Archery, armor and cavalry charges in BI

R:TW custom battle with one large, 81-man unit of Greek hoplites vs. one 55-man unit of Parthian Persian cavalry. The Persian cavalry was ordered to attack, with the computer taking over from there. Both units were in default formation on medium difficulty, grassy plains terrain with no rain.

There were ideal cavalry archer conditions.

The Persians fired all their arrows. The hoplites lost only 8 men.

Skirmish and firing worked perfectly for the cavalry archers. However, all fire was directed at the infantry front, which the cavalry archers falling back as the phalanx advanced.

Very interesting side note -- the cavalry archers avoided the map edge by themselves. Whether this was a fluke or whether they could have done that if more that one unit was closing in on them are open questions.

So, it seems that Kraxis is on to something about archery being much less effective. However, that's not the end of the story.

Set up a second custom battle with two units of Persian cavalry this time. The hoplites were unable to turn their one front to both units. This little experiment wasn't as scientific as the first, since I manipulated the cavalry to keep them firing from different directions.

The cavalry completely wiped out the phalanx without loss and had ammo to spare. Arrows from behind were simply devastating. This was particularly noticable once the rout began. The foot soldiers turned their backs on both cavalry units and were quickly, brutally massacred.

It wasn't an accuracy problem. A close look at the advancing infantry unit in the first test showed many soldiers staggered backwards by "hits" from arrows. However, they did not fall and kept marching. It appears that hits to the front are not necessarily lethal if the unit involved has protection such as armor or a shield.

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I played around with cavalry charges too. Cataphracts still killed the regular hoplite phalanx, but took far longer to do it. Again, this appears to be consistant with Kraxis' experience.

More interestingly, the cavalry simply refused to pursue when the phalanx routed. I ordered an attack on the fleeing unit members again and again, but the cataphracts simply would not run them down. I thought at first this was tied to their being tired, but found an infantry remnant after the horse soldiers rested a bit. The cavalry still wouldn't charge.

When I left the computer completely alone in another custom 1 on 1 battle, the cataphracts were very reluctant to charge the wall of spears in the first place. Instead of the head-on "flying horse" charge we're used to, they circled around until the phalanx lost some of its order spinning around to keep track, then finally charged.

The thing about cavalry refusing to pursue routers is not BI specific. I've experienced this in RTW 1.2 from time to time.

Thanks for the information Doug.
This does sound far more realistic, tactics being far more important than sheer fire power. It should make battles far more interesting and testing now

........Orda

Yes, it makes for a far more believeable experience, and better, a far more challenging experience. It won't be enough to ever challenge our human skills, but at least it is not stupid to an impossible degree.

AI ERE army stuck to high ground in my Hun campaign. My HA inflicted enough injuries, I was quite pleased with the arrow kill ratio definitely a case now of getting archers into good positions. Head on inf armour/shield is good. Pinning units and light cav rear attacks yielded good results, my Herdsmen did a good job of mopping up. Though it was a clear victory, I had to work for it. With armour upgrades it will be interesting to see what happens

.......Orda