HA in RTW

[Doug-Thompson]

Won the Roman campaign yesterday evening, played Parthians all night.

For the first time ever, I applauded a computer game out loud. When a big battle with the Seleucids was over, I felt like CA deserved a hand.

The problems infantry players have with this game are pretty obvious -- the foot troops run around like winged Mercury. However, this is a GREAT game from a cavalry player's point of view, and I'm not talking about cavalry being overpowered.

1. Skirmish mode actually works. HA hit and run from the closest unit, not the one they're firing at, or seem to so far.

2. The keyboard commands for wheeling, or rotating a unit's facing, are perfect. So are the commands for widening or shortening the formation, which appear to work while the unit is on the run.

3. You get to deploy before you attack, a big improvement over M:TW where you could only deploy properly when you were defending. All units may benefit from careful placement, but HA do in particular.

4. HA fire on the move.

5. Galloping through a routing unit works very well.

But first, foremost and above all: The strategic map is a cavalry player's dream come true. Cavalry can explore and raid almost at will. Even if an infantry-based army has some decent cavalry, that cavalry will be badly outnumbered if it detaches from the army to chase my cavalry.

Three armies of cavalry converged on one invading Egyptian army in my current game, coming hundreds of miles from each direction. Then the commanding general hired more cavalry mercenaries. This is great. I get to finish that battle tonight and fully expect to give the Egyptians a thorough humbling.

In the earlier battle, the one I applauded, the Seleucids had a general, his unit of bodyguard cavalry and a good unit of light cavalry -- the ideal anti-HA unit -- but were short of missile troops. They had one unit of peltasts among the phalanx and peasants. Less than 500 Parthian cavalry, all HA except for two units of 54 cataphracts each, killed more than 700 Seleucids and routed the rest in an open battle. I wrote the figures down at home but, if I remember, I lost between 5 and 10 men.