The calvary is charging...what to do?

[Hoplite7]

Today in a 1:1 battle between my army of dismounted Norman knights and armoured spearmen, I lost because of repetetive successful charges by the AI's army of horsemen. Their initial charge caused 10% casualties, and this was accomplished with only two units of mailed knights. Their second charge I tried to break up with a row of peasant archers, but they blew right past it and caused 30% casualites.

My men who were braced for the charge flew into the air, while others simply...died, fell over into mass piles of bodies. The AI horsemen eventually routed behind my positions, but then rallied and charged my backside. After about 3-4 charges 80% of my men were dead.


If you see a charge coming, is it best to run and attack the incoming calvary, or wait for them to make contact? If you moved your units, the charge should fail (atleast it does for human players) and they will have to fight in a broken formation and with swords. What do you do?

[Jokerkaaos]

I think a large part of the problem with spearmen not holding up to cavalry charges well is the bug that makes shields count negative on defense.

I am playing Lusted's "Lands to Conquer" mod (Which rocks, btw. Good job. Can't wait to see what the mods will be like eventually...), and that seems to help a lot, but my rule is to always have your own cavalry.

If you don't, try to keep your spear formations deep, and stack the units in front of each other if you can, or have a reserve unit. You want to make the cavalry pay for the charge by sandwiching them with spears if you can.

And make them charge uphill or at moving (attacking) targets if you can, in order to minimize the effect of the charge.

[Foz]

Oh for sure - correctly working shields are vital to surviving cavalry. Without them, all cavalry own everything, which just isn't right. If you aren't using a shield fix, it will be fixed in the 1.2 patch, and there's a fix linked in my sig to help out the pre-1.2 game in the meantime.

As for battling cavalry, getting the enemy cavalry mired in a two-front engagement is definitely a solid way to beat them. It's even worth sacrificing a unit or 2 to them in order to have others get around to their side/rear and latch on like leeches.

I've also had success ordering a double-right-click charge as soon as the cav begins pulling away. Usually you close enough distance to where the cav regroups that they don't get a formed charge off, and will generally be bested in the ensuing melee. It is a bit risky though, as if they DO manage to get the charge off, your running troops will be steamrolled over. With some practice though you can mostly eliminate that - it seems the enemy typically chooses a particular spot (w/ relation to your unit) to pull away to, and thus if you get keyed in on how to pull it off, you can typically repeat it the majority of the time. This can be a more effective tactic for saving the lives of your troops, but certainly is not a valid real life tactic - the cavalry would just retreat to a spot further away if infantry were giving chase. As such, I'd still say that flanking/surrounding the enemy cavalry once they've hit the charge is the most sound tactic to employ. As long as you remember that you can maneuver around the enemy cavalry once it's in melee instead of just rushing right at it, you should find defeating cavalry considerably less daunting.

I also wanted to mention that as soon as 1.2 is out, moving troops to disrupt the cavalry charge will likely no longer be effective at all. The 1.2 patch details list that a moving target will no longer disrupt a cavalry charge, so don't count on using that tactic to avoid getting blasted by cavalry.

[Whacker]

Grrr.....

A typical formed frankish charge of lances by heavy mounted knights/men-at-arms against *anything* but disciplined and braced spears/pikes should cause extreme casualties. In this I would have heavy mounted shock units even a bit more powerful than they are in my current experiences. If this is nerfed in the v1.2 patch I am going to be exceedingly annoyed.

One thing that I DO agree is a big problem is that the light mounted units will cause far too many casualties than they should on impact from a charge. Stuff like hobilars and missile troops should not cause very much damage at all on impact, and in the ensuing melee should get butched alive, esp. against armored foes or units with polearms.

[FactionHeir]

Never ever move towards or charge against a charging cavalry. That way you inflict less casualties and are guaranteed to lose the entire regiment of units.

When they chrage you, try to run away from the charge because that weakens it and as soon as you see the enemy cav has stopped entirely (not just one or two units), run into them head-on. If you counter too early, the cav in the back will still bash into your units.

If the cav moves away to regroup, always run after them unless they are horse archers or fast moving.

[TevashSzat]

IMHO, best way to counter charging cav is to put a unit of spears in schiltrom in front of your main line which usually breaks up the charge allowing you to then engage the cav without their charge bonus

[Foz]

Grrr.....

A typical formed frankish charge of lances by heavy mounted knights/men-at-arms against *anything* but disciplined and braced spears/pikes should cause extreme casualties. In this I would have heavy mounted shock units even a bit more powerful than they are in my current experiences. If this is nerfed in the v1.2 patch I am going to be exceedingly annoyed.

Just what unit that is not a spear/pike do you think will fail to take heavy casualties in a charge once shields work correctly? I'm having trouble figuring out units that fall into the category that might piss you off. DFKs perhaps?

Btw there hasn't been any indication I've heard so far that charges themselves will be substantially weakened - just that units who should be able to better resist them due to having shields will in fact start doing so.

[Hoplite7]

Grrr.....

A typical formed frankish charge of lances by heavy mounted knights/men-at-arms against *anything* but disciplined and braced spears/pikes should cause extreme casualties. In this I would have heavy mounted shock units even a bit more powerful than they are in my current experiences. If this is nerfed in the v1.2 patch I am going to be exceedingly annoyed.

It's ridiculous though. There was a unit of three knights that rallied right in front of me. They charged and caused something like 20 casualties. Then other times when I form up my calvary perfectly in rows of 2 facing the enemy -just as CA instructed us to do- they always end up abandoning the charge because of the odd archer that gets in the way.


It needs to be more reliable.

[Whacker]

Just what unit that is not a spear/pike do you think will fail to take heavy casualties in a charge once shields work correctly? I'm having trouble figuring out units that fall into the category that might piss you off. DFKs perhaps?

Btw there hasn't been any indication I've heard so far that charges themselves will be substantially weakened - just that units who should be able to better resist them due to having shields will in fact start doing so.

Having a shield against a frankish charge doesn't/shouldn't matter one whit, really. Trying to block the mass of energy from the heavily armed and armored horse and rider bearing down on the individual on foot with a shield would be tantamount to suicide. I do agree that sword-armed foot knights should fare better than say, peasants (ugh) being on the receiving end due to their far better training and equipment, but it's still going to be pretty devastating because they don't have spears or polearms to blunt the charge with. Even if the impact doesn't outright kill the target, it should at the least knock them silly. I guess a morale impact would be the best that could be doen to approximate this for sub 2hp units, other that the amusing "guy flying through air" animation.

It's ridiculous though. There was a unit of three knights that rallied right in front of me. They charged and caused something like 20 casualties.

Depends what your 20 casualties where. If it was peasants, I would have said that's probably too few. If it was against say dismounted knights, then I'd agree that's excessive.

Then other times when I form up my calvary perfectly in rows of 2 facing the enemy -just as CA instructed us to do- they always end up abandoning the charge because of the odd archer that gets in the way.

It needs to be more reliable.

Completely and totally agree here.

[HoreTore]

Note that with the shield fix, cavalry can still destroy a unit of spearmen with a perfect charge. But they will take a lot of casualties.

EDIT: I found a good tactic fight off armies with a large and aggressive cavalry armies when a crusade was called on my turkish Constantinople. Most of the armies consisted of 6 or more crusader knights or other knights and the rest the usual spear/fanatic crusader mix. My army in Constantinople consisted almost exclusively of infantry, with equal numbers of saracen milita and halberds(both janissary and milita). I think I had 2 units of ottomans or turkish archers, 2-4 units of Sipahi/turkomans and the general in addition to that. I lined up the saracen in the first line, and the halberds in the second. I charged forwards, and the saracens and enemy cav charged each other. The saracens took heavy casaulties, but the halberds behind them were untouched, and charged and killed the cavalry quickly. The janissaries were particularly good at this, even the bodyguard unit was killed in a matter of seconds...