The reason why cavalry are so damn effective

[Fisherking]

Look! Spears were not all that great against knights. It wasn't until pikes came back into use that knights began to suffer. Scottish skilitrons(SP?) of pike were the first units to surprise the knights and stop a charge in several hundred years. But don't take my word for it...look it up!

[Lusted]

Historical accuracy be damned, spearmen in this game are meant to be useful against cav, but in the default game they are completely useless.

[PaulTa]

Hey lusted... I expect to see you in the unit guide thread.

PaulTa

P.S. Limited time offer! Hurry to the thread now! Factions going fast! Get yours before they're all gone!

[econ21]

This is strange - I thought in MTW (the original), a key feature of spears was that they negated the cavalry charge bonus (if attacked to the front). I rather liked that feature - it seemed intuitive. But trom the OP, it's clearly no longer true in M2TW.

Getting rid of cavalry's charge bonus altogether seems a little extreme. I rather liked the modelling in RTR Platinum, where the charges was (almost) everything. I thought M2TW was like that too, but maybe I am wrong.

[Cheetah]

Historical accuracy be damned, spearmen in this game are meant to be useful against cav, but in the default game they are completely useless.

Spearmen are not completely useless vs cavs (though the "elite" spears IMO are costlier than they need to be).

[Slaists]

Historical accuracy be damned, spearmen in this game are meant to be useful against cav, but in the default game they are completely useless.

Well, in my experience MASSED spears against cavalry work... Like 4/5 units of militia spearmen can actually take down an AI king's unit. Example, I would send a single militia spearmen unit against the aforementioned king and it would get decimated in no time. Send 4 units of the same crappy spearmen - and the king dies easily with actually few losses on the spearmen side...

It seems, for spears to be effective, they have to be in a VERY DEEP formation (if that can be called formation). So, maybe increasing the realative spear unit size would help? On the current setting, if spears are deployed in sufficiently deep formation, that invariably allows the cavalry to envelop them from flanks.

But then again, increasing spear relative unit size would outbalance them against other units (swords).

[Stoneface]

I have modified armored sergeants to have a collision mass of 5.2 instead 1.2 and tested them against hobilars and feudal knights. The sergeants won both battles. They formed schiltron and lost about 30 out of 75 men from the charge then they slaughtered the horsies. Oddly enough the fk did not do much batter then the hobilars.

[Lusted]

I've tested this all extensively for my Lands to Conquer mod. In the latest version of my edu i've removed all charge bonuses for light cavalry and cavalry secondary weapons, making it easier for infantry to hold cavalry, and easy for spearmen. Heavy cavalry have small charge bouses of 1 for the cheaper units and 2 for the more expensive ones. I've given all spearmen 2 more attack, and changed their collision mass to 3.

It works like a charm. Armoured Sergeants, the best spear unit in the game for catholic factions discounting pikemen, can stop all cavalry charges but will lose to elite cavalry. Heavy cavalry can still massacre sword infantry with ease, and light cavalry charges are much less effective. Spearmen get massacered by sword infantry.

Elite pikemen units can beat all cav, but get massacered by swords.

All in all i think it's quite a good balance, i've even sent my version of the edu off to CA for them to have a look at.

[dopp]

I've tested this all extensively for my Lands to Conquer mod. In the latest version of my edu i've removed all charge bonuses for light cavalry and cavalry secondary weapons, making it easier for infantry to hold cavalry, and easy for spearmen. Heavy cavalry have small charge bouses of 1 for the cheaper units and 2 for the more expensive ones. I've given all spearmen 2 more attack, and changed their collision mass to 3.

It works like a charm. Armoured Sergeants, the best spear unit in the game for catholic factions discounting pikemen, can stop all cavalry charges but will lose to elite cavalry. Heavy cavalry can still massacre sword infantry with ease, and light cavalry charges are much less effective. Spearmen get massacered by sword infantry.

Elite pikemen units can beat all cav, but get massacered by swords.

All in all i think it's quite a good balance, i've even sent my version of the edu off to CA for them to have a look at.

Removing all cavalry charge bonuses seems a bit draconian though, since it's a bit counter-inituitive for swordsmen to have a higher charge bonus than knights. Besides which, if I recall a dev post from RTW correctly, the charge bonus helps spears and pikes kill the charging horses (they get the bonus instead of the knights).

Giving spearmen higher attack sounds good, and would definitely make them more all-rounded defensive units (like they were in MTW) rather than specialized anti-cavalry units (RTW onwards), but greater mass sounds like a formation problem rather than the individual soldiers. I mean, should the formation open up or lose cohesion spearmen would then have unnaturally high mass.

I sort of wish pikemen were a bit better against swords as well, since their formation gets broken too easily and they are rather reluctant to use their pikes at other times.

[Freedom Onanist]

Look! Spears were not all that great against knights. It wasn't until pikes came back into use that knights began to suffer. Scottish skilitrons(SP?) of pike were the first units to surprise the knights and stop a charge in several hundred years. But don't take my word for it...look it up!

How wrong can one be? Besides all the historical examples that could be dredged up, rememebr that pikes were replaced when the bayonet was invented. I will leave to your estimation the total length of a musket plus bayonet, but it wasn't anywhere near as long as a plain old spear - let alone a pike.

In fact you don't need a pointy thing to stop cavalry at all, the Saxons did it plenty fine at Hastings to the Norman cavalry.

[Jambo]

The light_spear, spear and spear_bonus is one option, but there's another and that's simply the mounted_effect bonus. As far as I remember from RTW this could be an extra bonus and also doesn't come with the associated penalties when fighting against swords.

E.g. Camels have "horse +2"

[dopp]

It relies on the ability of the infantry to hold ground in the face of charging cavalry, creating an impassable barrier. Their armament is secondary, as long as it can reach the fellow on the horse. Note also that the pointy bayonet is actually attached to something with a much longer range (the musket). Most of the time the cavalry didn't even reach the musketeers after the first volley... often they slowed as soon as they got within range.

The common view is that infantry in the Middle Ages was quite bad and thus deserves to get trampled to death by charging cavalry. It's not just their individual skill-at-arms that is a factor, it's also their discipline, formation, drill (one of the most underrated things in all this discussion about various weapons) and morale. The medieval foot soldier had little to none of these things. Supposedly.

However, Total War has always distinguished spear units by making them resistant against cavalry, whatever the historical record may be. Now I find that even light cavalry will bowl them over (although they suffer higher casualties). Maybe heavy cavalry should plough through them but not light cavalry? Spearmen are the cheapest units you can field so I would prefer that they not slaughter the heavy cavalry. Having a cheap counter to the most expensive units in the game right from the onset doesn't strike me as good game balance.

Perhaps the spearmen were not intended to withstand the improved charges of the knights in M2TW, but instead to take more of the knights with them. In other words, they dissaude knights by MAD (mutually assured destruction).

[FactionHeir]

I second dopp's post.

[Kraxis]

Armoured Sergeants are as expensive as many of the better sword/axe infantry units. Yet they are not really effective.

Armoured Sergeants are about as high as a non-noble would get early in the period. He would be a privileged (armour) professional soldier (drilled and trained) of some local standing. He would not be the match of a knight, but he would be a far cry from the rabble or 'gray mass' that often appear to be infantry. He was the one who defended castles and supported the knights in battle. He was tough without being a superman.

He and his compatriots should definately be able to halt knights. I don't mind that the knights actually kill the man they hit, but they shouldn't be going deep into a Sergeant unit (or any spear unit in gameterms), sending men flying and reducing it to 30% (70% losses) in an instant. That is bad gameplay and not terribly historically correct.

Since Mailed Knights can do this, what is the point with the higher ranked knights? Aside from beating up enemy knights it seems...

[Dave1984]

How wrong can one be? Besides all the historical examples that could be dredged up, rememebr that pikes were replaced when the bayonet was invented. I will leave to your estimation the total length of a musket plus bayonet, but it wasn't anywhere near as long as a plain old spear - let alone a pike.

In fact you don't need a pointy thing to stop cavalry at all, the Saxons did it plenty fine at Hastings to the Norman cavalry.

Hell of a lot of spears in that shield wall...

[dopp]

Agreed, but historically-correct sometimes results in dull gameplay. Cavalry and infantry playing chicken is not really fun.

Examples:

Cavalry makes a charge, crappy infantry panic and run, cavalry chops them up. Result: Boring, plus you get negative traits like "Fond of Blood".

Cavalry makes a charge, quality infantry in good defensive position hold bravely, cavalry pulls up before making contact, trades a few blows, rides away, calls for archers. Result: Boring, plus loads of complaints about "charge bug" and "M2TW sux".

More examples:

Cavalry charges, infantry brace, cavalry commit suicide, infantry laugh, player screams and smashes monitor. Result: Player will never use cavalry again, player will build loads of cheap spears and camp. Ultimate result: Boring.

Cavalry charges, infantry stand bravely, huge massive collision with bodies going everywhere, loads of carnage, confusion, men hacking at each other, both sides reduced to tatters. Result: Fun. Stupid, but fun.

I exaggerate a bit, of course. You're really supposed to use swordsmen or spears of your own to engage the spears in front while you flank with cavalry (like I do), or call up archers and shoot those idiots to bits, but it's much more exciting when the knights drive through everything. Still, it does leave armored sergeants without any meaningful existence as a game unit. Maybe spears should be less about fighting cavalry and more about forming a solid defensive line against anything, swords included?

[Kraxis]

Yes... they were actually pretty much that in MTW.
Spears hardly killed heavy cavalry (if you let them get enough time they would though), but they held them and were all but displaceable by cavalry. Against heavy infantry they lost, but they held a long while and they did well as long as their formation held (rank-bonus).

They were intuitive to place in the center of your line, and unless the enemy had superb swords or shock infantry (like Ghazi) in the center you were safe until the flanks had duked it out.
It wasn't fun with spears alone of course, but when you combined them with other units it became much more fun than those units alone. They served a valuable purpose in the line, now that is hardly the truth.

About the historically correct situations. Right now it is neither good gameplay nor correct. Double shot in the foot.
Cavalry charging spears that are standing still should suffer. So should the spears, but not to the point that it becomes just a matter of soaking up the casualties to rout spears instantly. Knights killing a few spears on the charge would be cool enough, but the spears negate the followthrough power of the charge that sends men flying. This would then leave the cavalry with an opportunity to pull back and do it again depending on losses taken on impact.

[andrewt]

Agreed, but historically-correct sometimes results in dull gameplay. Cavalry and infantry playing chicken is not really fun.

Examples:

Cavalry makes a charge, crappy infantry panic and run, cavalry chops them up. Result: Boring, plus you get negative traits like "Fond of Blood".

Cavalry makes a charge, quality infantry in good defensive position hold bravely, cavalry pulls up before making contact, trades a few blows, rides away, calls for archers. Result: Boring, plus loads of complaints about "charge bug" and "M2TW sux".

More examples:

Cavalry charges, infantry brace, cavalry commit suicide, infantry laugh, player screams and smashes monitor. Result: Player will never use cavalry again, player will build loads of cheap spears and camp. Ultimate result: Boring.

Cavalry charges, infantry stand bravely, huge massive collision with bodies going everywhere, loads of carnage, confusion, men hacking at each other, both sides reduced to tatters. Result: Fun. Stupid, but fun.

I exaggerate a bit, of course. You're really supposed to use swordsmen or spears of your own to engage the spears in front while you flank with cavalry (like I do), or call up archers and shoot those idiots to bits, but it's much more exciting when the knights drive through everything. Still, it does leave armored sergeants without any meaningful existence as a game unit. Maybe spears should be less about fighting cavalry and more about forming a solid defensive line against anything, swords included?

Disagree. It's fun to see knights do it a few times, then it gets tired in an hour of gameplay and then it's back to leveling up an alt in World of Warcraft. I prefer MTW and STW where you used spears to hold the line, swords to do damage and cavalry to flank. Spears are too easily killed in RTW and MTW2 and just don't do anything.

Fact is, the strategy is what keeps me playing the game and there's no strategy with cavalry charges so overpowered and spear units so underpowered. It's hard to have rock-paper-scissors gameplay when rock loses to both paper and scissors. I'm in the middle of my second campaign right now (Russians) and between them and the Venetians, I've probably built around 2 spear units from castles, both of which I just used as garrison. I've built lots of Italian spear militias as Venice but only as garrison units.

MTW2 is just way, way lacking in spears, both in their power and the number of choices factions have in spear units. MTW had better spears, even had a light shock spear unit in the Muwahid light militia or something of that order.

[Jagger]

I am also guessing that the horses themselves cause casualties during a cavalry charge. I assume the collision mass of the horses may determine their effectiveness in causing casualties during a charge.

I would like to play around with the collision mass of cavalry mounts but again, I haven't found the values for cavalry mounts. Hopefully when we have the unpacker, they will be available for modding.

[Kraxis]

Ahhh yes the Muwwahids (just that). They were terribly fun to play with.
Not really any great stats, a little on the offensive side, a superb charge and stellar morale. You never knew what they might end up doing in a battle, much like a version of Ghazi with a bonus facing cavalry. Dead fun!

In RTW I found out along with many other (independantly) that cavalry charges had little to do with the bonus, and a lot more to do with the weight of the horse and apparently armour (as tests showed that Cataphracts had a quite stronger charge than Cappadocian Cavalry, where the difference was 4 point lower armour for the Cappas but having a shield of similar value instead).

Apparently the armour-part of the charge has been removed, but now all horses seem to have an equally strong charge (but difference in survivability in said charge).

[Freedom Onanist]

Hell of a lot of spears in that shield wall...

Yep, but quite a few axes and swords.

Doesn't affect my point about the ability of the short spear to stop cavalry.

[Stoneface]

Stupid question, but what effects the effectiveness of a cavalry charge. I tested jinetes (no lances) and they killed the same number of sergeants than FKs. I could not spot any difference between hobilars and FKs. Could this mean that all cavalry has the same effectiveness when charging. Even Gothics lost to the heavier armored sergeants although they were able to kill a few more of them in mêlée.

[Jagger]

Cavalry has large collision mass. I upped infantry to 20 collision mass testing to see at what point cavalry would not achieve push back. Looks like cavalry is around 20 mass but I didn't test extensively.

I assume the cav collision mass values are tied to the mounts. Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate the values for mounts.

I have also taken away the hardy/very hardy values for all heavy cavalry. Light and missle cavalry receive hardy/very hardy dependent on their mounts and their armor. Helps a bit in preventing heavy cavalry running all over the battlefield non-stop.