Cav way too powerful

[Waleed]

Been playing for about a day now and I've noticed cav are still overly powerful just like in Rome total war. Even the lightest heavy knights available to catholic factions (mailed knights) have no trouble running right through a prepared spear wall. Even armoured seargants are no match to mailed knights let alone feudal or chivalric. No matter what infantry unit you use to defend it always appears to suffer greater than 50% casualties within the first few seconds of the charge. Something about this doesn't seem right.

[RomoR]

Dont know if cav is overpowered but I think spears are too weak, I play as Portugal and I can say that pikes are ok against cav but normal spears almost always loose even against Hobilars!!!!!

A 340 gold spear unit looses against an Hobilar 220 gold unit even when in shiltron formation (which by the way seems useless to me). Its a bit sad

[Zort]

Too powerful? My cav refuses to charge correctly and even peasants killing the frontline pretty fast...

[The Wizard]

I'm hearing two sounds here... one side tells me the cavalry is weakened from RTW, the other says that spears are underpowered.

Say we take MTW as the level to be achieved. I've recently gotten back to playing that. I've heard normal spears get decimated by cavalry, even in close quarters (say a siege). In MTW, this is also the case, unless you misuse your cavalry. Chivalric knights will win any encounter with normal spearmen, even feudal sergeants, under normal circumstances. Uphill, even kataphraktoi and Gothic knights flounder.

Can't speak of a combat experience. Don't have the game, you see

[PROMETHEUS]

Too powerful? My cav refuses to charge correctly and even peasants killing the frontline pretty fast...

Same here I play on very hard , but come one it is possible that CA put smoke in our eyes when reading their wonders on AI , but may be they simply pumped up the enemies stats when on hard and very hard .... my cavalry is buggy , don't charge anything if not very far, tire very fast , and gets killed by even archers and crossbowmen....that if charged after a couple of hits they stand firm and cut into pieces all the knights ..... bah .....

[Maizel]

I don't think the AI's cav is more buffed up. The AI does seem to get decent charges more often. Mine always stop charging 2 mweters in front of an enemy unit, and walk the rest of the way like they;re walking down a park.

Also they don;t form a proper front, rather they choose to go into battle one by one, getting hacked away.

[BigTex]

Playing on VH/VH knights and other heavy cav seem perfect. They can decimate nearly any infantry 1v1 in a solid charge. But if they get bogged down they will be massacred. The trick to killing them is to stop them, remember to always keep some form of reserve heavy infantry behind your main line. Let the cavalry hit that cheap infantry and stall out. Then send in your reserve and their ground horsemeat before too long. Unsuported infantry should always be decimated if caught by cav. Even if their spearmen, cav should decimate them but they will take insane casualties head on to make it worth it.

I'm loving the knights and heavy cav atm. CA you truly got it so near perfect this time.

Spears would suffer from cavalry charges. What makes the pike different is that it's butt end is grounded and then the pikes are leveled in a hedgehog bristle. Spears might have a bit of reach over swords but the weapon is still only held by the spearman and so a horse charge will still penetrate the line.

Not all pointy ended sticks are the same in use or effect.

With pikes, the weapon itself absorbes the impact and transmits it to the ground so it forms a real barrier.

With spears the man still absorbes the impact through the weapon and suffers the direct shock of the charge.

Cavalry has always been powerful and decisive on battlefields. First, prior to impact charges, by being able to quickly flank infantry and out manuvere foot soldiers.
After the development of impact charges, foot soldiers would often run at the mear threat of a horse charge.

Pikes gave the footman some hope of success but foot soldiers were still subject to being out manuvered by horse and forced to defend either from an infantry push from their front, or horse impact from rear or side.

Also for pikemen, the weapon itself would often inflict casualties on themselves or their fellows by becoming ungrounded and shoved like rams through the ranks by the impact of the horse charge.

Anyway, that's my limited understanding of the issue.

What your missing though is that a spear formation is much much more tighter then a pike. While a spearmen will take the brunt of the assualt he is supported by the men behind him, the horse must move not just him but the supporting men in the back ranks. With tight disciplined formations like the shield wall the amount of men the cav would have had to of pushed increased exponentially with each additional rank.

[osb0t]

My experience with the Cav charging thing is this.

You have to allow the cavalry to "reset", they need to come to nearly a complete stop and be lined up roughly on the target you intend to charge. Next you need to make sure their lances are already out, if they are not out try hitting cancel orders, that usually works for me. If cancel orders doesnt work to get them to pull their lances out try having them move forward a little bit. It is obviously very finicky and I think something is probably broken in that regard.

Next when delivering the actual charge, they need a minimum distance because they WILL actually sort themselves out in the approach to present a single line abreast however many ranks deep you have them. Secondly they WILL abort the charge if there are "doodads" in the way. If you are charging them over broken ground, they will abort the charge 90% of the time in my experience. Rocks/Trees/Shrubs etc will all cause them to pull up their lances and go to swords. Seems fairly realistic to me actually.

The biggest issue I have at the moment is being able to consistently have them pull out their lances when they are not currently engaged in combat. Sometimes hitting cancel works like magic, other times nothing seems to work.

[Grimmy]

Spears would suffer from cavalry charges. What makes the pike different is that it's butt end is grounded and then the pikes are leveled in a hedgehog bristle. Spears might have a bit of reach over swords but the weapon is still only held by the spearman and so a horse charge will still penetrate the line.

Not all pointy ended sticks are the same in use or effect.

With pikes, the weapon itself absorbes the impact and transmits it to the ground so it forms a real barrier.

With spears the man still absorbes the impact through the weapon and suffers the direct shock of the charge.

Cavalry has always been powerful and decisive on battlefields. First, prior to impact charges, by being able to quickly flank infantry and out manuvere foot soldiers.
After the development of impact charges, foot soldiers would often run at the mear threat of a horse charge.

Pikes gave the footman some hope of success but foot soldiers were still subject to being out manuvered by horse and forced to defend either from an infantry push from their front, or horse impact from rear or side.

Also for pikemen, the weapon itself would often inflict casualties on themselves or their fellows by becoming ungrounded and shoved like rams through the ranks by the impact of the horse charge.

Anyway, that's my limited understanding of the issue.

[The Wizard]

You forget the effects of a spear formation. The densely packed mass of men, in which each man's weight contributes to the staying power of the man in front of him, is a major reason why a spear formation can stop cavalry. That is the power of the shield wall, the major infantry tactic in the early ages of MTW2's timespan.

Like pikes, spears do not massacre cavalry; rather, they win by sheer staying power. Cavalry bogged down is no force at all.

The difference between, say, a spear-armed formation of Anglo-Saxon fyrdmen and the gladius-armed Roman cohort is the reach of the spear. The Roman cohort could most certainly stop an oncoming cavalry charge, yes, but its soldiers couldn't reach the man on the horse. A spear's reach remedies that problem. Again: killing power is not the power of the "long pointy thing" soldier category.

[Throumbaris]

Even peasants can destroy mailed knights once they are stopped, they are most definately not too powerful.

[The Wizard]

The sentiment expressed in this thread is: sure, but how can they be stopped if my spears can't do the job?

I can't say, for one. I'm just a sucker without the game

[RabidGibbon]

I did some Game research just now, and was surprised by the results. After playing 150 or so campaign turns I don't make frontal charges with my heavy cav, so expected some different results to what I got here.

I took 3 units of Gendarmes, against 3 units of (HRE) Sargeant Spearmen. Difficulty was VH.

I expected the HRE spears to form a line, but they kept their general in reserve, so I charged 2 units of gendarmes against the front 2 spear units. The 3rd Gendarme unit was never used throughout the battle.

Total value of the Gendarmes is (770 x 2) 1540

Total value of the spearmen is (420 x 3) 1260

The spearmen were routed within a minute. However they were deployed piecemeal (ie: the front 2 then the General) against the Gendarmes. The Gendarmes won, but only 36 out of 120 were left.









Now the cavalry has won here, but they are more expensive than the troops their fighting. Once you factor in that you never get a charge as straight and clean as I got in this test fight - In MP or the Campaign archers, terrain and confusion would all have reduced their effectiveness.

Overall I don't think Cavalry are overpowered. At all.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Think Cav is Kinda Overpowered when I did some SP games today, but not to bad..

[Waleed]

I just did an experiment similiar to the one above. I had a general of peasants, as well as the enemy general of peasants, both never bothered two engage. I had 2 units of Mailed Knights and the enemy had 2 units of Armoured Spearment. Now when I walked them up to the enemy they began dying but if i clicked "move" on the ground behind them the cavalry just walked through the units completly decimating them. I think the problem lies in that fact that infantry don't really have any staying power and cavalry just walk through them like they're not even there. The AI seems to do this. I remember in a siege having 8 units of spear militia almost completly decimated before being able to finally destroy 1 unit of jinettes and 2 units of mailed knights. The mailed knights just kept walking through my men killing them in massive numbers. I finally called in my general and he dispatched them but I lost a lot of spears.

[A.Saturnus]

You forget the effects of a spear formation. The densely packed mass of men, in which each man's weight contributes to the staying power of the man in front of him, is a major reason why a spear formation can stop cavalry. That is the power of the shield wall, the major infantry tactic in the early ages of MTW2's timespan.

Like pikes, spears do not massacre cavalry; rather, they win by sheer staying power. Cavalry bogged down is no force at all.

The difference between, say, a spear-armed formation of Anglo-Saxon fyrdmen and the gladius-armed Roman cohort is the reach of the spear. The Roman cohort could most certainly stop an oncoming cavalry charge, yes, but its soldiers couldn't reach the man on the horse. A spear's reach remedies that problem. Again: killing power is not the power of the "long pointy thing" soldier category.

No doubt that disciplined spearmen in tight formation could stop a cav charge but in medieval times spearmen never were highly trained. Even Sargeant Spearmen would be rather would be rather untrained, since almost the entire fighting elite in these times were knights. That's why heavy cav dominated the battlefields until the late medieval times.

[Maizel]

Also bear in mind, that a unit of gendarmes, is more than 2 times as expensive to maintain in the campaigngame

[Lord Condormanius]

Cavalry has always been powerful and decisive on battlefields. First, prior to impact charges, by being able to quickly flank infantry and out manuvere foot soldiers.
After the development of impact charges, foot soldiers would often run at the mear threat of a horse charge.

The cavalry in Medieval II is way more realistic than that of Rome. There is no way that the Roman would have ever been able to fight on horseback like they did in that game. Cavalry in the ancient world, with very few exceptions, was not used as the main force of an army. They were primarily used for guarding the flanks of an infantry line or chasing down routers.

It wasn't until the stirrup reached Europe that cavalry became not only important, but the essential force in warfare.

[redriver]

The cavalry in Medieval II is way more realistic than that of Rome. There is no way that the Roman would have ever been able to fight on horseback like they did in that game. Cavalry in the ancient world, with very few exceptions, was not used as the main force of an army. They were primarily used for guarding the flanks of an infantry line or chasing down routers.

It wasn't until the stirrup reached Europe that cavalry became not only important, but the essential force in warfare.

nobody forces ya to play cavalry only armies in RTW.. they are not unrealistic to my eye in most cases anyway. AI doesn't build lots of cav. with exception of cavalry arches for some eastern factions because they luck infantry variety. that said the cavalry units is lotsa fun in RTW and this is a game after all not a sim heheh.

[Lord Condormanius]

My point is that the Romans (and most others) did not use cavalry like they do in RTW. If an ancient Roman cavalry unit charged a line, most of them would likely not make it out alive. They would all fall off their horses and die. In that respect, the game's cavalry is very unrealistic.

[Whacker]

There is no way that the Roman would have ever been able to fight on horseback like they did in that game.

It wasn't until the stirrup reached Europe that cavalry became not only important, but the essential force in warfare.

What's your basis for this opinion? Most of the more recent books on this topic that I have read, in addition to this excellent article state the exact opposite otherwise regarding shock cavalry tactics.

http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php

Cavalry in the ancient world, with very few exceptions, was not used as the main force of an army. They were primarily used for guarding the flanks of an infantry line or chasing down routers.

This on the other hand, as I read, is for the most part correct. Even though shock cavalry tactics were possible, it doesn't mean they were used. It'd be interesting to see if other forum members have any knowledge or references to Greek or Roman use of shock cavalry tactics predating the Greek adoption of the persian cataphract style of cavalry.

[Doug-Thompson]

What's your basis for this opinion? Most of the more recent books on this topic that I have read, in addition to this excellent article state the exact opposite otherwise regarding shock cavalry tactics.

http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php

I read that article earlier this year. It is worth reading.


However, the plain fact is that that there was no effective shock cavalry in the Roman era before the Goths, and they had stirrups.

In the East, the Sassinids did develop effective heavy cavalry pre-stirrup with their deep seated saddles and "barge pole" lances. However, they are the exception that proves the rule. Their social and political organization resembled later feudal societies in the West. Their armored horsemen were very much like knights, minor nobles with their own estates and income. It took many years of training to make a Sassinid heavy cavalryman. Stirrups were the shortcut that helped spread those tactics to Rome's other enemies.

Since I presume the enemies of Rome talked to each other, I wonder how much the Goths and others owe to the Sassinids.

[Doug-Thompson]

Drat. Double post. Sorry.

[Lord Condormanius]

What's your basis for this opinion? Most of the more recent books on this topic that I have read, in addition to this excellent article state the exact opposite otherwise regarding shock cavalry tactics.

http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php

I don't care for this article (all of his sources are secondary. mostly books written in the '80s), although I wouldn't say that it states "exactly the opposite." Just because something is theoretically possible doesn't mean it happenned. Theoretical physics can prove that an elephant can hang from the side of a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy, but common sense says something altogether different. Common sense tells me that is you are on a horse, riding 30-40 mph (just a guess) with no saddle, no stirrups and you smash into a wall of human beings...sorry, but you are going over the handlebars.

[Grifman]

The cavalry in Medieval II is way more realistic than that of Rome. There is no way that the Roman would have ever been able to fight on horseback like they did in that game. Cavalry in the ancient world, with very few exceptions, was not used as the main force of an army. They were primarily used for guarding the flanks of an infantry line or chasing down routers.

It wasn't until the stirrup reached Europe that cavalry became not only important, but the essential force in warfare.

Not true. Alexander's Companion cavalry fully functioned as shock cavalry. Sassanian Persian and Parthian heavy cavalry also functioned as shock cavalry, all well before the stirrup.

[Waleed]

I've been activly finding counters to cavalry and it seems this is by far the best one.

Stretch your infantry out at least 6 ranks deep, if there aren't enough men in the unit to do so place a unit of infantry IMMEDIATLY behind this unit. Make sure you place units in guard mode. Next thing is just stand there and receive the charge.

The key as many people have stated it seems is just to have enough men as fodder that they just stay there and take it and bog the cavalry down. You'll take massive casualties but as long as you stop the cav unit you're going to hurt it real bad.

Archers and crossbowmen are excellent for softening up cav before they hit your lines as well. Seems the best counter for cav is well, cav. Been playing an amazing campaign as the Moors, who are a really fun faction to play, much more challenging this time around as you can't just churn out tons of Almohad Urban Militia from the beginning and take over iberia right away like in Medieval. Well I was sieging Lisbon and the managed to kill the King of Portugal when he attacked my besieging army, drew him in to attack my spearwall and had to use rally as he almost routed them but I swung my general around behind and surrounded him. Guess that's how you do it this time around.

[RomoR]

Ok let me state that I'm not a nerf shouter or a cav hater but something isnt right now, and I think it has to do with the spearmens staying power or the massive charge bonus.
I have made some 1-1 unit tests and these are my findings.

First of all it is of reason that the deeper the spearmens formation and coision the better they will withstand a charge and fight right?
Well wrong buddy, very wrong at least in my tests, I will follow with a detailed resume of them now:

I made two tests, the first with the most basic of cav and spear units.
Militia spearmen 310 gold against hobilars 280 gold

in schiltrom formation they mostly always loose, like 80-90% of the time.
Ok I will say that schiltrom seems slightly, but just slightly better than the normal ranking formations, but you still loose.

now formations dont seem to matter much. 4 line deep, square formation,long spread out lines, marching lines, nada.supriseling I found out that sometimes they would do better in the most odd 2 men deep thin lines than in a square formation!
Hold doesnt seem to matter either.

Now the mad part.
If I put my men in loose formation!!!
I would fair allot better!thats correct better results.
more noticeable in the 2nd test up ahead.

2nd test:
Now I choose a good spearmen unit.
Lalmilar(or Lamilond, don't remember) 580 gold unit against merchant cav 370 gold unit.
The results:
I put them in Schiltrom and still loose!!!!!!
Now we are talking about a much better, expensive cav bonnus unit in an anti cav formation and they still loose!!

ok I then try them in an 4 man deep and then square formation and still loose.
When I change to loose formation, Bam, much better results and mostly win.

I will now say, that I except that a person can argue that the test are not 100%
correct because of the moral factor, captain factor and such, but I will mention that even in the cases that the captain died in the very end the results seem to indicate the same numbers.
my spears would even fight until the last 5-8 men even after the general died in the first charge.

So my conclusion seems that the cav charges seems too fair much better against tighter and denser formation which is something that seems contrary to popular belief but actually sounds logic because what seems to happen is that the charging cavalry will bang against a greater number of men and kill more men in the initial charge, leaving less to fight back.In the loose formation it seems to encounter less mess to charge against and so leaves more remaining men to fight against and do worse or loose, this is more apparent in the 2nd test were the spearmen had better overall stats.

So if you want a better chance against cavalry charges dont rank your men deeply but rather spread them in an loose formation

I ask that someone tries this out and see if they get the same results, just in case I'm seeing things.

[Whacker]

I ask that someone tries this out and see if they get the same results, just in case I'm seeing things.

OK, it's late and I'm tired, so please excuse any bad spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, I typed this out as they occured so just think of me as your sportscaster. For a war game. But typing. Without using spellchecker.

Also please note I did NOT apply any scientific method to this, I just did these as they came to me, so take this as you will and with a grain of salt. The timings that I submit are simple estimations by me, I was not looking at my watch (I don't wear a watch anyway) nor did I have a stopwatch handy.

---------------------------------------------


Constant settings, unless otherwise noted.

- Map: Grassy flatland
- Difficulty: Medium difficulty
- Periods: All periods
- Weather: Unselectable on Grassy plain map
- Unit size: Huge size
- Time of day: Morning

Do not use speed adjustment controls.

Test runs, set 1. Myself as cavalry, enemy as infantry.

Procedure: Double click on enemy unit and let it go, do not place under AI assistance and do not issue any other orders... Do not reform units or reposition on battlefield during placement. Record result when victory screen displays. If given choice to continue or end, pick end.

1. Eng. Hobilars vs French pikemen, result Eng. general died after approx 3-5 seconds, English defeat, 32 men remain vs 116 pikemen, battle lasted approx. 10 seconds from contact

2. Eng. Mailed Knights vs French pikemen, result enemy general dead on impact, fight lasted approx 15 seconds. Eng victory, 50 men remain vs 71 french men remain.

3. HRE Mounted Sergeants vs Eng. Levy Spearmen, result Eng. general dead on impact, fight lasted approx. 3 seconds, HRE victory 77 men to Eng 36 men (ouch)

4. HRE Mounted Sergeants vs Eng. Heavy Billmen, result HRE victory, battle lasted approx 15 seconds, neither general died, HRE 54 men remain to Eng 8 men remain. They also charged me and did not brace to recieve the charge, unlike all other previous tests to this point.

5. French Merchant Cavalry Militia vs HRE Landsknecht PIkemen, result holy christ the French MCM got mulched on impact, down to 50, but they broke the formation of the pikemen, pikemen tried to march away and reform???, cavalry didn't follow them to attack (grrr), enemy general dead at 25 seconds, holy CRAP that was a good battle, lasted 70 seconds! French victory, victory screen shows French 15 men remain to pikemen 11 men, but I only had 3 horses left including my general when the enemy broke, I was positive I was going to lose that one.

6. Repeat of 5, result enemy general dead on impact, 25% french casualties, pikemen attempting to march away again, aww they broke, French victory battle lasted 40 seconds, 44 men remain vs 68 pikemen. Try tried to get away and reform but my cav had them hemmed in. Interesting results.

7. Eng. hobilars vs. French dismounted feudal knights, result damn the French knights took a beating, 50%+ casualties on impact, I took ~25%, WOW that was interesting, enemy general dead at 50 seconds, only my general was left and 3 knights, my general finished them off and was literally the last man standing. Result Eng victory, 13 men remain to 0 french. The dismounted knights tore up the cav in the standing fight.

8. Eng. mailed knights vs French dismounted feudal knights, result enemy general dead on impact, damn fight lasted 3 seconds, result Eng victory, Eng 68 men remain to 18 French knights.

General observations: Enemy infantry will generally stop to recieve charge, exception was the Eng. billmen and the dismounted knights, they would charge into my cav.


Test run set 2, me as the defender with infantry, cpu with cavalry.

Procedure: Remain in starting position, optionally select special infantry ability and close/loose formation. Do not reform units or reposition on battlefield during placement. Record result when victory screen displays. If given choice to continue or end, pick end.

1. Eng. levy spearmen vs. french merchant cavalry militia, result no special ability, close formation, result my general dead on impact, battle lasted less than 5 seconds, French victory, 17 eng men to 59 french men.

2. Repeat of 1, with loose formation on battle start. Result heavy losses both sides, they broke off and recharged with 27 to my 37, battle lasted 30 seconds, I lost. French victory 20 men on the field, results showed 12 eng men remain to 29 french men.

3. Eng. Armored Sergeants vs french mailed knights, result no special ability, close formation, hmmm 30 seconds they won't charge me, ok fine I'll charge him, they broke off and my unit autochased, result Eng victory, 115 men to 7 french knights, combat lasted about 45 seconds.

4. Repeat of 3, set Eng as defender. Result changing to loose formation doesn't provoke them, ok fine I'll charge them in loose formation. Enemy general dead at 15 seconds, battle lasted 17 secodns, result Eng victory, 135 eng men to 35 french knights.

5. Eng Billmen vs HRE mounted sergeants. Close formation. Result dammit they won't charge me! OK fine, charging them, DOH big mistake. My general dead on impact, battle lasts 5 seconds. Result HRE victory, 66 HRE men to 0 eng men.

OK I'm tired at this point.

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If I forgot to clarify anything please let me know.

Cheers!

[RomoR]

Let me just say that pikes seem fine for me, they will stop a cavalry charge if ranked deep and braced in pike formation. at least my aventuros do. spears are my big gripe. thanks whacker for also doing some tests leaving aside the failed AI charges it seems to me that when you put your Pikes!!!! in loose formation they did better than in tight also, now I didnt even try pikes in loose because I pre asumed that tight would always be the better option for them, I still believe that the pike formation works though if the special ability is used.

[Whacker]

RomoR, that would seem to the case about loose formation being better. I'll run another battery of tests as infantry tomorrow. It would seem that getting them to charge me is sometimes a challenge, even if I select myself as the defender. Stay tuned!