Is there a submod which makes all units more endurant?

[Tomahawk]

Units in this mod take casualties far too quickly, route too easily and cavalry is overpowered. For example, I just witnessed a generals bodyguard unit of 32 men slaughter half of the troops of a full strenght professional spearman unit of 200 men, with a frontal charge, almost instantly, while the bodyguard unit barely lost any men. I can no longer tolerate stuff like that, so is there a submod that fixes this?

[Nyarla]

lemme guess you let your units get charged and now you're mad ?

[Tomahawk]

Yeah, I let my units get charged, what else am I suppose to do when facing an army with cavalry? And no, I'm not mad. In case you failed to figure it out yourself, I'm looking for help, and your post isn't helpful at all.

[Nyarla]

Yeah, I let my units get charged, what else am I suppose to do when facing an army with cavalry? And no, I'm not mad. In case you failed to figure it out yourself, I'm looking for help, and your post isn't helpful at all.

theres 2 ways to interpret your first post, either u did the charge and simply think its too easy and looking for a way that helps AI handle it better, and ofc the answer that has been given already.
sadly my ability to read thoughts doesn't help when trying to determine the meaning of something written

[Jean=A=Luc]

The short-ish spears carried by most spearmen can't really prevent units from getting smashed when charged by heavily armoured cavalry with lances and I don't think they're supposed to. They can only absorb the charge. You need long weapons likes pikes to actually stop a charge in its tracks.

Heavy cav needs to be drawn into a pitched battle by surrounding them once the charge has ended, force them to use swords or whatever "sidearm" they have other than the lance. It's why heavy cav is so slow to replenish in RR although generals can be plentiful if one "spams" them.

It's not that hard to deal with once you get used to it but you can't expect heavy cav to get impaled on spears and die just as they make contact during a charge, the spearmen just can't do that. First the charge needs to be absorbed (one way or the other) and then you start killing them. You can use stakes or peasant cannon fodder but militia or whatever spearmen are at hand do the job just fine and they're always plentiful.

2H axemen (even low tier ones like the Woodsmen) can be a great follow up once spearmen bite the bullet because 2H axes have ap and a small bonus vs. cav.

In any case there is no submod for this afaik.

[Tomahawk]

The short-ish spears carried by most spearmen can't really prevent units from getting smashed when charged by heavily armoured cavalry with lances and I don't think they're supposed to. They can only absorb the charge. You need long weapons likes pikes to actually stop a charge in its tracks.

Heavy cav needs to be drawn into a pitched battle by surrounding them once the charge has ended, force them to use swords or whatever "sidearm" they have other than the lance. It's why heavy cav is so slow to replenish in RR although generals can be plentiful if one "spams" them.

It's not that hard to deal with once you get used to it but you can't expect heavy cav to get impaled on spears and die just as they make contact during a charge, the spearmen just can't do that. First the charge needs to be absorbed (one way or the other) and then you start killing them.

In any case there is no submod for this afaik.

I guess that makes sense, but losing half of the troops of a full strenght spearman unit to the initial charge by a small cavalry unit is not something I'm willing to accept, regardless of whether it's realistic or not. I might be able to accept it if it was a flanking attack or a rear attack and by a larger unit. And this topic isn't just about the overpowered cavalry. I also think that units take casualties too quickly in other situations as well, and they route too quickly as well. I prefer battles where the fighting takes more time than getting troops into their positions and chasing routing enemies.

[Nyarla]

I also think that units take casualties too quickly in other situations as well, and they route too quickly as well. I prefer battles where the fighting takes more time than getting troops into their positions and chasing routing enemies.

try BGR IV then, enemy generals all have 8 - 10 command stars as well as other nice boni, no more random routing i assure u

[Jean=A=Luc]

I guess that makes sense, but losing half of the troops of a full strenght spearman unit to the initial charge by a small cavalry unit is not something I'm willing to accept, regardless of whether it's realistic or not.

The only advice I can give you is to either put spears in loose formation so fewer of them get hit (but this means cav. will get to your rear), play late campaigns and use only pikemen who can effectively stop a charge or lower the cav. unit sizes in the EDU, especially the bodyguards who arguably should only be a small general's retinue and not a major fighting force.

I also think that units take casualties too quickly in other situations as well, and they route too quickly as well. I prefer battles where the fighting takes more time than getting troops into their positions and chasing routing enemies.

If you're playing 6.4 the RC system actually places more emphasis on defense and staying power. Attack values tend to be lower which is why you see peasant archers with 1 attack or pikes with 1 attack or spear militias with 1 attack, etc.

I think you're either basing your experience on heavy cavalry charges or just want your battles to last really, really long.

You are right, I killed 6/8 Moorish generals (including 3 chalifs) by javelins as the Kingdom of León. Great stuff

Javelins are so good I almost consider them an exploit.

[Asterix]

The short-ish spears carried by most spearmen can't really prevent units from getting smashed when charged by heavily armoured cavalry with lances and I don't think they're supposed to. They can only absorb the charge. You need long weapons likes pikes to actually stop a charge in its tracks.

Heavy cav needs to be drawn into a pitched battle by surrounding them once the charge has ended, force them to use swords or whatever "sidearm" they have other than the lance. It's why heavy cav is so slow to replenish in RR although generals can be plentiful if one "spams" them.

It's not that hard to deal with once you get used to it but you can't expect heavy cav to get impaled on spears and die just as they make contact during a charge, the spearmen just can't do that. First the charge needs to be absorbed (one way or the other) and then you start killing them. You can use stakes or peasant cannon fodder but militia or whatever spearmen are at hand do the job just fine and they're always plentiful.

2H axemen (even low tier ones like the Woodsmen) can be a great follow up once spearmen bite the bullet because 2H axes have ap and a small bonus vs. cav.

In any case there is no submod for this afaik.

no, the spears don't absorb the charge. the spearmen get slaughtered. and even in sidearm combat, cavalry just swing their swords and slaughter entire units. I certainly don't want heavy cavalry to die on contact, that's ridiculous, but i would like them not to be able to slaughter elite infantry/spearmen in a single charge. spear militia are rendered useless by this-every time a spear militia unit gets charged (and don't get started about avoiding the charge, cavalry is many times faster than infantry and eventually, you WILL get charged) it is wiped out.
The way combat works in SS right now is utterly innacurate. You will be hard pressed to find a single medieval battle in which a single cavalry charge wipes out entire units of men.
Of course, this is not an only SS phenomenon, but a m2tw thing. Charges are overpowered and casualties are too high in every mod there is. But SS takes it to the next level.

EDIT: is RC 2.0 integrated in SS? if not, where can i get it?

[Peter Bolland]

Losses are to be expected and the game is balanced enough as it is. Bring spearmen, they will not lose as many units and then just hem the cavalry in with more units from the flanks or shoot them to pieces from the sides. there are many tactics
I once had my peasants charged, and they lost 90% of unit strength, but my other peasants beat the cavalry to a pulp. it was light cav, tho. spearmen or heavy infantry would be needed for heavy cav.

Tactics for vanilla, might still be useful:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=334188

EDIT: looks like Jean beat me to it

[Jean=A=Luc]

Oh and javelins are amazing cavalry killers in SS. Mounted or foot javeliniers will shred even heavy cav. like bodyguards.

[Peter Bolland]

Oh and javelins are amazing cavalry killers in SS. Mounted or foot javeliniers will shred even heavy cav. like bodyguards.

You are right, I killed 6/8 Moorish generals (including 3 chalifs) by javelins as the Kingdom of León. Great stuff

@Tomahawk you could try the Bigger, Huger and Realistic Battles + Speed + Morale mods
that's what I use, they don't touch the bodyguards, to make them less of a pulverizing force

[Tomahawk]

@Tomahawk you could try the Bigger, Huger and Realistic Battles + Speed + Morale mods
that's what I use, they don't touch the bodyguards, to make them less of a pulverizing force

It doesn't seem to support 6.3, or am I mistaken? so I don't think that's an option because I use 6.3, because when I tried to install 6.4 it messed up the mod.

The only advice I can give you is to either put spears in loose formation so fewer of them get hit (but this means cav. will get to your rear), play late campaigns and use only pikemen who can effectively stop a charge or lower the cav. unit sizes in the EDU, especially the bodyguards who arguably should only be a small general's retinue and not a major fighting force.

If you're playing 6.4 the RC system actually places more emphasis on defense and staying power. Attack values tend to be lower which is why you see peasant archers with 1 attack or pikes with 1 attack or spear militias with 1 attack, etc.

I think you're either basing your experience on heavy cavalry charges or just want your battles to last really, really long.

I'm not basing this on my experience on heavy cavalry charges, I'm basing this on the dozens or hundreds of battles I've played with this mod. And I don't want my battles to last really really long, I just don't them to be as short as they tend to be now.

[Tate]

I like the way heavy cav is in 6.4.

In 6.3 I thought it was underpowered and took far too many casualties doing what it was supposed to do. It's still pretty ridiculous how long a six-star or higher general can stay alive while being alone and surrounded by halberds, but for the most part it's an improvement.

[Peter Bolland]

ask in the thread and if needed provide ignasigh with the 6.3 EDU. I'm sure he can make it for you. Upgrading to 6.4 is a better idea, tho

[Tomahawk]

ask in the thread and if needed provide ignasigh with the 6.3 EDU. I'm sure he can make it for you. Upgrading to 6.4 is a better idea, tho

Alright, I might ask there later, can't be arsed to that now, though, as I'm gonna be busy with some other stuff than playing MTW2 for a while. Upgrading to 6.4 would a bad idea, by the way. Last time I did that it made the game crash whenever I started it up, if I remember right.

[bɑne]

Upgrading to 6.4 would a bad idea, by the way. Last time I did that it made the game crash whenever I started it up, if I remember right.

Advising against 6.4 just because UAC effs up your install is a bad idea as well
Check the tech help section and the release topic for help.

[Ichon]

What difficulty are you playing on? In my experience only very low tier armies led by a captain occasionally route quickly on VH. Armies led by a general especially with BGR tend to fight to the bitter end unless you manage to kill the general first. Casualties... you'd need to increase defense alot and reduce attack to have less casualties which then means you'd need to re-balance missile units as well since too high defense and they become nearly useless.

In my opinion early cavalry is over-powered except for Normans and Byzantines. Most other heavy cavalries in 1100s were more like medium cavalry. Though I have no problem with spear militia in the beginning having trouble stopping a charge of even light cavalry. Later as you get better armor and some xp even militia can make trouble for all but the heaviest cavalry. For the period 1200-1300 heavy cavalry charges ruled most battlefields. Changes in tactics and better employment of infantry necessary for siege warfare began to change that so that heavy cavalry charge was still powerful but numerous battles show infantry winning the main part of the battle with just some heavy cavalry support.

Also professional spear units with schitrom or spearwall etc do very well in stopping cavalry. If cavalry catch them moving and unbraced though what do you expect? There are a few infantry that actually can meet cavalry charge head on when moving but most do better braced.

[Asterix]

What difficulty are you playing on? In my experience only very low tier armies led by a captain occasionally route quickly on VH. Armies led by a general especially with BGR tend to fight to the bitter end unless you manage to kill the general first. Casualties... you'd need to increase defense alot and reduce attack to have less casualties which then means you'd need to re-balance missile units as well since too high defense and they become nearly useless.

In my opinion early cavalry is over-powered except for Normans and Byzantines. Most other heavy cavalries in 1100s were more like medium cavalry. Though I have no problem with spear militia in the beginning having trouble stopping a charge of even light cavalry. Later as you get better armor and some xp even militia can make trouble for all but the heaviest cavalry. For the period 1200-1300 heavy cavalry charges ruled most battlefields. Changes in tactics and better employment of infantry necessary for siege warfare began to change that so that heavy cavalry charge was still powerful but numerous battles show infantry winning the main part of the battle with just some heavy cavalry support.

Also professional spear units with schitrom or spearwall etc do very well in stopping cavalry. If cavalry catch them moving and unbraced though what do you expect? There are a few infantry that actually can meet cavalry charge head on when moving but most do better braced.

Even byzantine and norman cavalry should not wipe out infantry units twice their size on impact, when the infantry is braced. While i agree that cavalry should rule the battlefield, in SS infantry is rendered near useless early on. Infantry should suffer decent (but not crippling) casualties by a charge by early knights, and be able to hold their ground to an extent. And the knights, when using their swords, should not be able to stay among spearmen and destroy them uncontested (which is what happens now.) if the infantry are unprofessional, (like spear militia) they should rout, cuz a charging horse is scary as hell. if they are professionals, they should be able to stand their ground for a time before the inevitable rout.

[Ichon]

Even byzantine and norman cavalry should not wipe out infantry units twice their size on impact, when the infantry is braced. While i agree that cavalry should rule the battlefield, in SS infantry is rendered near useless early on. Infantry should suffer decent (but not crippling) casualties by a charge by early knights, and be able to hold their ground to an extent. And the knights, when using their swords, should not be able to stay among spearmen and destroy them uncontested (which is what happens now.) if the infantry are unprofessional, (like spear militia) they should rout, cuz a charging horse is scary as hell. if they are professionals, they should be able to stand their ground for a time before the inevitable rout.

What are you calling professionals? Because early mercenary spearmen do quite well unless taken a full charge when they aren't braced or in good formation. They will still lose to most cavalry though because even if they take 1/3 losses on the charge, then in the melee they kill 1/2 the cavalry but lose another 1/3 and rout leaving cavalry having defeated a unit 3 times size with only 1/2 losses.

As for Norman cavalry or Byzantines I made an exception for those because we actually have reports and witnesses from some of the battles that talk about a relative handful of Normans defeating 10x their numbers in a charge and often it wasn't just infantry but other heavy cavalries defeated. Byzantine charge is strong but not as powerful as others but they kill huge in melee after with very few losses more than offsetting slightly weaker charge which seems about historically how it occurred at least when the Byz were able to field sufficiently trained, motivated, and equipped heavy cavalry which much past 1100 they were never able to do historically and instead relied on mercenaries.

Due to the game mechanics whether the infantry rout or are killed in the charge has little difference except to the amount of losses the cavalry takes. Right now if an infantry unit takes a charge and fights alone vs most heavy cavalry they will lose and barely hurt to 1/2 hurt the attacking cavalry. If they get some help from another infantry unit though the attacking cavalry can often be driven off with 3/4 losses and neither infantry routed.

Newest RC which PB will release when he has time reduces charge of early cavalry. I agree with you that a good cavalry charge basically evaporating 90% of an infantry unit in 1 second of charge contact is bs. However- even if reduce it so full charge only kills 30% on contact the cavalry still probably going to rout the infantry if the infantry doesn't get help. Just with a few more losses to the cavalry. So what I am saying is yes some things are a bit unbalanced but making them better balanced doesn't mean tactics can or should be ignored.

Numbers alone don't make much difference. Since I've read lately alot of posts on TWC talking about rioters I'll use that as an example- there are often only 1 riot police per 10 in the crowd yet the riot police almost always succeed in dispersing the crowd. Yes equipment makes a difference but the biggest difference is in training and leadership. So having a group of knights riding warhorses trained since childhood to fight making a bunch of men who only started training to fight as adults(assuming professionals here) that don't have equal equipment, training, or leadership is not so amazing. I think the motivation of both groups would be equally strong but infantry need to cooperate to survive and thus discipline and leadership need to be actually stronger than an equivalent cavalry unit which once the charge is completed don't have the same loss of initiative breaking formation to ride down individual or small groups of infantry which stopped acting as a cohesive unit.