Cavalry in 1.2.0 Beta

[Apollo52]

Heya Everyone,
I have decided to try 1.2 since the new weather effects seemed really nice immersion-wise. For a new playthrough went with vlandia and again for challenge & roleplay reasons decided to use only noble line vlandian cavalry and nothing else.
My banner knigths are annihilating everything.
Unless theres a wild javelin from a random aserai fahris happens to headshot one of the knights, I end battles with no casulties, or not more than 5, when I'm outnumbered against groups with a decent composition that is.
Just did an army battle and used only cavalry, results are broken. I understand the new weather system affects the cavalry and can bring a cool dynamic but spear infantry can't do anything when cavalry just butter charges them in trotting speed right on their face.
Don't get me wrong, it feels epic and amazing but don't y'all thing something is wrong?
Cavalry feels great now but how can we tackle the spear issue which has been going around since Warband? Can we fix this without nerfing the cavalry?

 

[Dabos37]

I am having different results in 1.2.2 with cavalry. While spear cavalry is somehow better after the last hotfix, I still find cavalry units weak compared to what I can get with archers and two handed units.

I am playing with 100% infantrymen armies and annihilating everyone.

Can you please upload a replay where you show how your cavalry is decimating bigger and stronger armies without getting casualties?

On the other hand, yes, spear infantry is really bad against everything in Bannerlord. Two Handed infantry and archers are the units which can do a lot of damage to cavalry in this game.

 

[clock4orange]

Can you please upload a replay where you show how your cavalry is decimating bigger and stronger armies without getting casualties?

no need to, as cavalry is usually dominated battlefield, so... you need couple of horse archers to distract enemy, and thanks to the perks, your cavalry do the rest

 

[Totalgarbage]

The problem is that in my experience, in 1.2, Cavalry units missed their attacks very oftenly against foot troops and are also too passive when charging against them. They usually choose to keep their shield up rather than to attempt to land an attack. Infantry units also show a similar weakness against mounted troops, where they keep their shield up most of the time and never attempt to actually attack the mounted units (whereas in prior patches even trash like looters could manage to do significant damage to a cavalry unit by hitting them with their polearms).

1.2.2 somewhat remedied the issue of cav units missing, but their melee attack accuracy is still not as good as it was in patches e1.9+ for me. The issue about the units' passivity still exists, and cav vs infantry fights take minutes upon minutes where neither side inflicts much damage, and the cav units usually manage to win through their charge damage, with either side only killing a handful units with their weapons.

 

[Dabos37]

no need to, as cavalry is usually dominated battlefield, so... you need couple of horse archers to distract enemy, and thanks to the perks, your cavalry do the rest

Horse Archers + Melee Cavalry? Yes, this combination is probably OP, but I wouldn't say that it is due to melee cavalry units, but HA. Melee cavalry units kill enemies really slow, which usually means that your infantry units get massacred (if you are fighting an even battle) while cavalty units are re-forming to perform a second charge. Below you can check the same battle against a balanced Aserai army that I have just played in my new campaing (I have started a new campaign to check how cavalry is performing in 1.2.2).

With Cavalry:




Then I enabled cheats to replace my 43 cavalry units with T5 infantry/missile units:



I should have avoided chasing the enemy arches with my infantry, and use my own archers to kill them, but I just wanted to show how playing without cavalry is better most of the time (except if you want to play a full cavalry army with 50% or more Horse Archers), even if you only sit and charge once the enemy is close without any micro.

 

[Apollo52]

Can you please upload a replay where you show how your cavalry is decimating bigger and stronger armies without getting casualties?

I would like to but I don't have neither the software or the time and effort to do that.
But one can simulate a result with a custom battle with full banner knights.
I'm not using mods nor horse archers in the army, max difficulty.
After further experience I think the problem is not a single thing but a combination of mechanics;

1. First one is the armor, or the armor of the banner knights. HA cavalry is quite resilient and considering that armor got a tad bit better since launch, they are more durable than the initial design. I can't even imagine cataphracts, jeez.
2. Second one is the perks. With commander perks, one can buff up the units considerably through cumulative small bonuses. I think this should stay as the same since most of the perks feel underwhelming as you read the tooltip. Having the perks shine at least in one occasion is a deserved mechanic for the players.
3. Third one is the charge damage. En masse, this gets crazy. It's very hard to balance out and it definately needs to be there to feel relevant. But with perks and everything it contributes to the problem. Also cavalry actually charges in rounds so this damage type is much more common compared to the previous patches. With that said I like the charge damage even if I'm on the receiving end.
4. Forth one is body blocking and mass. As the infantry gets squished together after the charge, due to their aiming problems they can't even react properly as most of the attacks get body blocked. On top of that, since the cavalry makes a mess of the battlefield, new enemy reinforcements can't even get their sh*t together to form up.

These reasons are not a problem. They make the cavalry worth it, at least in my experience. Also we should not expect the AI to act like a player and make every calculate their every move and execute them perfectly. They will end up a little goofy in the end of the day.

The real problem is the spears. Literally worthless on foot. I tried to level a spear expert character but can't level the damn thing on foot. Bracing was a good start but it doesn't reflect good enough on actual gameplay. AI doesn't dedicate an entire battalion of pikeman (not spearmen) and order brace. Hell, even as a player it's hard to pull off the pikeman control since most of the time cavalry attacks on the flanks. As a player, you have to rotate the pikeman and constantly order them to move so they can respond properly to cavalry while making sure that they are not ripped via arrows, ugh.

My conclusion is that unless spears and spear AI is fixed, F1 + F3 Sun Tzu strategy will be the go-for route for cav.

I am playing with 100% infantrymen armies and annihilating everyone.

In a "normal" composition infantry deals the most damage and gets the kills, it always has been like that through the path cycles of Bannerlord.
But when a 100% infantry army (or mixed comp) and a 100% army clashes, you just order charge and get 1 dead 2 wounded, which feels wrong.

 

[Dabos37]

I would like to but I don't have neither the software or the time and effort to do that.
But one can simulate a result with a custom battle with full banner knights.
I'm not using mods nor horse archers in the army, max difficulty.
After further experience I think the problem is not a single thing but a combination of mechanics;

1. First one is the armor, or the armor of the banner knights. HA cavalry is quite resilient and considering that armor got a tad bit better since launch, they are more durable than the initial design. I can't even imagine cataphracts, jeez.
2. Second one is the perks. With commander perks, one can buff up the units considerably through cumulative small bonuses. I think this should stay as the same since most of the perks feel underwhelming as you read the tooltip. Having the perks shine at least in one occasion is a deserved mechanic for the players.
3. Third one is the charge damage. En masse, this gets crazy. It's very hard to balance out and it definately needs to be there to feel relevant. But with perks and everything it contributes to the problem. Also cavalry actually charges in rounds so this damage type is much more common compared to the previous patches. With that said I like the charge damage even if I'm on the receiving end.
4. Forth one is body blocking and mass. As the infantry gets squished together after the charge, due to their aiming problems they can't even react properly as most of the attacks get body blocked. On top of that, since the cavalry makes a mess of the battlefield, new enemy reinforcements can't even get their sh*t together to form up.

These reasons are not a problem. They make the cavalry worth it, at least in my experience. Also we should not expect the AI to act like a player and make every calculate their every move and execute them perfectly. They will end up a little goofy in the end of the day.

The real problem is the spears. Literally worthless on foot. I tried to level a spear expert character but can't level the damn thing on foot. Bracing was a good start but it doesn't reflect good enough on actual gameplay. AI doesn't dedicate an entire battalion of pikeman (not spearmen) and order brace. Hell, even as a player it's hard to pull off the pikeman control since most of the time cavalry attacks on the flanks. As a player, you have to rotate the pikeman and constantly order them to move so they can respond properly to cavalry while making sure that they are not ripped via arrows, ugh.

My conclusion is that unless spears and spear AI is fixed, F1 + F3 Sun Tzu strategy will be the go-for route for cav.


In a "normal" composition infantry deals the most damage and gets the kills, it always has been like that through the path cycles of Bannerlord.
But when a 100% infantry army (or mixed comp) and a 100% army clashes, you just order charge and get 1 dead 2 wounded, which feels wrong.

You are maybe testing cavalry against spearmen in custom battles, and getting some wrong conclusions, because spearmen are trash currently in the game.

Go to custom battle, pick a 100% BannerKnights army vs 100% two handed T5 infantry army. For example, Sturgian Heroic Linebreakers. Set the AI as defender in the battle. Then F1 + F3 with your Banner Knights, and see what happens.

Cavalry does not worth in this game, except if you only have a melee cavalry + horse archer cavalry army. If you plan to have some footmen in your army, then just recruit tons of archers and infantry (especially Two handed infantry), and you are going to wreck everything. Melee cavalry does not worth in my opinion.

BTW, if you are finding BannerKights too strong (they are not OP at all in my opinion), just replace your bannerknights with Fian Champions, and you are going to see something really OP.

 

[Dabos37]

Cavalry in Public version 1.1.5:



Cavalry in Beta version 1.2.2:



@Apollo52 Cavalry is actually garbage now in beta, so not sure why you are finding the F1 + F3 strategy viable. It looks really weird for me.

I am going to open a support ticket. The new cavalry AI is really bad.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It seems like Cavalry in 1.2+ is more aggressive in it's aproch but still struggle to connect attacks. For instance they are much more eager to chase the player and get very close, but actually landing the hits doesn't happen enough. They also still do cycle charge in inappropriate situations where they aren't going to get any advantage and only expose themselves to ranged attacks and let infantry re-group before they attack again. I know it looks cool, but it's usually not effective.

 

[Emperor1997]

BTW, if you are finding BannerKights too strong (they are not OP at all in my opinion), just replace your bannerknights with Fian Champions, and you are going to see something really OP.

Fians are not really OP, together with all Battanian Units they are the worse Units in the entire Game.

I can usually destory Battania within 1 Season of the Game, it only takes to take Marunath and Seonon, in order to destroy Battania and since their Units are bad, I can defeat them with only 100 Troops vs. their 500 Garrison + Militia.