ALL Cavalry tactics

[troymclure]

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.

[Armchair Athlete]

I think the best way to win with all cavalry armies for siege warfare is simply to starve them out. If they try to sally, they will never be able to catch you and due to the extremely poor way in which units sally out of the gates you can defeat any try to come out (with missile fire or charges). The result will be at worst a draw and the siegeing continues.

[Doug-Thompson]

Greetings, Master Sinan



Not only is it possible, it's possible in a whole new dimension.

First, there's a new thread showing somebody wiping out a bunch of hoplites, although it was a bridge crossing battle.

Second, and more important, the campaign map is a Mongol-like players dream.

(Disclaimer: I haven't played a horse archer campaign yet. I'm concentrating on the strategy game. Horse archer civs, as you know, require tactics. If I started with both, it would take weeks to complete a campaign and unlock the horse archer factions.)

Speed is a real advanage now, not just a limited tactical advantage. Horse archers will swarm over this map, able to avoid combat when they want at will and close without mercy or escape when they want. Infantry will be cut off. You will be able to block the advance of a whole army with one swift unit until you're ready. You will be able to defeat an army and then pursue and destroy the survivors in a second and third battle.

There will be no escape.

You played superbly when all you had was a fiddle before. Buy this game and play a Stradivarius.

You will have to complete a campaign to unlock the true HA factions, as mentioned in the disclaimer.

[Orda Khan]

Hi Sinan,
I remember that all cav Turkish army online too
You are looking for lightweight units aren't you, not big heavy cav like Cataphracts?
I ran a custom battle and ate a Seleucid army of Silver shield Pikes, Cohorts (? .. a Roman type unit ) Greek cav and Cataphracts. I selected an army of Scythian horse archers, Nobles and Noble horse archers. My arrows put out the sun and my Scythian Nobles easily dealt with the Cataphracts when they charged ( maybe because there would only be about 10 left by then ) The Pikes were very tough though and even when hit in the rear they turned too efficiently but I'm using a modded game to get some realism so the cav charge is less effective

So there you go, it's definitely a SP possibility but would be much harder in MP I would guess. I would also highly recommend the mods at TWCenter, the game is far more realistic when speed is reduced and kill rate also

.......Orda

Edit: Silver Shield Legionaries....I knew I'd get it wrong. They had some Companion cav too

[Shahed]

Greetings All !

Many thanks for the replies, most interesting.
Thank you !

Salute !

[frogbeastegg]

I love cavalry in RTW, absolutely love it. I was always a heavy infantry type of frog in STW and MTW but in RTW I am going to try a cavalry heavy campaign. I just can't choose which faction; any recommendations for an interesting short 15 province campaign using a cavalry heavy army? Something with good units available without too much building up; in my Julii short campaign I never got past principes and I dawdled my way to the end.

I take it you read my Victoria comedy AAR, Sinan? You're the second person using that quote in a signature; I must have been on good form.

[Leet Eriksson]

Frog you might wanna try the Scythians, they only have a cav army, and only 2 non-cav units, Axemen and Peasants.

I haven't unlocked them yet in Campiagn, but they are pretty awesome in Custom battle.

[Red Harvest]

Not sure about length of the campaign, but Carthage has good lancers that ride medium horse. You will need to hire Numidian cav for light horse to chase down other light horse...such as Numidians. Your cav should run all over the Roman units even on "very hard" battle settings--indicating that they are very strong on "medium." And if you want to be particularly devilish, buy an elephant or two. Elephants are handy for knocking down the gates of wooden walled cities, without waiting for siege equipment.

I haven't tried Sacred Band Cav yet. They should be real killers!

[Doug-Thompson]

I love cavalry in RTW, absolutely love it.

As well you should, Froggie. There really wasn't much of a point to "lighter shades" of the cavalry in MTW.

On the tactical map, foot archers were less expensive and less vulnerable to missiles than horse archers. Knights and many other units were better at melee than the medium and light cavalry types.

On the MTW strategy map, everybody's movement rate was the same -- one province at a time. No matter where your units came from, you lined up and went head to head, too.

Now light swift cavalry will fight as God intended -- screening, seeing the enemy without him seeing you, slowing his progress, causing losses on the march, harrassing to the point of destruction, surrounding and panicing and chasing down the survivors. You will also be able to give horse archers the micro they always needed if we can really let the AI handle many of the melee units.

Sorry I can't help you on which faction to use, although there seems to be plenty of advice on that. I'm still concentrating on the strategy/economy/politics aspects.

=========

Also, I've rethought my violin analogy.

Sinan, you played beautifully before.

Now pick up and play a violin that has all its strings.

[Spino]

All cavalry armies are doable but you really need a good number of horse archers or javelin armed cavalry to harass and soften up the enemy before charging in. Horse Archers are now absolute terrors in Rome with their generous ammo count and the larger battle maps. In the early stages of any campaign game these units are a godsend for player or AI factions with limited funds. In contrast to Medieval Horse Archers are almost too powerful now, especially when controlled by a human!

I am currently playing a campaign on Hard/Hard as Armenia and my field armies have been 100% cavalry (mostly Horse Archers with a few General units and the occasional Sarmatian cavalry merc unit). The exception to this is when I am sieging a city and need some infantry for an assault (the game won't let you initiate an assault without infantry). With Armenia's tight economy in the early years these units are pure gold. The only problem is that you have to fight the urge to use ahistorical tactics which, in many circumstances, would allow you to virtually annihilate every army you face.

My biggest problem arose when the Seleucids showed up at my capital with a handful of phalangite units and a single unit of War Elephants. My entire army was powerless against the elephants. After routing the phalangites my horse archers unloaded everything on those pachyderms and did squat.