How to deal with cavalry?

[Joris Bohnson]

I had a party of 25 or so mainly made of Sturgian Soldiers and Warriors, with a few spearmen get slaughtered by 6 highwaymen (mountain bandit cavalry), i placed my men on a small hill in square formation, so i don't really think i could have done any more tactics-wise.

Just wondering if there's a good counter to cavalry as i also tried 250 Sturgian Spearmen against just 50 empire heavy cavalry in a custom battle and they also got slaughtered.

The cavalry seem a bit too powerful, and spearmen next to useless.

[Macho Man]

have you tried horse archers?

[Rusted Cake]

Even in Warband cavalry were the meta. Swadian knights were quite infamous for being able to wipe out an army even with small numbers.

My method to dealing with heavy cav in Warband was to clump my troops real tight so they act as a living barricade & then swarm the enemy once they are in my formation.

[Sovitin]

From back to front, Archers - - - - Sword men--spear men. The archers usually take out the horses fairly quickly, spears will punch the weak and the sword men clean up the rest I usually find this effective for a complete infantry orientated army.

[Dank Matter]

Shield walls or the circle formation works for troops. Make sure you have footmen with spears. They will automatically switch to spears and deal with them.

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Keep a couchable lance (or better, a decent swingable polearm) on hand.

Enemy cavalry AI is rather bad at fighting cavalry and you can take out a dozen or so with realistic player damage without much issue, even with fairly basic polearms. You just need to practice.

That said, since there are actually pikes in the game this time around, I would like to see the ability for pike infantry to brace their pikes in the ground, as that's an infantry tactic as old as pikes.

[Jaceneliot]

It's funny because I think cavalry is useless and misses every hit

[Dank Matter]

Originally posted by Commisar Jon Fuklaw:

Keep a couchable lance (or better, a decent swingable polearm) on hand.

Enemy cavalry AI is rather bad at fighting cavalry and you can take out a dozen or so with realistic player damage without much issue, even with fairly basic polearms. You just need to practice.

That said, since there are actually pikes in the game this time around, I would like to see the ability for pike infantry to brace their pikes in the ground, as that's an infantry tactic as old as pikes.

Yeah a spear-wall would be nice.

[Young Erusean Officer]

Mostly terrain and shield walls. Cavalry are mostly useless uphill, place your shield wall at the top. They won't be able to couch their lances and will do poorly in melee with infantry. Wooded terrain also works wonders, frequently the cavalry will get stuck in a tree and that makes them easy pickings. Heavy cavalry can be fast but they turn like boats.

Combat wise, I recommend investing in riding and spears and fill a role in your army actively. You can personally chase after the cavalry, especially the pesky missile calv while your boys hold the line. You can also bait their cavalry into chasing you around the map while you tear through their archers.

Flat and open terrain you are boned though. Move your army just in front of the opposite side of the map boundary and shieldwall up. Their reinforcements will take longer to reach than yours and your melee reinforcements will arrive in chopping range right away in target rich enviroments.

I mostly always have archers set to delegate command unless I move them up a safe view with an excellent vantage point, they will try to stay behind the infantry for safety and will run away to regroup and skirmish when needed.

[Joris Bohnson]

How many men do i need for how many heavy cavalry? I've tried everything suggested and the result has not changed.

[THEBIGTHREE]

I'm a bit late, but a lot of the time the AI will just sit back until either you charge, or a significant amount of them dies. This especially occurs in large armies. a good thing to do is just solo their entire calvalry section, and then either retreat and continue (if the # of total troops is larger than the max battle size you have) or just continue the battle once all their cavalry are dead. This can be super tedious, but once you get good at it it's not too hard. Two handed polearms are the way to go imo. Bows can also be useful when dealing with lots of lords, as lords are generally better at blocking your hits and dealing damage to you. I've dealt with 75+ cavalry. Sure it took me a decent amount of time and if you screw up youre totally ♥♥♥♥♥♥, but its worth it imo. If you take out all their cavalry, then you can either send horse archers at them if you have it, or just let your archers whail on them as they charge you.

[Lil Grandpa]

Set them in a square formation and wait. Infantry is a hard counter for cavalry, even if they don't have spears; I don't even like using soldiers that don't have any shields, actually, since they get massacred by archers. Regardless, the moment a bunch of them get into the middle of the mosh pit, it becomes a complete slaughter for the cavalry.

[Jack Niggleson]

Originally posted by Joris Bohnson:

I had a party of 25 or so mainly made of Sturgian Soldiers and Warriors, with a few spearmen get slaughtered by 6 highwaymen (mountain bandit cavalry), i placed my men on a small hill in square formation, so i don't really think i could have done any more tactics-wise.

Just wondering if there's a good counter to cavalry as i also tried 250 Sturgian Spearmen against just 50 empire heavy cavalry in a custom battle and they also got slaughtered.

The cavalry seem a bit too powerful, and spearmen next to useless.

Have you tried not playing sturgia?

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Joris Bohnson:

...
Just wondering if there's a good counter to cavalry as i also tried 250 Sturgian Spearmen against just 50 empire heavy cavalry in a custom battle and they also got slaughtered.

The cavalry seem a bit too powerful, and spearmen next to useless.

First - The "Custom Battle" simulator isn't "the game." I don't believe results derived from tests conducted there are very valid to "in-game experiences." It's like... some sort of "arcade version" of the game.

"Open Order" (loose formation) works surprisingly well against cavalry... The objective is to trap cavalry, prevent them from moving, then "Charge" in and kill the trapped units.

Though... There are situations in which you simply can not "win."

Use the terrain. There's almost always, AFAIK, some stand of trees in a map that isn't part of a desert terrain. Use it to hamper cavalry movement and to protect your flanks. With your small group, if you're really having issues against this small cavalry group, go deep into the woods and lure them in. Then, when they're fully in the woods and close, Charge. Your footmen will be much more maneuverable than they. Or...should be.

Sturgia still has "issues" with unit selection and balancing, IMO. In fact, AFAIK, there has not been any attempts at all to make strides towards Unit or Unit Tree/Faction balancing since the patch that attempted to help out Sturgian troops. Until we get a truly focused effort at unit balancing and some stat work, there's going to be continued head-scratching issues, especially with factions like Sturgia who are purposefully hamstrung for "flavor" but don't have the early-tree beef to back that up...

[Sinsling]

It is pretty bad when even battania has a better unit lineup than you do. The only conclusions I can draw from looking at their unit lineup is that a spear frontline sucks ass.

[Lil Grandpa]

Battania has some nice units, kinda.