“Hunters all their lives*”: Core principles for Missile Cavalry

[Oleander Ardens]

Great discussion here. I just wanted to add:

a) The Lancer support. Most historic HA heavy armys (Sarmantians, Parthians, Alans, Mongols) had various sorts of lancers in their army, some of them light, some heavy, some with shields. But almost all of them also had bows - CA does usually differentiate between lancers and archers.

Heavy cavalry is of course a great additon because it is able to open up a range of options:

- countercharging enemy cavalry chasing your MC ( Given that enemy chases your MC it will find himself most likely outpositioned and outnumbered - countercharged from high ground to which the MC fled, attacked in the flanks and the rear from your MC and so on)

- breaking parts of the enemy army by achieving local superiority through speed and your MC preparation, spreading panic through their ranks

- shying the AI your human opponent into using dense formation and bunching up, making it a better target for your MC.

However it might reduce your speed on the strategy map and increase the logistic burden, and the overall campaign speed as they are harder to replace...

Important: MTWII is troubled by the mighty formed_charged which enables light cavalry, even lightest MC to defeat even heavy, non-pike infantry units by charging, retreating, charging and so on. MC stacks are thus not only able to outshoot almost all opposition they can also charge down most heavies -->

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=Hobilars
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=Hobilars

[Doug-Thompson]

Adding some links I want to save:

Waypoint method for HA: here

Camel gunners are the BOMB

[Doug-Thompson]

Important: MTWII is troubled by the mighty formed_charged which enables light cavalry, even lightest MC to defeat even heavy, non-pike infantry units by charging, retreating, charging and so on. MC stacks are thus not only able to outshoot almost all opposition they can also charge down most heavies -->

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=Hobilars
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=Hobilars

Agreed. Even with patch morale improvementments, all that means is that decent HA suffer more losses. No enough losses to make things cost-prohibative, though.

All cavalry armies have huge advantages on the new-style RTW map. Infantry armies just can't catch them, while HA destroy them piecemeal. This is compounded if infantry are tacticly outmatched, too.

On the battlefield, I'm anxious to see if the February patch makes a difference, particularly if it helps billmen and such polearm types.

Patched cavalry charges are supposed to be toned down, but easier to acheive. That could well result in a net increase in cavalry effectiveness.