marching speed and cavalry

**Pycckuu** · 05-22-2005, 18:11

After reading this thread over at TWC, i have realized that it might work really well in RTW.
In short, according to that thread, a large enough cavalry force will slow down that army because of the ammounts of supplies that horses need to consume.
In my opinion, if the marching distances of a certain army were implemented based on the army's size, and its infantry to cavalry ratio, it could force the player to use the more or less realistic troop loadouts. Basically, it should be something similar to this:
1. Small armies march alot further per turn because they need less supplies and are more mobile in general.
2. An army with a large cavalry force should move slower, and (if possible, of course) each stack of cavalry will reduce the marching distance by some ammount.
3. Non native armies should suffer marching penalties when they are in the desert or snow. Once again, the more horses there are, the slower they would move.

If this is possible, it may make the game more realistically balanced in terms of cavalry use.

What are your thoughts on this?

**Shrapnel** · 05-22-2005, 18:25

It sounds great! But I would think that say if you had a smallish force of about 3 cavalry units travelling alone, then it should be normal cavalry speed.

**Bouchious** · 05-22-2005, 18:29

doesn' the effect of realism become different with different unit sizes? so units would have to be set to one size??

**Steppe Merc** · 05-22-2005, 18:32

Nope. Steppe cavalry were hardly slowed down by large amounts. They didn't bring a bunch of supplies, their horses lived off of the steppe. And hardly any army, with the exception of pure steppe forces (even Parthians almost always had infantry) had an all cavalry army.

**Pycckuu** · 05-22-2005, 21:01

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc

Nope. Steppe cavalry were hardly slowed down by large amounts. They didn't bring a bunch of supplies, their horses lived off of the steppe. And hardly any army, with the exception of pure steppe forces (even Parthians almost always had infantry) had an all cavalry army.

Then the steppe factions can recieve bonuses in the movenent, maybe. This would help to make each faction feel more unique, ala Shogun, instead of "you get horsemen with pointy hats, we get the ones with purple shields!" deal.

On a side note, i am wondering if this is even possible?

**Spongly** · 05-23-2005, 07:45

To be fair, the time scale is pretty bizarre, but better than MTW - I remember in Viking invasion it took about a decade to march from York to the south coast of England -a feat that Harold Godwinsson managed in 5 days!

**cunctator** · 05-23-2005, 09:32

Originally Posted by Pycckuu

Then the steppe factions can recieve bonuses in the movenent, maybe. This would help to make each faction feel more unique, ala Shogun, instead of "you get horsemen with pointy hats, we get the ones with purple shields!" deal.

On a side note, i am wondering if this is even possible?

A non steppe faction also has no problems finding food for their horses in the steppes. A steppe army marching through a desert will face the same supply problems as any other army.

**Shrapnel** · 05-23-2005, 18:52

I think that the high-quality cavalry and invantry units should travel farther than the normal ones, and also do you think that Diplomats should have horses? I mean it makes sense, they would not awlk everywhere.

**Temple** · 05-23-2005, 20:27

Wether or not the diplomat animations have horses is kinda irrelevant. They already move faster (ie. longer on the campaign map) than any other unit, so I would suspect that they ride. Though, when you think about it, the whole concept of having a single diplomat running around conducting all your business with a country is kinda unrealistic, so we can safely assume that the diplomats of RTW are symbolic of diplomatic relations..

As for the steppe factions and horses, they might very well have had no difficulties on teh steppes, but as they moved into unknown terrain it became harder and harder for them to support their horses. Both the Huns and Mongols were slowed down when they left the steppes, and found grazing grounds to be mroe scarce than they were used to.

I like the idea of movement being relative to army size, but I doubt it can be done.. Something like that would almost certainly involve hard-coded elements of the game.

**Dago** · 05-22-2005, 18:52

For making the game more realistic the armies should be able to march from Spain to Germany per turn because one turn is 6 months that would be realy realistic.The cavalry especialy light should be able to march even further.