why are cavalry archers so slow?

[Red Shoe Paul]

Hey guys, I've got this idea for a unit, its a man with a bow on a horse, very light, shooty shooty stay out of melee yeah? Here's the kicker though: Those heavily armored guys with armored horses and giant spears? yeah, they're twice as fast as the lightly armored bow guys. hahaha we know unit design!

[Trebor797]

Originally posted by Red Shoe Paul:

Hey guys, I've got this idea for a unit, its a man with a bow on a horse, very light, shooty shooty stay out of melee yeah? Here's the kicker though: Those heavily armored guys with armored horses and giant spears? yeah, they're twice as fast as the lightly armored bow guys. hahaha we know unit design!

They know game balance. Imagine how frustrating it would be not being able to catch enemy bow cavalry. Also it seems like you are referring to Yari Cavalry, but they don't got armoured horses. Also they are supposed to be a shock cavalry and so also need very fast horses. Bow cavalry compared is relatively cheap so one could argue they simply don't got the best and fastest horses. Also if you just send a bit melee Cavalry or even better some Yari Samurai with them you should be able to keep them safe as AI is not too smart at avoiding that protection.

[big Hat arxm]

Japanese horse archers "Yabusame" were not really a serious military instrument after the Heian period which pre-dates the Sengoku period of the game by something like 400 years. Yabusame were used as training exercises by samurai afterwards however.

I think it is fair enough to say that Trebor is correct that for game balance reasons the yari samurai act as a major counter, alongside foot archers and gunners.

[BastardSword]

Hmm in Thrones of Britannia it's the opposite, the Irish and Viking missile cavalry are faster than melee cavalry, so if you try to chase them they just run to the edge of the map. You can use scout cavalry to chase them down if you are certain clans like the English but they can't be upgraded and are really only good for chasing down those annoying missile cavalry. The missile cav don't even do much, they just plink away at your troops being annoying. Usually I just have my archers target them and finish them off.

[Eddie G]

I have always found missiles to be the best way to deal with missile cavalry, rather than trying to chase them. If you shoot them, they won't run away until they route. With so few men in a cavalry unit, it does not take long to route them. Especially if you have several units focus fire on them. And your archers never have to move, let alone chase them down.

[Trebor797]

I feel like people keep missing his point. Its not that he struggles with dealing vs Bow Cavalry, but it seems more like he himself want to use some, but his bow cav gets caught by other cav in melee. So if you want to give him advise then not how to fight against bow cav, but how to use it more effective

[Eddie G]

Yea I guess you are right. Using them is easy. Keep them behind your army, and let the enemies come into their range. Once battle is engaged, then you can switch to other targets. If you have the swooping crane then wait till they start shooting before you put them in that formation. It's specifically for dealing with enemy missiles. If enemy cavalry charge put them into skirmish mode and forget about them, they will route, and probably still have men left at the end of the battle.

[easytarget]

Or you can be a bit lazy and/or dumb cav user like me and only ever use them to kite or run down routers.

Since this is specifically bow cav we're talking about I doubt I've ever done much of anything with them other than kite, or even more likely never recruited them to begin with.

[Eddie G]

They are actually a very strong unit if used properly, but they aren't the type of unit you can put into position and just forget about them either. It's really no different than using any other unit's abilities The only difference for me, is the cavalry moves so fast, I have a hard time keeping up with them, with orders.

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by Trebor797:

I feel like people keep missing his point. Its not that he struggles with dealing vs Bow Cavalry, but it seems more like he himself want to use some, but his bow cav gets caught by other cav in melee. So if you want to give him advise then not how to fight against bow cav, but how to use it more effective

I have frankly never found a point of putting bow cavalry into an army, in shogun 2 the reasons to do it are not impactful enough because battle themselves are so fast and the first rout you get means you win, which knocks the wind out using any type of skirmishing unit, you might as well have just more melee cavalry or bow infantry.

Bow cavalry are best used in rush melee army's that are also using yari cavalry thats a standard practice in any total, bow cavalry is faster than infantry, so in shogun that's the advantage you get once the enemy cavalry is gone or not present, but as said that not worth much due to battle longevity.

In defensive army's bow cavalry make no sense because they can't work out of your army comp independently(as they can in other tw's) and your gambling if the AI has its own cavalry or not per battle, where now the more bow cavalry you have the more inefficient your army slots are becoming , your better off evading this potential army comp weakness to zero by just not recruiting any bow cavalry and simply having more infantry bow units.

Also the main point of defensive army's is to limit the burden of micro so why the hell put bow cavalry into such an army.

[easytarget]

The challenge as always is the consideration of what else you could field instead.

[⚔️CSO🕶️ ILIA TOPTURIO]

Bow cav online MVP one of the best units if you are good at managing them. In campaign where AI just runs at you almost every fight they are pretty much pointless when you can have 6 ashigaru instead

[Trebor797]

Originally posted by Sn3z:

Originally posted by Trebor797:

I feel like people keep missing his point. Its not that he struggles with dealing vs Bow Cavalry, but it seems more like he himself want to use some, but his bow cav gets caught by other cav in melee. So if you want to give him advise then not how to fight against bow cav, but how to use it more effective

I have frankly never found a point of putting bow cavalry into an army, in shogun 2 the reasons to do it are not impactful enough because battle themselves are so fast and the first rout you get means you win, which knocks the wind out using any type of skirmishing unit, you might as well have just more melee cavalry or bow infantry.

Bow cavalry are best used in rush melee army's that are also using yari cavalry thats a standard practice in any total, bow cavalry is faster than infantry, so in shogun that's the advantage you get once the enemy cavalry is gone or not present, but as said that not worth much due to battle longevity.

In defensive army's bow cavalry make no sense because they can't work out of your army comp independently(as they can in other tw's) and your gambling if the AI has its own cavalry or not per battle, where now the more bow cavalry you have the more inefficient your army slots are becoming , your better off evading this potential army comp weakness to zero by just not recruiting any bow cavalry and simply having more infantry bow units.

Also the main point of defensive army's is to limit the burden of micro so why the hell put bow cavalry into such an army.

Actually Bow Cavalry can be insanely op in the right army. I once played a mod which unlocked Imagawa who had better bow cav(however I think it should also work in normal game with like Takeda). I used army completely made of bow cavalry and I was pretty much invincible. Cause full cavalry armies have increased movement range on campaign map. If now AI attacked I send my bow cav and shot at them as much as I could. Once I ran out of ammo or there was no good advantage anymore all I had to do is retreat. AI could not catch me and I killed a ton of them and they almost nothing from me. And next battles you always have full ammo again. This way I even won sieges. I just attacked multiple times if necessary. Actually Bow cav spam in all Total Wars in campaign is the most op tactic, cause AI knows no answer

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by Trebor797:

Originally posted by Sn3z:

I have frankly never found a point of putting bow cavalry into an army, in shogun 2 the reasons to do it are not impactful enough because battle themselves are so fast and the first rout you get means you win, which knocks the wind out using any type of skirmishing unit, you might as well have just more melee cavalry or bow infantry.

Bow cavalry are best used in rush melee army's that are also using yari cavalry thats a standard practice in any total, bow cavalry is faster than infantry, so in shogun that's the advantage you get once the enemy cavalry is gone or not present, but as said that not worth much due to battle longevity.

In defensive army's bow cavalry make no sense because they can't work out of your army comp independently(as they can in other tw's) and your gambling if the AI has its own cavalry or not per battle, where now the more bow cavalry you have the more inefficient your army slots are becoming , your better off evading this potential army comp weakness to zero by just not recruiting any bow cavalry and simply having more infantry bow units.

Also the main point of defensive army's is to limit the burden of micro so why the hell put bow cavalry into such an army.

Actually Bow Cavalry can be insanely op in the right army. I once played a mod which unlocked Imagawa who had better bow cav(however I think it should also work in normal game with like Takeda). I used army completely made of bow cavalry and I was pretty much invincible. Cause full cavalry armies have increased movement range on campaign map. If now AI attacked I send my bow cav and shot at them as much as I could. Once I ran out of ammo or there was no good advantage anymore all I had to do is retreat. AI could not catch me and I killed a ton of them and they almost nothing from me. And next battles you always have full ammo again. This way I even won sieges. I just attacked multiple times if necessary. Actually Bow cav spam in all Total Wars in campaign is the most op tactic, cause AI knows no answer

I rather take those upkeep costs and spread them out into my ashigaru stacks to support samurai that actually work better with yari ashigaru and the list is long before I will ever get to bow cavalry, that's also in part due to accessibility of units. Bow cavalry unfortunately in shogun 2 suffer from not adding any real compositional strength in a SP context because of battle speed and their own speed means they need protecting by your melee cavalry incase the AI has its own(the OP found this out). You may just aswell use the upkeep of the bow cavalry and just have another yari cavalry

If you look at warhammer or take Attila missile cavalry bring utility as they are fast and can operate outside of melee infantry without the need of support, now also factor in factions that also have strong melee cavalry like hunnic blow your balls off melee cavalry, missile cavalry is actually giving you such a compositional advantage because even if you manage to beat hunnic melee cavalry you now have to contend with the hunnic missile cavalry which render your own melee cavalry useless, the quantity of missile cavalry can be very small and still remain very impactful to your army, in shogun 2 this doesn't really exist, 2-4 units of bow cavalry will do jack to make yoru army more tougher. Of course if you make 19 stack and fight the AI with all infantry or barely any cavalry, or they bug out then yeah it can work.

Shogun 2 unfortunately didnt know how to handle missile cavalry at the time in subsequent total wars you start seeing speed variations of cavalry to create some better balancing and battle longevity get longer making skirmishing more decisive(in SP anyway).