Melee cavalry is underpowered at the moment (Suggestions updated)

[Dabos37]

At the risk of being rude, using literally the best cav unit in the game to prove that said unit class is worth anything is in itself a pretty poor argument.

Not sure if Banner Knights are the best cav unit in the game.

Anyway, I have also mentioned Aserai Mameluke Regular. Plus vlandian Vanguard can be pretty effective.

As I said before, I have been trying cavalry armies since the cavalry fix in 1.5.3 and they are pretty effective. Take in mind that I am a guy who always has been supporting cavalry buffs and archers nerds. I think that TW has found the right balancing level in 1.5.3 and making cavalry stronger could make it OP.

And do not make me wrong, I am not against improving Cavalry AI (same for other units), just saying that cavalry vs infantry vs archers balancing feels right currently.

 

[Apocal]

At the risk of being rude, using literally the best cav unit in the game to prove that said unit class is worth anything is in itself a pretty poor argument.

I don't think Banner Knights have been considered the best cav unit. They might be now, I haven't tested, but the last time I did, it was Sturgian Druzh (for some unknown reason) and Vanguard Faris (javelins), with Elite Cataphracts behind them and Banner Knights in 4th place.

At any rate, being able to mop up a near-max sized party with only 50 of them of means melee cavalry -- if not necessarily as powerful in history -- certainly aren't in a bad place. Maybe lower-tiers are much worse off and unable to do the job (it wouldn't surprise me if Mameluke Regulars sucked) but that's a question of individual troops, not a failure of the whole concept like it was in 1.5.2.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

The best cavalry unit is the Khan's Guard lol. Glaives are superior to lances in every single way. And that's without going into their bows and arrows...

 

[Apocal]

The best cavalry unit is the Khan's Guard lol. Glaives are superior to lances in every single way. And that's without going into their bows and arrows...

Well yes, but that's because TW has decided to cripple spears and similar weapons.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

The best cavalry unit is the Khan's Guard lol. Glaives are superior to lances in every single way. And that's without going into their bows and arrows...

Pfff me and my Vladian Vanguards and light cav eat those for breakfast. Even if i do admit a sweat at times when they raise their glaives xD

Heres a small tip how my set of mind are using the cav units even if it wasnt the best showcase. Also since my damn medic had an sumpter horse so we had to wait for him all the time + the AI allied commander choosed to play it defensively and enemy command cautiously, so we had to wait for the right moments to strike.
And if youre commanding only per say you can order em around doing basically the same

 

[Dabos37]

Here you can check some videos about cavalry performance:

Vlandian Vanguard:




Imperial Legionary:




By the way, elite infantry has got MUCH better since the last patch thanks to armor buff. Sadly this great improvement is being outshining due some people complaining about outfits and saying that the changes have been crap :-s (Thanks TW, I really appreciate the armor buff).

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

Here you can check some videos about cavalry performance:

Vlandian Vanguard:




Imperial Legionary:




By the way, elite infantry has got MUCH better since the last patch thanks to armor buff. Sadly this great improvement is being outshining due some people complaining about outfits and saying that the changes have been crap :-s (Thanks TW, I really appreciate the armor buff).

Sexy as fug but charging infantry on a hill like that ew but was the only way..Still it went pretty well luckily If that was the case i would have split em in two charging in from two sides

 

[Dabos37]

Sexy as fug but charging infantry on a hill like that ew..Still it went pretty well luckily

Well, it was just a test, do not pay much attention on my strategies . Same for cavalry, I used pretty badly and charge against infantry on a hill.

EDIT: Here you have a better test for infantry:

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

Well, it was just a test, do not pay much attention on my strategies . Same for cavalry, I used pretty badly and charge against infantry on a hill.

Yeah it was an excellent showcase of their power even if they had to fight on bad momentum and ground away from their natural habitats However i rather charge them on an small hill then in to sneaky low ground if i must

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Well yes, but that's because TW has decided to cripple spears and similar weapons.

Maybe, but I can't help but think that even buffing lances and spears wouldn't be enough to stop the dominance of the glaive.

 

[xdj1nn]

Gameplay trumps realism. Although I much prefer when gameplay is inspired by reality the root of the issue of Bannerlord cavalry is that it serves no gameplay purpose right now.

Cav units are expensive to train but provide very little value. There is nothing that they do that other units don't do better, save perhaps helping you win more by running down fleeing units.

I have covered this in other threads but real life use for cavalry are simply not able to be replicated in Bannerlord where even the largest battles are all small skirmishes (compared to real life), even sieges.

So, please let's drop using real battles as any justification for cavalry in Bannerlord, what we should be trying to do is give TW ideas of what do to with the cav units based on gameplay value.

IMO, what cav needs is the ability to issue commands to target specific enemy formations (such as targeting archers or enemy cav) as well as the ability to target reinforcement by camping respawn to help prevent it joining the main force. Those would all help make cav formation a lot more helpful.

so you take hollywood films battle scales as realistic then? Interesting.

Was too lazy to hunt down the sources myself, but here's a treat for your knowledge (extracted from some quora or something like that):


"In Medieval Warfare: A History there is a chapter that talks about it. In the early middle ages and partly in the high, people were few and only the nobles and the clergy fought in wars.

Those two groups were pretty important and as time went on, heavily armored and well equiped. It was also better in impoverished enviroment to take ransom, rather than lives. So battles were fought mostly on small scale and the casualties were few from the battle itself. So the percentage according to the book (if I am not mistaken it was 5% exactly) was that low for the battle itself - excluding marching deaths, illness and other factors.

Later on though, during the high and late middle ages, the European war-machines became more sofisticated, the population increased and the middle class arose and took part in non-equestrian battles using pikes and other less glorious but as much effective weapons. This led to large scale battles with more casualties on the ill equiped. So yes as Tom Au and fred2 there was a time when the war took a great toll.

And this is especially true during the late middle ages and the introduction of the Gunpowder."

TDLR: No, large scale battles were not that common, yes they existed, and Bannerlord is a proxy for Early Middle Ages, take your own conclusions.

 

[LouisVanGaal]

1. Allow us to target specific enemy formations so we can tell our cavalry formations to target archers or enemy cav

This has to be done. I am losing Melee Cavalry because they don't know who to attack. They are charging into infantry formations and allowing archers at the back to have an easy, free shot at them.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

This has to be done. I am losing Melee Cavalry because they don't know who to attack. They are charging into infantry formations and allowing archers at the back to have an easy, free shot at them.

Agree but the best part with that is if they miss they are gonna kill their own infantry ^^

 

[guiskj]

so you take hollywood films battle scales as realistic then? Interesting.

Was too lazy to hunt down the sources myself, but here's a treat for your knowledge (extracted from some quora or something like that):


"In Medieval Warfare: A History there is a chapter that talks about it. In the early middle ages and partly in the high, people were few and only the nobles and the clergy fought in wars.

Those two groups were pretty important and as time went on, heavily armored and well equiped. It was also better in impoverished enviroment to take ransom, rather than lives. So battles were fought mostly on small scale and the casualties were few from the battle itself. So the percentage according to the book (if I am not mistaken it was 5% exactly) was that low for the battle itself - excluding marching deaths, illness and other factors.

Later on though, during the high and late middle ages, the European war-machines became more sofisticated, the population increased and the middle class arose and took part in non-equestrian battles using pikes and other less glorious but as much effective weapons. This led to large scale battles with more casualties on the ill equiped. So yes as Tom Au and fred2 there was a time when the war took a great toll.

And this is especially true during the late middle ages and the introduction of the Gunpowder."

TDLR: No, large scale battles were not that common, yes they existed, and Bannerlord is a proxy for Early Middle Ages, take your own conclusions.

Thank you for the information. I would still defend my position that using real life to model Bannerlord cavalry is folly.

The bread and butter of battles in Bannerlord mid to late game are 300 v 300 engagements.

Cavalry units must also still be valuable for the early game where the fights are much smaller.

There are also no way to implement all the auxiliary uses of real cavalry in Bannerlord.

For these reasons, I still stand that gameplay must drive how Bannerlord cavalry is shaped and not real life martial history. But threads like these keep devolving into "who have the most military history knowledge" and fail to address the core issue.

And to others that have competently shown that cav units can work, I thank you. I must be using them really badly. But I would still pose that infantry is more plentiful, cheaper to train and are just as effective. Bannerlord cav seems to lack a gameplay role during field battles and that to me is the biggest issue.

 

[xdj1nn]

Thank you for the information. I would still defend my position that using real life to model Bannerlord cavalry is folly.

The bread and butter of battles in Bannerlord mid to late game are 300 v 300 engagements.

Cavalry units must also still be valuable for the early game where the fights are much smaller.

There are also no way to implement all the auxiliary uses of real cavalry in Bannerlord.

For these reasons, I still stand that gameplay must drive how Bannerlord cavalry is shaped and not real life martial history. But threads like these keep devolving into "who have the most military history knowledge" and fail to address the core issue.

And to others that have competently shown that cav units can work, I thank you. I must be using them really badly. But I would still pose that infantry is more plentiful, cheaper to train and are just as effective. Bannerlord cav seems to lack a gameplay role during field battles and that to me is the biggest issue.

you can try using cavalry as skirmish hit&run, just as they were mostly used on battlefields. The annoyance is the amount of micro-management require to do that, which turns the game into a chore if you want to mainly use cavalry. Doesn't fall too far from what used to happen with Khergits in Warband and the classic M&B, we'd have to micromanage them for them to be effective on harassing.

What I usually do is put the cavalry to follow me and behave as hit&run opportunistic coward, getting into flanks, running past through, circling around and only really getting into the enemy infantry when there's a breach or they are facing my infantry. It's less boring, but in BL it's harder to survive (used to do that in some WB mods, so it wasn't anything new for me), because of the momentum calculations and how easy the enemy AI hits you on horseback when they are on foot...

Best military force for medieval warfare was and will always be infantry, heavy infantry at that. They are the bread and butter, and even knights would often abandon horses to act as heavy infantry on many different situations (there's a usefulness with the dismount command in the game). Archers is a matter of debate, in theory they'd work better as complementary infantry and not as long-range snipers. Shooting from medium to short distance, which should be incredibly effective. I've used that tactic on Viking Conquest (mixing armored archers with infatry), and it worked wonders tbh.

 

[guiskj]

Oh you bring a great point @xgj1nn .

Commanding your cav formation to dismount, as well as any units that are dismounted by enemies, should automatically be added to the infantry formation.

 

[froggyluv]

Havent read this whole thread but i can guarantee the engine upgrade effected the potency of the cav units. Melee is hard to get right in games many have tried and most if not all have failed. Kingdom Come removed it for this reason --hard to program. Mounted Melee even harder for just one AI unit to pull off effectively against a human player -now try programming that for hundreds of units. Mount &Blade Warband engine nailed it -the upgrade is having a hard time calibrating it so they seem much less effective.

 

[HugoTheFrenchMan]

Havent read this whole thread but i can guarantee the engine upgrade effected the potency of the cav units. Melee is hard to get right in games many have tried and most if not all have failed. Kingdom Come removed it for this reason --hard to program. Mounted Melee even harder for just one AI unit to pull off effectively against a human player -now try programming that for hundreds of units. Mount &Blade Warband engine nailed it -the upgrade is having a hard time calibrating it so they seem much less effective.

Swadian knight spam?

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

Swadian knight spam?

Party at King Harlaus place

 

[froggyluv]

Swadian knight spam?

All the mounted units in the last engine were far more precise in their movements. After witnessing my first Bannerlod cav charge i thought it was a bad joke they way they kept swinging at air. Animations are off