Cavalry are Rubbish

[danrex]

The cavalry works like in the old MM.

You cant engage a guy with a musket "and" a pike, you must circle him and play with the timing of the bayonet in order to kill him 1vs1.

In battles, cavalry have to wait until his infantry fights another regiment to charge and help when the enemies have their minds in the infantry.

[Jyppa]

Having played and led all main types of cavalry over the course of two full-scale linebattles this weekend, I conclude that cavalry is definitely balanced for the lb setting. Yes, it's impossible to kill a good infantryman in an upfront attack, and you have to be more careful about taking volleys, but in return cav is even more deadly to skirmishers and artillery, and swords can really capitalize of the slowness of bayonet stabs in a confused situation such as in a charge.

[Thalamond]

+1 +1 finally two guys with some sense. Still i agree that cav is too slow. It annoys me a lot to see each and every mod/dlc for this game have slow horses. 

[dochtorgajo]

I would like to see a charge button included that gave an increase in speed and also esp form sword armed cavalry an extended sword animation into the charge position as seen in historical paintings and texts. As it is now it doesn't look any different if you are cantering or charging.

Charge needs more impact end of story

This should be absolutely in. Charging with sword readied for thrust was the basic and should be there. But Id say this wont happen just as revision of the way horses move which ich too simplistic and cumbersome now. Maybe in some future game.

[kansasyoda]

I dont know if anyone has said this previously, but Cav should not be used against melee-enabled bayonet infantry. try maneuvering around to attack the Jagers or such.

[Scully]

They need to do more bump damage. I've seen a greatly outnumbered group of riflemen get ambushed from behind and still defeat the cav.

[Saboteur100]

Honestly I think some of you are using cavalry wrong. There are two ways to use it:


• Wait until friendly infantry have engaged enemy infantry (Bayonet-armed or otherwise), then flank the enemy from the side or rear. You'll get plenty of kills this way. You won't want to stay in combat for long, pull out and charge again at an opportune moment.
• Or if friendly infantry haven't engaged enemy infantry, you still have options. Go for infantry that isn't bayonet-armed (riflemen, jagers) or isolated, unprotected enemies like artillery units.
• Attack enemy cavalry head-on or flank them. Depending on what type of cavalry you and the enemy have, the end result of this maneuver is the luck of the draw, however if your cavalry charge stationary cavalry, you'll likely have the advantage.


Use cavalry in the above fashion on ANY GAME MODE and I think you'll find you won't need to complain about cavalry being 'nerfed'


HOW NOT TO USE CAVALRY:


• Charge the enemy head-on into their fire and/or bayonets. This will result in massive casualties for your side. No competent cavalry commander would lead his men head-on into infantry with loaded muskets and/or bayonets. It's just stupid.

Someone said earlier that cavalry should be stronger in hand-to-hand combat than infantry? That's complete and utter bullshit. Cavalry have to manage their horses and such in hand-to-hand combat. Infantry most certainly have the advantage of mobility in close-quarter areas. Cavalry's strength lies in its initial charge impact, not in waiting around after they've charged to fight hand-to-hand, because that most certainly WILL get you killed.

[berserkergang]

The first two points you said describe the role of light cavalry and that is what people do. Horse versus horse charge isn't about look of the draw more of who is better.

The problem is heavy cavalry was capable of charging infantry from the front. Most infantry were unwilling to recieve a 90 stone horse to the face dead or alive.Face it if you stand in front of a 90 stone horse (which is about 9 people) moving at 30-48 km/h and your stood shoulder to shoulder with another guy stopping you from dodging it even if you stick out your 50 inch musket the horses dead or alive body will crush you to death so most people would flee. Murat led french cuirassiers in many frontal charges and broke many squares that's what Heavy cavalry did and he was described as the greatest cavalryman of Europe not the stupidest. Realistically heavy cavalry was to slow to pull of elaborate flanking maneuvers. People who pick heavy cavalry are people who want to fight infantry not sneak up behind them and attacking afks. I MM heavy Cavalry did not have to resort to sneak attacks it could charge them head on.

[DanAngleland]

+1 +1 finally two guys with some sense. Still i agree that cav is too slow. It annoys me a lot to see each and every mod/dlc for this game have slow horses. 

Do you play light cav or just heavy? Light cav is too fast in my opinion, it is hard to hit (especially with lag, which is common on the many highly populated servers) and slaloms around the battlefield like scalextric cars, bumping into people and being a nuisance. I don't think it is realistic for horses to be ridden at that pace all the time, and I don't think it is good for gameplay.

[lagger]

1. Charge the enemy head-on into their fire and/or bayonets. This will result in massive casualties for your side. No competent cavalry commander would lead his men head-on into infantry with loaded muskets and/or bayonets. It's just stupid.

Someone said earlier that cavalry should be stronger in hand-to-hand combat than infantry? That's complete and utter bullshit. Cavalry have to manage their horses and such in hand-to-hand combat. Infantry most certainly have the advantage of mobility in close-quarter areas. Cavalry's strength lies in its initial charge impact, not in waiting around after they've charged to fight hand-to-hand, because that most certainly WILL get you killed.[/list]

In reality, a volley from a line wouldn't do much casualties to charging cavalry, due to the low accuracy (not the case in the nw), and they would close the gap rather quickly so no more than two could be fired. The most stupid thing was actually to charge on the artillery batteries, as canister shots would cause huge casualties.

"(Cuirasses) were no longer proof against musketry at short range and even less against artillery, the cuirass was of greatest use in close-quarter melee, proof against sabre and bayonet blows."
("The Napoleonic Sourcebook" - Haythornthwaite) If that was the case, why does it only take 2 stabs to kill one with bayonet? Heavy cavalry also used thrust more than slashes during the fight, as did polish lancers with their sabers (only the first rank actually had lances), yet it's much more weaker than bayonet in game. And i was not talking about standing stationary, as that's not what cavalry does. I was simply implying that a cavalry man riding towards a foot soldier has an advantage in real life, and that is not the case in nw.

"The force of impact generated by cavalry, provided it was engaged at the proper moment, was out of all proportion to its numbers. Had this not been the case, after all, governments would not have spent so much money on maintaining mounted troops, which represented a heavy cost to the national treasury."
 (- Alessandro Barbero, "The Battle") And right now, there is never a proper moment to charge because you will always get raped by infantry who watch their surroundings. (everyone expect new or bad players) The best you can do is pick off those that are already engaged in fighting with your infantry. you'll get a lot of kills, but that's not really useful now, is it?

[Nordmann]

If cav are so bad, I still want an explanation as to why the top scoring players in every server are playing cav. Seems to be some connection there as far as I'm concerned.

[berserkergang]

Unfortunately mount & Blade didn't include a ability for horses to strafe left and right which lowered their mobility. Men on horse back were incredibly mobile and were trained swordsmen who could easily deflect a bayonet thrust unfortunately in game u can deflect a thrust only from your body but it will still hit the horse sending you onto the floor and unable to protect yourself so since the game can't reflect a horses genuine abilities, horse health and attack damage seem like logical ways to compensate for these losses. Cavalry reached it zenith of importance during the Napoleonic wars and people are only asking this to be shown. If a horseman charges you and you fail to shoot him then you should be at a disadvantage in combat.

Majority of high scorers i see are infantry

[Nordmann]

Majority of high scorers i see are infantry

Nope, definitely not the case, not on EU 1 & 2 anyway. Top scorers with most kills and least deaths are cav, simply because they can get in and out of dodge before anyone can react. No idea where this idea of cav being UP comes from, but if they were better in M&M, then they really must have been insanely OP, because right now they seem to kill their way through an enemy team with relative ease. I guess some of the people complaining just suck at playing cav, because if the class was really that bad, then everyone using it would be bottom of the table in every match.

[lagger]

Majority of high scorers i see are infantry

Nope, definitely not the case, not on EU 1 & 2 anyway. Top scorers with most kills and least deaths are cav, simply because they can get in and out of dodge before anyone can react. No idea where this idea of cav being UP comes from, but if they were better in M&M, then they really must have been insanely OP, because right now they seem to kill their way through an enemy team with relative ease. I guess some of the people complaining just suck at playing cav, because if the class was really that bad, then everyone using it would be bottom of the table in every match.

Getting tons of kill from stabbing ppl in the back while they are engaged in melee or just killing massive amount of new players can easily get you to the top of the list, but it does not mean that you can take on infantryman with some kind of experience on even terms. He will stab your horse and than you with no trouble, unless he cannot time it properly, which is not hard as I have killed dozens of cav without real effort and I wouldn't call myself especially skilled if it comes to bayonet fighting.

[Nordmann]

Majority of high scorers i see are infantry

Nope, definitely not the case, not on EU 1 & 2 anyway. Top scorers with most kills and least deaths are cav, simply because they can get in and out of dodge before anyone can react. No idea where this idea of cav being UP comes from, but if they were better in M&M, then they really must have been insanely OP, because right now they seem to kill their way through an enemy team with relative ease. I guess some of the people complaining just suck at playing cav, because if the class was really that bad, then everyone using it would be bottom of the table in every match.

Getting tons of kill from stabbing ppl in the back while they are engaged in melee or just killing massive amount of new players can easily get you to the top of the list, but it does not mean that you can take on infantryman with some kind of experience on even terms. He will stab your horse and than you with no trouble, unless he cannot time it properly, which is not hard as I have killed dozens of cav without real effort and I wouldn't call myself especially skilled if it comes to bayonet fighting.

So what you're saying, is that an infantry player should be totally helpless as soon as a cav rides towards him? Uh, no thanks. As I said earlier, learn how cav was used in this era, and stop trying to play it like an armoured Knight from the 15th century. They should be used to harass flanks, scout, disrupt, and ride down retreating infantry. They are not meant for a frontal charge on prepared infantry, which I believe was tried at Waterloo (by both sides), and failed spectacularly.