Gameplay Balance

[Arkanin]

Arkanin,
The reason elites are so expensive, relative to their incremental increase in combat ability, is to prevent you (actually, me) from building unrealistic armies consisting of nothing but elite units.

As to the cavalry issue, I was stunned the first time I used cav in EB. . . I was so used to cavalry destroying everything in its path in vanilla, I just stared at the screen for a few seconds wondering what happened to my cav. Then I grinned like an idiot and though "OK, so maybe there IS some realism in here"
Careful use of even light cavalry (I use horse archers in melee all the time) can turn a battle still. It's just not auto-win like in vanilla. I just caused a chain rout of 3 ~80% strength triarii with a rear charge on the middle unit from my single Illyrian light cavalry. Not a particularly impressive unit, but all I had at the time. . . I've also seen heavier cav do the bug on a windscreen impression trying the same thing . . . It's kinda fun not knowing if your foolproof battle-winning tactic will work or not.

I'm curious, does this mean the elites are intentionally overcosted (IE made cost-inefficient) to prevent the spamming of them?

Some cavalry units in RTW were slightly overpowered, but at a high level of play cavalry attacks were not game breaking. They seem unusually powerful against the AI and in campaigns because the AI's grasp of combat tactics is extremely poor. I would probably not try to use EB cavalry against a human, but I guess that doesn't matter, if it's at least effective against the AI that works.

Do you guys have any suggestions for a faction with cavalry that is cost-effective?

[pezhetairoi]

@Arkanin

Possibly the horsearcher factions, logically...

[Disciple of Tacitus]

Do you guys have any suggestions for a faction with cavalry that is cost-effective?

Head East, young man. You will find fanatic adherents to just about all the factions here - so send that general question out knowing that. Start a new thread with a "best cavalry faction" and find yourself in the middle of a fine mess. There may be some insightful threads already out there - so do take a moment and check out some of the older pages.
I've played mostly Western Factions, so I am of little help. I do know that the Gallic Briethen (sp) cav is the best in the west. As for out East - ask away - just remember ..."I warned you!!"

[Arkanin]

Head East, young man. You will find fanatic adherents to just about all the factions here - so send that general question out knowing that. Start a new thread with a "best cavalry faction" and find yourself in the middle of a fine mess. There may be some insightful threads already out there - so do take a moment and check out some of the older pages.
I've played mostly Western Factions, so I am of little help. I do know that the Gallic Briethen (sp) cav is the best in the west. As for out East - ask away - just remember ..."I warned you!!"

Good idea, thanks

arkanin,

you're looking at missile weapons. using 1 for melee weapons will make battle way too fast as every hit will be a kill...

I see, thanks. So stat_sec in those cases must be the melee attack?

[Watchman]

Normally that would be the case. A surefire indicator is the third, fourth and fifth segments - they're always "no, 0, 0," with melee attacks, whereas with ranged attacks you have "[missile type], [range], [ammunition per man],".

[Arkanin]

Right now I've been playing with Iberian and Carthaginian cavalry, which at this point I find to be very underpowered. It takes 2 stacks of medium greek cavalry to win when frontally charging a single unit of skirmishers. I am not honestly confident I have so far seen a cavalry unit that is cost-effective when charging straight into undefended archers. :(

At which point I have noticed and I must ask -- why are the attack values on cavalry so low? Is that what is wrong with them, what causes them to fare so poorly in combat? It seems that 4-6 attack is the norm for cavalry aside from their charge bonus. For comparison, slingers have 8 melee attack. This really doesn't seem appropriate... from a realism, or gameplay perspective.

[JeffBag]

That is the attack rating of their lance, which has high charge value but low melee stat. You have to alt-attack for them to bring out their swords, which are far better in melee. Also slingers have daggers with a lethality of 0.04, though their attack may seem high.

Once again on this point of lethality I must stress that overarm spear cavalry like Hippies are rather crap for charging since they only have a 0.15 lethality and no ap stat for their lance, as compared to lancers which generally have lethality of 0.4 and the ap stat which are fundamental.

Personally though I still believe that the -2 penalty to skirmishers and the like should be -4 instead, and certain skirmishers like Roman leves and Iberian velites come with good attack and high lethality spears with the light_spear attribute which is pretty capable of slaughtering even medium cavalry.

[Korlon]

Most likely due to the absence of stir-ups. They don't have the balance for that kind of melee. Some cavalry have large lethality though. I think the Greek General's lance has .4 lethality, which is fairly huge even though their attack is only 4.

[mcantu]

Right now I've been playing with Iberian and Carthaginian cavalry, which at this point I find to be very underpowered. It takes 2 stacks of medium greek cavalry to win when frontally charging a single unit of skirmishers. I am not honestly confident I have so far seen a cavalry unit that is cost-effective when charging straight into undefended archers. :(

At which point I have noticed and I must ask -- why are the attack values on cavalry so low? Is that what is wrong with them, what causes them to fare so poorly in combat? It seems that 4-6 attack is the norm for cavalry aside from their charge bonus. For comparison, slingers have 8 melee attack. This really doesn't seem appropriate... from a realism, or gameplay perspective.

It really sounds like you still need to get used to a different style of cav use than what youre used to in RTW. Skirmishers will not rout as soon as contact is made with cav in EB. No cav should be left in melee too long after the charge is complete, esp if they have no shield. When charging, use alt-right click so the cav switches to their swords after they charge; then if you see that they start taking casualties, pull them out...

[antisocialmunky]

The only exception are the heavy cataphracts and some of the Eastern FMs that are exceedingly hard to kill. But even then they tend to do better if you charge in when units start wavering, use mercenary light cavalry to kill skirmishers instead.

[Arkanin]

It really sounds like you still need to get used to a different style of cav use than what youre used to in RTW. Skirmishers will not rout as soon as contact is made with cav in EB. No cav should be left in melee too long after the charge is complete, esp if they have no shield. When charging, use alt-right click so the cav switches to their swords after they charge; then if you see that they start taking casualties, pull them out...

I keep hearing this sort of thing, but if medium cavalry are unable to defeat lower-quality missile units when they are isolated and have no infantry support, when is it desirable for me to build cavalry over simply infantry or skirmishers? If their attack is too poor to beat skirmishers, it's too poor to flank even light infantry. This makes infantry the preferable flankers, too, as they have the staying power to win while flanking other infantry. I'm just not seeing what there is to get "used to" -- they appear tactically inferior. Surely the 7-8 skirmishers I could have for the cost of two units of cavalry would have fared better against the lone skirmisher unit.

Combinatorial tactics have so much synergy in this game, there is a very large range of power level a unit can have before it becomes dominant or unusable. But all the cavalry I have encountered are so far from the middle of that range that they no longer even have a cost-justified purpose (well, one or two of the cheapest cavalry to chase routers is good). If they cannot punish undefended ranged units or flank better than infantry, they are in a lot of trouble.

The only exception I have seen to all this is the macedonian bodyguard unit, which I can only guess is much larger than other general units (62 on "large" size, when 40 is the norm) because someone made a mistake, as it is otherwise also far more powerful than other generals.

[Olaf The Great]

Head East, young man. You will find fanatic adherents to just about all the factions here - so send that general question out knowing that. Start a new thread with a "best cavalry faction" and find yourself in the middle of a fine mess. There may be some insightful threads already out there - so do take a moment and check out some of the older pages.
I've played mostly Western Factions, so I am of little help. I do know that the Gallic Briethen (sp) cav is the best in the west. As for out East - ask away - just remember ..."I warned you!!"

Isn't the "Best in the West" those crazy Iberian Kataphraktoi?

[Midnj]

Isn't the "Best in the West" those crazy Iberian Kataphraktoi?

I'd say the Sacred Band is the best in the west as a pure cav unit. The Iberian Lancerii (or whatever) are probably the best melee cav, but then I was never a fan of melee cav in EB unless they're also a horse archer.

[Arkanin]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies, especially Glouch. I don't have time to respond to your entire post mate but I understand your point about cavalry not doing well toe to toe but I don't see that as the big picture.

I have finished a 1.1 campaign now and it is my opinion that the way cavalry behave is deeply flawed. In EB, cavalry cause almost no damage to any kind of unit without suffering major losses. Their only role then is to repeatedly charge flanks and retreat with minimal casualties to cause arbitrary morale loss and routing, not to actually injure units in any significant way. I have seen heavy cavalry fight skirmishers and route -- the lack of balance of cavalry as an actual combat piece is quite ridiculous.

Whenever I fight now, I bring two units of cavalry. I micro the cavalry to repeatedly charge flanks without ever connecting with infantry, and then chase down routers with it. Let's talk historical accuracy. One for one, mounted warriors should have an edge against infantry, i imagine, even "toe to toe". The reason is not equipment but the synergy of the confusion caused by a charge, and their continued mobility; cavalry units do not sit around while infantry whack on them but remain moving targets even as they enter a melee.

RTW has a mechanic that reflects this. Cavalry mass. In RTW cavalry penetrate enemy ranks, remain mobile, and cause much more damage to enemy units. In EB, they run up to the enemy with lances out, kill a few guys, and just stand there.

My proposal is that the "CHARGE BONUS" has a negligible affect on cavalry behavior -- it causes one or two casualties, while the "MASS", which has been nerfed, is what causes cavalry to behave like real cavalry -- disrupting enemy ranks, using their mobility to their advantage after a charge, and so on.

[Arkanin]

I understand if the EB team does not see balance issues the same way as me -- but since I believe a hidden attribute determines cavalry effectiveness and not "charge bonus", which has negligible effects, I am going to find and up cavalry mass to comport with old RTW settings and see how it plays.

So here is the question, if I want to increase cavalry mass, how do I go about doing that?