Cavalry (e.g. Royal Marmlukes) not over-powered
Just fought the penultimate battle of my vh/vh Crusades campaign, and faced the feared Royal Marmlukes with an army of Turkish infantry. A previous post said that the Royal Marmlukes would go through anything, so I was with some trepidation I faced a full stack of Royal Marmlukes, Marmlukes, and Marmluke archers. I brought my king, who only had 2 dread points but a lot of stars plus an army based around 4 Jannisary archers, 1 Ottoman infantry, and 1 Turkish Crossbowmen. Behind them and to their flanks I put spearmen. The only cavalry other than the general were one heavy cavalry (Hasham) and one heavy horse archer. When I looked at the stats, I found that Royal Marmlukes were no better than Hasham with a bit of experience. The terrain was flat, with a few scattered palm trees. I got an assasination mission to execute Baybars the Egyptian general, so the Egyptians were led by a captain. Let the battle for Egypt (had done the same against a Mongol army) commence!
Firstly, the marmluke archers came out and tried to shoot it out with my archers. The marmlukes on my left flank faced the crossbowmen and two Jannisary units and were soon reeling. The ones on my right flank didn't do so badly but they didn't damage my line much, either. They were withdrawn and on came the heavy cavalry. I moved the spears in front of the Ottomans and crossbowmen just in time. All along the line it was the same story, if heavy cavalry (no matter what type) charge spearmen that are ready and standing still and in at least four ranks, the heavy cavalry routed. It was particularly scary to see an huge wedge of royal marmlukes go for a four rank deep line of Saracen Infantry, it really looked like nothing could stop it. Luckily it missed the gap between two spear units (maybe a wedge would help there) and ploughed straight into the spearmen. I brought my hasham around and charged it in the flank while it routed. The AI tried to outflank me on my left flank but I brought up the spearmen from that flank with my general and the heavy horse archer and soon had them on the run. The marmlukes never even got into contact with any of my archers, who suffered relatively few casualties.
I have won battles with all-cavalry armies (lancers and horse archers) and it is easy to do so (against armies with fewer cavalry) but I think they are well balanced and cavalry work how they are supposed to. It's only the stupid AI that is at fault.
Royal Marmlukes are easily defeated by good spearmen and are not uber troops that will go through anything. OK I didn't risk taking any spear militia although Saracen spearmen are an upgraded militia and don't have very good morale.
My king has high chivalry and high dread cancelling each other out to give a net low dread score but I wonder if in fact the dread traits apply to the enemy while the chivalry traits apply to your own troops?
One other interesting point - I had an allied partial stack of four half strength units of horse archers and twice told them to go somewhere - they went to that point immediately. I had almost given up trying to control allied units. Now I think controlling allied units may be linked to your command radius i.e. the number of stars you have, or esle your king can command allied units better.
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Originally Posted by Troll King
