Light Infantry vs. Cavalry

[Coldstream]

Seem a touch overpowered. The cavalry can be shot down with near impunity. Regardless of the fact that cavalry is little more than an expensive joke, they surely ought to be able to cut the light infantry to bits, just to prove their worth.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

for what its worth (and sorry if I'm butting in) but all Napoleonic infantry should be able to be cut to pieces by cavalry unless they are in square.

Light infantry in rough terrain or trees tended to do well though.....

[Coldstream]

for what its worth (and sorry if I'm butting in) but all Napoleonic infantry should be able to be cut to pieces by cavalry unless they are in square.

Yep. It's a real shame that this cannot be implemented. I've seen Infantry repel heavy cavalry after being charged in the rear. I ackowledge that cavalry requires timing, but as far as mopping up skirmishers they're pretty poor.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

but the whole point of napoleonics is the shear terror as your beautifully formed up lines of infantry suddenly get charged in the flank by the opposition cavalry (usually cossacks). And the joy on the rare occasion when you get your men into squares just in time.....

As fo Lt Infantry, the cavalry get totally messed up by the AI pathfinding I find. Because the light infantry is usually spread out the AI cavalry seems to spend its entire time running between individual members of the light infantry, without actually catching any of them.

[Lord Zimoa]

Please stay away from the RTW AI, come online, at least here we can navigate around some of the limitations the RTW engine struggles with. We had to found ways to go around them, I think we do get the best of what we had to work with. Hopefully in MTW2 the Battle AI is more flexible to play with.

LZoF

[Lord Shand]

hmmm u dont know much bout napoleonics if u think that cossakcs regularly charged formed infantry. cossacks were rarely used against formed infantry and were used mainly or scouting and mopping up stragglers.

they were far too lightly armed etc.

it is a shame that the engine does not take into account the loss of morale or damage when units are charged from the rear, something we looked at a lot nut in the end couldnt do anythin about

as it is cav v inf is as about as balanced as it can get, its really all about your placement and timing -

[Fondor_Yards]

The top heavy cav is good enough if used right. *Lancers don't seem very good for me, I don't use them. Cuirassiers and up are what I'm talking about* 4 3/4 strong life guards+2 cuirassiers=4 dead full young guard,1 dead general, and other officer unit.

[Lord Zimoa]

Do you use the alt+attack command for Lancers?

LZoF

[Coldstream]

I tried charging one depleted unit of Jaegers in the flank with two full units of Lancers and even the initial hit was quite unimpressive (yes I used alt-click to attack). Can light infantry be given traits like "Afraid of Cavalry," or "Poor Against Cavalry" or something?

[[GG]Lord Ashram]

Cav can be very powerful if used properly. I had a game yesterday where I closely managed a single unit of Russian cuirassiers and they killed almost 400 enemy. Use "enable guard mode" to get them out of combat when things look bad and you will keep them alive. Also, blast a single enemy unit into bits with a few units and then HAMMER them and start the domino rout... that can work well. The lighter cavs are harder to use. Who knows, things can always change after a first release!

[Fondor_Yards]

Do you use the alt+attack command for Lancers?

LZoF

I've tested the best Russian and French lancers at Cuirassiers or better with both the normal and the alt attack. Both only kill 1, maybe 2 men in the charge, then get their ass handed to them in the meele.

Plus isn't the alt attack their secondary weapon *in this case swords*? So shouldn't you be using their main attack *lances* when charging?

[Lord Zimoa]

First like we stated AI testing lancers against and especially against Heavy cavalry, says us nothing as it is not how we intended the cavalry to be played.

Secondly there is quite a big difference between a Russian Cossack in our game and a French Guard Polish Lancer in NTW2 and the other lancers are in between and all have a different purpose, remember this mod is mainly designed for MP. Charging your Cossacks against Cuirassier is mere suicide. Charging French Guard Polish Lancers against Russian Hussars will probably result in routing the Hussars.

I strongly advise to read our cavalry Preview:

The NTW2 Cavalry Preview


About the alt+attack command for lancers I quote here from our Gameplay & Tactic Preview that you can read here again:

The NTW2 Gameplay & Tactic Preview

Sadly the nice pictures in those Previews are not showing right now as we have some problems with our server.

Cavalry

A strong cavalry arm is a requirement for every balanced army. They are generally used for 3 purposes: sweeping up enemy skirmishers, countering enemy cavalry, and exploiting enemy weaknesses. Even though cavalry generally cannot overrun a steady infantry unit, they can quickly run over a weakened unit. Infantry and Artillery can weaken the enemy line enough for a resolute cavalry charge to crush it quickly. If you are on the receiving side, make sure you replace or reinforce weakened units before the enemy exploits it, or keep your own cavalry nearby to counter or disencourage an enemy attack.

Light Cavalry VS Heavy Cavalry

Light cavalry is quite a lot faster then their heavier colleagues, but have a lower shock values. They are especially useful for harassing enemy skirmishers, flanking manoeuvres and any situation were speed is more important then raw power. Heavy cavalry can deliver a harder punch, and can stay in the fight much longer, so they can be used as fast moving infantry. They are best used to lead a frontal charge, proceeding the slower infantry while the lighter cavalry makes flanking manoeuvres.


The Lance VS The Sword

Lancers are equipped with both a lance and a sword. When using alt+right-click to attack, they will charge with their lance, and then switch to swords for close combat. The lance charge can be especially deadly, but switching to swords can take a while, and until then the unit will not be capable of dealing much damage. They also have a slightly worse defence skill then native sword-armed units.
Lancers are especially useful against weakened or wavering units, where their charge alone is enough to break the enemy.

LZoF

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

hmmm u dont know much bout napoleonics if u think that cossakcs regularly charged formed infantry. cossacks were rarely used against formed infantry and were used mainly or scouting and mopping up stragglers.

they were far too lightly armed etc.

oh, totally agree. It was a reference back to when I used to play a lot of Napoleonics (tabletop and the Austerlizt series on PC - I modded an Albuhera battle for the Peninsular pack). Anyways, one guy had what we all decided were motorized cossacks, he had found an exploit where the cossacks didn't seem to suffer from fatigue so he just charged them everywhere all the time. The number of times peoples infantry units were trashed by his bloody cossacks charging into their flank became something of a standing joke.

But, any decent heavy cavalry should be able to destroy any infantry unit it catches out of a square, or at least really severely maul them. Just a thought (I'm sure you have already thought of it) but could you use something like either the roman infantry's 'tortoise' formation or LT's SPQR 'shieldwall' to represent infantry in squares?

[[GG]Lord Ashram]

One of the problems of "square" is that there really isnt such a thing in the Rome engine. A unit has a front and a back and the difference really isnt that big... if I recall correctly, getting hit in the rear just means you dont use a shield as much, and given that the Nappy troops dont HAVE a shield to start with, that is limited. Maybe there is a way to give all infantry a shield but make it invisible in-game so that they do get a regular defence from the front... but I dont know. So just know that there are some limits that will be hard to overcome.

[Lord Zimoa]

Sadly we cannot use it, as they will not form a square that looks anything like a square, has to do with the animation, a shame as I agree it would be a much better solution we have now.

Maybe when CA passes on some of their animation tools...

LZoF

[Lord Shand]

we tried using the special formations but they didnt work, from what i remember we werent able to alter the animations etc.

but as the other lords have said its down to timing and position - i myself suck at using cav and prefer to take more inf just coz i know ill waste any cav units i have, but dude like aderbhal are really good with their cav. so just practice with them

just know its no arcade styled game, u cant just march them up in front of the enemy and expect them to charge and break every unit they attack, u gotta keep them in good order and out of the fight til theyre in the right position then charge at the right time

[Sétanta]

Cavalry is excellent when used by a human player (most of the time), but against an AI opponent they just charge cavalry into a mass of bayonets and nobody is surviving that.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

just know its no arcade styled game, u cant just march them up in front of the enemy and expect them to charge and break every unit they attack, u gotta keep them in good order and out of the fight til theyre in the right position then charge at the right time

good, that's how it should be. It's the same in all the good Rome mods, people complain about cavalry being weak but, if used properly, they are still the killer unit on the battlefield.

If I actually had the time to play anything at the moment, this would be first on my list, but hey, RL intrudes

Sadly we cannot use it, as they will not form a square that looks anything like a square, has to do with the animation, a shame as I agree it would be a much better solution we have now.

I kinda thought you would have tried it out already

Maybe when CA passes on some of their animation tools...

if enough of us ask who knows? we can but dream.......

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

if you attack with cavalry in any mod (so I assume this one will work the same):

- ideally pin the infantry with another infantry unit from the front (a bit unrealistic in Napoleonics, though maybe firing volleys count?) and then hit them from the rear or flank with the cavalry unit, usually about 4 ranks deep

- hit them with two cavalry units, bot 4 ranks deep and the second following immediately behind the first

- never attack from the front

- never attack light infantry in dispersed formation unless your cavalry has missile firing capability, the dispersed formation just confuses the pathfinding AI (particularly, and most frustratingly, when the light infantry is routing) and the cavalry won't kill anyone

[Adherbal]

cavalry will get more charge power in the next update. The idea is that they are more powerfull against loose formations because they are in a quit loose formation themselves. This should mean that they can knock over an entire frontrank of light inf in loose, while they can only kill 1/2nd of a close formation.

that is the best we can do though. RTW does not give combat penalties to surrounded units (only morale). Something I've been lobbying for to include in MTW2.