Cav vs Inf

[Seikales]

I hope this will post.. I have tried to post two other ones, just did not work. Perhaps I made a mistake of changing the Title...

Anyhow, I believe the heavy cavalry charge is a bit overdone in the game.

Yet, historical evidence proves that only two or three units were realy useful at those times. Armored knights (cav or inf), trained pikemen (kind of regular army), and xbowmen (late period gunpowder units). Each faction then might have some distinct units that are exceptions to the above classification, e.g. the English Longbows, who were realy well-trained professional archers (it is not easy to use the longbow, and not useful in hunting anyhow) with realy powerful bows with well-fletched arrows that even penetrated earlier knights armor with ease (French army messed up with Knights were slaughtered by ranks of English longbowmen to such a degree that all their charges eventualy broke).

The Knights are the most powerful unit of all. And game makes a big mistake of letting the factions recruit them in numbers. They are mostly nobilty and realy strong, big men. You won't just walk around and get people and train them to be knights. Their numbers should be limited.

The pikeman unit was esspecialy designed to hold the charges at bay, to allow other units to tangle with the Knights, either taken them down with Halberds or Long Swords, or shooting them at close range with Xbows. Pikeman can not deal with a soft charge sword melee type of attack because the length of the pike simply makes them useless in close quarters. The fact that they switch to swords is pointless and absurd, because they would not even know the sharp end of it, let alone use it effectively against the Knight.

However, armies used pikes in formation with other units, either behind or alongside them. Or to cover ground at critical places, maybe even to cover the retreat of their own cavalry (Knights had to often come back and get new lances/weapons to do another charge. The lance was most times abandoned after the initial strike cause it went deep into the target). So, to expect a pikeman unit stand ground to Knights in melee is absurd, just as like to see Knights charge to pikeman. The Knights simply would disregard orders (not a very uncommon thing in history).

So what are all other units for? Simple.. Break formations, open spaces, and if possible finish their auxiliary units like xbow. javelins. Once the formation is broken, all infantry at the time were easy prey for even simple light-cavalry because of the speed factor and training difference.

Please review the game in this view once more if you will.

Have fun

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

I hope this will post.. I have tried to post two other ones, just did not work. Perhaps I made a mistake of changing the Title...

Anyhow, I believe the heavy cavalry charge is a bit overdone in the game.

Yet, historical evidence proves that only two or three units were realy useful at those times. Armored knights (cav or inf), trained pikemen (kind of regular army), and xbowmen (late period gunpowder units). Each faction then might have some distinct units that are exceptions to the above classification, e.g. the English Longbows, who were realy well-trained professional archers (it is not easy to use the longbow, and not useful in hunting anyhow) with realy powerful bows with well-fletched arrows that even penetrated earlier knights armor with ease (French army messed up with Knights were slaughtered by ranks of English longbowmen to such a degree that all their charges eventualy broke).

The Knights are the most powerful unit of all. And game makes a big mistake of letting the factions recruit them in numbers. They are mostly nobilty and realy strong, big men. You won't just walk around and get people and train them to be knights. Their numbers should be limited.

The pikeman unit was esspecialy designed to hold the charges at bay, to allow other units to tangle with the Knights, either taken them down with Halberds or Long Swords, or shooting them at close range with Xbows. Pikeman can not deal with a soft charge sword melee type of attack because the length of the pike simply makes them useless in close quarters. The fact that they switch to swords is pointless and absurd, because they would not even know the sharp end of it, let alone use it effectively against the Knight.

However, armies used pikes in formation with other units, either behind or alongside them. Or to cover ground at critical places, maybe even to cover the retreat of their own cavalry (Knights had to often come back and get new lances/weapons to do another charge. The lance was most times abandoned after the initial strike cause it went deep into the target). So, to expect a pikeman unit stand ground to Knights in melee is absurd, just as like to see Knights charge to pikeman. The Knights simply would disregard orders (not a very uncommon thing in history).

So what are all other units for? Simple.. Break formations, open spaces, and if possible finish their auxiliary units like xbow. javelins. Once the formation is broken, all infantry at the time were easy prey for even simple light-cavalry because of the speed factor and training difference.

Please review the game in this view once more if you will.

Have fun

That sounds all right. But MTW2 doesn't care for that differents. There are only CAV units, that charge most units to hell and there are nonCAV units, tons of bugs and presented with a confusing graphics and horrible interface with arcade style unit informations. MTW3 will be an first person shooter or Rayman jump and run.

But this evening you should all be in MTW VI. At 20:30GMT+1 will be some old players online.

[Kenchi_Shaka]

difference between history and mtw2 is that there were real humans, in mtw2 they are only animated.

in history often tenthousands fought in a battle, in tw its never more than some thousand.
in history there were many knights only armies, including squires and other auxilairy units.
there were only infantry armies also or mixed armies and the outcome of battles didnt allways depend on the kind of equipment or tactical dispositions only.

i dont think that history is so important in this case. for me it just adds some atmosphere to the game.

for the sake of balance i think cavalry should beat swords also when charging frontaly, swords should beat spears and spears should beat cav.

i think the uberness of cav is the result of bugs.
an other thing is that most of the times ppl play steppe wich gives an other advantage to cavalry.

shaka

[pike master]

most battles were probably more like the size of the ones we play. only the major battles in history do we see those massive armies coming together. im glad they aint super big battles. my computer can only handle so much:)

[Kenchi_Shaka]

i didnt plead for bigger tw battles, i jus wanted to say that the size of a battle makes a difference.
alltho i wouldnt mind if the program and the pcs could handle bigger battles, more and bigger units and larger battle fields.

shaka

[Stig]

I think that the engine can handle bigger battles, but that our PC's just can't. I believe that in that program Time Commanders on TV they also had huge armies, which we didn't have in RTW