Heavy Cavalry - Weak or Not ?

[Jean de Mentz]

I apply this poll just to see the general opinion of the community.....due to the updates!

 

[Jesus YOUR LORD]

The strength or weakness of cav depend on the tactics used by the person on the horse and the terrain of the map. There are some brilliant cav plays on oceanic servers (ACC1 comes to mind) who will often dominate when going cav, and there are some really **** players who charge headlong into pikes and complain that cav are underpowered.  Good cav rarely charge head-on unless there are lots of them together, they do best flanking and ****ing archers and keeping to the edge of melee fights and striking unprepared players.

Your poll is useless, clearly you feel cav are underpowered as all except one of your poll options imply that cav suck.  I assume this is because you don't know how to play the class.  If you want us to assume otherwise you should have put up a less stupid poll.

With love and forgiveness,

YOUR LORD Jesus Christ

 

[Midgard]

see cav = run for your life!!!!!!

 

[Rhade]

Cav is fine.

Native is extremely well balanced.

If you're a bad player, you're going to struggle being effective, no matter what class you play.

 

[Jean de Mentz]

The strength or weakness of cav depend on the tactics used by the person on the horse and the terrain of the map. There are some brilliant cav plays on oceanic servers (ACC1 comes to mind) who will often dominate when going cav, and there are some really **** players who charge headlong into pikes and complain that cav are underpowered.  Good cav rarely charge head-on unless there are lots of them together, they do best flanking and ******** archers and keeping to the edge of melee fights and striking unprepared players.

Your poll is useless, clearly you feel cav are underpowered as all except one of your poll options imply that cav suck.  I assume this is because you don't know how to play the class.  If you want us to assume otherwise you should have put up a less stupid poll.

With love and forgiveness,

YOUR LORD Jesus Christ

I very fun of the cavalry play even if i am not very good at it...I do not imply that cavalry should charge on pikes!!! And i have not followed that tactic! The tactics you refer though don't apply to this poll. Having archers shooting at pikemen it's logical enough ok.....but what about simple spearmen!!! Even the heavy armored horse can be stopped with the cheapest spear of the game(i have enjoyed many kills that way ) if targeted in the center of change, (which is simple if the speed of the horse is low!!!) On the other hand doing rounds the map until you manage to flank the opponent isn't the safest thing when a simple shortbow with bodkin arrows throws your warhorse dead with 6-7 shots!!! When historically shortbow could pierce heavy cavalry barding only in dreams! Anyway flanking and killing an opponent when he fights your teammate, just because he can stop your horse at will with his spear, is a tactic best fit to LIGHT CAVALRY !
And many others problems such as that mounts should always trip and damage opponents when they pass over targets, (not just gently stop if they don't have enough speed) horsemen have even/less reach than footmen.....etc. The list is large....with major problems in my opinion the Warhorse's health,damage,charge-power issues + spear vs horse barding.


Have you seen any of these problems, or simply you thing i am a noob? I have lanced many opponents and i am not making this poll just because i think cavalry should charge on pikes, cavalry actually with the couched lance option is the best way of earning your first kills in an open battlefield if used skillfully! But Heavy cavalry should not be Light cavalry! Otherwise what's the difference in Swavia vs Khergit?  Heavy Warhorses where expensive and reliable that's why they got their name u know! And setting a longspear against the horse was historically a secure option if you where kneeling,stable,and with supporting pikemen doing the same, not being a single moving powerful thrusting machine that can rip any armored Warhorse at glimpse! 

 

[Jesus YOUR LORD]

[
I very fun of the cavalry play even if i am not very good at it...I do not imply that cavalry should charge on pikes!!! And i have not followed that tactic! The tactics you refer though don't apply to this poll. Having archers shooting at pikemen it's logical enough ok.....but what about simple spearmen!!! Even the heavy armored horse can be stopped with the cheapest spear of the game(i have enjoyed many kills that way ) if targeted in the center of change, (which is simple if the speed of the horse is low!!!) On the other hand doing rounds the map until you manage to flank the opponent isn't the safest thing when a simple shortbow with bodkin arrows throws your warhorse dead with 6-7 shots!!! When historically shortbow could pierce heavy cavalry barding only in dreams! Anyway flanking and killing an opponent when he fights your teammate, just because he can stop your horse at will with his spear, is a tactic best fit to LIGHT CAVALRY !
And many others problems such as that mounts should always trip and damage opponents when they pass over targets, (not just gently stop if they don't have enough speed) horsemen have even/less reach than footmen.....etc. The list is large....with major problems in my opinion the Warhorse's health,damage,charge-power issues + spear vs horse barding.


Have you seen any of these problems, or simply you thing i am a noob? I have lanced many opponents and i am not making this poll just because i think cavalry should charge on pikes, cavalry actually with the couched lance option is the best way of earning your first kills in an open battlefield if used skillfully! But Heavy cavalry should not be Light cavalry! Otherwise what's the difference in Swavia vs Khergit?  Heavy Warhorses where expensive and reliable that's why they got their name u know! And setting a longspear against the horse was historically a secure option if you where kneeling,stable,and with supporting pikemen doing the same, not being a single moving powerful thrusting machine that can rip any armored Warhorse at glimpse!

ahhhhhh I understand now. You're asking if warhorses are historically accurate and realistic as opposed to balanced in gameplay.  Well explained and sorry if I was an arse before. I agree that they are not realistic, the momentum of a half ton of armouredhorse would be hard to stop with a bamboo spear and a horse falling on you at full pelt would surely result in significant injury.  However for gameplay purposes I think they are well balanced.

 

[SpittingLlama]

I think most of the benefit of having heavy cav is that your horse doesn't die in one bolt/arrow to the head. More skilled players will be able to use it to get around infantry by bumping them off more, and I guess you need to be skilled to buy something like a charger in a normal game

 

[MadocComadrin]

Remove the 2mph horse-bumps and heavy-cav would be perfect.

 

[Chaingun]

I'm a cav player and if anything I'd prefer heavy cav to have less HP but also being somewhat cheaper. I.e. I think they are more powerful and expensive than they need to be to fill their role.

As it is, it is silly how much more resistant to missile fire they are than the light horses - and the paradox is you'll rarely afford them when you actually need them the most (e.g. when losing due to archer mass).

Consequently they end up mostly being used by the team which is winning anyway. So yes, I voted "heavy cavalry is the best choice" when you can afford it, which you won't if you are losing, and that IMO sucks. Heavy cavalry is probably technically "balanced" but it is off from a Battle mode perspective - rather than adding dynamics to the game, heavy cavalry makes the Battle game more static by cementing the winning team's lead.

Should Taleworlds change it? No, it's probably not worth messing around with, and risks making balance worse at this stage.

 

[FDEL]

I think the heavy cavalry's "heaviness" is fine as it is. Even though it might take 6-7 arrows to bring it down, lighter horses take much less (2-3 arrows at most for saddle and coursers). On top of that, heavy cavalry is better protected against non-piercing attacks like sword slashes (took me 8 good swings with a great sword to kill a stray armored horse the other day). I feel that the important thing isn't to make them as historically accurate as possible, but to maintain the effect that having an armored horse means you have a sense of safety while others see you as more dangerous, to a noticeable degree compared to lighter horses. This I believe has already been achieved.

 

[Helz]

I'm a cav player and if anything I'd prefer heavy cav to have less HP but also being somewhat cheaper. I.e. I think they are more powerful and expensive than they need to be to fill their role.

As it is, it is silly how much more resistant to missile fire they are than the light horses - and the paradox is you'll rarely afford them when you actually need them the most (e.g. when losing due to archer mass).

Consequently they end up mostly being used by the team which is winning anyway. So yes, I voted "heavy cavalry is the best choice" when you can afford it, which you won't if you are losing, and that IMO sucks. Heavy cavalry is probably technically "balanced" but it is off from a Battle mode perspective - rather than adding dynamics to the game, heavy cavalry makes the Battle game more static by cementing the winning team's lead.

Should Taleworlds change it? No, it's probably not worth messing around with, and risks making balance worse at this stage.

I pretty much agree with this, but then it's not just true for cavalry.  If one team is easily beating the other team, than within a few rounds the winning team's infantry is going to be fully loaded out in the best armor and weapons.  This of course makes it even less likely that the losing team will pull it together and make a comeback.  Honestly I wouldn't want to change it much either, because it's fun to look like a badass, and I think good play should be rewarded. 

As for the OP, I think cavalry are fine.  I rarely play with them, and I enjoy slaughtering their horses, but they command attention on the battlefield.  If the other side has 3 or 4 cav, you have to constantly keep their current location in your head to avoid being speared from behind.  They require a lot more energy on my part to keep them from killing me.  One of the most effective uses of cavalry in a fight is to simply run over your enemy while your friend melees him.  As someone who has experienced the wrong end of that a lot, I can tell you it sucks.  Just don't get complacent, because there's nothing better than slashing that punk cav in the face if he gets a little too close.

 

[Hero_of_Hiroshima_Returns]

Sword and Cav, forget the lance/spear, this is my philosophy, get the fastest horse you can buy, out maneuver the spear cav, slash them when they are stopped.

 

[FrisianDude]

Hmm, if you manage to do that effectively then you're a pretty decent horseman, I suppose.

 

[Jean de Mentz]

I think the heavy cavalry's "heaviness" is fine as it is. Even though it might take 6-7 arrows to bring it down, lighter horses take much less (2-3 arrows at most for saddle and coursers). On top of that, heavy cavalry is better protected against non-piercing attacks like sword slashes (took me 8 good swings with a great sword to kill a stray armored horse the other day). I feel that the important thing isn't to make them as historically accurate as possible, but to maintain the effect that having an armored horse means you have a sense of safety while others see you as more dangerous, to a noticeable degree compared to lighter horses. This I believe has already been achieved.

I am confused... how exactly secure you feel when you are slower and less mobile than 2-3 good archers with 3000 gold (at least) less expensive equipment that can unhorse you in 5-6 secs max???
Every time you charge a prepared infantry/archer you have to be more carefull than he does even if heavy equipped! + your sword swings where while horse was imobile? Cause i think with a longaxe one proper hit at a charging horse is enough....

I think choosing the Lighter equipped horses makes you a rather faster/difficult target and since you can't charge them anyway (because you are going to be stopped by a spear or any polearm or arrows) , it's much more effective to do the usual Light Cav tact of flanking and etc!
Why buying a Warhorse or armor anyway?  If you are going to be the cav-flanker anyway??? Even shortbow can crush you!

That's the point of the post.....

But why not having a new extra role like Heavy Cavalry anyway....? A role as it should be ....DANGEROUS!

Have a new move applied : set spear .  Not having infantry impaling horses at sight anymore....
Have horses with more HP and charging power but be more expesive and worthy of their cost . Horses should not be treated like shields!!!
Stopping an unarmored charging animal with a simple hit it's fine but that doesn't mean you leave undamaged!
Having paid for a heavy armored horse should give the player the advantage to be a true knight! not a greedy flanker. That means that you can charge on light infantry(arhers,simple spearmen etc) prepared or not without worry of loosing your mount or your life(if you know when and how to use lance)! This isn't unbalanced if properly counter balanced!!! This equipment could be counter balanced by other weapons/tactics....(heavy arbalest, Set spear formations, 2 infantry united to stop the knight) . All these can be very easily tested i think and developed to give the aspect of the Heavy Knight to a game called Mount & Blade....it's same to use mounts like coca cans