+73% Calvary Combat Ability

[Joshwerds]

I'm doing a Poland run and if I take Aristocratic, Espionage, and Quality ideas and the +33% from the national ideas, I would get about +73% Calvary Combat Ability. Is this worth it? Clavary isn't that important if you're not in early game, but the eastern group has good calvary plus winged hussars. This seems good especially if I have a calvary focused army, but I'm not sure if it's worth it or will actually make a difference since land fire takes over importance mid to late game.

[tonypa]

Cavalry is always stronger compared to Infantry. The problem you usually face, is the cost, maintaining even 50% of your troops as cavalry will have huge impact on your income.

[Fantastic Fwoosh]

Albania also has good cav idea combos (Hit and Run - +50% Cavalry flanking ability) along with being eastern tech meaning they have a strong cavalry midgame and you can combine this with cavalry ability increases so they can decimate at flanking range.

• Albanian Winged Hussar's with Humanist & Quantity ideas completed for a +1 guranteed pip on shock general as well as +1 maneuver via national ideas by taking the relevant policy are dominant.
  
  
• Due to the raiding national idea, berber nations can also drain money very quickly with cavalry majority from provices due to raiding & cavalry ability increases.

Aristocratic ideas make cavalry slightly cheaper but without other widespread reductions its still very expensive and you might have to change religion to Sunni or another islamic faith to enjoy the benefits of 60% cavalry allowance so that your cav aren't less effective when (and if) your infantry centre falls apart.

[Phoenix VII]

Aristocratic and Quality are good idea groups in their own right but Espionage just isn't worth it, IMO. Don't forget you can get another +20% cavalry combat ability from the Cossacks estate which'll be easy to get once you have some steppe provinces to give them. Infantry gets a major bonus to their fire modifier on Tech 20 (and 27 and 31) while artillery gets one on Tech 22 and again on Tech 25 (and 32).

I never played as Poland but as Russia with Quality and the Cossacks bonus, I was able to field an army with maybe a 1 cavalry:3 infantry ratio with a +30% cavalry combat ability and they wrecked everything until Tech 20 when they started to take too many losses for my liking and I scaled their numbers down to use just as flankers. Of course, it didn't help that the Ottomans fielded alot of cannons, so how good a cavalry heavy army does in the late game probably depends as much on how many cannons the enemy uses as it does on tech. After Tech 16, artillery in the back row does more fire damage than infantry does and the fire phase comes first. With +73% cavalry combat ability, I think cavalry should beat infantry pretty well if the infantry isn't supported by artillery until at least Tech 27.

[Edim]

Don't forget that Cossacks Estate gives you additional +20% Cav. Combat Ability and you can get Cossack Cavalry which has bonus shock damage. Overall if you want it for the goofs, you can get in total almost 100% Cavalry combat ability, which means that for every Cavalry regiment you have you'll do almost double the damage! Espionage is... mediocre at best, but if you really want that sweet Cav. Combat Ability you'll have to take it. It's pretty nice to have if you have a large empire and a lot of relations to keep track of, as it gives you extra diplomat and -10% Liberty Desire, -25% Claim Cost and +50% spy network construction. Overall I think that this may work pretty fine :)

[僕の名前 (仮)]

If you have moneys for it.

The bad thing I noticed about going full limit with cavliary though. After combat you may lose more infantry and now you're over cavliary limit. You would now have to detach some horses.