Are Warhorse provinces broken for cavalry, and Smith provinces preferred?

I recently asked how the charge bonus works (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...rge-bonus-work). The upshot seemed to be a conclusion that Warhorse provinces are not the best for cavalry. Why?

• Warhorse provinces only provide a +3 charge bonus at first, and a +5 bonus at high Art level (to upgrade to Warhorse Studs)
• Charge bonus only works when actually charging, which is a lot to ask in most battles (a.k.a. very busy and/or your horses won't extract from the target group)

Compare that Smith provinces:

• Are immediately upgradeable fully (no Arts needed), which gives you +4 melee defense or offense (your choice)
• Applies to EVERYTHING made there, including cavalry-cum-melee troops(!)

Also note that:

• Upgrading a pure cav (Warhorse) province could take 4 castle levels to be pretty functional (cav, sword, spear, encampment)
• Upgrading a pure infantry smith province could take 3 castle levels (sword, spear, encampment) (not counting bows - leave them for a Crafts province)
• Upgrading a mixed cav/infantry smith province would take 4 castle levels (cav, sword, spear, encampment)

Of course, any upgrade takes money and, even worse, food (in vanilla TWS2). And if you only made one smith province for all your troops, you'd probably make it a level-5 castle. But 5 is still less than 3+4.

So: A question for your dissection. Are Warhorse provinces worth it, for cavalry?

Sure, a Warhorse province is nice to get - for the money.

But is it good for cavalry?

RK

P.S. Can someone remind me how to hotlink text "over" a URL here? Thx

I agree with you - for cavalry, I'd prefer the attack bonus from a smith to the charge bonus for a warhorse province.

However, there are not many smith provinces and they are quite (deliberately) spread out. Early on, I would prioritise infantry for the smith province and probably would go for the armour bonus rather than the attack bonus. I would want to put a yari dojo in, a sword dojo and an encampment before I put a stables into a smith province. Hence, I would need a level 4 castle before I give it a stables. So early on, I would rather build my cavalry in a warhorse province. I just need light cavalry early on - primarily to chase routers, so the stat upgrade is less important than it is for my more numerous and frontline infantry. Then I will switch to one type of cavalry (katana for me), so it's quite easy to put a sword dojo in a warhorse province - you just need a level 2 castle.

I guess the bottomline is that I will only use a few cavalry and don't need them to be, man for man, superior to the enemy. Perhaps sadly and contrary to history, you don't have to have cavalry vs cavalry fights for "cavalry superiority". They will do there thing of charging the rear of engaged infantry and that will succeed or fail depending on the execution of the charge rather than a small stat upgrade. By contrast, I will have masses of infantry who will be duking it out head to head with comparable enemy units and will need every little edge I can give them from a smith province to prevail.

But I agree with you, late game, I would put a stables in the smith province and would prefer to recruit cavalry there.

I think the question is not really if it is the best. The question is if you can produce all your troops in the same province or two (the ones with smithies). I tend to have my smithy at full production all the time. If I'm not producing Samurai/Warrior Monks then I will produce yari ashigaru which have a major benefit from the attack and/or armor bonus.

Requiring the cavalry to be produced in the same province is not really that great. If I get a second smithy province a bit further off my front line, I might use it for cavalry for the reason you stated (since it is better for stats).

I also don't use that many cavalry units. My use is mainly to counter other cavalry units and chase routers with the occasional flanking charge thrown in. For these, Yari cav with a good charge is good enough. I have tried to use some katana cav, but it does not seem to fit into my general tactics in a campaign game.

My thoughts on this is that if youre using cavalry in extended melees with melee foot troops then youre Doing It Wrong. Cav really arent suited to this regardless of where you put their stat bonuses. Taking on archer units, or maybe even the odd yari ashigaru if it's a good cav unit, is fine in this way - but if youre slugging it out with a full stack of quality melee troops then youre going to lose regardless, and should really be using foot troops for this purpose.

The whole point of a charge is that, when you do it at the right moment (say, after a unit has been depleted by archer fire, or from behind if theyre already engaged by another unit) then the unit will take massive losses from the impact of the charge and this shock should be sufficient to get them to rout in pretty short order. If they dont, then you really should be pulling your cav out ASAP (maybe for another charge).

In other words, the warhorse provinces give a bonus to the way you *should* be using cav, while smithys will give your cav a bit more of a chance of survival if you balls it up, but IMO never enough to make a cav unit good enough in melee to equal a good foot unit.

Edit: One possible exception could be if you boost the cav's armour bonuses with the smithy. I dont know how archery damage works in S2, but if armour bonuses help negate casualties from arrows then conceivably this might be worth doing...

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Originally Posted by RedKnight

P.S. Can someone remind me how to hotlink text "over" a URL here? Thx

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Quote this post for a working example.

It's [url= address here] label here [ /url] with all the spaces removed except for those in the label text.

I resisted when this first came up, but I've ultimately added cavalry to my smithing towns. I think Econ21s guide on city development suggests doing this.

The reality is that I just don't use that many cavalry in my armies regardless. Rothe's point is good about possibly overloading your smithing town's recruitment demands, but I personally only carry around two or three cavalry per army. If a dedicated cavalry town is only producing cavalry six or eight turns out of thirty, I don't feel like that's a good use of town resources or a good reason to reduce my global food supply which ultimately is a significant hit to my Emipre's finances.

Thank you, everyone!

I say the overall point remains: Warhorse provinces are not so spectacular, for cavalry.

However, given the exigency of time, sure, build up your Warhorse province. Why not.

Thanks, frog... I can never remember a particular website's parsing between wikis, .net, office, and custom forums.

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Originally Posted by Leptomeninges

I resisted when this first came up, but I've ultimately added cavalry to my smithing towns. I think Econ21s guide on city development suggests doing this.

The reality is that I just don't use that many cavalry in my armies regardless. Rothe's point is good about possibly overloading your smithing town's recruitment demands, but I personally only carry around two or three cavalry per army. If a dedicated cavalry town is only producing cavalry six or eight turns out of thirty, I don't feel like that's a good use of town resources or a good reason to reduce my global food supply which ultimately is a significant hit to my Emipre's finances.

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I usually conquer the horse provinces with the stables built up to some degree overall - this means that food is a non-issue in those cases since you can't reduce castle size. If I have a level 3 fortress, I will destroy somethjing to make it into a Yari dojo + Stables + Encampment. I don't really see the point of katana cavalry.