Suggestion Cav Spread

[Rugin84]

Was discusing this in the 5.7 patch forum and figured I'd throw it up here. For the Cavalry sread to be minimal when heavy cav units are in the wedge or scara formation. It would better portray the style of heavy cavalry charging, pulling back, reforming, and charging again, and again if need be. Units of knights really did fight in these wedge formations, and the key to it was dicipline and staying knee to knee with the men in your unit.

So in normal line formation it would make sense that after the initial charge there would really be no regrouping, but for units using the wedge ability they are able to stay together and reform for multiple charges.

I hope this is possible Repman, it would really be the most historically accurate way to portray heavy medieval cavalry in DLV. Personally I love the Cav Spread for most Cav, light and heavy in line formation, it is perfect. Changing wedge formation to nulify the spread would really create some interesting and realistic battles. Makeing heavy cav the force to be reckoned with that it was historicaly.

Plus the options for generals having to decide whethor to wedge their cav and pick at the enemy lines with multiple careful charges, or put them online,ranks two deep, and shock the entire enemy line with one charge. Ah...choices...

[Capital]

The Mongols would retreat and then come back again, devastating the morale of the troops. Different cav' units will have different tactics, Repmans dilemma is finding a balance in between. I like the loose formation that Cavalry dissolves into, I think its realistic, As I can't see the horses acting in tandem after the first contact with the enemy, without manually regrouping. (The Cavalry will not run back into formation sometimes)

Our children will be debating Calvary spread I fear, For another generation.

[Rugin84]

Its not really a debate, lessening the cav spread for heavy frankish style cavalry in wedge formation is historically accurate!

I have read many historic accounts of battles. One described knights making up to 17 charges in one battle. 17!! This is no where near possible with the current spread of the cav in wedge formation.

And it really has nothing to do with the mongols. You, always with the mongols, enough! lol...

[Capital]

Thing is, would you have to put the Calvary back to vanilla to get what you are talking about, Or could you make both viable... The spread out formation looks killer in field battles.

I think the key is the wedge formation, if it could be made into a tight formation, where the men all stick together that would be neat, if not I think it should be maintained only as a modification.

Also, is there any footage of horses hitting military formations? It would be interesting to see real video of actual old style cavalry charge.

Here's something for your amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odxwYPrtXUU

[Rugin84]

The footage would be awsome.

I also agree that if the wedge formation only cannot be made into a non-spread formation, then things should remain the way they are. I have nothing against the cav spread. "A plan never survives first contact with the enemy." The cav spread is very realistic, simulating the confusion and craziness of a battle. But well diciplineed heavy cav in wedge formation should be able to rise above this, no?

I hope this is possible and more of you agree, and Repman, of course.

Cheers!

[Notimeforaname]

Hi, i'm totally new to this subforum and only visited because of the 'cav spread' topic, which I hate, btw.

Thing is, would you have to put the Calvary back to vanilla to get what you are talking about, Or could you make both viable... The spread out formation looks killer in field battles.

I think the key is the wedge formation, if it could be made into a tight formation, where the men all stick together that would be neat, if not I think it should be maintained only as a modification.

Also, is there any footage of horses hitting military formations? It would be interesting to see real video of actual old style cavalry charge.

Here's something for your amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odxwYPrtXUU

The portable movie camera was invented significantly later than when horse cavalry was still being used to charge into ranks of infantry. Duh j/k. You knew that...

It seems to me that all the videos you might see about heavy cavalry on youtube and the like also leave out two very significant and important FACTS. They are not knights (trained from birth as warriors), and they are not trying to kill anyone.

So as cool as all they might be to watch, it is certainly not going to be an accurate portrayal and all that can be relied upon is historical texts and accounts. My two cents... Not worth much, I know.

[Xtiaan72]

Well, the spread had been reduced in 5.7...Is it that much of an issue to people anymore?...Surely some spread is realistic...and if your charges are timed right the spread causes massive chaos for the enemy after the charge....If you charge with multiple cav units when the enemy moral is turning for the worse....It completely chews them up.

The enemy infantry ends up getting attack from all sides by one unit...causing even more moral penalties for the enemy.

The spread is just about right in 5.7 inmo....

Not too much but enough to add some chaos and insanity to intense battles.

[Vangar]

Also, is there any footage of horses hitting military formations? It would be interesting to see real video of actual old style cavalry charge.

I hope not, battles were hardly filmed when they still used cavalry and if you wanted to recreate a realistic cavalry charge in historic roleplaying like in the movie you had to crash horses on full speed into a group of people, equaling dozens of dead and heavily injured horses and men alike. It's a bit too much death just for the purpose on improving the medieval 2 cavalry spread, isn't it?

I already wonder how they manage to let battles in movies look so realistic (take the Braveheart charge into the pikemen), but it's all about editing and training. In fact, horses and actors aren't even close while filming those battlescenes. If you would watch the "battle" from straight above you'd see that there is plenty of room between "soldiers" and horses. No human being would possibly survive a collision with a horse in full charge.

[Furin]

I think we should make an "infantry spread" to p off the rest of the community

[svean]

Maybe there should be a modificator for cavalry units that affects the spread?
Problem is that some of the most trained (not necessarily the nobles elite) troops get lower spread, but most of troops should have the spread as is is, sometimes maybe even higher (feudal knights? cavalry militias?).

What I meant there is knights was probably trained to warriors from birth (questionable as I'm trained to be scientist from birth as I went to school ) but just some of them were (enough) trained to fight IN FORMATION. So they spread after the charge to seek personal glory

Of course there were highly trained cavalry units relying on group tactics rather than individual skills - polish Hussars (historical not the ingame ) tactics was based on spread gallop (to avoid musketeers fire) which get very dense just several meters before the charge target (knee to knee). That tactics was very effective as Hussars won many battles as decisive force while being greatly outnumbered - Cutrea de Argesz 1450 (with 950 hussars) against 7000, Kircholm 3750 (with 1750 hussars) against 12300, Kluszyn 6800 (with 5556 hussars) against 35000, Chocim 620 (with 540 hussars) against 10000... Of course these units wasn't original Serbian hussars seeking revenge on Turks but polish nobles but after some victories and growing status of members their training and discipline dropped... and they stopped being so fearsome force (as with french nobles being so good equipped and but lacking a discipline and orchestration)

And about those 17 charges mentioned by Rugin84 - this is historically true bu you haven't mentioned the length of battle - was is something like 5-6 hours?? Also the probably changed horses during that time Anyway - having something like 8-10 charges in a battle on one horse was actually possible (while battle lasted 3 hours at least) BUT you need much lowered attack value of all units. And no time limit of course

[Malahaut]

this is a very interesting article about chavalry charges in middle ages and the use of "banners" in them to make them easy to regroup.

http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCE...S/bennett1.htm

Greets

[Xtiaan72]

The cav animation was a mod that was created outside of the core DLV team if I'm not mistake and incorporated into the mod...( which is why I imagine it has taken so long to manipulate it)

The question is can a unit even have two different animations for different formations.....I don't know if they can but it's worth looking into...

As far as untrained units having a different animation, that surely can be done.. But it's a ton of time consuming work that would have to be done by someone really skilled.... I can't even imagine how much time went in to all the original animations for units in DLV already...

Some of the infantry ones are a glory to watch on a decent system....

[Rugin84]

The question is can a unit even have two different animations for different formations.....I don't know if they can but it's worth looking into...

As far as untrained units having a different animation, that surely can be done.. But it's a ton of time consuming work that would have to be done by someone really skilled.... I can't even imagine how much time went in to all the original animations for units in DLV already...

Should be able to have two animations for units, look at pikman, archers, etc. they use different animations for diff weaps. it shouldnt be too different to do this for formations. But would it really require a huge animation overhaul to make the wedge formation non-spreading? I relly dont know, Id do it myself if I knew how.

@Overkill
I agree with you on the 5.7 spread. They dont even pause for a minute after a charge, just poof: they're all over the place. I think it is perfect for untrained or light cav. But not heavy cav.
Its nice you can change your anim at will, but lots of us have no clue how to do this, or the time.

@Tokus
Good point!

[Malahaut]

@Overkill
I agree with you on the 5.7 spread. They dont even pause for a minute after a charge, just poof: they're all over the place. I think it is perfect for untrained or light cav. But not heavy cav.
Its nice you can change your anim at will, but lots of us have no clue how to do this, or the time.

if you want i can look for the post that has the link to the files that you have to download in order to have S.S cavalry anims (no spread) the only thing you have to do is replace 4 files

[Overkill]

I don't see the problem with cav spread. Personally I don't like it so I'm using animations from another mod. Simple and efficient solution.

[Xtiaan72]

Have you tried the 5.7 ones? It's a lot less drastic but still beautiful to watch.

[Overkill]

Have you tried the 5.7 ones? It's a lot less drastic but still beautiful to watch.

Sorry but I can't agree with you on that. I tried and I wrote about it in mod 5.7 thread. It's worse than it was. Before cav used to spread after few seconds and at least half of them stayed in group. Now they spread instantly and it's like every man for him self. They run strait in to the rocks, walls and other static objects, not to mention running strait in to the enemy spearman. Very annoying...but I simply don't want to bang my head over that...so I changed animations and I'm happy

[Tokus*Maximus]

I've come to accept the new spread out Cav but can the King's bodyguard not do that. They're mean't to stick to their lord and, erm, guard his body.

[Tokus*Maximus]

Yes, but does the Lorica Segementata armour spread out well like Cav in DLV? :o)

[Xtiaan72]

( accidental double post, sorry)