Cavalry Mayhem

[dragonrebornV]

In a typical game, I tend to have 1-2 warbands of light cavery 6ish units each... I try to use them to assassinate the opposition general and then withdraw or run around (hitting when opportune) for the rest of the time....

Is this a bit of a cheap shot?.. what do yall think?

[John I Tzimisces]

I say if the huns and whatnot can do it, why can't you. Good for you for using a creative tactic I say, so long as you don't just let the battle run out, instead just attacking when they are at their most disorganized.

[hsimoorb]

If you want to try to take out a general with light cavalry...no that isn't cheap, mostly ecause I think that'd be pretty hard to do, unless you samwiched him of coarse.

[dragonrebornV]

After some toying around with different Romans units, My armies have become Cavalry domnated war machines... formations of 3-4 each... I run around, trying to get enemy units to follow me and annialating it with another cavary hitting them in their flank.

While my Infantry follow up with more of the seiges... I have preferred these tactics efficient to win most fights with minmal loses.... Any objects? comments?..

Merged double post. - Trajan

I break up my light cavary into 2 sets of 3 units each... overlaying stacks... to keep the sizes small.. I draw out the general with one stack hitting their skirmishers... and when its far enough away from its main army.. then BAM... hit them from behind....

It costs me quite a bit.. but I really hate seeing their general rallying their army when it could have stayed Routed :-D... after each battle I let my cavalry recover and then try again.... keeping the # of enemy general down to a managable level :-)

[Final Frontier]

Well, considering that the cavalry in Vanilla is indeed a force to be reckoned with, that's a fine strategy in my eyes, although it'd work best with a nation that has nothing to work with but cavalry, like Scythia. Blegh. I've probably done it once or twice with cavalry heavy nations like Macedon or The Seleucid Empire, though I tend to stick with keeping my armies "balanced."

[dragonrebornV]

the problem is that my infantry seems to get hammered easily in larger battles while my cavalry can alway run away fast enough to keep the battle going for quite a long time.... I have no problem about slowly 1 unit at a time whiping them out... but when fighting someone twice my size, my infantry have not found the courage to not Route... or just stay alive...

I feel no shame in running away... As the great philisopher once said... He who Runs away lives to run away another day...

[Final Frontier]

You are the Romans, correct? Well, many of their units have the special javelins--pilum--that are really useful against numbers. They pack quite a punch and can lower the morale of the units they attack. I usually set them to "fire at will" mode and have the cavalry on either wing so that they can go around and crash right into the backs of the enemy. Be warned that this'll kill a ton of your cavalry if you employ phalangites, though.

[John I Tzimisces]

I'm merging this thread with your other one. It really is a similar topic.

[NobleNick]

...I tend to have 1-2 warbands of light cavery 6ish units each... I try to use them to assassinate the opposition general and then withdraw or run around (hitting when opportune) for the rest of the time....

Is this a bit of a cheap shot?.. what do yall think?

Not a cheap shot, in my estimation. (Maybe because my sense of appropriateness is warped by doing too many cheap tactics?)

After some toying around with different Romans units, My armies have become Cavalry domnated war machines... formations of 3-4 each... I run around, trying to get enemy units to follow me and annialating it with another cavary hitting them in their flank.

While my Infantry follow up with more of the seiges... I have preferred these tactics efficient to win most fights with minmal loses.... Any objects? comments?..

Sounds great. I do much the same. Are you using light cav for this or Legionary cav?

I break up my light cavary into 2 sets of 3 units each... overlaying stacks... to keep the sizes small.. I draw out the general with one stack hitting their skirmishers... and when its far enough away from its main army.. then BAM... hit them from behind....

Good stuff. You can minimize losses by timing your hits from behind/flank so that there are 2 simultaneous hits from different directions, and then a third hit from the front about 2 seconds after the first two hits.

It costs me quite a bit.. but I really hate seeing their general rallying their army when it could have stayed Routed :-D... after each battle I let my cavalry recover and then try again.... keeping the # of enemy general down to a managable level :-)

Moving up to Legionary cav (with temple/foundry upgrades to sword and shield) should cut your losses dramatically. With half-stacks of upgraded Legionary cav (8 to 12 units) you can wipe out the general -AND- his entire army. There is literally nothing the AI can field that a half stack of upgraded heavy cav can't crucify with the right tactics, assuming you enter the battlefield on the defensive (the enemy was the aggressor on the campaign map). The possible exceptions are: 3 or more groups of heavy chariots, large groups of elephants or full stacks of heavy cav. (I have seldom seen the AI field the first and have never seen the AI field either of the latter two.) Even Phalanx, chariot archers and horse archers are toast with the right tactics.

the problem is that my infantry seems to get hammered easily in larger battles while my cavalry can alway run away fast enough to keep the battle going for quite a long time.... I have no problem about slowly 1 unit at a time whiping them out... but when fighting someone twice my size, my infantry have not found the courage to not Route... or just stay alive...

Exactly why I love cav. With the right tactics, which includes a bit of patience and lots of running away, you can exterminate full stacks of impressive enemy units with very light casualties to your own forces. (See my posts in this thread.)

I remember one battle where my Carthage full stack was attacked by a Gaul full stack of roughly: 9 units heavy infantry; 6 units light infantry; 2 skirmisher units; 2 forester units; and 1 general (heavy cav). I knew the Gaul army was too much for my guys to take on; so I hid my 14 infantry units and used 5 Sacred Band cav and one general's cav to beat the snot out of the Gaul army. It was a beautiful thing. My infantry came out of hiding in the last few minutes of the battle, but the SB accounted for about 97% of the kills, while suffering only about 5% (about 20% of the SB) casualties.

EDIT: I see from another thread that you play on VH/VH. My experience of late has been on "Hard" battle difficulty; so your mileage may vary. I would also say that anything you can do to win on VH/VH (without using the "~" key, or mods meant to make the game easier) is not cheap.

[EmperorJulian]

I wanted to reply here, though I haven't posted much since this is an issue I've been considering myself. As the Bruti and as Macedon I make large use of Cavalry units in dealing with Phalanxes, or at least I did. Prior to the 1.5 patch in RTW I had many heroic victories in which, as the Bruti, a detachment of Velites and Equites decimated a cloumn of phalanxes through missile volleys and charing the phalanxes in the rear. I used a similar stragegy with the Macedonian Faction in which a large army of Light Lancers, Companion Cavalry and Archers decimated two SQPR stacks (this was on Hard/Hard in each case). I never thought this was cheap, nor did I ever think of it as an exploit. The strategy only worked well and I didn't think it was all that much of an exploit as, at the time, enemy armies never kept their ranks anyway.

Of course, now with the 1.5 patch I've bee noticing things have become a bit different. I've found now that running Equites into the back of an engaged group of Levy Pikemen results in a startling result (to me anyway). Many of them die, they inflict no casulaties on the Phalanx, and the unit gets decimated to the point of routing. I found that even running light cavalry into the back of militia hoplites now causes them to die, the hoplites turn around and then decimate the Equites. I gather this was done to 'ballance' the game, but I must say it's humorus to see my Equites dying as they hit the BACK of a line of pikemen. It's as though hitting the back has the same effect as hitting the front.

I wonder if this is supposed to be that way? It doesn't SEEM logical. I mean Levy Pikemen are NOT Spartan Hoplites. Am I doing something wrong? Can this be modded to something more sane? I can change my strategy but I'd like to know what's going on here too. Thanks.

[black-spider]

Of course, now with the 1.5 patch I've bee noticing things have become a bit different. I've found now that running Equites into the back of an engaged group of Levy Pikemen results in a startling result (to me anyway). Many of them die, they inflict no casulaties on the Phalanx, and the unit gets decimated to the point of routing. I found that even running light cavalry into the back of militia hoplites now causes them to die, the hoplites turn around and then decimate the Equites.

I'm playing 1.5 vanilla too, even if I'm playing medium/ medium. I'm experiencing the same phenomenon you're describing and as my prefrerred tactic is heavily cavalry based against everything other than chariots.

My observation is that phalanxes seem to be able to do a 180 degree turn in about a second and that they'll often do it without hesitation when charged from behind by cavalry. In my experience, it won't always happen, especially when the phalanx being backstapped is a very short distance away from its target. Furthermore, flanking attacks seem to work properly, reducing the problem to when you attack a phalanx directly from behind.

I'd suggest using more cavalry and attacking from an angle rather than from directly behind. As in attacking from seven or five a clock rather than outright six. When dealing with stronger phalanxes, definitely use more than one unit of cavalry and attack from both seven and five, possibly keeping an infantry unit ready to smack the phalanx from behind once it dissolves and starts fighting the cavalry.

It doesn't seem to be possible to outright slaughter the enemy with light cav while sustaining zero casualties anymore but it is still quite possible to smack the AI around with it.

EDIT:
Upon closer examination, it seems like my initial conclusion was quite a bit off. Even on medium difficulty, equites will have serious trouble hammering a unit of militia cavalry with triple bronze experience. It seems like they simply don't have the mass to send the phalangites flying, quite unlike heavy cavalry. Furthermore, I believe that the patch readme (either for 1.3 or 1.5) said something about phalanxes "braced for impact" returning some of the charge damage. Apparently, this happens even when attacked from behind. After a couble of custom battle tests, it seems like the crazy death rate of the light cav only takes place when the phalanx is standing still. Despite facing the wrong direction, the front line of the cav unit will drop like flies. There are no attack animations and no pikes nearby, the horsemen simply drop dead and the only thing I can speculate is that this "braced phalanx" code is kicking in and returning the charge damage to the frail light cav, causing heavy casualties before the phalangites even turn and abuse their high defense and bonus against cavalry to slaughter even more horsemen.

Now, when the phalanx was moving, I didn't seem to experience this. The effect of the backstap would still be minimal compared to the patch 1.2 days but the equites wouldn't drop like flies until once the phalangites actually turned and carried out attack animations. On VH, all bets are obviously off with regards to unit strengths and the effect is therefore multiplied, easily causing half a unit or more to drop in half a second after a fairly well executed backstap.

On hard and very hard, I don't have a clue as to how you get around this. On medium, you actually have the time to pull out your cavalry before sustaining these heavy losses and can thus limit them to just a few horsemen each charge at worst. It will thus be quite possible to wear a phalanx unit of respectable strength down with light cav, even if you can't blindly charge it.

Another thing to note is that the mass of light cav seems to have been reduced or the mass of phalanxes increased. It certainly seems like light cav now plows through the phalanx without actually pushing the phalangites aside and properly disrupting the formation. This means that a phalanx will have an easy time retaliating against light cav while heavy cav still makes the formation crumble.

As for a closing statement, all I can offer is that I'm playing a Brutii campaign at the moment and I've beaten both Greece and Macedon chiefly through cavalry without losing a single unit of equties and I'm not playing on easy. It is possible to charge phalanxes, as long as you keep them moving and too distracted to stop and turn on the cavalry that just attacked them or get your cavalry out in one heck of a hurry afterwards, should the charge fail for one reason or another. It does seem like the decreased morale and increased enemy damage on the harder difficulties will send the casualty rate through the roof, if one isn't very careful.

[EmperorJulian]

Well I have been adjusting my methods. I find against spearmen of anykind, including Spear Armed Warbands employed by the Gauls, light cavalry now have problems. The interesting this is how the spear-unit can STOP a cavalry charge in their rear. The Mounted Units just stop when they hit the back of the spear unit. So apparently the spear bonus against cavalry is such that they can absorb most charges from light cavalry units. This just means I'll have to switch tactics, and I will try the oblique rear charge method the next change I get. Since I'm using the Julii right now I'm not fighting any Phalanxes but in my next game I'll check it out. Cheers!