Weak cavalry?

[Vladimir]

I'm sorry RedTemplar but I think you're a bit naive about history.

The Mongols won so many battles for MANY reasons. Their superior archery destroyed the relatively poor steppe peoples, and their superior tactics (feigned retreats, ambushes, etc etc) benefited them as much as their cavalry. They used so many of them because they had so many of them; they were a steppe people!

You're also forgetting about the prevalence of *light* cavalry used by the Mongols. You're bringing light cavalry into a heavy cavalry discussion. The greatest advantage that horsemen bring to the battlefield is mobility. This allows for the above tactics, blitzkrieg warfare and in an emergency...additional food supply (horses).

You can see examples early on of intact shieldwalls holding back frontal cav charges. Just what I can remember from reading a Military History magazine shows that unbroken, disciplined infantry can stop horses cold. Even troops with smaller shields and few longarms.

Show me where it is said that cavalry was the main force in Europe. Cavalry was the most *important* force mainly because, as I said, it added mobility to the battlefield. Heavy horse was also expensive and therefore societies focused on ways to increase their availability. Infantry was the main force but cavalry was the most valuable.

Also remember that horses aren't stupid. They're quite crafty and don't want to die. Yes they were bread for war but no they didn't like charging into solid objects (trees, rocks, PEOPLE) making a lot of noise and waiving things at them.

You can see this in MTW, especially in VI. Once you are able to train large amounts of horsemen, the battlefield opens up to you.

[CBR]

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.

Louis,

Spears and pikes were not made weaker so cavalry could become stronger. Spears became more expensive because people complained about how weak the swords were. As the upkeep stayed the same it had hardly any effect for SP but for MP it had a devastating effect.


CBR

[Furious Mental]

"If you think infantry was so great with these shields why Gengis Khan used only horses?"

First of all, Genghis Khan didn't use "only horses". Where did you get that? Do you think he took all those Chinese citadels with cavalry? Of course not, he had to use Chinese siege engineers and Chinese infantry. Second of all, in so far as Mongol field armies were often comprised entirely of cavalry, the example is quite irrelevant to the discussion because Mongols were so different to Europeans in terms of culture and tactics.

Mongols, being steppe people, naturally tended towards mounted warfare. How could a warlord control the vast plains without horses? He couldn't. In the European context the relative slowness of foot soldiers was less problematic- take the example of a very warlike period in England, 1135-1154: any army was likely to be marching a very short distance to besiege one of the several hundred castles then in existence.

Notably Mongols also did not rely solely on the frontal charge; the charge generally came last after an enemy had been worn down with arrows and often coaxed into pointless and tiring attempts at pursuit, which often placed them in a vulnerable position.

"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."

Your view of medieval warfare is simply wrong, there are no two ways about it. Infantry were the main component of the average medieval European army. Most medieval generals followed the strategy of the Roman theorist Vegetius, which was to avoid the risks entailed in pitched battles and instead try to force the enemy to abandon a campaign by gaining control of food supplies. In doing this one of the most important things to do was gain control of castles, so sieges were far more numerous than pitched battles. Cavalry are relatively useless for sieges. Where cavalry did fit into this sort of logistical warfare was chiefly using their mobility for foraging and harrying. They were certainly important in pitched battles when such battles occurred but were generally neither the predominant portion of the army nor could they just trample down any opposition. As is the case with any tactical unit, they were best in conjunction with others.

"Someone said that shield wall was good against horses."

Go and read the account of the Battle of Hastings in the Gesta Willelmi, which was written by William of Poitiers, who was William the Conqueror's chaplain and therefore can be taken to have gotten his information straight from those who were at the battle. He was unambiguous in stating that stating that a couple of thousand of the best cavalry in France could make little impression on the English shield wall, and only won by hours of skirmishing (in conjunction with archers and crossbowmen on foot) and tactical ruses. In other words- they fought like Mongols (and some historians theorise that in fact the knowledge of this style of warfare was derived from Frankish contact with the Magyars). And after the Battle of Hastings there was no small number of battles where the English fyrd, then at the service of the Anglo-Norman kings, withstood charges by continental cavalry again and again. Notably, on a number of occasions, the Norman knights in fact dismounted to strengthen the infantry formation; in other words the king guessed (correctly the results of the battles show) that his cavalry were worth more on foot than they were mounted.

[Aracnid]

Horses weren't the tanks that people seem to think they are.

Imagine a line 10 men deep (not unusual in fact rather thin), then imagine horsemen charging it. Front line of infantry are in trouble, unless they can keep the horses away with pikes they are gonna be hit by 800 pounds of man and beast. The second line is also in trouble, they are gonna be hit by lances. Third line are untouched apart from being pushed backwards. Now the Cavalry first line is in trouble, their horses have just run into a solid wall of men, they have run onto spears and swords etc, and then had the men behind them hit them in the back. Now the charge is over the front lines of both sides have been mostly wiped out. Now you have a heavily armoured man on a horse using a sword, mace etc (his lance will have broken very quickly). He is packed in between his fellows and the enemy front line, his horse is very vulnerable, because while you can armour his breast against a pike how do you armour his knee joints or hamstrings? Thus our infantry can deal with the horse pretty easily providing they avoid the horseman's sword (and they outnumber him and he can only really use his sword on his right side (if he is right handed). Now once the horse has gone down (and it will with cut hamstrings) he is screwed. He is wearing 100 pounds of armour and while he might be able get up unassisted in normal conditions this is a battle, he might have fallen under his horse or be trapped under one of his comrades. He is screwed.

The only way a cavalry unit can break infantry is fear, if the rear ranks react to the front rank getting trampled by turning and running then the cav has one, otherwise their only hope is to retreat, which is a lot harder than it sounds, after all there are corpses scattered everywhere, you are pressed between the men behind you and on either side not to mention the enemy.

Edit: This assumes horses who have no sight, sense of smell, or generally emotion, in all probability you couldn't even get them to charge.

[Marquis of Roland]

I think CA is just adjusting from RTW, where they made cavalry too strong.

Wonder if you guys tested charges on various depth of the formation and also the morale of the unit.

Realistically speaking, the majority of troops in medieval era armies probably had low morale, perhaps resulting in european heavy cav's reputation. I know I wouldn't want to stand in front because my landlord told me to

[Satyr]

Thanks for the link Bob_the_Insane. I hadn't seen that post in the earlier thread and I like what I see.

And LadyAnn, having been killed by you a few times in multi in the early days of MTW, I have lots of respect for your skills. But being a weaker player than you means I got to play weaker opponents than you probably usually played and I could, on occasion, get cav into the rear of an enemy and decimate their archers. And of course, the AI was particularly weak in preventing this sort of attack so I was successful with it while playing campaigns.

[LadyAnn]

*blushes*
I just like to have units closer, mainly because of the morale penalties for having detached troops. Plus, the opponent will likely rush either the detachment or the main army and I am not good enough to prevent it.

Annie

[Watchman]

Realistically speaking, the majority of troops in medieval era armies probably had low morale, perhaps resulting in european heavy cav's reputation. I know I wouldn't want to stand in front because my landlord told me to

Well, feudal aristocraties always had reservations about commoners properly trained and equipped to fight for some fairly readily obvious reasons. And pretty much the whole point of feudalism (okay, one of many) was always and everywhere the raising and maintenance of the invariably hideously expensive heavy cavalry, which duly drew the lords' attention and resources away from infantry.

For quite a while the most effective infantry forces in medieval Europe came from regions for one reason or another not "properly feudalized" - much of Scandinavia proper was flatly too agriculturally poor to support much in the way of landed aristocracy for example, as well as geographically rather unsuited for heavy cavalry dominance - and the numerous urban communities that existed in practice separately from the feudal system (and made a point of maintaining both proper fortifications and decent military forces to keep it that way). While the feudal lords naturally had and needed some capable infantry among their pool of military manpower and vassals (to man the assorted fortifications for example - no point in getting all of them horses too), when decent infantry was required in large numbers they usually turned to allies and mercenaries from the aforementioned "infantry heavy" regions.

[blahblahblah]

Wow. I guess calvary isn't as dominant in the medieval times as I thought.

[Watchman]

Depends entirely on what part of Europe and which time period you're talking about. Much of Italy, particularly the northern part, was heavily urbanized and the local knights really just provided a mobile striking arm to complement the solid shieldwalls of the communal infantry; ditto for the Low Countries; in the Iberian peninsula lighter cavalry played a greater part due to the geography and the hit-and-run characteristic of many conflicts fought, and the difficult terrain probably kept infantry comparatively valuable too; Fennoscandia was absolutely rotten with dense forests and never good "cavalry country" anyway, as well as so poor proper feudal chivalry were comparatively few in number for economic reasons. France and England, as well as some areas of Central Europe, were relatively open country and prosperous enough to support extensive feudal structures, and it was really there the knights dominated. Germany (as a geographical region) I know less about, but would suspect the trend varied considerably by the specific circumstances and terrain of a given area.

Obviously once you get to the wide open steppes of Eastern Europe and southern Russia, the natural domain of the horse, cavalry becomes rather overwhelmingly dominant for the obvious reason its mobility can be exploited to the fullest; access to traditions of mounted archery and composite bows no doubt further helped in this.

[Orda Khan]

Using Mongol cavalry as an example of the superiority of mounted troops is quite a good argument, they were very successful, even in Europe (Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, Bulgaria) However, in the Civil War between Qubilai and Ariq Bukha, the limitless inclusion of infantry available to Qubilai was one deciding factor in his eventual victory

........Orda

[Redtemplar]

Exactly (I didn't write everything about tactics of Mongols because it is not theme in this discussion - sorry for history fans :) - fact is that Mongols used cavalry). But true is that waves of horses one after another is very hard to defend against.

If charge was unsuccessful they turned around and attack another time. Infantry had weak mobility and low defense values against cavalry (exception are pikes and some weapons). Imagine to stand in one place with your battle colleagues (about 500, armored with swords and round shields, flat terrain) against 100 medium heavy cavalry units. You couldn't have a chance to survive this.

Battle horses were trained to kill and were not afraid of enemies. Even if they had number superiority. When you fight in battle you want to survive, the same does the enemy. I really doubt that you could stop cavalry with ordinary infantry. When order to charge was executed there was nothing to stop this (some of you say that horses were afraid of dying- it very funny but the soldiers were too and none of them was stopping suddenly in battle).

I repeat again battle horses were trained to fight and had huge courage - when you talk that these horses could run away - it is nonsense (much sooner would run away enemies infantry).

IMHO medieval times are ages of cavalry supremacy.

[Bob the Insane]

Well the point is not so much about the agressiveness of the horses or them running away, as it is about them being convinced they should run head long into an apparantly solid object... This is more an issue of inteligence rather than aggression, even a trained and aggressive animal will not run headlong into a solid object...

Now if you break up the infantry formation so that they do not look so solid but has gaps or better still looks like individuals I will grant you the horse will charge into those gaps and knock down and trample those individuals...

[Furious Mental]

"France and England, as well as some areas of Central Europe, were relatively open country and prosperous enough to support extensive feudal structures, and it was really there the knights dominated."

Actually the English had a predilection to fighting on foot which they passed on to the Norman aristocracy after their conquest. Plentiful infantry were an objective necessity of the siege warfare which dominated almost every campaign in England and Normandy and most field armies were probably comprised of two thirds infantry as William the Conqueror's is thought to have been (and in many pitched battles even the cavalry component was dismounted for tactical advantage). Also, the "extensive feudal structures" you refer to were in fact the least important of the English system of military obligations. Far more important were
- The knights of military households whose service was chiefly stipendiary
- Other knights and infantry whose service was entirely stipendiary
- The infantry levy of English land owners (i.e. the fyrd)
Leaf through contemporary sources from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries and you can find about a zillion references to armies being raised by these means. On the other hand (and I'm not joking here) there are only three references to a feudal host being summoned. And records of government show pretty clearly that kings and barons had a preference for having their vassals commute feudal obligations for a money payment which could be used to hire mercenaries. In fact the process of subinfeudation (division of knights' fees amongst several sub-tenant) meant that in practice there were frequently no feudal knights to summon.

[Aracnid]

Exactly (I didn't write everything about tactics of Mongols because it is not theme in this discussion - sorry for history fans :) - fact is that Mongols used cavalry). But true is that waves of horses one after another is very hard to defend against.

If charge was unsuccessful they turned around and attack another time. Infantry had weak mobility and low defense values against cavalry (exception are pikes and some weapons). Imagine to stand in one place with your battle colleagues (about 500, armored with swords and round shields, flat terrain) against 100 medium heavy cavalry units. You couldn't have a chance to survive this.

Battle horses were trained to kill and were not afraid of enemies. Even if they had number superiority. When you fight in battle you want to survive, the same does the enemy. I really doubt that you could stop cavalry with ordinary infantry. When order to charge was executed there was nothing to stop this (some of you say that horses were afraid of dying- it very funny but the soldiers were too and none of them was stopping suddenly in battle).

I repeat again battle horses were trained to fight and had huge courage - when you talk that these horses could run away - it is nonsense (much sooner would run away enemies infantry).

IMHO medieval times are ages of cavalry supremacy.

See my above post for my counter reply. or

[LadyAnn]

IMHO medieval times are ages of cavalry supremacy.

Am not so quick to come to this conclusion at all. The Middle Ages are so diverse and evolutionary in military doctrines that it is very hard to just say that.

When someone says "Heavy Cavalry should win all", we could cite numerous examples where they fell the task. Not only in France, but also in Iberian Penninsula. One could point out that at certain point in the 14th century, the knights started to fight on foot, prefered to dismount before battle. Yet, if someone said "Cavalry should be weak" one could point out the success of Polish cavalry, of Mongol light cavalry, of Spanish cavalry, of Cavalry in Crusade Era (on both sides).

Anniep

[Orda Khan]

Mongol discipline as much as their cavalry won them their victories. Ask any military historian for an opinion and it will be that generally it was the 'grunts' who did the hard work

....Orda

[Eaglefirst]

I'm no medieval war period expert but kngihts charging frontally shoul;d work on weak troops but not on any sort of experienced infantry. I would imagine If I was a peasent and a knight ran at me I'd run away, once I run I'm toast, the formation is gone and we get ridden down but if we hold still the horses will either refuese to charge trhough the spears and shields or charge and get bogged down and cut to pieces. Also someone more knowledgable can correct me but I think knights did not charge at full gallop which would make the momentum less of a factor. Overall the cavalry in MT2W seems good not the overpowerd garbage in RTW.

[Redtemplar]

Yes LadyAnn it depends on many parameters. But I really doubt in so called "solid wall from humans" - i never have seen that surviving a battle in middle Europe. Polish cavalry had an experience in destroying even such formations (only carts? and special walls from wood - shield haha - for infantry could protect them - but still this wasn't good protection :)). They simply made charges one after another (and used some interesting tactics - ). The infantry was weakened enough to make final charge and game over :).

I think it is experience different in every nations () but I am writing this topics from my point of view (and I am not saying cavalry can destroy everything, but in good hands can destroy almost everything :).

Peace and love - remember war is cruel - let it be only in games.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

IF cavalry can destroy almost anything, do you think this game is going to be of any interest at all?

Just buy cavalry and win... That's going to be very poor gameplay...

Louis,

[Redtemplar]

Not completely (I was writing about history arguments not gameplay).

Well than you just buy cavalry to attack cavalry, there are also pikes, castles etc.. I think it has little to do with gameplay.

[Orda Khan]

Cav versus cav, that's fair enough but strange how Julius Caesar deployed infantry amongst his cav to defeat the cav of Pompei......

......Orda

[Furious Mental]

"i never have seen that surviving a battle in middle Europe."

I actually just gave you an example of frontal cavalry charges being explicitly stated to be useless against a solid wall of humans by a contemporary source.

[Da_Funkey_Gibbon]

Yeah, that was interesting, but it raises the question of how far tactics changed from the mid 11th century to the mid 15th century in terms of calvary tactics in north west Europe. Specifically the influence of the classical knight in full plate armor, which I believe deleloped throughout the middle ages.

[Orb]

I think cavalry should roll over most infantry on a bowling green, but when it comes to the misfortunes of grapevines, hedges, woods etc. they should have more trouble.

[andrewt]

It isn't easy for cavalry to charge, circle around and charge again. After a charge, horses need a wide area to turn around and run away so they can charge again. Even if they knock over humans, there's still the matter of them tripping over. Try running over something half your height and a tenth your weight. You'll knock it over but you'll probably trip, too. Physically, the difficulty of knocking down humans rises exponentially the more there are behind them, especially if they have a low center of gravity and are braced for impact. Hitting them would mean the horse would stumble.


Frontal charges just don't work against experienced, high-morale troops in a tight, deep formation, pike or no pike. Obviously, the Mongols had lots of success but horse archer combat is vasltly different from charging knights.

[ProudNerd]

Cav seems very weak to me especially conquistadors. they died very quickly against the Aztecs as did cortez's bodyguard. It was crushed in seconds.

[Horatius]

At Hattin and Varna knights charged headlong against walls of infantry who did not retreat but still broke the lines, although in both battles it was over when they did it and .

Cavalry was the king of the Middle Ages not because they had to charge a flank or from behind but because in reality they decimated whatever they faced 90% of the time.

I see that you guys like to mention the few examples of cavalry not being able to charge home, however what you neglect to mention is that there happen to have been thousands of Medieval Battles in Europe and the Middle East and cavalry charges determined just about all of them.

I had almost no use for cavalry in MTW1 and rarely ever built them, and the few times I did I was dissapointed by the fact that they lost to just about everything apart from peasants, archers and other cavalry and so I just built archer infantry armies for the sake of effectiveness.

If MTW2 Cavalry follow MTW1 Cavalry instead of the more realistic RTW I just won't build them when I could have effective archers and infantry instead, especially considering that there will be limits to what you can recruit.

[Mordred]

Cav is by no means weak in the game. It depends on how you use them. The French cav is capable of annihilating pikes. I have even seen the Ai do it.
4 badly damaged units of cav, probably half their strenght, whacked 3 units of pikes and two german halbadiers by attacking them from all sides simultaniously.

If you keep your cav concentrated, not bogged down in melee and flanking or attacking from behind cav in the demo can be devastating for infantry.

Frontal assauts are usually fatal for cav, although the AI on one occasion charged billmen at agincourt and destroyed them before I could do anything.

[x-dANGEr]

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

Maybe if you sticked around for a bit more till the patches came out you would've been able to..

I'm sure CA learned their lesson, and I hope they don't do that again.

Though, to the Cavalry VS Organised Disciplined infantry.. Didn't some Cavalry units at some point blind their horses?