The light melee cavalry seems a bit underwhelmed

[Solareign]

The stat requirement of hussar feels somehow too high (42 SKL) for upgrading rout other than from the scout, like the cavalier or archer/horse archer who both mainly grow in STR, so pretty much u can only got hussars by preparing scout for later.

Even if you successfully assembled one or two squad of it, It's still hard to determine the advantage of this unit. It's definitely not tanky of course. And as 99% of the game the player got outnumbered, being UNtanky could be a deadly flaw. Yet it hardly perform well on offensive comparing with heavy cavalry or light infantry.

Maybe it need a significant boost of damage for the first wave of attack like the ranger, or a smaller chance targeting random enemy unit, or a thrust attack like the centurion? Or simply lower the requirement to make it a early/mid-game specialist on the way to heavy knight?

[Wuorg]

IMO, the main benefit of light cavalry is being able to ambush (Edit: while retaining high moblity, having both the move speed of cav and the terrain advantage of light troops). Hussars are the anti-cav cavalry (keep in mind their Polearm trait lets them resist enemy charges too!), and for everything else you have Raiders (Edit: which still have a powerful ambush).

Edit: I know I butchered this with parentheticals, but hopefully it still gets my point across!

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Would agree that it turned out this way. In future installments we definitely have better plans for this kind of meta, which would include at least more clearly delineating their squad and movement type to differentiate them from heavy cavalry.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Also note that the polarm bonus they give helps adjacent units when you unlock that tech. And that as light units they attack before heavy units. And they add a new attack type to your squad which boosts all unit's attacks when you unlock that tech. (And you'll have those techs long before hussars considering they're a late game unit.)

So a squad of hussars isn't that great, but in this game you're encouraged to make mixed squads. And a squad of knights AND hussars is better than one of just knights.

But the main thing is their movement type as Wuorg said.

Suppose I have a squad of 3 hussars, 2 Valkyries, 2 rangers, an oracle and a Sentinel. I can have a tough front rank of Valkyries and Sentinels, with healing from the Valkyries if needed. I can bolster the rangers with polarm bonus by putting a hussar in between. I have an Oracle to protect the entire squad, safely in the middle.

And the whole squad will move as light cavalry, with fast movement, difficult terrain crossing, and ambushing.

(5 out of 9 units are cavalry, 5 out of 9 are light.)

Not saying to make this specific squad by the way, I'd usually want more specialised ones. But having Hussars certainly opens up a lot of options.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Dancing Dragon Games:

Would agree that it turned out this way. In future installments we definitely have better plans for this kind of meta, which would include at least more clearly delineating their squad and movement type to differentiate them from heavy cavalry.

Maybe there could be something to the effect of stacking bonuses for squad types? What I mean is having a player choice between armies composed of different unit types, or having one squad of all the same things. So for example, every heavy infantry in the squad would give some armor, or something like that, whereas every light cavalry would give movement speed or probably something less broken.

Basically the idea there would be the choice between stacking units of the same type to maximize their particular bonus, or having more "balanced" unit comps that gets a little bit of everything.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Maybe there could be something to the effect of stacking bonuses for squad types? What I mean is having a player choice between armies composed of different unit types, or having one squad of all the same things. So for example, every heavy infantry in the squad would give some armor, or something like that, whereas every light cavalry would give movement speed or probably something less broken.

Basically the idea there would be the choice between stacking units of the same type to maximize their particular bonus, or having more "balanced" unit comps that gets a little bit of everything.

The currently deliberately encourages mixing squads by giving NON-stacking bonuses: extra damage for ALL units for each new unit type.

I think that was the correct choice. People are naturally inclined to keep things simple and make similar squads. Mechanics like that encourage them to experiment.

Stacking bonuses would work against that.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

The currently deliberately encourages mixing squads by giving NON-stacking bonuses: extra damage for ALL units for each new unit type.

I think that was the correct choice. People are naturally inclined to keep things simple and make similar squads. Mechanics like that encourage them to experiment.

Stacking bonuses would work against that.

Does it though? Outside of putting in healers/oracles, I've never really found a need to mix and match. For example, Abi's squad is always 3 dragons for me, because there's just no reason not to capitalize on her improvement of dragons and the flying movement type. I think the most "mixed" squad I had was for my main character, but that's because they're a powerhouse already and I liked building a thematic squad for them.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Does it though? Outside of putting in healers/oracles, I've never really found a need to mix and match. For example, Abi's squad is always 3 dragons for me, because there's just no reason not to capitalize on her improvement of dragons and the flying movement type. I think the most "mixed" squad I had was for my main character, but that's because they're a powerhouse already and I liked building a thematic squad for them.

Dragons are the exception, because you need 3 for flying movement and then you don't have much choice left.

But for the rest? Yes, the game encourages mixing.

1] Mixed Unit tactics gives big weapon bonuses when you mix.

Say in mission 12 I have a squad of 5 cavalry and a healer. The cavalry have 42 + 3 weapon damage. Now I change one to a scout and one to a swordsman. Now I have 42 + 9 damage. That matters, especially early on.

2] Attack patterns STRONGLY encourage mixing.

Say I have a squad of 3 sentinels, 4 Champions, an oracle and a healer. Tough and hard-hitting. Say I attack an enemy squad of 6 archers protected by two pikemen.

First round: I kill the pikemen and get shot. Second round: I kill half the archers and get shot by the remainder.

Now if I had Swordmasters instead of Champions, this would happen:

First round: Swordmasters kill the pikemen. Sentinels kill one or two archers. I get shot less. Second round: Swordmasters kill most of the archers. Sentinels kill the rest. Squad defeated, I don't get shot.

You will have a LOT of cases where having units of the same type means you overkill one or two enemies and then don't kill the rest.

So don't bring a full squad of knights. Bring a squad of knights with some hussars and fire mages.

3] Movement patterns STRONGLY encourage mixing. (Except flying.)

Horses are precious. Cavalry is great. If I use 8 cavalry units in a squad, I will have a lot less cavalry units than when I use 5 cavalry per squad.

Likewise, having a lot of light units really helps in missions with a lot of difficult terrain. But there's no need to make everybody in that squad light. Which brings me to my last point.

4] Everybody benefits from a tough front rank.

A squad of assassins sounds cool, but in practice? They die too much. But I can also field a squad of assassins with a front row of sentinels. Or a squad of raiders with a front row of Samurai. Or add some Sentinels in my heavy cavalry squad.

Now ALL your squads can stand up to a counter-attack or two, and your tactical options become much broader.

[Solareign]

Originally posted by Wuorg:

IMO, the main benefit of light cavalry is being able to ambush (Edit: while retaining high moblity, having both the move speed of cav and the terrain advantage of light troops). Hussars are the anti-cav cavalry (keep in mind their Polearm trait lets them resist enemy charges too!), and for everything else you have Raiders (Edit: which still have a powerful ambush).

Edit: I know I butchered this with parentheticals, but hopefully it still gets my point across!

The problem is that the anti-cav feature is way unimpressive. The enemy cav usually outnumbered and outmaneuvered the player which makes a defensive tactic like throw in some ironclads infantry to make a stand far more viable. And as a light unit, the evasion bonus only applies while attacking and the charge resistance hardly made up for lacking durability.

For the mobility part, unless equipped with the artifact allow free movement in woods, cav does not move significantly farther.
The ambushing-charging feature is cool tbh, but I did not find many applicable situation.

[Solareign]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

Also note that the polarm bonus they give helps adjacent units when you unlock that tech. And that as light units they attack before heavy units. And they add a new attack type to your squad which boosts all unit's attacks when you unlock that tech. (And you'll have those techs long before hussars considering they're a late game unit.)

So a squad of hussars isn't that great, but in this game you're encouraged to make mixed squads. And a squad of knights AND hussars is better than one of just knights.

But the main thing is their movement type as Wuorg said.

Suppose I have a squad of 3 hussars, 2 Valkyries, 2 rangers, an oracle and a Sentinel. I can have a tough front rank of Valkyries and Sentinels, with healing from the Valkyries if needed. I can bolster the rangers with polarm bonus by putting a hussar in between. I have an Oracle to protect the entire squad, safely in the middle.

And the whole squad will move as light cavalry, with fast movement, difficult terrain crossing, and ambushing.

(5 out of 9 units are cavalry, 5 out of 9 are light.)

Not saying to make this specific squad by the way, I'd usually want more specialised ones. But having Hussars certainly opens up a lot of options.

That's just the problem with hussars. It has hardly any impressive speciality and is nothing more than a paperweight for the unit type calculation. Raiders and especially dragoons are much easier to obtain.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Solareign:

That's just the problem with hussars. It has hardly any impressive speciality and is nothing more than a paperweight for the unit type calculation. Raiders and especially dragoons are much easier to obtain.

Well, dragoons do cost pyrocite. But now that you can trade resources that is less of a problem.

So yeah, after unlocking all the techs they're probably the better choice. (Without those techs though the hussars are better. Dragoons that only shoot once, don't count as light cavalry, and become useless in the rain aren't worth much.)