Weak cavalry?

[Horatius]

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.

I haven't played the demo yet so correct me if I'm wrong, but can't just about any unit you could build instead of knights eliminate anything when they flank them? So are french cavalry the same as anybody else's cavalry again?

In MTW 1 cavalry was utterly worthless in my opinion, and on the historical knights rarely ever flanked the knights are the Medieval answer to Achilles not Odysseus.

[LadyAnn]

M:TW cavalry is utterly worthless? I am proud to field an all cav army and confident enough to field it against good MP players. Even 3/4 cav army would fare well. Of course, it won't be able to win 1vs1 battles, but it is far from worthless.

Flank attack was always the hallmark of any respectable cavalry corp, from the time Philips II of Macedonia to modern time.

About your question of French cavalry: since I have not seen the complete stats, I am not able to say if French cavalry is best or not. It is not true that any unit you can build when flank another unit would win. Cavalry does have the charge bonus, combining with flanking (and you need speed to flank, which is another advantage that cavalry could have), would make cavalry the ideal unit for playing hammer in a hammer-anvil tactic.

Anniep

[Orb]

M:TW cavalry is utterly worthless? I am proud to field an all cav army and confident enough to field it against good MP players. Even 3/4 cav army would fare well. Of course, it won't be able to win 1vs1 battles, but it is far from worthless.

Flank attack was always the hallmark of any respectable cavalry corp, from the time Philips II of Macedonia to modern time.

About your question of French cavalry: since I have not seen the complete stats, I am not able to say if French cavalry is best or not. It is not true that any unit you can build when flank another unit would win. Cavalry does have the charge bonus, combining with flanking (and you need speed to flank, which is another advantage that cavalry could have), would make cavalry the ideal unit for playing hammer in a hammer-anvil tactic.

Anniep

How about the Norman cavalry of the 11th-12th century. They just went straight through Byzantine and Arabic armies consistently with no trouble at all (except at Durazzo) - without flanking. I can't really find any real situations of cavalry flanking in the medieval era. If anyone could dig some up, I'd be grateful.

[Polemists]

I don't know how this got so historical but anyway here is my two cents.

I agree with that most of the history buffs said. Were calvary powerful? Yes, this wasn't do to fact you just had man on horse but do to fact that your basic grunt was not that well equipped. Calvary are generally better just because they have better gear.

Now onto game, Calvary are vital. Yes they do not demolish every infantry formation. Still they are very effective in battle, do push back lines, and kill men rather quickly.

If anyone thinks calvary underpowered I dare them to try playing the battles of onumbia or pavia without calvary and win. You should see a difference, at least in demo 2 for sure.

My calvary cut down the scotts guard rather quickly, the only time it takes all day is when they charge a group of 100 crossbow men, and yes cutting down 100 men does take a bit lol.

[Horatius]

I am proud to field an all cav army and confident enough to field it against good MP players.

Why don't you try that in the Grad Campaign?

[QUOTE-Anne]Even 3/4 cav army would fare well. Of course, it won't be able to win 1vs1 battles,[/QUOTE]

lol

Flank attack was always the hallmark of any respectable cavalry corp, from the time Philips II of Macedonia to modern time.

Tell that to the Normans who slaughtered Arab and Byzantine like lamb just by charging home.

How about the Norman cavalry of the 11th-12th century. They just went straight through Byzantine and Arabic armies consistently with no trouble at all (except at Durazzo) - without flanking. I can't really find any real situations of cavalry flanking in the medieval era. If anyone could dig some up, I'd be grateful.

My point exactly, would it not bring glory, but it wouldn't be practical to start with, and was not even neccessary because charging home head on worked most of the time apart from a few times when British Armies gave nasty surprises.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I can foresee a future with great gameplay... Select your cav, charge straight at the enemy, win... CBR, you'll like that

Most MTW army were already very heavy on cavalry (typical would be 4-7 cavalry unit for MP / 16) which is already way more than was displayed historically speaking. And you want even more cavalry in there?
How are you going to keep the game balanced if one unit destroys it all? Not to mention to keep army with some semblance of historical composition?
I guess that you can multiply cavalry cost by 10

Horatius: Campaign is a joke... a pretty good player won it with Pontius using only Pontic Light Cav. Is that good enough? It's doable with Equites. In BI, it's even worse...

Louis,

[Horatius]

Most MTW army were already very heavy on cavalry (typical would be 4-7 cavalry unit for MP / 16) which is already way more than was displayed historically speaking. And you want even more cavalry in there?

Nope I just want them to be worth building since I could build infantry and archers for lower cost and more efficiency. Besides what are you worried about when CA has already announced that recruitment will not be what you want but will be what is available so there will definately be variety in armies, or did you miss almost every announcement they made about the campaign?

How are you going to keep the game balanced if one unit destroys it all?

Same as the historical, Knights destroy all but there are limited numbers of them and you will need lesser units to support them or you will lose the battle.

Not to mention to keep army with some semblance of historical composition?

Considering the British Army was the only one not wholly dependent on Knights in Western Europe and even British Armies made very heavy use of knights it would be historical for Western European Armies to depend on their knights but need other units to support them, and I do not mean by distracting while knights go off to the side, since knights were tanks of the battlefield, not assassins.

I guess that you can multiply cavalry cost by 10

Along with their likely availability that would be good

Campaign is a joke... a pretty good player won it with Pontius using only Pontic Light Cav.

You switched from talking MTW to RTW but that is ok because as Greeks Pontian Cavalry is easily countered by a square of Hoplites with Archers in the middle shooting any horse archer, what's your point?

It's doable with Equites. In BI, it's even worse...

See above.

[andrewt]

I built tons of knights when playing M:TW and found them powerful so I don't know where you got the idea that they were useless. Keep in mind that they are knights, not Panzers.

[Kavhan Isbul]

I can't really find any real situations of cavalry flanking in the medieval era. If anyone could dig some up, I'd be grateful.

I believe the battle of Nicopolis in 1396 was in the medieval era. It was decided, reportedly, by a flanking move of the Serb heavy cavalry (fighting on the side of the Ottomans) under Stefan Lazarevic.

Also, in the battle of Varna the Crusaders had an army composed primarily of heavy cavalry - the result of the battle is well known, and it only comes to prove that a cavalry charge is not all that it took in the Middle Ages to ensure victory. Heavy cavalry did have battle winning charge, but only if used properly - simply throwing it at the enemy did not work all the time.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Nope I just want them to be worth building since I could build infantry and archers for lower cost and more efficiency. Besides what are you worried about when CA has already announced that recruitment will not be what you want but will be what is available so there will definately be variety in armies, or did you miss almost every announcement they made about the campaign?

The ultimate test of unit balance is MP. If MPers thinks cavalry are worth it, then indeed, they are. Believe me, I have seen a lot of af all cavalry army, but I have seldom seen army with no cavalry: most of the time they run in the 4-7 cavalry range; that tells me cavalry are hardly worthless... If you're looking at worthless in MTW, look at spear&pike; those were truly worthless, noone would take them...

Recruitment pool are not a MP feature. Remember that you also needs MP balance...

Same as the historical, Knights destroy all but there are limited numbers of them and you will need lesser units to support them or you will lose the battle.

How will you limit knight number in MP? If they are so powerfull, why would any MPer field anything but them?
Can you think about the gameplay? Just once? Have you ever played online?

Considering the British Army was the only one not wholly dependent on Knights in Western Europe and even British Armies made very heavy use of knights it would be historical for Western European Armies to depend on their knights but need other units to support them, and I do not mean by distracting while knights go off to the side, since knights were tanks of the battlefield, not assassins.

I am not aware of any medieval army of significant numbers were knights (am not talking seargent or hobilar here) would make half of the army; it's a situation we already have today, your proposal would make it worse...

Along with their likely availability that would be good

It's now fairly obvious you have no idea what this would do to the MP side of the game

You switched from talking MTW to RTW but that is ok because as Greeks Pontian Cavalry is easily countered by a square of Hoplites with Archers in the middle shooting any horse archer, what's your point?

Ok, let me sum it up:
- in MTW MP cavalry are good, players use them a lot, we see all cavalry army, and most of the time an army will have in the 4-7 cavalry units. On the other hand, you'll seldom see a pike or spear unit -> for MTW MP cavalry is already very powerful
- in RTW MP: balance is non existant to start with... and cavalry is very very clearly overpowered
- in MTW SP campaign: I can win with cavalry units only, with no archer or infantry whatsoever. I think anyone can. If you read guide, for France or England it often starts with "build hobilar"... The maintnance cost for cavalry in MTW is fairly low compared to their effectiveness. if you think cavalry is useless in SP, you're missing something
- in RTW SP campaign, you can win building nothing but Pontic light cavalry, or nothing but equites. It's so easy it's almost sick: you're not going to see a square of phalanx in SP because 1: AI will not think of it, and 2: you're going to blitz the map so fast that AI won't have the time to build up enough for it anyway...

Louis,

[Lusted]

Something that will stop people from fielding all cavalry armies in M2Tw MP is the reintroduced MTW feature that after you've chosen 4 of a unit in your army the cost of the unit increases for every unit of that type you pick after that.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Something that will stop people from fielding all cavalry armies in M2Tw MP is the reintroduced MTW feature that after you've chosen 4 of a unit in your army the cost of the unit increases for every unit of that type you pick after that.

That feature had not stopped all cavalry army in MTW, it won't stop it in MTW2...

Louis,

[Ringeck]

because charging home head on worked most of the time apart from a few times when British Armies gave nasty surprises.

I think that view has been shown to be rather outdated (not to mention anglocentric like hell). Are there many examples of this that you actually can put forward? Verbruggen could not, and neither could Contamine, which led them both to reevaluate the notion of the frontal charge being the only, or even main, tactic of medieval cavalry.

[LadyAnn]

When I said all cav army won win 1x1, I meant I won't be sure to have 50% chance of winning against the best players out there. In campaign against AI, all cav army always won (played with stinky Russian Step Cavs in the mix no less).

Anniep

[LadyAnn]

That feature had not stopped all cavalry army in MTW, it won't stop it in MTW2...

Louis,

In MTW, you can field 4 units of one type, 4 units of another type, etc. Each faction has enough variety to field 4 types and still has all cav army.

It is important to see that all cav in MTW is a handicap. You have only 640 men total and you can't easily hold ground. On RTW, all cav is not a handicap. Thus I wouldn't play all cav on RTW.

(also important to separate out MP and SP).

Anniep

[andystyle]

in all probability you couldn't even get them to charge.

I agree with everything you say up to this point...warhorses were trained to charge. No cavalry unit would go into the field if they weren't confident their mounts would actually charge when required.

[Puzz3D]

Something that will stop people from fielding all cavalry armies in M2Tw MP is the reintroduced MTW feature that after you've chosen 4 of a unit in your army the cost of the unit increases for every unit of that type you pick after that.

That is a bad feature because it's a crutch used to compensate for poor balance in the units. It suggests that they haven't balanced the units well enough. I wish we could get rid of that feature in Samurai Wars because it's not needed.

[Orda Khan]

easily countered by a square of Hoplites with Archers in the middle shooting any horse archer, what's your point?

I faced that formation with Scythian HA, the formation died. Switch off FAW, target archer units, when all dead or so low in number as to offer no threat, target the BACKS of each pike wall and watch them drop

.......Orda

[Cheetah]

First of all there is a big diference between SP and MP not just in the oposition you have but in the effectiveness, exactly because of the oposition.

In SP you can play whatever style you prefer as long as you want. In most cases you wont recognize the weakness of your style simply because the AI is not that good to exploit it. Thus you can play infantry heavy, cav heavy, archer heavy styles forever, and accordingly you might be complaianing that cavs, infs, archers are weak/strong etc.

However, in MP your opponents will quickly show the weakness of your style (simply because of the competitve nature of MP) and thus you will be forced to change, unless you are prepared to lose all the time, which none of us prefers. All in all in MP you will be quickly chanelled to play the most efficient style with the most efficient armies (add a small variation here and there).

For the above reasons I am a bit sceptical about gamebalance suggestions coming from SP, simply because there is no way to know whether your style is efficient/unefficient in SP. On the otherhand, MP is a much better measure of game balance as even the smallest expliots will be found and used/abused very quickly.

Thus, as far as the above statement concered that cavs were weak in MTW, it is safe to say that it is not likely to be true. Almost half of the armies in MP consisted cavs, most notably heavy cavs (chiv knights) and in the light of the above argument it is not likely that people would take them if they were that weak. For example a tipical MP army was 3 pavies x-bows, 5 MAA and 8 Chiv knight (or it is equivalent: Hospitaller knights, Teutonic knights, Templars, upgraded feudal knights, etc). Would anyone deploy such an army if cavs were that weak? No way.

The very problem of MP was that spears were not good enough or to be precise were to costly. There were spears that could hold cav charges, like v2 orderfoot, but they were even costlier than the cavs and even costlier than the MAA that could beat them. IMHO a small change in cost could have changed things, as if lets say v2 orderfoot would have been the same cost as v3w1 FMAA then I am sure some people would have used at least 1 or 2; and if v2 orderfoot would have been cheaper than v3w1 FMAA, let say around 700 florins, then I am sure it would have been a standard addition to MP armies.

Anyway, it was not and cav was a dominant force in MTW (except the early days before the 1.1 patch).

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

What Cheetah say

This is exactly the kind of topic that killed spear as a part of a balanced army in MTW moving from 1.0 to 1.1 ...

Louis,

[geala]

Interesting historical debate. My point of view:

1. It is possible to train horses in a manner that they run against and crush in a firm obstacle like a dense body of men with or without spears, pikes and shields. It would be obviously not very good for the horses health and might be their one and only battle but it is possible.

2. It must have been a fairly seldom event at any ancient, medieval or modern battle that there were together enough horses well trained in the described manner to achieve a contact or break against a firm infantry formation.

My opinion is based on the fact that in war horses fade away very quickly even without actual fighting (desease, starvation, accidents) and at a far higher percentage than men. Maybe some of the supposed breaks were achieved by knights with such trained horses but imho it happened not so often to take it as a rule (unfortunately I could only list incidents where medieval cavalry was unable to break massive formations but I hope for enlightenment).

3. The reports of frankish knights breaking through their byzantine and islamic enemies should not be taken too seriously. My explanation for this strange hint, if it isn't mere exaggeration, is that it is meant for cavalry against cavalry. In this case heavier cavalry has a big advantage. Maybe another example for this effect: in some battles of the 30-years-war the imperial Kürisser/cuirassiers in heavy armour are said to go through lighter swedish cavalry "like a knife through butter". That was not the case against infantry.

4. For me the mongols greatest advantage was not the bow or horse or mobility but the very good organisation and discipline which equalled those of modern european armies. And it's not a miracle that steppe people performed so pitiable against modern european troops of equal or better discipline from the 16th century on.

5. Cavalry in MTW reflects knightly combat not in every instance. It behaves more as modern cavalry fighting in seperate bodies and being able to charge, summon, withdraw and recharge several times. Medieval cavalry was not always able to do this in a similar manner. So I would appreciate if cavalry wouldn't be as strong as in RTW where sometimes balance is ridiculous.

6. Even if cavalry wasn't able to break massive formations from 350 BC till 1890 AD frequently battles were won by cavalry and that will be also the case in M2TW, I presume.

7. sry for my english

[Horatius]

I think that view has been shown to be rather outdated (not to mention anglocentric like hell). Are there many examples of this that you actually can put forward? Verbruggen could not, and neither could Contamine, which led them both to reevaluate the notion of the frontal charge being the only, or even main, tactic of medieval cavalry.

On what the British Armies stopping overwhelming odds like at Agincourt or the Knights charging home to unexpectedly win the day like Simon de Montfort the Elder's Knights did at Muret?

The ultimate test of unit balance is MP. If MPers thinks cavalry are worth it, then indeed, they are. Believe me, I have seen a lot of af all cavalry army, but I have seldom seen army with no cavalry: most of the time they run in the 4-7 cavalry range; that tells me cavalry are hardly worthless... If you're looking at worthless in MTW, look at spear&pike; those were truly worthless, noone would take them...

Recruitment pool are not a MP feature. Remember that you also needs MP balance...

Never played multiplayer or beyond patch 1.00 so could you explain how mp works in terms of unit selection?

How will you limit knight number in MP? If they are so powerfull, why would any MPer field anything but them?
Can you think about the gameplay? Just once? Have you ever played online?

Limited recruitment pools?

I am not aware of any medieval army of significant numbers were knights (am not talking seargent or hobilar here) would make half of the army; it's a situation we already have today, your proposal would make it worse...

I never said Knights had a majority or even close to one in the army, they still did decide most of the battles.

It's now fairly obvious you have no idea what this would do to the MP side of the game

To answer the next thing you said at the same time I never played MP

Ok, let me sum it up:
- in MTW MP cavalry are good, players use them a lot, we see all cavalry army, and most of the time an army will have in the 4-7 cavalry units. On the other hand, you'll seldom see a pike or spear unit -> for MTW MP cavalry is already very powerful
- in RTW MP: balance is non existant to start with... and cavalry is very very clearly overpowered
- in MTW SP campaign: I can win with cavalry units only, with no archer or infantry whatsoever. I think anyone can. If you read guide, for France or England it often starts with "build hobilar"... The maintnance cost for cavalry in MTW is fairly low compared to their effectiveness. if you think cavalry is useless in SP, you're missing something
- in RTW SP campaign, you can win building nothing but Pontic light cavalry, or nothing but equites. It's so easy it's almost sick: you're not going to see a square of phalanx in SP because 1: AI will not think of it, and 2: you're going to blitz the map so fast that AI won't have the time to build up enough for it anyway...

I generally allowed the computer to build up but would intervene against bullies like Egypt untill I had an ideal army to conquer all in RTW.

I faced that formation with Scythian HA, the formation died. Switch off FAW, target archer units, when all dead or so low in number as to offer no threat, target the BACKS of each pike wall and watch them drop

Impressive, although by a square I meant with no back, so wherever you order fire you are firing at the front.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Never played multiplayer or beyond patch 1.00 so could you explain how mp works in terms of unit selection?

Limited recruitment pools?

Limited recruitement pools are not a MP feature. MP battle are just like a custom SP game. So start M/RTW, select custom battle and see for yourself. Initial cost is all that matters + upgrade cost. There is no pool, and you have access well, to pretty much all units available to your faction in SP (there are a few oddities but it's a good general rule)

I never said Knights had a majority or even close to one in the army, they still did decide most of the battles.

Right now, knights are so good in MTW that they make up the biggest part of most army fielded: ie, even if you think they are weak, players take a lot more of them than what historically happened.
In their current "weak" (according to you) version, knights are already over represented; so what will happen if they become even more powerful?

I generally allowed the computer to build up but would intervene against bullies like Egypt untill I had an ideal army to conquer all in RTW.

Well, if you impose yourself some Ironman rule, that sure tells something about the game... The point stands: in SP, you can choose to build cavalry and only cavalry, and still win, actually it's so easy it's not even fun. And it's probably going to be easier than if you wished to do that with infantry only

Impressive, although by a square I meant with no back, so wherever you order fire you are firing at the front.

Nope, if units are in square formation, then you do not hit the front unit, you hit the back unit in the back... If you got time, one day we fet online, you take a square, put archer in (although for the sake of showing what the inner back of a unit is, you don't need the archer part), and you'll see how it goes...

Louis,

[Ringeck]

On what the British Armies stopping overwhelming odds like at Agincourt or the Knights charging home to unexpectedly win the day like Simon de Montfort the Elder's Knights did at Muret?

No, that the frontal charge was somehow the dominating all-battle winning technique of the day that could effortlessly run down any infantry. Muret was a charge of Simon de Montford's knights against King Peter of Aragons's own knights, so that's a pretty bad example of the case. The anglocentrism I was referring to was the fact that formed infantry repelling cavalry assaults was something that happened all thorough the middle ages, all thorough Europe, not just the british isles.

[Orda Khan]

Impressive, although by a square I meant with no back, so wherever you order fire you are firing at the front.

You described a hoplite square formation with archers placed inside it. Each hoplite unit can be targetted in the back. You don't shoot the unit facing you, you shoot over them and into the backs of the hoplites on the other side

.......Orda

[LadyAnn]

The other way of defeating the hoplite square is to highlight its other weakness: that 1/3 of your units and 1/2 of your elite and expensive hoplites are facing the other way. The attackers could pin down two edges and attack the "corner" where two edges meet. And you don't have to even use 1:1 ratio to pin down: usually you could pin down 3 hoplites using only two phalangites.

You just push on the corner strong enough to have a gap and let your units inside the square. Now, all for fronts became all four backs and the square quickly dissolves into a blurry routing mass.

I was in a battle where both attackers and defenders form squares and sit there and tout each others. That's quite infantile, juvinile or plain retard.

Anniep

[DukeofSerbia]

Ordinary medium cavalry should easily destroy for example sword infantry with little amount of casualties.

Not so simple as you think. Depend on what type terrain and various other conditions.

Peasants couldn't do anything to charging knights.

True.

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).

Partly true. Good infantry will always destroy group of knights.

[Watchman]

The Northern Italian urban infantry seem to have made something of a habit out of giving knights a bloody nose (as in, "from running headfirst into a wall").

Not that the Anglo-Saxon infantry militia appears to have had tremendous problems holding the Norman cavalry at bay at Hastings, either.

Actually, if knights really were able to plow aside everything, one has to wonder at the standard Medieval practice of using heavy infantry spearmen as a solid fallback/reform base for the cavalry, and for shielding your own knights while they switched to their proper warhorses from the riding horses they normally rode ("got on their high horses", as they saying goes)...

Or how for example Middle Eastern cavalry, once the novelty of the massed couched-lance charge wore off, could readily enough take knights head on and not get pulverized.

[Horatius]

Middle Eastern Cavalry (Unless you count the Byzantine Heavy Cavalry) always got pulverized when facing Knights head on, for example at Dorylaeum which featured Knights at not their heaviest armor (It was still chainmail during the First Crusade) the eastern cavalry really was not able to stand up to the Knights when facing them head on.

Ann and Orda that if very clever, although I guess it will depend on the strength of the to sides when it comes down to it.

Louis maybe we could do a MP game with each other some time.

To Louis and Ann did MTW get a major upgrade after patch 1.00 because that is all I played of MTW.

[LadyAnn]

After MTW 1.0, there are major patches:
MTW 1.1 quickly followed
then MTW/VI 2.0
then MTW/VI 2.01

MTW1.0 has a lot of bugs
MTW1.1 made cav more powerful, making MP imbalanced. There are several exploits in MTW 1.0 and 1.1 that MTW/VI fixed: the "swipe".