just a comment about palanhx and cavalry

[Pedro]

Obviously the ancient cavarly isnt better than the medieval but in every battle the cavarly has to be important dont you remeber that alexander win all his battle with the" hummer and the anvil " dont you think that the hummer is the most important? . and remember in medieval cavalry the impact was strong but with all de armor the horse and the knight were so tired , and remeber that in de medieval age who have horses was the rich poeple not everyone... that makes the cavalry so dessicive , becuase the ordinary people hasnt the equipment necessesary to hold on a cavalry attak ! . so i think that maybe isnt necessary to toned down the cavarly if you want a more realistic battle you need to :
1- investigate about what units hold on the calvary ( spearmen wolud be more effective against cavarly ) like the javelins are effective agains the elephants and chariots
2-when the cavarly attak the firist line of the horses wolud die and the horsemen fall and die or continue fighting like infantry and the firs line of infantry if thay are simply soldiers no bonus calvalry they die at least two of his entire lines just in the impact , but if they are spearmen they must to hold on and die only the first line
3-the spears didnt break in the crash that makes the palahnx ( in the rtw and eb) invulnerable and they didnt separe his lines in a unlikely territory like mountains or forests when they sholud be separe and vulnerable to the normal infantry.

----- my final point is : if you want the game realistic make the calvarly dessicive (that's why they are always the half number of the infantry) and think in my point about phalanxs


what do you think?

[Omegoa]

First, cavalry need to be toned down -- the standard charge values are ridiculous, and the results even more so. I've seen entire units trampled out of existence in a single thunderous cavalry charge. No, if we want more realistic battles, we need more realistic cavalry.

Historically, the effectiveness of cavalry came from the fear of a charge -- men would break and run rather than face those hooves, making for easy hunting. However, men who held firm had a far better success rate at battling off cavalry. I'm wondering if it'd be possible to give militias a morale penalty versus cavalry to better mirror this effect?

[Pedro]

yeah i agreee with the values its ridiculus but a dont agree with the effectivenes of cavarly the horsemen has the advantage in the fight one to one with a infantry you really think that is just about the braveness ? you hold on a crash and then you win? the cavarly is the dessicive weapon if they werent thy woludnt be used until the first world war! it wanst only the fear or charge its a horse going to you with a horsemen wiht armor and very long spear the spear is just ornamental? you can imagine the cavalry like a faster phalanx with long spears and much stamina is like the tank in modern war !!! the effectivenes depends of get down the rider of the horse of kill the horse and that only could be wiht long spears before they crash you or with proyectiles , so wait the attak with a sword and be the bravest in the earth doesnt help much, i think the problem are the spearmen they need to be better agains cavalry and lesser agains infantry that makes you recruit a mixed gruop of units because in rtw you only recruit heavy infranty and they do all. the spearmen was lighter and the results were bad!

[vollorix]

You can allways adjust the mentioned values ( penalty vs. mounted units; fear effect of the cavalry; lower morale for the levies, etc. ) in the EDU.

[Pedro]

yes but what is your opinion ??? i think that spearmen needs to be better so the recruitmen wolud be more mixed an flexible! for every scenary

[fomalhaut]

i am afraid your message is coming a bit foggy to me as english is clearly not your first language (nothing wrong with that), but to me but cavalry IS decisive in both games especially in Medieval.

In EBI horsemen of all qualities fare absolutely horribly in melee to the point where they should be kept out of it at all times. even Super Cataphracts

[Omegoa]

yeah i agreee with the values its ridiculus but a dont agree with the effectivenes of cavarly the horsemen has the advantage in the fight one to one with a infantry you really think that is just about the braveness ? you hold on a crash and then you win? the cavarly is the dessicive weapon if they werent thy woludnt be used until the first world war! it wanst only the fear or charge its a horse going to you with a horsemen wiht armor and very long spear the spear is just ornamental? you can imagine the cavalry like a faster phalanx with long spears and much stamina is like the tank in modern war !!! the effectivenes depends of get down the rider of the horse of kill the horse and that only could be wiht long spears before they crash you or with proyectiles , so wait the attak with a sword and be the bravest in the earth doesnt help much, i think the problem are the spearmen they need to be better agains cavalry and lesser agains infantry that makes you recruit a mixed gruop of units because in rtw you only recruit heavy infranty and they do all. the spearmen was lighter and the results were bad!

IF cavalry were to actually charge into a formation of heavy troops, all advantage would go to the infantry. Cavalry's greatest strength is mobility, and that is quickly lost after the initial charge. After that, it's a simple matter to pull a cavalryman down from his horse and fall on top of him, so in short, yes, it is a matter of bogging down the cavalry. I don't doubt that such a charge would be devastating to the front ranks of infantry, but it'd prove even more disastrous for the cavalry. Remember, all this is hypothetical since rarely would cavalry actually charge home against a standing unit (at least according to Machiavelli).

And in the first World War, cavalry served mostly as transport. Gunpowder rendered cavalry near obsolete on the battlefield and repeating rifles, and later machine guns, even more so.

[fomalhaut]

so how does it work!!!!!! how did Alexander rout the main Persian body if his hetairoi didn't physically slam into the mass of troops. do the Xystons just stab one guy and everyone else freaks out and runs away?

[Klemens]

so how does it work!!!!!! how did Alexander rout the main Persian body if his hetairoi didn't physically slam into the mass of troops. do the Xystons just stab one guy and everyone else freaks out and runs away?

Remember it is the horses in a cavalry charge that do the most damage, they will crack skulls with kicks of their legs, trample over men, bite at wrists etc. A skilled calvary man, if attacking a solid formation would probably aim his charge at a gap in the enemy lines, causing the formation to break up with men fleeing or shuffling backwards.

Although not a historical text, I like how Steven Pressfield put it in The Virtues of War

The scene is Alexander speaking to the reader about his strategy at Chaeronea.

"The Thebans do not understand modern warfare. They believe Philip's strength resides where theirs does, in the massed formation of the heavy infantry. No. The role of the Macedonian phalanx is not to slug it out, power for power, against the foe. Its job is to fix the enemy in place, while our heavy cavalry delivers the decisive shock from the flank or rear. The Theban despises cavalry. His hoplite soul holds horse troops in contempt. He cannot believe that mounted men will willingly fling themselves upon the hedgehog's back of bristling, serried spear points.
But we will.
I will.
Today we will make believers of them."

. . .

"As the Sacred Band comes forward (as it must to attack Antipater's brigade in the flank), our wedges of Companion Cavalry appear on their left, hurtling towards them. The foe's reinforcing companies of the Heracles, Cadmus , and Electra regiments must flood forward now, filling the breach created by the Sacred Band's charge. We can see their captains shouting and gesticulating for this, and their gallant ranks straining to obey."

. . .

"A gap opens between the Sacred Band and it's supporting units. Into this gap I charge. Bucephalus is first to strike the foe. My horse is a prodigy. He stands seventeen hands high and weighs over twelve hundred pounds. His hooves on the earth make tracks broad as skillets, his quarters are the size of regimental kettles. I cannot imagine the terror that must have seized that initial warrior of the Sacred Band as my stallion's driving knees crashed upon him, followed by the massive bulk of his iron-armored chest. The front parted before me with the sound of rending metal. I could feel Cleitus and Telamon behind me on the left, Socrates Redbeard on the right.
The cavalry charge is nothing grander than a directed stampede. Men have believed that horses will refuse to overrun massed infantry, as they will balk at running into a wall of stone. But horses are herd animals, and in the madness of the rush, they will follow the leader headlong off a cliff. In the formation of the wedge, where the commander's horse is alone at the point, the mounts of the succeeding chevrons are not following their eyes and senses, they're following the lead horse. And if the leader is brave enough or reckless enough, spurred on by a rider impetuous enough, the trailers must follow. The same instinct that drives a herd off a precipice will propel it into massed infantry.

Here's a video of two horses running into a solid object at the 0:40 mark.

[B-Wing]

...dont you remeber that alexander win all his battle with the "hummer and the anvil " dont you think that the hummer is the most important?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I don't doubt that if Alexander drove a Hummer into the enemy lines, he would have easily won every battle.


But seriously, I'm curious to know people's thoughts on this matter, which has definitely been debated before. It seems that whenever the topic of cavalry charges comes up (and not just on this forum), half the well-studied people take the stance that the notion of cavalry charging full-speed into enemy ranks is a just a myth, while the other half assert that it is indeed possible. I'm no scholar on ancient or medieval warfare, and have very little horse riding experience, but I'm inclined to think that if both ancient and medieval writers claimeded that heavy cavalry charges could break enemy formations, then they must have been effective somehow.