Cavalry is crap

[pmaf14]

I dont know if anyone has said anything about this yet. The calvary in this game is reallly screwed up. One thing they dont do nearly as dmg or break through lines as cav. did in Rome Total war. Second ,when they do charge sometimes they start running then stop and start walking! Then they only charge with about 5 men and the rest just STOP! WTF? This is terrible considering that i am playing with Poland which is Depended on its powerful calvary. Anyone know how to fix these problems or do I just need to wait for another patch?

I also have the new 1.2 patch and its still an issue.

[Angmar_nite]

RTW cavalry was SOOO overpowered. What you have to do is, line the cavalry up facing them, then charge.

[mrmouth]

What you have to do is, line the cavalry up facing them, then charge.

Even then though, the pathfinding is just horrible in regards to calvary.

I personally think its gotten worse with the 1.2 patch, although the infantry pathfinding has gotten better.

Ive seen my heavy calvary in particular do some pretty odd things when asked to ride in a straight line.

[King Császár]

When charging head on...

1. Click once on the target you wish to attack
2. Then click on the run button of the bottom of your screen

You should demolish them every time with that. I love calvary charges with the lance. It also works when you attack them from behind.


And those other things add to the realism. Horses don't always behave accordingly.

[Imperator_Maximus]

Historically cavalry dominated the battle field until the proffession pike armies of the late 15th century. Just maybe there cavalr aren't powerful enough. But when a heavy cavalry units charges my line of swordsmen, I can expect to lose a fourth or a third of that unit from that single charge.

[Sacc]

When charging head on...

1. Click once on the target you wish to attack
2. Then click on the run button of the bottom of your screen

You should demolish them every time with that. I love calvary charges with the lance. It also works when you attack them from behind.


And those other things add to the realism. Horses don't always behave accordingly.

It's all about charging from behind.

[ALejo the Great]

Well something i click on a unit and cavarly attack other!!! i soooo hate that

[mightyfenrir]

Well something i click on a unit and cavarly attack other!!! i soooo hate that

The infantry will do that sometimes too, especially when you're starting to rout a lot of units. I think that's just one of those realistics things where the men go "oooohhhhh, we can kill them really easily, why would I want to run halfway across Naples to kill those guys that are actually stopping to fight us?"

[hyru99]

I believe the calvary in Medieval 2 are bugged up a bit so that is why you see the calvary stop before hitting the enemy.

I do have to say tho depending on the techology advancement of you and the enemy, calvary can be overcome easily with spearman/pikeman. You definately have to use them carefully.

[Goffik]

Are you sure the patch installed correctly? I saw a huge improvement myself. As long as I set them up with enough distance from the enemy and facing the right way, my charges succeed 95% of the time and are pretty devastating, especially from the rear.

As for starting the charge, I always simply double-click the enemy unit and haven't had a problem. I've tried single-click and single-click/run button, but neither seemed to make any difference to success or enemy casualties.

[hyru99]

My apoligies I was referring to the 1.1 patch, not the 1.2 patch. The 1.2 patch was supposed to correct that . I haven't played M2 since the 1.2 patch came out hehe.

[Parzival]

I just played a few custom battles with a generic unit of mailed knights against a generic unit of sicilian norman foot knights on grassy plain. I got mixed results with the full-frontal charge. Charge bonus is everything. When the normans didn't counter-charge, it took three charges and I wiped them out only losing 16 men. However, when they did counter-charge I lost my charge bonus and took much heavier casualties. Good terrain is important too.

I prefer the cavalry mechanics in M2TW over the spam cav of RTW any day. Try some custom battles to get the feel for 'em. Give them enough room to get up a full charge. Wait for them to form up properly etc.

[romanfool]

used correctly cavarlry are very good, in most of my battles, in the open field, 4 or 5 units of my army are usualy cavalry and they account for 30-40 percent of enemy kills, plus they are invaluable when chasing routing units accounting for 80-90 percent of routing enemies.

[El Hamburglo]

I just wish they plowed through guys like they used to. It seems that now even peasants can stop the "medieval wrecking ball" dead in its tracks. They still get plenty of kills, but with a fraction of the visual appeal.

Anyone know any modders planning to de-nerf them?

[napoleonic]

or is this just my stupidity? I having far more trouble with cav charges in vanilla 1.02 than in vanilla 1.01?

what did they do with the mechanism? 1.01 seemed better!

[sapi]

They've tweaked some of the charge criteria, iirc

Many people have been reporting more success with the double click charge, and there's certainly no reason anymore to walk to the target (for a single click, click, wait for the cav to get in formation and hit r to run)

[Giorgos]

They seem to work fine here. I can even properly charge during city sieges without having to form my cavalry unit completely in order to do so. Now, even though a few men maybe out of formation, the rest of them charge properly. Massive improvement for me.

[Exploder]

I find the charge to be far more better in 1.2......

[sapi]

One other thing: I seem to recall a 'minimum range' for the charge being implemented, meaning that you have to get a certain distance away from a target before charging back into the fray.

[DrBeast]

Also, bear in mind that, since the shield bug has been fixed, the units you charge into now have much better defense and thus are harder to kill.