Bosphorian Archers, Syrian Archers, Cretan Archers... Good archers are never more than a few steps away for my favourite faction.:yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Daos
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Bosphorian Archers, Syrian Archers, Cretan Archers... Good archers are never more than a few steps away for my favourite faction.:yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Daos
:laugh4: Arche or Roma?
Depends on how divergent the base values are... lethality doesn't count for much if you're barely ever rolling hits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seyduna
My thinking is that, since the cataphract spears are "spears" in the data, they would get +8 attack against other cavalry and -4 attack against infantry. So that's why I usually use the spear against cavalry and sword against infantry. It usually works quite well. I also find the AP and high lethality of the xyston, and other AP spears, much better for usage against infantry than their swords as well.
Your melee cavalry should:
1) Win cavalry superiority.
2) Get behind your opponent's infantry line. Some of the AI mods (Darth's,etc) make this more difficult because the enemy uses depth, but dealing with that is another can of worms).
3) Find the right time and place to charge.
If your cavalry is all fresh and behind their lines, then by all means start charging/retreating/charging/retreating into the enemy troops. But if your cavalry had to fight to get there and is tired, you're better off holding it back until you see a good target to hit.
Fatigued infantry units that have taken losses are prime suspects for rear-charges which force localized routs... which will (with some nurutring) cascade into a total rout of the enemy army.
Melee cav without good charge ratings should only be used to engage light infantry/skirmishers, chase routers, or fight equivalent enemy cavalry. Of course if none of those are available and you need more troops to prevent a rout, I would use them as support for my infantry and use them to shore up weakening areas to prevent a rout - but this will only buy you time - it won't change your fortunes.
Cavalry is the decisive arm. When using cavalry - at all times your goal is to destroy enemy morale without losing your own.
:inquisitive: What are you talking about ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Korlon
time to fire up the stats....
armenian catatanks
;267
type eastern cavalry nakhararakan aspet
dictionary eastern_cavalry_nakhararakan_aspet ; Nakhararakan Aspet
category cavalry
class heavy
voice_type General_1
soldier steppe_cavalry_nakhararakanaspet_zradhapahlavans_hyesparapet_sakalatecataphract, 25, 0, 1
mount half armoured horse
mount_effect elephant -1, chariot +2
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, mercenary_unit, hardy
formation 1.4, 3.5, 3, 6, 4, square
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 5, 37, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 200 ,0.4
stat_pri_attr ap
stat_sec 10, 18, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, blunt, mace, 0 ,0.165
stat_sec_attr ap
stat_pri_armour 18, 13, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, leather
stat_heat 5
stat_ground 0, 0, -4, -1
stat_mental 16, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 0, 4457, 1114, 80, 100, 4457
ownership romans_scipii
Bold word mean anything stat wise; or, is it just for the noise?
...
...
...yes, it is indeed the sound effect.
Please excuse me while I go weep quietly in the corner.
The best cav for melee are those with shields and AP weapons...
Hi russia almighty,
big stats for as far as I can figure them out - I'm not familiar with most of the
number-positions yet though, can you/will you point me to a helptext regarding how to properly read them?
quote-stat_pri 5, 37, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 200 ,0.4-endquote
suppose that's primary weapon, base dmg5, charge bon37, whatever, whatever, whatever, no range, whatevereffect"blade"has, armorpierce, whatevereffect"spear"has, whatever, lethality rate 0.4...
Btw, how exactly does the "lethality rate" work? is it "lethal hits per min" or something like "percentage of total hits"?
Actually all the swordsman needs to do is attack the horses legs, which are typically unarmored. If you can cause the horse to fall, a Cata is easy pickings while he is laying on the ground.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daos
Lethality is the percentage of hit rolls that actually land. It defaults to 1.0 (100% of all hits hit).. where as in this case only 40% of all hits actually hit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nachtmeister
Lethality is important, but if your base attack is so low that you rarely roll a hit a high lethality doesn't really help.
At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work.
indeed; I imagine the romans did that (they had shortswords afterall)
Hamstringing the animal was an ever-popular tactic. Another was to summarily disembowel it - the barding usually didn't protect the belly from underneath...
"Spear" in this position doesn`t change any combat stats. However:Quote:
Originally Posted by russia almighty
stat_pri 5, 37, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 200 ,0.4
stat_pri_attr ap, light_spear
In the attributes section "Light_spear" or just "spear" indeed gives bonuses vs cavalry (AFAIK +8) and maluses vs infantry (AFAIK -4)
At the top of the EDU, there's a thing that that tells you what everything is, though it wasn't updated for the newer versions so there isn't lethality in there.
And once you get that 3 gold chevron cataphract with that .4 lethality xyston, you'll be plowing through everybody.
but we dont know if this applies to cav units. I've discussed this with Aradan of FATW and we never came up with a definitive answerQuote:
Originally Posted by Woreczko
And even if it worked the exact same way as it does with infantry, the effect would be pretty much nonsensical when you think about it.
Thank you for the info, Midnj and Korlon,
your assistance is highly appreciated. :2thumbsup:
Xurr, Ibrahim and Watchman, that is true in the case of a single, stationary, distracted (or blind) horse. So you need to have them bogged down between bodies first, and separated from one another.
If they are not individually surrounded sticking even a longsword with its added range up a horse's gut is nearly impossible; I once worked at a "stud-farm" and so I do know how even a unintentional, immediately corrected misstep by a horse you are being very nice to can hurt - imagine the effect of a deliberate WHACK because the horse noticed you had other intentions than giving it a carrot.
BTW, I actually miss that in EB gameplay although it is probably due to engine restrictions and game balance (we're not in ME2TW after all) but at least when pursuing routing infantry, killing should be a lot faster - rolling over them like tanks instead of staying behind them at spear range and having one rider poking at the hindmost, the rest of the unit all the while keeping tight formation and thereby limiting the entire unit to attack one enemy at a time instead of hitting as many as there are horses with riders on them (even in spread formation it is still a rigid grid so there should be a third formation for routing, only requiring them to be within sth. like 60 metres of the formation's center, which could be dynamically calculated and constantly updated or fixed to the position of the unit's standard for hardware performance's sake...):charge:
I have to admit I have seen fights where spear (not lance!!!) wielding cavalry defeated heavier sword/mace/axe armed troops. Even Numidian Skirmisher Cav killing a Qarthy general one time on Medium. Although that could have been a total fluke.
Im sure any number of factors could be involved, but the spear seems to be very co-incidental.
Depends on whether the general had lost some hitpoints before that (javelins from the skirmisher cav?) and whether he took a direct "charge-hit"; I don't know about the inner workings of the battle engine in RTW/EB but having already lost generals because their horses (but none of their bodyguard) got "stuck" after a couple of charge-retreat-charge-etc runs against heavy infantry I assume that attacks, defence and hits are directly calculated for every single model within the unit, so if by chance your Qarthy general had taken several javelins AND one of the charge-hits of the Numidians, that would explain his less than glorious demise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses
Also I think stamina has a lot to do with how much damage a unit actually dishes out and sustains, so if the general's unit was already exhausted and the skirmisher cav still fresh that would also add to their lethality...
But I don't know for sure, this is only based on observations of casualties on both sides with units in different states of weariness fighting (e.g. caucasian spearmen slaughtering exhausted thureophoroi previously hit by numerous arrows and javelins -albeit from the front- while running towards the spearmen).
Maybe someone with deeper knowledge of the way the battle engine works can confirm or correct this?
Units are much weaker when they're tired than when they're fresh. It's actually one of the reasons why we human players win against the computer so much. They tend to run their troops towards you, causing them to get tired and getting more casualties once the real battle begins.
It's also why using guard mode is so effective. You don't lose stamina while the enemy does. I use it all the time when I'm besieged. The effect is very profound.
And yes, every soldier within a unit is calculated independently for damage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
2 units of cataphracts is enough to break most anything. If not then a second charge will do. Heck I've had 1 unit charge the rear and cause 4 enemy units to break by putting them in a 25 wide x 2 deep formation.
The horse can only (effectively) kick backwards and bite forwards. Cutting legs and stomachs were very common tactics to deal with cavalry stuck in melee, used by everyone from the Romans to the Chinese thoughout all different time periods. Remember at the farm at most there would be one or two people handling one horse. On the other hand, on a battlefield during close melee with infantry there would be, to a single horseman, at least something like seven infantry trying to kill it. A horse can't really do anything to something on its sides, and on a battlefield with lots of other people and horses running around all over the place, it can't really turn to meet the threat. Not to mention it can't really kick as that would be asking it to support an extra 300 pounds of weight it normally doesn't have to on its front legs. Besides the rider doesn't want it to, since that would mess up his balance (suddenly falling forward during melee is not a good idea).Quote:
Originally Posted by Nachtmeister
Hi Parallel Pain,
I by no means meant to say, "cavalry (and especially the horses) were invincible", maybe should have made that "blindED" instead of "blind" in the above quoted post - just thought it relevant to stress that they had to get bogged down in thick melee FIRST, as this was never the intended role of any cavalry I've ever heard or read of. Not even medieval knights with their added advantage of having stirrups. This is very well represented by EB, much better than it is in vanilla RTW. :2thumbsup:
Oh and the Incident at the stud-farm I was referring to involved a horse side-stepping onto my foot. Hurts a lot even with steel capped boots. In antiquity (I think) they usually wore sandals or soft boots... Not sure about Lusotannan, though. Anyway, I am still convinced that pole-arms are a far better choice for fighting cavalry with infantry than swords, especially shortswords.
Well no one's arguing that's false. Just that if the cavalry gets stuck, even shortswords work.
Heck if you know enough kungfu like those cantonese movies, you might even roll to one side as the horse charge towards you and slash his belly or leg with your sword.
All that aside, I'd like to hear people's opinion on how much cavalry should be massed for an effective "near-instant-route" rear charge. Obviously different numbers for light, medium, and heavy.
Depends on faction for unit choice - with KH, I use a phalanx or if not available then greek hoplites to pin the unit, 2x Hippeis Xystophoroi for rear charge, then 2x Aspidophoroi on secondary attack mode to follow the Xystophoroi, should work with most heavy units on medium battle setting. That way you quickly outnumber them somewhere between 3 and 6 to 1 depending on target unit which nearly always breaks morale immediately.
Wouldn't recommend anything less than heavy cav for this if you want to have them rout after just one charge.
I think that in EB gameplay med cav is dedicated to killing missile inf and light cav would be for killing routing troops only if you want to keep your casualties low.