SP - General Cavalry charge behaves sort of like infantry.

[GG Cannon]

Okay, so, I am kind of a fan of Gengis Khan strategy of "all cavalry" and have made my army accordingly.
I have so far about 300 hundred units where over 250 of those are cavalry, with over 170-180 being melee cavalry.
I noticed a few things by playing with that.
One is that cavalry is indeed very strong against infantry, as it should be, in real war it was something that usually mowed down infantry units, specially archers, yet, I started to notice a few weird behaviors of cavalry.

I usually separate my melee cavalry in 2 to 3 units in the formation.Usually the 3, 5 and 6 key, with 6 or 7 being my companions.
I order all cavalry melee units to follow me and use F6 for infantry, archers and mounted archers so that I don't have to worry about commanding them very much and only give orders if strictly needed.

I then go towards the enemy cavalry and give the charge order to biggest of the melee cavalry formations, about over 110 to 120 cavalry units, as soon as we engage.

I then keep about 40 to 60 units with me and go towards the archers, that by this point, have been exposed by the bigger cavalry unit, and give the second charge command to the smaller elite unit, as it is mostly formed by elite cataphracts and banner knights and only keep my companions following me until the end of the fight.

As I do that a lot and have a lot of cavalry fighting at all times, I started to notice some weird behavior in the cavalry AI.
One is that they behave kind of half cavalry, half infantry.
In what I mean is, they will walk around a bit like actual horseman, but they engage enemies as if they were infantry, as in, they stick to the enemy they are fighting until they die and then go to the next one instead of using hit&run tactics, most of the time.
Its also not unusual to see a LOT of cavalry units forming a circle keeping an enemy on the inside in a way that no one can actually hit anyone.

They also don't seem to mind allies or even the player's position and direction at all, so it is not uncommon to have an allied knight suddenly passing or stopping in front of you and completely killing your momentum.
With so many horses it is a given it would happen from time to time, but that happens ALL THE TIME, even when you have very little people together with you, so they have no care of position, direction and speed to avoid crashing with you or other units like actual horse riders would.

I also noticed how very little damage crashing on an infantry unit with a horse does. It is usually only from 1 to 4 blunt damage only.
Do you have any idea how strong a horse running you over is? Like, people die at the first crash, at times.
Armor or no armor, you are going to the ground. At least it should have a mechanic where the person falls to the ground flat or gets sent flying for a meter or two, because, it HURTS BAD.

This guy in the video above was sent to the hospital.

Of course there are infantry tactics against horses that are needed as well, such as crouching and holding a lance pointing at a 20 to 45 degrees angle with its "pommel" touching the ground and that should also be implemented in the game by crouching and holding RMB with a lance, just as also a strategy employed by AI, which increases damage to the horse relative to the horse's own speed.

and there was also "Cheval de Frise", which is also lacking in the game.

An armor or a shield is nothing against a horse's charge, but any sort of pike at an angle was deadly for them.

I also noticed how little cavalry NPCs tend to employ in their armies, which makes my strategy almost too effective.
The only time I faced an army with close to my numbers of cavalry units was when I did a 400 versus 750 battle against the Khuzait where I still had almost 2 fold their numbers in cavalry and it was still a massacre.

Summing it up:
-There needs to be slight alterations to the AI of melee units on horse back, as at times they behave as if they were infantry.
-Cavalry units need to be aware of allies speed and direction in their surroundings, as real world riders would avoid crashing with allies at all costs.
-Cavalry charge needs to give WAY more damage when crashing with an infantry.
-Just as the cavalry should be buffed, there also needs to be more anti-cavalry tactics employable by the AI.
-NPC parties should employ WAY more cavalry units than they currently do.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

deGoucan Scrolls Index

 

[TheGrainMan]

What the **** are those poll options?? I don't agree with any of those statements. As for the cavalary AI, yes it sucks. All the AI in this game, while much better than Warband, sucks. But it goes both ways too, because the way I want cavalry to behave is going to be different than how you want cavalry to behave, and both of our opinions are clearly different than Taleworlds.

Personally I think cavalry behaves much too aggressively and melee cavalry is a counterproductive force in this game. I stick to horse archers since they put out roughly the same damage to infantry and don't die in the process. I think Taleworlds recognized that cavalry was OP in Warband and purposefully made them behave poorly as a kind of stealth nerf.

The historical examples serve no purpose since cavalry in different armies was used in vastly different ways. We need to stop pretending M&B is in any way historically accurate.

 

[GG Cannon]

What the **** are those poll options?? I don't agree with any of those statements.

What option do you find lacking in the poll?
I can't edit current entries, but I can create a new entry.
If possible, try to word it in a way that is more wide-ranging and more people can relate to.
I only added the options that came to mind.

 

[GG Cannon]

Personally I think cavalry behaves much too aggressively and melee cavalry is a counterproductive force in this game. I stick to horse archers since they put out roughly the same damage to infantry and don't die in the process. I think Taleworlds recognized that cavalry was OP in Warband and purposefully made them behave poorly as a kind of stealth nerf.

I actually usually lose only from 5 all the way down 0 units in an engagement to any army even up to twice my unit count with that melee army strategy. I call it "truck-kun army", because it will send your army to another world by running it over.

Cavalry was seriously OP in real life as well, it is OP in general, that is why people employed it so much over all of history and why reinforcements are usually called "the cavalry".

The game may not be historically accurate, but it is historically based and I am mentioning only things that were employed over ALL of history and not a specific era or time period.

We all want cavalry to behave differently, but the Hit&Run then circle back strategy is almost universal to cavalry as well, as it was its greatest advantage and is something that is not being employed by the AI.

If something, I think all units from all factions should have more than one path to becoming cavalry when max tier and there should be WAY more warhorses in the game in general.
That is how much it was employed and how important cavalry was to medieval warfare all over the world at all time periods.

 

[Kreu2009]

I think you should not try to make cavalry realistic.
You can't make horse bumping damage realistic but at the same time lack mechanics like a horse falling down when it hits another horse or solid object.
If you just make one thing realistic but leave out all the other things that "balance" it in real life, its not going to work.

That said i do think that cav needs some changes.
Cav Behaviour needs to be overhauled. While i don't think they behace like infantry, they do often get stuck because they block each other.
At the same time i would like their charge to do a little bit more damage, while they should take more once they get stuck in an infantry formation. Spear and pike bracing would be a really cool mechanic.

 

[GG Cannon]

I think you should not try to make cavalry realistic.
You can't make horse bumping damage realistic but at the same time lack mechanics like a horse falling down when it hits another horse or solid object.
If you just make one thing realistic but leave out all the other things that "balance" it in real life, its not going to work.

Well, you could add a chance that, at sudden stops, like when you hit a solid object, another horse or when a pikeman stick a lance at your horse and it stops and raises in two legs, that there'd be a percentage chance based on your riding level of your character to fall from the horse, exactly like it happens when the horse dies, except it'd still be alive.
So if you hit another horse or something, the horse wouldn't fall, but depending on your riding level, you would fall from the horse.
It would be basically the same thing to the player's character point of view and indeed make it a bit more realistic and one more anti-cavalry mechanic that would allow for that cavalry buff as well and provide more balance to the game's cavalry, as even NPC's would fall from the horse from time to time.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

deGoucan Scrolls Index

 

[Prison Mike]

What option do you find lacking in the poll?
I can't edit current entries, but I can create a new entry.
If possible, try to word it in a way that is more wide-ranging and more people can relate to.
I only added the options that came to mind.

the options in the poll are more than fine. this person is just really angry at something.

 

[Prison Mike]

Okay, so, I am kind of a fan of Gengis Khan strategy of "all cavalry" and have made my army accordingly.
I have so far about 300 hundred units where over 250 of those are cavalry, with over 170-180 being melee cavalry.
I noticed a few things by playing with that.
One is that cavalry is indeed very strong against infantry, as it should be, in real war it was something that usually mowed down infantry units, specially archers, yet, I started to notice a few weird behaviors of cavalry.

I usually separate my melee cavalry in 2 to 3 units in the formation.Usually the 3, 5 and 6 key, with 6 or 7 being my companions.
I order all cavalry melee units to follow me and use F6 for infantry, archers and mounted archers so that I don't have to worry about commanding them very much and only give orders if strictly needed.

I then go towards the enemy cavalry and give the charge order to biggest of the melee cavalry formations, about over 110 to 120 cavalry units, as soon as we engage.

I then keep about 40 to 60 units with me and go towards the archers, that by this point, have been exposed by the bigger cavalry unit, and give the second charge command to the smaller elite unit, as it is mostly formed by elite cataphracts and banner knights and only keep my companions following me until the end of the fight.

As I do that a lot and have a lot of cavalry fighting at all times, I started to notice some weird behavior in the cavalry AI.
One is that they behave kind of half cavalry, half infantry.
In what I mean is, they will walk around a bit like actual horseman, but they engage enemies as if they were infantry, as in, they stick to the enemy they are fighting until they die and then go to the next one instead of using hit&run tactics, most of the time.
Its also not unusual to see a LOT of cavalry units forming a circle keeping an enemy on the inside in a way that no one can actually hit anyone.

They also don't seem to mind allies or even the player's position and direction at all, so it is not uncommon to have an allied knight suddenly passing or stopping in front of you and completely killing your momentum.
With so many horses it is a given it would happen from time to time, but that happens ALL THE TIME, even when you have very little people together with you, so they have no care of position, direction and speed to avoid crashing with you or other units like actual horse riders would.

I also noticed how very little damage crashing on an infantry unit with a horse does. It is usually only from 1 to 4 blunt damage only.
Do you have any idea how strong a horse running you over is? Like, people die at the first crash, at times.
Armor or no armor, you are going to the ground. At least it should have a mechanic where the person falls to the ground flat or gets sent flying for a meter or two, because, it HURTS BAD.

This guy in the video above was sent to the hospital.

Of course there are infantry tactics against horses that are needed as well, such as crouching and holding a lance pointing at a 20 to 45 degrees angle with its "pommel" touching the ground and that should also be implemented in the game by crouching and holding RMB with a lance, just as also a strategy employed by AI, which increases damage to the horse relative to the horse's own speed.

and there was also "Cheval de Frise", which is also lacking in the game.

An armor or a shield is nothing against a horse's charge, but any sort of pike at an angle was deadly for them.

I also noticed how little cavalry NPCs tend to employ in their armies, which makes my strategy almost too effective.
The only time I faced an army with close to my numbers of cavalry units was when I did a 400 versus 750 battle against the Khuzait where I still had almost 2 fold their numbers in cavalry and it was still a massacre.

Summing it up:
-There needs to be slight alterations to the AI of melee units on horse back, as at times they behave as if they were infantry.
-Cavalry units need to be aware of allies speed and direction in their surroundings, as real world riders would avoid crashing with allies at all costs.
-Cavalry charge needs to give WAY more damage when crashing with an infantry.
-Just as the cavalry should be buffed, there also needs to be more anti-cavalry tactics employable by the AI.
-NPC parties should employ WAY more cavalry units than they currently do.

i agree with you in most of this. cavalry behave awfully in this game. i hate to see armies with small cavalry and making them charge head on in to the infantry lines making almost no damage and getting mauled at the same time. i hate that we don have a functioning spear wall and pikemen formation. there are some units in this game that would be really good to fend off horses or stop them and destroy them but it is not in use. i know all of this will be fixed im sure of it, but it is anoying.