Cavalry With Over lengthed Pole Arms vs Infantry Dismounted?

[Coraline]

This is just down right frustrating me.  Why can Winged Hussars with insanely long pole arms just eat up my Musketeers?  They get knocked off their horse and still out fight them.  Their pole arms are insanely long pole arms, they should be a handy cap on foot and should be almost useless at sword length combat but for some crazy reason they can actually still just eat my soldiers alive. 

I had 8 out of 11 hit my line of 34 Mercenary Musketeers + myself, they were oddly able to fight even though surrounded by infantry.. their poles should of been too long when bogged down and surrounded like that to even be useful. 

I notice this when fighting them on horse back as well, we are almost shoulder to shoulder but yet they can still hurt me with their pole arm.  I can not even fight a Polish army of the same size because of their winged hussars with my band of musket men. 

I just had a battle where they had to climb a steep slope after crossing a river to reach my line, while being fired at, and still they broke through my lines and caused chaos. 

It is driving me crazy, to a point I absolutely hate fighting pole armed cavalry on this game and fear infantry all the same.  I never noticed this on Warband but then again  the pole arms were never near as lengthy as they are on WF&S, then again as well cavalry was not a big threat on Warband because of shield wall/crossbow tactics, which are very hard to do on WF&S, muskets do not do enough damage to horses sadly to make up for it, crossbows would be superior on this game if they were available. 

Historically it was stupid to charge a wall of musket men unless you could find an opening or hit a flank.  >.<:

I know I sound like a whiner, though I just loved Warband, and WF&S has been an absolute frustration to play, and there are so many reasons for that, and this is just another one.  I guess I can call this a rage moment.  Poland has always been the faction which oddly always seems to defeat me unless I fight small scout patrols. 

 

[Kneed]

Line up your muskets in 2 rows, very tight F2->F7 then ride out in front of your muskets and get their cav to chase you, meanwhile your muskets will mow them down.  Need a fast horse (steppe or courser).

I use this tactic every time against heavy cav parties and use wagon fort whenever you are predominately muskets.

My 70 Serduks against up to 160 of anything else, also works with Lifeguards or Janissaries.  So so results with German Infantry Musketeers.

edit:  I've found the hussars fairly weak without their horse, Nokhor seem to be more of an issue once dismounted.

 

[Leaffordes]

just eat up my Musketeers?

but for some crazy reason they can actually still just eat my soldiers alive. 

What? Really? Eating your soldiers? Sounds much like a glitch lol :S

 

[Coraline]

Eating is dramatic, but causing such chaos that they're inable to be very combat effective and then torn to pieces by everything else.  Though my main complaint is the lance weapons oddly can thrust at far closer ranges than their pole's length. 

I would not find combat too difficult but the command/controls are so different from warband, the rows thing I'm still completely lost on since i use them and I do not see my troops do anything about them when I say row 1 row 2.  I went into chaos pressing the wrong keys so often they are so different.. too different.  The rows really mess me up they really should put the Row controls somewhere else and make the rest more identical to warbands command controls. 

I still keep referring back to those controls from warband by instinct.  Cavalry like Hussars are pretty much on top of my soldiers before i can get any organization what so ever the controls I can just not memorize between the games. 

 

[brognar]

Use pikes man

 

[Gungho]

I'm having a lot of success with a mixed force using tose russian pole axe things, musketmen and cav.  Once the opposition is disordered they get chewed up pretty well.

But the lance issue is a problem...sometimes they work like light sabres...

 

[Modern_Dandy]

Get a mix of pike men and halberd men and line them up a few feet in front of your musket line. They should stop all  but the most determined cavalry charge.

Personally, I love having my musket men give a volley right as the charge breaks against the pikes. All those horsemen standing still at close range... 

 

[jackx]

Use a wagon fort, or pikes. Their lances are that good because they work just like pikes, and to make pikes work in the hands of the AI, they seem to have removed the minimum range. Against lighter lancers (that die in one musket hit reliably) you can also simply resort to kiting them in front of your gunners - won't work so well with the heavy cav, because if they get shot and survive, they'll go after whoever shot them.

That said, hussars are the best heavy melee cavalry, and one of the top units in the game, andwould (and will, in sieges) make even shorter work of your musketeers with sabres than they do with their lances.

With regard to formations, by default they're set for musketeers, so there are 2 ranks with small gaps, allowing them all to get clear shots - you'll need to close them up manually once if you want to make them more solid and capable of resisting the impact of a charge, or capable of delivering one themselves.

It's admittedly a bit of a hassle, but once you have an army/command group set up that you use regularly, you'll quickly get used to it, or you can set up a makro to cover the basics at the start of a battle in the absence of pre-battle orders and deployments.

And while it's fun to use volley fire, due to the way AI targetting works, it's remarkably inefficient at close range - it'll have half your musketeers shooting the same guy. Works great at long range shooting at a dense cluster of enemies, where most misses will hit someone else, but at short range, all you'll get is overkill on one target while the rest of the line escapes most of the damage. So give them a volley when they come into view, then fire at will...

 

[Coraline]

Volley Fire was never effective historically, it was a morale killer more so than being deadly historically, muskets were in general murder's of opposing soldier's morale.  Volley fire often forced soldiers to shoot under their max rate of fire, so Im not a big fan of it.  Though I do use it now and then, from medium range, and after that allow them to fire at will, if ever using volley fire at all anyways. 

Still my complaint about how effective the long lances are at close range is still valid.  I never know hussars even had swords until I entered a siege battle, when not a one of them carried their lance.  But oddly in the field I only see them using their long lances, even on foot, even at close range where they should be using a sword.  It is just odd, and oddly still they're effective with it in a mob situation.  It is my primary complaint about lances.  Warband lances were never that dangerious but on horse back in a charge, now they're like as effective as a spear style pole arm which I feared far more on Warband since it was easy to dodge a charging lancer. lol

 

[Askorti]

One interesting fact: When player have a hussar lance and fall from horse, his lance turns into sabre without possibility to regain lance in the same battle. (Even, when he mount some other horse)

I guess, that reason why hussars have only lance is to make everyone use them. If they'd have a sabre too, part of them would use lance, and part would use sabre. It's caused by complete lack of proper AI in battle, so they decided to choose easier way of dealing with it. Why would they fix something, when they can simply not give a unit proper weapon? Great time and effort saver!

 

[jackx]

Aye, it appears that there's been a mix-up in the lance behaviour - it's the AI hussars that should magically have their lances turned into swords when off their horses, not the players, shouldn't be too hard to fix... I can understand it not being a priority though, as all it is is the Hussars looking silly while slaughtering inferior troops, it's not like a change of weapons would drastically change the outcome of the fight...

I mentioned volley fire because being unable to stop a cavalry charge with a close range volley had come up as an issue in several similar topics...

 

[Ziame]

Volley Fire was never effective historically, it was a morale killer more so than being deadly historically, muskets were in general murder's of opposing soldier's morale.  Volley fire often forced soldiers to shoot under their max rate of fire, so Im not a big fan of it.  Though I do use it now and then, from medium range, and after that allow them to fire at will, if ever using volley fire at all anyways. 

Still my complaint about how effective the long lances are at close range is still valid.  I never know hussars even had swords until I entered a siege battle, when not a one of them carried their lance.  But oddly in the field I only see them using their long lances, even on foot, even at close range where they should be using a sword.  It is just odd, and oddly still they're effective with it in a mob situation.  It is my primary complaint about lances.  Warband lances were never that dangerious but on horse back in a charge, now they're like as effective as a spear style pole arm which I feared far more on Warband since it was easy to dodge a charging lancer. lol

I ain't sure I undestand properly... You mean, that hussars' lances are too effective on-foot, right?
That's what bugs me as well. Also, the sabre thing with lance for player... lawl.

Not too mention lances on back, and KONCERZ ON BACK. COME ON.

or couching of koncerz. It's a sword you silly producers.