Greek Cavalry

[DimeBagHo]

I'm thinking about re-working some of the Greek cavalry units because the current line-up is somewhat unrealistic. The current line-up is:

(1) Militia Cavalry (armed with javelins and short spear).
(2) Light Cavalry (armed with lance and sword).
(3) Heavy Cavalry / Cataphracts (armed with lance and sword).
(4) Armoured Cavalry / Hetairoi (armed with lance and sword).

Militia cavalry (1) are unrealistic in that their equipment is too cheap. Light cavalry (2) are unrealistic in that the Greeks didn't use melee only light cavalry in the game period. What they did use was two kinds of skirmishing cavalry - some that only skirmished, and some that could engage in melee in a pinch.

Militia Cavalry should be re-worked so that they have somewhat better equipment (helmets at least, shields, javelins, swords, but a very low charge bonus and a weak sword attack). They should be cheap to maintain as they are part time soldiers, useful for skirmishing and chasing routers, but otherwise useless.

Light Cavalry should be armed with javelins and lances so that they can skirmish, and deliver a decent punch in a charge, even if they don't have much staying power.

The heavy cavalry units are fine as they are except that there is a type missing. In the time of Alexander it was common for even the heavy cavalry to use javelins, so I thought it might be nice to add in a new version of Thessalian Cavalry as a heavy cavalry units with javelins as a precursor weapon (so they wouldn't skirmish but would throw javelins and then charge).

What do you think?

[Maraxus]

I like the idea of a heavier milita cav. I always loved this look: http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpos.../original.aspx
I used that as the basis for the Prodromi in DTW, I would love to see a unit like this in XGM.

[Dog Fart]

I like the heavy Thessalian Cavalry using javelins before a charge. I also like the ideas you have for militia cavalry. But didn't Roman cavalry fight in the same manner? Javelin-charge.

[DimeBagHo]

Maraxus: That's a great picture. Very much what I was thinking of.

dirty_M: As far as I know the Equites were only armed with lances and swords.

Another question is whether we should have a more consistent naming scheme. Now we have sort of Anglicized Greek names for the infantry units, but plain English descriptive names for most of the cavalry units. We could rename the cavalry units to:

(1) Politikoi (Civic) or maybe Asthippos (City Cavalrymen)
(2) Prodromoi
(3) Lonchophoroi
(4) Hetairoi (though this doesn't quite fit for the GCS)

[Zarax]

How about following EB rosters and forgetting about equalized rosters for once?

Hippakontistai (aka militia cavalry) are more or less ok, it's the "light" cavalry that is redundant.

How about something like this for GCS:

lvl2 - Hippakontistai:
Militia skirmishing cavalry, very limited hth

lvl3 - greek hippeis:
greek medium cavalry, decent route chasers equipped to deal with light cavalry

lvl4 - greek heavy cavalry:
top of the line for the greeks, heavy cavalry capable of sustaining some hand to hand

And successor:

lvl2 - promodroi:
capable light chargers but light armoured

lvl3 - lonchophoroi:
good medium cavalry, able to act as heavy cavalry in a pinch provided they don't face heavy melee

lvl4 macedonia - greek heavy cavalry:
heavy cavalry capable of sustaining some hand to hand

lvl4 seleucid/baktria - kataphracts:
armoured cav apt to shock combat but comparatively slow and easy to tire

lvl5 - companions:
emikataphract elite cavalry, fearsome charge and no less able in close combat.
Slightly lighter than kataphracts but more than compensate in skills and not easy to tire.

EDIT: they are doable with relatively little effort from what we have.

1) greek hippeis can use the greek phalangite model if you shorten their spear a bit
2) promodroi can use the macedonian phalangite model with a reskin to hide the shield
3) lonchophoroi can use the current greek hoplite model

The rest is already in game.

[Dom9127]

I agree with Zarax's suggestion, but any change to the unit roster would be good.

[DimeBagHo]

The EB roster is pretty much what we have now (though it looks nicer obviously ). The only notable differences are that in EB Greek Hippeis carry shields, and in XGM the Greeks have an equivalent of the Hetairoi.

In terms of appearance I'd prefer to aim for something like the pic that Maraxus posted for the light cavalry. I was thinking of doing something more like the EB model for the Lonchophoroi / Greek Heavy Cavalry though.

[Athenogoras]

Just a thought: It isnt necessary to give a unit javelings in order for them to skirmish. If you want a cavalryunit(like in maraxus picture) with meleeweapons to skirmish you just need to set its class to "missile" or "skirmish". I would prefer that unit to have pretty low stats but being able to catch horsearchers, possibly with some horsebonus.

[Zarax]

The EB roster is pretty much what we have now

Err, except that in EB hippeis are actually a decent medium cavalry and not pushovers like we have.

Also, shields and the appearance of greek cavalry are important as it needs to show that what you're using are basically mounted hoplites.

[Maraxus]

If all the cav units get some javelins, I would prefer not give the heavier units the "skirmish mode" ability, chasing missile cav units all over the map can get very old very fast.

[DimeBagHo]

This is what I'm thinking so far:

Level 2: Militia Cavalry / Politikoi

Javelins/Swords/Skirmishers. With helmets and shields their defense would be a little higher than now. Low upkeep, and very low melee abilities.

Level 3: Light Cavalry / Prodromoi

Javelins/Lances/Skirmishers. With helmets, shields, and linothorax, their defense would be better than the current light cavalry. They will have a decent charge bonus, but not a lot of staying power in melee.

Level 4: Heavy Cavalry / Lonchophoroi

Lances/Swords. No change, though I will make a new model sometime, probably based off a model previously made by Maraxus.

Level 5: Companions / Hetairoi

Lances/Swords. No change.

A possible new addition would be Thessalian Cavalry at level 4 or 5, which would be Javelin/Lance, with no skirmish ability.

Maraxus: Thessalian Cavalry would definitely be non-skirmish. We could also make the Prodromoi non-skirmish, though I think it would be more useful if it could skirmish. You could use them to wear down heavier cavalry units before engaging in melee.

[Spartan198]

You could call the GCS heavy cav "Xystophoroi", which is what EB calls it.

[_Lacedaemonian_]

@DimeBagHo: Good idea about re-working the Greek cavalry units!

You might also consider these:

1)Making Thessalian (heavy)cavalry an AOR unit(only in Thessalia),available to all Greek states.

2)Cappadocian/Pontic cavalry as an AOR unit in Asia Minor.

3)Cataphract cavalry as an AOR unit only in Asian/Persian provinces.

4)Bactrian cavalry recruitable only in the greater Bactrian area.(this goes for the Bactrian faction)

The variety of cavalry units is vey significant in terms of gameplay especially in the late game.As this is an Extended Greek Mod it should be cruicial for the greek/diadochi states to fill their ranks with every unit at their disposal.
Say you play as Macedon, you want to recreate Alexander's Empire but you find yourself limited in cavalry options in the East!You can always spam Thessalian cavalry but this is not historically or geopolitically right don't you think?
Or perhaps the Seleucids,if you manage to overcome your nearby enemies you can spam cataphracts everywhere!
IMHO the same principles for AOR infantry units should apply in the cavalry ones too.

After all, we want this mod to be the greatest of all,right?

[Scutarii]

Cappodocian Cav are already an AOR unit in Cappadocia. Only for a few factions, I think Rome, Maks, GCS and maybe a couple of others...

Number 3 won't work since XGM only has 3 levels of AOR buildings. You could, of course, assign them to the factional barracks and restrict their recruitment. But then you may as well start doing that for all factions inconically elite troops, not just Cata's.

[Lobo Solitario]

One day CA will give us units able to carry three weapons...

A quick question - how effective are lancers at rout-chasing compared to sword-armed cavalry units?

Also, although it might not be entirely historically accurate, how about having one of the horse units armed with a spear instead of a lance, to balance charge and melee?

[Scutarii]

I would imagine sword armed cav to be better at router chasing due to a faster animation speed (I think). But routers are so vulnerable, it doesn't really matter...

[Dog Fart]

I don't really agree with having more than one skirmisher cav unit for the Greeks. Just one would be enough. Too many skirmishers will make the battle line disperse and all the human player has to do is take out one unit at a time in mass. That's what I do against ai skirmisher spam anyways. It's very slow, boring, irratating and way too easy. But I like the ideas above regardless.

[DimeBagHo]

Here's a look at what the Asthippos (Militia cavalry) and Prodromoi (Light Cavalry) might look like. Almost all of the work here was done by ferres - the model is his Equites model with some minor changes, and the skin was made from parts of his Equites skin, and parts from his new Greek units.

[Scutarii]

I don't really agree with having more than one skirmisher cav unit for the Greeks. Just one would be enough. Too many skirmishers will make the battle line disperse and all the human player has to do is take out one unit at a time in mass. That's what I do against ai skirmisher spam anyways. It's very slow, boring, irratating and way too easy. But I like the ideas above regardless.

You can negate that by just getting rid of the skirmish ability. So have 1 unit that is like the Militia Cav right now, and 1 or two medium/heavy skirmishers without skirmish mode ability. Or maybe just the heavy one...

[Dog Fart]

You can negate that by just getting rid of the skirmish ability. So have 1 unit that is like the Militia Cav right now, and 1 or two medium/heavy skirmishers without skirmish mode ability. Or maybe just the heavy one...

*shhhhh*

But I don't know how to do that.