Bang per buck: Melee cavalry

[Doug-Thompson]

Just curious, what pushed Christian Guard to the top of the list. I've yet to get these in my Moors campaign but I've always thought of them as same price but a bit inferior to the order knights.

Speed. Miracle's formula puts a big emphasis on speed. Christian Guard isn't fast, but the Order Knights are a bit slower.

[Doug-Thompson]

Hit and runners

Some units can charge in, kill a bunch of archers and then get away from pursuing knights. Here they are:



Truly fast melee cavalry

Albanian Cavalry
Stradiots
Alan Light Cavalry
Border Horse

Faster than Feudal Knights, body guards and Order knights

Christian Guard
Conquistadores
Norman Knights
Hussars
Serbian Knights
Serbian Hussars
Crusader Knights
Huscarls
Demi Lancers
Mamluks
Druzhina
Polish Retainers
Sipahi Lancers
Latinkon
Mailed Knights
Granadine Lancers
Mercenary Frankish Knights
Armenian Cavalry
Broken Lances
Italian Cavalry Militia
Byzantine Lancers
Mounted Sergeants
Arab Cavalry
Condottieri
Bedouin Cavalry
East European Cavalry Militia
Greek Militia Cavalry
Scouts
Merchant Cavalry Militia
Hobilars

[Foz]

Thank you Doug-Thompson that is exactly the kind of role-based ranking that I had in mind. It's really useful to have lists that tell you which units are best suited to what tasks. Perhaps you would want to go one step further and put the charts into a unit-by-unit format? Like, list a unit, and then give its rank overall in each of the role categories. From there you could assign colors to go with the ranks... like green for the best 1/3 of the units, yellow for the middle 1/3, red for the lower 1/3. So, basically the idea would be a unit guide, but instead of listing stats, you list different battlefield uses the unit might have, and list the unit's suitability to each task. Granted there will be a bit of subjective analysis, but you are likely very qualified to give it after compiling such detailed rankings of the various facets of the cav units. The green/yellow/red rank would then serve as a quick guide as to whether a unit is great at a given job, average, or poor, and IMO that format would be amazingly helpful to the most players. Perhaps it could be organized by faction, or eventually planned to be sortable by any category imaginable... but we can think about that after you decide if you'd like to pursue the Cavalry Tactical Use Field Manual in the first place. The name could be changed, but that one sounded good when it just came to me, so I had to blurt it out lol

[Doug-Thompson]

Thank you, Foz.

I'm probably going to write another unit guide and go by faction. It seems most players choose a faction rather than what unit they want to use. And even the ones who base their decisions on a unit they like are not going to be swayed by somebody else's "grade" for that unit.

[Doug-Thompson]

How much does mass matter? Are speed and mass truly offsetting, as has been suggested?

There are serveral units with a powerful charge and normal speed, but they all have a mass of 1.75 rather than the "heavy horse" mass of 2.

In this "fast for a knight" category, we have:

Moorish Christian Guard, mercenary Serbian Knights and English Demi-Lancers. All have the most powerful attack-with-charge available, but have less mass than the other "13 attack plus 8 charge bonus" cavalry.

Spanish and Portugese Conquistadores, Sicilian Norman Knights, Hungarian and Polish Hussars, mercenary Serbian Hussars along with Crusader Knights have very respectable "13+6" charge attacks and normal speed and, again, 1.75 mass.

Next come the "10+8" bunch: Polish Retainers, Latinkon and Broken Lances. Huscarls get mentioned here too because their 11+4 charge gets an anti-armor bonus. (That unit gets mentioned a lot. It's starting to intrigue me.)

Then there are three truly fast units: Albanian Cavalry, Stradiots and Alan Light Cavalry. They have even less mass — 1.25 — but greater speed and a primary attack + charge score of 16.

It's all downhill from there.

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I realize that this thread appears far afield from the original question of "combat value per florin," but a vital part of calculating price is knowing what you're paying for. For example, if a charge is faster, then there is less chance to avoid or disrupt it. That makes this particular question relevant. Also, assuming that basic physics are applied in this game, you get far more force out of increased velocity.

[Shahed]

Good work Doug. The way you've gone right into this is very admirable.

Well I can just tell you what I think, and it's not based on anything but playing.
I'm not sure velocity is greater than mass in this game. In fact I'm reasonably convinced it isn't.

[andrewt]

Well, I meant speed as in be able to manuever faster, charge faster then get out faster. I don't think speed gets a bonus to charge potency like mass does. When I meant offsetting, I meant the easiest units to flank and charge with also have the weakest mass bonus to their charge.