Cavalry vs Cavalry tactics

[Tactics Mayers]

What kind of tactics should I use medium or heavy cavalry against other cavalry while my infantry deals their infantry?

Should I use my medium cavalry to hold off the enemy cavalry while search for the right time for the heavy cavalry to strike against them? Maybe bring some slingers alongside my cavalry so that I can soften them or kill skirmishing cavalry or maybe steamroll their cavalry with a charge of both heavy and medium cavalry?

If the enemy cavalry cavalry is in retreat(not routed) should I pursue them or look for flanking opportunities?

[Genghis Skahn]

Depends heavily on your faction and the type of cavalry you're fighting. If you are fighting extremely quick and light cavalry like skirmisher cav or HAs then you will want light cavalry to catch them, and then deliver the decisive blow with heavy cavalry. As well, the elevation which you are fighting is important--don't charge up a hill to attack enemy cav, but you should feel free to charge down one. Sometimes enemy cavalry will be alone on the wings with the BAI's formations...This is a very good time to potentially rout or destroy them before they can be supported by their allies on the field. Heavy cavalry should either be directly charged by fellow heavy cavalry(and then promptly retreated after the damage is done, since the time it takes to destroy heavy cav can also be time enough for you to be flanked and destroyed yourself) or baited by faster cavalry and then defeated by Heavy cav and usually a combination of supporting infantry, or perhaps worn down into retreat by missile units. I often use baiting to destroy cavalry units in specific cavalry engagements.

Sometimes the enemy cavalry makes it easy for you, and recklessly charges your front line skirmishers or infantry without a lot of support from the main army. Due to the numerical advantage you have locally, this will greatly influence the morale of enemy cavalry, and they can typically be easily routed in this stage by a counter-charge, or perhaps just by letting the heavy line infantry deal with them. Heavy cavalry will probably require a counter-charge to be routed, however, or perhaps significant missile fire combined with numerical advantage.

Sometimes light cavalry can rout heavy cavalry with a good charge from behind, if they're dealing with tough infantry or cavalry units, but this is generally rare, and light cavalry are still best for skirmishing, auxiliary charges and most of all chasing down routed enemies(they're faster than heavy cav, so they excel at chasing these down more than almost any other unit--just hope the heavy cavalry doesn't reform and stop routing).

It usually helps to have one to a few cavalry units tying down one to a few enemy cavalry units, whilst another one to a few move around for a flanking charge. This is an excellent way to rout enemy cavalry(unsurprisingly).

In the cases of settled vs. nomadic peoples, you generally won't have as many cavalry units as the Nomads do if you're a settled faction; as well, the nomad noble cavalry is typically better than many settled faction cavalry(depends on the faction, of course). If so, then you often need to use all your forces in conjunction with them; I've had a small amount of cavalry as the Lugians defeat a cavalry rich force just by catching the enemy with them and then following up with a head on infantry charge when said enemy cavalry is bogged down in melee. You'll want to use this tactic against nomads--foot archers will be important in fighting them as well.

Here's my first battle as Baktria against the Haomavarga roving stack north of Oksobara(typically invades around that area early on):





This roving stack is very rich in cavalry, whilst my Baktrian starting army only has 5 once I add 2 other FMs to it, and only one of those is a HA unit. In this battle, I began by attacking exposed and rather unsupported Saka Riders(non skirmishers) on my left flank first, charging forth with my 3 BG cavs and eventually routing most of said units multiple times. Meanwhile, I positioned my archers and infantry units on high ground in reserve, who were covered by my 2 other units of non-heavy cavalry(the iranians and baktrian HAs are moreso of a medium class cavalry, to my mind's eye). After charging well down the hill, and finding that the Saka-Haomavarga were starting to try to surround my unsupported BG cavalry units who had charged down the hill a bit too much for their own good. I quickly retreated back up the hill, whilst taking a few casualties from nomadic HA fire, but all 3 of my FMs survived and would participate in the battle later. Once my army was one again, I charged down the hill a bit, and placed my archers at the crest of a steep slope, with my infantry just below. The remaining enemy HAs skirmished with me for a while but steadily began to lose more and more men, until my archers ran out of arrows. The enemy was still very much an army at this time, but from here I used my lighter cavalry to attack and rout HA's and riders that advanced too far up the slope for their own safety, and then began a final push with my infantry and cavalry(a classic nomadic and anti-nomadic tactic I've used), from there the battle was mostly over and I won shortly thereafter.

I realize the screenshots aren't the most informative, as I was rather engrossed in the battle before the first screenshot. The first screenshot shows my army at the crest of the hill, preparing for a final charge against the nomads; you can see the corpses of their units directly below and also a bit to the far left from the first engagements of the battle. I hope you'll find it to be a good example of a much slower and weaker-in-cavalry army defeating a quick cavalry-rich force. Of course, as you can see, I had the advantage of mountainous terrain in the battle on my side--something you're not always going to have when fighting an enemy strong in cavalry. It's generally accepted that cavalry performs best on flat ground, and most poorly on rough mountainous terrain, as many of us are aware.

If the enemy cavalry cavalry is in retreat(not routed) should I pursue them or look for flanking opportunities?

Depends on the situation, I will give chase if I believe it's safe for my cavalry to do so, and I would recommend chasing routing cavalry well off the field, assuming you can safely do it. If a reckless charge by enemy heavy cavalry results in them routing, then you should do your best not to let them reform--but again, only if it is safe for your cavalry units to do so, and if your infantry can survive without support from them(because they might be gone for quite some time).

Hope you found all of this helpful, and if you have any more specific questions, I hope I can answer them too. If anyone else has any suggestions and/or experiences they'd like to share, I'd love to hear about those too!

[Maroslav]

best strategy is have more cav. units than enemy or atleast manage win cavalry fight on one wing and prove defend second.best option is keep cav. units fight themselve and pick those with best charge to attack from behind.with this u break even noble cavalry with skirmish ones, who have often better charge than heavy cavalry with swords.

[Genghis Skahn]

The issue with the strategy of having more cavalry units than the enemy is that it really unbalances gameplay in the players favor. Unless you're fighting nomads, which generally requires more horsemen than on average in your army to win field battles, you might want to limit your cavalry numbers to just 4-5 units at max. 6 is often too many(depending on the faction, nomads and other heavy equestrian factions might warrant 6 units or more; nomads especially are bound to have a lot of horsemen), and generally makes battles far too easy. I think you'll find that you can still win tons of battles without cavalry stacking(nowadays I win all mine with no more than 4-5 max, and it's not uncommon for me to have less cavalry than that), and all you're really doing is giving the AI a better chance of victory(by not having a constant advantage in cavalry)

[Maroslav]

no mercy with AI. when suebi can have 7 full stacks( only what i see with spy or watchtowers) with 4 cities, only chance is crush them with cavalry in rear. they like hording those stack and when you are not lucky with nightfighter trait, than u have to be tricky everywhere where u can.