Cavalry way overpowered

[discovery1]

No it is not what happened in real life. Real life battles usually took some time in melee, minutes or hours even. Things collapsed in minutes when flanked, not in less than 10 seconds. It takes time for panic to set in and for the men to run. I doubt you will find it realistic. Heavy infantry is peasant level in RTW with respect to morale.

But in real life, the blocks of men were MUCH larger. I'd bet that the largest army you can have, even on the largest size, is at best half the size of a rf legion(5000 men I think). It makes sense that the enemy collapses so quickly when hit in the flank, at least with these unit sizes.

[Morindin]

But in real life, the blocks of men were MUCH larger. I'd bet that the largest army you can have, even on the largest size, is at best half the size of a rf legion(5000 men I think). It makes sense that the enemy collapses so quickly when hit in the flank, at least with these unit sizes.

This is true, people forget that real life battles were fought with thousands of men and RTW are merely hundreds.

The Romans typically used three lines of battle and each line consisted of far more men than we get to play with.

Also, only early units lead by a 0 star general flee quickly. Even 0 valour Legioneer troops wont flee until they're down to a very small number of men.

The last battle I fought against the Macedonians my units of Principes with maybe 1 valour would flee when they were reduced to 15 or so men, and would put in one hell of a fight. They were only lead by a three star general too.

[Morindin]

I have to laugh at this thread. People were claiming cavalry was underpowered in MTW because swords would beat them when they charged head on (into Fresh infantry too mind you), and now people are claiming cavalry is overpowered because heaven forbid, they kill swordsmen when charging into the flank?

Golly gosh who would ever have thought.

[Thoros of Myr]

I was mainly speaking in terms of the killing speed with cav and I think as was pointed out the main problem there is the small unit sizes, shallow ranks etc... that was making it feel over the top. I'm going to play on huge from now on until maybe a mod comes out that just increases the size of infantry.

[Morindin]

I was mainly speaking in terms of the killing speed with cav and I think as was pointed out the main problem there is the small unit sizes, shallow ranks etc... that was making it feel over the top. I'm going to play on huge from now on until maybe a mod comes out that just increases the size of infantry.

If you're playing as Romans you get way larger unit sizes after you can build legions. 122 I think.

I think that might be pro-marius reforms.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I was mainly speaking in terms of the killing speed with cav and I think as was pointed out the main problem there is the small unit sizes, shallow ranks etc... that was making it feel over the top. I'm going to play on huge from now on until maybe a mod comes out that just increases the size of infantry.

But people who have low spec PCs and use small unit sizes shouldn't have to sustain ridiculous and unrealistic killing speeds. Using the large unit size is just like using a chewing gum to hold a wall...

IMHO, the killing speed itself as nothing to do with ranks or unit size. It's because the game has been detoured the arcade way. Arcade newbies have no attention span for much more realistic large battles that can last for 1 or 2 hours.

Of course I'm speaking only from my experience with the demo and some mods for it...

[Morindin]

But people who have low spec PCs and use small unit sizes shouldn't have to sustain ridiculous and unrealistic killing speeds. Using the large unit size is just like using a chewing gum to hold a wall...

IMHO, the killing speed itself as nothing to do with ranks or unit size. It's because the game has been detoured the arcade way. Arcade newbies have no attention span for much more realistic large battles that can last for 1 or 2 hours.

Of course I'm speaking only from my experience with the demo and some mods for it...

It has nothing to do with arcade style or newbies with no attention span, and I find it far more realistic than waiting for a unit of 166 men to kill off a unit of 3 men, that took about 60 seconds in MTW.

Again heavily armoured troops slog it out for quite a while, maybe killing one another every 20 seconds. I have zoomed in and watched plenty of fights to observe these so called killing speeds and even unarmoured units mill around each other for about 6 seconds in a "parry" stage before taking a swipe. Sometimes it misses sometimes it hits.
Lightly armoured units tend to take that swipe much quicker resulting in fast deaths between them but the heavily armoured units do not do this at all.

[Thoros of Myr]

Theres no substitute for more men on the field.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Again heavily armoured troops slog it out for quite a while, maybe killing one another every 20 seconds. I have zoomed in and watched plenty of fights to observe these so called killing speeds and even unarmoured units mill around each other for about 6 seconds in a "parry" stage before taking a swipe.

So, tell me... ...do you realy think that, in real life combat, ANY unit could be sweeped off the field in 6 seconds?

If that was true, battles like Andrianople would have lasted about 20 min, instead of a whole day, from early morning tiill after sunset...

Sometimes it misses sometimes it hits. Lightly armoured units tend to take that swipe much quicker resulting in fast deaths between them but the heavily armoured units do not do this at all.

That should be obvious. In reality it is so also. But not at the rate we're seeing in this game. In real life, a unit is not a coerent single-minded entity. It is a collection of many men and these man react and recieve different stimulae and information throughout a battle. So, accordingly, some of them might percieve a cavalry charge on the flank, while the other flank won't know it for some minutes. We're nor talking minutes here, we're talking 1-2 seconds at the most for the whole unit to rout...

[Thon]

since i havn't faced off against any greek armies in the campaign or used much heavy cavalry, i gave about a dozen custom battles a shot.

regular hoplites vs legionaire cavalry. the legionaire cavalry doesn't do half bad, but the hoplites hold them, and even won several battles(though they were mauled). taking into account lego cavalry costs about 2x what reg hoplites do, and take 2 turns to train, i'm content with that.

armored hoplites are downright scary though, do a few custom battles with them. i tried everything i could think of short of elephants with laser eyes. lego cavalry didn't get one kill in a few battles, praetorian cavalry couldn't kill more than a half dozen with several charges before they broke. and the parthian cataphracts would be lucky to get a few kills in multiple charges

by no means did i do an exhaustive test, just several custom battles, 1 on 1, no upgrades, and a straight up charge into a phalanx's front. but nobody can convince me that heavy cavalry are some kind of unstoppable rambo's on horseback, cutting through professional spear walls like they were red shirt guys on star trek.