Secondary weapon

[anubis88]

Hi. i was wondering.... when you guys charge with your heavy cavalry into a battle line, after the momentum is gone and the melee begins, do you leave your cavalry wielding spears, or do you switch to maces, swords, itd? is there any difference at all?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I don't usually let my cavalry fight for long, but when I do I'll switch to swords. The swords are much better than the spears. The only real advantage to the spears is they have a charge bonus, other than that they swords are superior. And if you have a unit with maces, those have AP too.

[Centurion Crastinus]

I was under the impression that they switched to their secondary weapon automatically after the initial charge. Am I mistaken? Is their a little icon that I am supposed to press?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

ALT-attack will cause them to use their secondary weapon. If you ALT-right click on the enemy when you are far away, they will charge in with their spears and then switch to swords.

[mrtwisties]

I'm a bit worried that my Saka general's bodyguard charges with their bows drawn, even if I alt + attack.

[hoom]

Hmm, so far I've not really noticed significant difference between sword & spear for cav vs cav melee.
I know in theory the sword is supposed to be better.

Lay observance though, sword cav seem to have a bit of an issue in reaching to their enemy which may be somewhat negating better stats.

[beatoangelico]

cavalry spears usually have high letality value (0.3-0.4), where swords are usually 0.1-0.13 while having a doubled or more attack value. I see significant differences only with non AP, medium lethality spears, in this cases swords are usually much better.

[konny]

I have the impression that heavy cavalry is doing better with the sword when fighting infantry, especially skirmishers and the like, and more successfull against other cavalry with the lance. I also have the impression that they suffer more casualties themselves when usueing swords than when usueing lances.

[TWFanatic]

I'm a bit worried that my Saka general's bodyguard charges with their bows drawn, even if I alt + attack.
Turn off fire at will.

Always use alt. Alt makes a huge difference. If you want 100% proof that it is superior, test it over multiplayer.

[Goatus_Boyus]

I can never get this to work....so I charge my cav in with the lance bonus..then what do I hit to change them to swords,there secondary attack?

[mrtwisties]

Turn off fire at will.

I've been experimenting in my campaign battles - turning off fire at will, alt+clicking, alt+double-clicking, alt+clicking and then commanding them to run when they're lined up. I can get the spears working fine once they run out of ammo, but can't for the life of me get it to work otherwise.

It's not all bad, though. I just mashed up a huge contingent of hetairoi with a skirmishing Saka general. I reckon these guys are even better than the sahigan pahr that the Pahlava used to start off with. Maybe I should treat not being able to charge as a feature.

[Parkev]

Instead of starting a new thread, I'd like to ask a question of similar kind.

Still playing 0.81 (I like my campaign; not a lot of EB time)

After playing a few battles using Rycalawre I was a little confused by their attack patterns and use of prim/sec weapons.

Start off with sword in hand.
Then when they charge and are about to start combat they change to spears.
Then revert back to swords.
Then, if they are knocked over, they go back to spears.
Alt+attack and attack didn't seem to change what weapon they were using in combat.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips for which weapon is better for which situations and managing which weapon they are using.

They have Long Spear attribute if that helps.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The weapon switching thing is just something that the game engine does. It can't really be changed. It was because of stuff like that that certain units, like Hoplitai, now only have spears.

Try telling them to attack normally, then ALT-attack, that may switch their weapons...

[Long lost Caesar]

on a similar note to cavalry, does anyone else here have the same problem as me, that being that when wedged cavalry pull out of a fight, they seem to take too many casualties? i once charged into an enemies flank with 80 equites in wedged formation. they dropped to about 75, and then i pulled them out. by the time they had run away, they were down to around 55. any similar experiences, or, more importantly, help?!

[Decimus Attius Arbiter]

Kinda disappointed with cavalry using swords. I get better results with lances despite the unit stats. I notice cavalry get higher deaths using swords.

[jhhowell]

on a similar note to cavalry, does anyone else here have the same problem as me, that being that when wedged cavalry pull out of a fight, they seem to take too many casualties? i once charged into an enemies flank with 80 equites in wedged formation. they dropped to about 75, and then i pulled them out. by the time they had run away, they were down to around 55. any similar experiences, or, more importantly, help?!

Don't use wedge, for one thing. Maybe I've been missing something all this time, despite repeated experimentation, but I have yet to see a situation where wedge is useful. The point (I believe) is to split an enemy unit in two; any unit thin enough to do that to will also split when hit by the usual rectangular cavalry formation. And for normal fighting you definitely want to charge all together rather than in wedge formation.

Regardless, you will always take most of your cavalry losses in the pullout after a charge. Shield (if you have one) covers front-left, defense skill covers front-right, so turning away you just have your armor to protect you. That's life. Using weak cav like Equites, those numbers look about right (actually they suggest you may have stayed a bit too long in melee, perhaps), I don't think wedge has much to do with it.

Re: the original topic, I consider the alt-click charge to automatically switch to mace or sword to be one of the most useful tricks I've learned reading these forums. Playing Hayasdan for a time probably helped highlight how powerful the technique can be...

[Labrat]

I don't usually let my cavalry fight for long, but when I do I'll switch to swords. The swords are much better than the spears. The only real advantage to the spears is they have a charge bonus, other than that they swords are superior. And if you have a unit with maces, those have AP too.
IIRC the two-handed lance also has an AP bonus. However since many Kontos/Xyston units wield a macheira or mace (that also confer an AP bonus) it's still better to use alt-attack.