Heavy Cavalry: who takes the gold?

Lately I've been becoming increasingly fond of the age-old tactic of a heavy cavalry charge to the face, there's just something about wiping out an entire unit of whatever kind of elite infantry in one glorious charge through their ranks, that brings a warm fuzzy feeling inside of ya. This brings us to the big question, which elite cavalry unit is the cream of the crop, the heaviest of hitters amongst the heavy artillery?

Something that got me quite confused was the fact that most elite knight units share very similar stats, although on the field some units clearly excel over others. After some tinkering about, I personally narrowed it down to 3 units: the French Lancers (who are supposedly the ultimate evolution of the knight as per their description), the Milanese Famiglia Ducale, and the Holy Roman Empire's Gothic Knights. I very well may have missed out some incredibly good cavalry unit, but from my experience, the above 3 seem to be at the top.

note: the Famiglia Ducale are the only unit out of the 3 that can upgrade armor, so I went with the armor upgrade since you're going to want the finest in armament if you're gunning for top spot.

My first tests of pitting these 3 units against each other proved quite unsuccessful due to battle AI. Everytime I tried a 1v1, I'd get a clean charge off and the enemy cavalry would break off to reform or do some other silly maneuver in the face of my knights. End result was always a win with roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of my unit remaining. The Famiglia Ducale tend to win with the least amount of casualties, although the difference is not much.

Second test was throwing charging knights against scottish noble swordsmen. All tests resulted in the swordsmen getting wiped with little casualties on the knights' side (no more than 5). In one instance, the Lancers completely wiped the entire swordsmen unit on the initial charge, while taking no losses. This was a common occurrence against any kind of non-bracing infantry, including Turk Heavy Janissary Infantry. Moving onwards :inquisitive:

Next test was a headlong charge into braced Swiss Guard halberdiers. All tests resulted in a win with about 20-25 men remaining (in about 4 tests for each cavalry unit, it never went outside of 20-25 range). Similar results against braced Portuguese Aventuros and Scottish Noble Pikemen, only with more casualties (about 15 remaining). The Famiglia Ducale seemed to do the best than the rest against the pikemen, although it did slightly worse against the halberdiers - "better" being on the higher end of survivability, and not on a consistent basis. It seems to depend more on when the enemy morale breaks or how your knights position themselves after the initial charge.

note: the knights probably beat the braced pikemen due to being able to get around the front pike wall after the initial charge, since the initial charge was quite deadly to the front line of knights. If the pikemen had their flanks covered, the knights likely wouldn't have won.

Next test was sitting in starting position against 5 volleys of pavise crossbows, followed by a slow (one click) charge towards crossbows while under fire. Famiglia Ducale and Lancers performed almost identical (20 men remaining, give or take 2), while the Gothic Knights tended to take a bit more losses (bout 15 remaining, it went as high as 23 and as low as 3) and the "may charge without orders" might have triggered during some tests since some of the charges were quite sloppy and didn't manage to rout the crossbowmen upon impact like all the others did. Ironically the guys covered in the most armor are the most susceptible to fire :laugh4:

note: I later did some screwing around with famiglia ducale and lancers standing within short range of crossbows, and the milanese seemed to be able to take more crossbow punishment at close range.


All in all, the results seem somewhat inconclusive. I haven't dug into unit animations and such, so I don't know if one particular heavy cav has the upper hand (Gothic Knights' maces didn't seem to do them much more good than the other knights' swords). The gothic knights seem relatively weaker, and the "charge without orders" clause, from my experience, can make things very messy once your knights are committed. The Famiglia Ducale seem to be able to take the most punishment, plus they have "very good stamina", and the fact that they are available in all cities with the top tier governor building (which also happens to be a really good building to have in all cities) puts them ahead of the Lancers in my opinion.

Aside from minor performance differences, though, there really isn't much difference betweem these 3 cavalry units. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the elite cavalry that didn't make this cut also perform very similarly. The beauty about the Milanese big hitters, though, is that their cities provide outstanding (albeit very expensive) heavy cavalry, along with great infantry and crossbows to boot. I'd love to hear others' experience with heavy cav, since I've obviously not tried out all scenarios.

the top polish heavy cav have very good stats also.

i thin it is only really of importance to multiplayer - in sp games you are rarely going to have the situation where two heavy cavs charge into each other.

You should check out the Turkish Qapakulu as well, they outshine most western heavy cavalry, if not all.

Ever look at Tsar's Guard? I think statwise they are superior to every single cav unit mentionned so far.

Russia just has the best of everything. Quit telling everyone, we don't want the secret to get out ;)

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Originally Posted by katank

Ever look at Tsar's Guard? I think statwise they are superior to every single cav unit mentionned so far.

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They have a lower charge rating. Lacking the powerful charge factor can have quite the effect on heavy cav. They are still able to pull off amazing formed charges but the higher charge rating can come in handy on non formed charges and charging into bracing units.

Gothic Knights are designed to kill other knight-class units, no? Not familiar with the other two, but if they use swords, then they wouldn't necessarily perform as well against Gothics.

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Originally Posted by GrandInquisitor

Gothic Knights are designed to kill other knight-class units, no? Not familiar with the other two, but if they use swords, then they wouldn't necessarily perform as well against Gothics.

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Precisely, they have those AP maces for a reason. They also require less buildings then the lancers. They don't work all that well in a 1v1 setting though I've had them trounce all other superheavy cavalry. Charging them into another unit of knights will completely decimate them, and their power isnt lost after the charge. They are the ultimate knight killer out of the 3 he tested.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Russia just has the best of everything. Quit telling everyone, we don't want the secret to get out ;)

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Exactly. Keep quiet about this. This cannot fall into the wrong hands.:wall:

I did look at the turkish and russian heavy infantry, and they aren't too impressive. They have great stats and look good on paper, but in practice they tend to fare worse than the western european knights. They have a weak charge (especially the tzars guard, who don't even have lances), and a charge is really the main thing you look for in heavy cavalry. They're still devastating against foot troops, but not quite as much as the powerful charge cavalry.

The polish cavalry also have great stats, but once again they fare slightly worse than the others (their survivability seems lower, which is pretty fitting considering they're slightly cheaper than the western heavy hitters). They seem to do particularly poorly against enemy elite heavy cavalry.

Regarding the gothic knights, yes you're right that they are strong against enemy cavalry. Seems I've been getting some lucky results yesterday, since today I retried them against some of the elite cavalry and the gothic knights win handily (with slightly more than half their unit remaining, sometimes better depending on when the enemy routs). Overall, though, it's not a landslide victory, considering that the enemy AI cavalry does not charge you.

I still think it's a toss-up between the lancers and the famiglia ducale. The gothic knights' "may charge without orders" seems to cause problems when pulling out for another charge as they tend to want to get bogged down in a melee. If you take into account availability, I think the famiglia ducale win it.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Russia just has the best of everything. Quit telling everyone, we don't want the secret to get out ;)

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And it seems a lot of Russia's troops have AP. I think the dismounted dvor and dvor cavalry use axes as well.

Indeed they do. Russians like axes. :D

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Originally Posted by andrewt

And it seems a lot of Russia's troops have AP. I think the dismounted dvor and dvor cavalry use axes as well.

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They are Viking's after all, would hope they used alot of axes.

I can't believe no one has mentioned the mongols! How can you completely ignore them in this discussion? I personally prefer Mongol cavalry to any of the western faction. Khan's Guard are amazing, and they move far faster than regular heavy cavalry. And I'm also a BIG fan of the Kataphractoi, I personally thought they were the greatest cavalry in the first game, not sure about this one, I haven't played the Byzantines yet. As for the Polish, they have surprisingly good cavalry in this game, I think some of them even rival the Gothic Knights. I agree though, Gothic Knights and French Lancers, amazing, I'm still wondering how the Famiglia Ducale made the cut.

> They have a weak charge (especially the tzars guard, who don't even have
> lances), and a charge is really the main thing you look for in heavy cavalry.

But Russian cavalry often have axes, and are thus armour piercing. You
cannot always get the charge right, and in a big battle, you can't always
afford to retreat for another. But a trusty axe is always applicable, often to
the enemy head.

How do the Danish War Clerics stack up in cav vs. cav? They have good stats and have maces with AP.

Lancers vrs Gothics is a tough match... and despite the stats, I'd put my money on the Lancers. It seems, in my modest efforts to test them head on, that they win more often than not.

I'm not sure why, but the ap maces of the Gothics should be decisive and it they're not. It doesn't seem that the AP effect is as strong as it should be....

Lancers
stat_sec 14, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, sword, 25, 1
stat_pri_armour 11, 5, 0, metal

Gothics
stat_sec 13, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, blunt, mace, 25, 1
stat_pri_armour 10, 5, 0, metal

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Originally Posted by clairvaux

I can't believe no one has mentioned the mongols! How can you completely ignore them in this discussion? I personally prefer Mongol cavalry to any of the western faction. Khan's Guard are amazing, and they move far faster than regular heavy cavalry. And I'm also a BIG fan of the Kataphractoi, I personally thought they were the greatest cavalry in the first game, not sure about this one, I haven't played the Byzantines yet. As for the Polish, they have surprisingly good cavalry in this game, I think some of them even rival the Gothic Knights. I agree though, Gothic Knights and French Lancers, amazing, I'm still wondering how the Famiglia Ducale made the cut.

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Mongols are pretty decent, but I'm basing the comparison on battlefield ability, not on fame and renown. The Kataphractoi were strong in their time, but in this time period they're quite outclassed by the top heavy cavalry. The in-game representation of that is relatively low armor, attack, and charge strength. The Khan's Guard also have a weaker charge, and tend to not perform as well as the super heavy cavalry of Europe as a result.

RTKMercurius, can you pull up the secondary weapon stats for Famiglia Ducale? It's hard to explain, but the milanese cavalry does surprisingly well in most of my tests, including 1 on 1's with lancers (you wouldn't believe how many different scenarios I've tried out :P ). I get the feeling it's got something to do with the armor rating; a lot of the other elite cavalry have a misleadingly inflated defense rating due to shields, but the cavalry with the highest armor sub-rating and no shields (ducale 10, gothics 10, lancers 11) tend to fare the best.

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Originally Posted by Tuidjy

But Russian cavalry often have axes, and are thus armour piercing. You
cannot always get the charge right, and in a big battle, you can't always
afford to retreat for another. But a trusty axe is always applicable, often to
the enemy head.

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Tzars Guard use swords, though :beam: and Russia's other cavalry are definitely not of the same caliber as the superheavy cav. The number one strength of the elite cavalry is their ability to demolish any non-pike non-mounted unit on contact, and do so without taking too many losses so as to be able to do it repeatedly. Slogging your way through a melee seems like a waste of good, expensive knights.

Okay, even so, the Khan's Guard may have a weaker charge than say other European Heavy Cavalry, but I think it deserves to be up there, certainly higher than the Famiglia Ducale, sure they have a cool name, but really, c'mon, top three?? Gothic Knights, yes, their stats may not be that impressive, but their power is so overwhelming its unbelievable, I've actually beaten off Lancers with Conquistadores, so now I'm losing faith in the Lancers. The biggest problem I have with this list is STILL the Famgilia Ducale, really, I can name plenty of better units. I think the Polish War Clerics were surprisingly good, I think everything unique to Denmark is better than the Famiglia Ducale, and the Turkish Qatakulu (sp?) are fantastic and probably one of the best hidden treasures in the game.

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Originally Posted by clairvaux

Okay, even so, the Khan's Guard may have a weaker charge than say other European Heavy Cavalry, but I think it deserves to be up there, certainly higher than the Famiglia Ducale, sure they have a cool name, but really, c'mon, top three?? Gothic Knights, yes, their stats may not be that impressive, but their power is so overwhelming its unbelievable, I've actually beaten off Lancers with Conquistadores, so now I'm losing faith in the Lancers. The biggest problem I have with this list is STILL the Famgilia Ducale, really, I can name plenty of better units. I think the Polish War Clerics were surprisingly good, I think everything unique to Denmark is better than the Famiglia Ducale, and the Turkish Qatakulu (sp?) are fantastic and probably one of the best hidden treasures in the game.

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Yah I second your remark abour Denmark. Those mounted warriors monks(?) are pretty good. :2thumbsup: