Hobilars > Armoured Sergeants

Its true...

In a standup even fight Hobilars win against Armoured Sergeants.
Naturally you need to pull the the Hobilars out after each charge, but three charges seem to be enough to kill an entire unit of Armoured Sergeants.

Hobilars people... Hobilars. They have stats like mounted Peasants, and their charge is negliable. Yet they can defeat Armoured Sergeants easily (I averaged out at 22 losses for around 105 kills). 5:1 killrate with arguably the weakest cavalry against the strongest unit that is specifically meant to counter cavalry... I fail to see the reason in this.

The charge is way overpowered as I have feared for a while now. Hobilars shouldn't have a chance at all. They should become red paint on the Sergeants' shields if they decide to charge them head on if they are braced.

So Hobilars can do this... no wonder that heavy cavalry can crush anything it meets, if it gets off a nice charge. Spearmen = useless against cavalry that pulls back.

Given that Hobilars can crush spearmen with so apparent ease, I thought it might be the spearmen who were lacking in particular. So I ran two tests against two ofthe strongest infantry in the game, Dismounted Gothic Knights and JHI.
Well, my Hobilars ended up taking about 30 losses for a complete destruction of both. It was easy... Very easy in fact. Just pull out at once and you can crush any infantry with light cavalry.

Now that Hobilar has proven themselves as the master of all infantry, I tohught about giving horse archers a chance to prove thmselves in melee.

Well, after my Khazaks (weakest horse archers I could think off along with Turkish, but Turks must be on the same team) destroyed a unit of JHI with three charges (no skirmish and no FAW, would be unfair if my men used their bows), granted they took 40 losses, but I left them in melee when there were only 4 JHI left and they cut down 6-7 of them. I considered my point made.

ANY CAVLARY CAN DEFEAT ANY INFANTRY WITH CHARGES!

[EDIT] Ok, it seems the Armoured Sergeatns did put up a stronger defense against the Khazaks. The first was a loss, but mainly because my general got killed and I couldn't do anything while the little cutscene was on. Then I won fairly easily with 35 losses, then lost again, but this time becasue the enemy general died right after impact, and again the Khazaks got stuck. But then I won again with relative ease. Both the times I lost the Armoured Sergeants were don't to ca 40 men of their 112 original, and I had ca 35 remaining when my generals died. And again three charges seemed to be the norm for killing them.

Also mind you, that in none of my tests did I pull out into two rows. Started out in default, then after the first charge into four rows and finally three rows to keep an approximate of the original frontline.

To be honest it felt rather fun in an ironic way to see Armoured Spearmen come flying off the ground when the Khazaks charged. Apparently the Khazak charge was so powerful that even a specialist infantry unit, and large one at it couldn't do anything.

Unfortunately there is little we can do about this with modding it seems. We can't just lower the chargevalue for Hobilars and light horse archers like the Khazaks, they are already very low (3 and 2 if I remember correctly). Yet despite their very low value these units have just about the same impact on infantry as heavy cavalry has... so it has to do with cavalry itself.

Hobilars are also effective against Scottish pikemens. After three charges Scots started to run away.
Almost defeated Swiss pikemens too - after many charges only 3 remaining hobilars were left to run away, on Swiss side only 22 pikemens were alive!!

I was actually hoping that Pikemen of various sorts would be able to contain cavalrycharges... if only to an extent.
In fact I expected it,that was why I didn't use them. I guess I better jump off to try Halberds and pikes then.

Missile cav charges are weak (or bugged?) They never ever killed more than 2 people from the charge itself for me. Actual melee cav all have pretty powerful charges. The charge strength number doesn't seem to affect that.

Trust me... if you set up the enemy infantry properly and get the full charge off, missile cavalry has a charge that is similar to heavy cavalry. Men flying everywhere and horses that end up on the far side of the unit. I suggest you try it out in Custom Battle sometime.

Anyway, I tested the Khazaks against Militia Halberd, Militia Pike and Landsknechts. They just barely won against the Halberds, and lost to both the pike units, however they kill around 50 in both units. And I think part of the defeats comes from the fact that the pikemen's generals died in the first charge every time. That meant the Khazaks stayed for far too long and got reduced to less than 30 men in all the piketests. Had I been able to extract them at once I doubt they woul have lost that many men initially, and I could perhaps have gotten them to kill more (though I doubt they could defeat them).

I agree -- although a head on cavalry charge should be strong, I think a formed charged in MTW2 is too powerful, especially against spear/pike units.

However, I don't think it's necessarily the charge bonus that is to blame. IIRC, the collision impact is set to be very high so that when the cavalry do charge, they really lay waste...

It could be this, or maybe the spears/pikes in the game just don't have enough of a bonus when fighting cavalry.

Yup, the formed charge is way, way overpowered. The not formed charge is kinda weak, though. I think that realistically, these two shouldn't be that far apart in power. I once whittled the king unit of an enemy to 1 man (the king). He was able to disengage. He charged a unit of dismounted boyar sons and killed at least 8 men on the initial charge... I think he killed a few more before dying.

Try testing said infantry units in a loose formation. In my experience, a square loose formation helps with the absorbing phase, and the spears spread out means that the individual cavalry units get flanked more often.

I read earlier today that the average medieval knight, in full armor and charging an enemy at 12-15 miles per hour, produced something like 13,000 foot-pounds upon impact.

Formed charges are not overpowered.

Thats a lot of torque... :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Comrade Alexeo

I read earlier today that the average medieval knight, in full armor and charging an enemy at 12-15 miles per hour, produced something like 13,000 foot-pounds upon impact.

Formed charges are not overpowered.

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but do they unbalance the game? that is the question.

1, Hobilars (haf the price of an armoured serg) beating up armoured sergeants and in fact any sword/axe inf head on is not balanced.

2, It is a known issue to CA.

3, Amroured sergeants are however not "strongest unit that is specifically meant to counter cavalry" if we talk about charge. Armoured sergeants are to kill cavs but they are not specialist in holding charges.

4, Pikes are the specialist to hold charges.

5, Pikes do much better than armoured sergeants.
Noble pikemen vs Chiv knights (men alive after charge):

67:23
63:20
67:20
66:26

So half of the cavs were killed on the charge and only 8-10 pikemen were lost. (of course the remaining CK can cause much trouble after the charge but it is an other story)

NP vs hobilars

75:28
74:28
70:25 (hobilar routed after impact)
74:30

Practically hobilars were not able to hurt the pikes head on and routed in all cases after a short melee.

All in all: it is definitely a balance issue; it is known to CA; those inf units that are designed to hold charges still do better than the rest.

My physics is abit rusty but,

13000 foot pounds = 17626j

Taking the average weight of an SUV, 2000kg

17626j = 1/2 mv2
35252j = 2000v2
17.6 = v2
v = 4 ms-1
= 14.4kmh

So an armoured knight is equal to a 2000 kg SUV moving at 14.4kmh. I don't think thats even enough to kill somebody, even though it would be seriously painful. Now, I play on Huge unit size, so my armoured sergeants are lined 6 thick, and a single charge from mailed knights kills 4 lines. Granted that a 14.4kmh SUV could probably push into the formation, but would it kill anybody? Or send people flying into the air like ragdolls for that matter?

To Cheetah,

The fact is, units with spear attribute are near worthless against infantry, so much so that peasants, who don't enjoy this social benefit, barely lose to armoured sergeants. Going by that balance, I would expect cavalry to be near worthless against units with spear attribute, but they aren't. Oh well, still waiting for the patch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JeffBag

My physics is abit rusty but,

13000 foot pounds = 17626j

Taking the average weight of an SUV, 2000kg

17626j = 1/2 mv2
35252j = 2000v2
17.6 = v2
v = 4 ms-1
= 14.4kmh

So an armoured knight is equal to a 2000 kg SUV moving at 14.4kmh. I don't think thats even enough to kill somebody, even though it would be seriously painful. Now, I play on Huge unit size, so my armoured sergeants are lined 6 thick, and a single charge from mailed knights kills 4 lines. Granted that a 14.4kmh SUV could probably push into the formation, but would it kill anybody? Or send people flying into the air like ragdolls for that matter?

To Cheetah,

The fact is, units with spear attribute are near worthless against infantry, so much so that peasants, who don't enjoy this social benefit, barely lose to armoured sergeants. Going by that balance, I would expect cavalry to be near worthless against units with spear attribute, but they aren't. Oh well, still waiting for the patch.

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Hi Jeff,

I'm not sure about your comment; "I don't think thats even enough to kill somebody, even though it would be seriously painful."

Keep in mind that unlike an SUV the "torque" is being directed through a 15 foot lance head aimed at a person.

Yeah I see alot of this stuff around on the forums, my question is you did all this stuff in a custom battle right? You just set up the units and they fought, one unit to one unit? Im guessing thats what happened, cuz I dont know about you guys, but when Im in a battle with a full army, I dont have the time to move all forces that I would have if there were just 2 seperate units. And even when I do only mess with a unit of cavalry at a time against an enemy unit at a time I dont have the same results you seem to do. Now maybe Im just not as good, which would make sense because it sounds to me like you guys get way more 'into' this game than I ever could with having a job, a girlfriend, friends, family, and more importantly other things to do, but I was fighting Rebel town militia the other day with some mailed knights and not having the best time of it, of course there were other units in the battle, but I guess I should have pulled my knights out after that charge, I guess Im just not the kind of guy that likes to pause the game every 30 seconds and nit pick that much.

Its been awhile since i've played RTW, but in rome if cav charged dident some units get knocked down but dident die? I could have sworn that was in rome? mabye im wrong but if it was, why did they take it out? I mean it would make alot of sence if light cav could knock down units but not really kill them. The force of a horse hitting you head on would cerently knock you down and stun you but it wouldent kill you. I mean light missle cav are more of a distruption unit when used to charge the flank or front.

Becides, if a unit can take a musket or crossbow bolt and not die, im sure they can take a head on cav charge if they brace for it right? :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

Hi Jeff,

I'm not sure about your comment; "I don't think thats even enough to kill somebody, even though it would be seriously painful."

Keep in mind that unlike an SUV the "torque" is being directed through a 15 foot lance head aimed at a person.

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That's not the only thing. Torque can't really be taken into account seriously unless we're talking about pulling down or pushing down something. The fact that the cavalry charged at a reasonable speed and then had all of that energy transfered to a lance point is what makes the charge fun. Not to mention, a well armored horse happens to break a formation as well.

I agree that the lance would skewer quite alot of people, but the horse itself sending people flying in the air? Knocking people who are merely at the side of the horse half a meter away? Instead of simply killing people who are hit by the lance, cavalry units in this game seems to kill anything near it, sweeping away infantry with the tail of the horse tabard.

So long as CA brings some better balance in the game... it's sad to see my entire infantry line buckle because my armored sergeants couldn't hold their own against a couple units of barely bronze chevron mailed knights with a crappy general leading them.

Schiltron them! I know it doesn't make the battleline very much of a line... but I've had one or two armoured sergeants slaughter multiple Mongol heavy cav units - was period of 3 or 4 battles where every time the umpteen star Mongol general got slaughtered by the guys... unfortunately the other 10 units of heavy cav finished them off - but hey, good trade off I think.

Jeff your missing that the 13,000 lb's of force is focused onto a point that's measured in microns. Throwing people into the air is a little unrealistic but it could happen if the horse was going fast enough.

As for hobilar's. Kraxis they will beat DEK's with a Halberd Militia's animation, completely decimate them with only losing a handful. The problem lie's with CA's idea to give any cavalry the can_formed_charge stat, even to crudy units like the hobilar's. That's a huge problem, when theirs a huge difference in how gaelic horsemen charged compared to shock cavalry. The formed charge simply is to powerful for light cavalry and even some medium cavalry.

Indeed, the point is that those 13,000 foot-pounds are concentrated in the tip of a lance. An SUV, in contrast, has a very wide, broad frontal area to spread the impact.

The same book earlier talked about the efficacy of weapons in general, and it said that it only takes about 2 foot-pounds of force to penetrate the human "viscera" (I'm assuming that means through the skin at the very least, and possibly to the bone) - if that force is concentrated in an area of about one square inch. It continued that various armors require 60-150 or something foot-pounds to allow for penetration - which is why as a rule armor was rarely actually "penetrated" by weapons, because they usually couldn't produce that kind of force.

But then you have a knight with his lance, which, if we take 13,000 foot-pounds concentrated in an area of about 1 inch or so as our, can therefore under ideal conditions penetrate any armor worn by the enemy. Now, this will have obviously varied in practice, but nevertheless we must conclude that the medieval knight in the charge was capable of delivering truly massive blows.

I don't have the game yet, waiting for a good patch but I wonder if this is fixable..

Just think about it. Taking away the ability of formed charges from light cavalry will cause a watershed between the formed charges and the always unformed charges.

This forces heaviest tweaking to the unit stats and costs so that you get roughly balanced units, both worthy of their costs. The differences must be quite huge to make up for the lost formed charge which is reserved for waiting cavalry of all types.

But if any cavalry, even if abyssal stats is able to trample heavy spears or pikes in a frontal attack thanks to their formed charge animations despite all tweaking it might be best for a historical mod to take it out completely. :inquisitive:

All the well researched papers if have read about medieval combat concluded that a decent well-formed infantry unit with good morale was usually able to stop knights - and here in MTWII light HA can overrun elite infantry with polearms.. :no:

Cheers
OA

As I said above, I have no problems with the lance killing anybody it hits, but in real life, bodies do pile up, and horses do slow down after that. In the game it seems that once the cavalry unit kills something, it physically disappears so the horse doesn't lose speed at all. Also, if you look closely, even the sides of the horse are capable of killing people. They simply brush alongside some unlucky person and he flies into the air as well, so much so that a single horse charging can easily kill a tremendous amount of people. This is what I disagree with.

I agree that the formed charge should only be given to heavy cavalry. There is no reason why hobilars should be decimating heavy infantry.

Agreed. Cavalry charges are massively more effective in M2TW and a distinction should be made between light, raider cavalry and heavy knights. But I also feel that cavalry have become glass cannons. Their defense is lower than that of heavy infantry in many cases and they drop like flies to peasants. Even executing a successful formed charge can kill 25% of the knights themselves on impact. I miss the heavy catatanks of RTW that were a little more resilient and could fight it out in melee for a while. The knights should get a bonus to defense skill for being mounted. Right now the infantry have higher defense skill, dismounted feudal knights have defense skill 7 on foot compared to mounted 5 and a larger shield to boot.

On my example, a king with no bodyguard left killed 8 dismounted boyar sons on a charge. Can somebody tell me if a lance packing 15000 ft-lbs of force can kill 8 people on a single charge? Formed charges in this game are overpowered. Knights should be able to do it to peasants, but not to armored elite infantry, especially one unit killing 8 on a charge.

I did a custom battle with JHI vs Templars in full charge. On impact the JHI were down to 40%, the Templars lost 10%. In the ensuing melee, the JHI were routed.

Against spear units, well I've been doing the charge in and out thing since MTW, in multiplayer too, with much more intelligent opponents and it worked then too.

I like the fact that to pull this charge off you need to be properly lined up and with good unit cohension. It does not always auto charge like in MTW. In this what I've noticed is that mostly I've failed to auto charge from angles etc... that results in a bad charge or worse, a sword charge.

Having said all this I never charge any infantry head on if at all possible, so that makes my complete charge all the more difficult to put off. I've been doing that since MTW as well, almost never charge any infantry head on. Always charge from both sides, or front and back simultaneously. But then you have to charge like this if you're always playing wiht weak horse archers against human opponents.

I tried Kapikulu against French Pikes, with a correct frontal charge, they were able to beat and rout them though they took 50% losses.

I think the proper formed charge should stay, it's not easy to pull off. I also think that spears should hold better but only against cavalry, and only when charged frontally. Hell I don't ever charge a spear unit frontally, never did. You should'nt be able to either.

The devastating knight charge is all fine and good but there should be some spear units capable of bracing and holding, impaling people, horses etc...

i think the tests people do with custom battles are sometimes a bit artifical - in campaign i have not noticed my speaermen being too weak vs cav or vice versa, quite the oposite in fact.

this may be due to the difficulty in charging properly though which i guess is easier in a custom battle.

Of course, specially in a custom battle on flat grassy plain with one unit of each unit. 1vs1 match up, nothing else on the field.

Actually my tests were a bit for the MP section as well.

And not all factions have access to pikes or proper halberds. What are they supposed to do against the irresistable charge of Khazaks?

Khazaks and Hobilars killing Armoured Sergeants head on... Ok not head on since the AI insisted on using Schiltrom, but still, it was far too easy.

I'm no superb player by a longshot, but it was so easy to pull them out, retreat some distance and form them up for antoher charge. In technical terms I didn't need my hands on them all the time. So if I could do it, a better player could certainly do it.

And you doubters, next time you fight in the campaign. Take your light cavalry (if you have any), and charge the strongest infantry the enemy has. The enemy forces will of coruse respond when you hit them, but just pull back (you might have to be insistent but it will work out with repeated orders). Then take stock of the losses you have suffered, and the losses your enemy has suffered.

Then calculate if it is a fair result.

If that is not to your satisfaction, then create an army of Mounted Sergeants. 7-8 units are plenty. Then pit them against any enemy. I did that and practically wiped out 1300 English troops of double silver, including a good general, two units of knights and plenty plenty spearmen. After I had merged my Sergeants I had four and a half units left. Heavy losses, but heavier still for the enemy, and I had barely spent any money on these troops. But the magic is to use repeated charges... Charge, charge, charge... and then charge again. Melee will kill light cavalry as it should, but charges apparently kill anything.

If you are eastern, then train an army of the cheapest horses archers and try the same, with no archery (and remember to turn skirmish off or else your troops will hesitate). I bet that you will get the same results.

It is disgusting to see the lightest, weakest possible form of cavalry (Khazaks and Turkish Horse Archers), run down Armoured Sergeants, JHI, Gothic Knights ect by charging them. These guys are all about staying as far away from the enemy as possible. They should not be able to send braced JHI flying when they strike home... Light cavalry should never have the formed charge at all!!!

And honestly, does it matter if I have all the time I need? We all know that those situations happen now and then. You can pull the enemy troops to where you want to charge them. This is about the potential that is inherent in all cavalry. THe potential to kill all but pikes, which are not uniformly issued to all factions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

(Khazaks and Turkish Horse Archers) ... These guys are all about staying as far away from the enemy as possible. They should not be able to send braced JHI flying when they strike home...

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I agree with this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Light cavalry should never have the formed charge at all!!!

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I am not sure about this. After all you want your light cavs to be efficient vs archers, and how do you want to kill them if not with the charge? However, I agree that the light cav charge atm is way too overpowered, and IMO some light cavs are too cheap (hobilars, merchant cavs).
Also, there is a morale issue as well. Light cavs in MTW2 are just too eager to stay in the melee (which comes from the fact that morale in general is very high in MTW2). In BI if you send your light cavs head-on vs full strenght heavy inf the light cavs will rout on impact becouse of their low morale.

So IMO:
a, light cav charge is overpowered
b, light cav morale is too high
c, some light cavs are too cheap (hobilars, merchant cavs)

Merchant Cav is actually heavy cavalry.

The unformed charge should be enough to waste archers. Or perhaps make archers specifically weak against light cavalry charges.
Besides, I don't know if Khazaks for instance should be so perfectly able to kill archers in melee. They have the advantage of being on a horse, but is about it.

Well i have done meny sp and mp tests using your Gen in the test is a big no no why because hes not your standard unit and should never be used and your tests will be false and that counts using the enemies Gen To,

Charging and pulling back well most players in mp will not stand around and let u do this but if u can do it in mp Good luck to you.


-AggonyLion

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AggonyLion

Well i have done meny sp and mp tests using your Gen in the test is a big no no why because hes not your standard unit and should never be used and your tests will be false and that counts using the enemies Gen To,

Charging and pulling back well most players in mp will not stand around and let u do this but if u can do it in mp Good luck to you.


-AggonyLion

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It is not the general's bodyguard, it is a simple captained unit, they have at best a small advantage in morale. But we are not talking about morale, but strength of charge.

And MP? Well, it was MP'ers who directed me towards this oddity. When people have begun to use light cavalry to rip infantry to shreds while their own heavies deal with the enemy heavies, then it seems fair.

Just a heads up, HorseArcher over on the TotalWarCenter forums has found a good temporary fix for the cavalry charge "bug". It seems that changing the charge distance from 45 to 80 for all cavalry allows them to complete the charge in most cases (gives them more time to get a good run up and sort out the cohesion problem). Only that stupid "when the target moves before impact" issue still results in buggy charges, meaning that light skirmishers are more resistant to cavalry charges than concentrated formations.

Heh... nice to know, but this thread was actually about insanely overpowered charges (when they are formed).

Yeah, but now you can get insanely overpowered formed charges ALL the time, even right double-click. My knights went from interested bystanders cheering the infantry on to juggernauts of destruction (they still take heavy losses though). That formed charge is instant death to anything not mounted on a horse or carrying a pike.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dopp

Yeah, but now you can get insanely overpowered formed charges ALL the time, even right double-click. My knights went from interested bystanders cheering the infantry on to juggernauts of destruction (they still take heavy losses though). That formed charge is instant death to anything not mounted on a horse or carrying a pike.

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:yes: :shame:

Yeah... And that is the problem. It shouldn't be that easy. It should be good and all, but there should be things you would have to avoid other than pikes.

In any case I pulled the Hobilars and Khazaks a good distance back for each charge. That gave them time to reform and get up into speed (and reform while running/charging).
Damn easy!

So what are our and CA's options here?

a) Take away the formed charge from most cavalry units, especially the light to medium eastern ones. However this creates a bunch of bystanders or cowardchasers and a bunch of supercharging hereos. Strong spears are still unable to stop the charge of formed medium to heavy cavalry.

b) Decrease the charge stat. However since the formed charge puts cavalry into a new leage and Horsearchers with shambolic charge stats of 1,2 or 3 can stomp heavy infantry out with it there seems little use in it. Especially as the unformed charge is not quite effective, as it seems.

c) Enable any heavy infantry, especially with longer weapons to stand up to a charge, by giving them more mass, standing power by all possible means.


Note that I don't have the game but I knew a good deal about the knowable gamemechanics in RTW and in MTW and hope that this is fixable... Khazaks runnig over JHI :sweatdrop:

I think spears and tight formations in general (including swords, 2-hand but not archers or skirmishers) need more mass and some sort of immunity from the 'bulldoze effect', while troops in open formation need to be more bulldozable (they currently take less losses because they're more spread out). The schiltron is broken too. And halberds should have a weaker form of the pike wall (they are basically shorter pikes). The current charge mechanics make tight formations more vulnerable than open formations to the charge, something's definitely wrong there. So c) is probably best.

The formed charge should be attainable for heavy cavalry (perhaps including the swordarmed HC?). Swordarmed cavalry and light speararmed calvary should not get it.

That means a lot of light cavalry get redused to what they should be doing, supporting the heavy cavalry and chasing routers. Horse arcehrs will also get confined to their historical job.

I can't see the problem with light cavalry not having a huge advantage over infantry. It worked fine in MTW, why would it be bad that they can't pwn JHI?

Perhaps a formed charge for lighter cavalry (for the effect) should be possible against the flanks or rear of a unit...

But at the same time at the very least spears should get more resistability agianst heavy cavalry charges. Not immunity, but better resistance so that trying to brace against knights with spears isn't an exercise in futility.

Maybe also a trigger that makes knights unable to use their lances for a second charge? And especially change something about the way units react to another unit turning it's back. Just turning around your infantry annihilates any cavalry charge because the cavalry will switch to swords and chase mode (this could be called an appropriate counter:sweatdrop: ).So my idea is, knights charge ONCE, but that one charge should stay a charge no matter what the enemy does, you can charge into someone's back as well and the high speed mean they can catch up with almost every other unit(might tire them a lot when chasing horse archers). And charges with a secondary weapon could be made a lot weaker(but that would make cav with swords as primary weapon too strong). Well, some ideas at least.

They should make formed charges easier to do by increasing their distance like dopp posted while decreasing their power by a lot. Formed charges right now have the feel of a cannon. They obliterate any unit they hit, if they manage to hit it.

Infantry in close, packed formations should be a lot more able to withstand cavalry while skirmishers shouldn't be able to.

I remember reading in the "beta blogger" TW blog that the difficulty settings would affect fatigue and that (more or less a quote) "at the very difficult setting it would be very nearly impossible for a human to beat the computer if the computer was given 20 full quality units." When I try to access the link now, I get an error: https://beta.blogger.com/comment.g?b...18359237216520

Anyway, it seems that if cavalry is really so overpowered, we should produce a replay that shows 10k worth of cav beating 20k worth of infantry and offer it up to the Devs as proof that the balance is flawed. Do it with 20 units on very difficult and make them eat their hat.

Been a while Bach, nice to see you back here.
How's the God of Wine doing up there ? ;) :)

I don't see what is new here.

It was the same in MTW.

You charge in and out, it could work with heavy losses using any cavalry with most units except anti cavalry and spears. Everyone was playing like that. And it's not unrealistic, is cavalry supposed to be fire and forget ? It should be able to charge in and out. Mobility adds an aspect to the game and a damm good one too.

This is specially true for the Eastern factions. Every faction and most units should have viable combat uses. The Eastern factions' horse archers perform perfectly as they are now. If this was changed they would be back where they were in MTW, in a kind of obscure weakness. From a game balance perspective.

I don't undertstand what the discovery is. It's always been there. It is not discovery at all, actually.

I do understand people are annoyed. Maybe it was different in RTW, I don't know, but it was the same in MTW.

The problem is not the cavalry, it is the spears. They are hopeless against anything. At the current level there's no point in having spears except if you want them as fodder.

In MTW anti-cav units worked, spears worked. That is what is missing. In M2:TW spears and anti-cavalry units, for the most part, do not work.

The formed cavalry charge. I've never seen anything better implemented in any TW series. Canter, gallop, lower lances, charge ! It is brilliant. It's hard to execute, as it should be. I don't think you need "more consistent" cavalry charges. If anything the cavalry charges should be left exactly as they are/were prior patch. Now it seems a bit too easy to make a formed charge. The devastation on "weaker" units by a formed charge should not be underestimated. The devastation caused on a spear wall, or pike wall should be lesser, and the damage substained to the cavalry unit, greater. For example a braced pike unit should be able to virtually annihilate a formed cavalry charge. It should, not, however stand any chance against a walk in by cavalry swords drawn.

The men flying all over the place is a theatrical, it is there solely for aesthetic Hollywood purposes. For adding sensation value, so are some of the game movies. Take the Crusade cutscene, it is there solely for immersion and sensational film-like theatrics.

Spears and anti-cav need to be fixed, not the cavalry. It is spears and anti cavalry units which don't work.

Think about it, carefully.

All that I have mentioned is related to the game, not history. History was gone from this game long ago. We should focus on the units that are not working correctly and who have no viable combat usage, first.

You cannot go about balancing the game without all units functioning as they should. First things first.

Salute !

Sinan, you are missing the point here. It is not that cavalry is overpowered per se, heavy cavalry is fine (if spears get better resistance).

But were you personally able to take out CMAA by charging them head on with Horse Archers (the unit not the class) in MTW? I could not. The losses were generally 2:1 in favour of the CMAA if not worse.
No, this isn't the same as MTW. Right now every single horse unit can take out every single infantry (save pikes and the better halberds) head on. Facing strong infantry? Use your cheapest cavalry to kill them, then use the cheap cavalry to run down any routers as well. Let your heavy cavlry hang back and enjoy the life of nobles, while the rabble does the job.

In RTW it was actually much the same. You could get odd results, and that was why I had so high hopes for cavalry and charges. Yes, I love the new unformed charges and their problems ect ect. But I do not like the fact that the weakest of the weak horse archers and lay their bows aside and just charge any infantry (save those pikes and halberds) and win easily.

You could not do that in MTW at all. You needed heavy cavalry to charge down strong infantry.
And I remember doping some tests with CBR and Puzz3D online, seeing how CMAA would hold up aginst CK in various formations. And actually the CMAA were able to resist getting crushed in quite a few instances, and actually won in a select few cases. That simply doesn't happen now.

I do not want heavy cavalry to be one shot weapons, but I want light cavalry and horse archers to be unable to trample JHI or Dismounted Gothics... That should be the domain of heavy cavalry, don't you agree?

Greetings All !

I'm going to go backwards a little bit as I'm slightly out of touch with this topic. I wanted to reply for a while but it can be so tedious to write sometimes… anyway.

By and large I do not agree that cavalry charges are "overpowered".

Personally I think they were great, now it's too easy to make a formed charge. Prior to the patch I would say they were almost perfect. Sometimes you should have been able to do them more frequently. They were bugged I'm not denying that.

If I had my way, cavalry who did a formed charge and go into melee would lose their lances (doh?) and that would be the last lance charge of the battle for them.

If they did not engage in melee for a sustained period of time, and withdrew, then they would be able to perform another formed charge, until such time that the circumstance of the battle forced them to relieve themselves of their lances and draw swords.

Swords drawn, they could still do formed charges of course, however, now they would get a much lesser charge bonus and no lance impact.

Now I just want to give my view on some of the points raised earlier in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Khazaks and Hobilars killing Armoured Sergeants head on... Ok not head on since the AI insisted on using Schiltrom, but still, it was far too easy.

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It wasn’t that easy in MTW but I did it with every single Horse Archer in the game in MP and SP. The difference was in MTW you had to pull out, in M2:TW you don't have to pull out (not always anyway).

You can charge and then just stay in melee and win. :dizzy2:

I think the reason why CA did this is because the vast majority of players have not mastered the charge in MTW and naturally not in this game either judging from the number of complaints.

So now we got an easier charge which just got easier, so that you don’t have to (rightfully) micromanage your light cavalry to pull out once the impact damage has been done.

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I'm no superb player by a longshot, but it was so easy to pull them out, retreat some distance and form them up for antoher charge. In technical terms I didn't need my hands on them all the time. So if I could do it, a better player could certainly do it.

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Many players have been doing this all the time. If you ask Magyar Khan, or played with/against him, or anyone Mordred... anyone who played cavalry well... they all did this.

Nobody at that time thought it was a problem to be able to charge in and out. In fact it was expected that you are able to do so.

Everyone admired those who were able to use their cavalry as such, and everyone who played multiplayer competitively tried to emulate successful players’ skill at managing their cavalry.

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And you doubters, next time you fight in the campaign. Take your light cavalry (if you have any), and charge the strongest infantry the enemy has. The enemy forces will of coruse respond when you hit them, but just pull back (you might have to be insistent but it will work out with repeated orders). Then take stock of the losses you have suffered, and the losses your enemy has suffered.

Then calculate if it is a fair result.

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Here's what I do, very often.

I take 6 Heavy cavalry and 12 Light Cavalry (Turcomen). I surround the enemy and pepper with missiles. If I get an opportunity I take out lone units here and there, by charging them with light cavalry, then pulling out once melee ensues and charging back again and again until they rout. Then I chase them down and capture the routers.

I see absolutely no problem with doing this with any horse archer. It is a valid and perfectly fair way to play the game.

I've always done this and I expect my light cavalry to be able to do this, as I did in MTW.

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If you are eastern, then train an army of the cheapest horses archers and try the same, with no archery (and remember to turn skirmish off or else your troops will hesitate). I bet that you will get the same results.

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You probably will, but why play like that. Why not use the light cavalry as it's supposed to be used. First weaken the enemy, then run him down. if anyone says that that's not what Eastern Horse Archers did, it's nonsense.

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It is disgusting to see the lightest, weakest possible form of cavalry (Khazaks and Turkish Horse Archers), run down Armoured Sergeants, JHI, Gothic Knights ect by charging them.

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I would agree with this.

If the elite of the enemy has not been weakened by missile fire they should not lose this fight.

However if they have been weakened by missile fire, then that's just too bad.

They have to lose.

Why should 5-10 Gothic Knights be able to withstand a charge by 40 Turcomen. They shouldn’t even at 9 experience level. This is not about experience, faction, race whatever. It's about 40 horses with men on them running you down. It's impossible for any swordsman to survive that unless he's Nanigata Kensai Ninja or something and all his platoon mates are too.

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These guys are all about staying as far away from the enemy as possible. They should not be able to send braced JHI flying when they strike home... Light cavalry should never have the formed charge at all!!!

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Light missile cavalry should stay away from the enemy UNTIL the enemy is weak enough to be run down. Then it's time for lunch. Why should it be any different. The Mongols did this all over the world, so why should we not be able to do this in M2:TW. We absolutely should be able to and thank goodness we are.

I am of the opinion that it's perfectly acceptable to do this.

No cavalry, however, should be able to send braced anti cavalry troops flying into the air. Now I've already said this before but I'll say it again, the flying into the air part is only for theatrics and sensationalism. What I mean is (as I've said before) the devastation on a spear or anti cavalry unit should be less and the dmage to the cavalry units should be more.

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And honestly, does it matter if I have all the time I need? We all know that those situations happen now and then. You can pull the enemy troops to where you want to charge them. This is about the potential that is inherent in all cavalry. THe potential to kill all but pikes, which are not uniformly issued to all factions.

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This is an issue but the way to deal with it, as I mentioned is to complete the unit lineup of the game and make sure it works.

First you have to make spears and anti cav units work. I already said this as well. Why not fix all those 2 handed units and spears, that would make sense to me. Then we can see if cavalry is "overpowered" or not. We don't even have all the units in game working yet, how can we rebalance anything.

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Originally Posted by AggonyLion

Charging and pulling back well most players in mp will not stand around and let u do this but if u can do it in mp Good luck to you.

-AggonyLion

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Well I have done this in MP with my general many times, and with other cavalry many, many times. Sometimes people have stood there doing nothing, sometimes people have killed me mercilessly, and sometimes I have killed them mercilessly.

It has been done many times, by every "vet” of STW MP and MTW MP.

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Originally Posted by Oleander Ardens

So what are our and CA's options here?

a) Take away the formed charge from most cavalry units, especially the light to medium eastern ones. However this creates a bunch of bystanders or cowardchasers and a bunch of supercharging hereos. Strong spears are still unable to stop the charge of formed medium to heavy cavalry.

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In MTW days there was a very long thread about the foolishness of weak horse archers in MTW, in the entrance hall.

I believe that CA took note from the evidence provided in that thread and many others that horse archers need a more viable and correct function in game.

It was ridiculous and absurd that Kataphraktoi would completely massacre Turcomen, the very same Turcomen who virtually annihilated them at Malazgirt.

It was absurd the weakness of the Mongol Horse Archers, the same horsemen who stayed ages in the saddle since they were boys, and almost took over the entire known world.

Now finally Horse archers have a viable usage in the game and finally those of us who want to use them can use them.

They should not be able to head-on charge heavy infantry, of course.

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Originally Posted by dopp

I think spears and tight formations in general (including swords, 2-hand but not archers or skirmishers) need more mass and some sort of immunity from the 'bulldoze effect', while troops in open formation need to be more bulldozable (they currently take less losses because they're more spread out). The schiltron is broken too. And halberds should have a weaker form of the pike wall (they are basically shorter pikes). The current charge mechanics make tight formations more vulnerable than open formations to the charge, something's definitely wrong there.

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100%, you are on the ball.

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

The formed charge should be attainable for heavy cavalry (perhaps including the swordarmed HC?). Swordarmed cavalry and light speararmed calvary should not get it.

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Why should swordarmed heavy cavalry get it and not swordarmed light cavalry. That makes no sense, expect that heavy cavalry is heavy hence trample effect. But a similar result can be achieved with light cavalry trampling as well.

This is not correct.

All cavalry should have the trample effect and the charge.

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That means a lot of light cavalry get redused to what they should be doing, supporting the heavy cavalry and chasing routers. Horse arcehrs will also get confined to their historical job.

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This means light cavalry get reduced to MTW.

There's no progress there only going backwards to MTW, and starting the whole historical discussion again.

I completely disagree with this.

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Perhaps a formed charge for lighter cavalry (for the effect) should be possible against the flanks or rear of a unit...

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IMO a formed charge should be possible for any unit. Why not. Because they can't form? All cavalry can form up into a shape, the more training they have the better.

Of course the Eastern factions had more than enough of this training historically so it would be ridiculous to say their light cavalry (e.g Mongol Horse Archer, Mamlukes, Turcomen) cannot do a formed charge.

I completely disagree with this. It has no basis in anything, game play or any other reasoning IMO.

It would make the game a lot less, not more.
Limiting the play styles and variety.

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But at the same time at the very least spears should get more resistability agianst heavy cavalry charges. Not immunity, but better resistance so that trying to brace against knights with spears isn't an exercise in futility.

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100% on target.

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But were you personally able to take out CMAA by charging them head on with Horse Archers (the unit not the class) in MTW?

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I don't think you remember but one of my sigs was Turcomen charging CMAA.

I personally could do it extremely well with any cavalry unit specially horse archers, and so could many others.

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No, this isn't the same as MTW. Right now every single horse unit can take out every single infantry (save pikes and the better halberds) head on.

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That is not the same as MTW, correct.

You could always charge in and out of any infantry unit and destroy it eventually, except if it was a dedicated spear or anti cav unit.

The destruction by repeated charge IS the same.
That was my point. It's not new.

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You could not do that in MTW at all. You needed heavy cavalry to charge down strong infantry.

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Absolutely not the case for me.

I used Horse Archers and Turcomen in all my Turkish campaigns and I creamed all kinds of heavy infantry with them. Of course multidirectional attacks, missile fire etc were part of the game. Unit vs unit I avoided it but if I had to I did it.

NOTE: 1 vs 1 against spear or anti-cavalry nothing should work.

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And I remember doping some tests with CBR and Puzz3D online, seeing how CMAA would hold up against CK in various formations. And actually the CMAA were able to resist getting crushed in quite a few instances, and actually won in a select few cases.

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In prolonged melee they would hold, but not in repeated charge.

I've done it thousands (literally) of times. Now it's easier in the sense that you don't have to pull out most of the time. You can just chill, less micromanagement.

There is something wrong with that, and I’d say it is the less than intuitive command system plus the fact that most people want heavy cavalry without micromanagement.

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I do not want heavy cavalry to be one shot weapons, but I want light cavalry and horse archers to be unable to trample JHI or Dismounted Gothics... That should be the domain of heavy cavalry, don't you agree?

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Yes totally.

I agree that light cavalry should not be able to kill full strength spears or anti cavalry infantry.

Swordsmen like CMAA, I disagree totally.
They should get run down by any form of cavalry once weakened enough.

I don't have much more to say on this but I hope you can see what i mean, and what my opinion is on this, coz I'd rather be playing ;P

Anyway my basica points, and my view on this topic is this:

1. Cavalry is awesome, cinematic, whatever. I love it.
2. Please fix the anti-cav and spear units. Those are the problem. They are too weak and have no resistance to anything at all.
3. Please reduce the impact of light cavalry charges, marginally, to replicate the fact that most don't have lances.

Game on !

Umm yeah once is enough :D Dbl post sorry.

So you charged Horse Archers head on into CMAA and won with repeated charges? Or did you use flanking, bows ect?

Currently head on is enough to kill whatever you want in about three charges, and since you can deplete pikes and halberds head on with cavalry (achieving 1:1 losses), that is technically a possible solution them as well, you just neeed to sacrifice a couple units.

If horses were such a power historically how come did infantry end up being the winners? Braced infantry sent cavalry reeling practically every time. Of course if they were weakened with archery (Mongols ect), then they would fail.
But the unformed charge should be more than enough to finish off those last 9-10 Gothics.

I want the unformed charges for the light cavalry and horse archers as it wasn't really their way of fighting to line up next to each other, trot, canter, gallop, BANG! They would weaken the infantry (or wait for the infantry to be weakened) and/or sneak around the flanks and swarm in when the time was right. Flank and rear would make little difference to the charge. Horses piling in or coming as a steady line... not really much of a change in outcome.
I would like to see an account of a battle where horse archers (light ones) line up and do the deliberate charge.

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It was ridiculous and absurd that Kataphraktoi would completely massacre Turcomen, the very same Turcomen who virtually annihilated them at Malazgirt.

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So you want the strongest Byzantine cavalry to be pawns to one of the weakest Turkish cavalries? Now you are just nationalistic. By that reasoning then even the lightest Mongol horse archers should whip the rear of anything we could throw at them... In fact fighting Mongols should no even be playable but a autocalc where you lost... heavily. Sounds pretty stupid right? Well to me the two are similar.
The Turcomen didn't slaughter them at Manzikert, it was a tough battle when the forces struggled in the night, if already a foregone conclusion, and if the Turcomen could so easily have bested the Kataphracts in melee why did they generally stay away? The Katas had bows too and better armour, a missilefight would not be the best solution apparently. That is if there were even any significant number of katas there.
No, the Turcomen had a number of advantages at Manizikert that gave them the edge (confusion, rearguard leaving the center, by then numbers, speedadvantage over retreating force so they could fight on their own terms). That doesn't mean that they should be able to trounce the Katas at any opportunity they get.

Cavalry isn't such a power, but they should be as good as anything else in their respective roles.

Infantry should be good in it's respective roles.

I'm not Turkish or Muslim so I can't be nationalistic about this. I associate with neither of these values relate to me and are irrelevant to my view.

The same could be said about anyone. Everthing that does not conform to the Euro cavalry terms (i.e light cavalry should only useful for chasing routers) should be changed. Saying this would not be relevant to the discussion of course. Anyway personal details are best discussed by PM ;)

The Malazgirt discussion, is history for me, I'm not intersted enough to go over all that again, too time consuming.

Anyway this is not a historically accurate game.

How about Danish War Clerics.

If that is in the game then we can, and we should (and thankfully we do), have some uber cavalry for the Eastern factions.

Frankly I don't even care, this is just a game and I'm gonna inevitably drop it after a while, maybe in a week, who knows ? maybe two weeks ? Surely I'm not going to play this for a year or something (if only I could have that kind of time perpetually). If you are intersted do a search for "opinion" in the entrance hall you'll find one of the discussions. In that discussion you'll also see I suggested heavy cavalry for the Turks, at a time when Sipahi were hopeless, and everyone was saying they should be hopeless. Islamic units should be hopeless, they could only win by horde-ing (lol) Turks could only win by this and that reason, never because of valor, courage, strength, ingenuity, no... only by cheating, bribing... (lol) omg stereotypical.

Right now everything has a use except spears, 2 handers, and anti-cav. So where is the problem ? It's in the units that don't work i.e they are anti cav units. If they don't work you have no counter to cavalry. Cavalry seems to be working all too great. I agree that it's too strong.

If you look at this video between 02:55 and 03:30, in that time span you see anti cavalry units behaving as I would like them to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wEzceL7wgs

As I said, if you ask me every unit should have a viable usage.

Fix the ant-cav units, then test and see if it's too strong. It probably still will be too strong, but you don't know because your anti-cav spears don't even work. Hurray for armored sargents...not. Hurray for billmen then ? .... not.

There isn't really anything more that I can offer to this discussion.

The well-formed charge is awfully hard to pull off in campaign battles, though, especially post patch where the AI seldom stays still in a nice line for you bash into. You can't do it in a siege, so that's half the fighting gone right there. The rest of the time the terrain's not proper or there is some fool thing wrong with the cavalry so even though it starts up well-formed it gets out of whack and gets slaughtered by laughing peasants. I think I've managed it properly twice in about fifty battles. I'm not sure the results from custom battles carry over to the campaign game.

It is not that I don't want light cavalry to be able to do melee. Obviously they did, and I have never been of the opinion that Sipahis should be horrible because you should rely on spamming them or similar.

I was in the camp of people who felt the MTW Muslim roster was too limited and far too weak in regard to heavy cavalry (I generally played Turks in MP btw). So it is not about Eurocentristic values here. It is about silliness in actions.

Yes, spear, 2-handed axes and anti-cav in general is not right at the moment. But that does not preclude me from seeing that there are other problems, that might not be as great, but are great nonetheless.
That lightest of light cavs can take on whatever infantry (lets not dabble in the forementioned types) and win by charging head on is wrong. And we should be aware of it.

We don't know for how long the open behaviour by CA and SEGA is going to last. Who knows, next 'update' could be the last, and it would be terrible if a fix for this kind of unbalance was not fixed because we chose to focus on more pressing matters.
I think the other matters are in fact pretty visually open to all by now. We have thread upon thread of it here. I think they have been noticed pretty much, and that we are dealing with them in a proper manner.

What I tried to say here with this thread might have come out as a garbled message, but it was that all cavalry is heavy in the charge. You don't need heavy cavalry for anything but dealing with other heavy cavalry. You could just mass a large army of Hobilars and take (head)on whatever infantry the enemy could churn out.
Yes, a good player should be able to win with that army, using his horses in a mobile way, pinning and flanking. You know the drill. But just lining up and charging should not be viable, even against fairly rabblelike enemies. And that comes down to more than just counters. Strong line infantry with swords should not be like chaff in the wind whenever some cavalry arrive. They just shouldn't get any special bonusses that their formation doesn't give them already (denser and smaller targets means more men can engage each horseman). So heavy non-anticavalry infantry should still be pretty dangerous to light cavalry if they are not taken by surprise or being held.

That does not mean lgiht cavalry can not be used effectively against them, it is 'just' a matter of hitting them when the time is opportune. And still I don't like light cavalry having that forcefield of death around them when they hit, but at least I can see this as the best possible compromise.

What I tried to say here with this thread might have come out as a garbled message, but it was that all cavalry is heavy in the charge. You don't need heavy cavalry for anything but dealing with other heavy cavalry. You could just mass a large army of Hobilars and take (head)on whatever infantry the enemy could churn out.

After doing some tests with Hobilars and other cheap light cavalry, I couldnt agree with you more here. A light cavalry charge is almost as effective as heavy ones, and this changes everything.