Teach me how to horse

[Leonidas II]

Hello ,

I started a new campaign with Parthia , but I don't have much experience with cavalry , especially not with horse archers.
Does someone know a good tutorial , which shows how to effectively use horse archers and cavalry when playing as nomads ?

greets

[Ownager]

What you seek, master Leonidas, is something far more dangerous than any regular guide. For this guide may make you a nomad. You will live a frugal life on the steppes, waiting for your next meal to appear so you can hunt and kill it.

All jokes aside, Horse archers are pretty simple. Keep them spread apart. You can either micromanage firing, or simply allow fire at will, although you may take friendly fire losses. Make sure they don't get caught. Don't die.

[Leonidas II]

Oh my fellow soldier Ownager Principe , I thank you much for your help regarding my problems .
Now I will conquer the whole world (or at least a bit of it ) with the power of the nomads ..

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Four things to remember with horse archer factions:

1. Put a heavily-armoured horse archer, like your general's bodyguard or a noble unit with good armour, out in front, in loose formation, to soak up the enemy's missles. Lightly-armoured horse archers a little way behind.
2. Use your general to intercept any enemy cavalry charging at your lightly-armoured horse archers. Switch them back to compact formation and turn off skirmish mode first, of course.
3. The higher the ground your horse archers are standing on, the more range they have, and the less range the enemy have. This makes a big difference by reducing your own losses to a minimum. Put your horse archers on high ground, high as you can while still being in range. Even if it's only a low hill or gentle slope. The idea is to make your horse archers able to fire on the enemy, while the enemy themselves are too far out of range to shoot back. Any lightly-armoured horse archer unit being fired on and taking casualties should pull back to higher ground if possible, while still being able to fire on the enemy.
4. When you run out of arrows, if there's only a few enemies left, you can charge the survivors en masse and rout them. If there's still a lot of them left (or they have long pikes) you can click the white flag, withdraw and fight another day. A 'Defeat' result in a battle is not really a defeat if the enemy lost ten times more men than you did, since you'll be in much better shape to win the next fight even though you had to give up some ground this time.

[nein]

Pikemen are arrow sponges, always try to hit them from the rear... generally sticking HA on a hill and letting them shoot at lighter units is a good idea

[Principe Alessandro]

Pahlava probably has the best armored horse archers but lacks somewhat in their native horse archers, though the Dahae riders are very good compared to other nomadic riders. Anyway the way you should fight with nomadic factions comes down entirely to what faction you are fighting.

For Pahlava could be the Arke Seleukia or Baktria with their phalanx armies, my advice is to envelop from all sides the phalanx and always shoot at the back of the phalanx, if they employ foot archers use your armored horse archers to deal with them, with the riders you envelope their flanks and the horse archers should turn to the back of the enemy formation, when you see that the formation is enough disrupted and the phalanx weakened charge their formation with the heavies and the riders.

If you are instead fighting against another nomadic faction well here everything comes down to who has better units for archery duels, armor is an important factor here, so you should begin sending your armored horse archers, when the enemy has wasted enough ammo you bring the riders, then you finish them off with the last wave of horse archers.

Anyway in case of Pahlava you are enough lucky that with the allied government and the reforms you can get some nice foot soldier from the settled people of Persia so the nomadic phase of your war will end and you will begin to fight more "conventionally".

[Team Sleep]

I would put my generals bodyguard/s plus a few units of my most heavily armoured HA's in the center, then split the rest of the units between the wings, but put your wings to the extreme ends of the front, don't put them in a line, kind of group them left,right, center with huge gaps between them,

What's the purpose of the huge gaps in between units on the flanks? Why not just keep them in clumps of trianglish formation? And how big are "huge gaps"? Big enough for another horse unit to pass in between each unhindered?

I usually turn off fire at will and leave skirmish on.

Do you find it hard to manuever around enemy units when skirmish mode is on? Because when ever I have to cut it close to an enemy with skirmish on...the selected unit decides to move further in a direction of it's own choice instead of making it a close cut nearby the enemy unit.

For Pahlava could be the Arke Seleukia or Baktria with their phalanx armies, my advice is to envelop from all sides the phalanx and always shoot at the back of the phalanx, if they employ foot archers use your armored horse archers to deal with them, with the riders you envelope their flanks and the horse archers should turn to the back of the enemy formation, when you see that the formation is enough disrupted and the phalanx weakened charge their formation with the heavies and the riders.

What's the difference between horse archers & riders? Don't they both have bows & ride on horses? (I know it's a noob question but ...I'm a noob.)

[Principe Alessandro]

What's the difference between horse archers & riders? Don't they both have bows & ride on horses? (I know it's a noob question but ...I'm a noob.)

Riders have better stats regarding their charge (are armed with spears), better armor, and usually they have also better range attack, the best of this category are the roxolani riders.

[athanaric]

Pahlava's core HAs are not very special stat wise, but they can be recruited with the reformed government as well as with Nomadism. This and their large AoR makes them extremely useful. Same goes for the Asavaran-î Dehbed HAs who're probably the best unit in EB, for that reason (in combination with their good stats and armament).

[Principe Alessandro]

With Persian, Syrian, Caucasian archers at the disposal of Seleukia and Hayasdan I don't trust so much on their horse archers for battle opening skirmishes. Their only strength are the armored nobles which have also powerful charges so they can essentially absorb the initial incoming arrows, horse archers should always go to rear of the enemy formation and avoid any kind of direct confrontation leaving the front of the formation to the heavies. Anyway as soon he can he really should start getting some regional and reformed units, while nomadic warfare brings the best effective warfare in EB from a kill ratio point it is really tiresome to micromanage your armies stack after stack of Seleucid phalanxes.

[athanaric]

HAs have lots of other uses though. Their range and ammo supply means they're quite decent for just bombarding the enemy after the fashion of foot archers. If all else fails, you can still use them to run down routers or light skirmishers. Dehbed nobles can also be used to catch fleeing enemy generals, or just charge weakened enemy units (I've used them with success against basically every kind of unit, even elephants). IMO every Parthian army should contain at least two units of (light to medium) HAs.

[Principe Alessandro]

HAs have lots of other uses though. Their range and ammo supply means they're quite decent for just bombarding the enemy after the fashion of foot archers. If all else fails, you can still use them to run down routers or light skirmishers. Dehbed nobles can also be used to catch fleeing enemy generals, or just charge weakened enemy units (I've used them with success against basically every kind of unit, even elephants). IMO every Parthian army should contain at least two units of (light to medium) HAs.

I'm not saying that they are totally useless, but anyway they cannot be used frontally against the enemy formation, both in melee and ranged combat they die like flies, also they aren't even useful to run down routers because their formation have too many gaps, for this role I prefer the riders. I think that the best use of horse archers is to support the riders and the heavies, usually my nomadic cavalry army consists of three parts: the first of bodyguards and armored noble horse archers, the second of riders and the third of horse archers, I use the last one mainly to give some ranged support the two first groups.

[Ownager]

Fallen to the nomad side, you have. Turn back you all must.

[Ownager]

Use heavy cavalry, you must. Forget the treacherous way of the nomad, and join the forces of civilization.

[Frtigern]

Some nomad bodyguard horse archers are really dual purpose HA and heavy cavalry. Some nomads can recruit heavy cavalry in their AOR. So just because their nomadic doesn't mean they can't recruit an army capable of destroying a "civilized" army. I find it quite fun and challenging to try to defeat pikes with only cavalry and missile cavalry. Its not impossible and once you get the hang of it, its rewarding. The biggest threat to horse archers are massed foot archers.

[Zelwindin]

Hello ,

I started a new campaign with Parthia , but I don't have much experience with cavalry , especially not with horse archers.
Does someone know a good tutorial , which shows how to effectively use horse archers and cavalry when playing as nomads ?

greets

Some important things to keep in mind when selecting the right cavalrymen for your empire:

1. There are many types of cavalry in EB. Choose the type that suits your needs. Two main types:

2. Lancer cavalry (denoted by high charge bonus, at least 24 or higher) come in many flavors, and should be your main pieces in your mounted wing. There are many types of lancers. The most important stat to consider is their charge. The more powerful the better ofc. Keep in mind some cavalry have AP charge (e.g. hetairoi) and others do not (hippeis). The non ap cavalry always have a higher attack stat to compensate, making them more effective vs. Light targets than AP lancers.

3. Sword cavalry (low charge bonus, 15 or less) pri.marily come in the skirmisher variety. Dont rely on these guys to route those phalangitai in one thunderous charge; sword cav are meant to swoop in on a weakened flank, expend their missiles, and get stuck in. Their swords give them a built in +4 vs infantry, makin them effective in this role. Consider them very fast moving swordsmen, if anything.

4. Finally, there are some cav units that fit neither of these roles, and are only good for skirmishing. I reccomend skipping over these units in favor of a unit that can both skirmish and fulfill a primary cavalry role (e.g. scythian riders,)

3.

[Zelwindin]

Cant figure out how to edit so ill add I hope this info helps. Im a huge cavalry tactics fan

[Frtigern]

Dual purpose horse archer/heavy cavalry units which are available to nomadic factions. They are not all created equal but as you can see Pahlava has the most of this type available. Its quite useful. For example you can replace a separate heavy cavalry and horse archer/foot archer unit with one "heavy horse archer" unit. That frees up slots for infantry if you need them. Also, someone mentioned that armored horse archers take less casualties than unarmored acting as a missile sponge. While not ideal, as these units are more expensive, that is true. I would rather have the enemy waste their missiles on a cheap skirmisher unit and save my heavy horse archers to charge later on.

Pahlav
Asavârân-î Dêhbêd (Parthian Noble Medium Cavalry)
Aursa Uaezdaettae (Aorsi Noble Cavalry)
Daha Uazdaettae (Dahae Noble Cavalry)
Ragon Sauromatae Uaezdaettae (Sarmatian Noble Horse-Archers)
Shivatîr-î Zrêhbârân (Parthian Armoured Horse-Archers)
Spâhbâdê Pahlavânig (Early Parthian Bodyguard)
Uaezdaettae Mizdagânîh (Nomadic Noble Mercenary)
Yancai Uaezdaettae (Alan Nobles)

Saka
Spatahaura Hadabara (Saka Armored Nobles)
Yancai Uaezdaettae (Alan Nobles)
Ysaninu Aysna (Early Saka Nobles)
Yukhuna Ysaninu Purma (Early Yuezhi Noble Cavalry)

Sauromatae
Aeldary Aembaltae (Sarmatian Bodyguard Cavalry)
Aursa Uaezdaettae (Aorsi Noble Cavalry)
Daha Uazdaettae (Dahae Noble Cavalry)
Ragon Sauromatae Uaezdaettae (Sarmatian Noble Horse-Archers)
Rauxsa-alanna Uaezdaettae (Roxolani Noble Cavalry)
Uaezdaettae Mizdagânîh (Nomadic Noble Mercenary)
Yancai Uaezdaettae (Alan Nobles)

[Ownager]

Use the trusted hammer and anvil. Forget the ways of the steppes. There are dark things lurking on those treacherous plains.

[Frtigern]

I think Principe Ownager is just scared of getting slaughtered like Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae. Different regions evolved different systems of warfare and Carrhae is where two of those systems clashed and the result was that Crassus was outmaneuvered and out-ranged by an army of horse archers and heavy cavalry. Crassus was overconfident and he paid the price with his life.

Ok now to comparisons. Pahlava has heavy cavalry units that match the Macedonian Hetairoi and Hellenic Bodyguard Cavalry. Parthian Cataphracts, Parthian Late Elite Cataphracts and Parthian Late Bodyguard Cavalry. The Parthians have +3-6 charge . Parthian Cataphracts have same defense and higher secondary attack lethality, but -1 sec weapon attack. Late Cataphracts and Bodyguards have +5-6 defense and higher secondary attack lethality. Pahlav has a larger AOR for these units compared to Macedon at 16 provinces compared to 6. Its better to have control of a province where you can replenish your cavalry than it is to have cavalry that is depleted and has to be sent way back to get retrained.

http://europabarbarorum.heimstatt.net/