How much cav?

playing as the romans again, ive been trying to limit the amount of cavalry units & relying more on infantry eg, veletis=3 units, hastati =5units, principis=5 units, triarii= 5 units, & i limit cavalry to 2 units, this includes the general, if ive got 2 generals then fine but never more than 2 cav units
ive been witholding them from battle only using them to cut down routing units & its showing to be quite effective,
at the moment ive got 1 full stack army moving north through gaul, Arretium produces my triarii, Patavium churning out the hastati & segestica gives me principis. no need for veletis as i dont really engage them in hand2hand,i send up 3 units to join Decius & his men, & three units come back to be retrained & because i have two generals i dont need to recruit cav at all,
but of all my campaigns so far, this is proving to be my best, with limited cavalry use :bow: ive tended to be very reliant on cav in the past, running them ahead & charging into the backs of the enemy, but this way now my battles are lasting longer ~:cool: next campaign will be the MACS! & im gonna use the same principle, man that'll be fun, the macs with 2 units of cav ~:eek:
so how much cav do you use :book:

I usually use 4 units of cavalry + the general. I do not engage the general, I use him to give the troops moral bonus while they hold the line against the enemy. I split those 4 cavalry units into 2 groups and place them on each side and use them to rout the archers and skirmishers and then to charge the enemy from behind.

it really depends on the faction and available cav.
as romans i use 4Preatorian Cav+gens or 3Equites+gen.

as macedon i split my army in 2:
1Part Phalanx's
2Part 3/4Cav.(mostly macedonian) and 1/4 Archers

that's my basic army,the 2 parts combined :charge: ~:cheers:

As Roman, I use the general and two cav - one each on flank. They basically just chase routers or go for exposed missiles; hitting the rear or flank in extremis. Roman heavy infantry really does not need missiles or cav to cope with most enemies - at least the barbarians my Julii have been battling on med/med.

Guess it depends what armies your using and facing, for example i always have more cavalry with the greeks than i do as when im playing the romans namely because Phalanxs require more cavalry protection than roman legions.

My standard roman army in ideal conditions is 10 principes 4 roman archers 4 roman cavalry 1 triarii to protect my general and 1 general unit.

Having three lines 1 of hastati then principes then triarii might be accurate to history but id rather have 2 lines of men who will defeat most infantry instead of one line of men who wont infront of two other lines, who may get routed thus weakening your armies overall morale.

2 cavalry units on each wing, archers tucked in the centre and my general unit and triarii behind the archers.

I dont see much point in Velites, as roman infantry throw pila before they charge whatever survives the shower of 10 units of javelin fire will almost certainly not survive close quarters with Principes. Predictably cavalry flanks the enemy infantry or first destroys the enemy cavalry then flank the infantry.

Roman armies dont need cavalry as much as greek armies as legions can withstand and kill cavalry alot better when the cav has charged amongst there ranks, phalanxs being not the most flexible of units in the world need plenty of cav to make up for this inflexibility.

my main armies always have 1 cav, the general. He mops up the routers and usually gets more kills than any other 2-3 units combined. A young general will quickely get gold chevrons this way, and then you can use him in personal combat.

Just know his limits. You never want to lose your general so never engage more than 1 enemy unit at once with him, and never ever send him into the center of a city.

2-4, i was using 2 in the beginning in my campaign, but then i started with the germans (they grew strong quite fast) and the greeks so i use 4.

I like to have two units of cavalry, as well as my general. In my current Seleucid campaign I would use two Militia cavalry or two greek cavalry (the latter is preferable). They chase down routers and isolated archers. When I got Cataphracts I'd often have a couple of those as well. But I don't really use them as cavalry, I use them as a battering ram ~;)

Obviously this changes a lot with eastern factions. When playing as Parthia or Scythia I'd usually use an exclusive cavalry army to keep the army more mobile on the strategy map.

Depends on the faction of course. I would like to limit myself more on cavalry, but it is tough to do so early in the game as Spain or Carthage. I don't get any usable infantry for quite awhile (for VH/VH it is pretty tough to win with infantry), but I do get decent cav early.

One thing you can do is increase the cost of upkeep of cavalry, that seems to limit it more--making it more precious. That way if your tendency is to build cav heavy armies, you will soon find yourself unable to support large enough stacks. Historically, and realistically this makes sense. For most of the civilized factions cavalry was quite expensive to keep in the field. Those civilized Westerners that had it usually hired it from a "less civilized" neighbor.

If I play the more advanced factions such as the Romans, Seleucid or whatever, I tend to try and avoid too many cavalry units. But in my current campaign as Numidia, I've had to resort to fielding all Numidian cavalry (+ Generals) armies. It's currently the only way to field a large army that can hold off the advance of the Scipii and the Spanish, Gauls et al without instantly bankrupting my treasury.

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Originally Posted by professorspatula

If I play the more advanced factions such as the Romans, Seleucid or whatever, I tend to try and avoid too many cavalry units. But in my current campaign as Numidia, I've had to resort to fielding all Numidian cavalry (+ Generals) armies. It's currently the only way to field a large army that can hold off the advance of the Scipii and the Spanish, Gauls et al without instantly bankrupting my treasury.

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With the Numidians that would be historically reasonable. They were primarily fighting as mounted troops.