Melee cavalry is underpowered at the moment (Suggestions updated)

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I don't like ignoring people, but with the absence of a certain poster this topic becomes a very different read. One person has massively bloated and deformed this topic with junk of little value

I suggest you guys play one or two full campaigns at highest difficulty settings as an infantry only

Infantry is worthless and exists solely to die instead of more valuable troops, whether in open battle or in defense of a siege, they stand in SW and die, that's all they do.

 

[Baerstein]

If you want to feel how the infantry feels about cavalry, you have to try to be one for a long time.

i tried and it feels bull****, but not against cavalerie allone. First, you are to slow under 100 and to fast over 100 athletics and i write that number because, it has just to proof my point. (In reality i think between 80 and 120 feels nice.)
Second, everything is in my way. walls, friendly troops, enemy troops, everything! And thirt, i hit more often some crap around me, then the enemy in front of me. Thats boring.
So i decided to stay as archer. sometimes with and sometimes without a horse. I do not care about friendly fire. I would love to have friendly fire with my big axe. So nobody blocks my attacks anymore. (more or less)

 

[Medivhtratos]

In point of athletics it's a matter of weight how fast you are moving. Also I don't know, when you use Sure Footed(Polearm skill) and Braced(athletics) together, what happens if you get get hit by cav. Pure logic would say that the speed bonus of the cav gets fully neglected(100% with both perks). Otherwise I agree with @Dr-Shinobi that fighting as foot soldier the melee cav is your biggest thread. If they land a hit you will die in an instant. So I somehow understand his point that he wants the cav not getting buffed any further because it will reduce the options of how you play the game. Most players will find, playing on a horse, will be the only option to survive long enough during a field battle.

 

[Apocal]

Not all cavalry troops are quite good, that's for sure. Aserai Mameluke Cavarly, for example, are really weak and can die easily, maybe because they have light armor or else, I don't really know.
Do you also use Aserai Cavalry? What do you think?

If you mean the T4 mounted unit, well, those are horse archers so I haven't had any issue with them at all, other than changing their previously badass and aesthetic leather lamellar for robe over mail.

Aserai Mameluke Regulars, the T3 cav, truly are garbage though.

But it does since when youre on foot you understand how powerful an cavalry can be. If you buff them they are going to be an pinjata of no proportion as you have to wack them like 10 times just to get one, if you can hit them that is. And if you buff their aim to much you are gonna release people complaining about that to, that the game is to unfair and not natural...

I don't see anyone in this thread complaining about their tanking. It is just their ability to kill stuff quickly or effectively that is questionable. But as to people complaining, there aren't many people complaining about Faris nobles, even though they get more than their share of kills.

It is basically spear or lance and sword-armed cavalry who have issues, as far as I can see.

 

[KingEroc1st]

and I find that spears in this game are uber underpowered,

last time i checked they have buffed spears a few patches back while having nerfed 2h polearms swing hitboxes

from my characters point of view, spears are strong enough. using any top level spear i can regularly 1 shot most enemies with medium speed, and upto 300 dmg with fastest speed, rivaling that of the couch lance. with that said, a 2h polearm can do 500-600 with that much speed, and still able to 1 shot with 0 movement bonus.

i can't think of an instance where the khans guard with their 140 reach weapon could out perform cataphracts' 240 lances in a charge. except if everyone gets bogged down in a "stand and fight" dogpile situation.

I think the weapons themselves are ok where they are at, what you can do is change the way you use the cavalry formation. have them in line formation, not skein. and stretch the line long, having 2 lines enough, absolutely not more than 4, you don't want your riders to get boggled down in a cluster. charge when you are at least 75-100m away but not more than 150m so they can retain formation.

and of course there are some ai and game mechanic issues which result in spear cavalry not being effective. but at least they are better than the 1h guys.
i've observed that all cavalry basically aim for ground troops height even against other cavalry, which often results in hitting opponent horses, but the 2h polearm swing arc sometimes allow them to hit the opponent's leg instead of the horse.
couch lance has poor hitbox and range resulting in horrible accuracy
many thrust attacks will fail and fall short of hitting when your horse is stopped by an opponent's horse

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

dont get me wrong im not against adjusting the AIs behavior and slight their aim because they can aim like **** at times like they really aim down sights and the choice of targeting to. Im just saying that we shouldn't grasp for to much because that can be very dangerous so to speak....
Ai behavior needs to be adjusted by whole since not only Cav are suicide by their own, so does infantry and archers at times along with strange movements with shields and archers goes to melee instead of staying as archers

 

[Apocal]

i can't think of an instance where the khans guard with their 140 reach weapon could out perform cataphracts' 240 lances in a charge. except if everyone gets bogged down in a "stand and fight" dogpile situation.

Have you actually tested this?

Swinging polearms are hands-down superior from everything I've seen in Bannerlord, for the simple reason that it is much easier AI to connect with a sweeping strike.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

Infantry is worthless and exists solely to die instead of more valuable troops, whether in open battle or in defense of a siege, they stand in SW and die, that's all they do.

Infantry in right formation in the right terrain where cav struggle is actually pretty valuable

 

[KingEroc1st]

Have you actually tested this?

i played this game a lot. never auto calc as i live for field battles and i charge in there fighting everyone. i've killed thousands using my long glaive and from those kills i have extensive experience and observations

fighting people with shorter weapons is vastly easier than those with longer weapons.
surprisingly i have the most trouble when i'm fighting the eleftheroi minor clan who are almost exclusive cavalry with 2h lances like the imperials. despite having almost no armor, their reach are able to hit me outside my range and i take a lot more damage on average compared to fighting even banner knights
i'd say against lancers with 180-200 reach weapons I'm able to deliver 10-15 hits before taking 1. but against the 240 reach weapons i'm taking a hit every 5 attacks i land and that's using a 206 reach weapon. i can't imagine if i had a 140 glaive, i'd probably get wrekt.

once again, the glaives are superior in tight spots, clusters. dog piles, which are situations you never want your cavalry units in. but they can't come close to the spear in a charge. you need to have your cav line very long end to end, but not deep, 2 lines is enough, 4 is too many, this gives them good coverage of enemy ranks. the opposite would be a column and you'll get wrekt if you charge like that.

it is much easier AI to connect with a sweeping strike.

not just for the AI, for the player too, not just in the game, in real life too. a swing has a "hitbox" that's a line, a diagonal line at that. whereas a thrust has a "hitbox" of a point. much much easier to miss and block. AI aiming problem needs to be address, i've mentioned it earlier, all cavalry AI only aim at the ground level, so when they attack another cavalry they end up hitting the horse, and if they are using a 2h pole they might swing and hit the riders leg. that's another advantage with the glaive

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

They have adapted towards our idea slightly...Now we only need killer horses against an formation of men fighting for their lives
But also to awnser the OPs statement....ITS BECAUSE THE GLAIVE IS REDICOLUSLY OP ATM (i have one shotted every troop there is with the lowest tier Glaive on foot with basic skills)

 

[Althix]

they stand in SW and die, that's all they do.

there is more than just a SW formation in the game. Good luck charging through Sturgian square formation especially now when Shock Troops are gone (thanks g-d) and replaced with a much better option.
Anyway. I just stopped caring about T6 Surgian Hvy Cav. These guys demand too much for what they worth. I think TW may just remove them from the game and add something better instead, cause Raiders do all the work and they do it better.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

Anyway. I just stopped caring about T6 Surgian Hvy Cav. These guys demand too much for what they worth. I think TW may just remove them from the game and add something better instead, cause Raiders do all the work and they do it better.

Raiders are def not as good as them on Anti cav. Sure raiders are effective in some extend in some areas but these guys have heavy armor mind you and are pretty agile to like the Khuz heavy armor

 

[Althix]

heavy armor

made of paper. >_>
Raiders deliver initial strike which outweighs all possible charge damage by Druzhina-boys. And the most reliable source of that unit is sea raiders. Which complicates things, cause you need a significant number of influence in order to get the Disciplinarian perk. It would be also nice to have certain perks in Roguery if those even work right now.
Vlandia kinda needs their Banner Knights, when Sturgia can do just fine with Raiders.
Hmm also, is it just me or Battanian cavalry actually kick some ass these days?

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

made of paper. >_>

Nonsense..:And Vladia does just fine with their Vanguards to <3

 

[a_ver_est]

It looks like that some cavalry AI improvements are on the roadmap.

I am Sorry that it took this long, but we had to make substantial changes to ranged combat and therefore AI. Archer AI is pretty good now and patch is close to shipping. AI weapon swapping improvements are being worked on (future patch) and cav AI improvements are next.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

It looks like that some cavalry AI improvements are on the roadmap.

Lovely Hope it goes for infantry and archers movements to ^^

 

[Ichon]

i tried and it feels bull****, but not against cavalerie allone. First, you are to slow under 100 and to fast over 100 athletics and i write that number because, it has just to proof my point. (In reality i think between 80 and 120 feels nice.)
Second, everything is in my way. walls, friendly troops, enemy troops, everything! And thirt, i hit more often some crap around me, then the enemy in front of me. Thats boring.
So i decided to stay as archer. sometimes with and sometimes without a horse. I do not care about friendly fire. I would love to have friendly fire with my big axe. So nobody blocks my attacks anymore. (more or less)

You can play as infantry but it is impossible to do it IN the shieldwall or the melee scrum for more than a few seconds. You have to flank, pick targets, etc. And athletics along with heavy armour are really the most important things. You can get good with any weapon in the game and there is not a huge difference between higher tier and lower tier weapons other than a few points of damage, where you hit and how fast is the most important when using weapons.

Playing as cavalry your riding skill mostly replaces athletics (though you will get dismounted fairly often if you aren't playing exclusively a horse archer). It is not necessarily 'easier' to get kills as cavalry but it tends to be faster so in the same space of time you are likely to get a few more kill than when playing as infantry though it does depend on the battle quite a bit, certain battles with lots of tree/hill/streets it can be difficult to do damage riding vs receiving damage but that is appropriate.

I do wish TW would make the initial story of your character more relevant for skills. I can't stand restarting and spending the first 3-4 hours just getting basic skills in 3-4 areas. Someone who grew up on the steppes should start with riding 3 while a knight's son would start with polearm, sword, and athletics in the 40s.

The speeds of movement due to progression is also off but without stamina TW really has no choice. In most games athletics would increase speed only a small bit per through 100 levels but would let you run at full speed for 5-10x as long as you levelled up.

Weapon proficiencies are also a bit lacklustre but I hope TW has a plan for those at least when all perks are implemented they can tweak the damage as the skill levels increase there is a small damage curve that increases base damage and ignores a certain % of armour since the weapon controls and armour is not precise enough to hit vulnerable areas other than the head.

Cavalry as player is if only due to the speed and sharing the HP pool with the horse fairly strong in most circumstances. For the AI? It varies all over the place depending somewhat on loadout but a huge amount just just RNG rather than based on unit tier (higher tier have more armour so are more survivable and thus theoretically last longer to output more damage but they do damage at basically the same rate as lower tier cavalry).

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

You can play as infantry but it is impossible to do it IN the shieldwall or the melee scrum for more than a few seconds. You have to flank, pick targets, etc. And athletics along with heavy armour are really the most important things. You can get good with any weapon in the game and there is not a huge difference between higher tier and lower tier weapons other than a few points of damage, where you hit and how fast is the most important when using weapons.

To add:
If you have a long spear you can stab over the shield wall..A sword and a shield you can stay in front no problem. But you need to know when to attack and when to fall back. Also that youre a soldier like the rest but with more maneuverability and hit harder at times. Its also possible to do heavy infantry early on but then you must play more conservatively since you are slow because of the weight. And if you get surrounded and not saved by an cav man or an miracle from the greek gods like me here at 2:59 you most prob gonna die if you have low skills in combat.



But agility is key for being infantry thats why you loose the horse straight away on the start. But most of all playing as a team is the most essential and keeping with your group along with reading the battlefield. However the AI tends to like to screw you over at times as they moved back letting you fight everyone at once then they attack when youre dead xD

When you choose your character you can tailor that in the beginning to along with the story. You get pretty much skills on the tailored you choose. However you cant be alot at once if you want to be really good at it

 

[Medivhtratos]

For myself, starting as infantry is a lot harder but makes also more fun in the middle of the game. Like Shinobi said, you have to care about much more as an horse rider on the battlefield to stay alive.

 

[Dabos37]

Archers vs Cavalry performance in a nutshell (beta 1.5.5):

(All battles played in the same game difficulty and against the same army. I also used the same army but adding 30 Master Archers when testing archers and adding 30 Vanguard when testing cavalry)

- First try using archers:





- First try using cavalry:



- Second try using cavalry:



- Third try using cavalry:





Some annotations:

- In the first battle when playing with archers you are going to see some weird orders, this is due to I am not totally habituated to new controls yet
- Please do not pay attention to my skill when killing myself enemies, I was really not playing seriously and I just wanted to test units performance.
- If you think that I used my units poorly, please play this battle yourself and show us how good cavalry is in your hands.
- I just managed to win this battle with cavalry, if using the map border to trap Khuzait's HA.
- An advice: if you want to win battles easily, just bring archers. Do not bother with cavalry units, they are garbage in 1.5.5 again because now archers are again pretty deadly and shieldwall is not useful for cavalry anymore due to speed penalty.