Cavalry is actually really strong...

[Dave1029]

I keep seeing this idea that cavalry are weak and I agreed for the longest time... till I figured out how to use them.

Let's first address ranged units. I think players obsess over ranged units because they see the devastation they cause to an advancing front line. What players ignore, however, is the immense friendly fire damage they cause. It's almost obscene. If you don't nuke the enemy army before they hit your lines, you're going to be in for an extremely rough time and will kill both your units and the enemy units. But then you may ask, well, just shoot the enemy archers instead. To that I'd reply... or just send cavalry.

So I first noticed this with the most recent DLC, as Imrik starts out with Dragon Princes and the warden dude starts out with the lions. If i sent the lions in to attack the front of an enemy, even one supposedly susceptible, they'd take extreme damage. Same went for the princes despite the enormous armor rating they have. However, I learned that flanking results in almost no damage received. Essentially, if you flank with any cav or pseudo cav, those units will take *no* damage. I managed hundreds of kills with even silver helms.

But that's not it... cav will push units to skull routs fairly quickly. Let's say you have a spearman engaged with a swordsman. You flank with cav and with elite units like dragon princes, you'll likely push that unit to a soft route. Leave the cav engaged to finish them off while taking no damage, and send your freed up spearman to engage a new unit.

If you have like 8-10 units of cav you'll have enough to engage every single archer unit that an enemy will field and have 4-5 units left over to flank.

You do need to be patient. The easiest way to nullify your advantage is to send your cavs to your flanks too early. Leave them firmly behind your line in a tight formation. Only send them against advancing enemy cav... you will unfortunantely take losses to your cav unit but sometimes you have to sacrifice a unit and let it slog out with an enemy. For this scenario, you should save some magic to deploy on a dime. Buff and healing magic is your friend.

Lemme put it this way, on an unbuffed Imrik army, I was getting 150 kills EACH for my dragon princes (while absorbing no more than 5-10 deaths) and this was against armored dwarves too. The game really really punishes a unit when it gets flanked. Something to note for your own army.

[Red Bat]

Cavalry is actually both really weak and really strong, but they average on the stronger side, occasionally even being more cost effective than infantry of the same tier.They just "seem" weak because there are more unit types now which really makes the rock-paper-scissors dynamic complicated as cavalry aren't really trading efficiently in head on charges most of the time unless you've got some elite ones like Chaos Knights or Grail Knights.

There are a lot of anti-large units, but surprisingly compared to past games there aren't as many as you'd think as a surprising amount of units are geared towards countering infantry. On top of that cavalry tend to tank a lot of damage and hit harder than in most TW games. Compare to Shogun 2 (vanilla, not the expansions) where cavalry often gets countered by archers and tends to be disappointing even when you do manage that crucial crucial charge.

[Dave1029]

Originally posted by Red Bat Media:

Cavalry is actually both really weak and really strong, but they average on the stronger side, occasionally even being more cost effective than infantry of the same tier.They just "seem" weak because there are more unit types now which really makes the rock-paper-scissors dynamic complicated as cavalry aren't really trading efficiently in head on charges most of the time unless you've got some elite ones like Chaos Knights or Grail Knights.

There are a lot of anti-large units, but surprisingly compared to past games there aren't as many as you'd think as a surprising amount of units are geared towards countering infantry. On top of that cavalry tend to tank a lot of damage and hit harder than in most TW games. Compare to Shogun 2 (vanilla, not the expansions) where cavalry often gets countered by archers and tends to be disappointing even when you do manage that crucial crucial charge.

Here's the thing though... you shouldn't be charging at anything head on other than archers. You'll just take a lot of damage that way. You can flank a black guard with a dragon prince and you'll route the black guard very quickly despite its anti-large status. Flanking also allows cycle charging for that extra bit of micro damage. It's like the game doesn't allow for the back line of a unit to really turn around.

[Yellowdragon]

Isn't Dawi weak to cav? If they don't corner camp or play by real players. They usually get anniliated by cavs.

Oh just saying chariot is better at killing infantry. Cav is better for moral damage, anti-large and chasing.

I think Cav strategy is weak against Bretonnia because they have so many anti-large cavs.

[Dave1029]

Originally posted by TanksK the tactical feeder:

Isn't Dawi weak to cav?

Oh just saying chariot is better at killing infantry. Cav is better for moral damage, anti-large and chasing.

I think Cav strategy is weak against Bretonnia because they have so many anti-large cav.

I'm torn on the chariots tbh. They are incredible line breakers but morale damage is just as good because a routed defenseless enemy is going to be easy kills without any damage received, but I do see your point.

And I didn't think about brettonia. The hard counter to my army would be a cav heavy faction... but I could always send a special army of phoenix guards and sisters to handle them. Otherwise, the cav army is gunna murder everyone else. Dawi aren't intrinsically weak to cav i dont think, they just are slow and have no real army counters to it.

[ϺEƳEƦ]

What you are talking about is called "micromanaging". Alot of player are very bad at it and don't like to do it. Hence, "cav sucks". I never knew how many people paused battles to give units orders, but this is common as well. Short answer, alot of players like Op-ed raceses that require no micro.

Another issue is that certine units and damage types don't scale well in higher battle difficulty. What they forget, is the unit stats are ballaced around normal, and anything above that breaks that ballance; so again they claim "cav sucks".

[ArchAnge1LT]

Cavalry was always strong, just not 'charge in and leave them there' strong. Those 'cavalry bad' threads are terrible.

Also people just prefer ranged fire power over cav, cause of a lot of sieges and cause range is easier to use.

[Yellowdragon]

Dawi can counter cav strategy if played by real players. Ai's just too dumb.

[Dave1029]

Originally posted by ϺEƳEƦ:

What you are talking about is called "micromanaging". Alot of player are very bad at it and don't like to do it. Hence, "cav sucks". I never knew how many people paused battles to give units orders, but this is common as well. Short answer, alot of players like Op-ed raceses that require no micro.

Another issue is that certine units and damage types don't scale well in higher battle difficulty. What they forget, is the unit stats are ballaced around normal, and anything above that breaks that ballance; so again they claim "cav sucks".

I just never realized how important it was to flank. I used to like lizardmen only because I could just throw saurus warriors at problems. I can't believe I ever thought dragon princes were weak. At least on normal difficulty, a flank charge is an instant route.

[Raider Deci]

Originally posted by Dave1029:

Let's first address ranged units. I think players obsess over ranged units because they see the devastation they cause to an advancing front line. What players ignore, however, is the immense friendly fire damage they cause. It's almost obscene.

..............................................

The game really really punishes a unit when it gets flanked. Something to note for your own army.

Sounds like someone barely played M2, Shogun 2 or Attila. When it comes to friendly fire nothing really comes close to the latter, if you think its obscene in this then youre in for a real treat in Attila. And the AI will ♥♥♥♥ up your archers in a heartbeat in that too if not protected, WH doesnt even come close (the others have the morale-punishment but lack in battle AI).

Its really all what you are comparing too, and the high end-units are not really what you should measure cav with since they will mostly have the stats to push through anyway. Most people that know what they are talking about dont say cav are useless, they have some uses here & there, but they are just not very cost-effective and underperform in comparison to other kinds of units so they are simply not worth getting. Archers can also easily get 150 kills but cost way less in both recruitment & upkeep, so you can field many more of them

[enricofermi2]

I don't really agree. Cav are useful, but I think they are weaker than I'd like. They can get absurd value, but that it true of lots of units.

If I put swordmasters against low tier infantry, they could probally get 1000 kills or more. In the same way, chasing off weak and lower tier routing units get get massive kills for cav.

However in other cases cav can be weak, requiring lots of micro for small gains. Try even rear charging armered, infantry with decent moral with cav, and you won't really get much. Especially for light/unermered cav, if you leave them in melee with anything except the weakest units they don't trade very well.

It's just frustrating when you go out of your way to get a perfect rear charge, but then realize that your units took about the same damage as the enemy.

[RED /(Weber)\]

Well yea when used right they're absolutely lethal. Biggest annoyance is when ONE single unit gets stuck in a mob and the entire force comes back to it. Cycle charging is frequently a pain in the ass as a result, even for chariots.

[Hieronymous]

Cavalry aren't bad, just underwhelming considering the other options.

A dude on a horse isn't as scary as, say, a 700 pound humanoid dinosaur riding a T-rex.

[ArchAnge1LT]

Originally posted by Hieronymous:

Cavalry aren't bad, just underwhelming considering the other options.

A dude on a horse isn't as scary as, say, a 700 pound humanoid dinosaur riding a T-rex.

Depends on what you want to do. Cav kills light skirmishers way faster than SE.

[enricofermi2]

Originally posted by ArchAnge1LT:

Originally posted by Hieronymous:

Cavalry aren't bad, just underwhelming considering the other options.

A dude on a horse isn't as scary as, say, a 700 pound humanoid dinosaur riding a T-rex.

Depends on what you want to do. Cav kills light skirmishers way faster than SE.

I'm not sure cav are particularly good vs skirmishers. Heavy cav often can't catch them, and light cav might actually lose the trade, especially after taking all the ranged fire.

I'm pretty sure dark riders would lose to pretty much any t1 skirmisher unit 1v1.

[Chillum]

Cav is a very important tool.

I wouldnt say stupidly strong tool, nor a weak tool.

Its a tool to be used for its purpose; One of which is charging their archers/artillary as you pointed out.

Any tool used for the wrong purpose will not work well; using an axe as a hammer for instance. If you keep using the back end of the axe head you will eventually deform it and cause it to fall off.

This is why you see Cav is weak threads. From idiots who just send them in, and keep them mired in the fight.