How to deal with Heavy Cav?

[sixwings]

How do you guys deal with armies that are have a lot of heavy cav? I've been playing as Leon and it's going well. I've taken Spain, North Africa, France and England, but am getting stalled against Sicily and Poland due to their heavy cav. Their armies will have like 7-10 units of heavy cav, which just devastates my armies.

[RedGuard]

Pikes and or your own heavy Cav. Armor piercing bows or Javelins work good too, land in England and hire Longbowmen as mercs or use your cabellareos hildalgos as the spanish to decimate them before they charge.

[sixwings]

I only have pike militia available to me right now and only a few of them. The only spearmen I have available are merc spearmen and urban militia, they all just get completely run over. I have longbowmen as well for the stakes as I can recruit them, but they usually just flank around. I guess I can put more cav in my armies to catch that, but then my infantry will be largely outnumbered as I need to keep the longbowmen in my army.

[Morgan63]

I only have pike militia available to me right now and only a few of them. The only spearmen I have available are merc spearmen and urban militia, they all just get completely run over. I have longbowmen as well for the stakes as I can recruit them, but they usually just flank around. I guess I can put more cav in my armies to catch that, but then my infantry will be largely outnumbered as I need to keep the longbowmen in my army.

Yes, this is the strategy that I use as well. I have the stakes protecting the front of my lines, and have some protecting some of the flank as well. The enemy cavalry have to come past my lines on the flank to then turn and charge. I stop them with my cavalry.
Let them come up, do not charge down on them. Let them get within archer range before you use your cavalry to blunt their charge, then send pike or volgier in as well while your archers are shooting them. Hell, once your cavalry has stopped them any ground troop can run up and hack them.

[Riva]

Think about the most annoying thing for your own heavy cav./knights... mounted archers / javelins. As Leon you should be able to place lots of Jinetes, they are cheap and can effectively reduce cavalry before they even reach you. Just outflank them after the battle starts and attack from the sides and rear, the AI will ignore or probably even follow them. Place some cheap skirmishers (open formation) at your front to absorb any charges (archers and then spearmen behind them), counter charge any cavalry unit that tries to outflank you with your own cav. and use spearman to attack any cavalry unit that is already engaged in melee.

[Grabbin_Megroin]

Yeah definitely what the anime guy said, Jinetes are heavy cavalry killers through and through. Or just be sure to counter charge them with your own heavy cavalry. Also I hate to say it but there are no spear units in the game that can withstand a heavy cavalry charge on even ground without losing anywhere from 40%-100% of it's strength. If you have access to pikes though, use them! Try spreading them as thin as possible all across your line, intermingled with the front ranks. That way their pikes poke through to the front but the heavier infantry are in front of them to protect anybody who slips through.

[LuckyPistol]

Using Schiltrom actually helps, making formations where you can use them to your advantage is a must. As others have said, high tier archers and javelins will work well and are easy to come by in your situation.

[Lucem Mundum]

Crossbows are also heavy cavalry killers, since they are accurate and have armor piercing attack (usually one volley from a unit of crossbows takes down 6-9 horsemen) , but remember to protect them with spears or cavalry. Another good anti-cavalry units are the two handers, they deal massive damage, usually have armor piercing damage, and their long weapons destroy cavalry in prolonged melee fights (cavalry sucks at melee!).
VS=

[ikyu828]

Using Schiltrom actually helps, making formations where you can use them to your advantage is a must. As others have said, high tier archers and javelins will work well and are easy to come by in your situation.

i've tried spear unit w/ schiltrom but it simply useless
the only melee infantry unit that is effective are pike or halberd-type unit that has spear wall to stop the cavalry charge
i rather use pike militia than high lvl spear unit, the spear unit in this mod are simply not that great

for ranged weapon, most of the javelin units can decimate high armored unit (including heavy cavs) really fast but they have low ammo compare to x-bow or gunpowder

units w/ stakes ability works very well too but not many have them

[LuckyPistol]

i've tried spear unit w/ schiltrom but it simply useless
the only melee infantry unit that is effective are pike or halberd-type unit that has spear wall to stop the cavalry charge
i rather use pike militia than high lvl spear unit, the spear unit in this mod are simply not that great

for ranged weapon, most of the javelin units can decimate high armored unit (including heavy cavs) really fast but they don't have low ammo compare to x-bow or gunpowder

units w/ stakes ability works very well too but not many have them

I was working off his situation as Leon. In Spain you can get Javelins for cheap and use them against the Heavy Cav bogged down by the Schiltrom

[ikyu828]

I was working off his situation as Leon. In Spain you can get Javelins for cheap and use them against the Heavy Cav bogged down by the Schiltrom

but most western faction (including leon) can use pike unit though, unless we are talking in early era of course
if it is for early era, i agree w/ you

[LuckyPistol]

but most western faction (including leon) can use pike unit though, unless we are talking in early era of course
if it is for early era, i agree w/ you

You don't get pikes and halberds until well after turn 80-90ish.

[General Gordon]

French Heavy Cavalry is too much !!!
I find that them being to beat pikemen and spear units in schildron formation too unrealistic really.

[bigdaddy1204]

How do you guys deal with armies that are have a lot of heavy cav? I've been playing as Leon and it's going well. I've taken Spain, North Africa, France and England, but am getting stalled against Sicily and Poland due to their heavy cav. Their armies will have like 7-10 units of heavy cav, which just devastates my armies.

I find the best weapon against heavy cav is missile units, especially horse archers but also javelins and archers/crossbowmen. If I'm playing as the Zengids or any other Muslim faction, I'll use plenty of horse archers and I'll send them immediately to attack any heavy cavalry I see. However as you're playing as Leon, you probably don't get horse archers. I'd recommend Jinites, a javalin-armed cavalry unit that is effective against enemy heavy cav. I'd also recommend trying to make sure that you have more heavy cavalry in your army than the enemy do. That way, at the very least you can just swarm their heavy cav with yours and then move up spearmen in support.

Horse archers and javelin-armed cav for the win!

[Nylonbeast]

Mourtatoi or longbowmen and such (ie. guys with stakes), is the easiest way, and the most exploitative. The cheapest way to deal with hcav on the field is one unit of peasants or pilgrims in loose formation, deployed in front of your spears. 1 unit of peasants for two or three spears should do just fine. The idea is to let the peasants suck in everything from cav charges to arrows and siege engine fire. Once the cavalry gets entangled in your soon routing peasants, charge in with your spears.

[Apothekert]

The idea is to let the peasants suck in everything from cav charges to arrows and siege engine fire

Man i wudn't want to be a peasant in your army.

[Nylonbeast]

I realized some time ago something that pretty much changed the way I deal with enemy cav. I don't know if it's a bit exploity, but professional spearmen annihilate cavalry if you deploy them enmasse to occupy the same space and put them into guard mode. I deploy these spearmen clusters quite wide, so all my other infantry fit behind them. A unit-depth of four or even three men can withstand a cav charge, if it consists of two or three units.

[KiKiweaky]

Also if your feeling a bit evil you can put one (or two depending on the size of your front line) units of militia at the front of your army spread out in lose formation to act as a speed bump for enemy heavy cavalry it will break their charge and allow you to swamp them with your heavier spearmen and charge them in the back with your own heavy cavalry. Use a few units of javelin armed cavalry too before they reach your front line, they decimate knights. Unfortunately the only way to deal with Knight heavy armies is to slog it out with them, they will kill a lot of your soldiers just make sure your soaking up as much of the damage using militia as possible. When they are weakened that is when you counter attack with your own knights and hopefully wipe out the unit. If your still having trouble bring another stack and attack with twice the numbers

[Dekhatres]

use more heavy cav than your enemy hehe, no but srs best solution is to open EDU and balance things yourself or try looking for some submod that does that

[logan93]

take a militia unit and put it in lose formation in fornt of your lines, wait for them to be chrged then send forward pikes/lancers/two handers or heavy cav for H&A. Also arrowflanking with crossbows or mounted crossbows is pretty effective