Now, about cavalry...

[Argeus the Paladin]

For some reason I realized that cavalry are extremely cost-ineffective. If their charge fails, their swords can't hit squat and the entire army tends to go down in no time. Right up to the crack General's Bodyguard. Sometimes it appears that two units of Sphendonetai can do more damage and SURVIVE better than one unit of, say, Thessalian heavy cavalry.

Could anyone show me some enlightenment over this?

[ISA Gunner]

If you are using Cavalry in an all out head on charge then of course you will find cavalry to be ineffective. Cavalry should only be used for a) engaging enemy cavalry on your flanks b) riding down routing soldiers c) flanking the enemy army once it is ENTIRELY pinned down by your main line of infantry and then delivering an almighty and hopefully decisive charge into their rear. If one charge doesn't break them, fall back and repeat. Cavalry relies on shock and mass with charges to break formations and mow down infantry. In melee, they are quite ineffective against infantry who have (usually) shields and are much harder to hit whilst a horse and rider is a much bigger target. The thing with "skirmisher" units like slingers, javelineers and archers is that you can't charge them effectively because of the limitations of the game engine. For one, you end up "Pursuing" them because they're always on skirmisher mode so you have no charge and charge bonus (which is the main thing that cavalry has going for it) and secondly, they're almost always in long, loose formation so even if you do charge them you'll only kill a few because the charge stops and your horses lose their momentum and then get bogged down in melee.

[torongill]

Unless your cavalry is elite medium or heavy cavalry, it has no business attacking head-on the infantry. Still, the ineffectiveness of cavalry vs. light infantry in EB is one of the few defects that I've been bugged about. But mostly you have to blame the engine, not the modders. Light infantry could not stand against cavalry(with some notable exceptions) and would usually panic when faced with a cavalry charge. In the game the only thing the lighties have to do is retreat until the cavalry is in pursuit mode and then turn on them charging.

But in their essence cavalry is not cost-ineffective. You just have to use them efficiently. Take for example the thessalians - They have to charge from the rear with enough distance to gain momentum. Their cavalry pikes have tremendous lethality in the first charge, but that lethality can be used every 16-20 seconds, no more. After that they charge with swords, pretty good as well.

With all that in mind, I've modified both the cavalry and most of the light infantry in my EDU. I've taken a page from the SPQR mod and given most of the lighties penalties against cavalry. No more can you see a unit of velites massacring a squadron of 3-silver Equites. OF course, only the most basic and armorless lighties will receive the full penalty. Units that have either spears as a secondary weapon or/and enough armor that they're considered medium infantry in their own right will receive a smaller portion. Some special units, like the thracian peltastas even get a small bonus, reflecting their description.

[4th Regiment]

Still, the ineffectiveness of cavalry vs. light infantry in EB is one of the few defects that I've been bugged about. But mostly you have to blame the engine, not the modders. Light infantry could not stand against cavalry(with some notable exceptions) and would usually panic when faced with a cavalry charge. In the game the only thing the lighties have to do is retreat until the cavalry is in pursuit mode and then turn on them charging......

With all that in mind, I've modified both the cavalry and most of the light infantry in my EDU. I've taken a page from the SPQR mod and given most of the lighties penalties against cavalry. No more can you see a unit of velites massacring a squadron of 3-silver Equites. OF course, only the most basic and armorless lighties will receive the full penalty. Units that have either spears as a secondary weapon or/and enough armor that they're considered medium infantry in their own right will receive a smaller portion. Some special units, like the thracian peltastas even get a small bonus, reflecting their description.

I agree. Rep +

Can you post your EDU file here, so we can at least partially fix that annoying, unrealistic thing.

One more thing is unrealistic considering levies, and levy skirmishers. They all have “good moral”, and with additional common multi star AI general bonuses they can fight in prolonged mele, being able to stand more than half loses in normal conditions (usually even more). In real life even crack professional troops would flee after they lose 1/3 or half of troops. It is general problem that all troops have much more bigger moral than in real life…I guess it is because AI can not handle relatively low moral on battle field…But for levies it is really annoying to see some rag-tag peasants fighting like Spartans. Not to tell, in real life , some light levy infantry or scirmishes would flee even on sight of charging heavy cavalry towards them

Also, speed of charging cavalry is too damn slow compared to fast moving light infantry…some times it takes ages for cavalry to catch and hit them. Somebody have fixed this, too?

[torongill]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=339604

first post, attached file.

The problem with the morale and speed is hardcoded. Speed is coded in the model AFAIK; if units had lower morale, then the battles would be even shorter. The problem is connected to another one - units tire very fast. IF the engine can calculate not unit, but single soldier fatigue, then it would be possible to make battles longer. Iff this is achieved, then we could increase the defensive ability(modified to be effective against one opponent at a time), so that units can fight longer, while not suffering enourmous casualties. Which would actually make flanking and attacks from the rear even more devastating. OF course, this should mean that the AI tries to preserve both a battleline AND attack aggressively on the flanks, while at the same time not allowing cracks and gaps. Which would lead to a breach being extremely effective. Which in the end, sadly, will make for an unsellable game. Imagine a casual gamer having his archers, with which he intends to stop the enemy right, turn and flee at the sight of charging enemy cavalry. I can almost hear the screaming and profanity.

[4th Regiment]

@torongill, thanks man

But since I am playing my EB now with RTW, not with BI, can I use that file, or some modifications are needed?

[torongill]

Emm... I think you're better off not using it, but modifying your own file. While I don't think there will be CTD or something like that, I cannot say for sure. Also, if you want only the cavalry and light infantry modifications, you'd better do the modification yourself. As I've posted, my EDU has made a number of other modifications and you may want to avoid that(for example if you think that 1 pilum is not enough for the legionaries, etc).

As a rough guide to DIY light infantry nerfing, open the EDU with notetab, copy the line horse -X(whatever number you desire) and then start searching for "missile"; since there are 2-3 references per unit at the most, you will be able to find the units you want to modify and add the "horse -" line pretty quick; just be careful not to modify any javelineer cavalry (I'm saying from personal experience). Good luck

[4th Regiment]

@torongill, thanks a lot

Do not worry, I agree with most of your changes, maybe not only 1 pilum for Romans. I have personally lowered shield value to 3 for pike men, and their prim attack for -2. Also, I have deleted all 2 hit points for infantry gestate type of wild infantry (they still have sky high moral, but no men can fight with spear in the guts or axe in the head).

Well than, I will change light infantry statuses by myself (when and if I grab some spare time), but it will be hard job. Not only missile troops should be owned by cavalry charge, but also wide range of various light levy infantry. So, it will be hard task to read through statues, find out right units, and change their anti cavalry performance according to their attributes (armament, armor, moral, skills,realistic fighting stile etc).

SO, can you give me some guidance, for how much have you lowered anti- horse performance for some units (since I will need some long battle testing if I try to fix it by myself)?

[torongill]

I haven't really tested it per se, but my rule of thumb is basically like that:

slingers and archers get -6 in general. If they have spears as secondary weapon, are armored or are mercenary units, it's -5; if both: -4 This is to reflect that mercenaries cost more, but are generally better trained.

unarmored levy javelineers get -5, unless they have spears, higher morale or some armor in which case it's -4; if it's spears and armor, heavy armor or they're pro units it's -3.
Thracian peltastas get no penalties, because they're actually medium shock infantry with javelins and melee weapons that are according to survivors "pure evil". I've also added +1 bonus for the elite thracian infantry, because of their two-handed rhomphaias and maybe because I'm prejudiced . Rhomphaias were weapons that could slash AND stab and could be used in tighter formations, unlike the falx which was a pure slasher.

[4th Regiment]

Thanks. Although anti horse performance should be changed also for other no-missile/skirmish light levy infantry. Short spear/one handed axe and small wooden/leather shield wont help you at all, unless unit is highly trained and drilled to reform and hold still, waiting for cavalry charge…

Anyway, -6 is maybe too much? Maybe it is OK for human player…but can AI handle this change? I mean is AI aware of this new situation?

[torongill]

Well, -6 is for slingers and archers that have no armor and are armed with knives. That's like facing a tank with a handgun. If you put yourself in a situation where your missile troops can be charged by enemy cavalry, you have only yourself to blame. And the AI tries to keep its ranged units away and usually succeeds, unless the battle is lost, in which case the survival of said units is a moot point
Usually when I'm engaged in close combat with skirmishers, the reason is they're just brigands and I outnumber them. In a pitched battle my cavalry has better things to do than chase skirmishers. Things like fighting the enemy cavalry and after that charging the enemy battleline from the rear. Usually my missile troops take care of the enemy ones.
But I don't agree with the nerfing of line units. They stand and fight, which means that if you attack them you'll get the charge bonus. Plus, short spears are spears nonetheless and are about 1.8m long; axes are terrible weapons against horses, which were for the most part unarmored. Besides, units like the eastern axemen have small shields and almost no armor and their defensive skills are pathetic, so they should not be too dangerous for our valiant horse riders. Remember, cavalry should not engage in frontal charges; my goal was to simply diminish the ridiculous behavior of skirmishers.

P.S. The mod that gave me that idea, SPQR has horse -16 for the velites

[4th Regiment]

But I don't agree with the nerfing of line units. They stand and fight, which means that if you attack them you'll get the charge bonus. Plus, short spears are spears nonetheless and are about 1.8m long;

Everything is OK, if those light infantrymen are professionals. But problem is, in real life, unproffessionals would not “stand and fight”. Untrained, undrilled light levies will open eyes in horror and run just seeing earth shaking and 600kg horse running 50 km/h towards them. Not to tell they knew, that men riding those horses were way much skilled, armed and armored than them. ...And charge of cavalry is real challenge even for light armed professionals…

axes are terrible weapons against horses, which were for the most part unarmored.

Yes, if you are fighting static cavalry. In real life full frontal charge on light levies will literally blow them away, trample men, totally broking any formation…total chaos and panic...Problem is RTW engine do not simulate full potential of charge. Horses just hit the first line (even from those, most of will survive frontal charge) and then stand and fight static fight. We do not see anything of momentum of charge, if you understand what I want to say. It is solved in MTW2 engine with some mods but in RTW is

Spearmen of any type will pretty much destroy cavalry.

See above. Spear itself will not kill anything, but trained men and unit as a whole. Plus, we are speaking here about short spears or small axe (imagine yourself in that situation on the field in first line…). Not to tell sheer horror and panic as first lines are trampled by horses...

PS. On top if this I will further increase cost of (heavy) cavalry. War horse worthed a fortune back than. So, effectivnes/coast will be realistically balanced

[Dargaron]

Originally Posted by torongill
But I don't agree with the nerfing of line units. They stand and fight, which means that if you attack them you'll get the charge bonus. Plus, short spears are spears nonetheless and are about 1.8m long;

Everything is OK, if those light infantrymen are professionals. But problem is, in real life, unproffessionals would not “stand and fight”. Untrained, undrilled light levies will open eyes in horror and run just seeing earth shaking and 600kg horse running 50 km/h towards them. Not to tell they knew, that men riding those horses were way much skilled, armed and armored than them. ...And charge of cavalry is real challenge even for light armed professionals…

Hmm, do you happen to have any examples of (pre-AD) battles where this is attested to have happened? Even Alexander's superb heavy cavalry never charged the persian armies head on, but flanked them, if not hammering them from the rear. The only heavy cavalry I could see doing that is steppe cavalry, and with the ability of horse archers to shoot levy units full of holes, I'm not sure that's neccesary.

Originally Posted by torongill
axes are terrible weapons against horses, which were for the most part unarmored.

Yes, if you are fighting static cavalry. In real life full frontal charge on light levies will literally blow them away, trample men, totally broking any formation…total chaos and panic...Problem is RTW engine do not simulate full potential of charge. Horses just hit the first line (even from those, most of will survive frontal charge) and then stand and fight static fight. We do not see anything of momentum of charge, if you understand what I want to say. It is solved in MTW2 engine with some mods but in RTW is

(See above)

Originally Posted by Knonfoda
Spearmen of any type will pretty much destroy cavalry.

See above. Spear itself will not kill anything, but trained men and unit as a whole. Plus, we are speaking here about short spears or small axe (imagine yourself in that situation on the field in first line…). Not to tell sheer horror and panic as first lines are trampled by horses...

PS. On top if this I will further increase cost of (heavy) cavalry. War horse worthed a fortune back than. So, effectivnes/coast will be realistically balanced

I'd have to disagree with the assessment that a unit needed to be well-trained to fend off a cavalry charge. This was pre-stirrup, and most units weren't using couched lances, but essentially long spears wielded from horseback. Imagine yourself in the situation that you are charging towards a mass of men that outnumbers you at least 2 to 1, with five-ish foot-long spears leveled at chest hight for your trusty (and lets not forget, valuable) horse, that you had to pay for or raise at your own expense.

On the topic of heavy cavalry cost, it is already rediculously expensive for non-steppe factions IMO. the first thing I do in any campaign is disband my cavalry, because they take up so much of your early-game income. Only once my cities are up and running with advanced farming/mine/roads/ports are cavalry economicly feasable.

(Note: I'm sorry if most of my posts directed towards you seen to be somewhat hostile, but whenever you use the terms "realisticly" or "in real life", that opens up your post for contention.)

[Stigmata]

yes, maybe some cavalry units can be underrated... but try the late parthian cataphracts, in my opinion, they are absolutely overrated, even after the charge they continue pushing the infantry back and killing all of them... (even legionaries and phalanx)

[Kiyan_the_Great]

yes, maybe some cavalry units can be underrated... but try the late parthian cataphracts, in my opinion, they are absolutely overrated, even after the charge they continue pushing the infantry back and killing all of them... (even legionaries and phalanx)

i dont think theyre overrated, they will and can contintue to kill in a shorttime after a charge, but they will absolutely lose in a prolonged melee with phalanx, legions or any heavy infantry, so i think the parthian cataphracts r portrayed pretty realisticaly,their charges are absolutely deadly, specially from a distance...,
anyone who disputes that has a very roman centric view of things
now there are numerous ways to counter that

[4th Regiment]

@Daragon, it is proven in re-acting that stirrup had not improved shock impact of force of the charge. More or less (it will take another long discussion I do not want to take part in, again), what made cavalry so strong in early, mid middle ages is luck of trained, disciplined infantry (which double proves my point).

And yes, Alexander did charge head on in many occasions and basically it was his style. In all 3 major battles against Persians he was leading his head on charge – At Granicus river, it was direct charge (it was more like forced crossing, but anyway) across hard to cross deep river and steep opposing bank; at Issus, again across shallow river and rough opposing bank; and at Gaugamela direct head on charge against Darius personal body guards.
So, in all occasions his charge was devastating even it was under far worse than perfect conditions (neither was charge across flat field against light armed levies, as I was advocating)

Cavalry expensive? Hm...being no more than twice more expensive than similar equipped infantry is not too much. War horse was fortune, remember that. Once I watched military historian expert about now days estimations how much cavalry country could had in middle ages. Answer was – about the number of tanks and armored viacles it can have today under full mobilization. And for fully armored knights – as much as combat airplanes today.

[Dargaron]

@Daragon, it is proven in re-acting that stirrup had not improved shock impact of force of the charge. More or less (it will take another long discussion I do not want to take part in, again), what made cavalry so strong in early, mid middle ages is luck of trained, disciplined infantry (which double proves my point).

And yes, Alexander did charge head on in many occasions and basically it was his style. In all 3 major battles against Persians he was leading his head on charge – At Granicus river, it was direct charge (it was more like forced crossing, but anyway) across hard to cross deep river and steep opposing bank; at Issus, again across shallow river and rough opposing bank; and at Gaugamela direct head on charge against Darius personal body guards.
So, in all occasions his charge was devastating even it was under far worse than perfect conditions (neither was charge across flat field against light armed levies, as I was advocating)

Cavalry expensive? Hm...being no more than twice more expensive than similar equipped infantry is not too much. War horse was fortune, remember that. Once I watched military historian expert about now days estimations how much cavalry country could had in middle ages. Answer was – about the number of tanks and armored viacles it can have today under full mobilization. And for fully armored knights – as much as combat airplanes today.

In the first of your Alexander examples, that may have been the biggest blunder Alexander made in his campaign in Persia, which almost did him in. The second one, well, from what I've seen from a quick google search (not the best source, I know) was that Alex did what he was good at, and exploited a gap in the Persian lines, hitting them from the flank.

Your Military expert, was he on the History channel? I just have to ask, no offence meant to you or your source. But in general their documenteries are...lacking.

Now, about the costs of cavalry in EB (since I'm in the middle of an Aedui campaign, I'll use Gallic Light Cavalry as a baseline, and I'm taking these numbers from the unit documentation)
Leuce Epos is about 10 per soldier, in a unit of 25, so 250. (I think I'm on a larger unit setting than this, because my units are at about 80 strong.)
For Lusotannian Light Infantry, that's about 6.5 per guy, in a unit of 50, for 325. This isn't getting into heavy cavalry, like:
Thessalian Heavy Cavalry, who cost a whopping 32.4 per guy, in a unit of 25, for a total of 810. That's almost three times the cost of light, skirmisher cavalry. And these guys can only be recruited in two provinces, while the Leuce Epos can be found all over Europe. Also, the Leuce Epos do about as well as these guys do in their traditional cavalry role: A swift kick to the enemy backside.

@ Torongil: I wrote up a nice long reply to your post, but the forums got all wierd and deleted it, and I was too disheartened to rewrite it. However, one of the first things in that post was acknowledging the fact that, if you know someone with practical experience in the saddle, that trumps my armchair musings any day. Thanks for that little tidbit about stirrups, I guess there was still a bit of popular history in me that EB hasn't successfully purged yet.

And what I meant by couched lances were the one-handed, underarm grip that kept the lance rigid, so that the full momentum of the horse's charge was delivered to the target. I was (hopefully) not denigrating ancient cavalry too much, but just saying that a charge from most ancient cavalry (Brihentin, Prodromoi and the like) wouldn't have as much of an impact as their descendents in the Medieval era.

[Carpathian Wolf]

I think you ran into the same issue as I did. As someone who started out playing the total war series with medieval 2, I usually expect heavy cavalry to pretty much destroy almost any infantry unit from a head on charge. French cavalry will just slaughter even heavy elite infantry in medieval 2 in a head one charge, two to completely route them. In EB however you only really want to charge from the back, and make sure to keep your cavalry rested.

[Argeus the Paladin]

True that. But I get the feeling that cavalry are too underpowered somehow.

I once saw one unit of enemy LIGHT infantry (Lusotanian Light Infantry. Or was it light spearmen?), 188 men strong, completely wrecking FOUR units of my Equites CONSULARES totally numbering 168, killing one family member in the meantime. Now then that is ridiculous, history-wise.

[Knonfoda]

True that. But I get the feeling that cavalry are too underpowered somehow.

I once saw one unit of enemy LIGHT infantry (Lusotanian Light Infantry. Or was it light spearmen?), 188 men strong, completely wrecking FOUR units of my Equites CONSULARES totally numbering 168, killing one family member in the meantime. Now then that is ridiculous, history-wise.

Spearmen of any type will pretty much destroy cavalry, especially if evenly matched, and especially seeing as the Roman republican cavalry wasn't exactly all that back then either, they pretty much got routed by the majority of their foes.

Try attacking that single unit from four sides (seeing as you have 4 units of cavalry), charging and retreating, charging and retreating, trust me it works.