Cantabrian Circle = Exhaustion?

[Doug-Thompson]

The Cantabrian Circle tactic seems to tire out cavalry archers quickly. Ordinary skirmishing gives them more time to rest, at least against infantry targets.

I don't see how the demoralizing effect of a constant trickle of arrows offsets the wearing out of your horses.

What am I missing here? Does the movement make it harder to hit horse archers with missiles, or something?

[SpencerH]

I havent found em to be effective in anything but the smallest battles. They take up a lot of space and tend to get caught between armies (and killed) in anything aside from flat desert/prarie terrain.

[The Hun]

I was thinking along same lines. I have not done lots of tests but I noticed my Scythians in cantabrian circle were taking less hits. I suppose this is obvious really as HA only skirmish away from direct attack and just trade arrows with archers. They do need room to perform this feature effectively or else they run the risk of being pinned between units where they then die fast

[Doug-Thompson]

I was thinking along same lines. I have not done lots of tests but I noticed my Scythians in cantabrian circle were taking less hits. I suppose this is obvious really as HA only skirmish away from direct attack and just trade arrows with archers. They do need room to perform this feature effectively or else they run the risk of being pinned between units where they then die fast

I'll try and test this tonight, too --- running HA around in front of some foot archers. Maybe we'll get similar results.

[hoof]

I use the Cantabrian circle only when facing opposing archer fire. Your horses are big targets, and at a gallop, they are much harder to hit. My horse archers survive much longer under fire in the circle than standing around. Plus, they don't seem to lose their accuracy.

Foot archers are one of the few real threats to well-managed horse archers, and the Cantabrien Circle is useful for levelling the field a bit.

[troymclure]

i use cantabrian circle almost all the time with horse archers. It does seem more effective vs enemy arrow fire, i also like the way it looks having 6-8 HA units running in spinning circles of death all over the map slowly wearing the enemy away. :)

[Doug-Thompson]

Two units advance, say, 40 yards. One walks forward 40 yards. The other walks 40 yards forward AND runs in a complete circle.

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I tried to check about arrow fire earlier, but the troops wouldn't run in a circle. It was on a hill, but I don't think that should have had an effect. I'll try again later.