Cavalry weapons

If a unit of cavalry is armed with both a lance and a sword is it better to do the usual charge and retreat tactic or is it more effective to charge with the lance then quickly click alt and continue fighting with the sword?

i would say that depends on the secondary weapon carried (e.g. knifes are bad, kopis/falcata would be good)...

and how many armour the unit wears.
light armored units may have a disadvantage when facing heavier armored troops. => they might get killed a lot faster, than it can kill the enemy.

so make yourself a guess (by reading unit description text) which unit may stay in close quarter battles.

Only the most heavily armored cavalry units has good staying power in melee, but this is effective only with very lightly armed units like skirmishers, because even using swords most cavalry has low attack values and combined with their limited number they just can't kill much in melee as they can with a charge

hmm, i agree partially.

it is certainly correct that a charge is more effective.
but more than three or four charges are not possible due to exhaustion.

anyway i risk a close quarter battle if this is necessary, e.g. if one of my units is in dire need of support.

a close quarter battle with cavalry ONLY is certainly highly risky, but in some occasions you can´t turn and ride away to charge again. the other cavalry might follow you and hit you in the back....


illyrioi hippeis are quite good (light) melee fighters with AP axes, but only lightly armoured. (their lances have AP charge also).

I'll only charge and retreat when attacking infantry with cavaly. I'll only stay and fight it out with sword/maces when fighting a cavalry on cavalry fight. Infanty just kill cavalry too fast because of their numbers.

In my Pahlava campaign I tend to attack infantry with mounted archers (using the good old "ping pong" tactic) and use my heavy cavalry as cavalry killers. I charge enemy cavalry with "alt-attack"-this charges them with their lance and then they immediately switch to the mace (AP), works great for general-killing. I don't usually use that many heavy cav in my armies. I use a front line of armored HA's, medium HA's on the "inside flank" and either standard HA's or "steppe-riders" on the outer flank (depending on the location on map and the type of armies I'm facing),and keep my heavy cav centally located until the position of the enemy general develops, then deploy them in that direction. I will still use some standard HA's in my steppe armies and replace most of the medium HAs with steppe riders (for speed, ie against Saka or Sauromatae) When the ammo is gone, the Armored, Medium, and "steppe-riders" will charge foot archers, depleted slow infantry, and depleted fast infantry respectively while the standard HAs chase routers. The heavy cav at this point is just either is done and exhausted, or will fill in where needed. If i'm fighting a battle where enemy reinforcements come in, the heavies immediately slay the General, and then rest and deal with the reinforcements until the rest of the army gets done with their original tasks.