Note on whinging

[lars573]

Maybe you've misunderstood me. My example of a 15th century pikeman vs 11th century obsolete Byzantine Kataphraktoi was chosen to illustrate some of the imbalances already present in MTW even. When Pikes are in formation and braced to take a cavalry charge the effect should be devastating on the cavalry as it would be historically. They are there to stop cavalry, and stop it they did. A warhorse would be very reluctant to charge into a row of gleaming spikes. Armouring up the horses makes little difference, horse armour is mainly frontal, it slows animal down significantly and the underside is still exposed.

But Cataphracts were created to fight pike phalanxes and not suffer huge casualties. Hence the horse armour. Should a cavalry unit take huge losses frontally charging a spear unit, yes. Should they always lose, no. That should depend on the units involved.

Not a bad model because it's not absolute. Spearmen are not invulnerable to knights, swordsmen are not invulnerable to spearmen. Spearman though should lose vs swordsmen most of the time, unless the spearmen are of a particularly elite type. Even then it would be close, because at the end of the day horses can't just charge head first into a wall of spears. This is realistic, if it wasn't the evolution of the spear into the pike, into the square formation, wouldn't have occurred.

RPS models are absolute. If what you call the TW RPS system isn't then it isn't an RPS system. By their nature they are iron clad and absolute. The phalanx was created to counter chariots. The western pike phalanx (developed by Phillip of Macedon) was created to turn the phalanx into a more offensively capable unit. Also the only pike block that was used to counter cavalry was the western one (which was re-used in the 16th century). The medieval Hawaians and the ancient Sumerians both developed densely packed blocks of men with pikes. Neither of whom would have ever seen a horse, let alone a group of men riding them into battle.

There is no lack of rps in RTW, it's just not as obvious. There will be the same sort of system in M2TW also. If you didn't need specialist units for specialist roles there would be no point in training spear type troops and one may as well deploy all swords or all cav and just bumrush. If you're lacking a balanced force and the enemy isn't, then the enemy should gain the upper hand. My goal is not to simply win a battle, but to play it well. Historically battles didn't last ten minutes. I've often played defensive battles against the Mongols as the Turks lasting over 1 hour, where the enemy sent wave after wave of reinforcements. The mongol's strength, and weakness, is their cavalry. When deploying an army against them one knows to field an army that is heavy on spears, missiles (preferably arbalests) and anti-cav/anti armour units. Swordsmen would be simply outflanked and butchered by the charging cav. Sounds wrong? Well think about it. A man with a sword and shield standing on the ground is pretty much defensless against a cavalry charge, there's not alot he can do but wait and hope that he doesn't get his head split open in the first passage, once the melee starts he has a slight chance to unhorse the riders though the still have the height advantage, which is critical. For me this makes for an interesting tactical battle. Without this aspect I could simply bumrush my upgraded and teched up swordsmen at the enemy cav and not bother with any kind of unit selection or strategising.

Historically battles did last hours. Combat however didn't. That would only be 10-20 minutes tops. And no a man with only a sword and shield would not be defenseless against a horse.