Weak cavalry?

[Redtemplar]

I and group of my friends have a strange feeling that cavalry will be weaker in Medieval II than in Medieval I. What is with this strength of horses?
Ordinary medium cavalry should easily destroy for example sword infantry with little amount of casualties.
Peasants couldn't do anything to charging knights. Cavalry was the hammer in medieval times which could easily defeat any infantry (only well trained pikeman were difficult enemy and of course another cavalry).
Do you think that in Medieval II cavalry will be such strong?

[Bob the Insane]

I think cavalry should work well in M2TW...

From my little experiments in the demo that certain effects have been exaggerated for gameplay reasons such as the suicidal nature of charging prepared spearmen. But it seems to work well as using cavalry correctly against the flanks of spear units or a direct charge into light infantry or archers in open ground appear to be very effective...

[LadyAnn]

I don't think cav was weaken, although I believe the way of using cav has changed a bit. You can't just walk over to fight infantry (or caught standing on horses fighting cav 1vs.1). You must charge, disingage, charge again to use maximum charge effect.

So, yes, cav is the hammer of medieval time. But you can't use it as anvil...

Anniep

[Furious Mental]

Any reasonable infantry formation could hold its ground against cavalry if it was determined enough, especially if dismounted knights were placed in the van. They did not have to be pikemen. This myth that cavalry were for some reason invincible in the Middle Ages is such a tired old cliche. The reason cavalry often won was socio-economic; the military aristocracy spent money on itself whereas states like the Roman empire had spent money drilling professional infantry. However some states, like England, did emphasise infantry warfare and were able to field semi-professional foot soldiers which withstood cavalry charges on multiple occasions, pikes or no.

[Satyr]

Knights, when charged into archers should just about break the archer formation and kill many and probably rout the company, yet that doesn't happen at all in the demo. It takes just about the entire battle to take out one archer company with your knights. If this is the way the game plays then cav will be used much less than it was in MTW where cav was used to get behind enemy lines and rout the archers.

[LadyAnn]

I actually didn't do that in MTW (get behind archer lines to route them). They usually are well protected by their fellows.
I guess I need to play more games...

Anniep

[Tempiic]

Knights, when charged into archers should just about break the archer formation and kill many and probably rout the company, yet that doesn't happen at all in the demo. It takes just about the entire battle to take out one archer company with your knights. If this is the way the game plays then cav will be used much less than it was in MTW where cav was used to get behind enemy lines and rout the archers.

If you are referring to these scottish guards... sometimes they get killed by my general cav, sometimes not. I am thinking that these scottish guards might in fact be hybrids rather than pure missile troops.

Besides that, I find myself very agreeing with Bob the Insane and Lady An on the effectiveness of cav in the demo.

As another note, I enjoyed how cav charging charging cav works as well.

[Bob the Insane]

Knights, when charged into archers should just about break the archer formation and kill many and probably rout the company, yet that doesn't happen at all in the demo. It takes just about the entire battle to take out one archer company with your knights. If this is the way the game plays then cav will be used much less than it was in MTW where cav was used to get behind enemy lines and rout the archers.

I beg to differ... If you look at my post in the thread linked below (near the end) you will see a demonstration of what a cavalry charge can do to regular longbowmen out in the open (note also these longbowman are 2 gold chevrons for valour too):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=70402&page=2



Put simply I think the Scots Guard are a special case and you should not juse the efeectiveness of cavalry against light infantry by them...

Additionally while playing around I had a unit of dismounted knight charge to the rear as I was repositioning them. Normally head on they decimate the cavalry, in this instance the dismounted knight where wiped out neardy to a man very quickly. I think face will have more of an effect than ever...

[Aracnid]

Defiantly on Pavia I first charged my cav in and was getting trashed until I diverted my landsknechts from attacking the other Scots guard unit in an effort to save my general (it worked and I won in the end). Second time I hit them from the flank with my cav and I killed nearly half the unit in my charge. Face has a huge effect.

[Redtemplar]

But longbowmen aren't just good adversary in melee combat. I rather thought about heavy, medium infantry which should be defeated with no problem.

How armored troops can stop cavalry? It is impossible for them because they have nothing that could stop about 800 kilo of charging horse with speed of for example 50 km/h (yeah minimum :)). This option should have only special anticavalry units such as pikeman or scotish guards the rests should be completely destroyed (even spearman with their short weapons). The only exception from this could be massive lines of ordinary infantry (about 20 or more) to stop the impact of charge, but casualties would even than very large about 50% or more.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

But longbowmen aren't just good adversary in melee combat. I rather thought about heavy, medium infantry which should be defeated with no problem.

How armored troops can stop cavalry? It is impossible for them because they have nothing that could stop about 800 kilo of charging horse with speed of for example 50 km/h (yeah minimum :)). This option should have only special anticavalry units such as pikeman or scotish guards the rests should be completely destroyed (even spearman with their short weapons). The only exception from this could be massive lines of ordinary infantry (about 20 or more) to stop the impact of charge, but casualties would even than very large about 50% or more.

I will not even talk about how wrong and unrealistic your argument is... As long as they maintained cohesion, armoured infantry got a fair chance against a cavalry charge. That's the difference between 1v1 and unit versus unit.


If you think in terms of gameplay, I hope you see how damaging your proposal would be. Why would anyone build anything but cavalry? What about unit balance?

Also, after MTW1 1.0, there were a lot of complain about cavalry being too weak, that led to some horrendous balancing decision, and eventually, all spears and pikes became completly useless. I'd urge everybody not to make that kind of judgement with a demo... Actually, not to make that kind of judgement in the first 6 months after game release. We never really recovered from that MTW1 1.0 silly decision.

Louis,

[Orda Khan]

I will not even talk about how wrong and unrealistic your argument is... As long as they maintained cohesion, armoured infantry got a fair chance against a cavalry charge. That's the difference between 1v1 and unit versus unit.


If you think in terms of gameplay, I hope you see how damaging your proposal would be. Why would anyone build anything but cavalry? What about unit balance?

Also, after MTW1 1.0, there were a lot of complain about cavalry being too weak, that led to some horrendous balancing decision, and eventually, all spears and pikes became completly useless. I'd urge everybody not to make that kind of judgement with a demo... Actually, not to make that kind of judgement in the first 6 months after game release. We never really recovered from that MTW1 1.0 silly decision.

Louis,

Very well said Louis.
MTW v1.0 was a good game and it was thoroughly ruined with v1.1. VI nor the v2.01 patch could help save the gameplay.
Cavalry, like any other unit, can die horribly and the thought that the player now has to use then wisely is music to my ears

.........Orda

[Furious Mental]

"How armored troops can stop cavalry? It is impossible for them because they have nothing that could stop about 800 kilo of charging horse with speed of for example 50 km/h (yeah minimum :)). This option should have only special anticavalry units such as pikeman or scotish guards the rests should be completely destroyed (even spearman with their short weapons). The only exception from this could be massive lines of ordinary infantry (about 20 or more) to stop the impact of charge, but casualties would even than very large about 50% or more."

It's less about the weapons and more about the fact that alot of big men standing behind big shields constitutes a big obstacle even to an 800 kg horse. Those standing in the front of a formation were likely to be the worse for wear but as long every man stood his ground a cavalry charge was likely to fail because basically the horses, if they charged home, would topple over and their riders would be killed by the generally more numerous foot soldiers. A cavalry charge was, to a large extent, dependent on scaring the unfortunate front ranks of an infantry formation into scattering. Pikes helped but were by no means vital. There are not a few examples of English spearmen and dismounted knights withstanding French royal cavalry in Anglo-Norman times, and this without having to stand in ranks 20 men deep and suffer 50% casualties.

[peacedog]

a solid formation of men, if they stood there ground, be they unarmed or with pikes, would be like a brick wall to a horse. the horse would stop before contact.

[Ringeck]

Often people think that those 800kgs of horse are a speeding bullet, heading straight ahead with no thought of its own safety. This is, to put it mildly, not always the case. At very few points in medieval history did heavy cavalry charge an ordered line of infantry unless they had softened it up (or thought they had) with infantry or missile attack first - the more publicized infantry vs cavalry victories always seem to miss some details in the telling: at Courtrai/Kortrijk the cavalry assault failed because the infantry had not disordered the flemish foot enough, and at Bannockburn the english infantry and archers were unable to give support to the heavy cavalry due to the english army not having properly deployed. At Falkirk, 16 years before, the scottish spear formations were subjected to heavy missile fire before the english sent in their heavy cavalry when the Scots were disordered enough to ensure the full effectiveness of the cavalry.

At the Hastings reenactment this year (see http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65591) we saw some interesting horse psychology. When the norman cavalry faced the shieldwall, with spears protruding from every second man, they had no problems making their horses shie away from the infantry - they did it almost naturally. However, after a staged charge into the center that "broke through" the horses almost became truly dangerous as they followeded one another into the infantry - even those that were not supposed to "break through". Let me tell you, horsemen running around in a weakened and split infantry formation are a scary sight and experience - even if the horsemen are only trying not to step on you!

[Peasant Phill]

[QUOTE=Ringeck] at Courtrai/Kortrijk the cavalry assault failed because the infantry had not disordered the flemish foot enough[QUOTE]

I know this is nitpicking and apart from this sentence I tend to agree with you what you say about Kortrijk isn't entirely true.

Sure the Flemish line wasn't disordered in that you were right but this wasn't the biggest cause to why the French lost. There had been a missile duel between the Flemish and the French but it did little damage. The French infantry didn't even touch the Flemish line before the French cav hit the Flemish head on. So it's true that the French cav hit the prepared Flemish still in a decent formation.

The real battle winner (for the Flemish) was their position. They had set up just behind some streams. The French cavalry had little trouble crossing these but were as a result somewhat disordered and lost a lot of momentum. They didn't have the space left to get back to top speed and were therefor easily (at least easier) stopped by the Flemish pikemen and then killed by others who were wielding goedendags ( got a horrendous reputation because of this battle).
There was more room to recover at the center of the Flemish lines and as a result the French general and the cav he commanded were able to break the Flemish formation, they were however surrounded and killed after that.

So I agree with you to some extend, however the Flemish won mostly due to position (and the impetuousness of the French knights). If the French infantry was ordered in first, the battle would probably have gone different.

[Ringeck]

Don't worry, I'll nitpick back! At least according to Verbruggen, the french infantry was sent in after the archery duel had died down, but was called back for some reason. The Count of Artois should have known better (he wasn't inexperienced, after all, having faced the flemish at Furnes in 1297) but it can be theorized that he either misunderstood the situation or thought the flemish had been sufficently disordered. That being said, the minor breakthroughs in the centre in the inital attack, and the Count's breakthroughs in the last phase before the french rout, were relatively minor - no mass breakthrough.

[Peasant Phill]

I'm really hijacking this thread and I'm sorry for it (I wont do it again I swear)

I'm aware of the whole French infantry issue (I said that they didn't touch the Flemish lines before the cav).

What the charge of the cavalry is concerned . I think the Brugse metten (where people from Bruges killed the French garrison in their sleep) had something to do with it. The French knight probably felt wronged by these peasants. This is however just a hypothesis

[Ringeck]

Possibly. All this gets very speculative anyway, so...back on topic!

[Peasant Phill]

Right you are Ringneck.

On topic, I'm rather pleased that knights aren't overpowered killing machines(regarding gameplay). It would just be boring that some units could stroll around on the map and kill with impunity. Whether this was historically so or not (which it wasn't). Their charge will still make them battle winners, you just have to time and direct it more carefully.

[Aracnid]

People seem to think that Cavalry are weak but with the exception of Henry V's machine gunners, they are one of the most powerful units in the game. In the Demo if you hit a unit in combat in the side with a cavary charge they break, everytime and suffer 50% casulties, that is probably realistic and providing you are sensible and use infantry to fix enemy units Cavalry can still be battle winners and the core of your army. They just need a bit of help. A Cavalry heavy French army is not going to be difficult to win with!

[Orda Khan]

A Cavalry heavy French army is not going to be difficult to win with!

Against a well ordered, balanced army I hope it will or another game bites the dust

......Orda

[Aracnid]

Not if you use it sensibly. All MTW units can be put into four groups, missile(incl missile cav), cavalry, spear infantry(pikes, billmen, spearmen etc.), sword infantry. If you use missile units to bleed the enemy and then fix them frontally with spear or sword infantry, then you hit them from the back or side with cavalry, if you do it sensibly no unit can stand being bleed, fixed and flanked unless it is vastly better than your units and even then it shouldn't stand up to you.

Edit: For example the English are going to have good missile troops and infantry, but their cavalry are going to be weaker. The French will have great cavalry but weaker missile units so you will just have to put more emphasis on that aspect.

[LadyAnn]

There are also hybrids (Archer-Infantry, Horse-Archers)

Annie

[LadyAnn]

Against a well ordered, balanced army I hope it will or another game bites the dust

......Orda

I hope so too. Don't want the "20 cataphracts cav on wedge running around" like in RTW. We were able to defeat these armies with a balanced army, but it is a pain and is so ridiculous and brainless that it took much of the fun out of playing.

Annie

[Darsh]

If you want to know the real power of heavy cavalery, look the battle of Patay, English longbowmen are routed in some minutes by a heavy cav charge.

the only issue to counter the cav charge are missiles,pikemen, stackes, good positions.

[Aracnid]

If you want to know the real weakness of cavalry look at Crecy, Poiters and Agincourt, that's a really silly comment.

[Bob the Insane]

If you want to know the real power of heavy cavalery, look the battle of Patay, English longbowmen are routed in some minutes by a heavy cav charge.

the only issue to counter the cav charge are missiles,pikemen, stackes, good positions.

Well that example fits perfectly into the test I refered to above... Unprepared archers out in the open riden over by cavalry. I saw exactly this in the demo so I do not see what the issue is?

[Redtemplar]

I will not even talk about how wrong and unrealistic your argument is... As long as they maintained cohesion, armoured infantry got a fair chance against a cavalry charge. That's the difference between 1v1 and unit versus unit.


If you think in terms of gameplay, I hope you see how damaging your proposal would be. Why would anyone build anything but cavalry? What about unit balance?

Also, after MTW1 1.0, there were a lot of complain about cavalry being too weak, that led to some horrendous balancing decision, and eventually, all spears and pikes became completly useless. I'd urge everybody not to make that kind of judgement with a demo... Actually, not to make that kind of judgement in the first 6 months after game release. We never really recovered from that MTW1 1.0 silly decision.

Louis,

Hm. I think that you see medieval times from the infantry side. But I will tell you something. If you think infantry was so great with these shields why Gengis Khan used only horses? (the most of his opponents used them and even than they lost) Why the cavalry was the main force in Europe and America during medieval times and even after.

Someone said that shield wall was good against horses. Good joke. Maybe shields about 2 on 1 meter maybe would be good but i think this was rather rare :) .

Some interlocutors had forgotten that this horses were battle horses (i don't know if France but I talk about my region). They were trained in attacking shield walls, pike walls etc.. They were also learned to kick and ram targets. Heavy cavalry had often armors to protect horses in time after impact.

I understand that the creators are trying to make balance but the weak cavalry shouldn't be so expansive as in Medieval I. The other way is to make them strong as in history it was.

[LadyAnn]

You neglected to mention the tactics of the Golden Horde.

1. Gengis Khan's army was not a pure heavy cav army we were talking about. These were cav archers. Excellent archers by their own right even firing on the move, they could rival any archers on foot. Their composite bows give them short drawn with same range, an excellent range weapon. They discovered they could shoot while none of the horse's hooves touch the air, thus have more accurate aim. They could shoot standing on the stirrup, forward, backward. They were accomplished horse riders, capable of leaning on the side of a horse to pick up items on the ground.

2. Genghis Khan army would not charge infantry formation front, side or even rear. They just made several passes then disappear in a cloud of dust then reemerged from a different direction, rained down hail of arrows, made several passes, then disappeared again. They demoralized, wore down and decimated opponents who were not capable of chasing them. They only charged opoonents in disarray, chased down routers or deserters.

3. The Golden Horde won the wars at strategic level. Their scouting units were capable of fighting and vice versa, and they could quickly disperse and regroup. Being on horses, they often could quickly find the enemy's army, skirmish and disengage, so they could chose their own terrain for battle. Their enemies were described always try to find the Horde army, always unsure of where it was. That fact alone was enough to tilt the battle toward Horde victories.

4. The Golden Horde could quickly pillage and/or maintain supply routes. The enemies cannot. Their superiority in speed allowed them to disrupt supplies routes, while it was much harder for the enemies to do the same. In fact, three of the rare wars the Mongols lost were due to terrain which doesn't permit a landbased supply route, and the Mongols supply ships were raided.

Anyways, I think it suffice to say Mongol Army were not similar to Western Catholic heavy cav army.

Annie