Cavalry AI downgrade in full release ?

[Totalgarbage]

Am I understanding this right? The issue is that cavalry gets stuck on deep formations? Because that already happened in 1.9 (and possibly in earlier patches, I didn't really do any tests before 1.9). I'm not sure if it's an AI problem or a physics problem though. Maybe the problem is that when they get stuck, they don't try to pass through again (or are maybe unable to)?

One okay solution for me is putting the cavalry in skein and make them advance to the enemy while staying in formation, then pressing charge when they are near the enemy. Skein formation got a lot better after 1.9. Another is putting cavalry in several formations (at least 3) and charging with them individually, but I find it a bit too tedious for my liking to make them attack with different timings.

 

[Carióceco]

Cavalry are quite fine now compared to before, they definitely are the strongest units out there and rack up the most kills.
Where it gets dodgy is when you get to those large battles and they all get stuck with the infantry where they die more than they normally 'should' with smaller# battles. As well as not reforming up as well as the initial charge since they end up all over the map literally (unless you manually command them again) and end up just charging in out of pace/solo; especially when the opposition has their mix of cavalry and HAs too that confuses the AI formation.

Yes but this don't happen was what made them the strongest units, what's the utility of them doing a lot of charge damage if at each attack they get stuck in the middle of the infantry, before this did not happen and they were much more useful

 

[Carióceco]

Am I understanding this right? The issue is that cavalry gets stuck on deep formations? Because that already happened in 1.9 (and possibly in earlier patches, I didn't really do any tests before 1.9). I'm not sure if it's an AI problem or a physics problem though. Maybe the problem is that when they get stuck, they don't try to pass through again (or are maybe unable to)?

One okay solution for me is putting the cavalry in skein and make them advance to the enemy while staying in formation, then pressing charge when they are near the enemy. Skein formation got a lot better after 1.9. Another is putting cavalry in several formations (at least 3) and charging with them individually, but I find it a bit too tedious for my liking to make them attack with different timings.

It happened with less frequency and it makes no sense for soldiers to leave formation when giving the attack command, since this does not happen in real life and as it makes commands more effective in the game

 

[Carióceco]

Am I understanding this right? The issue is that cavalry gets stuck on deep formations? Because that already happened in 1.9 (and possibly in earlier patches, I didn't really do any tests before 1.9). I'm not sure if it's an AI problem or a physics problem though. Maybe the problem is that when they get stuck, they don't try to pass through again (or are maybe unable to)?

One okay solution for me is putting the cavalry in skein and make them advance to the enemy while staying in formation, then pressing charge when they are near the enemy. Skein formation got a lot better after 1.9. Another is putting cavalry in several formations (at least 3) and charging with them individually, but I find it a bit too tedious for my liking to make them attack with different timings.

Looks at this ****, the cavalry was in skein formation and 4 seconds after i give the advance command look at how much they separated and how much they pile up on the left just because there was a single random enemy there, it's ridiculous

 

[JunKeteer]

Yes but this don't happen was what made them the strongest units, what's the utility of them doing a lot of charge damage if at each attack they get stuck in the middle of the infantry, before this did not happen and they were much more useful

I think saying they were more useful before the latest changes is being dishonest. They have objectively improved, but they could also be better as well.
They should get stuck charging into a mob of infantry; they aren't supposed to be like some rolling tank mowing down a square of infantry.
The only stuck issue is how the AI works with them wanting to engage the closest enemy much like you get with the rest of the units as they should attack the closest threats.

 

[Carióceco]

I think saying they were more useful before the latest changes is being dishonest. They have objectively improved, but they could also be better as well.
They should get stuck charging into a mob of infantry; they aren't supposed to be like some rolling tank mowing down a square of infantry.
The only stuck issue is how the AI works with them wanting to engage the closest enemy much like you get with the rest of the units as they should attack the closest threats.

For a 420 kg animal running at 80 km/h, yes, mainly when is 100+ of them charging at the same time they'll easily pass through a formation of infantry unless they are pierced by some weapon

 

[JunKeteer]

Look, I'm not a historian, you/I weren't witness to exactly how the cavalry were used in those times, or how well the individuals/units actually stayed in formations in RL situation (I'm sure someone else here can enlighten on that).

But I'm pretty sure you can still get that 'LOTR gandalf/rohan two-towers' thing by manually telling them to skein formation and charge to X location behind the enemy. Using advance or charge (with how it's scripted for the AI) won't do that.

 

[Totalgarbage]

Looks at this ****, the cavalry was in skein formation and 4 seconds after i give the advance command look at how much they separated and how much they pile up on the left just because there was a single random enemy there, it's ridiculous

Ok yeah this normally doesn't happen to me with skein + advance. Did you press advance when the enemy were too close to you, or press charge? I'm genuinely interested because cavalry tend to stay in formation for me when I order them to move, advance or follow me. Oh, and just to be extra clear in case you're a newer player, when I say "advance", I mean "engage" (F1 + F4). That's what the formation used to be called until a year or so ago, and I still get confused. Otherwise it's very weird that this is happening unless maybe something broke with patch 1.0.1 or 1.0.2. Things were fine for me when I played vanilla for a bit after release.

But yeah when you press the charge command, all the troops dogpile against a single enemy, that **** needs to be changed if it still happens.

 

[Ichon]

I've been playing more with infantry the last few days than cavalry but I noticed it makes an absolutely huge difference if you charge vs engage vs shieldwall.

90% of the time charge is the best call IF you have disrupted the enemy formation by distracting with cavalry or something that caused the enemy infantry to spit up giving your own infantry a #s advantage for the first few seconds- similarly if you deployed your archers close to your infantry, having them charge 5 seconds before the infantry can win or lose a battle.

Fought 4 different battles 4 times each trying different formations and not only did charge win with the least losses most of the time, when the charge is called made a huge difference. Between 30-60% fewer casualties vs losing a battle outright with the exact same units and terrain and only varying the orders by 10 seconds.

I can see TW thinking that is a good thing as it makes player orders quite important but it also makes formations relatively less meaningful. I can't say meaningless because cavalry in skein or infantry in circle do seem to be better in certain situation while archers in loose formation vs other archers seems to work really well- the infantry vs infantry fight seems 100% won by charge with 2 handed cutting weapons being a bit OP but the main thing is infantry just pile in and target 1 thing in front of them.

If formations allowed infantry a bit more space and they had target priority like 50% vs oppposite model, and 25% split to the 2 nearest models so attacking from an angle or poking a spear past the frontline unit, formations might actually make a difference.

Talking about infantry in a cavalry thread because with the infantry testing I think the main part of cavalry weakness is being a large target that 4-5 infantry can attack at once quite easily combined with how easily cavalry get stopped by single infantry.

Running into another horse, a tree, or a shieldwall or line of infantty 3-4 deep absolutely should stop a horse but there are way too many times a very glancing hit where an infantry stepped in front of the horse stops the horse in its tracks giving time for nearby infantry to swarm cuts down cavalry really fast.

HA until they run out of ammo suffer from this much less so those cavalry that are good HA and have strong armor llike Darkhans are really good but regular melee cavalry's main use is as a distraction.

 

[bestmods168]

what's your character level, tactic level, etc.? And no, you don't use advance command on cavalry. You use charge.

 

[CrazyElf]

Overall the AI needs major improvements in this game. OFten the AI makes "stupid" decisions that do not make tactical sense. Now in the context of this question, the AI was worse pre-1.9, but this is still not a good position to be in.

I would recommend everyone use RBM AI mod for now as it significantly improves the AI.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

what's your character level, tactic level, etc.? And no, you don't use advance command on cavalry. You use charge.

Actually using the advance command is for making them attack things that are near them without instigating them to cycle charge first. How effective it is depends on the versions, but often been recommended in the past to advance Cav in SW to attack in a more controlled way into a nearby enemy group.

 

[Carióceco]

After the 1.9.0 update no matter what formation you using the cavalry will always mess up and dogpile on the enemies, sometimes one infantry soldier makes a entire cavalry formation fall apart:

While in 1.8 the cavalry passed more easily through the enemies avoiding the dogpile and the formation AI was more consistent

 

[Cullam]

In my opinion you can have useless cav (vanilla) or overpowered cav (rbm mod), a middle ground would be good.

EDIT:

Not talking about horse archers, they were OP since I don´t know. Maybe a solution would to give be to give some horse archers the best weapon like a glaive?!

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Yeah they're a constant embarrassment. Best use is just a faster moving shield wall to sit in front of enemy ranged and soak up arrows while your ranged kill them all. RTS control mods makes them a bit better but the dog piles still happen. They should give them a glaive, mendevilin or long 2 hander in the 4th slot AND hire someone to program them to actually switch weapons so they can kill stuff efficiently up close. The cycle charge looked nice on the videos 5 years ago but it's worthless in the game.

 

[Allias]

I'd say that cavalry is not bad, but it needs babysitting, I agree. And that can be done in vanilla. Now I'm not talking battanian scouts, I don't even consider them cavalry, but for the other tier 4-5-6 cav that the factions have, you need to tell them where to go with "hold position" instead of "charge". It actually works wonders as Ive seen my Druzhinik Champions decimate anything in front of them and then murder the enemy archers. I will also give point to the fact that a few of them will die before my character is leveled, but after like level 20 they become quite nice. Mostly because of the extra hp they get. I dont have the means to record what I do with my cav or what my build is but just know that in a fight you need to constantly control them while your infantry and archers turtle the enemy. I always keep at least 100 cav and they are the main damage dealer in big fights, turning the tides even against armies consisting of 1k elite units.

 

[bestmods168]

I'd say that cavalry is not bad, but it needs babysitting, I agree. And that can be done in vanilla. Now I'm not talking battanian scouts, I don't even consider them cavalry, but for the other tier 4-5-6 cav that the factions have, you need to tell them where to go with "hold position" instead of "charge". It actually works wonders as Ive seen my Druzhinik Champions decimate anything in front of them and then murder the enemy archers. I will also give point to the fact that a few of them will die before my character is leveled, but after like level 20 they become quite nice. Mostly because of the extra hp they get. I dont have the means to record what I do with my cav or what my build is but just know that in a fight you need to constantly control them while your infantry and archers turtle the enemy. I always keep at least 100 cav and they are the main damage dealer in big fights, turning the tides even against armies consisting of 1k elite units.

Take the OP's complaint with a grain of salt. Dude doesn't even know how to play the game. Just another baseless claim by someone who doesn't even know the basics of the game. Dude was using the advance command on the cavalry. Of course they charge up to the enemy and stay there at the front line. That's one reason why taleworlds is ignoring a lot of complaints.

 

[Carióceco]

Take the OP's complaint with a grain of salt. Dude doesn't even know how to play the game. Just another baseless claim by someone who doesn't even know the basics of the game. Dude was using the advance command on the cavalry. Of course they charge up to the enemy and stay there at the front line. That's one reason why taleworlds is ignoring a lot of complaints.

Lmao, the last image was charge command not advance, the advance command works better but the formation still can easily break and by any reason if you give that command the cavalry armed with lance will change to one handed weapon so it's less efective, then it's bad and needs to be improved, if TaleWorlds really don't care about these things which really affects the gameplay and don't want to improve it's because of laziness or lack of money, simple as that