"Hunters All Their Lives," Kingdoms: A Missile Cavalry Guide

This is a work in progress.

The most important thing found out about missile cavalry in Kingdoms is in this thread. Skirmish is missing from both Egyptian Desert Cavalry in the Crusades Campaign and Spanish Jinettes in the Americas campaign.

This appears to be a grevious error instead of a deliberate design change. If this change was deliberate for reasons that are wholly unimaginable, it ruins these units. Well-armored Boyar Sons and Polish Nobles can skirmish and light Jinettes and Desert Cavalry can't? Inexplicable.

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"Kingdom's" big change of reducing the size of all cavalry units by 25 percent looks straightforward to the point of being blunt, but significant subtleties show up during gameplay.

Missile accuracy's been improved. Shields for all units have been improved at the expense of armor. Pike units are marginally faster and work better, especially against cavalry. Some infantry polearm (Halberds and such) units now have a a charge bonus better than good cavalry.

Here's some of the big effects on missile cavalry I've noticed so far:

AMMO: The ammo supply is much more constricted. Assuming that a regular horse archer still carries 25 arrows (can somebody confirm this?), the total ammo supply for a unit has apparently gone from 1,000 to 750.

Ammo is not something you really had to concern yourself with before. Now you have a more restricted supply and the improved accuracy doesn't help much if you're pinging away at his improved shield. This makes a little finesse worth bigger dividends. I've found myself, for instance, turning off fire-at-will while a unit is running, especially if they're firing over the tails of their horses at a chasing unit. I put a little more effort into getting around an opponent's shield before letting my units fire.

Obviously, all this also makes experienced units more valuable since experienced missile cavalry fires more accurately.

COMBINED ARMS There's a greater mutual dependence between melee and missile cavalry than before. A missile cavalry unit can't completely wipe out an infantry unit any more, or at least not as easily. A nice charge to finish off a weakened unit is very helpful. Likewise, melee cavalry is still quite powerful but a solid frontal charge against decent infantry will leave the cavalry victorious but decimated. It's much better to charge against a target softened-up by missiles. In a similar vein, "double duty" missile cavalry that can also make a decent melee unit is something to be prized.

GENERALS RULE Bodyguard units rule the roost. They were not reduced. Therefore, the numerical advantage of an already-overmatched regular melee cavalry unit has been reduced from about 2 to 1 all the way down to 3 to 2, at best. A faction leader can actually outnumber the average cavalry unit now. A low-loyalty nutcase is not a much greater asset than a liability.

JAVELINS RULE Javelin units, if anything, are enhanced by all these changes. The armor-piercing ability of their missiles makes them more important when facing shields and absolutely devestaging when they can get around them. They are the major threat to uber-bodyguards and they are usually good double-duty units.

All for now.

That's a good start. Cheers.
About those shields: They seem to be bugged in Kingdoms. Some units with a shield in hand do not seem to get any defence points for it, at least not in the unit cards. And then some units with no shield do get a shield bonus. Hopefully they'll get a patch out soon.
There are many nice missile cavalry units in Kingdoms. Mounted gunners now play a more important role. And they are real fun! No new camels though. Skirmishing seems to work better, reducing the amount of micromanaging a bit. Could be my imagination though...

- Guru

Heya, Guru. I saw it pointed out somewhere that with those shield-defence discrepancies, it was actually just the unit cards that were wrong. The actual values were there, but I can't find where it was that I read that right now.

Always love your guides, Doug. Thanks in advance for your latest work

Quote:

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AMMO: The ammo supply is much more constricted. Assuming that a regular horse archer still carries 25 arrows

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The amount of ammo has been reduced (I don't know if this is the same for all campaigns; this is from Americas EDU)
Horse archers: 20
archers: 25
Musketeers (mounted and dismounted) 15

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Proletariat

Heya, Guru. I saw it pointed out somewhere that with those shield-defence discrepancies, it was actually just the unit cards that were wrong. The actual values were there, but I can't find where it was that I read that right now.

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Ok, thanks for clarification. It seems unit cards are not to be trusted. :bow: Good thing if shield defence is really working correctly.
Emm.. My apologies for wandering a bit off-topic.

- Guru

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monsieur Alphonse

The amount of ammo has been reduced (I don't know if this is the same for all campaigns; this is from Americas EDU)
Horse archers: 20
archers: 25
Musketeers (mounted and dismounted) 15

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:jawdrop:



So that's a reduction in quivers and a reduction in the arrows in them. Compound interest and all, there's a a 40 percent reduction in ammo, from 1,000 to 600.

Thanks, MA. If that applies to all the Kingdoms scenarios — and if there's a similar drop in number of javelins — then we have even more of a major shift here.

Of course, it's also true that I rarely played SP with full stacks of HA anyway, so I'll just be sure to add more HA. Still, the ammo supply won't be back where it was.

I always played SP with full stacks of HAs, simply because you don't need to reinforce your stack after every battle. Fighting several battles turn after turn was a lot of fun. It was of course an easy way to get heroic victories. I don't agree with you that you need some heavy cavalry. Whenever I ran out of ammo I ordered a massive charge with all HAs at once. The remaining enemies, suddenly overwhelmed by cavalry, would usually simply rout. Of course I have to test if this still work in Kingdoms. A good campaign to do this will be the Crusades.

I am currently playing the Americas Campaign as New Spain. I will play on until I can train large quantities of Spanish dragoons.

As soon as I have finished with New Spain I give the Apaches a try. I already tested them in a custom battle. I fought with a stack consisting of eight (3*gold) mounted thunder braves + twelve (3*gold) thunder braves against a quality Spanish stack (conquistadores, dism conquistadores, artillery, musketeers, Tercios, all 3* gold). The twelve thunder braves hit almost nothing and the mounted thunder braves killed almost the entire Spanish stack. Even with 15 bullets they are very dangerous. :2thumbsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monsieur Alphonse

I don't agree with you that you need some heavy cavalry. Whenever I ran out of ammo I ordered a massive charge with all HAs at once. The remaining enemies, suddenly overwhelmed by cavalry, would usually simply rout. Of course I have to test if this still work in Kingdoms. A good campaign to do this will be the Crusades.

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An honest difference of opinion, but I'd point out that before these changes, you didn't have to charge because there were no surviving, unrouted enemy left. Also, charging with some Mamluks is one thing. Charging with Kazaks is another. That's why I took note that good "dual-purpose" missile cav are more valuable now.

Quote:

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I am currently playing the Americas Campaign as New Spain. I will play on until I can train large quantities of Spanish dragoons.

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Dragoons are wicked. The new constrictions on ammo don't mean so much because their fire is so deadly and long-ranged. I've only played a few custom battles with them, and they started firing almost as soon as I hit the "state battle" tab.

Quote:

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As soon as I have finished with New Spain I give the Apaches a try. I already tested them in a custom battle. I fought with a stack consisting of eight (3*gold) mounted thunder braves + twelve (3*gold) thunder braves against a quality Spanish stack (conquistadores, dism conquistadores, artillery, musketeers, Tercios, all 3* gold). The twelve thunder braves hit almost nothing and the mounted thunder braves killed almost the entire Spanish stack. Even with 15 bullets they are very dangerous. :2thumbsup:

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Sounds like foot gunners may still suffer from the "tidying up before we fire" problem that doesn't afflict mounted gunners, who fire on the move.

@Guru and Proletariat;

Thanks for the kind words.

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@ everybody.

BTW, I do have a decent internet connection now. I can actually help test some things, perhaps, assuming I can learn how make and keep a connection.

The biggest thing I know of that needs testing is this: Do shields really work as intended against missiles. I got inconsistant results testing that in custom battles. Target units are supposed to be more vulnerable on their "weapons side," and that seemed true when using horse archers. However, with foot archers, it looked like it was actually worse on the shield side, which makes absolutely no sense, before Kingdoms.

It needs a three-way test: One guy firing from the shield side, one from the weapons side, and one tester or the computer willing to be the target.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson

The biggest thing I know of that needs testing is this: Do shields really work as intended against missiles. I got inconsistant results testing that in custom battles. Target units are supposed to be more vulnerable on their "weapons side," and that seemed true when using horse archers. However, with foot archers, it looked like it was actually worse on the shield side, which makes absolutely no sense, before Kingdoms.

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As far as I know, in vanilla Medieval 2 shield defence is the same for left and right side, meaning 50% of the shield value. 100% is applied to attacks from the front and 0% to attacks from behind. Gunpowder ignores shields. Or at least this is what I've been told about the game mechanics. I don't think it has been changed in Kingdoms. Custom battle tests aren't really a reliable source of information unless they are repeated many, many times. Maybe we should ask an expert... Any shieldbearers around?

- Guru

Made note of the stripping of skirmish ability from desert cavalry and jinettes, in what is surely a blunder.

Hi Doug !

Great start! I'm looking forward to reading this as and when you update. Quick note for you; check the thread you mentioned in the initial post. Mr. Frost has tested a simple way to reintroduce the skirmish ability for javelin cavalry. Link.