Living Steamroller - A Cavalry Strategy for Floris 2.53

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A couple of screenshots.. I'll upload some more at some point, perhaps.

mb5g.jpg

mb4du.jpg

You might have noticed the presence of high-tier Sarranid Cavalry and Cav. Archers. Most of these were troops I took prisoner during the Rhodok Republic's recent Crusade against the infidel Sarranids and their slippery Sultan and then converted to the dark side of the force. In fact, quite a few came from Hakim's army, which had reached a monstrous size of 575 troops. Naturally, democracy and the people were on the side of my, err, rich knights, who took only 30 casualties (9 deaths)!

The Hasham (C7) and Iqta'dar (H7) troops are great additions to this army-build, by the way, if you can capture them, although they do lower the % of enemy troops knocked unconscious; for some reason, the Hasham is excellent at slashing at enemies during the charge, perhaps because of the Weapon Reach of his scimitar (113). The Iqta'dar, though, are actually preferable to Black Widows, but far less common or easy to obtain.


Hanakoganei said:
I've tried editing a few of the lower tier troops to have no horse. I'm testing it all out right now.

Any improvement?

Hanakoganei said:
Good point. I'm hoping to run into that situation though, because so far like I mentioned, the Khergits are acting like bandits. No real strategy and we're easily able to repel them. But if they were largely skirmishing horse archers (like I want the Khergits to be), for example, I imagine it would be quite an interesting battle to try to figure a tactic out for. Which was the reason I wanted to pit them against my versatile infantry units.

I'd actually meant a predominantly Cavalry-based army, with a lower % of Cav. Archers; would an Infantry-only army be able to cope with the mobility and conflicting styles of the two branches of the opposing army? If the Infantry focused on trying to kill the Cav. Archers, they would be left open to attack from the main Cavalry force but, likewise, if they focused on the Cavalry, they would be peppered from arrows from behind and all sides.

I hope you manage to get it working to report back on how it goes! :grin:

Hanakoganei said:
Hence, they often did frontal charges instead of flanking, because of the psychological aspect.

Sounds like my sort of Cavalry charge.  :wink:
 
A true Swadian.  :smile: With enough heavy cavalry, it's a sound strategy.

Anyway yeah there's some improvement with the more-Khergit-cavalry tweak. It's sadly as simple as putting horses in the inventory of every Khergit troop that didn't already have them, but without ticking the "tf_guarantee_horse" flag. This means that the AI does not group them as cavalry, and can actually use formations. However, it also means that not everybody will have horses. But still, it's a good compromise. Better than a largely dismounted Khergit force, or a mindless pure cavalry force that acts like bandits.

DaElf said:
I'd actually meant a predominantly Cavalry-based army, with a lower % of Cav. Archers; would an Infantry-only army be able to cope with the mobility and conflicting styles of the two branches of the opposing army? If the Infantry focused on trying to kill the Cav. Archers, they would be left open to attack from the main Cavalry force but, likewise, if they focused on the Cavalry, they would be peppered from arrows from behind and all sides.
Yeah that's about right, and a good strategy for a pure cavalry force. You can lure the infantry into trying to attack your skirmishing horse archers to draw them out to be impaled by your lancers. Unless the infantry force can overwhelm the horse archers somehow (unlikely), there's no way the cavalry can lose using that strategy, unless the infantry doesn't fall for it and holds their ground (the AI doesn't often hold ground). In fact, I find myself in that situation once in a while, especially against the Sarranids and I've already been knocked out so I can't reform my lines. In that case, I might retreat in order to prevent the excessive loss of life among my soldiers.

However, a purely lancer cavalry force will lose to a disciplined infantry line especially on a frontal assault. This is why even the Mongols did not employ a pure lancer force (they were about two-thirds horse archers and one-third lancers). In the game, our version of a "disciplined" infantry line is a tight infantry formation, especially if it's two overlapping infantry lines in Square or Shield Wall formation, or simply telling them to stand closer together twice or more. You can repel a frontal lancer assault with an infantry line even without shielded infantry (none of my infantry has shields right now). You can also use trick formations like basins and wedges if you know what you're doing. But if the lancers flank you, especially riding in from the side of your front line using the wedge formation (especially if it's two lancer divisions flanking simultaneously, to converge on the enemy force), then that's a different story. Your line will collapse from the flanks. Not that the AI ever really does this. Actually it may be possible for them to do it, but you might catch them so fast that they never complete the maneuver. But this is a tried and tested tactic that has been done even in the real world, even today lol. It's called the "pincer movement".
 
Hanakoganei said:
A true Swadian.  :smile: With enough heavy cavalry, it's a sound strategy.

Oh, I have plenty of heavy cavalry :razz:

Hanakoganei said:
Anyway yeah there's some improvement with the more-Khergit-cavalry tweak. It's sadly as simple as putting horses in the inventory of every Khergit troop that didn't already have them, but without ticking the "tf_guarantee_horse" flag. This means that the AI does not group them as cavalry, and can actually use formations. However, it also means that not everybody will have horses. But still, it's a good compromise. Better than a largely dismounted Khergit force, or a mindless pure cavalry force that acts like bandits.

Hm, would it make them more likely to spawn with one if you put more than one in their inventory? I guess it could work with some role-playing.. the unmounted ones lost their horses in the last battle and have yet to find a suitable replacement :wink:

Hanakoganei said:
However, a purely lancer cavalry force will lose to a disciplined infantry line especially on a frontal assault. This is why even the Mongols did not employ a pure lancer force (they were about two-thirds horse archers and one-third lancers). In the game, our version of a "disciplined" infantry line is a tight infantry formation, especially if it's two overlapping infantry lines in Square or Shield Wall formation, or simply telling them to stand closer together twice or more. You can repel a frontal lancer assault with an infantry line even without shielded infantry (none of my infantry has shields right now).

This got me wondering if a cavalry wedge COULD actually trick a two-line Shield Wall formation of Infantry by having the first rider (if I could tell them to, I'd also have the next row or two of the wedge do the same) jumping over the lines. (Can horses do this IRL? Anyway, they can in M&B). Sure enough, some of the back line of Infantry turn to face you, rather than the rest of the Wedge, and some others start moving around, panicking :wink: It means that the rest of the Wedge only needs to deal with one, or one-and-a-half, lines of Infantry, which is profoundly easier, leaving a lot of the second line to be routinely trampled from behind. If horses CAN jump over Infantry lines, then there's really no good course of action for the Infantry; if they ignore them, those thta have jumped over can come and slaughter them from behind their lines, but if they turn to face them, the rest of the Wedge can easily break through.

Hanakoganei said:
But if the lancers flank you, especially riding in from the side of your front line using the wedge formation (especially if it's two lancer divisions flanking simultaneously, to converge on the enemy force), then that's a different story. Your line will collapse from the flanks. Not that the AI ever really does this. Actually it may be possible for them to do it, but you might catch them so fast that they never complete the maneuver. But this is a tried and tested tactic that has been done even in the real world, even today lol. It's called the "pincer movement".

Yes, that tends to be good at destroying enemy lines, but you need something to distract them, else they can easily split in to two Shield Walls, each facing in opposite directions! Of course, if you had a third Wedge, hiding behind a handily-placed hill, which could then ride straight through the middle of both of those Shield Walls (assuming they were close enough together), you'd still annihilate them. As long as the Cavalry army used tactics just as effectively as the Infantry army, my money would be on the Cavalry force coming to an easy victory.



On a vaguely related note, here's a nice picture of some Slaver Chiefs filling my screen. They're certainly niche, but this Steamroller build IS their niche. Note that they made up only about 7.5% of my troops actually on the field.

mb6i.jpg

Oh, and the next 3 kills were also by Slaver Chiefs, but I timed taking the screenshot poorly.
 
Haha dude I can't imagine a "steamroller" pure cavalry army without Slaver Chiefs. They may be my favorite of all "heavy" cavalry, even if they're so hard to get.

DaElf said:
Hm, would it make them more likely to spawn with one if you put more than one in their inventory?
Doesn't seem like it. :sad: I did edit the party templates to make it so that the real cavalry guys spawn a bit more often. But it might lead to the same problem I had before, where the AI doesn't know what to do with too much cavalry. Still continuously testing this stuff!

DaElf said:
This got me wondering if a cavalry wedge COULD actually trick a two-line Shield Wall formation of Infantry by having the first rider (if I could tell them to, I'd also have the next row or two of the wedge do the same) jumping over the lines. (Can horses do this IRL? Anyway, they can in M&B).
Yeah they can, but I'm not sure if it was done a lot. I'm also pretty sure that heavy cavalry would've been too encumbered to jump clean over two lines of infantry. I know for sure that heavy cavalrymen would have their horses jump on top of infantry to crush them, especially a stubborn shield wall (like those that used the testudo formation). But I certainly try to jump over an infantry line if I can help it. It's better than subjecting my horse to a pike or axe to the face.

DaElf said:
Yes, that tends to be good at destroying enemy lines, but you need something to distract them, else they can easily split in to two Shield Walls, each facing in opposite directions!
Yes and no. This is certainly where the a main assault comprised of protective infantry or cavalry units and an archer line come in. The archer line will keep their front line distracted. If they turn to face the pincers, they suffer enfilading fire from the archers. The AI typically does not turn to face the pincers because of this. This is a very safe and basic way to do the pincer/double envelopment maneuver.

However. Historically, the pincer movement was achieved also without a main assault line, using really just two pincers. And I've certainly pulled that off many times as well. There are many possible ways to do this, and which one to use will depend on the situation (terrain advantages, enemy army composition, etc.). The most common is the uneven pincers approach, where one pincer is significantly stronger than the other. You start off in formation normally for both pincers, as if you were going to do a straight frontal assault. Allow the enemy to attack your weaker force, positioned in front of everybody else. During this time, fake a retreat while your stronger pincer appears to flee to once side, and your weaker force flees to the opposite side. As the enemy tries to pursue your "fleeing" troops, usually the weaker pincer, reform your ranks and close the pincer. Congration! A winner is you!

If the enemy refuses to attack your weaker force, charge your weaker force. After a certain time (the timing is where your skill as a commander comes into play), pull your forces back as a fake rout. The enemy will try to pursue your force. While your weaker pincer is running away, the second pincer positions between the pursuers and where their reinforcements will come from. Suddenly turn your weaker pincer and hold them in formation. Close the pincers using the stronger pincers. As your enemy is encircled, you will likely completely destroy that force before their reinforcement reaches. Simple reform your ranks and use a tactic to suit the situation.
 
Okay so in your guide you said "Heck, if you really love these guys then knock yourself out (preferably not literally) and get 25 of them for the +2 boost, but this will mean  that training any Swadian/Sarranid troops to C6 will take longer, since you'll have fewer of them, so I wouldn't particularly advise it." and "The key here is to try to recruit in bulk, so that plenty of Exp gets added to the Exp pool for that stack of units each day."

How does having more troops of a particular type increase the rate at which they level?
 
Sorry, guys; I've not been around!

Hanakoganei said:
Doesn't seem like it. :sad: I did edit the party templates to make it so that the real cavalry guys spawn a bit more often. But it might lead to the same problem I had before, where the AI doesn't know what to do with too much cavalry. Still continuously testing this stuff!

Any luck here yet?

Hanakoganei said:
Yeah they can, but I'm not sure if it was done a lot. I'm also pretty sure that heavy cavalry would've been too encumbered to jump clean over two lines of infantry. I know for sure that heavy cavalrymen would have their horses jump on top of infantry to crush them, especially a stubborn shield wall (like those that used the testudo formation). But I certainly try to jump over an infantry line if I can help it. It's better than subjecting my horse to a pike or axe to the face.

I normally (terrain-depending) can jump clean over one line and clip my horse's hooves on the second line, so I guess that's sort of hitting them. What it does seem to do, though, is open them up to the lancers following me.. skewered infantry, anyone?

Hanakoganei said:
The most common is the uneven pincers approach .. etc.

You have educated me! :razz:

Othello said:
Okay so in your guide you said "Heck, if you really love these guys then knock yourself out (preferably not literally) and get 25 of them for the +2 boost, but this will mean  that training any Swadian/Sarranid troops to C6 will take longer, since you'll have fewer of them, so I wouldn't particularly advise it." and "The key here is to try to recruit in bulk, so that plenty of Exp gets added to the Exp pool for that stack of units each day."

How does having more troops of a particular type increase the rate at which they level?

I say this because of the way that troops level up in M&B. When you get XP from a battle (or anything else, e.g. Trainer skill, Quests etc.), each troop is assigned a fraction of that XP. However, it doesn't work as each individual troop having their own amount of XP (the exception being the player and Palantini); the XP gained goes in to a 'pool' of XP for that troop type. A troop will only level up once there is enough XP in that 'pool' for one troop to be eligible for upgrading. Once you do that, the relevant amount of XP will be removed from that troop-type's pool.

So, if you have lots of recruits training up together, the shared XP will be grouped together in to 1-2 pools, allowing troops to reach higher levels quicker. Of course, the tail-end of the recruits will still take a lot longer than the rest.
 
Ah yeah sorry. I got the Khergits to form mostly cavalry but it isn't satisfactory because the skills and equipment of the former infantry units didn't seem to fit well with the horses, and it was mostly fodder against even a small but disciplined spear formation. I defeated a 500+ horde with only 80 infantry and archers and like 2 casualties. Honestly I think we're better off with the way it is in Floris right now.

It was my frustration with this that led me to come up with the idea of the new troop trees idea I posted in another thread.
 
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