thoughts regarding cavalry

[Ryou]

In just about every total war game up to date, Cavalry is very unrealistic in terms of agility and influence from terrain. Realistically, a heavily armored/armed man on a semi armored to fully armored horse at full gallop have to take about half a minute to slow down and turn around, or have to run a long arc to turn around. (any good mount& blade player can boast of firsthand experience) A unit of light cavalry would be able to make a 1eight0 turn faster (sorry my eight key doesn’t work) but still require some time to make such a maneuver. In all total war titles, a player can order a unit of charging cavalry to instantly turn and run in the opposite direction, which is completely unrealistic! If the player makes the mistake of sending his horses into spears, he should have to pay for it instead of simply maneuvering his super cavalry out of that trap.
Also, when cavalry is fighting over rough terrain, such as uneven ground, bogs, forests or rocky terrin, they would basically not be able to charge. A charge in a heavily forested area is impossible in the real world, but fully executable in all total war titles. Not only does this (and the first point) make cavalry much more powerful in the game than they did historically, it also completely erased the effectiveness of other units such as peltasts and slingers. In RTW peltasts were basically useless as they were too vulnerable to light cavalry. Players could simply send cavalry into units of peltasts, kill a bunch of them, and then pull out their cavalry before heavy infantry could arrive. At the same time, even if peltasts are deployed in forests, or on uneven terrain, they are still terribly vulnerable to the game’s unrealistically powerful cavalry.
I admit cavalry was extremely vital in ancient battles, but historically they were only effective on plains or smooth hills, and they can’t execute 1eight0 turns in half a second. I hope R2 will be accurate in that respect. What do you guys think?

[IronBrig4]

Eh, it's not that big a deal. In the original RTW, many light infantry units got bonuses in woods so they had an advantage against cavalry.

[Ryou]

The bonuses in the original RTW was only a small statistical change, such as -2 to attack or something. Calvary would still completely take apart skirmishers, even if it had a small disadvantage in attack. Realistically however cavalry would even be able to charge through woods, so they would never even have caught up to the skirmishers.

[Point_Man]

The bonuses in the original RTW was only a small statistical change, such as -2 to attack or something. Calvary would still completely take apart skirmishers, even if it had a small disadvantage in attack. Realistically however cavalry would even be able to charge through woods, so they would never even have caught up to the skirmishers.

I hit my screen because of your moving bug sig.

[Ichon]

The point he is making though is that since cavalry charge pretty strongly even in rough terrain 1/3 to 1/2 the light infantry will die due to the charge before they can fight the light cavalry in melee with terrain bonus. That results in near loss of the light infantry even if they rout the light cavalry they are useless in other battles. Heavy cavalry tend to win even in rough terrain. If light, medium, and heavy cavalry were a bit more defined it would be more interesting. Heavy cavalry require flat or only slightly elevated terrain to perform a charge, medium cavalry can charge in slightly more elevated terrain and scrub, light cavalry can charge in thin woods but marsh, heavy woods, water, steep hill still stop light cavalry charge. Woods slowed cavalry somewhat in Shogun 2 but even heavy cavalry could still launch a strong charge in woods.

As far as tight turns... charge speed should be in the middle between walking and full gallop to cross the field. Cavalry did not charge at full gallop as they are likely to hurt themselves just on the impact. Trained horses at speed slower than a gallop can turn surprisingly quickly but it should really depend on training and quality. Light cavalry even might not turn as quickly as trained heavy cavalry. The nearly instant 180 turns should be gone from all cavalry, even infantry have trouble doing that and cavalry it would be much more difficult but some good quality cavalry could do 180 turn in maybe 2-3 seconds. Afterall the battle speeds are much sped up but the point is cavalry needs to be improved- best in my opinion is to give bonus charge stat when cavalry is 'formed' where the banner dips to 45 degree angle to indicate the cavalry is 'formed' for charge. Player can order a charge earlier but it will be less effective. Units like light cavalry would simply not be trained to 'form' and still can do charge but at less effectiveness. So player charging cavalry into enemy can't wait for the shock to wear then wheel and charge the next unit in line perfectly. It would require cavalry to withdraw, reform, then charge.

[Thorn777]

Cav in RTW was more like Jedi on crack. I was able to finish off entire celtic stacks, even spear units, with them Iberian light cav. Later TW got better though. I liked MTW2 cav, where knights where slow, rocks broke formation, but god forbid they get yo head on.

I think early Rome should have really bad cav, like merchant militia in MTW2, shiny armor, but no good, and plz make numidian cav stand out as an uber unit. I like legendary cav to be real distinct and badass, but scale down the bulk and make all dismountable.