Lance attacks too strong?

**satalexton** · 08-03-2009, 07:17

care to use F=MA and calculate the raw power in a catank charge?

no really, I am interested to know =]

**Companion Cavalry** · 08-03-2009, 08:00

Originally Posted by satalexton

care to use F=MA and calculate the raw power in a catank charge?

no really, I am interested to know =]

That would be immense, the force in question would probably be in the measure of tonnes.

For a precise figure, you would need to know the cataphract's speed, the weight of the horse and rider in question, the weight of the kontos, and finally the duration of the charge before impact.

**Watchman** · 08-03-2009, 12:58

Except there's the practical limits of what the rider's hands can actually hold before the shaft simply starts slipping through them. Remember, no stirrups and lance-rests involved in the equation.

BTW, I though kontos- and xyston-style cavalry lances topped out around four meters (12') or slightly more ? Longer than that started getting pretty unmanageable for various reasons.

**Aulus Caecina Severus** · 08-03-2009, 13:29

I think the secondary weapons, like sword or mace, are made totally uneffective by engine animations.
For example i ve noted that in a cavalry vs cavalry duel, the cavalry with lance(high letality) is always better in melee than cavalry with sword.
If you take a look of same cavalry duel, you can see that, often, sword can t hit enemy for animations limitation: sword hit only in side, lance hit in front.
But cavalry with sword still always in front of enemy and not engage in its side.
Then cavalry with lance is better for this reason, and it s so clear if you take a look in battle.
I don t know why many cavalry hasn t this high lethality in its spear: unit like greek hippeis, roman equites, ecc..
This type of cavalry is totally worse than all units, and still deserves in all offensive/defensive actions, there isn t a way for make useful this.
Units like trakian podromoi are very better, because carry the lance in melee.
This problem is frustrating... when i play romani, i can never take equites because equites=null in the field.

**Watchman** · 08-03-2009, 14:47

Overhand cavalry spear =/= underhand/two-handed lance.

Anyway, in my experience lancers normally get eaten alive by "sidearm" wielders in a cavalry duel if they don't swap to their secondaries (eg. some HAs have the lance *as* their "secondary", and the AI is dumb and can't switch weapons anyway), so meh.

**Atraphoenix** · 08-04-2009, 07:33

it is true they are very strong thanks to their charge bonus + ap.
in reality 90% the cavalry lancer would lose his lance mostly broken or got stuck in the enemy's ribs etc.
on the other hand with repeated charges 3-4 any cavalry faction can dominate the game.
AI is dumb and it does not know how to use cavalry effectively. on the other hand as the lances are not broken or at least before EB2, any player who is quite patient on micromanaging at least 10-15 units separately I call it constant pressure (like pressing in football

) can dominate the game easily.
CA gave lancers iron lances that is never broken

and sticked the soldier to his horse with japan glue that after 80km/h charge and with no stirrup he is on his horse again.

**The Celtic Viking** · 08-07-2009, 00:20

Originally Posted by Watchman

Anyway, in my experience lancers normally get eaten alive by "sidearm" wielders in a cavalry duel if they don't swap to their secondaries (eg. some HAs have the lance *as* their "secondary", and the AI is dumb and can't switch weapons anyway), so meh.

Actually, that's not quite correct: the AI can change to their secondary; I've seen it, and even have a picture showing it. Maybe that was because of the BI.exe, though?

**antisocialmunky** · 08-07-2009, 05:15

Lance usually beats swords or matches them in cav vs cav. That's my experience. The Lance has some strange and magical properties... Of course leaving any heavy cav in melee is uneconomical so meh.

BTW - I calculated the force for an inelastic collision between a large horse + rider. Its about the same force as a small-medium car(depending on weight) hitting you except all the force is concentrated on a 1 inch by 1 inch surface. And it would probably kill the first 2-3 guys even if it was just glancing blow and seriously mess up the the next 4 in line before all the energy gets spent. Keep in mind that this is for knights, not EB era stuff though heavy cataphracts could probably do something similar.

Something about 1/2 as bad as this vs unbraced infantry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5Q...eature=related

Imagine the light pole being several guys with spears braced against the ground.