Cavalry - Melee

Hiya, please post your cavalry tactics here

i usually bring 2 units of lancers to support my main army, and thats all. Other times though, i take up to 5 units, including 2 lancers, 2 heavy and 1 light (hussars - not ranged cav) . Rarely do i not bring cav.
When i first bought this game, i thought cavalry would be less important than in rome; and so far i still think so. most of the time, i use my cavalry to catch stray art or cav. I also use them in the middle of the battle, when both sides are using their line infantry. this gives you flanking opportunities, and it pushes lights back and forces infantry into squares, which makes it easier for your line infantry. it is harder to use cav in this game than in rome, as infantry can shoot them before they engage.

^^well thats how i use my cav. it could be better, but i usually spend more money on line ;D strong line wins a game

I usually play as France and bring 6 Chasseur E Cheval.They're wonderful for defense against other cav, but my main use for them is to disrupt my opponents line.Of course,players protect their flanks against this,but center charges are really effective here;as long as your opponent doesn't stake camp (and occasionally even if he does) I can easily screw his whole line into squares and withdraw for easy pickings with my inf unless I get counter charged (which usually happens against good players).

Also,one thing I find to be effective but hard to pull off is to charge some cav on one wing to distract him,and then charge the other while his micro's busy.It hardly ever works though.And during the late game,cav is useful for charging units that can't form square.

Also,I still need to test this,but i've heard that elite heavy cav like horse guards and grenadiers E cheval can actually break a square under ideal conditions (full strength,limited friendly fire,etc.)

I usually play with around 2-6 cavalry. Depending on the amount of cavalry I have I will play defensively or offensively. If I have only two I will play the defensive style; I bait with units that are weak to enemy cavalry and if they take the bait, I engage the enemy cavalry with mine and turn a line inf to the side and if I'm able to get my light out of there I turn it to fire at the cavalry to. When I'm able to play offensively with cavalry I send 2 to the enemy's back and keep 2-4 behind ready to defend. I always save 1 or 2 cavalry left so that in the end I can harass units that can't square anymore and really do massive amounts of damage with little risk.

Oh and I loved playing Seleucids in RTW! Probly my favorite nation as they had like all the different types of units.

i take 4 or 6, 2 lights and 2/4 heavy. if i am playing with lancers faction, its 2 light/gun + 2/4 lancers

Hi, for me it depends whether it is a 1v1 2v2 or 3v3/4v4 because they all require diferent kinda tactics, for 1v1 i will takes lots of lancers maybe 6, this is so i know i can kill there cav and cav superiority is vital in 1v1. For 2v2 i will take 2/3 lancers and 2/3 shooter cav, lancers to try to gain superiority on my oponent and shooter cav to support my teamate. For 3v3/4v4 i will take 4 either lancers or light goons something like that i will use these to disrupt lines and try to take out general. Hope this helps, it is just what i do

I did a match against Bobby, he said he wanted to play a fun match. So I believed what he meant was "Fun builds" type of fun match.

So while I brought a fun melee/cavalry build. He brought a serious French build that includes old guard, lancers, etc...

Good thing I won

http://www.filefront.com/17503078/1v1 bobby win.replay

*NOTE* Bobby changed his name to Dendorado during our match.

mentioning bobby and cav breaking squares what comes to my mind is a situation where 1 of bobbys crappy prussian lancers broke my square of foot guards and the square was pretty much fully formed so now I siriously dont know this thing with squares.
I mean just for some reason my guards suddenly started forming a line and I am 100% sure I didnt press square again. than the units scatered all over the stinkin place.
this game aint easy to figure out.
about the amount of cav i really recomend minimum 3 cav on most maps and on flats 4-6

right, now this is interesting.lancer units, having a 30cm point on the end of a 2.4m shaft, were historically able to bring down squares, and were predominantly used to chase down routing units.
Source 1

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The main proponents of the lance - a 30-centimetre point on the end of a 240-centimetre shaft - were the Poles, Austrian Uhlans and Russian cossacks, whose fighters had used the weapons for centuries.
Napoleon Bonaparte's famous lancers were excellent for pursuing fleeing infantry, or trying to break up squares by outreaching bayonets.
Other cavalry, however, were seemingly not too worried by the longer reach as once past the razor-sharp blade of the lance the swordsman had the advantage.

Source 2

Yea. I have seen a picture showing how the Polish lancer would take out a square. They could even take out the pike men as their pikes werent as long as the lance was in couched position.

yeah, take one side of the square out and that screws em over big time

The problem with balancing them prob comes from teh fact the priced as if tehy were light cav

But lancers were classified as line cav

but it tis silly they do damage on the charge. Ive heard there is an flaw in how the cav charge is done that is if a unit in square is in the path of teh cav and they ahve been told to charge into teh one behind. The full charge bonous is given for teh one in front and teh one behind

Also only half a lancer squadron would actualy be equiped with lances

yes, they were shock troops, best against fleeing units and a side of a square.against other cav, which had better swordsmen, they were terrible.

unless your horse was stuck in the mud

On most maps I take 6-10 cav. Maps where cav are of mo/little use I take 4-7. Now I am starting to use some armys with only 3 cav, a nd I am finding them very effective. Just depends on how you play. 10 cav can beat 10 inf, same as 10 inf can beat 10 cav. I normally take more cav for the speed.

thats a lot of cav ^^

Sometimes units automatically unform sqaure now in NTW, not sure why. Usually screws me over completely

i've never seen this happen before; what i think may happen though, is when a unit takes a lot of casualties, it cannot form a square. So if a unit is already in a square, it will automatically unform

If there is less than 50 men you cant form square,thats why lancers are so deadly in med size.If the line forming a square gets disrupted by terrain or exhaustion or what ever and the cav charge has enough momentum it will smash the unformed square and kill alot,maybe even dropping lines number below 50 denying the square bonus.

i think at 48 u can still form square mayb even 47