How to use cavalry?

[jirisys]

listen guys all i am saying is that Akontistai should not be able to stab Sacred Band Cavalry to death.

Their horses, however, are prone to get knifed on their unarmoured areas.

~Jirisys ()

[vollorix]

Now thats a picture i really would like to see: a 120 men group of unarmoured men, protected only by their tiny shield, if at all, untrained, not disciplined, in a loose formation, beeing charged by a group of 50 riders, and they are somehow able to stay on their feet ( lets put aside the initial charge, though, the horses would still be able to charge even if the men are running away - the speed difference is too big! ), willing to try to stab armoured riders, or their horses, staying among warhorses, which are a weapon for themself, instead of trying to save their life? I simply do not believe that, no way!
On the streets, perhaps, ambushing a small or tired unit of riders, isolated, or in a forest, but i find this simply unrealistic, sorry...

[fomalhaut]

no not only stand and fight, but do some much damange as to cause me to pull out completely! I would run away from a charge of Hippokontistai let alone Hetairoi!
and yes too bad engine limitations means that horse death=rider death.

[vollorix]

@fomalhaut: there is a very easy way to break skirmishers: double charge from 2 directions, especially from the front and the rear - insta rout ( once skirmishers are in melee, and cannot use their "skirmish" mod, one of the charges, normaly the second one, delivers the actual shock effect - boom! ;) ). Charge first with some melee resistent cavalry ( decent armour, shield etc ), bodyguards are perfect, while the second charge needs to be just decent, 24+ ( the higher the better, of course ). Normaly your heavy cavalry is allready a bit tired, so that the lethality, and the absence of the initial charge ( due to the "skirmishing", or running away from it ) do not have the impact they would if a unit is fresh and the charge has been fully completed.

Another thing i´ve just found in "Aradans EDU guide" that bothers me:
Minimum delay between weapon attacks, measured in 1/10 of seconds. It is the minimum time allowed between the beginning of an attacking animation and the beginning of the next one. It only applies to foot melee skeletons.
Now, according to this quote, the delay of cavalry spears units wouldn´t work at all, i assume?

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

and yes too bad engine limitations means that horse death=rider death.

Horse death did equal rider death historically because once the rider is unhorsed, he will be the primary target of every enemy around him. A man on foot is a lot easier to surround and kill than a man on horseback. It's human nature to go for the easiest target.

[athanaric]

Now thats a picture i really would like to see: a 120 men group of unarmoured men, protected only by their tiny shield, if at all, untrained, not disciplined, in a loose formation, beeing charged by a group of 50 riders, and they are somehow able to stay on their feet ( lets put aside the initial charge, though, the horses would still be able to charge even if the men are running away - the speed difference is too big! ), willing to try to stab armoured riders, or their horses, staying among warhorses, which are a weapon for themself, instead of trying to save their life? I simply do not believe that, no way!
On the streets, perhaps, ambushing a small or tired unit of riders, isolated, or in a forest, but i find this simply unrealistic, sorry...

Loose formation is broken, especially in combination with skirmish mode. It's a common problem when you're fighting against the Lusotannan. A countermeasure is to spam archers or morale breakers.

[Sdragon]

Problem is you can't deal a real charge on skirmishers when they are running away. Once contact is made your horse men just ride around in circles inside the enemy formation. I find that right after contact, pressing stop and ordering an attack with swords works best.

[antisocialmunky]

Charge is actually kinda buggy in RTW and M2TW. Only in ETW - S2TW does it act physically correct. One of the things you can do, is run a unit of high morale skirmishes infront of a cavalry unit BEFORE the unit lowers its lances. This will basically stop a charge and do very little damage to the skirmishers. In fact, you only need to touch a very small part of the cav unit to make it fail a charge.

[vartan]

Charge is actually kinda buggy in RTW and M2TW. Only in ETW - S2TW does it act physically correct. One of the things you can do, is run a unit of high morale skirmishes infront of a cavalry unit BEFORE the unit lowers its lances. This will basically stop a charge and do very little damage to the skirmishers. In fact, you only need to touch a very small part of the cav unit to make it fail a charge.

Hey now, you just rigged half of the MP battles right there!

[fomalhaut]

yeah i just finally conquered the Lusotan's and my lord are they stupid to fight. Hammer and Anvil does NOT work against them since half their units double as hyper effective skirmishers. Many of the Sacred Band now fertilize the earth in Iberia :(

[antisocialmunky]

It takes a ton of micro to combat cavalry micro which means your heavy infantry must be able to actually beat the enemy heavy infantry. There's also the problem that everyone maxes out on elite missiles that just shred every single 'fast' skirmisher type(the only type that can actually intercept cavalry) and morale is a huge problem. Which basically means that you'll probably have no cavalry, need to have super elite missile units (or slinger spam), and chevroned skirmishers.

And the skirms will eventually break unless you have enough archers/slingers to whittle down the cavalry in between each intercepted charge....