Can Someone win a battle with an army full of Cavalry?

[biohaker]

Hello people.

I was just wondering if an army, containing only Cavalry units, can win a more complex army. And I mean in Early ages, where the Heavy Cavalry are not Knights, so they are not too expensive and they don't have too much upkeep.

For Example:

Byzantines vs Turks

Byzantines to have a whole army consisting of Byzantine Lancers and Byzantine Cavalry (Horse archers) with no infantry units and...

Turks to have a complex army, Turkish archers behind, Spearmen (maybe sipahis) and heavy infantry (maybe Saracens) in the frontlines and some Turkomans (Horse archers).

Will an army full of cavalry men, can win an able-boding army?

[burninglegionx]

my sicilian 'pwn field battle' army in the jerusalem region consists of 1 general and 12 hospitaller knights (b/c of cheap price to maintain, only 200 upkeep) and a couple of turkomas.

Just go around the enemy army, charge enemy bodyguard with 3~4 hospitallers = dead enemy general (after 5~10sec of sword fight), then charge enemies from front n back = instant rout, then chase the routing units, i win.

The only trouble is the mameluk archers.. i need my general to chase them away from the 'main' part of battle then they rout when their army is gone.

O and now i have 2 elephants alongside hospitallers.. nothing can stop this army in a field battle.

[biohaker]

my sicilian 'pwn field battle' army in the jerusalem region consists of 1 general and 12 hospitaller knights (b/c of cheap price to maintain, only 200 upkeep) and a couple of turkomas.

Just go around the enemy army, charge enemy bodyguard with 3~4 hospitallers = dead enemy general (after 5~10sec of sword fight), then charge enemies from front n back = instant rout, then chase the routing units, i win.

The only trouble is the mameluk archers.. i need my general to chase them away from the 'main' part of battle then they rout when their army is gone.

O and now i have 2 elephants alongside hospitallers.. nothing can stop this army in a field battle.

Sounds fun my friend!
Thanks

[burninglegionx]

Sounds fun my friend!
Thanks

if you want to recruit elephant mercinaries, it's down at egyptian city called medina. it's located across the red sea from thebes. and you need to accept as many st. john's chapter houses to maintain this army. You lose about 1~3 squad of hospitallers per 'full stack vs fullstack' battle (more enemy archers, more loss).

[strife1013]

if you want to recruit elephant mercinaries, it's down at egyptian city called medina. it's located across the red sea from thebes. and you need to accept as many st. john's chapter houses to maintain this army. You lose about 1~3 squad of hospitallers per 'full stack vs fullstack' battle (more enemy archers, more loss).

When can you get them? I'm in late era and about 43 rounds into it.

[Laconian]

With Armenian cavalry and a bodyguard a routed a couple of units of Turkish spearmen. All I did was flank them and in 5 secs their general was dead and they were routing.

[Mjr Phil]

Just go around the enemy army, charge enemy bodyguard with 3~4 hospitallers = dead enemy general (after 5~10sec of sword fight), then charge enemies from front n back = instant rout, then chase the routing units, i win.

Yeah, that's sad... I mean I took like 3 feudal knights from besieged settlement, moved to the back of invaders (cav+inf, no mis) and repeatedly charged them out of this world. Hundreds of dead, few casualties, lots of exp. Clear exploit.

[Banzai!]

Yes and you will many many heroic victories (because of how battle odds are calculated).

[Echad]

His tactics were massed horse-archers, destroying everyone and heavy cavalry chasing routing units after. burninglegionx explained very different tactics of using mainly heavy cavalry, so I guess there are numerous only-cav tactics... Gonna try 6.0 custom battles with Cumans and Khwarezm - they both seem to be very cavalry based. =)

[knoess]

In response to the orignal poster when using an all cavalry army you normally always win versus the ai.
your horse archers you can flank the enemy and send arrows in from every direction. Your heavy cavalry can just charge in from the front and destroy any unit it hits in the charge (except pikes)
Your light cavalry can do flank charges and destroy any routing units. Result 90% cases heroic victory.
Cavalry is very powerfull in SS, its upkeep is also much higher then vanlla but they are worth it.

[Echad]

Well, and the unit sizes are smaller than in vanilla.

[Phase]

In RTW I used to sometimes make a full stack of Macedonian calvary.

[notger]

Beating the AI is not too difficult.

Beating a human opponent with an all-Cav army when he is allowed to field an army of footman for the same amount of money will be difficult. Very difficult.

A human would protect his general better, would form a protective circle, would hire special anti-cav troops ...

[jetlee81]

na in SS's cav is striped down. in the original full cav charg in a line at the same time will route most troops. cos the highest moral is about 11 and most are below 9.

[burninglegionx]

to conclude, human cavs vs ai army = human wins.


and to strife,

i don't know what triggers 'st john's minor chapter houses' but i have like 15 settlements with st john's minor chapter houses and my sicilian army turned into all hospitaller (dism. and horsed) army (which is pretty imbalanced due to cheap upkeep)

maybe b/c i led 4 successful crusades in a row? (currently, turn 110 controls part of greece including constantinople and most of africa, need to take timbaktu from moors)

[Bacon!]

the chances of getting a knights of st john chapter house increases if one of your provinces has a high muslim percentage or it borders a province with a high muslim percentage. Thats why they probablly seem easy to get wiith sicily because they are one of the closest catholic factions to muslims excluding spain and protugal but they get knights of santiago insted.