How to use cavalry?

[Randal]

Cavalry in Medieval 2 is -far- more powerful than in Europa Barbarorum, in just about any mod.

Yes, charges are trickier to pull off, require more time and more micromanagement. But one good charge destroys an entire enemy infantry unit. (Or cripples several, if the enemy masses levy units against you.)

That weapon switching thing only happens if you are too hasty in trying to charge after withdrawing, or sometimes when the terrain is unsuitable for a charge.

I think Europa Barbarorum hits an excellent balance with charges that no medieval mod has quite managed to duplicate, but if anything cavalry in mêlée are too hard to kill. That cataphract killed by an archer's knife is a rare, rare exception. My good heavy infantry and even spearmen generally struggle against cataphracts for ages without killing more than a couple.

I also frequently fight archers in mêlée for extended periods of time, and using the right kinds of cavalry this tends to work just fine. I avoid spear-armed archers though.

[Tyrfingr]

Given all the classic, historical examples of archers being vunerable to cavalry, I find it extra curious that archers in EB can stand up to cavalry at all. However, some casualties ought to be expected even when cavalry-charging archers, especially as the charge slows down and archers starting to pull down riders from their horses.

[vollorix]

One could simply put a very small value ( max. "3", otherwise you´d still get "good moral" attribute on the unit cards, irrc ) for the moral of levy archer and slinger units and they should rout on the first contact with any unit heavier then them, like the peasants in vanilla used to.

[Cute Wolf]

EB cavalry are still much better in terms of balance, between power and vulnerability.

[A_Dane]

Cavalry in Medieval 2 is -far- more powerful than in Europa Barbarorum, in just about any mod.

Yes, charges are trickier to pull off, require more time and more micromanagement. But one good charge destroys an entire enemy infantry unit. (Or cripples several, if the enemy masses levy units against you.)

That weapon switching thing only happens if you are too hasty in trying to charge after withdrawing, or sometimes when the terrain is unsuitable for a charge.

I think Europa Barbarorum hits an excellent balance with charges that no medieval mod has quite managed to duplicate, but if anything cavalry in mêlée are too hard to kill. That cataphract killed by an archer's knife is a rare, rare exception. My good heavy infantry and even spearmen generally struggle against cataphracts for ages without killing more than a couple.

I also frequently fight archers in mêlée for extended periods of time, and using the right kinds of cavalry this tends to work just fine. I avoid spear-armed archers though.

This. The only archer units that ever got me scared on behalf of my heavy cav, are archer-spearmen, never had any trouble in archers vs cataphracts.

If you're playing very hard battles you're asking for it though...

[Atraphoenix]

Normal battle difficulty is too easy for me both for EB1 and M2TW,
Although some differs I play Hard for both.

BTW I mostly kill enemy generals with arrow fire. It looks like arrows have AP in M2TW?

[A_Dane]

I play battles on Hard, still easy, but i refuse to watch my elite units get torn apart by some useless levy unit. It dosn't really change anything, the outcome is mostly the same, only difference is that I'll suffer more losses for some ridicolous reason, which i must admit kills any sort of immersion i get from the game.

[Randal]

I play battles on normal because I don't like stat-bonuses for the AI.

In Medieval 2 I play them on very hard, though. There the AI just gets better stamina and morale, no stat bonuses to speak of.

I imagine difficulty will make a big difference in how effective your cavalry is against archers in Rome mods.

(No, arrows in Medieval 2 are not armour-piercing except English longbows in vanilla. Crossbows, too. In mods like Broken Crescent longbows aren't armour piercing, though crossbows still are.)

[Lazy O]

Longbows and Corssbows make perfect sense to be AP.

[gamegeek2]

Longbows should only be AP with bodkin arrows, but then they should get reduced accuracy or attack.