We need more incentives to play with infantry instead of calvary

[quietresolve]

I don't have any issue that horses outperforming footmen - that's exactly how medieval warfare works. Just like in modern warfare, no one would argue a tank would outperform a man. However, I don't think there is enough incentive for players to play infantry instead of calvary. There is a cost difference, sure, but I don't think it matters that much given the current economic system is not completely balanced and a lot of people won't find money to be a problem in most stages of the game. The problem is with the 100 troop cap, on the player's perspective, why even bother to raise 100 infantries, when I can do much better and raise 100 horses? An army with 100 horses is way better than an army with 100 infantries, typically 100 horses can beat 200 men on foot. In this regard, each calvary should take at least 2 spots in the party size!
Furthermore, an infantry army (even with horses) are extremely slow on the world map and constantly outran by bandits, which makes leveling your troop extremely difficult and pushes me to calvary every time.

 

[Lovec1990]

well they could make horses more expensive and rare, but in other hand Ai should be also limited how much do they use cavalry

 

[Wehveechen]

Agreed. Was discussing troop builds with my brother and I had to interrupt his explanations on Battanian infantry with "but why would I bother with an infantry army in the first place."
That's a real pity because it makes many different builds and combinations just unviable or harder than necessary.
(Even if personally, I am a sucker for large cavalry armies.)

 

[Frotzi]

It's all about good tactics
I don't think the horsemen should be nerfed. I would rather see that spearmen got better.
I actually think that horsemen are doing a bad job at killing footman, but I also think that was an issue with calculation, which has been improved in the beta.
I'm staying neutral in this case.

 

[TheDuncanMacleod]

I use the circle formation and have my infantry divided into two groups so the spearman are in the inner circle and the shield infantry are in the outer circle they eat horse units alive in that particular set up

 

[quietresolve]

It's all about good tactics
I don't think the horsemen should be nerfed. I would rather see that spearmen got better.
I actually think that horsemen are doing a bad job at killing footman, but I also think that was an issue with calculation, which has been improved in the beta.
I'm staying neutral in this case.

They might be "well balanced" or "historical accurate" but on a players perspective there's really no point to play with infantry, that is my point - at least give the infantry an equally fast map movement speed! How is an infantry riding a horse travels slower than a real calvary anyway?

 

[Kulgrinda Košmarjus]

What would be the downsides of having the army cap converted to unit score cap (i.e. peasants 1 score, elite horse lancer 5 points) rather than head cap? That would mean more diverse armies, less all elite soldiers? Army progression wouldn't work well that's one thing.

 

[Frotzi]

They might be "well balanced" or "historical accurate" but on a players perspective there's really no point to play with infantry, that is my point - at least give the infantry an equally fast map movement speed! How is an infantry riding a horse travels slower than a real calvary anyway?

I'm sure there will be fair balancing later on in the development

 

[quietresolve]

What would be the downsides of having the army cap converted to unit score cap (i.e. peasants 1 score, elite horse lancer 5 points) rather than head cap? That would mean more diverse armies, less all elite soldiers? Army progression wouldn't work well that's one thing.

What about cav with horse - 1.5 point, cav with warhorse - 2 point, infantry - 1 point. So in this case the army progression still matters, and we will be able to produce more infantries than calvaries, just like in the history.

Or add any other incentives for people to play infantry. Currently there is none, and the slow map movement making the game really inconvenient

 

[BlazingScribe]

I have so far run two campaigns. Battanian, focusing on foot archers supported by a shield wall and enough cavalry to get by (read, chase down routing units and block up cavalry charges so my archers and infantry can get them). And my current Aserai game, where I have so far used cavalry exclusively.

The foot archers and infantry option I find more reliable, at least in the sense that I can count on not taking casualties. The Fian are powerful enough to trash armies my size or smaller, and I can usually dominate field battles with them. The infantry may not get as many kills but I still need them, because the archers I have are rare and expensive and I need something to defend them. Plus, even if my archers end up killing half the enemy force before they reach me, I still need the infantry to stop them from reaching my vulnerable ranged units with a counter charge. A charge of Veteran Falxmen, Trained Spearmen, and Wildlings is savage one indeed, especially when the enemy's ranks have been thinned by arrow fire.

In contrast, I live in constant fear of my light cavalrymen getting shanked by some schmuck with a pitchfork with the Aserai. Desert bandits all have spears, and I've just started to avoid fighting them outright because they'll usually bring down a few of my men with them with every engagement. A horseman's speed is their greatest strength and also their greatest weakness. A well timed spear jab or a thrown javelin will bring down a charging horse easily, or outright kill the rider.

There is one additional thing that infantry will always be better at than cavalry; sieges. Infantry by an large have more athletics than their mounted counterparts, usually have heavier armor, and better shields. Throw them into a siege environment where it often turns into a desperate brawl and they will usually come out on top. The only thing that horsemen can help you with in sieges are sally assaults, and even then you will usually lose most of them in the process.

In short, sure. 1 to 1 cavalry are probably going to beat infantry in field battles. Things change in a siege environment, and infantry are still useful, if not vital as part of a combined arms force. Plus cavalry is expensive as hell to mass (a single warhorse is over 500 denars, and that is when its cheap), and infantry costs a fraction of that.

 

[Yangbang]

I think that the war economy of things should be rebalanced firstly. Cavalry were like the air support of the old warfare. High performance, high results, and also high priced. And that dips into pricing of horses from the local trader too, it's so funny to see some armor and weapons be the price of 100 horses. Those price values need to a total flip.

But back to the question. The economy of war should be something along these lines in my opinion from cheapest to most expensive by upkeep. Starting with a recruit who's at 1 gold for upkeep.

Recruits 1 gold
Archer 8 gold
Infantry 12 gold
Cavalry 80 gold

So in lamest terms, 1 horseman should be equal to 10 archers or roughly 6 infantry. The math is all hypothetical but I hope you get my point. Cavalry should be expensive, even at its lowest tier it should be equal to high tier infantry.

 

[TheDuncanMacleod]

the balance so far is that to get cavalry upgraded you need war horses which take forever to collect for a full cav army. also if you use the new formations the way they were historically used they do in fact serve their purpose extremely well go to test battle set a ring of pikemen inside a ring of regular infantry and put an equal number of horsemen against them all units being equal in tier the horsemen usually barely come out on top and sometimes even lose in my experience. the thing that would make infantry a necessity to field is if the garrisons of towns didn't get drained by relentless wars to the point you are against all militia during sieges that get slaughtered by T3 archers let alone any variation of high tier units the balance is a long ways out and the cavalry are not the problem.

 

[CascadeHush]

Agreed. Was discussing troop builds with my brother and I had to interrupt his explanations on Battanian infantry with "but why would I bother with an infantry army in the first place."

In the original I only had infantry until I could level troups up to cavalry. At the sharp end of the game my armies consistent solely of Swadian knights, Kerghit horse archers and sword sisters.

(Sword sisters were fun... a bit hard to come by so there was a challenge there. And useful, having decent ranged and melee attacks and a nice intermediate between the other two... plus faster map travel time.)

So yeah, I'm in the transition point in my game. Now that I have 2 cities I'm trying to move to an all cavalry force.

The top level infantry are cheaper and tougher for sieges though... at least they were in warband.

 

[Shrugging Khan]

There seem to be several factors making cavalry overpowered compared to infantry. Some of these are realistic and make sense, some seem like missing content.

• In this era, there are neither pike blocks nor firearms giving cavalry trouble.
• Cavalry is harder to hit.
• There is no bracing of pikes and spears to trouble cavalry - though I think polearms make horses rear?
• Cavalry has a very easy time riding through infantry formations.
• Horse performance does not degrade when the horse is injured.
• Horses function well on almost any terrain.
• There is excellently protective barding for horses to be had.
• There are no economic incentives against using cavalry (cost to recruit same as infantry, maintaining multiple horses per soldier, finding fodder, time to graze).
• There are management incentives for using cavalry (same impact on party size as infantry, faster movement on the map).

 

[Negative]

Well judging from Hans Dellbruecks riding the cavallery is even now much to weak... Afair did he write that frankish laws based their whole army system around that armoured horseman with spears - e.g. just counting how many 'knights' the people of a region were obligated to bring in times of war, and counting footsoldiers just as the footnote towards what 1 'knight' meant.

 

[robstew500]

I don't really have this experience, sure cavalry is good but you inevitably lose them when they charge into enemy formations, where as archers can mow down endless enemies without taking any damage. Infantry protects your archers even better than cavalry can and it is cheaper and easy to obtain.

 

[Chaosreaper187]

I don't have any issue that horses outperforming footmen - that's exactly how medieval warfare works. Just like in modern warfare, no one would argue a tank would outperform a man. However, I don't think there is enough incentive for players to play infantry instead of calvary. There is a cost difference, sure, but I don't think it matters that much given the current economic system is not completely balanced and a lot of people won't find money to be a problem in most stages of the game. The problem is with the 100 troop cap, on the player's perspective, why even bother to raise 100 infantries, when I can do much better and raise 100 horses? An army with 100 horses is way better than an army with 100 infantries, typically 100 horses can beat 200 men on foot. In this regard, each calvary should take at least 2 spots in the party size!
Furthermore, an infantry army (even with horses) are extremely slow on the world map and constantly outran by bandits, which makes leveling your troop extremely difficult and pushes me to calvary every time.

At the moment cavalry is pretty bad anyways because they can't hit anything except with spears. Charging archers with your cavalry is basically suicide even though cavalry is supposed to counter archers. The only cav that is good in the game right now are horse archers and cavalry with spears

 

[hisroyalangel8]

I don't really have this experience, sure cavalry is good but you inevitably lose them when they charge into enemy formations, where as archers can mow down endless enemies without taking any damage. Infantry protects your archers even better than cavalry can and it is cheaper and easy to obtain.

This, we play exactly the same style. Besides getting a hundred horsemen is difficult first starting out. I personally wouldn't put horse infantry in my Garrison's either

 

[Sidhwen_Khorest]

if i could get my infantry to switch to spears i think cav wouldnt be so hard, they have giant spears but still choose to face the charge with swords

 

[Yangbang]

if i could get my infantry to switch to spears i think cav wouldnt be so hard, they have giant spears but still choose to face the charge with swords

Agreed, there's gotta be a command implemented to tell troops to use polearms over single/double handed weapons.