Why does my cavalry always lose?

[Akboris]

Since the very first time I played this game, to now, 2000 hours in, I have never been able to understand why my cavalry very consistantly loses melee fights that it should be winning with absolute ease.

It doesnt matter how garbage the unit I am attacking in melee is, they will always beat my cavalry in a hand to hand.

Even artillery units that I engage will put up a hell of a fight before they eventually fall. You know, some of the crappiest troops in the game are able to take down my armoured knights with a few slaps with a kitchen knife.

And I just completely ignore enemy heavy cavalry and bodyguard units like the plague, I havent sent cavalry to fight enemy cavalry in years, my guys will always lose. Every. Single. Time.

And yet when the AI uses cavalry, in the most mouth-dripping, smooth-brained fashion - charging into my spearmen, getting into a long, drawn out engagement with quality spearmen, they are guarenteed to win, no joke.

I remember a unit of knights just hacking through my 150 strong, high morale, well defended sergeant spearmen like they werent even a designated counter or anything. This has always puzzled the hell out of me.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Cavalry in this game is not designed for sustained melee combat unless they are battling another cavalry unit (and even then its just better to send infantry to support as they'll lose many men).

However where cavalry really shines is in charging. Melee troops need to be stationary and facing the cavalry in order to brace for a charge. It's extremely important they are not currently moving. If you can use loose formation then even better.

Even then, non spear units should NOT be recieving heavy cavalry charges in any case. They are not designed for it and will be destroyed by a well performed charge.

If cavalry charges into stationary spears the damage will be mitigated, and then you can issue an attack order. They'll fall soon after. If they start to retreat what you'll want to do is reform the line.

As for cavalry losing to archers, it shouldn't be happening too much unless it's the heavy archers or light cavalry. With siege it should not be happening either. What you'll want to do however is still cycle charge if you get the chance. But heavy feudal knights should not be losing to artillery crews at all. Make sure they are not being shot at by other units.

Cav vs cav, generally will be a matter of who gets the best charge, and then of who is better. If any element of support interferes, then the odds go for whoever is being supported.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Check the second battle featured in this video at minute 6. He explains a bit of cavalry usage. i find the demonstration quite handy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxmUzShRDfY

[Bazookah]

Its not your cavalry. All cavalry lose except vs peasants and archers.
You should use your cavalry to attack enemies from behind and backstab the enemy troops.

[2GenL]

This is why the traditional start of battles with the knights/cav charging out first was phased out early in the medieval ages - unless there was a lot of horses in the army, it didn't really do anything other than the initial impact.
Some still did it though, but they lost hard (Azincourt for example where the french relied on their armoured horses too much)

[2GenL]

Originally posted by Akbarogo:

I remember a unit of knights just hacking through my 150 strong, high morale, well defended sergeant spearmen like they werent even a designated counter or anything. This has always puzzled the hell out of me.

This bit is probably just down to the campaign difficulty, the ai gets buffs to unit stats.

[Akboris]

Originally posted by _2GenL_:

Originally posted by Akbarogo:

I remember a unit of knights just hacking through my 150 strong, high morale, well defended sergeant spearmen like they werent even a designated counter or anything. This has always puzzled the hell out of me.

This bit is probably just down to the campaign difficulty, the ai gets buffs to unit stats.

Im currently playing a campaign on Normal and the same thing is occuring.

Im seeing these archers cut swathes through my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ knights like they are nothing.

Problem with relying on cavalry for charging is when walls enter the equation. The cavalry will not charge, and you are forced to send cavalry into melee, and it just doesnt seem to matter how perfectly you chose your target, they will lose 4/5 times for absolutely no reason.

[Akboris]

I have a potential explanation why.

Vanilla damage in Medieval 2 is messed up.

Even trash units do a decent amount of damage, and because infantry outnumber cavalry I can imagine lots of these trash doing pretty big amounts of damage on cavalry that they are ganging up on.

I think that while Stainless Steel for example has this problem for me, it isnt as pronounced as it is right now.

Just watching as I expend two units of cavalry on a single enemy unit of archers.

[Inardesco]

Either cavalry is bad, or it's down to the player?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1133986517

Originally posted by Akbarogo:

I think that while Stainless Steel for example has this problem for me, it isnt as pronounced as it is right now.

Cavalry in Stainless Steel is ridiculously strong to the point light cavalry annihilates heavy infantry on the charge. The only thing that stands reasonably well against cavalry in SS are spearmen with a very tight formation, which some of the more "disciplined" units have.

Originally posted by _2GenL_:

Originally posted by Akbarogo:

I remember a unit of knights just hacking through my 150 strong, high morale, well defended sergeant spearmen like they werent even a designated counter or anything. This has always puzzled the hell out of me.

This bit is probably just down to the campaign difficulty, the ai gets buffs to unit stats.

The AI DOES NOT get any buffs to their unit stats whatsoever in vanilla Medieval 2.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Spearmen are naturally the anti cavalry option but this is totally about the usage. They aren't meant for prolonged combat! You charge and you pull back, or you tie a unit with an unit of your own, then charge from behind, then you could consider leaving them until the models turn around, and then pulling back anyway to avoid needless losses

If you are controlling the infantry part of the equation, you need to be stationary to recieve the charge. The unit also needs to be facing on their direction.

[Heresy]

My fave is when a single Enemy generals body guard slips through your lines and routes your whole army and theres nothing you can do about it if they have faster cav and their last horse seems to be invincible and dodge 500,000 arrows over 5 mins .

[𝔗𝔢𝔞 ❀]

Play Poland, use melee cav, crossbow cav, and jav cav and beat anything. Soften foes up first and knock them down with simultaneous flanking charges.

Don't forget you can feign a charge, pull the enemy towards you, and ram another cav up the rear then engage with the first cav unit that didn't really charge. It's all micro.

I have no trouble with them killing artillery, but get what you mean with sergeant spearmen sometimes forgetting how to stab knights.

[Akboris]

Cavalry in Stainless Steel is also super inconsistent.

[Heresy]

Originally posted by Heresy:

Originally posted by Akbarogo:

Cavalry in Stainless Steel is also super inconsistent.

I like how AI completely avoids archers stakes like lava yet your own cave will impale themselves to the last man even on your own stakes if they double back or you dont watch where they go lol.

Actually happened to me the other night i had 3 full general guards of like 30 men each. A single enemy guard soldier got through my lines and was magically routing my whole entire army somehow, so i sent the 3 generals at him and all 90 guys immediately died because they ran directly into my own stakes that i set up at start of battle. It made me lol.


I found that certain factions cavalry are much stronger than others even units that are named the same. The Generals guard and or horses of England and or the Fuedal Nights even of England are about half as effective as any French, HRE, Polish or Hungarian Cav. They are also all slightly different from eachother as well.

You can still make raw melee cav work as a weaker faction but there are only a few strategies that actually seem to work.

If you have enough cav units you can spread them out to individually attack each archer group at the start of a battle, effectively getting enough of them to route will chain route the rest of their army.

The only other real way to use cav is to stack them up together in big battle for a massive wrecking ball. You can even make two groups and save them for when both armies melee have enguaged then flank the sides or rear with the cav.

They are essential for rushing arty as well in some battles. A single generals guard if ranked high enough can take out a whole army if used properly against a rather weaker leader or if their leader is killed.

My personal fave is making a full cav army with at least 10 family members or generals and throwing them into some field battles just for fun and see who comes out through natural selection and who dies lol.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

If you deploy stakes then play defensively as it should be. Bring some siege and 4-6 archers. Spears and some dismounted knights. Can use a couple cavalry if you want.

If you deploy on the corner you can use the siege to force the enemy to approach you. 4 to 6 archers can create a stake perimeter that no general is going to come out alive from. I like to leave some gaps without stakes on the flanks but covered with spears, so that my own cavalry can go out and get them from behind once their line has desintegrated.

If the enemy general charges into my spears he simply dies. If he starts pulling back, I'll reform the line and I'll point my archers at him. When hes retreating, if you have a single unit of light cavalry that usually is enough to capture him. Is really not that complicated. But if you deploy stakes you really need to have an idea of where your cavalry is going to go, and which zones they must avoid.

[Ol' Knife Ears <3]

Originally posted by Akbarogo:

Cavalry in Stainless Steel is also super inconsistent.

Despite its age, Medieval 2's mechanics are a lot deeper than many give it credit for. Factors like terrain, weather, positioning, angle, and unit stats can make a huge difference in a charge's effectiveness. I don't know if it was intended or not, but expecting a full charge = win would be too gamey. I understand what you say, some charges utterly plow an enemy force, other times it fizzles terribly. It adds a chaotic factor that keeps the player from using a cav charge as a brainless auto pilot maneuver.

Cavalry in M2 are about where they should be in terms of balance. High cost, high upkeep, dominant in pitched battles with some limited use in sieges. The game is too old to go on about balance, but if I had to buff them at all, I would give them an increased recovery chance after battle, but since the recovery mechanic doesn't work that way, it's futile to discuss changing it.

If you want to witness some bad cav, take a look at the miserable state of balance in Warhammer. Cav are absolute bottom tier in those games. Ironically they could be fixed with a simple stat tweak, but modern CA cannot into competent game design.