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My question is simple. How do I use melee cavalry effectively? I usually play as Baktria, Carthage, or the Ptolemies, and most of the time, my cavalry can barely win a melee fight with the weakest infantry unit without taking severe casualties. Help.
Go for the flanks and rear.
Disengage and repeat charge.
Multiple converging charges against a single unit are your friend.
You mean stuff like cataphracts? Generally the usual infantry bog down enemy infantry, you hit the enemy from the back with a xyston or its equivalent. I get huge amounts of kills from cataphract family members every battle. In my 1.0 Pontos campaign, I regularly kill 1/3 or 1/2 of the enemy with only my general.
If you're fighting enemy cavalry, use their spear. If you're fighting enemy infantry, alt + click to switch to their swords. If you can, don't try to fight enemy infantry in an all-out melee, especially spearmen. Retreat, and then charge with their lances, and repeat. Much more casualties on the enemy side rather than yours.
If you can get the enemy army to be just infantry, keep running around until the infantry are all exhausted. Now, hopefully you have killed the general, charge them, just keep doing it. If it's a cataphract, you can pretty much even charge spearmen, though do it fast so they don't reform correctly.
You know, most of the time the secondary weapon is better anyway. The lances have ludicrously low base attack values and seriously huge attack delays...
I usually do charge into the rear as that's just common sense, but my cavalry are constantly slaughtered. Just today in the siege of Syracuse as Carthage, it had been under siege for 8 turns and they sallied fourth with there troops at less than half strength. My merc hippies were slaughtered in melee by akonistai and my general got killed by a unit of Tarentine cavalry. He took down the Tarentines until they had one man left but he couldn't kill the general (Hiero), the sole surviving Tarentine. Hiero killed my general and they routed.
Say... what battle difficulty are you playing with ?
+1 to what Watchman said...
alt-right click from outside the cav units charge range. they will charge with their spear/lance then switch to the more effective secondary weapon after
I play on H/M Large settings.
Then you're just doing something tactically wrong. :shrug: Sacred Band cav should eat pretty much any readily encountered horse in those parts for breakfast in melee; or rather, *does* - speaking from experience.
I think the cavalry is just weak in this game for some reason. I play on those settings too and Medium cavalry seems weak against most types of troops. I dunno I tend to use HA as they seem more effective...
You pretty much have to use heavy cavalry if you want them to succeed in a melee. Medium and light cavalry are better off chasing routers or, if necessary, charging enemy rears and flanks.
Thank you Koron (again) for answering my question over at TWC and here.
You need massed cavalry to deliver charges, three units at least. If you don't have that many then relegate them to just annoying the enemy and getting them to run around. Many medium cavalry units, usually marked as heavy, such as Hippeis, Prodoumoi etc are good in a fight and with a few points of experience can handle enemy generals at least until you can bring in the heavy guns.
Are you charging properly, walk then break into the chage, lances down?
[QUOTE=Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla]You need massed cavalry to deliver charges, three units at least.QUOTE]
I just send shock cav. first (e.g. E. extraordinarii), then send in melee cav.( hippeis, or E.romani) right after them. It routs just about anybody.. but yes massed attacks are the best, since it depends on unit mass to smash a line, not just attack
Well I'm playing with Getai and their Medium cavalry is a joke really. It costs too much. With that money I can make 2 units of HA which are way more effective if used properly. I use family as heavy cavalry, at least I can retrain them in more places... Just an example. I have an alpine phalanx fighting with some swordsmen and I attack them from the back with Medium cavalry and yeah I win but I loose at least 10 or more horsemen. That's not very realistic at all as swordsman have no chance against armored cavalry. What do you mean proper charge? Is there a special way to do it?
like we said: use a massive amount, hit them in the rear or flanks, and retreat after impacting and doing damage. I use these ideas effectively (losing 1-6 men for every 100). I in AS charged using these tactics and broke even spear armed infantry (outnumberd 6, or even 10:1) , plus cavalry have more stamina, and are faster. tire the enemy infantry out, then charge. they'll break like a stick.
the ideal distance before ordering a charge is the space that can be covered by whatever cavalry in 4-10 sec. (at least that's what I found), that way you can hear the horn/bugle/cornus on charge, and they lower lances. also never use cavalry alone. use infantry to engage the enemy, then hit them, unless you're steppe, or a cavalry "god". if you are germanic, there is the one hundred men, they actually can do as the EB historical guide says they do*. you can also support them with more cav., missiles, or any fast moving unit that can melee. summary: they are to break(shock), not kill off, the enemy.
and never use tarabostes that way; use tem to raid and pick. leave the Ktistai or P. Daoi; even the t. prodromoi are better at shock attacks.
*see www.europabarbarorum.com and find the sweboz.
Well yeah but a 50 men strong charge to the rear of a 82 men unit that is armed only with swords should do more damage especially if they are supported by a phalanx and my general has 8 stars. In Medieval TW I once held back 500 men with only one group of cavalry until my reinforcements arrived. In this one I only find HA useful and you don't need to be Asian to use them right. The getai have very good HA. I will try Thracian cavalry next, maybe they will be better. And believe me this is not the first time I play TW and I know how to use cavalry.
I know about RTW-just in EB its done differently.
Don't the Getai have the awful very spaced out formation for their family members? I don't think their bodyguards are that strong either.
I suggest you try Hayasdan or Pontos. Their general's bodyguards are practically tanks.
I can agree to thisQuote:
Originally Posted by Korlon
Playing Hayasdan right now and the Kinsmen cavalry have a charge off 44, armor penetrating maces for melee and 30 defense.
They're the best cata's in the beginning of the game.
But lances get higher kills, especially against cavalry. Because of more lethality, I guess. In custom battle, my sword using cataphracts are beaten by lance using cataphracts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
Fixed in 1.1. They're properly bad ass now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Korlon
This files under "Did Not Do His Homework" you know. You're aware that cataphracts preferred to avoid frontal assaults against fresh and properly formed Legionary maniples, right ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daos
Ive found that Medium or even Light Cavalry are more than adequate for causing routs when charging from the rear against engaged troops. Ok, so Im playing as Baktria... but still with almost any faction the impact is enough. The key is not to come in too early IMO. Allow the enemy troops time to properly engage your infantry (defensive troops - aka spearmen - are best used in this role) then charge the rear, withdraw immediately, charge, withdraw etc. Usually against tired troops 2 or 3 charges are enough and casualties tend to be minimal if you pull your cav away fast enough.
Things to look out for that lessen the impact of the charge include:
Charging through another (friendly) unit
Not having the entire unit far enough away and stationary before the charge order is issued
The enemy unit has changed its facing and is no longer showing its back to you
Enemies are fresh (very unusual with this AI...)
etc etc
Also, if the engaged enemy unit hasn't broken within say five seconds of the cavalry impact, it's usually better to disengage the horses and charge again.
I just got the Hetairoi Kataphraktoi(late baktrian bodyguards) in my baktrian camp. This guys are freakin tanks. Usually i use the cav for flanking the enemies, no long fights, just charge in and get out of the hotspot quickly, but katas can even charge in and then fight in hand to hand.
Also it depends on the cav weapons type - ap or not. Some cav that doesn't use ap weapons is not even worth to recruit, cause they are not even effective, when chasing down fleeing enemies.
In my Aedui campaign I'm actually finding the Brihentin FM cav to be bloody good city assault troops & have been actively using them not for gaining the initial bridgehead but for breaking up those sometimes nasty battles half way between the walls & town centre.
In that context they are just standing pretty much still & fighting either with sword or their short spears.
That said they haven't normally been fighting particularly heavy infantry & not spears other than depleted units & weaklings like Lugoae.
As previously mentioned, to get the cavalry charge cavalry to work properly, you need to set up for the charge right:
-Put them in a position where they have a clear path to the rear of the enemy unit.
-Set them up as close to parallel to the chargee as possible, a fair distance back.
-Wait until they have stopped & reformed before ordering the charge.
-Use Alt + Click to get them to swap to secondary weapon after impact
-Zoom in as they are charging to make sure you hear them bugle call & for visual confirmation that all/most have their lances down, if not best to break off the charge & reform then try again.
-Let them fight for a few seconds (more for the ones with good melee staying power) & if the enemy isn't wavering &/or you are taking losses then pull back, reform & repeat. Maybe pick a more depleted/weaker unit this time.
Its not always possible/desirable to do all of these depending on the tactical circumstances but do a few the right way & after a few battles where you can't do it quite perfectly, you'll get a good idea how far off perfect you can get while still getting most of the effect.
I rarely use more than 2 units of cav in any full stack (other than HAs for steppe areas) & one is the FM bodyguard, yet they are still the main striking force & typically get the most kills.
No need for massive numbers where finesse can get you similar effect allowing more reserve grunt power (infantry).
I was not talking about a frontal assault. I never do that, except maybe against light infantry. And you do know that there is little you can do with a short sword to an armed horsemen who is wielding a lance? I'm glad to hear that the Getai cavalry is better inn 1.1. Too bad I won't be using them. I need to decide on a new faction for that game. One that doesn't have good archers as I tend to overuse them. That's why I was thinking to play the Macedonians...Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
play romani-no native archers till imperial times (sagittarii Auxilia)
Nah... I've finished the vanilla with the romani on hard. There's barely a challenge there for me. I will play a faction with good heavy infantry or good heavy cavalry next.
I daresay the Romans, and not a few others, beg to disagree...Quote:
Originally Posted by Daos
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.