Cavalry fights

[LusitanianWolf]

While I really enjoy EB2s battle balance I do get the impression that cavalry gets a disproportionate amount of losses compared to other units. Wasn't one of the reasons behind nobles riding in horseback to increase their chances survival? In my experience cavalry spends too much time static in melee (usually against another cavalry) getting tired and losing man during a large part of the conflict. I'm no historian but weren't the cavalry disputes usually the first part of the battle to be decided? I was thinking that reducing cavalry morale would give better results with cavalry being less static, routing and regrouping more often, spending less time in melee and contributing to a more dynamic battlefield. I did some testing (by reducing by 2 points morale in some Hellenistic cavalry) and I found the results quite interesting and satisfactory, with some quite dynamic battles in Medium battle difficult and even losing a battle against a virtually identical army in VH.

I don't have more time to do testing now but later I might think of doing a sub mod about it, but before I would like to know what other people think about the issue, and examples from historical battles (I can think of Cannae or Ipsus for example) and ingame. Also, it would be interesting to hear the reasoning behind the current morale stats by the team, because of the amount of work in the development of the mod, usually there is a very good reasoning for things being as they are. But there might be some room for improvement, that's why I'm raising the issue.

[Timekiller]

That's a very interesting idea you've got there! Though I'd be careful with nerfing the morale of noble cavalry such as hetairoi or brihentin (are brihentin still in EB?) as nobles in the armies classical Europe were usually there to lead by example rather than hide in the safety of a tent miles from the battlefield.
Light cavalry and even some medium cavarly, on the other hand certainly seems like it could use a slight loss of fighting spirit from what I've seen so far. Nothing too drastic; just a tiny little push in the direction of "hey guys, we've got horses to flee on".
There again, there is obviously a sharp difference between a rout and a tactical retreat..
Well, I'd probably give it a try if you played around with descr_units regarding this. Good luck!

[YourMadDoc]

I would like to try it as well with that cavalry you have already modified if you are willing to share file. I use cavalry to charge - withdraw - repeat. It would be great if lowering morale had same effect on enemy army. Enemy cavalry is too static if they rout, they are already between two other units and that is usually too late to retreat. But I'm afraid lowering morale might make cavalry units unusable after they took some morale damage in battle.

[QuintusSertorius]

We spent a lot of time tinkering with infantry morale a while back, as part of an exercise to improve the balance of line v line. We didn't do much on cavalry morale, so I'll take the discussion away.

[Hellenikon]

The AI will withdraw cavalry much earlier if the unit has high charge values, such as xyston cavalry.

[LusitanianWolf]

There is a version of the EDU (2.2q) with all cavalry morale stats reduced by 2 for anyone wanting to test it. I'm really enjoying it though it might not be a perfect balance yet and might be a bit easy to exploit AI mistakes.
export_descr_unit.txt

That's a very interesting idea you've got there! Though I'd be careful with nerfing the morale of noble cavalry such as hetairoi or brihentin (are brihentin still in EB?) as nobles in the armies classical Europe were usually there to lead by example rather than hide in the safety of a tent miles from the battlefield.
Light cavalry and even some medium cavarly, on the other hand certainly seems like it could use a slight loss of fighting spirit from what I've seen so far. Nothing too drastic; just a tiny little push in the direction of "hey guys, we've got horses to flee on".
There again, there is obviously a sharp difference between a rout and a tactical retreat.
Well, I'd probably give it a try if you played around with descr_units regarding this. Good luck!

Celtic Noble Cavalry is still in EB2 but with a different name. They still kick Ass!!
Don't worry, I reduced all units equally, so nobles are reduced from like 8 to 6 (compared to skirmisher cavalry from 3 to 1), and they still hold their ground.
AFAIK it was not uncommon for a tactical retreat to end up as a rout or as a rout to end up working as a useful tactical retreat. The only problem is the size of the battlegrounds, if you rout a unit near a border they don't have a chance to regroup.

We spent a lot of time tinkering with infantry morale a while back, as part of an exercise to improve the balance of line v line. We didn't do much on cavalry morale, so I'll take the discussion away.

Great! Thank you.

[Timekiller]

That sounds like a pretty nice adjustment! I'm itching to give it a try once I get home.
Also, while we're talking about unit stats, is it just me or are javelins hilariously underpowered? I keep seeing stationary units including unarmored archers take whole volleys resulting in maybe five deaths tops. Letting skirmishers roam free used to feel dangerous in EBI (even though the AI frequently misused them) since just one good volley could put an end to your best unit's fighting ability. Now they barely feel like annoyances even with the immensely improved BAI.

[QuintusSertorius]

Infantry javelineers are deadly against other skirmishers, or from the rear of a better-equipped unit.

I'm not sure about cavalry skirmishers, though, they used to be quite effective, I'm not so sure any more.

[wojtekimbier]

If javelin cav could have reduced morale to encourage "tactical retreats" but improved missile effectiveness it could be interesting

[Ivir Baggins]

Infantry javelineers are deadly against other skirmishers, or from the rear of a better-equipped unit.

I'm not sure about cavalry skirmishers, though, they used to be quite effective, I'm not so sure any more.

I've personally never found them to be that good aside from running down routing opponents.

[QuintusSertorius]

I've personally never found them to be that good aside from running down routing opponents.

They used to be good against light infantry; I wonder if it's the changes to projectiles (given they have fewer of them, and they're more dispersed than infantry javelineers).

[Timekiller]

Infantry javelineers are deadly against other skirmishers, or from the rear of a better-equipped unit.

I'm not sure about cavalry skirmishers, though, they used to be quite effective, I'm not so sure any more.

Really? That's befuddling since I'm positive I've seen a group of totally unarmored toxotai absorb a volley of arrows much the same as phalangites did in EBI.. I'll just have to run a few test battles once I get home.

If javelin cav could have reduced morale to encourage "tactical retreats" but improved missile effectiveness it could be interesting

Yeah, though that probably depends on if their damage is just a tad worse than skirmishers on foot or if it's outright gimped; there should be a noticeable difference in the damage outputs of mounted skirmishers and those on foot imo

[QuintusSertorius]

Really? That's befuddling since I'm positive I've seen a group of totally unarmored toxotai absorb a volley of arrows much the same as phalangites did in EBI.. I'll just have to run a few test battles once I get home.

Javelins, not arrows. Javelineers are dangerous against other unarmoured infantry. Archers, less so. That's the trade-off you get, archers can hit from a much longer range, meaning less risk of being overrun. Or facing retliatory fire.

Besides, Toxotai are pretty crap archers, bring along some eastern or steppe archers and it's a different story. You are playing 2.2q, right?

[Timekiller]

That's exactly what I did; I'd already had an odd feeling about it for a while, but while repeatedly restarting the game and starting a battle between the Makedonian army next to Athens and Chremonides' stack to see if I could pinpoint the cause of my CTD's, at one point I just selected the lone group of Skuda archers (mercenaries?) and sent them alone against the army. I had them target the group of Makedonian toxotai and, expending about a fifth of their ammunition, they killed no more than thirty archers. After a while the akontistai reached them and sent a volley of javelins flying, killing about ten archers. I didn't get further with my little impromptu test before the main line came rushing in and all but instantly routed the Skudas. Then I got back to testing for CTD's.
Now as far as I can recall, a single volley of javelins could easily take down about thirty men, unarmored or from the right angle, in EBI while sustained arrow fire would quickly bleed an unprotected unit in close order to roughly half its strength.
Though I guess my biggest issue with it is seeing a hail of arrows crash into a bunch of unprotected peasants who merely recoil and grunt before getting back in order with the ones who weren't hit. It simply looks off to me.

[QuintusSertorius]

Comparisons to EB1 are entirely meaningless, I'm afraid. Not only is it a completely different engine, which works differently, but it isn't a model for what we're trying to achieve with EBII.

[betto]

i dont remember where i read but prolonged meele between infantry and cavalry were uncommon because one side usualy broke off . maybe give cavalry the trait scare infantry and infantry scare horses could give interestings results.

[QuintusSertorius]

i dont remember where i read but prolonged meele between infantry and cavalry were uncommon because one side usualy broke off . maybe give cavalry the trait scare infantry and infantry scare horses could give interestings results.

Uh no, that wouldn't give "interesting results", that would skew things in favour of whichever unit had better morale. You'd probably get insta-routs in favour of the better unit. I don't think you appreciate how delicate the morale balance is, and the hugely distorting effect giving all cavalry scare infantry, and all infantry scare cavalry would have.

Prolonged melee is already bad for cavalry, which is as it should be.

[betto]

i dont remember where i read but prolonged meele between infantry and cavalry were uncommon because one side usualy broke off . maybe give cavalry the trait scare infantry and infantry scare horses could give interestings results.

[QuintusSertorius]

i dont remember where i read but prolonged meele between infantry and cavalry were uncommon because one side usualy broke off . maybe give cavalry the trait scare infantry and infantry scare horses could give interestings results.

No, it will just massively skew the mechanics in favour of extreme results. It's totally unnecessary to achieve the goal, which is for cavalry to break off. Not for both sides to run away on contact.

[QuintusSertorius]

There is a version of the EDU (2.2q) with all cavalry morale stats reduced by 2 for anyone wanting to test it. I'm really enjoying it though it might not be a perfect balance yet and might be a bit easy to exploit AI mistakes.
export_descr_unit.txt

This gets the seal of approval from Ibrahim as a starting point for reviewing cavalry morale. So I'll take this going forward.