Why do Roman Cavalry have an Alt Attack?

A glancing look at the unit stats show that Roman, Legionary and Pratoreian cav each have the same melee value whether using sword or spear.

The only difference appears to be a weaker charge when using the sword.

Is this true?

Is there any logical reason to ever use Alt+Attack with Roman cavalry?

i think sword is better when chasing routers, or atleast i seems so too me...

Don't swords get a bonus against spears? i.e., If the roman calvalry is engaged with a spear cavalry, using a sword in close melee gives a bonus? Jus pondering: do not know the answer to that myself. That's the only reason I could think of when I noticed the two attacks were the same.

To me it seems that the units attack more often with swords, maybe the animation is shorter.
If you give an attack command with alt, they will charge with lances and switch afterwards, when chasing routers they seem to always use their first weapon.
If that´s not convincing enough i might say that in my oppinion cavalry fighting with swords looks better.

Hmmmm..

Swords are for melee. They probably work better so your cav dont get slaughtered by archers after the initial charge, maybe. ill have to try it.

I gotta find a way to remap the alt attack button.

yeah, they use the primary during the charge, but if the charge doesn't break the nme, but you want to have them stay in melee and chop it out, you switch to the secondary gladius because it's more effective in melee after the charge bonus is gone. At least that's what I THINK it's for. Sure would be cool if they automatically switched to swords when engaged in melee but no longer moving (or at least when the charge bonus is gone and they're no longer moving at Charge speed).

it would be a nice feature to reduce the micromanagment

Originally Posted by Servius1234

Sure would be cool if they automatically switched to swords when engaged in melee but no longer moving (or at least when the charge bonus is gone and they're no longer moving at Charge speed).

Don't they? (Like phalanx and others) The animations seem to suggest so IIRC. Gotta go take a closer look.

Far as I know, they don't. Annoying really. It's not that much of an issue with the sorts of cavalry whose primary and secondary combat stats are nigh identical (the post-Marian Roman ones and Sacred Band, I seem to recall), but for the likes of Cataphracts whose backup weapons perform rather differently it's kind of irritating micromanagement.

'Course, if you don't like the secondary attacks stats of some cavalry they're ridiculously easy to modify, if only by a point or two...

They don't automatically switch?, like TEP said the animation would indicate that they do, if they don't well ...learn something new everyday I guess.

Can't swear by this, but i recall reading a post where someone said that using the ALT-attack (at least for cav that have a good alternate weapon attack) is best. They said using alt, the cav will charge with spears, then switch to swords. They also complained that it should be the default behavior for those cav types, instead of the added micro-mgmt.

i tried to Alt-attack and it actually a dicey situation
the result i have

(1) The cavalry charge, hit the unit, moving through, turn around, charge again, and finally melee (sometimes with swords, sometimes with spears)

(2) The cavalry charge, hit the unit, switch to swords then melee.

can anyone confirm?

actually i like the primary/secondary setting.
i just think if the 'overrun setting' we so love in STW and MTW is gone, they should make the 'double-charge' setting as fixed, while we can choose between primary and secondary.

For Melee Cav
Primary: charge with spear but do not melee
Secondary: charge with spear then melee with swords.

I have played multiple custom battles with diffrent cavalry units to test the alt attack thing.

I played:
roman cavalry vs. swordmen (gaul)
catapract vs. lybian spearmen
greek cavalry vs. ibearian infantry
barbarian noble cavalry vs. ibearian infantry
barbarian cavaly vs. axemen (scytia)
sacredband cavalry vs. iberaian cavaly
companion cavalry vs. eastern infantry exp 3 armoured 2.

My experience is that when attacking ordinary the cavalry will charge with spears and use the spears throuhout the whole combat. When alt-attacking the cavalry unit charges with spears, and switch to swords when the charge is over.

However, this didnt happen to all the cavaly units. Alt-attack didnt seem to have any effect on the greek cavalry, barbarian noble cavalry and barbarian cavalry. They just charged in with spears and used them throughout the combat.

It seems as only the best cavalry(heavy cavaly) carry swords in addition to thei spears. But I am not sure of this. Does any one know a way to check if the cavalry carry swords?


In my battles the cavalry generally fought better when alt-attacking. In the first exsample, roman cavalry vs. swords men, I lost when attacking the ordinary way, and won when alt attacking. In the other cases the cavalry routed the enemy faster and sustained lesser casulties when alt-attacking. the only exception to this was the last exsample, companion cavaly vs. eastern infantry exp 3 armoured 2, where the cavalry unit sustained 10 more casulties when alt-attacking.

Most units with secondary attacks have the attacks mentioned in their description. If you want to be sure, though, look in export_descr_units.txt.

-Simetrical

Is there any change in attack-icon when alt-attacking with cavalry? (Like the change from pilum to sword with hastati).

Originally Posted by Herakleitos

Is there any change in attack-icon when alt-attacking with cavalry? (Like the change from pilum to sword with hastati).

nope. No change in the attack icon. the only way to see if it has worked is when the unit has entered combat.