Cavalry Feels Cheap

[Noone likes Thebes:(]

Not in the mechanical way, I mean in the cost way. Given how DeI works with cavalry charges being so crucial to breaking surrounded units and racking up many more kills than most melee infantry and how in all total war games cavalry is crucial to the player because of their mobility, I feel like I'm not paying the premium I should be paying.

Even light skirmisher cavalry should be well above most infantry in upkeep cost because not only do you have to feed and maintain the man, you must feed and maintain his horse too.
Right now my Numidian skirmisher cavalry is costing me about 105 a turn, while my run of the mill levies are costing me around 85 a turn.

My Carthaginian Melee Cavalry is costing me about 125 a turn while my stock Carthaginian melee infantry is costing me the same!
My Noble Shock Cavalry is costing me only 10 more a turn and elephants are costing only 167 a turn, elephants!

Rather than beating cavalry with nerf bats, I would suggest that we look at the upkeep costs for these privileged units.
I remember playing RTR and EB back in Rome I and in both of them I recall the upkeep for cavalry and elephants to be far higher than this, from 3 to 5 times higher, heck I remember Indian Elephants costing 1k a turn.

As most cavalry throughout time (to my limited knowledge) has been made up of nobles or higher classmen and the ancient era being no exception, it doesn't feel right at all to have them be only slightly more expensive to maintain than ordinary soldiers.

Thought I would bring this up since 1.0 will focus on balancing.

I made a thread so we can discuss how different factions cavalry upkeep should be handled.

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

Not in the mechanical way, I mean in the cost way. Given how DeI works with cavalry charges being so crucial to breaking surrounded units and racking up many more kills than most melee infantry and how in all total war games cavalry is crucial to the player because of their mobility, I feel like I'm not paying the premium I should be paying.

Even light skirmisher cavalry should be well above most infantry in upkeep cost because not only do you have to feed and maintain the man, you must feed and maintain his horse too.
Right now my Numidian skirmisher cavalry is costing me about 105 a turn, while my run of the mill levies are costing me around 85 a turn.

My Carthaginian Melee Cavalry is costing me about 125 a turn while my stock Carthaginian melee infantry is costing me the same!
My Noble Shock Cavalry is costing me only 10 more a turn and elephants are costing only 167 a turn, elephants!

Rather than beating cavalry with nerf bats, I would suggest that we look at the upkeep costs for these privileged units.
I remember playing RTR and EB back in Rome I and in both of them I recall the upkeep for cavalry and elephants to be far higher than this, from 3 to 5 times higher, heck I remember Indian Elephants costing 1k a turn.

As most cavalry throughout time (to my limited knowledge) has been made up of nobles or higher classmen and the ancient era being no exception, it doesn't feel right at all to have them be only slightly more expensive to maintain than ordinary soldiers.

Thought I would bring this up since 1.0 will focus on balancing.

I made a thread so we can discuss how different factions cavalry upkeep should be handled.

Yes this! I've been thinking about this too. Horses are expensive and cavalry would require supplies for both the rider and the horse. Their upkeep and possibly recruitment cost need to be increased.

[Cope]

Yes this! I've been thinking about this too. Horses are expensive and cavalry would require supplies for both the rider and the horse. Their upkeep and possibly recruitment cost need to be increased.

I think it kind of depends somewhat on who you are and where you are in the world.

[Noone likes Thebes:(]

Yes, obviously steppe horsemen should not be that expensive as there is no way the tiny incomes of the tribes could keep up and it was more of a way of life than a weekend warrior bit.
Cataphracts of Parthia however I still think should be expensive, but not as expensive as say, Hellenic Cataphracts since its closer to a way of life for the Parthians as they used to be or were still a partly nomadic people, at least by tradition.

Light Barbarian cavalry and light African cavalry should probably be low compared to the others as in the case of the latter it would fall into way of life as raiders and they don't have really expensive equipment, though Gallic light cavalry is a bit of a question because on one hand, they're not excellently equipped, but on the other, how expensive would a horse be in that culture?
But pretty much all noble cavalry throughout the Greeks-Romans-Successors should make you pay out the butt for it.
The Spanish, Gauls, Germans and Iceni however... I am not very knowledgeable about their cultures but noble cavalry should always be expensive no matter where it is. Also thinking about how friendly the geography is might give some clues?

Elephants should be many times more expensive to upkeep than now no matter who has them. Probably Chariots too.

[Cope]

Yes, obviously steppe horsemen should not be that expensive as there is no way the tiny incomes of the tribes could keep up and it was more of a way of life than a weekend warrior bit.
Cataphracts of Parthia however I still think should be expensive, but not as expensive as say, Hellenic Cataphracts since its closer to a way of life for the Parthians as they used to be or were still a partly nomadic people, at least by tradition.

Light Barbarian cavalry and light African cavalry should probably be low compared to the others as in the case of the latter it would fall into way of life as raiders and they don't have really expensive equipment, though Gallic light cavalry is a bit of a question because on one hand, they're not excellently equipped, but on the other, how expensive would a horse be in that culture?
But pretty much all noble cavalry throughout the Greeks-Romans-Successors should make you pay out the butt for it.
The Spanish, Gauls, Germans and Iceni however... I am not very knowledgeable about their cultures but noble cavalry should always be expensive no matter where it is. Also thinking about how friendly the geography is might give some clues?

Elephants should be many times more expensive to upkeep than now no matter who has them. Probably Chariots too.

But I think you need to take into account a couple of things:

1. Elite cavalry units like cataphracts, Sarmatian Lancers and Companions are already amongst the most expensive units in the game. Most top tier heavy cavalry costs 1000+ recruitment cost plus 200+ upkeep (depending on type, research and character upgrades). The only discrepancy in this regard I can think of is that the Thessalyian generals bodyguard (for Athens) is cheaper than the Logades or Picked Hoplites generals bodyguard.

2. Cavalry units already have considerably less soldiers in them than most infantry units. I think the standard cavalry size is 60 or 98 men (depending on faction) whilst melee infantry ranges from 180 to 225 men.

Allow me to give you an exact example:

Sauromatae Uaezdaettae (elite Sarmatian Cataphracts recruitable from Tur as an AOR unit) cost 1130 gold to buy and a further 170 to maintain. They have 98 men (or 130 depending on army size settings).
Basilikoi Phalangitai (Royal Macedonian pikemen) cost 970 gold to buy and 160 to maintain. Crucially they have 180 men (or 256 depending on army size settings).

This means that per soldier the elite infantryman is much much cheaper to maintain than the elite cavalryman - almost twice as cheap. In fact in terms of recruitment, the Sarmatians cost 10 times more per head than the pikemen. (37 gold per cataphract compared to 3.7 per pikeman). In terms of upkeep they cost twice as much per head to maintain (1.3 per cataphract per turn vs. 0.6 per pikeman per turn).

I haven't checked the exact stats but I imagine it's something similar for elephants and chariots. Similar upkeep to other high tier units but with vastly less men. It is also worth noting that the player can easily throw away chariots and elephants if s/he isn't using them wisely.

[GatoVolador]

Good idea. Accustomed to M2TW and ETW I was wondering too what happened to the upkeep. I feel like hoplites have, relatively speaking, the highest upkeep cost, while cavalry are something in the middle. Even taking into account the unit size, cav feels to pricey.

[Ygraine]

You forgot that cavalry has way less men than a infantry-group (for instance 120 cav compared to 300 men) has - so it doesn't necessarily have to cost more to maintain a horse and a man than a man and a man (considering horses eat grass for free or hay that you give them).

[Butan]

You forgot that cavalry has way less men than a infantry-group (for instance 120 cav compared to 300 men) has - so it doesn't necessarily have to cost more to maintain a horse and a man than a man and a man (considering horses eat grass for free or hay that you give them).

This.

On average, they cost a bit more than infantry and for half the size.
Mathematically they already cost around +150% compared to infantry.

Its right that they are so powerful (both hit points and fast morale shock wise) in the metagame that they could have an increased cost, but not so much as totally forbid to have more than 1 cavalry per army.

[KaHzModAn]

I dont know if 100 cav costed more to maintain than 300 infantry men, historicaly i mean,
but on a balance point of view, they should be more expensive i think, sure cataphracts and the sort are already expensive,
but they rack up 500+ kills every battle, so they should be expensive !

If its possible, maybe add more food consumption to cav ?
and for eastern nomads, maybe boosting the effects of pillaging stance, so they can really live off their enemys land,
or add some effects to the patrol region stance that reduces food/maintainance for these factions because horses feed themselves in the steppes

[FlashHeart07]

And with the somewhat reduced income for the player, increasing the cost of cavalry further would make them much less frequent also when playing factions that mostly rely on cavalry.

[Alu10]

Yeah, make all cavalry units more expensive. thats historically accurate anyway.