Suggestion: Fast Moving

This is just a quick suggestion. One of the annoyances I have in RTW and it's mods is dealing with skirmishers. This is exasperrated in EB because of how weak calvary is in melee, and because rebels tend to be mostly skirmishers, especially in the east. I'm not saying calvary is necessarily underpowered since normally a calvary charge to the rear of any unit already in combat is almost sure to cause a rout, but most calvary even the heaviest is worthless at hunting skirmishers, even charging and counter charging.

This said, I have found that to kill most foot skirmishers I have to use infantry. But since the infantry can't catch them, I have to use calvary to occupy them until the infantry can catch up, frequently costing my calvary 30-50% casualties (even medium/heavy calvary like Baktrion Hippeis). Pantodapoi I've found effective as stand alone skirmisher killers becuase of their "fast moving" trait, which allows them to catch any skirmishers without that trait, like those damned persian archer/spearmen. It'd be nice to see more light infantry units with this trait, since I hate using Pantodapoi in my field armies. For example, I think Tabargane Eranshahr (Eastern Axemen) should get this and probably a few others.

On a side note/question, I was under the impression that while Cataphracts where good at rolling up lines with a charge, I thought they were also supposed to be able to hang in melee well? I mean certainly the stirrup hadn't been invented yet, but they sure seem to drop like flies when engaging in melee. In my baktria campaign, I was excited when my early bodyguards got upgraded to Hetairoi Kataphraktoi but I found they couldn't hang in melee any better than the others, even against worthless slingers and archers armed with knives. I'm playing on medium diff battles on huge unit scale. Anyone get the same impression as me? Hope this doesn't come across the wrong way, as always I greatly appreciate the EB teams excellent work. Thanks. Well this post has turned out a lot longer than I thought, sorry :oops: .

Well, skirmishers can be dealt with by fast lancers, the trick is to catch them as they are running away, I've found Prodomoi particually effective at this. Smash into them, withdraw immidiately and then strike again from close range, that usually breaks the low level levy skirmishers.

Oh, and mob the general at the start of the battle, especially Successor generals. Killing him makes all the difference.

As far as "hang in melee" goes, what exactly are you looking for?

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Well, skirmishers can be dealt with by fast lancers, the trick is to catch them as they are running away, I've found Prodomoi particually effective at this. Smash into them, withdraw immidiately and then strike again from close range, that usually breaks the low level levy skirmishers.

Oh, and mob the general at the start of the battle, especially Successor generals. Killing him makes all the difference.

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Maybe I've had bad luck or am not doing it right, cause that is what I try to do. But I get by still. My main point was not that calvary is underpowered but that it would be nice if a few more light infantry units got the "fast moving" trait.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

As far as "hang in melee" goes, what exactly are you looking for?

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I assume this is regarding my question in the third paragraph. What I meant by hanging in melee was being able to charge into a unit and fight in close combat, I might be completely wrong, it was just a question on the historic use of cataphracts in this time period, whether they were capable of engaging in close quarters effectively after their charge was spent. Sure, I understand they wouldn't do well against spearmen, but I was under the impression that they would be able to perhaps deal with sword carrying medium infantry and such. Thanks for the reply Philipvs.

Too bad you can't charge a unit that's in skirmish mode.

well, one reason i think why cavalry will loose even against archers in hand to hand is because the hose is a large target, and if just a few men armed with knives enter lelee with a cavalryman, the cavalryman may kill a couple of them, but those men will kill the horse by its many weak points (underside, for example- a spear can easily reach that), toppling the rider, killing him.

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Originally Posted by Thaatu

Too bad you can't charge a unit that's in skirmish mode.

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Yes that seems to be the beef. Its a dissapointing moment when the charging cav falters and then trots to engage fleeing slingers, who promptly turn on their pursuers and inflict casualties.

Double teaming works a treat: I find a quick skirmish cav and a FM are ideal. The fast moving cav goes past the fleeing skirmishers, and doubles back for a failed charge. The trailing FM slams into the rear of the pinned skirmies and Bobbio's your uncle. Of course it means holding light units in reserve for the pursuit phase which is rather Napoleonic, but maybe its Diadochiocally authentic too.

I like the overall effect that if you go for a heavy army, you do few pursuit losses, and that light infantry "screen" a retreat well. EB gives a nice balance on cav power: I'm finding the HA rebs a pain as Baktria atm and am sorely tempted to autoresolve police actions (completely against house rules). I'm just too tight to fork out for a decent elite HA.

I usually counter with other skirmishers and light cav (or heavier cav if they're fresh). The AI is terrible at skirmishing, so it's never a challenge.

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Originally Posted by stupac

I assume this is regarding my question in the third paragraph. What I meant by hanging in melee was being able to charge into a unit and fight in close combat, I might be completely wrong, it was just a question on the historic use of cataphracts in this time period, whether they were capable of engaging in close quarters effectively after their charge was spent. Sure, I understand they wouldn't do well against spearmen, but I was under the impression that they would be able to perhaps deal with sword carrying medium infantry and such. Thanks for the reply Philipvs.

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I don't see why Hetairoi Kataphraktoi, or Kataphraktoi Hellenikoi for that matter, would have any trouble hanging in melee if that's what you want them to do. Either will handily crush any skirmisher unit they catch with minimal losses.

Make sure you alt-click when you order a charge that you want to end in sustained melee (against an enemy general, most commonly, but also for the infantry-busting you describe above). Not sure what exactly Bactrians carry as an alternate weapon, but most heavy cav out east has a nice strong AP weapon for melee. As I understand it, the tradeoff is a loss of lethality from the brutal 0.4 of the lance, but you gain quite a lot of attack score (more hits) and attack speed (hidden stat, not on the unit card, I don't know much about this and am repeating hearsay from this forum :beam: ). I and many others find this a valuable trick, others have argued it doesn't do much. I haven't seen reports of any detailed tests.

As far as tactics, I personally will only melee with other cav or with skirmisher/missile troops. I don't recommend meleeing with the missile troops with anything but heavy cav (Hetairoi/Kinsmen and better - Baktrion Hippeis are medium, not heavy) though even Prodromoi will probably win against anything but the Archer-Spearmen. Heavy cav can single-handedly demolish any non-phalanx infantry unit in the game, but sustained melee is at most the final endgame and is not strictly necessary. Just charge, pull back, repeat. Even Thorakitai Agema Basilikou will wither away eventually (this is in fact my preferred method of dealing with them); Galatian Klerouchoi and other swordsmen just die like dogs. :smash: So I guess my bottom line would be that yes, cataphracts can do well in melee against most infantry, but that they shouldn't bother against non-skirmisher types since the charge bonus is just so much better. Not sure why you've had trouble meleeing with skirmishers as per your original post; my Hayasdan late bodyguards are slightly inferior to yours (though still pretty awesome!), Kinsmen are weaker than cataphracts, and cataphract HA only have the slow lance for melee. But they all eat Thanvare Payadag, Gund i Palta, etc. for lunch...

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Originally Posted by jhhowell

I don't see why Hetairoi Kataphraktoi, or Kataphraktoi Hellenikoi for that matter, would have any trouble hanging in melee if that's what you want them to do. Either will handily crush any skirmisher unit they catch with minimal losses.

Make sure you alt-click when you order a charge that you want to end in sustained melee (against an enemy general, most commonly, but also for the infantry-busting you describe above). Not sure what exactly Bactrians carry as an alternate weapon, but most heavy cav out east has a nice strong AP weapon for melee. As I understand it, the tradeoff is a loss of lethality from the brutal 0.4 of the lance, but you gain quite a lot of attack score (more hits) and attack speed (hidden stat, not on the unit card, I don't know much about this and am repeating hearsay from this forum :beam: ). I and many others find this a valuable trick, others have argued it doesn't do much. I haven't seen reports of any detailed tests.

As far as tactics, I personally will only melee with other cav or with skirmisher/missile troops. I don't recommend meleeing with the missile troops with anything but heavy cav (Hetairoi/Kinsmen and better - Baktrion Hippeis are medium, not heavy) though even Prodromoi will probably win against anything but the Archer-Spearmen. Heavy cav can single-handedly demolish any non-phalanx infantry unit in the game, but sustained melee is at most the final endgame and is not strictly necessary. Just charge, pull back, repeat. Even Thorakitai Agema Basilikou will wither away eventually (this is in fact my preferred method of dealing with them); Galatian Klerouchoi and other swordsmen just die like dogs. :smash: So I guess my bottom line would be that yes, cataphracts can do well in melee against most infantry, but that they shouldn't bother against non-skirmisher types since the charge bonus is just so much better. Not sure why you've had trouble meleeing with skirmishers as per your original post; my Hayasdan late bodyguards are slightly inferior to yours (though still pretty awesome!), Kinsmen are weaker than cataphracts, and cataphract HA only have the slow lance for melee. But they all eat Thanvare Payadag, Gund i Palta, etc. for lunch...

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I haven't had the same experience, I always alt-click in melee so they switch to swords, but I will still seem to take 30-50+% casualties on weak skirmisher's like bowmen and slingers even with the heaviest calvary. Though I guess usually the skirmishing unit outnumbers my calvary unit 2-4:1, so maybe that has something to do with it. Like Baktrion hippeis on huge has 100 men against a unit of persian archers (with their little pairing knives) which has 160 men, I usually won't walk away with more than 40-50 men after going in melee, I might get away with 70 if I'm really lucky and continually charge+counter charge. With Hetairoi Katafractoi avg. generals bodyguard is around 50, and I usually can't defeat a unit of persian archers by itself, though I suppose 50 men against 160 may sound like bad odds, but I would think that this is the best of the best against the worst so it seems feasible that each man could kill 3.2 men, but who knows we could argue that to death and never get anywhere. Maybe I've just had bad luck, I'll have to try it some more because lately I've been avoiding melee's with all calvary like the plague. Like I said though, it seems more practical to chase them down with fast moving infantry like pantodapoi or galatian shortswordsmen.

Kataphraktoi should be mainly used for their charge. Just move them through (to a point beyond) the unit; turn; rinse and repeat. Try to make sure you hit the unit at the point where it's got most depth (typically flanks), so you can cover almost the entire unit with one charge.

Works very well with enemy light cavalry also.

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Originally Posted by jhhowell

Make sure you alt-click when you order a charge that you want to end in sustained melee (against an enemy general, most commonly, but also for the infantry-busting you describe above). Not sure what exactly Bactrians carry as an alternate weapon, but most heavy cav out east has a nice strong AP weapon for melee. As I understand it, the tradeoff is a loss of lethality from the brutal 0.4 of the lance, but you gain quite a lot of attack score (more hits) and attack speed (hidden stat, not on the unit card, I don't know much about this and am repeating hearsay from this forum :beam: ). I and many others find this a valuable trick, others have argued it doesn't do much. I haven't seen reports of any detailed tests.

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I think the experience of the cavalry in question has a big say here: Consider an exp 0 unit of Hetairoi, they would have a 5 (0.4) + 37 lance attack, and an 11 (0.11) + 18 sword attack, both armour piercing. So here, the basic attack score of the sidearm is more than twice that of the lance.
Now, consider the same unit at exp 7: 12 (0.4) + 37 lance, 18 (0.11) + 18 sword. Here, the sidearm only has a 50% higher basic attack score. I believe that this means that at some point, the lance simply becomes the better weapon all round, at least for most hellenic and eastern heavy cavalry.
For brihentin and similar units, with their lower lethality lances/spears and higher lethality, non-armour peircing longswords, the sidearm might always be the weapon of choice in continual close combat, at least against low-armour enemies.

What battle difficulty level are you using?

Historically, dealing with skirmishers was a pain if you weren't equiped for it. A force made up entirely of heavy infantry would typically end up being exterminated by skirmishers. That said, I've never had any trouble using cavalry to mop up the enemy's light troops in EB. If you're playing on hard/very hard battle difficulty, you must realise that the results are expected to be unrealistic, since you've asked the AI to cheat and make its troops uber.

i dont know if this works in EB, but for AOEII, this wors well: i used to play as the Teutons, and their Teutonic Knights cold kill anything in thier paths(30 of them killed over 150 enemies!)- except for skirmishers. the skirmishers only did 4 damage per javelin, but many of them could be deadly. my knights were too slow o catch them, so i found the unit they were attacking, and i sent that unit back, and the skirmisher would follow and walk straight into my nights, where one swipe would kill them. so many bydrawing them in, the enemy skirmishers would follow, but i doubt that would work. the AI has to be smarter than that....
just an idea....

Just throwing my 2 cents in here. Although I have not had the same exact issuses as Stopac, I have had the same general issues. Namely - skirimishers have put a bigger dent in my cav units then heavier troops. Part of it may be the idea that we should be able to just roll through them b/c they are "just" light troops. That is surely NOT the case, as I suppose is common knowledge now.
Due to unfathomable cav loses early on in EB1.0 I have adjusted my own tactics. It has been interesting and insightful to see everyone else's 2 cents on the subject as well. I haven't had the time to peruse the stats as listed in the (might I say amazing) unit cards, but I will make this note. Everyone seems to be talking about Eastern Cav units. Is the overall second-handness of western cav exacerbating my cav/skirimisher issues?

I've found that archers were a good way to deal with skirmishers, especally if you can keep harassing them with cavalry so that don't find time to throw their javelins.
On the cavalry side, Prodromoi do the trick for me.

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Originally Posted by stupac

With Hetairoi Katafractoi avg. generals bodyguard is around 50, and I usually can't defeat a unit of persian archers by itself

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That's very odd! I've used rebel persian archers (3 units) as fodder to give a newbie general some experience, and IIRC only lost about 10 men out of the fifty-ish. Might have been an early bodyguard, too, I forget. Sounds like you're doing everything right, so are you sure you're actually on medium battle difficulty?

Chris A. T. - good point about the experience level. Though I've read that there's a big difference in attack speed giving you many more sword swings in the time it takes for one lance poke, and that this is the main reason one should alt-click for melee. But I don't have any quantitative details to know if this is true...

Disciple of Tacitus - yes. ~:) After playing in the east, even the best western cav (Equites Extraordinarii and Brihentin, AFAIK) are decidedly mediocre. Carthage might have a genuinely good heavy cav, I haven't really looked at their roster.

....Yeah ignore the previous input there .


Archers will tear up MOST skirmishers . If they're the heavy ones cavalry really is the only way .