Does Cavalry Extend Combat Width?

[Sovietkotek]

If I have 15 Combat Width with an army of 15/2, will the Cavalry extend the front line as far as their flanking range? Or will it just use 13/2 to engage?

[Narrowmind]

The second.

[Kapika96]

Nope.

Flanking range only affects which units it can attack, ie. flanking attacks hit enemy units to the side of that unit, rather than just the one directly in front of it.

[Sovietkotek]

Hmmmm...

1 - Do cavalry attack multiple units at once?

2 - Are cavalry only better when you outnumber the opponent's front line? (Minus cavalry-focused factions)

3 - If I have big infantry combat % bonuses that give it better attack than cavalry individually, should I just use infantry instead? Or no because of question 2???

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

1 - Do cavalry attack multiple units at once?

As far as I can tell, no. Cavalry are simply able to attack units slightly off to either side of them instead of the unit directly in front of them when necessary.

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

2 - Are cavalry only better when you outnumber the opponent's front line? (Minus cavalry-focused factions)

Yes and no, but mostly yes. Cavalry still have somewhat better combat pips than infantry early on, but by default each cavalry regiment is two and a half times as expensive both to recruit and maintain as an infantry regiment. They are often just not cost-effective to field for nations that don't have significant bonuses towards them. For most nations, it's only really worth investing in cavalry for your armies if you have a significant amount of excess income.

The flanking range bonus makes them very powerful when attacking armies smaller than your current combat width. However, artillery actually has the same flanking range that cavalry does, making cavalry less and less useful over time as full artillery back rows start becoming more dominant.

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

3 - If I have big infantry combat % bonuses that give it better attack than cavalry individually, should I just use infantry instead? Or no because of question 2???

Absolutely you should. Every infantry bonus you have makes cavalry even less cost-effective than they already are.

Even without infantry combat bonuses, it is generally recommended to start permanently phasing out all cavalry units, replacing them with infantry, during the time period where military technology levels 16 and up become available. That is the point where artillery fire damage begins to massively influence battle statistics. This peaks at military tech level 22, where artillery fire reaches massive levels and will simply obliterate your cavalry in the first fire phase, leaving them badly depleted in the following shock phase where most of cavalry's damage is dealt. At that point, even cav-focused nations are recommended to switch to an army composition of pure infantry and artillery.

[Sovietkotek]

Yay tyvm!

[ArchiV]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

1 - Do cavalry attack multiple units at once?

YES, as all units, they will even attack more unit than infantry (u can see that by hovering infantry/cav/canon while in combat, u will see area of attack)

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by ArchiV:

YES, as all units, they will even attack more unit than infantry (u can see that by hovering infantry/cav/canon while in combat, u will see area of attack)

NO. They can only attack one unit at a time. When hovering over the unit in the battle, the arrow points to the regiment which they are attacking. The other highlighted regiments are the ones which they could attack because of their flanking range,but they are not currently under attack.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2749290123

[Sovietkotek]

Hmm, I need to check that out. The confusing part is in combat it points to one unit, but highlights two.

[Sovietkotek]

Hmm, as battle draws down and the lines become thinner, I suppose it's good to always keep at least 2 cav in each army?? :x

[bri]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

Hmm, as battle draws down and the lines become thinner, I suppose it's good to always keep at least 2 cav in each army?? :x

I go with 4 in case of combat losses and such plus also later in the game your flanking range can increase.

[Marquoz]

4 is a good number, and what I generally use myself. Although since my armies typically are split in half because of province support limits, each half army only has two. They'll merge for big fights but spend most of their time one province apart.

[PeGa]

On a global scale, if you are not a horde, using cavalry is a bad idea, for long periods of time it is weaker than conventional infantry, besides 2.5 times more expensive.
If you still want to use cavalry, then be sure to use at least 4 regiments, otherwise you may encounter the error of placing regiments at the front.

[Sovietkotek]

Ok thanks! I figured their flanking range could still be handy in piling on casualties against slightly smaller armies before they retreat (unless I have like +40% infantry combat and more buffs to fire damage which the cavalry might not have).

[RCMidas]

Cav is good if you can pile on stupid amounts of +shock damage and can rely on that to wipe out enemy infantry before their priority fire damage kills you - which you cannot rely on. Hordes have a great set of other cav bonuses that help to offset this, but there is a good reason why cavalry was increasingly phased out except in niche circumstances as gun tech improved.

Keep them early game to help deal with slightly smaller armies that you can effectively flank, but phase them out once you can start fielding a back line of pure artillery.

[Sovietkotek]