M2TW Cavalry and EB II

[gamegeek2]

I'm doubting that the EB system of cavalry having super-high charge will work in EB. When I modded M2TW a while back, I set all of the cavalry lances' attack power at 2 and put their charge somewhere in the teens. Spear cavalry units like Mounted Sergeants got 3 spear attack and about 8 charge. This is what I found to be balanced with the M2TW units. I used the same system when I modded Broken crescent. When I added armour piercing to the stats of the cavalry, they were back to being overpowered once again, but reducing their charge would mean that they would be less effective against levy units. I also buffed up the defense of infantry units.

How does the EB team intend to cope with the natural overpoweredness of M2TW cavalry? My solutions for nerfing them have been pretty effective, reducing the number of casualties BOTH units (the charged and the charging horsemen) take on impact (M2TW cavalry take stupid casualties on hitting enemy units).

[Megas Methuselah]

Good topic to bring up, gamegeek. Although it is enjoyable witnessing a unit of cavalry ride down several units of infantry like grass, it does seem a tad unrealistic...

[antisocialmunky]

I would rather like cavalry to be able to stand up for sustained melee for a while rather than die like flies. I mean, that would be alot better than portraying all cavalry in the EB time frame as high impact chargers.

[Moros]

Well of course our cavalry will be not be statted to be medieval knights and of course we aren't just going to copy the EB I system. We'll be using a new system as complex, balanced and as historically accurate as EBI's.

[The General]

...but reducing their charge would mean that they would be less effective against levy units.

Ain't levy units kind of supposed to be butchered by cavalry, eh?

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

M2TW cavalry is good enough. One of the aspects I like is that they switch to secondary automatically, instead of poking with their lances indefinetely. Maybe that will make AI Baktrian bodyguards a bit more fearsome?

[Macilrille]

I like the MTW II Cav, they kill disorganised/low morale infantry like nothing, they die against spears or bowmen behind stakes, they have 50-50 against heavy inf depending on circumstances. No, I find them accurately portraying medieval Cavalry, or any for that matter.

[gamegeek2]

Of course, we will all appreciate the M2TW cavalry switching weapons, bla bla bla. I'm just saying that it doesn't make any sense for a unit of 40 horsemen charging into a unit of 60 foot knights (ready and in formation) to mow down half of the knights AND lose 5 of their own men on impact (too many losses on both sides). M2TW does inaccurately portray foot knights sans their lances, but even if they did have spears, a similar thing would happen (tested against the Papal Guard, I get similar results).

And while cavalry should have less staying power than infantry, mailed horsemen shouldn't die especially quickly in close combat (with exceptions against spearmen, halberdiers, etc)

And of course heavy horsemen are supposed to bowl over levy units (except large numbers of spearmen).

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Gamegeek, the lance is blind. When you have a compact formation of heavily armoured horsemen on bulky horses and their big lances lowered the momentum of the impact will shatter anything. Whether the charge is succesful or not depends if the infantry breaks, but if the horsemen present a compact and strong charge it is only natural that even the heaviest infantry will suffer unless they have means to stop the charge, and that usually is a long pole, halberd, voulge and the likes, as well as the good old pike. No wonder why so many formations in the middle ages employed them, after all.

But the EB team will seek to accurately depict horsemen of the Ancient Age within the limitations of the engine while presenting more or less realistic situations. You can be sure that Equites Romani will not have the same impact as the current Feudal Knights et all have against infantry formations, but then no wonder that heavily armoured cataphracts will produce more or less similar results. They were armed and equipped to do it, and break enemy formations, afterall.

[Moros]

Of course we'll be using a new system as complex, balanced and as historically accurate as EBI's.

[gamegeek2]

Gamegeek, the lance is blind. When you have a compact formation of heavily armoured horsemen on bulky horses and their big lances lowered the momentum of the impact will shatter anything. Whether the charge is succesful or not depends if the infantry breaks, but if the horsemen present a compact and strong charge it is only natural that even the heaviest infantry will suffer unless they have means to stop the charge, and that usually is a long pole, halberd, voulge and the likes, as well as the good old pike. No wonder why so many formations in the middle ages employed them, after all.

But the EB team will seek to accurately depict horsemen of the Ancient Age within the limitations of the engine while presenting more or less realistic situations. You can be sure that Equites Romani will not have the same impact as the current Feudal Knights et all have against infantry formations, but then no wonder that heavily armoured cataphracts will produce more or less similar results. They were armed and equipped to do it, and break enemy formations, afterall.

I know this, it's rather obvious when you apply the laws of physics. When the lance from a couched charge hits someone, the hit person gets killed or something else awful happens to them. But the guy in the next row? He may be pushed back, but he probably doesn't get hit by the lance. And something good: In M2TW, cavalry charging that run into their own men during the charge actually lose their momentum. So a swarm of Scythian Riders that are running into each other constantly have a much weaker charge.

I also think that the cavalry charge distance for cataphracts (30) is awfully close up for heavy horsemen to get some serious momentum going to charge effectively. I raised the distance to 60 in my slightly modded version of EB.

[antisocialmunky]

The guy behind might get killed by the guy infront of him being flung/skewed backwards at him with all the momentum of that horse. I mean, this is close one a ton/tonne hitting someone with a pointy stick going at 20-30 miles per hour. Its kinda like this(graphic):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5QIux9AG8

[gamegeek2]

That car has much more force that the knight. The guy behind probably wouldn't be killed, he has armour and a shield to dissipate the impact.

I'm just wondering how you guys are going to get the M2TW cavalry engine to make EB-level cavalry.

[The General]

That car has much more force that the knight.

A horseman and horse will weight probably a minimum of 400kg (light horse and unarmoured man), and an heavily armoured man and a large (modern-day) horse could weigh over a thousand kilograms - as much as a car, and a horse can reach a speed of 89km/h (55mp/h, the world record atm). Of course, a horse of ancient times would've been smaller than a large 700kg modern-day riding horse, but nonetheless, we can assume the armoured rider and horse would've weighed well over half a ton and could've reached a speed over 50km/h for a charge... There's quite a bit of force there. :P

[antisocialmunky]

:-\ 55 mph? Are you sure about that?

[lobf]

A horseman and horse will weight probably a minimum of 400kg (light horse and unarmoured man), and an heavily armoured man and a large (modern-day) horse could weigh over a thousand kilograms - as much as a car, and a horse can reach a speed of 89km/h (55mp/h, the world record atm). Of course, a horse of ancient times would've been smaller than a large 700kg modern-day riding horse, but nonetheless, we can assume the armoured rider and horse would've weighed well over half a ton and could've reached a speed over 50km/h for a charge... There's quite a bit of force there. :P

The lightest of average cars weighs twice that much and goes much faster. There's no way a knight hits with the force of an automobile.

[gamegeek2]

The horse is significantly slowed down by the weight of the man and armour, however the impetus offered by the additional weight serves to contrast this. I would be surprised if charging cataphracts went faster than the fastest runner (28 mph). However, contrary to your belief, there were definitely large breeds of horses in ancient times, particularly the Nisean breed which the Parthian cataphracts rode. It takes a horse stronger than a modern day riding horse AFAIK to carry Grivpanvar and all their armour AND make an effective charge.

And, as seen at the Battle of Carrhae, even the Parthian Cataphracts could not beat the well-trained Roman Legionarii when they were formed up and using pila as spears. A strong, well-made shield will be able to take the majority of a lance's impact, though it might be broken or shattered.

[antisocialmunky]

I was just making a claim that one man cannot stop a heavy horse easily, and a heavy horse hitting a group of men would be much like a car plowing through a crowd of people. So if you're using the numbers in this thread, it would be more like a Smart Car(730kg) plowing into a group of people at about 20 miles per hour.

I used round numbers because that's what I thought a heavy cataphract would weigh close to a ton.

So, lets do some math just for fun.

Horse: 400 - 500 kg
Person: ~55 - 70 kg(Normal and Overwight for a ~5 foot 3 man from a modern BMI graph)
Armor and Equipment: ? - I honestly have no clue. I'm thinking about a heavier type of horse. Would be nice to get a number.
So the total would be around 512.5 kg for just a guy on a horse.

The horse would be galloping anywhere from 40-48 kph(25 -30 mph) on impact. The average of that is 44 kph. This gives a total momentum of 22550 kg km/h. Now assuming an inelastic impact because people kinda squish:

m1 * v1 + m2 * v2 = (m1+m2)*vf

And using the mass for a human of 62.5 kg, that gives us a final velocity of about 40 kph. So the first person only slows it down by 4 kph. Assuming that he couldn't do a barrel-roll, he took the lance in the chest. The lance then broke. The primary weapon is gone now but its going to continue trampling guys assuming they stand their ground. I guess this is assuming no bracing.

Here are more numbers for a horse hitting people:

Initial: 44 kph
Person 1: 40 kph
Person 2: 35 kph
Person 3: 31 kph
Person 4: 27 kph
Person 5: 24 kph
etc

So lets look at guy #2. He gets accelerated to 35 KPH in a split second. Assuming that it is accelerated to that speed in about x seconds, that's:

35kph / (3600 m/h * s/m) * 1000 * m/km = 9.72 m/s
9.72 m/s / 1/100 s = 9.72x m/s^2
9.72x m/s^2 * 62.5 kg = 607.5x N

Depending on how long the impact takes, he could either live or die. If anyone has a good idea of how long it takes to transfer all that momentum, please tell me.

[Cute Wolf]

The impact will be actually much higher... What that you count is Force... quite large, but it goes larger when we count the lancetip's area... the pressure it created will punch a hole even to a well made 5mm metal sheet.

P=F/A

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Antisocialmunky, FYI late medieval plate armour weighed about the same or even less than hoplite bronze cuirasses. This site mentions 52lbs average for the whole equipment (23.58kg according to the converter), and that's a value appropriate for late XV century Gothic plate armour. Don't forget the horse barding which often added weight too, thus making it a bit heavier than in your original values. If the guy was wearing jousting armor, even more.

[Novellus]

Antisocialmunky, FYI late medieval plate armour weighed about the same or even less than hoplite bronze cuirasses. This site mentions 52lbs average for the whole equipment (23.58kg according to the converter), and that's a value appropriate for late XV century Gothic plate armour. Don't forget the horse barding which often added weight too, thus making it a bit heavier than in your original values. If the guy was wearing jousting armor, even more.

True. Take a look at how large the numbers are already WITHOUT adjusting for the additional weight of armor. That is A LOT of momentum going. Truthfully, I felt as though the cavalry didn't do enough damage on charges. Even if cavalry didn't reach full speed and the lances weren't lowered, such as what happens when the charge distance is attempted at too short of a range, the horse should do more damage and disrupt unit cohesion more than it is represented.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Yes and now try and face it without a polearm of your own. No wonder that M2TW cavalry is what it is now.

[antisocialmunky]

Yes, that's not accounting for stactic friction/resisting forces(IE braced spears) and people being pushed into each other or rolled out of the way as a dead on hit would be unlikely.

[Cute Wolf]

If u got 3.5 m lance, with some skill you can screw 2 or 3 men in one charge....

rather off the topic question:
What about halberd armed cavalry? they should like Guan Yu (3 kingdoms), and they will hack their way in extremely brutal manner, plus, they had excellent chance to survive in melee... (they are elite cavalrymen in ancient china afterall, why not the saka or sauromatae encountered them and copy them?)

[antisocialmunky]

?Que?

[chairman]

While the halberd was very popular among chinese cavalry in later periods, it was not in common use by EB's time period. In the Warring States period and Han dynasty, the main melee cavalry weapons were the lance (no more than 3m), dagger-axe and sword. Halberds became more common by the Tang dynasty in the 7th C, and by the 10 & 11 C were very popular.

Chairman

[Cyclops]

It seems a fair point the OP raises, and I look forward to the ingenious solution the EB2 team comes up with.

My own uniformed impression is that the stirrup was not in general use (if at all) in the EB2 period, thus making heavy cavalry less effective. Is the problem delivering shock from an unbraced rider and mount to the target without dismounting the rider?

Of course there was effective heavy-to-kataphract weight cav around in the classical age, which did smash infantry quite badly, but just less effectively than horsemen of the age of chivalry. Is that a fair assesment? Its a gross simpification, but the Roman empire held quite well against the northern foes until they were swept away in the Gothic storm, which I'm assuming was a stirrup assisted movement.

I recall a short archaeological film comparing depictions (eg from illuminated mss) with excavated bodies, showing enormous wounds, for example blokes split from collarbone to pelvis. Terrifying how much force a horseman can generate when properly mounted and braced, he had the force of his mount and the extra height (from standing in the stirrups) to swing down from. No wonder even succesful infantry tradtions like the early Franks 9not to mention the eastern empire) adopted heavy cav armament.

[Cullhwch]

The stirrup wasn't fully necessary for the shock action of cavalry. Alexander's Companions prove that point quite well. Instead, the stirrup is really useful for close-quarters fighting when the horseman has to draw his sidearm to crack some skulls. It allowed the rider to stand up and shift his weight to deliver a more powerful, better-balanced blow to whatever hapless infantry stood below him.

[Macilrille]

Like all other germanic Barbarians the Goths were primarily infantry-based, their stay on the Ukranian steppe had probably heightened their proportion of cavalry to infantry, but they were nonetheless still mostly infantry. It is a question of settled farmers being mostly infantry while nomads/herdsmen are primarily cavalry in that specific setting. Battle of Hadrianopolis was an infantry action until the Goth cavalry with their Alan friends/allies/mercenaries returned from foraging and turned the Roman flank. Nor were the Goths the only tribe to invade the WRE and the others were by and large infantry.

Note that at Tours October 10, 732, the well-trained, armed and disciplined Frankish FOOT soldiers withstood the heavy cavalry of the Umayyads and defeated it. Well-trained, armed and disciplined heavy foot will as a general rule defeat any cavalry you care to mention. It is when they break rank as at Hastings, they get slaughtered.

However, it generally takes an organised state to arm, produce and train this body of foot. A state that was by and large absent in the middle ages. Instead the small bands of well equipped and trained cavalry dominated all battlefields where they did not meet organised heavy foot. It is easier to maintain a single or a few knights and bring them together in effective if disorganised and undisciplined warbands than to keep heavy foot (not to mention chivalric ideals and general ideology). In that light some military historians have seen The Middle Ages not so much as the age of cavalry as the age of absent foot.

[Cyclops]

Like all other germanic Barbarians the Goths were primarily infantry-based, their stay on the Ukranian steppe had probably heightened their proportion of cavalry to infantry, but they were nonetheless still mostly infantry. It is a question of settled farmers being mostly infantry while nomads/herdsmen are primarily cavalry in that specific setting. Battle of Hadrianopolis was an infantry action until the Goth cavalry with their Alan friends/allies/mercenaries returned from foraging and turned the Roman flank. Nor were the Goths the only tribe to invade the WRE and the others were by and large infantry.

Definitely the germanic footmen were the rats that swarmed the foundered ship of state, but I'd argue they managed it only once the horsey Goths and Huns had cracked the nut. Up until then the Romans cracked german heads as a regular sport for centuries, and only lost if they put pencil-necks in charge who led legions into swamps in winter....

Note that at Tours October 10, 732, the well-trained, armed and disciplined Frankish FOOT soldiers withstood the heavy cavalry of the Umayyads and defeated it. Well-trained, armed and disciplined heavy foot will as a general rule defeat any cavalry you care to mention. It is when they break rank as at Hastings, they get slaughtered.

Poitiers/Tours in 732 was pretty much the first stop on a charge that commenced at Mecca, so they were due for a halt. Not sure about Ummayid heavies, perhaps they were more of a Berber raiding party than formed Kwarazmian style katas?

From the Red Sea to the Loire valley is a fairly impressive run of wins for the horse vs the foot.

However, it generally takes an organised state to arm, produce and train this body of foot. A state that was by and large absent in the middle ages. Instead the small bands of well equipped and trained cavalry dominated all battlefields where they did not meet organised heavy foot. It is easier to maintain a single or a few knights and bring them together in effective if disorganised and undisciplined warbands than to keep heavy foot (not to mention chivalric ideals and general ideology). In that light some military historians have seen The Middle Ages not so much as the age of cavalry as the age of absent foot.

Very good point. The very real breakdown of civilization (in the West) meant there was not the urban administration to rally and arm concentrations of foot.

I liken the spread of the feudal horse culture to the mafia. Its all about honour, families, getting "made" (a knight), private wars (feuds), extortion (dues and levies) and pimped rides.