Problems dealing with cavalry

[nameless]

Tried this mod out for a bit and I find cavalry to be quite difficult to deal with unless you have enough of your own to contend with.

Most cases the AI cavalry will charge full frontal against my battle line (heavy infantry, spearmen, in defense formation) and will cause massive casualties to the point of almost routing them.

My only method of stopping the cavalry charges is to fight them off with my own cavalry but sometimes it's not enough. Especially when the AI fields cavalry heavy armies.

What other ways are there to handle cavalry other than just countering with cavalry? Pikemen and archers can help but sometimes it's not enough. Is there any other unit that can hold a frontal charge against cavalry or is it futile?

[Bacon!]

I find that when using spearmen the schitholm (or whatever it is called) formation helps alot against cavalry

[Templar Knight]

well i would say get archers that can deploy stakes and deploy them in front of you main battle line

also equip your armies with some pikes and spear men

deploy the pikes on the flanks and put the spears in the middle to kill any cav that gets through the stakes

hope this helps you

[nameless]

well i would say get archers that can deploy stakes and deploy them in front of you main battle line

I find it a double edge though. The stakes only deters the cavalry, hence they go around it to the edges which of course means I still need cavalry to handle them anyways and if they have more than me then I'm still in trouble.

also equip your armies with some pikes and spear men

Unfortunately not all factions carry pikes.

deploy the pikes on the flanks and put the spears in the middle to kill any cav that gets through the stakes

hope this helps you

I've pretty much finished with England so either Teutonics or Byzantine is next on my list. I'll try this out. Thanks.

[crunchyfrog]

well i would say get archers that can deploy stakes and deploy them in front of you main battle line

Wrong move... Usually.

AI doesnt charge head into stakes. And this will only result in them flanking you from a more dangerous angle.

I tried testing this strategy a few times with some success.

A= archers x = stakes I = infantry = S = Spearmen


XX____XXXXXX___XX
AA_SS_AAAAA_SS_AA
____IIIIIIIIIIIIII_______
CC__________CC
See how i make the gaps right where the spearmen are and Itry making the enemy cavalry charge into the holes of the stakes and right into my spearmen. (I ofcouse make my archers run behind my main infantry line and move the infatry up right behind the stakes when the enemy army approaches. But this also makes charging enemy infantry with your cavalry in the rear very unwise if you are fighting right in the stakes since it will kill any mounted units running into them.

But this doesnt really worked everytime 50/50 cavalry just go flaking around.

But this still makes them seperate from my main line and onto sides where my spearmen is protecting my main infantry and archers.

Edit: I should really read my posts through more than once.

[LionQ]

Soldiers in schilltrom formation under command of an able general or family member are like bricks, to be honest. Unless being charged from all sides, they're more likely to fight to the death than breaking down. Changing from standard formation to schilltrom makes a unit anything but spineless.

[gingerbreadman85]

Having lots of the spearmen now with shieldwall rather schiltrom makes them more handy.

They can really take even a full charge when nice and tight like that..... Cav are only effective when they manage to split a formation, and with the men that close together its REALLY hard to manage that. Flank that with some nice pointy stakes and any Cav will have to work really hard to do anything about you.

[Templar Knight]

no problem man

and both Byzantine and the Teutonic order have stakes and pikes

[Gorrrrrn]

armoured spears are pretty good at stopping cavalry.
(if you don't have stackes and pikes)

counter-attack with billmen or halbardiers

schiltron looks pretty silly with normal size units - spearwall would look better.

norse units can use shield wall.

most horses are reluctant to charge solid objects.
especially solid objects with pointed sticks.
some mods make them into tanks.

[nameless]

Even against the strongest cavalry Armored sergeants cannot hold a line if they are charged from the front. So far with the Teutons their spearmen are capable of holding the line since they have the best spearmen(one of them) in the game.

Sometimes it tempts me though, all you need in this mod is to field nothing but cavalry and nothing will stop you. Just full frontal charge and you'll still win.

[obbob]

a spearmen unit of sergeant spearmen quality will probably get the first two rows killed inthe charge at most. After that, the tide should easily turn in their favor as the cavalry begins a melee.

Cavalry's main power comes from its charge, which would then put some of their horses deep into the enemy unit, which allows them to attack at will ina really fast fashion (since they are surrounded by targets). But once those soldiers die, the cavalry at the front should become easy pickings since it becomes hard to get a target to attack.

[DireklianCliff]

If you play the Teutonic Knights, then look no further than Order Spearmen. They come in plate, and have good morale. Back them up with a general behind the line giving orders, and cavalry won't stand a chance. Also, the Teutonic Knights have Burgher Pikemen, which are excellent for defending against sieges. If you're having a lot of trouble against knights, you can always do as a friend once suggested to me: place your Pikemen in spear wall formation, then place your Order Spearmen just in front of the Pikemen's bodies. By doing this, you will essentially be protecting your Pikemen with plate while at the same time doubling the amount of spears in a knight's path. This has served me well on a few occassions.

[HAMandCHEESE]

I think you should try using your archers against them as well. Once they are in range of your archers, have your guys fire exclusively at the cavalry. This should weaken them a bit and slow their charge.

I find that if I charge them with spearmen while they are being hit with my arrows in this situation, they are brought down pretty easily. I play VH/VH as a reference. Not sure if there would be a difference on a lower difficulty.

[Mune]

I'd say cavalry in SS6.1 are more balanced than Vanilla though, at least you only get 24 of them versus the 32 you did have (on small scale) per unit. I've had a fairly similar experience with cavalry though, as often times I'll bring a large army to fight an equally large army and my cavalry regiment (about 2-4 units including the bodyguards) ends up winning the battle for me with little to no infantry involvement. But on the other hand, I know one unit which always beats heavy cavalry, and thats ranged cavalry. They can easily run out of reach of the heavy cavalry and shoot while they're being chased, all with little to no micromanagement (you can often get by with just 'fire at will' and 'skirmish' enabled). Too bad for those factions without early ranged cavalry though. Any of the cavalry types I find can be overpowered in certain situations, such as heavy cavalry if the enemy has no pikemen or ranged cavalry to counter you. Or ranged cavalry, if the enemy has no light cavalry to chase them down (ranged infantry can beat ranged cavalry too, but only if you let them duke it out in ranged combat with no micro, or don't use the cantabrian (sp?) circle which helps).

I think a bit of a boost to the stopping-power of spearmen (not to be confused with pikemen) would be nice. Shield wall is good, but not everyone's got it. Schiltron is okay, but that formation assumes they will be surrounded, which isn't as useful when your being attacked from a single direction. I too find it a bit too easy to beat up to 200 infantry units with my 8 bodyguards. And to those who say that the spearmen will win when they melee after the charge, well thats why I always pull my cavalry back immediately. Sometimes I take some losses to my cavalry, sometimes not, but their losses are always significantly more.

A recent battle comes to memory, where I sent a general (with 8 bodyguards) to take out a rebel army which popped up. They had two armored seargents, and I think two longbows. The longbows took out 2 of my cavalry in the initial charges, which ended with the longbows routing and being slaughtered. I kept them away from the armored seargents for now with careful maneuvering when needed. Once this was done, the seargents lined up and prepared for a charge. I positioned my cavalry on the slightly-uphill side of the infantry, their units rotated formation to face me once more. I charged the remaining bodyguards/general into the front of the armored seargents and killed half of them, taking no losses. I repeated against the other full unit of armored seargents, same results. 3 charges later, I had won the battle with the loss of 2 bodyguard units total, which were killed by the longbowmen during the initial charge.

In Vanilla, all I needed was a general and 2 mailed knights to take on most armies.

EDIT - As HAMandCHEESE pointed out, attacking them at range certainly helps. I'll add to his comment that crossbows, or any armor-piercing ranged attack, works best versus their generally heavier armor.

A bit of a thought I had reading through Rozanov's post: One way to balance cavalry would be to make it so that the horses will stall and pull back when told to charge against spear units. This would simulate the fact that horses are generally not quite as willing to die for the cause, and getting a cavalry unit to charge towards spearmen often resulted in this problem in real life. Cavalry with high discipline could be resistant to this effect, but I think that telling your unit of mailed knights to charge into a wall of armored seargents should result in either unhappy and/or unwilling horses, or dead cavalry.