Is this possible in RTW ? I don't know if anyone remembers any of my all cavalry SP "tactics" (replicating historical Turkish mounted warfare) from MTW but if you do you know what I mean.

If you don't what I mean is ...is there any faction which you can play and on the battlefield, eliminate "superior" foot (and horse) enemies with "inferior" mounted troops ?

All replies appreciated and noted. Thanks in anticipation.

Salute !

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obviosuly depending on difficulty levels and factions, but yes, in my experience it is and is very effective (if you can micro manage good enough!). Parthians are an obvious example, with good horse archers and cataphracts, plus parthian cavalry which is both a horse archer and can fight in hand to hand combat. Pontus can too, with Pontic Light and Heavy Cavalry plus Cappadocian cavalry. Pontic general too has a missile weapon. Armenia with Cataphract archers, horse archers and cataphracts. Macedonia can do it alone against most match ups with just Light Lancers, and Later Companion Cavalry. I havent played them yet, but Egyptians could do good too I feel as their cavalry is very fast and reasonable (but less so later in he game).

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Thanks AA.

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Greetings....played as germans the other night vs Romans in several games. In one I used warbands center to hold the Roman foot whilst german Cav swept the wings, rolled thru the bow and hit from behind. They turned to fight but several withdraw and charge and they melted.
Another game my foe moved several foot and covering cav to the extreme rt wing and his ally center reinforced his rt. I charged his rt with foot to hold his foot and my cav went into the split and caught his extreme wing in flank and sent it running, then hit his rt with allies frrom behind and slaughtered them.
Granted I am not as experienced or skillfull with cav but I love the German heavies. The thing in RTW seems to be cav is toast if you try to sustain melle....you more than ever must charge and withdraw and recharge.....
Dimeolas

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As Carthage on very hard, I use the two light/med cav units as the backbone of my army. I've had no trouble taking out phalanx armies with it so far. I've also taken out triarii armies with it. All you have to do is sandwich the spears, and that is fairly easy with cav. The frontal units take some damage, but the spears rout quickly. Hastati and principes are fairly easy. Throw in a low level elephant unit and you've got a real formation buster that will take care of any "hard points". I've actually had more trouble with the Gaul chosen swordsmen than anything else so far. Still scratching my head over that, but those swordsmen filled armies have been the toughest to handle.

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Here's your All Cav strat:

Build loads of Cav.

Build one unit of skirm/HA

draw the entire army over in pursuit with that one fast unit

charge!

It works, but that's not a good thing.

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LOL, Colovion, that is too true.

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Cavalry armys are great in the early timeframe 270-230 I've been playing right now. Even the Romans have great success with stacks of Equites, Warhounds and Aux. Cav...

The early enemys lack morale and defense, so they get smashed in no time once they are split up. The early skirmishes - small battles are perfect for such warfare

Warhounds are a really interesting unit. Low upkeep and autofillup of dogs, a likely moral malus and their speed make them more than worthy - had great fun withthem, although I didn't/couldn't use them for my historic campaign

PS: the Gauls ain't bad; Chosen Swordsmen with Druidic Support in the Center, Forester as archers and Noblemen as cav with a possible warhound-unit as spooker. Gaul Warband Skirmisher are also simply great for their low price..


Cheers

OA

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yes all cav armies can work. I'm playing as the armenians right now and i basically took over all of russia plus some of the middle east using nothing but horse archers plus the occassional merc (oh and the one unit of cataphracts you get at the start). Only thing you have to worry about is light horse. I've found using armies counsisting of as many HA as you can afford plus 2-4 medium to heavy horse (i was using faction heirs at the start) is pretty much unstoppable, group your HA's in two's or three's activate Cantib circle, then send them off to attack. You'll shortly find the enemy army encircled by 6-12 horse archer circles, the auto skirmish plus your own tender ministrations should be able to keep this up indefinately. It's actually quite a sight, the enemy army will tend to get pull very out of shape as it tries to deal with all these HA units that never quite get in range and because of the Cantib circle they actually stand up to enemy fire better than the enemy seem to be able to respond to theirs.
Eventually it'll all come to an end, most of the time the computer gives up after losing maybe 30-40% of his guys having shot about 1-5% of mine he then starts the long (and arrow filled)trek out of there, if it looks like he'll fight it to the end you just send in the heavy horse once you've used up most of your arrows. Sometimes you get unlucky and lose a unit or two of HA's too a pincer movement but in general it's pretty foolproof, oh yeah keep the heavy horse near the HA's but not too near basically you want his army focussed on the HA's and not on closing with your HH should a unit of HA's receive the attention of some Light Horse or other "interesting" unit just lead the HA's back towards the HH's,basically the HH is just close fire support for any HA's who get in trouble, well that and breaking those final high moral units with charges.
The only real problem with this tactic is it makes seiges a lot more difficult and that i haven't found a real solution to very light horse heavy armies (such as the ones the egyptians have started sending against me after i destroyed the last four stacks of heavy foot that they sent against me).
Oh one last advantage in RTW that Cav have compared to MTW is the increased movement on the strat map, you really can do hit and run tactics on 1500 strong armies with your two units of horse archers as they trundle across the desert.

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For an experiment on mdm in SP I took a Scythian army vs a Roman in flat grass. Of the approx 1300 Romans who took the field about 100 were left alive. Romans sent a 3 unit HC push to my left flank which I drew off and countered with my Noble cav.....I set my LCA in cantabrian circles on their foot, and moved my other HC away. I let the LCA wear down his army and the AI slpit them up. Stragglers were meat for the grinder. Wear them down with LCA, lure them away from the main body, then hit them from two opposite sides with HC.
I did in my ineptitude have trouble keeping on top of the spreadout army and I lost 4 or 5 units. A human opponent may keep his troops together. And more missile troops on Roman side may help. Will try some new tests. Scythians are fun!
D

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In my current Scythian campaign I use only Scythian horse archers and two axmen for the battering rams. I have conquered all of Russia, Germany and the Balkans. 100% horse archers armies rule the game so far. In the last 4 turns I was attacked by all the Roman fractions and defeated 3 Roman armies of 1500 each with 500 horse archers, with almost no casulties.

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I can only agree to that statement.

Probably this is why Scythia is normally not unlockable. But the Parthians do have those Horse Archers, too, right?

And for "depends on the units you were fighting" -> Principes mainly, Archers, Horse Archers, Triarii - a very well rounded and powerful Roman Army led by a Scipii General.

Hey, just face it. Cavalry charges everything, and all that is left is a user (Longasc) complaining about the strength of Cav charges!

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