cavalry in EB

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

hi, I''m sorry if this question has been asked before but I couldn't find it in the older topics.

At this time cavalry charges are capable of breaking only the worst types of infantry. Even elite cavalry such as companions and cataphracts cannot break infantry in a flanking charge. A direct charge is not even an option.

A major problem that can not be solved is of course the fact that phalangites can make a 180 degrees turn in 1 second. Considering all this, is EB going to make cavalry stronger in later builds of the mod?

thank you,

Mad Guitar Murphy

[Rodion Romanovich]

I think you're exaggerating a bit, most enemy infantry can be broken if charged from behind with companions or cataphracts, you just need to have several units, 4 at the very least, to hit the same unit at one time. That's very realistic, because in real life the main strength of the cavalry isn't just it's powerful charge, but it's ability to move quickly so that it can achieve local superiority and strike a weak spot. If you do this and break a single enemy unit, you might thereby break their entire line, making it easy to roll up the rest of their line causing a chain rout. But it's necessary to pin the enemy properly before charging, unless the opposition is a light infantry unit. Also try withdrawing, reforming and recharging enemy units to make them break, rather than bogging down the cavalry in melee. A final note is to remember to emphasize on the infantry engagement and see the cavalry as something that can give an extra punch, not something that should be necessary for victory. If you try these things I think you'll find that cavalry in EB isn't at all underpowered, but very well balanced. That's at least my opinion so I hope EB won't power up the cavalry any more.

[stalin]

You can't expect cavalry to do well if they are unsupported and standing still, after all they are not the medieval armored tank unit. In vanilla you could charge heavy cav head on into a phallanx and the phallanx would break. I use my cav to chase down routing units chase away skirmishers or to deliver the decisive hammer blow onto exposed flank. They are expensive and I regard them as a luxury unit.

[Kralizec]

In my experience, the best way to utilize shock cavalry in EB (or RTW in general) goes like this.

To maximise the effect of a cavalry charge, you need to make the surface on wich first contact is made as large as possible. Forget the wedge formation, in RTW it's useless. Have a phalanx unit pin an enemy, circle your cavalry all the way around and put its front parallel to the enemy's back. I prefer to keep the cavalry square at least 3 ranks thick, this helps them in the ensuing melee, plus if you want to withdraw (for another charge), they'll take less casualties then if they're spread thin. Fortunately in most cases this doesn't even allow an enemy phalanx to wheel around 180 degrees, and are forced to switch to their swords, if they're not already routing.
In handy text format:


__________C C C C C
__C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C
__C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C (heavy cavalry, align then charge)
__C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C




_e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e
__e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e (enemy infantry)
_e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e
__e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (phalanx)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Note: if you don't have a phalanx unit at your hand, you can use something else and put it on guard mode to keep it formed in a square. Even with the lowly pandaptoi (sp?) or Illyrian tribal levies this works, you'll be surprised how long they can hold out in guard mode, even against more elite units.

[soibean]

I think 1.5 fixed the cavalry charge bug and actually allows for some more push behind the charge
as far as i know with the 1 second response team phalanx... nothing has come up to change that, its in the game mechanics. Thats only as far as I know so dont quote me on that

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

Thanks for the replies.

My questions comes from my experiences during my (third) parthian campaign so perhaps I should note that the option of pinning down infantry with my own infantry isn't really an option. Even though horse archers are usually sufficient to destroy any army the AI sents I'd like to use heavy cavalry for anything more challenging than destroying routing infantry.

Right now my tactic is. c= heavy cavalry h= horse archers i=infantry

King Murphy's Army
hhhhhhhhhh cccccccc hhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhh cccccccc hhhhhhhhhh


ccccc iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii cccccc
ccccc iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii cccccc
Evil Seleucids army

First I surround his heavy cavalry on both flanks with horse archers who destroy them within minutes. I leave my heavy cavalry in place because aiding the ha would result in massive friendly fire casualties.

This is the new situation.

ccccccccc
ccccccccc

hh iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii hh
hh iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii hh

hhhhhhhhhhhh

My ha attack should at the phalingites forcing them to turn their backs to my heavy cavalry, but then my problem arises, without infantry support, but with the enemy surrounded and continually charged by cataphracts (as legio mentioned, I agree, with history, charging and reforming is the best tactic) the result is a lot of dead expensive cataphracts and the ha having to do the job.

[Avicenna]

Use your rubbish hillmen or Eastern Infantry to bog up the expensive units of the enemy, and then charge them from the rear with your Cataphracts. They'll probably break within seconds. Or of course, in EB, any infantry you can get your hands on. They're cheap and expendable, after all. All-rounded armies are better anyway: cavalry armies tend to do bady in sieges, not being able to handle siege weapons and all.

[Dayve]

It's not underpowered... Id you have the enemy pinned down and the enemy unit is at the very least winded, or 'steady' in morale, (although shaken is better) then even the crappiest of cavalry like Roman equittes can break them... Cavalry of the western world in this time was never EVER meant to charge head on into the enemy... It's always been there to hit their flanks or rear and cause mass panic... Or in other words exploit weak spots.

Eastern cavalry however, i agree they should have bonuses... Especially cataphracts. My ancient eastern knowledge isn't all that fruitful but some eastern cavalry of the time was designed to charge head on into enemy infantry wasn't it?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Thanks for the replies.

My questions comes from my experiences during my (third) parthian campaign so perhaps I should note that the option of pinning down infantry with my own infantry isn't really an option. Even though horse archers are usually sufficient to destroy any army the AI sents I'd like to use heavy cavalry for anything more challenging than destroying routing infantry.

Right now my tactic is. c= heavy cavalry h= horse archers i=infantry

King Murphy's Army
hhhhhhhhhh cccccccc hhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhh cccccccc hhhhhhhhhh


ccccc iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii cccccc
ccccc iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii cccccc
Evil Seleucids army

First I surround his heavy cavalry on both flanks with horse archers who destroy them within minutes. I leave my heavy cavalry in place because aiding the ha would result in massive friendly fire casualties.

This is the new situation.

ccccccccc
ccccccccc

hh iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii hh
hh iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii hh

hhhhhhhhhhhh

My ha attack should at the phalingites forcing them to turn their backs to my heavy cavalry, but then my problem arises, without infantry support, but with the enemy surrounded and continually charged by cataphracts (as legio mentioned, I agree, with history, charging and reforming is the best tactic) the result is a lot of dead expensive cataphracts and the ha having to do the job.

Normally seleucids, or evil seleucids that is , will get more and more pezhetairoi later on in the game. Before they do, HAs can wipe entire armies out, but pezhetairoi are a bit too well armored. When that point is reached, I'd recommend switching to a more infantry based army, with horse archers to wipe out enemy medium and light cav, then your heavy cav wipes out enemy heavy cav, then your horse archers try to SPLIT UP the enemy rather than killing them, being very conservative with the arrows. Then use short volleys of arrows followed by cease fire and a heavy cavalry charge (use a wide double line group formation for the heavy cavs and order move fast, then charge when they're close to the target unit to make them go around the flanks of the enemy unit). This way you can wipe out most enemy light infantry, which is first demoralized by the arrows, then the subsequent charge. After that comes the tricky part of dealing with enemy heavy infantry, which requires pinning. Mistophoroi phalangitai are excellent mercenaries that are comparable to pezhetairoi. If you can't get them, trying to isolate the enemy units and pin them with light, mobile infantry that can be kept away from the enemy until just seconds before your heavy cavalry charge comes, is probably the best idea. Try to use units with high defense rather than charge/attack stats, for best results. Achieving a good pinning effect with crappy infantry can be really difficult I must admit, but I'm afraid that's the key to defeating the more heavily armored seleucid infantry.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

yes it was, it is well documented that parthian cataphracts charged roman lines head on and were capable breaking them with a number of charges. Of course roman infantry between 100 bc and 224 AD was arguable the best infantry of the world so this didn't happen too often. Nevertheless the parthian's and sassanids proved that all cavalry armies were capable of crushing much larger well rounded armies.Do I have to mention carrhae?

[paullus]

So is the problem that cataphracts sometimes can't rout phalanx units before the phalanx unit can redirect? Or is it that cataphracts have a really hard time routing heavy infantry in general? I would think a unit of cataphracts vs. a tired unit of Roman legionaries engagement would be a victory for the cataphracts.

[Rodion Romanovich]

One of the tricks at Carrhae was to have a huge supply of arrows, much larger arrow supply than in EB or RTW (but of course EB or RTW with such large arrow supply wouldn't work well for most regular battles). First harass an army with small groups of horse archers for days, then start the battle against an already exhausted and decimated enemy. I'd say Carrhae depended on several factors:
- the large supply of arrows
- the harassing which exhausted the romans before the battle begun
- the open ground
- the roman weaponry with few and short-range missiles and little spears and more short swords

The parthians seem to initially have used their caths to make fake charges to bring the romans out of their testudo formation, to allow the HAs to rain arrows freely. But even when they were in testudo, the roman legionaries weren't protected from the parthian bows that were able to fire arrows with such speed that they could penetrate the roman shields. I wouldn't say that it was the best of roman infantry that faced the real cath charges later in the battle of Carrhae, rather the remaining romans who faced the caths were mentally and physically exhausted and it's difficult to say how many had already been lost to arrows.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

Well, although not a very authoritive and out dated source in Osprey's 'Rome's Enemies - Parthians and Sassanid Persians' Peter Wilcox says on p 20: 'Surena seems to have planned to break the Roman square with a charge by his 1.000 cataphracts, ...'. This seems to imply that a head on charge at the beginning of the battle was a serious option. Due to the fact that the Romans outnumbered the Parthians by a factor of three the charge was cancelled. Also during the same battle the assault force of Crassus' son Publius consisting of 8 cohorts, 500 foot archers and a bunch of gallic cavalry was destroyed in close combat.

The same applies for the Sassanid Persians who destroyed many Roman armies with their heavy cavalry under Shapur I. For instance at Barbalissos (c. 253) and vs Julian the Apostate in 363 AD and at Callinicum in 531 AD.

[Trithemius]

You can't expect cavalry to do well if they are unsupported and standing still, after all they are not the medieval armored tank unit. In vanilla you could charge heavy cav head on into a phallanx and the phallanx would break. I use my cav to chase down routing units chase away skirmishers or to deliver the decisive hammer blow onto exposed flank. They are expensive and I regard them as a luxury unit.

Actually, a modern warfare quibble, you really can't expect tanks to do very well if they are standing still and unsupported either. ;)

Good advice otherwise though!
With the Romani cavalry really is a luxury since you need a solid main-line of infantry and your cavalry is a bit weak compared to vanilla. With other people (Makedonians perhaps?) you have more and better cavalry, but still need to use it wisely since much of your army will be infantry as well.

[Steppe Merc]

yes it was, it is well documented that parthian cataphracts charged roman lines head on and were capable breaking them with a number of charges. Of course roman infantry between 100 bc and 224 AD was arguable the best infantry of the world so this didn't happen too often. Nevertheless the parthian's and sassanids proved that all cavalry armies were capable of crushing much larger well rounded armies.Do I have to mention carrhae?

Well, the cataphracts never charged Romans or anyone head on without the horse archers weakining them up a lot first. To do other wise would be crazy. And the horse archers mainly won Carrhae. What the cataphracts did, and I'm sure "Surena" knew this, was force the Romans closer together. They couldn't just spread out, they were forced to bunch together to present easy targets to the horse archers. This was a very common tactic, a false charge from the heavy horse to make the infantry bunch and then have the horse archers decimate them when their all together, and then when the infantry spread out again, send in the heavy cavalry... And so on.

[Ragabash]

But the problem comes when unarmored skirmishers, slingers and archer kill half of my heavy cavarly with knives and branches.

[abou]

The big issue is the charge bug in 1.2, which is why I am really excited for the port as the huge charge bonuses that heavy cavalry get will be awesome to see.

Something you want to do once the charge hits is to get the cavalry out of there unless they can actually fight the infantry effectively by themselves. To do this, however, make sure the cavalry moves through the infantry formation and does not turn back. If they turn around and disengage you will lose much more men and not get any potential kills on the way.

[Ragabash]

abou

I prefer to use hit and run tactic myself. If you are facing spearmen or phalanx its better to turn around and use hit and run tactics than try to move trough them. Also if you are using hammer and anvil technique you really cant continue moving trough the enemy and then trough your lines, that would break formation of your phalanx.

It is not the hit and run tactic that is causing casulaties. It's when you chase skirmishers, archer or slingers you cant charge them propely. Your cavarly is just walking inside enemies while they are stabbing you cavarly.

Dont worry I know how to use cavarly effeciently.

[econ21]

But the problem comes when unarmored skirmishers, slingers and archer kill half of my heavy cavarly with knives and branches.

I've found this problem with almost all versions of RTW - vanilla, BI, EB, RTR etc. The fragility of cavalry in the "realistic" mods only makes it more obvious. It looks like charging cavalry don't "connect" very well with skirmishers - they visibly crash into close order heavy infantry, but seem to just get "caught up in" loose formation, skirmishing infantry. The retreating skirmishers then stop and "coagulate" around the cavalry, who have lost their impetuous, and often do severe damage on them.

Some people have recommend stringing out your cavalry very thinly when charging skirmishers and even adopting a loose formation, so you connect (charge bonus?) with more of them on impact. Some have even suggested charging through the skirmishers and then recharging back.

Personally, I am reluctant to charge lowly skirmishers with my fine, expensive, but vulnerable, cavalry. I reserve them for more decisive tasks. Instead I rely on slingers etc to see off the pests, but I agree it does not feel right.

[Gealai]

Yup, this seems to be a inherent weakness of RTW, amplyfied by the overall far more realistic cavalry in EB. Is a negative bonus against horse possible?

[Rodion Romanovich]

I've found this problem with almost all versions of RTW - vanilla, BI, EB, RTR etc. The fragility of cavalry in the "realistic" mods only makes it more obvious. It looks like charging cavalry don't "connect" very well with skirmishers - they visibly crash into close order heavy infantry, but seem to just get "caught up in" loose formation, skirmishing infantry. The retreating skirmishers then stop and "coagulate" around the cavalry, who have lost their impetuous, and often do severe damage on them.

Some people have recommend stringing out your cavalry very thinly when charging skirmishers and even adopting a loose formation, so you connect (charge bonus?) with more of them on impact. Some have even suggested charging through the skirmishers and then recharging back.

Personally, I am reluctant to charge lowly skirmishers with my fine, expensive, but vulnerable, cavalry. I reserve them for more decisive tasks. Instead I rely on slingers etc to see off the pests, but I agree it does not feel right.

I seem to be able to solve the skirmisher problem by charging in cavalry units in a double line group formation, which means that when the first get caught in the middle the second line usually routs the enemy, or at least gives the first line a chance to move out of the skirmisher unit without being destroyed. However if I charge in a single line the skirmisher unit is often fast enough to hunt my unit and kill many if I continue charging through, or if I try to turn around and recharge.

[econ21]

I seem to be able to solve the skirmisher problem by charging in cavalry units in a double line group formation...

You mean you use two units of cavalry? To take out one skirmisher? That's a luxury it is hard to afford for those of us playing historical Roman armies! But that's for the tip - it sounds sensible. And historically cavalry does often seem to have been deployed en masse, rather than frittered away in penny packets.

[edyzmedieval]

The BI system of cavalry is much better, especially for ranged cavalry.
Sassanid Immortals used bows before fighting hand to hand. And this kept them in close formation, or at least that's my view of it.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

Well, the cataphracts never charged Romans or anyone head on without the horse archers weakining them up a lot first. To do other wise would be crazy. And the horse archers mainly won Carrhae. What the cataphracts did, and I'm sure "Surena" knew this, was force the Romans closer together. They couldn't just spread out, they were forced to bunch together to present easy targets to the horse archers. This was a very common tactic, a false charge from the heavy horse to make the infantry bunch and then have the horse archers decimate them when their all together, and then when the infantry spread out again, send in the heavy cavalry... And so on.

Well, then Parthia has a problem since the AI doesnt have a closed order / open order dilemma. Is is overall quite difficult to kill any heavy infantry with horse archers when not shooting them in the back anyway. But anyway, I'll just to try to concentrate my horse archer fire on a few units in the center. Then I'll hope they'll go into loose formation so I haven't wasted a ton of arrows and then I'll charge them. Doest that sound right? IMO cataphracts should be capable of breaking heavy infantry with repeated charges. Sassanian cavalry was known for being capable of doing so and did so in many battles. They didn't have stirrups at this time or any other maior differences with Parthian cataphracts. It can even be argued that they had much less horse archers.

[Conqueror]

The thing with charging skirmisher units is that they are running away from the cavalry and the game won't recognize it as a charge. If you hover the mouse cursor over a cavalry unit that's about to catch retreating skirmishers, you'll notice that it says "chasing" rather than "charging". They simply don't move fast enough (compared to the skirmishers) to be granted a charge bonus on impact.

What happens then is that one of the horsemen touches one of the skirmishers, which causes the skirmisher unit to stop fleeing and your cavalry unit to stop chasing them. The both units then get into "fighting" mode.

Sometimes things get even more screwed when the skirmisher unit, upon the first contact with the cavalry unit, turns around and charges the cavalry unit! When this happens, it is the skirmisher unit that will enjoy inflicting it's charge bonus while the cavalry is simply set to normal fighting mode

[Angadil]

yes it was, it is well documented that parthian cataphracts charged roman lines head on and were capable breaking them with a number of charges. Of course roman infantry between 100 bc and 224 AD was arguable the best infantry of the world so this didn't happen too often. Nevertheless the parthian's and sassanids proved that all cavalry armies were capable of crushing much larger well rounded armies.Do I have to mention carrhae?

The Roman army at Carrhae was anything but well-rounded. It was defficient in missile troops and, possibly, cavalry, particularly for the task it had ahead of it. Additionally, would you care to please present *clear* evidence of Parthian, or Sassanian cataphracts *frontally* charging formed Roman infantry and breaking it? Simply an account of a Sassanian (or Parthian) victory doesn't qualify. We need detailed descriptions. I've gone through the sources to some extent myself (ironically, because I wanted to prove that cataphracts did what you claim they did, but I couldn't...) and I've found quite hard to come by unequivocal examples of cavalry, cataphracts or not, successfully charging half-decent infantry that was still in good order. Or even attempting it. The closest I think I've come is actually the battle of Magnesia, where the Seleucid cavalry Agema and cataphracts led by Antiochos III *might* have broken a roman legion in the interpretation of some scholars (mind you, this is a pre-marian legion, though one most likely made of hardened veterans from the Punic Wars). However, Livy's account of the battle speaks of a flanking manouver and, maybe, of Galatian infantry supporting the cavalry charge. So, I am honestly intrigued by that "well documented" statement.

Additionally, some people seem to think that cataphracts evolved as a sort of response of the "horse peoples" to fight heavy Hellenistic or Roman infantry. That is wrong. There is reasonably abundant evidence for heavily armored cavalry that predates the encounter of the "horse peoples" with enemies rich in heavy infantry (Khumbuz-tepe teraccotta from Khorasan. Xenophon's descriptions of some Persian cavalry. Arrian's comments on Saka cavalry. Archaelogical finds of horse armor in Scythian and Saka contexts, etc...) In fact, the cataphracts seem to have appeared among peoples that faced lots of horse archers. Think about it for a second: cavarly is quite vulnerable to missiles, so protecting horses is a quite likely development in an "arms race" between horse archers or more, generally, in an area where bow use is very widespread.

To sum up. The historical usage of the HA+cat combo against heavy infantry seems to have relied on splitting them up and then using the cavalry's greater movility to successively gang up on isolated units. That is what the battles for which we have more detailed accounts seem to suggest. IIRc, in the game isolated units also rout quite more easily. Finally, Parthia should also have a couple of reasonably heavy cavalry units that carry bows too.

[Sdragon]

You just need to know how to fight fleeing enemies with cavalry. As soon as there is contact and the enemy starts to fight back and you cavalry goes all stupid, just press the stop button and order them to attack again. You don't get a charge but your guys will at least fight and the skirmishers will get whipped out by all but light missile cavalry.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

The Roman army at Carrhae was anything but well-rounded. It was defficient in missile troops and, possibly, cavalry, particularly for the task it had ahead of it. Additionally, would you care to please present *clear* evidence of Parthian, or Sassanian cataphracts *frontally* charging formed Roman infantry and breaking it? Simply an account of a Sassanian (or Parthian) victory doesn't qualify. We need detailed descriptions. I've gone through the sources to some extent myself (ironically, because I wanted to prove that cataphracts did what you claim they did, but I couldn't...) and I've found quite hard to come by unequivocal examples of cavalry, cataphracts or not, successfully charging half-decent infantry that was still in good order. Or even attempting it. The closest I think I've come is actually the battle of Magnesia, where the Seleucid cavalry Agema and cataphracts led by Antiochos III *might* have broken a roman legion in the interpretation of some scholars (mind you, this is a pre-marian legion, though one most likely made of hardened veterans from the Punic Wars). However, Livy's account of the battle speaks of a flanking manouver and, maybe, of Galatian infantry supporting the cavalry charge. So, I am honestly intrigued by that "well documented" statement.

Additionally, some people seem to think that cataphracts evolved as a sort of response of the "horse peoples" to fight heavy Hellenistic or Roman infantry. That is wrong. There is reasonably abundant evidence for heavily armored cavalry that predates the encounter of the "horse peoples" with enemies rich in heavy infantry (Khumbuz-tepe teraccotta from Khorasan. Xenophon's descriptions of some Persian cavalry. Arrian's comments on Saka cavalry. Archaelogical finds of horse armor in Scythian and Saka contexts, etc...) In fact, the cataphracts seem to have appeared among peoples that faced lots of horse archers. Think about it for a second: cavarly is quite vulnerable to missiles, so protecting horses is a quite likely development in an "arms race" between horse archers or more, generally, in an area where bow use is very widespread.

To sum up. The historical usage of the HA+cat combo against heavy infantry seems to have relied on splitting them up and then using the cavalry's greater movility to successively gang up on isolated units. That is what the battles for which we have more detailed accounts seem to suggest. IIRc, in the game isolated units also rout quite more easily. Finally, Parthia should also have a couple of reasonably heavy cavalry units that carry bows too.

I do not think cataphracts evolved as a sort of response of the "horse peoples" to fight heavy Hellenistic or Roman infantry and agree that they probalby evolved to counter light horse archers. However they probably had their use considering that Sarmatians and Parthians used them extensively against hevay infantry armies. My most important argument is perhaps that the Sassanids used heavy cavalry with much less horse archer support than the Parthians. This indicates that heavy cavalry can defeat heavy infantry without much support. Although not the most academic source I’ll post some text from an Osprey volume.

‘It was the elite lance-armed charging Savaran who proved decisive in the battles of Misiche, Barbalissos and Carrhae-Edessa.’ p.46 dr Kaveh Farrokh - Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224 - 642

‘The super-heavy Savaran were used as shock troops or ‘Panzers’ with the intent of inflicting as much damage to Roman materiel and morale as possible’ p.47 dr Kaveh Farrokh - Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224 - 642

‘The rock reliefs of Firuzabad and Nagsh-e-Rustam show elite cavalry in action with lances , but no depiction of archery in combat. This has led to the suggestion that horse archery was in decline (or had even disappeared) in Persia by the time the Sassanians rose to power. dr Kaveh Farrokh - Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224 - 642


‘For the Sassanians battle was usually decided by a the shock of a single powerful thrust by the Savaran using lances. It is interesting to note that Romano-Byzantines fleeing before the Savaran were recommended not to counterattackthem frontally due to the high risk that they would ‘suffer injury on running into their well-ordered ranks’. (maurice, Strategikon, XI.1, 354-60) dr Kaveh Farrokh - Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224 - 642

Also, the archer/cataphract combination resulting in the closed order/ open order dilemma suggests that cataphracts charge head on.

I'll post some more sources that made me make this crazy claim later, am a bit busy.

[QwertyMIDX]

Yup, this seems to be a inherent weakness of RTW, amplyfied by the overall far more realistic cavalry in EB. Is a negative bonus against horse possible?

Sure, I'll try that in the next build if people want.

[Ludens]

My most important argument is perhaps that the Sassanids used heavy cavalry with much less horse archer support than the Parthians. This indicates that heavy cavalry can defeat heavy infantry without much support.
(...)
Also, the archer/cataphract combination resulting in the closed order/ open order dilemma suggests that cataphracts charge head on.

I'll post some more sources that made me make this crazy claim later, am a bit busy.

Well, the Roman infantry the Sassanids faced were not exactly of the same quality as the earlier legionary. By the time of Belissarius the Roman Empire had come to rely on cavalry as it main offensive arm as well. Also, in the account of the battle of Carrhae I read the Romans stood up to horse archery for quite some time, and where only defeated when Crassus tried to withdraw. That is when the cataphracts charged home.