Cavalry OP

[Pjstaab]

So is the point of Extended Realism to spam cavalry? It's really annoying watch a unit of cavalry wipe spearmen.

[Quinn Inuit]

Welcome to the forum, Pjstaab!

Seriously? Spam cavalry? Have you seen how much a unit of cavalry costs? On what difficulty level are you playing?

Oh, and no cavalry with the possible exception of cataphracts should be able to frontally charge spearmen and wipe them out. Cavalry have been weakened in their melee abilities since I took over this mod. Could you tell us a little more about the circumstances of the battle?

[lelouchx99]

A man riding on a horse should be harder to do melee combat on.

A man riding on a horse charge at you ... There's no way to stop that.

Like Quinn said cavalry in this mod is expensive, but they're effective against most units NOT all the units.

[Pjstaab]

I've played RTRPE very hard and I could win battles I was outnumbered in my sleep. I can manage battles now where i'm even with enemies but then they send cavalry and there go entire groups of guys in seconds. And guys seems to route extremely easily too.

[Quinn Inuit]

Hmmm. Few things:
1) Super heavy cavalry has more of a charge bonus now. Careful about that.
2) The battle AI has been massively upgraded. It should be harder in the ExRM.
3) I've only lowered stat_mental (which governs routing) on a few mercenary units. Everyone else is the same.

[Antonov]

Sorry Quinn but I've never felt an improvement in the battle AI's tactics I just form my legions according to the manual for playing historically. The AI charges at my front lines, my skirmishers retreat behind my hestati, so the enemy charges into them. While they are fighting, I move my principes/spearmen from between the hestati and hit the enemies in the back. I use cavalry for pursuit of routed enemies and to help lower the morale of enemy units by striking them from the rear. Cavalry also counters other cavalry.

Something I found out which I think is new is, that the enemies are more probable to start chasing after my skirmishers, usually with their cavalry units. It's arguable how much of an improvement this is, if it has been done by the ExRM team, since having the enemy's cavalry busy chasing and hacking up my skirmishers which have usually ran out of javellins and are not much use for the rest of the battle's duration, is perfectly all right with me

[Quinn Inuit]

Really? Interesting. I'm going to test some interesting AI changes in the next version, but if you want to compare AIs in the meantime I'm pretty sure this shipped with Darth's AI as an alternate text file in the data directory. What don't you try swapping them out and seeing what you think?

Personally, I prefer Sinhuet's formations to Darth's. I think his battle lines are more solid.

[Pjstaab]

This is ridiculous. I had a full group of picene spearmen facing gallic heavy cavalry and the cavalry manages to push my spearmen all the way through my small town from the beginning of the narrow streets right after the gate all the way to the plaza.

I thought cavalry was supposed to be expensive. http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cavalry.jpg

[Scutarii]

Cavalry is very expensive (its over 1000 denarii per turn to upkeep the elite Greek cav). Keep in mind barb units are a little bit cheaper on average...

I find cavalry well-balanced, actually. Great on the charge, but facing tightly packed spearmen (like picene hoplites...) they die in droves, even sometimes on the charge...

[Quinn Inuit]

Also bear in mind that cavalry have much higher mass than infantry and can push them, that Gallic HC are unusually good in melee, and Picene spearmen (not hoplites) suck in melee.

On what difficulty level are you playing? The game is balanced for M/M or H/M. Cavalry is extremely expensive, but if the AI is getting a large $ boost it can still afford some.

[Scutarii]

Oh, he's talking about Marsi Spearmen then? Sure, Gallic Heavy Cav could butcher them, especially if they a) got a charge off or b) you're playing on H or VH.