight armies try to recapture them where you have the defenders advantage and can fight in woods.

If I was to suggest any special units against knights then I'd look for mounted crossbowmen in the inns or use arbalesters. Fortunately, I don't think you'll find a unit you can use to smash them 1 on 1.

[Longshanks]

Quote[/b] (Cazbol @ Feb. 10 2003,03:35)]Let's not forget that there's a point to having different units for different factions and the difference isn't meant to be purely cosmetic. Knights are among the greatest strengths of the catholics and to just improve the cavalry of everyone else to counter would be pointless. Then we might as well do away with faction differences.
Not to mention the fact that it adds a little bit of historical accuracy. The European knights were the juggernaut of the battlefield during the medieval era. They were the best heavy cavalry out there.(not that they didn't have weaknesses, but noone was better in a charge)

IMO the Byzantines don't need to be tweaked or improved. They already are a powerful faction, and further tweaking would make them overpowered.

[Panther]

Yes i tweaked them which was bad and such in Late they had most of map so i changed it back except that varanginian take only 1 year

[ShadesWolf]

The interesting historical fact is that at the start of the game they should be the strongest faction, with the strongest units....

and in my opinion they are, by far........

As the game progresses they become weaker, and if you are playing on a SP campaign, IMHO you need to purchase a lot of merc's.

Byzan Armies are very weak and it is up the the player to eliminate the stronger opponent quickly and makes allies with the others.

A good tactic I use is to watch which on my neighbours are at war with one another and then wait until they have almost lost, then also to declare war on them, and gain a few provinces.......

MONEY is still the key to this game.....

[kataphraktoi]

byzantium's generals are blessed with lots of stars, each star translates to a few attack and defense bonuses, use these in the high and late epriof they should keep your byz units competitive.

In the high and alte period I'v found my Kats rolling over the fancied knights of western europe simply because of a general's stars. The difference between victroy and defeat for the byz.

[ShadesWolf]

Unfortunitly this tactic wont work on MP kataphraktoi

[DemonArchangel]

i modded byzantine cavalry to make them as fast as jinetes, but i increased their cost by about 150 something florins

[LordKhaine]

Byzantine cavalry kick ass if you ask me. While not very fast... they're fast enough. Basicly Medium cavalry with bows... which is never a bad thing. Their only downside is that in SP, you need to build a lot of buildings to get them... but then the same could be said for most Byzantine cavalry units.

[pdoan8]

For me Byz Cav are good enough. I rank the mounted missiles as follow:
- Sapahi of the Porte (if you don't mind the 20 men size)
- Boyar
- Byz Cav.
- Mamluk Horse Archer
then the rest.

Even though they are not fast cav, they still have the same speed as other heavy cav. They have good melee capability in combination with good defense, armour and morale. They can harass low armour troops from range. In general they are good as multi-purpose cav.

[Hakonarson]

byzantine cavalry by the era of the game weer nothing like the earlier relatively well equipped troops that made Byzantine great - after Manzikert (1071) Byzantium could no longer recruit large numbers of well equipped native horsemen.

Instead native byzantine cavalry tended to be relatively ordinary lancers or horse archers relative to everyone else.
So IMO teh current Byz cavalry are already well over-powered compared to their historical prototypes.

Instead Byzantine armies in teh 12th century relied upon mercenaries - Latinikon (western (latin) knights), Vardariots (steppe horse archers), Varangians (we have them already of course), and relatively lots of "native" foot archers - both skirmishing and "massed".

[Kristaps]

To me, in SP the byzantine generals' stars make all the difference. Also, taking Hungary early and setting up a metalsmith operation there helps in the later fights against western knights http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif)

As to morale: byzantine cavalry has base morale of 4 (before church, monastery, or valor kicks in) and this is a pretty high value for medium cavalry.

[Elmo]

ShadesWolf

Nice writeup on the Byzantines at your site. How about doing some more factions?

Elmo

[Kraxis]

Byz Cav are perfect for me.
Boyars are too expensive and Sipahis are too few (modded them to be 40). All three of them have the same power when attacking, but the Byz cav lacks the heavy armour of the others and as such does not soak up damage as well.
I think they are a perfect balance of price and power, remember they are unshielded Armenian Heavy cav without the great chage, so in a melee they will fare quite well against weaker opponenet and will last long enough for helt to arrive if stronger opponents are fought.

I try to keep them in teams of three, so if the enemy goes after them they can often deal with it by ganging up on them.
In MP I always team them up with PA, it is a perfect teamup. The PA will face off the enemy and the BC will strike the rear. Hard to pull off, and I fail most of the time, but it is the greatest when it does.

Btw, in that list of the best horse archers... where are the Golden Horde Horse Archers? They are simply great I rank them alongside the Byz Cav, they are a fast version of the Mamluke HA... meaning they strike as good as the BC, but they are faster and have a slightly weaker defence.

[pdoan8]

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

How could I forget about my favorite cav unit from STW?

Well, Mongol Horse Archer should be some where between Byz Cav and Mamluk HA.

I haven't have chance to use Mongol HA after the patch, but before the patch, they are just too good for the regular HA/Mounted Xbow and Alen Merc, Mounted Ser and Steppe Cav have tough time to beat them.

[TheViking]

Im playing single hard, my second time with byz army, I dont have much experience with them online.

The worst thing with Byz army is that they dont have any anti-cav units at all, well the early spearmen i dont count, cus in my experience they dont even stand a chance against a light cav unit.

After my first campain with Byz, they became my favorite faction, Kataphraktois my favorite chock unit, Varangian guards best infantry unit and byz cav my favorite allround unit.

To stop the catholics knights i always use Katapraktois, they always lose in the charge but after that they keep on winning, and if you send in another Kata, or a Pronoi, the knights will rout, this always happen with the crusader knights too.

Now in my second time with the Byz, the only units i use when i attack in late and high era is Kataphraktois, pronois and steppe cavalry (khazar). 50%-75% is Katas, 25% is pronois, and when i have enuff of steppe cavalry they are 25% of the attacking army, and very rare i use varangian guards, depending on how many halberd units the enmey have, if there is more then 8 units i have 2-4 varangian gurads and less Katas

[hoom]

Useful as they are, I'm disinclined to use very many Kats but as many Varangians as I can build now that I have more than one province that can build them.
Varangians are as good an anti cav unit as you could want really.

Haven't tried Byz cav. Normally I only use Horse Archers as rout chasers.
Pronoai Allagion are pretty handy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif faster if somewhat less tough than Kats.