Cavalry comparison

Hi everyone!

I played R:TW with Julii and found it extremely great.
Now I started a new (long) camapaign with the Seleucid Empire and it's even better. Phalanxes simply rock ;)

Unfortunately, I fancy that the balance of the factions is not quite perfect.
Rome seems to be the mightiest faction around.
This may historically be correct, but in terms of gameplay the factions should be (more or less) perfectly balanced, in my opinion.

But to get down to business: Am I the only one here to mistrust the balance of cavalry units between the factions?

For example, I have the impression that the Roman Praetorian Cavalry is actually one of the best cavalry units at all?! Weren't the Romans supposed to have a "limited" cavalry?
Cataphracts are also pretty nice, but the Companion Cavalry seems pretty shitty to me.
The stats found in export_descr_unit.txt (or whatever the name of the file was), though, let me think else.

Is it possible that there are still a few bugs in R:TW concerning unit/faction balance and/or unit attributes? (playing v1.1)

Did anyone else encounter similar problems w/ Companion Cavalry, or am I doing anything wrong?
What cavalry unit do you like the most?
Please share opinions!

Thanks in advance and greetings,
Arne

PS: Please excuse probable clumsy sentence constructions ;)

The Companions have higher charge value but the Cataphracts have lower upkeep so I just focused on Cataphracts. 4 on each wing to support my center of 8 Phalanx pikemen and you got a nice army ~:)

The Romans does have very good cavalry compared to history. SO much for limited cavalry heh


CBR

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Originally Posted by CBR

The Companions have higher charge value but the Cataphracts have lower upkeep so I just focused on Cataphracts. 4 on each wing to support my center of 8 Phalanx pikemen and you got a nice army ~:)

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Well, upkeep doesn't bother me much, as in my current campaign (Seleucids) I acquired a fortune of ~1M Denarii.
I want just the best possible infantry slaughterer. ~D

Greets

Well it depends how you are going to use the cavalry. Cataphracts have better overall combat power: att/def 7/23 v Companions 10/17

So Companions are best when doing the rear/flank attack while Cataphracts are better at the frontal attacks.


CBR

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Originally Posted by CBR

Well it depends how you are going to use the cavalry. Cataphracts have better overall combat power: att/def 7/23 v Companions 10/17

So Companions are best when doing the rear/flank attack while Cataphracts are better at the frontal attacks.

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That's exactly what I had expected from Cataphracts/Companions... but I'm having the impression that Cataphracts perform better on both occasions.

In my Seleucid campaign my Cataphracts did fine in both roles. If they already can rout most enemy infantry with flank/rear attacks then there is not much need for the overall weaker Companions.

If none of them can rout some elite infantry unit then the Cataphract's overall better stats will give it an advantage over Companions.


CBR

The romans have alot of cav and good cav aswell, romans all siege units, all around good cav, best inf, good archers, best ships if you count scipiis ships best ai it seems, i understand the full meaning of the name now rome:total(ownage)war :D heh

forgot to add that i love macedonian cav which you can get earlier and is slightly weaker then companion cav

What always struck me as odd is that all cavalry share rather low upkeep costs in relation to infantry. At one extreme, barbarian mercenary cav is 90/turn, where skimishers are 170/turn. Shouldn't a unit of horses and men cost more to maintain than a unit of running men with throwing sticks? The simple idea would be to mod cavalry to have a higher upkeep, especially the romans, who basically would have paid a bit more for subcontracting their cavalry work to mercenaries. Of course, while a human might react to this by reworking the composition of their armies, I bet the AI would just bankrupt itself that much sooner.

And to those who liked Companion cav over Cataphracts, try combining them. In my Selucid campaign, I group paired cat/companion units to charge the same point of the line. The companions get there first with the charge bonus, and the cats usually blow the remainder of the line wide open.

German Gothic Calvary always beats Legionary Cav in my test, and are much easier to build than legionary, praetorian, campanion, or cataphract cavs. You only need level 3 of one of the temples to build them and minor city. My favorite cav personally.

This is historical also, as most Roman heavy cav, especially since the 3rd century AD, came from Germany or Sarmatia. Remember it was the Gothic heavy cav that destroyed the eastern army at Adrianople.

well, romans being the most advanced faction militarily is historically correct. as to balance between factions: the fun part of the imperial roman campaign is supposed to be the civil war against other romans whom you have nurtured and helped all through the initial/middle stages of the campaign... of course, many rusher-types here prefer to hurt and sabotage their roman brothers from the start... :(

as to other factions: it's always fun to fight strong roman armies :)

Sin, the assumption I have made on the upkeep is that, due to the horses being different back then (they weren't nearly as large, for one thing) they mostly ate grass rather than grain, which would lower their upkeep costs. You just let them graze.

Cataphracts have bigger mass than heavy horse. I'm not sure what it does but I'm guessing cataphracts are more likely to push their enemies back, disrupting their formation.

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Originally Posted by Quillan

Sin, the assumption I have made on the upkeep is that, due to the horses being different back then (they weren't nearly as large, for one thing) they mostly ate grass rather than grain, which would lower their upkeep costs. You just let them graze.

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I've assumed that also, and it's a good point to consider. Maybe my question should be what the hell do skirmishers need 170/turn for? I've had lots of upkeep questions regarding one group of units relative to another, so it's not just cavalry.

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Originally Posted by Slaists

well, romans being the most advanced faction militarily is historically correct. as to balance between factions: the fun part of the imperial roman campaign is supposed to be the civil war against other romans whom you have nurtured and helped all through the initial/middle stages of the campaign... of course, many rusher-types here prefer to hurt and sabotage their roman brothers from the start... :(

as to other factions: it's always fun to fight strong roman armies :)

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Sure, in Imperial Campaign Mode the Roman supremacy is nothing but justified, but thinking of Mulitplayer mode I have my doubts.
Don't you find that... suboptimal?

If units are priced according to their strengths then in Multi you can afford to add enough valor and armor and weapons upgrades to equal things out when playing some of the weaker factions.

But in the Campaign, I much prefer to have some really strong and easy to play factions (ahhh, the Vikings!!!) for those days when you just want to kill things, and some really weak, hard to play factions for when you are looking for a serious challenge. I think RTW has done that really well.

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Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non

I've assumed that also, and it's a good point to consider. Maybe my question should be what the hell do skirmishers need 170/turn for? I've had lots of upkeep questions regarding one group of units relative to another, so it's not just cavalry.

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80 men to feed instead of 54? Higher replacement of expendable items (javelins)? More wear and tear on the shoes?

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This is historical also, as most Roman heavy cav, especially since the 3rd century AD, came from Germany or Sarmatia. Remember it was the Gothic heavy cav that destroyed the eastern army at Adrianople.

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Not exactly historical, that unit is anachronistic. During the game's timeframe the Goths had not yet emerged as one of the more powerful Germanic tribes. They were also far from Rome's borders. The more powerful Germanic tribes during the game's timeframe were the Cimbri, Teutones, Chatti, Marcomanni, Cherusci and Suebi. The Suebi in particular were known for their cavalry. The "elite" German cavalry unit in game should have come from the Suebi, rather than the Goths.

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Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non

What always struck me as odd is that all cavalry share rather low upkeep costs in relation to infantry. At one extreme, barbarian mercenary cav is 90/turn, where skimishers are 170/turn. Shouldn't a unit of horses and men cost more to maintain than a unit of running men with throwing sticks? The simple idea would be to mod cavalry to have a higher upkeep, especially the romans, who basically would have paid a bit more for subcontracting their cavalry work to mercenaries. Of course, while a human might react to this by reworking the composition of their armies, I bet the AI would just bankrupt itself that much sooner.

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Your suggestion makes a lot of sense from a gameplay standpoint, and I would think it makes sense historically as well, but I would be curious to hear more about the historical validity of this assertion. I'd go one step further and make Roman cavalry, for instance, cost a lot to build and maintain, but make Parthian cavalry, for instance, be relatively inexpensive. That way factions that are based around horse warriors would not be penalized.

Well I find Carthaginian longshielders to be the best overall. You get them really early in the game and unless you do something relly stupid like run them thru a phalanx they can beat everything. I had one longsh unit (silver upgrades) destroying one praetorian and one auxilia cav at the same time and losing only 19 men. The whole battle was a "heroic victory" my 607+164 reinforcements (town militia, lybian spears, iberians and 1 unit of numidians) carthaginians slaughtered a 1624-men strong Julii army killing over 1200 and losing 400 men. It took me almost an hour paying and suffering. But my Sacred Band solved the situation really well. That was their test battle. :charge:

Couldn't find something about regular payments but in two incidents, Alexander the Great gave to retiring soldiers the following payments:

-after the death of the persian king Darius (330 BC): cavalry 1 talant=6000 drachmas, infantry 10 mnas=1000 drachmas

-329 BC: cavalry 2 talants=12000 drachmas, infantry 3000 drachmas

In the roman empire 1 denarius roughly equals 1 drachma.

Looks like that the cost of cavalry was 4-6 times the cost of infantry.

According to one translation of Polybius, the roman base footsoldier got five and a third asses per day, a centurion got ten and two thirds, and a cavalry trooper got 16 asses per day. 1 denarius was 10 asses. Some argument has been made over the translation, as the thirds seem kind of strange, and it has been suggested that it was probably 5/10/15. This is still paying the cavalry trooper triple that of the base foot soldier, however, the cost of food, clothing and equipment was deducted from this pay.

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Originally Posted by Orvis Tertia

I'd go one step further and make Roman cavalry, for instance, cost a lot to build and maintain, but make Parthian cavalry, for instance, be relatively inexpensive. That way factions that are based around horse warriors would not be penalized.

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I agree with this idea, especially since it would help represent the efficiency gained by having a cavalry strong, semi nomadic culture. Quillian's ideas for why things may be more expensive than others are good ones, I just find myself thinking that upkeep differences seem a bit extreme. Nitpicky stuff, maybe. 90/110 turn for light cav upkeep is perfect for the horsebreeder cultures, since they were practically born into the saddle. But for Rome, where cavalry is (historically) secondary, and mercenaries(historically) make up the roman cavalry, they should be paying more for upkeep than other factions. Once a Roman gets going financially, it will hardly matter if they pay triple, so maybe upkeep pricing is mostly gameplay.

And it isn't just cavalry. Maybe to look at upkeep from an cultural standpoint would be better. Romans, Carthiginians, Greeks and Egyptians are the "civilized", seditary empire builders in this game, so naturally all of that infrastructure, technology and wealth would call for greater upkeep in terms of wages (& plunder), military overhead and bureaucracy.

The Britons/Iberians/Gauls/Germans and Dacians are semi nomadic at this point. They can't build infrastructure to the extent of the Romans, which can be restrictive and liberating. They are most likely going to be getting their supply from several sources, not least of which is themselves. They may not have the most technologically advanced and uniform armor/weapons, but they are more individually resourceful, as a general rule. And their government, not always as sophisticated as the Romans, is much less bloated. Upkeep should naturally be lower across the board for them.

The Scythians/Parthians/Armenians are the most nomadic, and would probably follow the form of the previous, except with an emphasis on cavalry. This (simplified) way of looking at upkeep may be the best broad spectrum approach. Well, I'll stop rambling. This thread is just full of good ideas!

Well, all joking aside (the bit about wear and tear on the shoes was a joke, if you hadn't figured it out), I think both cost to raise and maintain are both based more on a game balance perspective than on total historical accuracy. Cavalry in RTW (at least until you get to the really top tier units) has some drawbacks: it doesn't work as well at maintaining public order due to lower numbers, you can't defend or attack walls with it, once it gets bogged down in melee with infantry it tends to die in short order, etc. So I suspect that the maintenance cost is lower just to reflect the fact that for all those things infantry is more useful.

I kind of figured you weren't actually factoring in new shoes for the kids. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Satyr

If units are priced according to their strengths then in Multi you can afford to add enough valor and armor and weapons upgrades to equal things out when playing some of the weaker factions.

But in the Campaign, I much prefer to have some really strong and easy to play factions (ahhh, the Vikings!!!) for those days when you just want to kill things, and some really weak, hard to play factions for when you are looking for a serious challenge. I think RTW has done that really well.

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I completely agree with this statement. Balance is for multi-play.. single play is about what type of game you want. Easy, middling, or tough as nails?

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Originally Posted by Quillan

80 men to feed instead of 54? Higher replacement of expendable items (javelins)? More wear and tear on the shoes?

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Heh!

I agree with your second statement about game balance for price... Its most likely how they came to the upkeep cost.

Cav should be more expensive in upkeep, RTW encourages cav rich armies that don't fit historical profiles. (Those awesome Macedonian light lancers come to mind, they come in nearly full stacks.) The horses we have in RTW seem quite powerful...but even if we ignore that, there is going to be considerable upkeep cost. A horse maintained for war is not going to be cheap. You have boarding costs as well as food and water and gear to worry about. Horses on the move are not going to have time to graze. I imagine a horse would have been every bit as expensive to maintain as an individual soldier, if not twice as much.

US Civil War cavalry were very difficult to support and the land around cav forces was often stripped clean. Frequently there was little or nothing to feed them and a great many were "broken down" by overuse and lack of food and care. Lincoln, disheartened at the loss of sorely needed horses said, "I can make more generals, but horses cost money."