So anyone else given up completely on cavalry?

[Narcisista]

Hi, I'been lurking on these boards on and off for some eight or nine years now, but only now decided to join.

My own playstyle is infantry heavy, so I tend to recruit little cavalry, however since Rome the tatical map pretty much means that you can't eschew cavalry, and, if anything, it is somewhat tipped against infantry.

As for Shogun 2 specifically I just finished a Takeda campaign where I tried to field as much cavalry as possible.

Even with the Takeda discount it didn't seem financially viable to field cavalry only stacks, mostly because they have harder acess to sea trade, so I tended to use 6 YA, 6 BA, 2 YCav, 2KCav and 2Bcav, with matchlocks slowly phasing out bows.

It proved an interesting and solid make-up. I used the Bow Cav as decoys to either lure the enemy general or a centerline unit away from the main army and then either pin cushion the isolated unit to death or break it with a follow up charge. This tends to work best if we are on the defensive as the AI can't just, usually, camp out a forested hill. Like Jarman said cavalry can easily threaten a large area, 3-4 melee units can, probably, encircle any infantry force, and even feigned charges can tie up an high value units.

I suspect bow cavalry may be the most versatile units in shogun. If economically viable a stack of them can probably take out any other type of stack. Use their speed to avoid other cavalry, pepper melee infantry with arrows, and charge ranged units, and they also have the longest movement range on the strategic map. The downside is that they are micro-management intensive, I can barely manage 2 let alone 16+, and and it is unlikely that it is a viable option outside the Takeda.

In my normal armies I usually just keep a pair of YCav whose main role is as a fire-and-forget general killer. I would prefer to use KCav as they require less care to use properly, but the superior anti-cav performance and lower cost end up taking preference. Light Cav I usually ignore, their smaller number put me off.

BTW, Frogbeastegg, thank you for your guides, they were my universal go to wisdom source in MTW, and I greatly enjoyed both your Rome and Shogun 2 guides as well.

[jepp21]

jacobin.

U say that cav archers are useless because of their low armor and bad penetration? Thats prob. because u dont' skirmish with them. If you move them to the flanks of the enemy archers they will rip em' to pieces, but u gotta keep them moving

In RTW u could just sit there with your archer cav without having them to move and pwn the enemy foot archers. CA has wisely chosen to nerf cav archers so that they can't win a fight againgst foot archers while immobile

U just have to use skill and move your cav around instead of charging head on or leaving your arch cav immoble during a skirmish

[Catma]

Easier flanking, and distracting enemy units. If you can peel off 3 enemy units with 3 cav units, you haven't done much. But if you circle around wide and charge the enemy line AFTER you pull those 3 units out...

Despite their speed, in fact exactly because of it, cavalry don't facilitate fast victories. You can win an even, or even pretty losing, battle by microing cavalry correctly... but it will take time.

[Jacobin]

I have used bow cavalry in STW2 and it is precisely the micromanagement that is the problem.

In legendary SP you can't issue orders while paused or slow the speed so this isn't really a practical option - much preferred Rome and Medieval where you could leave your stack of horse archers on skirmish and go off and make a cup of tea knowing that they'd probably have destroyed any infantry army by the time you'd finished.

I have started adding two katana cav to my mid-game killer stacks though and one notched up 775 kills chasing rioters so more than justified the cost.

Also experimented with a half stack of bow and katana cav to raid enemy castles behind enemy lines but they didn't last very long....

[Ca Putt]

I've always understood the point in Horsearchers in Total war and many other games, that they can defeat nearly every other unit when microed correctly, but can be defeated by most units if not.

What I find rather funny to do with cavalry is to take undefended settlements^^, a squadron of 6-8 cavalry(2-2-2 + general + Guard^^) units can defeat an AI driven Garrison with few problems. Not something I'd advise you to do when things are getting tight, more like an alternative to marching your Uber army all across Japan.

Generally I like to have the aforementioned 2 units, however I prefer to have them in addition to my general, as a very bad experience lately made me more cautious when using my general :/ Normally I use them to crush the enemy cavalry first and then charge the enemy from behind or Distort enemy archers. Dunno if it works on legendary but I never had problems with this agenda on normal(also in ROTS).

[GoldenToad]

I no longer go out of my way to train cavalry, I find that Light Cavalry is only useful occsionally on the battlefield. Hammer and anvils are very nice, but I prefer to wrap my troops around the enemies flanks instead.

[Sp4]

Cavalry is pretty useless because everything that counters cavalry easily is spammed in large amounts (bows and spears).

With this patch, you can't even chase down routers anymore, so even less point to have cav now. I used to take some along when I was using stuff like firebombs or matchlocks because enemies would rout in droves and you needed something to catch them, so you didn't fight the same army with 10% less men 1 turn later.

[Maltz]

Do you mean that when we end the battle in the first chance, all routing units are automatically killed?
I think that existed before the patch. And it does killed the importance of Cavalry right there.

Or there is something I missed about the new patch? Thanks.