Cavalry attacks - in case you didn´t know

**Husar** · 10-17-2004, 23:44

I just found out something which I think is worth telling the ones that don´t know it yet.
I just tried some custom battles(didn´t have time to repeat them, it´s late here

) and found out that my Parthian cataphracts got slaughtered by roman urban cohorts and I thought about the description of the Praetorian cav, sacred cav and cataphracts saying they would have weapons for melee aswell. Knowing from very rare occassions I knew they had them, but in 99% of all melees they didn´t use them. So I looked up the stats for the cataphracts´ weapons to see if it´s worth using them and recognized that their spears have 7 base attack and 15 charge bonus like we all should know, but their maces have 9 base attack and 4 charge bonus, plus armor piercing which means that only half of the enemy´s armour counts when attacking with this weapon. So there had to be a way to make them use the maces and I wanted to know if it was worth it.
My 1st approach was the ranged weapons approach with ALT + rightclick that makes ranged guys like archers fight in melee - and it worked.

I let my cataphracts charge the urban cohort like always to get that nice +15 charge bonus and in melee I gave them a new attack order while holding down ALT, they immidiately switched to their maces and while before with their lances they sucked and got routed by a lot of surviving romans, this time they routed the romans and won, although it was close and I had only about 7 men left.
Perhaps some knew this already, but I hope it helps the ones who didn´t and though it may be a bit of micromanagement I think it´s worth doing it at least for cataphracts(didn´t check the other units).

**Blodrast** · 10-17-2004, 23:50

hmm, so they wouldn't automatically switch to their secondary weapons after the charge ? sigh, more micromanagement...(if this was intended)
but at least if you're right, we can partially fix it, by forcing them to switch whenever time allows (and if you only have a few cav units ;P)

**Husar** · 10-17-2004, 23:55

I just checked some stats, most spear-armed cav have swords as secondaries, swords have no armour piercing, but a few get +2 attack for using swords. But even if they don´t get any bonus for their secondary weapon I think it could be still worth using it because I got the impression that the attack-rate of those short weapons is higher(shorter animation) and so they can do more damage in the same period of time.

edit: it´s getting better

I just gave some roman cav only one attack order with ALT and watched them charge with lances and then switch to swords immediately, guess that makes micromanagement superfluous.

But now I have to get some sleep, good night and have fun.

**Servius** · 10-17-2004, 23:59

best post this in the stickied Bugs List. I think it's a great improvement to allow cavalry to have two weapons and to use them in different situations, but not having the switch occur automatically seems like it HAS to be a bug, because there doesn't seem to be any benefit to leaving the switch manual. When would someone want their cavalry, post-charge and engaged in melee, to continue using lances and not switch to swords?

**Spetulhu** · 10-18-2004, 06:16

Would this make much of a difference for my Generals and their heavy cavalry?

**Kekkonen** · 10-18-2004, 08:39

Ah, so this is why my equites stink in close combat. They're great in creating panic (esp. in light infantry or when flanking) with a charge, but they've been having problems finishing off units even though the last remnants of the enemy are running in panic right in the middle of the cavalry group.