Cavalry downgraded in 1.8.0

[black_bulldog]

Cavalry miss their shots because hitting things from horseback is way harder in this game. The AI they are using now is probably fine for WB but here isn't

Yes but why is it harder? It's not like the speed on horseback is any higher for Bannerlord than it was in Warband. An ai can be programmed to never miss so it seems like the cavalry ai is bad on purpose. My suspicion is that either Taleworlds didn't like how dominating Swadia was in open field battles or they got a lot of complaints about it and decided to intentionally nerf cav to prevent cavalry dominated games.

 

[Zerosaiko]

I wasn't around for most of the EA, but weren't cavalry better at aiming even back in 1.7 or 1.6 or so? Maybe the issue is related to the one where infantry will get right up in the opponent's face in melee, even if they have a long weapon?

 

[Ser Jon]

The problem is that "cavalry" is a very delicate branch of the arms. They can have great effects or totally suck, in the flick of a moment, often depending on moral values. For this reason there is no real cavalry in video games, the player wouldn't want it. Imagine a Total War game with a fancy cavalry charge, which then would stop shortly before the unwavering infantry formation and retreat, I cannot imagine the forums wars about it.

In BL (or Warband) there is no cavalry (units), just single riders. Read any manual about cavalry written in the time they were used on the battlefield, and you will see that all the effects came from group formations. Which we don't have. Why the single riders we have in BL don't work, I don't know. It should be much easier to make them work (in the way five bucks listed) than to implement true cavalry, all the factors must already been in the code, just flawed.

I would not say that currently mods solve the problem (if so, I would be relaxed). Cavalry in RBM f.e. currently sits at 2 of the "five bucks scala", for me the experience is even worse compared to vanilla.

Then we need group formations and an AI that can use it. At this point I know that's impossible for Bannerlord, so I know I'm just being stupid by pointing it out and wanting it, but maybe a dedicated modder will think "Okay, maybe I can do something about this!" and save us. Maybe they can use five bucks post as a starting point.

Yeah, I was playing Warband some days ago and cavalry AI is far supperior than it is in Bannerlord. I real y cannot understand the reason.

It isn't perfect, but yea, it's considerably better. I don't know why either. I'm not a modder or coder, but as a player the experience is just comically more fun in Warband.

 

[Dabos37]

I wasn't around for most of the EA, but weren't cavalry better at aiming even back in 1.7 or 1.6 or so? Maybe the issue is related to the one where infantry will get right up in the opponent's face in melee, even if they have a long weapon?

While still mediocre, I find the cavalry AI far supperior in 1.7. In 1.8 cavalry does not try to coaching lance at all, and fails attacks most of the time. It is even worse when cavalry tries to attack in formation and most of the times do not even try to attack.

 

[five bucks]

Yes but why is it harder? It's not like the speed on horseback is any higher for Bannerlord than it was in Warband. An ai can be programmed to never miss so it seems like the cavalry ai is bad on purpose. My suspicion is that either Taleworlds didn't like how dominating Swadia was in open field battles or they got a lot of complaints about it and decided to intentionally nerf cav to prevent cavalry dominated games.

You have to remember that while yes you can program an AI to never miss and that it seemingly worked fine in Warband, this entire project has been very messy in every aspect. I would put it down to failure rather than intentional design.

 

[black_bulldog]

You have to remember that while yes you can program an AI to never miss and that it seemingly worked fine in Warband, this entire project has been very messy in every aspect. I would put it down to failure rather than intentional design.

I'd rather think that Taleworlds is vindictive rather than incompetent.

 

[geala]

Yesterday I had several opportunities to see my cavalry in action in 1.8.0 in detail, and it's indeed ... sad. I especially remember a lonely unarmored guy fleeing while about 10 riders (f.e. cataphracts) charging at him over the fourth part of the map again and again, without hitting him once with the lances/spears. I think they killed him shortly before the border by charge damage.

 

[xdj1nn]

Yesterday I had several opportunities to see my cavalry in action in 1.8.0 in detail, and it's indeed ... sad. I especially remember a lonely unarmored guy fleeing while about 10 riders (f.e. cataphracts) charging at him over the fourth part of the map again and again, without hitting him once with the lances/spears. I think they killed him shortly before the border by charge damage.

the bonkers aiming happens with both mounted and foot as long as they are trying to use long weapons.
As for riding bonkers aim it affects us too, have you ever noticed how off the hitbox for couched lance is? Even if it has the highest possible length, if you ever try to hit anything in front of your horse it's 100% miss, we must adjust to odd angles to hit things, now, if for us it's challenging, imagine the AI which has pure auto-aim?
So what happens with the AI on foot, for instance, is that they basically try to french-kiss their opponent using a 2h axe and hit with the "pommel" doing 2 dmg a pop. If the opponent AI holds any shorter weapon, they'll probably connect more consistent hits for full dmg. Knowing this what I try to do for mitigation is buff weapon handling for the AI through captains. When the handling's high enough they'll still be hitting wrong, but at least the dmg's higher giving them "a chance". The pattern happens the most with weapons with 130+ length for swing on foot, all lances and longer spears when wielded with a shield, and all polearms on foot. 2 handers are passable as long as the AI has high enough skill lvl or the 2h weap's "shorter".
From my tests, the best AI spear's Pilum for troops, Menavilon for comps if you want a spear shieldwall for instance.
For polearms, only and exclusively normal glaive and bill hook, the pole falx will often hit horsemen but will almost always miss infantry units.
AI does pretty well if menavilon if held without a shield too (menavilon units are OP as hell against most infantry as long as they are mixed with shielded units)
For cavalry, it's the opposite, they can't deal with short ranges for polearms, although they do fairly with glaives (due to higher attack speed), as for lances they do well with the Khuzait lance (Noble Lance or something), so-so with vlandian lance and Cataphracts are a hit&miss, luckily catas switch to their secondary one handed often.
Still cav has the most hideous advantage due to how horse charge collision and horse pass-by collision work. It's hard if not impossible to stop them without spear carrying units.

 

[Ser Jon]

Yesterday I had several opportunities to see my cavalry in action in 1.8.0 in detail, and it's indeed ... sad. I especially remember a lonely unarmored guy fleeing while about 10 riders (f.e. cataphracts) charging at him over the fourth part of the map again and again, without hitting him once with the lances/spears. I think they killed him shortly before the border by charge damage.

It's just not working great at all in Bannerlord. Cavalry used to be one of my favorite things to deploy, followed by archers, but now it's just broken or incredibly stupid in its AI. It's really quite baffling that the far older game does it better.

 

[humility925]

Is it bug or they change design of a.i or something, because 1.8 seem worst than 1.7 for melee Cavalry. In 1.7 melee Cavalry are petty good, not bad, but 1.8 it's just much worse, it's not working, not do good job at all. It's like melee Cavalry ran pass saying please kill me, but I won't want to kill you or something like that.

 

[xdj1nn]

Is it bug or they change design of a.i or something, because 1.8 seem worst than 1.7 for melee Cavalry. In 1.7 melee Cavalry are petty good, not bad, but 1.8 it's just much worse, it's not working, not do good job at all. It's like melee Cavalry ran pass saying please kill me, but I won't want to kill you or something like that.

idk, since I use tactical stapples combined with heavy RTS on getting captains ASAP I rarely have any cavalry before having a proper captain for them (either my PC or a companion specced for that), so I never noticed any issues during full combat in big battles. They'll always miss if they are already celebrating, but that's because their happy animations will override their attack animations which basically makes them run in circles around fleeing enemies, I find it great because it feels like they are mocking the scared little mouses

as for cav tactics, those play a huge part in their effectiveness, so I'll throw you onto the lap of Strat, watch the videos and just feast on your future carnages: Strat "BigBrains" Gaming, the "Ban the Lord"

 

[geala]

But they also miss often in actual combat, they are also more passive in cavalry melee than in earlier versions if not given the attack order. I usually have them at follow at first, for trying to attack archers, and when we met cavalry they often stabbed them en passant, now that's seldom. Even in the melee clods which often form, they are not as good in using weapons.

The terrible infantry hugging is seemingly dealt with at least a bit in the alleged release version. I'm curious how it will play out.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

I do not get where this idea that lances worked in Warband comes from, they didnt. Unlike in Bannerlord cavalry had a very hard time disengaging from an enemy formation in the first place.

What made Swardians knights great was that they could easily tank e.g. infantry and they had no problems hitting infantry around them, even while being stuck. Infact, from what I recall, their elevated position gave them the advantage of both being unhinded and able to get headshots in. In contrast, infantry would have problems getting hits in, either being blocked by each other or the horse, and only being able to target less critical parts of the rider (legs).

 

[five bucks]

I do not get where this idea that lances worked in Warband comes from, they didnt. Unlike in Bannerlord cavalry had a very hard time disengaging from an enemy formation in the first place.

What made Swardians knights great was that they could easily tank e.g. infantry and they had no problems hitting infantry around them, even while being stuck. Infact, from what I recall, their elevated position gave them the advantage of both being unhinded and able to get headshots in. In contrast, infantry would have problems getting hits in, either being blocked by each other or the horse, and only being able to target less critical parts of the rider (legs).

Cavalry did often still have issues landing lance stabs, but they could hit couches, and they couched all the time, unlike Bannerlord where they only couch going downhill. They were generally better at using lances than Bannerlord.

Example:



I just fired up Warband and did a custom battle with Swadian cavalry against Rhodok infantry, and I was seeing a lot more couching and couch kills occurring than in an average Bannerlord fight.

 

[Ser Jon]

I do not get where this idea that lances worked in Warband comes from, they didnt. Unlike in Bannerlord cavalry had a very hard time disengaging from an enemy formation in the first place.

What made Swardians knights great was that they could easily tank e.g. infantry and they had no problems hitting infantry around them, even while being stuck. Infact, from what I recall, their elevated position gave them the advantage of both being unhinded and able to get headshots in. In contrast, infantry would have problems getting hits in, either being blocked by each other or the horse, and only being able to target less critical parts of the rider (legs).

It's a comparative. They still had their issues, but at the end of the day, they still functioned better. Even if it were just a little bit. They couched, they were more accurate and the AI itself wasn't as obvious in its idiocy as it is in Bannerlord. It's like the cavalry in Bannerlord is designed to not perform well.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Cavalry did often still have issues landing lance stabs, but they could hit couches, and they couched all the time, unlike Bannerlord where they only couch going downhill. They were generally better at using lances than Bannerlord.

Example:



I just fired up Warband and did a custom battle with Swadian cavalry against Rhodok infantry, and I was seeing a lot more couching and couch kills occurring than in an average Bannerlord fight.

The first video there pretty accurately reflect lances in Warband. You kill two horses in the initial charge and then its melee for the rest. That they "worked" better in warband compared to Bannerlord isnt really a high benchmark.

Among the blind...

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

It's like the cavalry in Bannerlord is designed to not perform well.

You will get no argument from me there.

 

[Madijeis]

To be honest cavalry seems to be performing worse just because the infantry has become tankier. At the end of every battle I witness my knights swarming the One Fleeing Legionaire who tanks several hits before dying to the one guy that actually gets a good hit in. Though, on the other hand, cavalry has become veeeeery tanky as well so it is mostly their killing power that has gone down, rather than their survivability.

I have a theory as to why the AI doesn't use the couched lance as often as in WB. In Warband, the AI seems to be set to "Automatic Couched Lance", which meant their lances went down as soon as they picked up speed, but it wasn't actually planned by the AI to do so, which is why you'd see knights going with the lances couched, just to pull it back and thrust at the last second, which is when they'd actually be targeting something. In BL, there's no such setting so the AI has to actively choose to put the lance in the couched position, resulting in lesser usage.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

To be honest cavalry seems to be performing worse just because the infantry has become tankier. At the end of every battle I witness my knights swarming the One Fleeing Legionaire who tanks several hits before dying to the one guy that actually gets a good hit in. Though, on the other hand, cavalry has become veeeeery tanky as well so it is mostly their killing power that has gone down, rather than their survivability.

I have a theory as to why the AI doesn't use the couched lance as often as in WB. In Warband, the AI seems to be set to "Automatic Couched Lance", which meant their lances went down as soon as they picked up speed, but it wasn't actually planned by the AI to do so, which is why you'd see knights going with the lances couched, just to pull it back and thrust at the last second, which is when they'd actually be targeting something. In BL, there's no such setting so the AI has to actively choose to put the lance in the couched position, resulting in lesser usage.

Infantry definitely work better these day. Even with that short pillum, the legionaries use, they can easily stand toe-to-toe with cavalry in a real battle.

 

[Ser Jon]

It's not just because infantry has become tankier or better, so it seems like cavalry is just lesser. Cavalry is seemingly coded to not hit or perform well at all, and do way more nonsensical things than others.