Why Does my Cav seem so weak?

[l_pha]

Playing on Very Hard battle difficulty and it seems my Cav struggles to beat or even lose most of their encounters.

2 units of knights of the blazing sun beaten by 1 unit of blood knights with half health left

Demigryph knights beaten by chaos warrior knights

Facing charging a unit of waywatchers with demigryph knights only to have them come back and beat my demi gryphs in melee

And the time half my demigryph knights got instantly deleted by spinning goblins

Are cav really just that bad or is it just the melee/defense buffs in harder battle difficulties?

[Human bean]

Cav is not meant to stay in melee for long. They are meant to charge in then withdraw. And then charge right back in! If they are left in melee they are DOOMED!

[Darklight]

There is a lot of depends in that answer. There is cav that performs better in fights and cav that perform better on the charge. It's like melee cav and shock cav in other Total War titles.

It also depends on what your fighting. You have cav that comes with anti-infantry bonuses and cav that comes with anti-large bonuses. Cav with anti-large bonuses are going to perform better against other cav. Blood Knights are anti-large shock cav with good armour values and have frenzy and pretty sure have hunger as well, HP regen while stuck in melee.

[Cenwalh]

Originally posted by l_pha:

Playing on Very Hard battle difficulty and it seems my Cav struggles to beat or even lose most of their encounters.

2 units of knights of the blazing sun beaten by 1 unit of blood knights with half health left

Blood Knights are among the top 5 strongest cav units in the game. They have a pretty good anti-large bonus, while Knights of the Blazing Sun do not have AL bonus at all. That's why they lost.

Cav is not bad, you just need to practice on using it better. Like the previous person said, do not keep them in melee (with some very few exceptions and specific encounters), charge (preferably from the rear to get a leadership damage bonus), retreat then charge again.

Not sure what you meant by "facing a charging unit of waywatchers" ?? you mean the waywatchers charged your demigryphs ? if so, then not a surprise they lost. cavalry is not meant to be stationary. they should always be moving.

spinning goblins thing does a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of damage, yeah... nothing else to add there.

yes, the cheats to battle stats the AI gets grow with each diff level.


EDIT: another weird thing about Knights of the Blazing Sun. Although their unit card says "Anti-Infantry", they do not have any anti-infantry bonus...

Rule of thumb - you should never believe the unit card text (the one in green at the top), instead simply look over and check the actual stats and abilities and read what they do. Bonuses versus specific types of units or AP damage can be seen when hovering over the number in the "weapon strength" section.

[path2power]

Originally posted by l_pha:

Playing on Very Hard battle difficulty and it seems my Cav struggles to beat or even lose most of their encounters.

2 units of knights of the blazing sun beaten by 1 unit of blood knights with half health left

Demigryph knights beaten by chaos warrior knights

Facing charging a unit of waywatchers with demigryph knights only to have them come back and beat my demi gryphs in melee

And the time half my demigryph knights got instantly deleted by spinning goblins
Are cav really just that bad or is it just the melee/defense buffs in harder battle difficulties?

Yes Cavalry is much worse in Warhammer than in other total wars, but it seems you're also trying to have shock cavalry stay in melee, and empire only really has Knights of the black rose for that.
The Way wacther thing sounded weird though, are you sure they weren't shot at while in melee?

[Uugly]

The spinning goblins still worth far more than Doomseeker.

[Human bean]

Originally posted by Uugly:

The spinning goblins still worth far more than Doomseeker.

Yes

[KTVindicare]

Originally posted by l_pha:

Playing on Very Hard battle difficulty and it seems my Cav struggles to beat or even lose most of their encounters.

2 units of knights of the blazing sun beaten by 1 unit of blood knights with half health left

Demigryph knights beaten by chaos warrior knights

Facing charging a unit of waywatchers with demigryph knights only to have them come back and beat my demi gryphs in melee

And the time half my demigryph knights got instantly deleted by spinning goblins

Are cav really just that bad or is it just the melee/defense buffs in harder battle difficulties?

Blood Knights are elite anti large cavalry. Anti Large means they are anti-cavalry. You threw your Knights of the Blazing Sun into one of the worst units they could go up against.

Demigryph Knights will lose to Chaos Knights 1 on 1, especially if they do not have, you guessed it, anti-large. That is what Demigryph Knights with Halberds are for. Regular Demigryph Knights are for attacking infantry and even then they are a shock cavalry which are meant to cycle charge not fight in straight up 1v1 combat. Chaos Knights are not shock cavalry, they have a lower charge bonus but they have much better melee defense making them better for 1v1 combat head to head.

So basically in this post you are telling me that you have no idea what you are doing with your cavalry or what it is even for. You need to pay attention to the stat cards on your units better so you can understand what you should actually be using them for. You need to avoid sending your not anti-Large cavalry against anti-Large cavalry. You need to learn which of your cavalry are shock cav and which are melee cavalry.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by l_pha:

Playing on Very Hard battle difficulty and it seems my Cav struggles to beat or even lose most of their encounters.

2 units of knights of the blazing sun beaten by 1 unit of blood knights with half health left

Demigryph knights beaten by chaos warrior knights

Facing charging a unit of waywatchers with demigryph knights only to have them come back and beat my demi gryphs in melee

And the time half my demigryph knights got instantly deleted by spinning goblins

Are cav really just that bad or is it just the melee/defense buffs in harder battle difficulties?

There are a myriad of factors involved. Generally, with those odds, your cav should have won every time. While difficulty does matter, it doesn't matter THAT much.

Factors that skewer the outcome are:
- general skills
- veterancy
- exhaustion
- troop collision
- charge bonus
- flank
- techs
- magic support
- tactical skills
- passive auras
- ranged units that fire into melee

All I can say for certain is, that if you had those factors on your side, you would have won easily in the circumstances you just described. The reason you didn't need to be figured out by looking through all the stuff I just wrote.

[pascal.difolco]

Empire cav is pretty weak overall, and especially in melee, only the new Knights of Morr have decent melee abilities afaik
As others said, they're meant to cover flanks, charge, retreat and rince
Try Brettonian cav, those Grail Knights and Guardians are quite better, and you can really have powerful full cav armies, not so with Empire

[GalloglassCA]

Unless you're actively using the unit ai stat buffs the cavalry should be working appropriately for their role and tier.

[pascal.difolco]

Yet Legend is streaming atm with a full Reiksguard army under KF, so it's maybe not that bad

[Dregora]

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Yet Legend is streaming atm with a full Reiksguard army under KF, so it's maybe not that bad

The man has mastered the art of cheese and knows insane AI details down to a minimum. Just because he can make things look good, doesn't mean they're generally good. It means HE is just that good.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Yet Legend is streaming atm with a full Reiksguard army under KF, so it's maybe not that bad

The man has mastered the art of cheese and knows insane AI details down to a minimum. Just because he can make things look good, doesn't mean they're generally good. It means HE is just that good.

But that means this cav is not hopeless, just git gud ^^

[Reaver79]

Most of your complaint seems to be that cav gets beaten by other cav, yet you ask if cav is just that bad...
Maybe you should ask your self if you got the right cav for the task at hand.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Empire cav is pretty weak overall, and especially in melee, only the new Knights of Morr have decent melee abilities afaik
As others said, they're meant to cover flanks, charge, retreat and rince
Try Brettonian cav, those Grail Knights and Guardians are quite better, and you can really have powerful full cav armies, not so with Empire

Empire cav is alright, you just have to build into it. Namely, you need to get the red general perks, get the techs, etc. You won't get anything on the same level as Grail or Blood Knights, but you will easily beat every stack the AI can possibly throw at you, regardless of difficulty.

Actually, with proper build up and support, the Empire is in the upper half as far as cav power goes and has quite some potential there.