Something cavalry really needs in a patch

[Reddington]

I haven't played too much ETW so far. I'm still playing through my first grand campaign as Austria and already twice so far I have run into an annyoing issue with the cavalry units.

After I break an enemy army in a battle, I'll immediately send my cavalry units to chase down as many of the enemies as I can for extra experience. The problem is, twice so far when I did this one or two cavalry units have completely ignored the cavalry stakes and ran straight into them while chasing an enemy hundreds of feet away from the stakes. This is a problem because in my last battle I had a full stack against 2 Line Infantry and about 6-8 Armed Citizens. The Line Infantry put down the stakes before the battle but I wasn't worried, I just wanted to get as much exp for my units as I could.

After the enemy lines broke I sent in my cavalry. The 2 carbineer units that went to the right run directly into them. Before I can tell the carbineers to withdraw and avoid more casualties I have lost 69/90 men because they were dumb enough to run right into wooden stakes. I really hope CA patches the battle AI to avoid immobile death traps when the target is not in their vicinity, othrewise I just have to babysit 45 cavalrymen, when I should be directing a battle.

[pevergreen]

Its not too hard to avoid a line of stationary stakes.

This would kill any amount of micro the game has.

[Fisherking]

I see nothing wrong with killing cavalry which charges into stakes.

But you know what! It is not just at the charge!

In M2 they could walk through them just fine, but not in this game!

If a horseman gets to close to a stake they will inevitability through themselves upon it to die. I won’t tell you that horses aren’t that dumb, it’s a game thing. But walking by them should not be a deadly matter.

With horse artillery if you loose a horse you loose three and a gun. I have marched my horses around trying to miss where they have been placed at choke points, and at a walk I might add and all in single file. If the spot is too narrow the first guy is going to die. I think they may be just a bit too deadly!

I can live with it, but is sure is not my favorite feature.

[Polemists]

I assume do to the fact calvary used to be immensely over powered they are not substantially under powdered. They are almost useless in melee combat, horrible in a charge, and die on just about anything, against just about anything. They also have very poor morale from what I have seen.

Still they are useful for making half the ai chase you with 5 calvary units, but that is about it.

On occassion Horses do something that impresses me, but most of the time calvary is best brought to the battle in very small quantities. Like Artillery.

[foop]

I see nothing wrong with killing cavalry which charges into stakes.

But you know what! It is not just at the charge!

I agree. If you charge your cavalry into stakes, you deserve to lose them. At walking pace, they should avoid the obstacle.

I find this particularly annoying when the AI puts one tiny unit half way across the map, on its own, protected by stakes and then, as soon as the battle starts, runs it to someone else. This leaves some stakes miles from nowhere and hard to see unless you zoom in. I've been walking a unit of cavalry back from chasing routers and checked back up on them, only to see the last of the line blindly stumbling into the stakes and dying.

Gah! Didn't you notice the 44 horses in front of you slowly impaling themselves on the great big wooden stakes? Is there even any room left on the stakes after you've squashed 44 other horses onto them?

[Fisherking]

The stakes seem to vanish after killing a horse, but that is no consolation when your line of horsemen all march blithely into them.

It may be just my opinion but horsemen this time out are weak enough without having them be suicidal to go with it.

I would have them be able to walk past stakes and charge through if you are on the back side of them…they should be one way obstacles.

[IvarrWolfsong]

the only impressive thing I have seen from cavalry in the game so far is ulhans charge the rear of infantry that is taking cover against a wall. You will kill almost the entire unit on the charge.
They can also be usefull for killing arty but it takes a lot of micro