Age of Charlemagne - Cavalry

[prithupaul]

Oh mighty battlemasters of CA - hearken to me!

You know what most of us nerds love about the middle ages, right? Knights!! Mail-armored fists that drive into puny enemy lines and smash them into pulp, like they did in your own, and our beloved Medieval 2 Total War. Yet in your newest medieval offering they are as pointless as a donkey masquerading as a destrier.

Knights are not supposed to be slightly faster moving weaker sword infantry!! Please do a little more research, and thinking, and rebalance the frigging knights, instead of worrying too much about whats "op" in multiplayer.



#screwmultiplayer

[Chris P. Bacon]

Yaaaa if you want OP cavalry then play the Grand campaign

[prithupaul]

Yaaa I dont want OP cavalry. I want Knights to play like Knights, and not loose 60% of its strength to fight off light melee infantry.

[Fanest]

cavalry sucked it these times, in Britannia and Scandinavia horses were used mostly for transport to the battlefield, this is NOT age of knights m8 u got it wrong

[prithupaul]

I am not talking about Saxon or Danish horses. I am talking about knights / heavy cavalry.

And no Cavalry did not "suck" in these times. This was time through which heavy cavalry became increasingly more effective, and charge tactics became more significant due to advent of couched lances, stirrups and frame saddles. This WAS the age of rise of knights. Read history.

[Fanest]

This is not the time of knights - read history. Knights were only introduced on the battlefields during Charlemagne but that doesnt mean that these were highly effective on the battlefields like the heavy knights u know from Crusades.

[Totalheadache]

This is not the time of knights - read history. Knights were only introduced on the battlefields during Charlemagne but that doesnt mean that these were highly effective on the battlefields like the heavy knights u know from Crusades.

Actually OP he is right. Certainly re British isles it was all about the spear wall and heavy infantry....

Spain was light cav used to harass mostly...(the moors had great light cav). Yes Charlemagne introduced more heavy cav but even these were no match for mostly lightly armoured troops at Roncesvalles (song of Roland). ((was an ambush though)).

[JaM]

i would be more concerned about "sword infantry" than cavalry...

[Påsan]

Heavy Infantry dominated the period and Cavalry was used to harass and probe. Think Hastings which is much later. Th Norman knights did not just ride over the Saxon shield wall like tanks like a unit of Gendarmes would. They probed and harassed the shield wall until it broke apart, then they engaged. This is Dark ages, before the dawn of Knights.

Balance in Attila has been ridiculous in favor of Cavalry. This feels much more appropriate and infantry finally has a place in the battle, as opposed as a mandatory cheap way of keeping stuff in place while the maxed out cavalry won or lost the battle ala Attila.

[JaM]

i was thinking more in the way - swordsmen infantry being cheap gamey mechanics... Spear was the main infantry weapon... sword was usually just a sidearm for those who could afford it...


to explain further - sword requires aggressive approach to fighting, to be not afraid to get close to enemy to kill him.. men using only sword had to have very high morale, otherwise they would just run away from danger and never attack anybody... Spear at the other side required a formation, and people to stand together, while they kept danger at distance due to length of their spears... So technically, giving swords to some rabble would have same effect as throwing those swords away... they would be much better off with spears... a
Yet even skilled soldiers seldomly had notion to throw themselves into danger if they didnt had to... so keeping formation with the spear wall facing enemy was preferred to all infantry...

[Wolves In The Throne Room]

Ah, the battle cry of 'balance' making horses slower than humans.

Don't worry, somebody will mod the turtle genes out and those of us who like a just tad of realism will get normal horses, everyone else who doesn't care for realism or immersion can play with the turtle-horse hybrid.

[legate]

In the early middle ages heavy infantry was dominant. The high middle ages was where the heavy knight was dominant. Then in the late middle ages infantry came to the fore again.

Cavalry in this period were used as scouts, skirmishers and to run down and generally harass an enemy. They were not used as shock units. It was the Normans that perfected that in the 10th century, some say even later.

[JaM]

Norman Knights didnt charged with lances... at Hastings they used javelins thrown from saddle, they didnt charged the shieldwall (that would be doomed to fail anyway)... it took a bit time for lance to became widespread actually...

[legate]

Indeed. The crouched lance shock attack begins around the time of the first jousts, as that was practice for that tactic.

[prithupaul]

This is not the time of knights - read history. Knights were only introduced on the battlefields during Charlemagne but that doesnt mean that these were highly effective on the battlefields like the heavy knights u know from Crusades.

Knights became who they are because of their effectiveness in battle in this period. Again, just go to your local library, pick up a book on knights, or medieval warfare if you are confused.

Actually OP he is right. Certainly re British isles it was all about the spear wall and heavy infantry....

Spain was light cav used to harass mostly...(the moors had great light cav). Yes Charlemagne introduced more heavy cav but even these were no match for mostly lightly armoured troops at Roncesvalles (song of Roland). ((was an ambush though)).

He is not right. I am not talking about the British Isles. And if you are right about Spain (I am not familiar with that part), then there should not be Spanish Knights in the game. Yet they are present, they are pricey, and they are useless.

Heavy Infantry dominated the period and Cavalry was used to harass and probe. Think Hastings which is much later. Th Norman knights did not just ride over the Saxon shield wall like tanks like a unit of Gendarmes would. They probed and harassed the shield wall until it broke apart, then they engaged. This is Dark ages, before the dawn of Knights.

This is an erroneous comparison. In Hastings the Saxons were on a hill with marshland dividing the forces. Of course Norman Knights did not just ride over the Saxon shield wall. They were not stupid. But they did decide the battle eventually. Besides probing / harassing does not work like reality in Total War's simplistic battle system & AI and hence needs to be supplmented with unit stats.

Balance in Attila has been ridiculous in favor of Cavalry. This feels much more appropriate and infantry finally has a place in the battle, as opposed as a mandatory cheap way of keeping stuff in place while the maxed out cavalry won or lost the battle ala Attila.

This is a historical strategy game, and hence should be historically unbalanced, especially in single player.

Even if we bother so much about balancing – try charging the cheapest lightest melee infantry with the heaviest most expensive knights in this game, and see what happens. Does it really seem balanced to you?

[legate]

i was thinking more in the way - swordsmen infantry being cheap gamey mechanics... Spear was the main infantry weapon... sword was usually just a sidearm for those who could afford it...


to explain further - sword requires aggressive approach to fighting, to be not afraid to get close to enemy to kill him.. men using only sword had to have very high morale, otherwise they would just run away from danger and never attack anybody... Spear at the other side required a formation, and people to stand together, while they kept danger at distance due to length of their spears... So technically, giving swords to some rabble would have same effect as throwing those swords away... they would be much better off with spears... a
Yet even skilled soldiers seldomly had notion to throw themselves into danger if they didnt had to... so keeping formation with the spear wall facing enemy was preferred to all infantry...

Exactly this. Shogun was another example where you have katana units, despite the fact that the katana was a side arm. The spear and polearms were the main weapons.

[Fanest]

Knights became who they are because of their effectiveness in battle in this period. Again, just go to your local library, pick up a book on knights, or medieval warfare if you are confused.

Just not true, shock cav was used 1000 years before Charlemagne knights, so stirrups weren't really the cause of this change in warfare that we saw in coming centuries (10th+), the reason behind this is rather a economic one. After all the explanation why there were no knights or were very rare and fought in a skirmish mode was most likely because to field, train and equip a regiment of knights was very costly. And here we are in the time of tribe chieftains and other decentralized tribe kingdoms.

[prithupaul]

Just not true, shock cav was used 1000 years before Charlemagne knights, so stirrups weren't really the cause of this change in warfare that we saw in coming centuries (10th+), the reason behind this is rather a economic one. After all the explanation why there were no knights or were very rare and fought in a skirmish mode was most likely because to field, train and equip a regiment of knights was very costly. And here we are in the time of tribe chieftains and other decentralized tribe kingdoms.

You seem to be changing your argument on whims. So were Knights / Heavy Cavalry useless (like they are in Age of Charlemagne DLC)? Or were they effective, but too costly to field, train and equip? Make up your mind man.

[JaM]

Fanest: True, shock action was used long before Charlemagne.. yet, its the shock tactics what many don't understand what it actually means... It was not steamroll the standing infantry with the cavalry, but it involved to break morale of enemy infantry just by the overall mass of the attacking cavalry, so actual collision never happened... instead, cavalry just mowed down men running (in fear) away from battlefield... yet, if infantry stood still, cavalry had no change to do anything... that is why Norman Knights at Hastings tried to charge Saxons using shock tactics, but because they didn't ran away, they just circled around and threw javelins into their formation.. they didn't clashed directly into shield wall...

[Fanest]

You seem to be changing your argument on whims. So were Knights / Heavy Cavalry useless (like they are in Age of Charlemagne DLC)? Or were they effective, but too costly to field, train and equip? Make up your mind man.

First heavy knights werent very effective against shieldwall formations and therefore cav mostly skirmished and secondly as said they were very costly to maintain. Ofc they were effective in certain situations and their usage/effectiveness rose because of their mobility (battlefield and campaign), better armor, horse breeds, tactics etc.