Cavalry... What do you think? (all discussion of cav here)

[Prince of the Poodles]

Well Ive played the demo a few times and, at first, the cavalry struck me as being completely underpowered.

I shuddered at all those knights, supposedly the finest warriors of the era, getting decimated in both battles.

(Everything else seemed tentitively OK, after tweaking with the game a bit. I took those horrible green things off, and the banners, and that bloom glow effect, and it looks great!)

After some more in depth playing, I noticed that knights only fell in droves on those frontal charges they are scripted to perform. In Pavia I gave AI complete control of my men and it had an almost untouched unit of Zwie... (big sword people) marching through the woods and it was attacked from behind by some Gendahorses and completely beaten.

Also I have noticed that if a unit is already ingaged and the knights charge in frontally after another unit, they also dont have that mass death effect.

I am looking mostly at the mp aspect of the game, and I dont know what to make of the cav.

It could be seen as good as in RTW cav could charge head on and have no real penalties. However, it still makes me shudder to see 70% of the "finest warriors in medieval europe" die charging men with hammers and the rest flee immediatly.

What do you guys, especially the mp vets, think of the cavalry as its presented in the demo?

[Silencer]

Cavalry charger only work on enemies who are not prepared (rear attack) or already engaged in battle. (or on weak troops)
Heavy footknights for example, who are prepared will decimate a cavalery charge. but when these foot-knights are already engaged, they become mince meat for cav. charges.

I do think that heavy knights on heavy "armoured" horses should have a more deadly impact (charge). afterall, they have the speed, horse and a large lance.

[DisruptorX]

Keep in mind that Pavia is a renaissance battle, and all of the infantry are wearing heavy armour or carrying pikes, both ideal for fighting cavalry. I'm sure that if you charge light infantry with your heavy cav in the final version, you will destroy them.

[econ21]

It's hard to judge these things from the demo. You don't actually control much cavalry - two at Hastings and one at Pavia. But so far so good, IMO.

I like the fact that the AI knights make almost no impression charging frontally on braced pikes (Pavia) or dismounted chivalric foot knights (Agincourt). It fits my understanding of history. Charging knights do cause some casualties - esp. at Agincourt (more so, if the English were not so experienced). It may be over a little quickly, but this is a game and battles will last less than 40 minutes rather than a day.

From a gameplay point of view, even if cavalry is prima facie underpowered, I think it will still be extremely useful by virtue of its mobility - it can whip around a flank much faster than infantry and is also much better at running down archers, cannon etc. I play Rome Total Realism Platinum where cavalry seems to have similar power to M2TW but they are still like gold. (A cavalry charge to the rear of an engaged unit is the killer tactic).

AI knights seemed to do fine on the few occasions they did not commit a frontal charge on a prepared position - e.g. the rear charge at Agincourt. They trounce longbows and it is mutually assured destruction vs non-braced billmen.

I have not experimented much with my cavalry at Hastings, but the Pavia general is a monster (the 2 hit points helps a lot here). Very useful for finishing off the French king after he has floundered on the pikes; for taking out the Scots Guards; the cannon; the crossbows etc. A target-rich environment, as the USAAF might have said.

[Ibn Munqidh]

I agree, they seem to be underpowered. The scots guard at pavia are sword weilding infantry, and even they are a problem from the cavalry.

[Tempiic]

Really? I experienced easy walkovers against these scottish guard with my cav.


I am not sure if they are underpowered. Don't forget either that the dismounted chiv knights also are nicely upgraded. I mean 22 defence versus 15 attack +13 charge is not a huge difference either. It might be even so they are scripted to simply die on impact. ;) Because I never saw the rear cav attack launch itself over my receiving billmen and/or dismounted knights. Nor the other french cav after first cav wave.

On the other hand, these rear french cav can become very lethal if they refuse to charge into your billmen. Most often I end up loosing my 2 billmen units against them. I also have seen the french AI holding up my isolated general unit and then charging in repeatingly with his cav. That was ouch.

[Bob the Insane]

I agree, they seem to be underpowered. The scots guard at pavia are sword weilding infantry, and even they are a problem from the cavalry.

I did not find my general having any real issues with them, but if you mean the cavalry did not crush them in seconds I guess you are right...

I agree with the original poster in that while cavalry is actually effective and even the suicidal frontal charges can cause a reasonable number of deaths in the defending unit, it just does not look right somehow.

It is as if all the weight has been taken out of the cavalry. If an armoured warrior on horseback was to charge a prepared defensive line head on you would reasonable expected the mounted warrior to come off worse but the fact it has no noticeable impact on the defending unit looks a little odd. No more guys getting knocked through the air and push back even a little...

For the pike wall this is reasonable but for the foot knights with their warhammers you would think a charging knight could at least force a step backward, even if it is to avoid hurtling corpse...

I will reiterate though that when you look at the numbers the and effect on gameplay, they have that aspect down just right I think...

[Satyr]

If it takes an entire battle for a Royal Guard company to take out a company of archers, how many cav are you really going to bring to the table? Seems like the cav should just sweep thru killing many on the charge but instead they get tied up in melee forever.

[Orda Khan]

I've not played the demo but what upgrades were in place? I agree with your point, cav should trample over archers

.....Orda

[the_mango55]

If it takes an entire battle for a Royal Guard company to take out a company of archers, how many cav are you really going to bring to the table? Seems like the cav should just sweep thru killing many on the charge but instead they get tied up in melee forever.

If you are talking about the Scot's Guard, they are one of the most elite archers in the game, and should be great at both archery and melee. And my cav still didn't have much trouble with them.

Care to tell us exactly where you are talking about?

[Loki]

***NOTICE*** I understand that what we are now playing is a *demo* and based on older code, yadda yadda yadda. I get it. I also understand that the two historical battles we have to play are allegedly somewhat scripted. BUT.

I know theres been some talk about cavalry beeing taken down a notch or two, but does anyone else earnestly hope that the final product will be greatly different than the playable demo?

The first time I played thru Agincourt and the French heavy chivalry charged the center of the line, I saw them slam to a halt on the english line. I assumed that that part of the line had stakes as well. It was only later that I realized that there were no stakes at the center of the line of battle.

There is no way on Gods green earth that a heavy cavalry charge hitting *any* infantry unit (except perhaps deep ranks of armored pike) would stop like it hit a brick wall.

I fear if cavalry stays like this, the resultant battles/combat (although graphically beautiful to watch) will bear no resemblance to the reality of combat in the middle ages.

[Jediknight73]

well English units were almost maxed out in armour/weapon upgrade's, while the french hardly had any. that may be why?

[Leftenant Moley]

Is it just me or when cav charge through stakes from the back to front ie stakes pointing away for the cav they still end up dying? When i was attacked from behind on the battle of avincourt i ran my archers in front of the stakes(why?) but it seem all the cav died anyway.

[Bob the Insane]

Following are a series of images of Knights charging head first into archers on open ground (from the Agincourt battle of course). The whole series is over no more than 10 seconds and remember the longbowmen have 2 gold chevrons (probably explains way they do not rout)..

Warning, images...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The knights approach...



The charge...



The impact...



Spilt second after impact...



Same moment, different angle...



A second later...



Again the same moment and a different angle...



Archers' death animations completing (it appears a unit is not counted a dead until the this point)...



It's all over, no more than 10 seconds at the most...

The point of this exercise to to demonstrate that the cavalry is not useless...

[Soulflame]

The killspeed and movement speed was reduced a small bit, and I think that plays against cavalry (you have more time to react). Also, just 'trampling' an enemy is harder when they are in full plate then in say the Roman age (although less armor means you can try to jump away).
Anyway, I think there is some change from Rome -> Med 2, but personally, from the limited experience I had with and against cavalry in the demo, I think it's actually very well balanced.