Why are cavalry so powerful?

[EnDSchultz]

I understand that the Byzantine generals have armoured horses and all, but it seems a bit much for them to be able to take on your average rebel group single-handedly. I have my faction heir up to his eyeballs in chevrons just from attacking brigand forces of upwards of 500 men by himself. Not necessarily cheap forces, either. One unit of Scutarii (sp?) spearmen, one of swordsmen, and one toxotae. And his 40 horsemen have no trouble charging the "professional" spearmen head-on and taking out almost half the unit in one charge, with almost no casualties themselves.

Is the extreme rarity of heavy cavalry the rationale behind making them extremely powerful, even in a head-on charge against spearmen?

[Tate]

I guess it depends on the type of heavy cav and how you use them.

In my Teutonic campaign, having my Christ Knights charge headlong into even militia-quality spearmen isn't a good idea. They will rout or destroy the spearmen for sure but will usually sustain 50% casualties doing so.

[Double A]

General's Bodyguards have double health points and high-tier armor, thus can take quite a beating before they even start to die.

[ShadowKiller2000]

General's Bodyguards have double health points and high-tier armor, thus can take quite a beating before they even start to die.

Well they have the armor, but no longer have 2 hp.

[Gogolometro]

In comparison with fattimids and turks generals byzantines are gods. They have heavy armor on horse, good charge, good mental stats, low affected by climate. In fact in my byzantine campaign athanoi was one of the favorite. Compare with crist knights with no armor on horse, half of defence, athanoi is a tank.
In early you need many xbows, cavalry and spears to kill them. And luck.
My last campaign is teutons in Grece to get a place and venetians, hungarians, turks, egyptians are a joke in coparison with ERE with only 2-3 province remaining. Why? Because athanoi. I kill scutati, toxotae, murtadoi, and i go with rittenbrunders, crist knights, order spearmans, livonian auxilia, to kill this guys. Half of battle is kill the armored general.
But when I will got my armor, things will change.

[Ishan]

If want to reduce the damage then change the mass of the mount type on order to reduce the penetrating power of the cavalry unit but IMO SS is a well balanced game so just enjoy it.

[Ichon]

Depending on who you talk to the English or any Isles faction(Scotish, Irish depending on version) are the easiest factions to play. Then probably Egypt or Denmark. Byzantines is next easiest despite surrounded by enemies because of their strong Cataphract General's bodyguard and the overall strength of their roster and rich position on trade routes.

Since Byzantines get limited roster change late in the game their cavalry aren't as powerful but early in the game almost nothing can stop them. I've used 2 Byzantine generals and destroyed Turk armies over 2,500 with only 30 losses and almost all the losses were due to Turk horse archer shooting at the rear of the generals. Early game you only really need to bother with rest of army on sieges or versus really large amount of enemies. Late game things change and Byzantine generals not only more vulnerable relatively but enemy generals get better armor and gunpowder units etc.

[Seether]

Is the extreme rarity of heavy cavalry the rationale behind making them extremely powerful, even in a head-on charge against spearmen?

It is a common misconception that spears are somehow an 'anti-cavalry charge' weapon. Spears are useful in melee against horsemen because of their reach, but because they are held with one hand, lack the leverage to counter the horse and rider inertia, and are fairly short, they are useless as every other weapon ever designed in resisting a full cavalry charge. Pikes are the best anti-cavalry charge weapon (aside from gunpowder), but even pike squares were not the final solution to cavalry charges as they historically had issues with stopping frontal cavalry charges and instances of cavalry riding through the entire square.

[chris7ian]

Still the Byzantine heavy cavalry units in early are miles ahead of the other factions heavy cavalry I've played with. I dont know if its historically accurate but I would imagine western europe produced the strongest knights.

[Ichon]

Still the Byzantine heavy cavalry units in early are miles ahead of the other factions heavy cavalry I've played with. I dont know if its historically accurate but I would imagine western europe produced the strongest knights.

Western Europe does get the strongest Knights eventually and in much larger numbers than Byzantines can get theirs but Byz have the best armored cavalry for 200 years in an early campaign.

[chris7ian]

I just fought a battle with the Byzantines... I had two stacks against there one stack. I had roughly 6 spear militia, 2 mercenary spearmen, 1 swabian swordsmen, 1 merc crossbow, 4 peasant archers in my main stack with a 6 star general. They have 5 acritae, 4 spearmen, 1 heavy infantry, 1 General and 1 Scoutarii (however its spelled).

I advanced my troops to within archer range. My missile units obviously dominate theirs. So I send my Swabis up the middle to break their spearmen. As they attack, my General attacked the badly wounded Acritae, and the heavy infantry near them. I got like 10-1 kill ratio at this time. My spearmen marched up to theirs and they have guard mode on. Their spearmen attack mine and are being beaten badly. So then the overpowered General comes to their aid. At this moment my General, 6 stars - 5 more than theirs, is behind him mopping up fleeing acritae. So I have him charge the enemy general from the enemies 9 o'clock. The enemy is engaged with back to my General. What happened? I went from 24 units to 10 and the enemy Cavalry when from 32 to 26. I was on charge, it worked fine, nothing stopped it, but my men with a charge bonus of 12 i think got anal raped. Evidently someone was a little too nice for the Byzantines when determining ratings. Even if the Byzantine should be better they shouldnt be that much better....

[Supercargo]

Axemen (like Croatian Axemen) are surprisingly effective against Generals (against Byz, too). Playing as Hungary, I used the following tactic against the Byz generals - let them charge into some fodder unit (Spear Militia etc.) and then flank them with 2 Croatian Axemen units, one from each site. They will have casualties, sure, but the General will go down relatively fast. Things are even better, if this all happens in a forested area.

This surprisingly worked against Scholarii, too.

[preachercheeze]

Axemen (like Croatian Axemen) are surprisingly effective against Generals (against Byz, too). Playing as Hungary, I used the following tactic against the Byz generals - let them charge into some fodder unit (Spear Militia etc.) and then flank them with 2 Croatian Axemen units, one from each site. They will have casualties, sure, but the General will go down relatively fast. Things are even better, if this all happens in a forested area.

This surprisingly worked against Scholarii, too.

all units that have the attribute "effective against cavalry" will get these results... two handed units like Croatian axmen and Zweihanders are equally effective... the attribute is the most effective when charging against cavalry but they are worthless when bracing a charge... your tactics are indeed very effective to kill cavalry...

[RabidSheepLegion]

all units that have the attribute "effective against cavalry" will get these results... two handed units like Croatian axmen and Zweihanders are equally effective... the attribute is the most effective when charging against cavalry but they are worthless when bracing a charge... your tactics are indeed very effective to kill cavalry...

Doesn't help much they have the bonus against armoured units too and good charge bonuses

[k/t]

all units that have the attribute "effective against cavalry" will get these results... two handed units like Croatian axmen and Zweihanders are equally effective...

They're not equally effective. AP weapons like axes will do better than swords.

[Aranu]

I went from 24 units to 10 and the enemy Cavalry when from 32 to 26. I was on charge, it worked fine, nothing stopped it, but my men with a charge bonus of 12 i think got anal raped. Evidently someone was a little too nice for the Byzantines when determining ratings. Even if the Byzantine should be better they shouldnt be that much better....

Yeah if i attack generals with my general, but hey have more bodyguards, it does not matter which faction i fight they lose alot.
use your general to rout his army and use your spears to pin him down, you will lose alot of soldiers but it's better and less risky(you do not want your general dead)

also desert cavalry or any javlinman do much dmg!

i had 1 battle which i was winning, then the the enemy Caliph, 9 star battle hardend ancilleries and stuff general 45 unit size, thought it was funny to charge downhill into my tired exausted units...
luckily for me i had a second line behind them! didn't help
i failed there, lost the battle and eventually lost a town...but man what a battle

[Tan Zhi Han]

My strategy against cavalry is to lure the enemy cavalry into an ambush.

If I have the ability to hide, this would be best, but most time I don't.

I use a fast cavalry unit and bait enemy cavalry towards my own troops. I keep running and once I can, I make a 90 degree turn to run in front of my infantry. If the enemy follows, they will get charged/pincushioned. If the enemy doesn't follow, then I charge their cav with my cav with infantry support. Ez pz. Unless the enemy outnumbers you 10-1 (which is usally what I play against... Freaking Byg's...)

I can't tell you how many times my crusade army of 12-16 units has come back home with 2 generals and 3 units with about a dozen men each... GAH!

[Seether]

I just fought a battle with the Byzantines... I had two stacks against there one stack. I had roughly 6 spear militia, 2 mercenary spearmen, 1 swabian swordsmen, 1 merc crossbow, 4 peasant archers in my main stack with a 6 star general. They have 5 acritae, 4 spearmen, 1 heavy infantry, 1 General and 1 Scoutarii (however its spelled).

...Evidently someone was a little too nice for the Byzantines when determining ratings. Even if the Byzantine should be better they shouldnt be that much better....

That isn't a fair comparison. You have 2 stacks of low-tier, crap units against a stack of top-tier Roman units.

[Silhouette]

Kataphraktoi's armor was actually fairly effective against piercing weapons apparently but not slashing. That could explain the spearmen complication.
*Shrug* At least it's not like Rome vanilla cavalry where you could rout an entire force of gauls with one consul.

[ShadowKiller2000]

It all evens out, the 2h swords will have a higher attack, at least more than the low level axemen. Zweihanders are great when they get full armor, before that they die really easily without proper management.

Did some testing of the best setup to take down uber cavalry on an open field. Pikes backed by polearms work great to stop the charge, but man those high armor units like the Romans, and Lancers do not want to die easily. Akritae do not do squat vs. those units......like 2 kills with all ammo expended.

Did a test run of: 1 pike militia, 1 voulge, 1 templar guard. All full armor, vs. 1 unit of lancers......almost even on a cost basis. The CS units were like 100 cheaper.

Pikes in front on guard mode. Voulges in the pike formarion. TG behind.

Lancers charged from the side and it got ugly. I won the battle, but it was not pretty.

Those Roman generals are right up there, and in the early campaign I dread facing them until I get alot of good anti-cavalry AP units in an army.

Would desert cavalry work? Mobile javalin units seem like they would work well if attacking from behind.