Shameless Cavalry Fanboy: Which faction is right for me?

[Red Son SuperDave]

Disclaimer: If you're the type who gets all bent out of shape from hearing about people using ahistorical tactics or unit selection in their armies, you should probably stop reading this topic now. I don't want to be responsible for your blood pressure.

I've been a huge fan of RTW ever since it came out. I played a couple of RTW campaigns, flirted with DarthMod and RTR for awhile, but found my true love in Europa Barbarorum. If you posted on the RTW board on GameFAQs last year, you may have seen the long-running "Everything Europa Barbarorum" topic, where I extolled the virtues of what has become my favorite RTW mod.

When I was first introduced to this mod, back in the days of .86, I played the Romani campaign, but lost interest after conquering half the map. Now that 1.0 is out, I'm interested in starting a new campaign, but I'd like the advice of some knowledgeable EB fans on which faction would be the most fun and well-suited to my battle style.

I'm a shameless cavalry fanboy. I just looove taking advantage of the terrain to charge huge groups of cavalry downhill and crush all those who oppose my legions. In both RTW vanilla and my EB experience, I am quite competent at making all-cavalry armies function. In my previous campaign, Equites Romani made up possibly HALF of ALL the units I recruited.

Now, I don't use cavalry EXCLUSIVELY, perish the thought. When conquering an enemy country, I like to use (resources permitting) a balanced, more-or-less "historical" army consisting of a full stack of widely varied troop types for actually breaking down the city walls and capturing it, and a second all-cav army consisting of a general and about half a stack of light cav, for clearing all the enemy armies out of the territory so that my siege army can win me some more land without worrying about ambushes or enemy reinforcements.

I don't know if this is an optimal strategy, but it worked fine for me in my previous campaign. Against the Aedui, Sweboz, etc, I was quite capable of regularly using 500 light cavalry (and the Romani's early cavalry is far from the best in the game) to beat 2000 AI barbarians with minimal casualties.

I prefer to use regular cavalry as opposed to mounted skirmishers or horse archers. I'm competent with horse archers, but I just don't care for that style of play. Therefore, the immediate response of "obviously you want to play a Nomadic faction" doesn't necessarily apply.

So I ask you, EB forum: Which faction is the best for a shameless cavalry fanboy?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

A Successor, Macedonia or Seleucia, or Baktria.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Baktria has the HA, the more armored Baktrian HA, Baktrian Hippeis, the Kamboja Cavalry, and of course their gorgeous early bodyguards and terrifying late bodyguards, in addition to the cataphracts. That's if you aren't as interested in a steppe faction exclusively.

Great first post!! Welcome aboard!

[Os-Q]

Its hard for me to have a favorite faction, but I'll share some thoughts:

Carthage has a excellent variety of cavalry. They have every sort of cavalry except horse archers

As you said, the Steppe factions are an obvious choice, but, since most of their units are armed with bows, it can be tricky to get their horsemen to charge with melee weapons instead of bows.

I haven't played enough of the Successors to have an opinion

Hayasdan has very powerful family members and elite cavalry, but their horse units are very expensive to maintain. With my empire, I have a band of "enforcers" made up mostly of Scythian riders and kinsman heavy cavalry. Good for trampling rebel stacks and the more pathetic stacks to AI send to besiege my cities. Right now, my biggest stack is fighting hordes of Saba lead Nubian light spearmen.

Saba has access to Arab Light Cavalry and some decent medium cavalry. The former is suprisingly effective. I've been using lots of them to disrupt Hellenic lines by running right behind their phalanxes and pelting their backs. The fights can be very hard, but very satisfying. It is fun to see them swarm over elite Ptolemaic units The Arab Light Cavalry have AP lances that they can crouch, so if properly used, a charge from all sides can break almost anything. However, Saba has foot bound family members.

Gallic Light Cavalry is an excellent jack-of-all-trades cavalry.

[LordCurlyton]

Nomads or those who faced them regularyly: Saka, Sauromatae, Pahlava, Baktria, or the Hai. If you don't mind relying on regionals than any eastern faction can function well.

[Hound of Ulster]

The Pahlavi and other later Persian factions.

Thier is nothing more satisfing than your heavy cav charging downhill into a mass of Seluekid infantry and see those infantry run away screaming like little girls.

[Parallel Pain]

Yeah just fight with your melee style with the HAs. Recruit the units that have decent charge bonus and then just use them like you usually do and have their arrows just be a bonus/skirmishing effect.

[Ayce]

Your best bet would be Baktria.

[Sir Edward]

Bactria or Hayk they both have great selection of regional and native cavalry line up available w/ light skirmishers, med., HA and heavy kata. On top of this each can hold it own in infantry. Allthough bactria seems to be lacking in the elite phalanx department which requires running good tactics against silver hordes.

[machinor]

I agree. Baktria has some really good and (most important of all) very stylish (heavy) cavalry. :) Same goes for other eastern factions like (late) Persian. Diadochi factions also have some nice sucessor cavalry but for me Baktria gets a style bonus because of their exotic touch. Their units are absolutly beautiful.

[Red Son SuperDave]

Well that's, what, four, five, *counts on fingers* SIX votes for Baktria now? I guess the masses have spoken. Baktria it shall be. Thank you, EB forum, for your prompt and helpful replies. You guys (and girls) rock AND rule at the same time, while frequently managing to kick ass at the same time. And those Baktrian bodyguards DO look badass.

[antiochus epiphanes]

bactria has a great mix of horse archers and cataphracts, but my personal favorite would be the sauromatae, just cant beat those roxolani.

[IndianPrince]

I'd say Pahlavas have the best cavalry. Very efficient & very powerful. Can turn battles at crucial moments. Cataphracts are kick-a** :)

Prince

[d'Arthez]

Enjoy Baktria. Once you have your economy up and running you will have a blast. But beware of the Saka.

[EdwardL]

dont listen to any of this talk of Baktria.

if you want the BEST heavy cavalry in the theatre, you'll go with Pahlava

their late units are UNMATCHED. Just load a custom battle and look and the figures and try them out for a spin.

they are like a Thorakitai Argyraspidai riding on the back of a Thorakitai Argyraspidai.

Ok, that answer should bring closure to this thread, so could someone please lock it, and then we can move on to the next issue.

Kthnx.

[V.T. Marvin]

dont listen to any of this talk of Baktria.

if you want the BEST heavy cavalry in the theatre, you'll go with Pahlava

their late units are UNMATCHED. Just load a custom battle and look and the figures and try them out for a spin.

I really have to second that before the thread is closed or dies out - Pahlava has really the best cavalry in the game and allows cavalry heavy armies not only to be great fun, but somewhat "historical" as well. On top of that it is also one of the most enjoyable factions on the strategic map.

You certainly cannot go wrong with Pahlava!

[The Persian Cataphract]

I may be a bit biased towards Iranian cavalry, but my own personal reflection is that when it comes to a "full" spectrum of cavalry types, I would emphasize the richness of the Pahlavân array; You get a most adequate selection of nomadic cavalry, ranging from heavy cavalry, to screening units and mounted archers. Pahlava is flexible in that particular way, because the player will get the best of both worlds in my opinion. From settled lands more cosmopolitan skirmishing forces and the super-heavy nucleus, as well as a defensive array of infantry. From nomadic lands a vast array of swift and useful jack-of-all-trade units.

When it comes to bodyguards, we may as well as settle on this thing: Whether Saka, Baktria, Hayasdan or Pahlava, their late bodyguards are rather equivalent in matter of raw, brute force. The difference is that Pahlava is the only faction that offers an equivalently armed and armoured heavy cataphract as a unit for recruiting. So Pahlava does definitely have an upper edge. Hayasdan offsets this by featuring specialist infantry and outstanding defensive quality, Saka offsets this with armoured elephants, Indo-Greek infantry, and extended nomadic government, while Baktria offsets this with their very complete roster of military units, strong in all given categories. Neither Sauromatae, Pontos or Arche Seleukeia, though they have cataphracts, have that punch so they have been excluded, though their equestrian prowess certainly isn't shabby; Sarmatian cavalry is surprisingly resilient, Pontos and AS both feature chariotry, and AS takes it all to another level with their armoured elephants.

If you are cavalry-crazed, care only for basic infantry, swift deployment and mobilization, flexible government, excellent infrastructure, and the richest array of Indo-Iranian cavalry, then Pahlava is right in your alley. Their only weakness in cavalry terms is the lack of armoured elephantry (They do however get war-elephants, with their own rad skin ).

[Ymarsakar]

I'm playing Baktria right now and I got a level 2 chevron Indikoi elephant unit to experience level 5 by smashing the numerous phalanx armies the AS keep sending my way.

On the tactical side of things, those that like cavalry charges will love elephant charges. Especially if you go and add some hitpoints to those elephants. I made the elephant roster 2/3/4/5. With armored war elephants having 5 hitpoints. Even with the indian elephants having 4 hitpoints, trying to get them to run across pikes tends to slaughter my elephants. That's kind of quirky given that no human being can even hold a sarissa if an elephant tries to break it from the side.

Usually I try to consider whether a faction has unarmored horse archers, armored horse archers, armored horse archer/lancers, armored lancers, light/fast lancers, and so forth when it comes to cavalry. So far, Baktria has most of the requirements for the above. Horse archers are taken care of by the native/regional barracks, even though the native one costs 371 in upkeep. Got to go farther west to get the really cheap and regional troops. Armored horse archers is taken care of by Baktria's half armored unit with a range of 170 compared to the 198 bow ranges of probably all steppe horse archers. They aren't as good as Hayasdan's selection or any other faction that has cataphract horse archers, but they give you one factional armored horse archer, even if it is only slightly armored.

Baktria does not have heavily armored horse archers/lancers. Meaning cataphract horse archers with a lance as a secondary weapon. You can get the Roxolanni and Saka mercenaries to serve as unarmored and armored HA/lancers, though. Since the level 5 mercenary general up north gives you a Roxolanni general, the same unit the Sauromatae can recruit normally. If I recall correctly, Hayasdan has an armored cataphract horse archer with armor of around 20, with a secondary being the lance at .4 lethality.

Baktria's armored lancer contingents include the hellenic cataphracts with armor of 22 and their bodyguards with armor of 29 in the late period. The Pahlava have slightly less armor, but their faction is suited specifically to cavalry given how the various character traits and government systems are setup. If you want a more authentic experience with cavalry, you should play Pahlava or Saka Rauka or another steppe faction. They are cavalry crazy too, you know.

The successor states have the best light cavalry lancers in my opinion. Their prodromoi have the highest stamina rating while also being very affordable. Very important is their Fast trait. Baktria, thus, benefits from having the Prodromoi to chase down routing armies. Trying to chase down elements of a routing army with horse archers that don't have a close formation tends to be a little slower. Trying to chase down those folks with heavy cavalry that isn't "fast", is also not as efficient.

The ideal, of course, is the heavy armored horse archer and lancer. A Roman and Persian cataphract can control the engagement range from close to far. Only a few EB factions have cavalry units that come close to meeting that requirement.

Of course, the fact that Baktria has armored elephants makes up for that. Since I use elephants to crush pike phalanxes that my cavalry can't easily flank either because their light infantry is in my way or because their second line is blocking a charge at the phalanx's rear.

The elephants can cross the phalanx's line at a 90 degree angle, instead of the optimal 180 degree angle most cavalry needs to hit those units in the back. If you have ever seen what I am describing, the elephants hit the pike phalanx from their left or right side, go ALL the way through the formation, leaving the entire unit on the ground for the most part. It is truly a beautiful sight.

And it makes for much more fun battles, if you ask me. Since the only way to get my elephants close enough is to nullify the enemy's skirmisher and archer troops. That requires me to use a heavy enough cavalry attack to chase those archers off or rout them or otherwise prevent them from launching attacks on my elephants. Then my elephants can come in free of getting slaughtered, unless I make a mistake about attack angles.

All steppe factions tend to have unique character traits that emphasize cavalry tactics. Baktria is not a steppe faction, so you won't get as much of the cavalry mystique as you would in a steppe faction.

Going to the subject of strategic advantages, Baktria has one of the best strategic advantages around. It is called chevron 3 recruitment. Once you get a max level temple of herakles, a gymnasium, and a level 1,3, or 4 government, any unit you recruit at that city gets a level 3 chevron in experience. Very nice for ensuring that units, with heavy casualties, don't drop in experience when retrained. Also very nice for making the maximum use of cataphracts from the very beginning.

The Ptolemaio have a similar, if not same, bonus, but they are way out in Egypt. They won't even get access to steppe regional troops until they have conquered 1/4th of the world coming from the south.

I am using Alexander.exe so the battle AI has changed for me. They no longer attempt to fire arrows at my heavily armored cataphracts or bodyguards. They inevitably fire fire arrows at my elephants, if that unit is in range. They don't fire arrows at units in phalanx formation, but they will if you take them out of phalanx formation.

[clibanarii immortal]

well I suggest one of the nomad factions, unless you only wish to charge around and not skirmish then I suggest any of the successor states or pahlav, I don't suggest Hayasdan unless you're patient enough to wait 100 years until you got the required MIC to recruit Armenian Cataphracts

note: I think Curepros (Gaulish Light Cavalry) has an error in their Unit Card which says they can form a wedge

[Lysander13]

The cavalry of the Pahlava is sick...Of course the Nomads and Baktria is damn good as well....but if i had to ride with one of these...I would pick the Pahlava...........

[russia almighty]

If you want a primitative, Rustic feeling, go with Sauromatae or the Saka.

If you want the WTF evil empire thing going on, Phalava for the win.

[Maksimus]

I would play Nomad and some Barb faction if they could eventually have the abillity to evolve into some mid-hellenic or semi-eastern culture after they counquer some of hellenic/eastern provinces and hold them for a certan time period, man, it is my dream...

Will work on that after EB 11 comes around

[Watchman]

...that sounds a lot like the Pahlava and their reform you know...