Cavalry

[wodin]

I notice pretty much guaranteed your Cavalry will be destroyed in the battles..is this a bug or was it just a real bad job to be on a horse in ancient warfare?

[cwegsche]

Do you mean if cavalary acts alone or cavalary in general. If they act alone it's similar to other smaller forces I think. Haven't seen this in general for sure.

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

I've definitely noticed higher element losses for cavalry, even in general mixed engagements. They just don't hold up to contact with their low amount of hits.

[wodin]

I'm talking in General..whenever I looked at the end battle results..pretty much guaranteed if a unit was destroyed it was a cavalry unit.

[yellow ribbon]

I'm talking in General..whenever I looked at the end battle results..pretty much guaranteed if a unit was destroyed it was a cavalry unit.

easy to explain. historically they are the weak spot of every legion

if you followed the discussion in the thread about losses against experienced legions, you might know the importance of the TQ test (discipline). If you fail it, you get even hit twice and even a whole legions element is wiped out.

now think about the cav. element in Sullas troops i.e..

example fresh legion cav element: discipline 4 ; assault 7/7

example some AUX unit fresh construction: discipline 6

example 4 star legion cav. element: discipline 7 ; assault 12/12 ... while a legion has already discipline of 12 the same time

so to say, the element is taking the same high degree of hits/elements lost, as the barbarians, later with experience like the fresh legions. yes, its systematically.

[Sir Garnet]

Roman cavalry of the Republic has no business attacking opposing heavy or even medium infantry unless in flank, rear, or when they are in disorder.

[Philo32b]

Roman cavalry of the Republic has no business attacking opposing heavy or even medium infantry unless in flank, rear, or when they are in disorder.

(Bold added)

Does having more cavalry in your army make it more likely to inflict hits on a routing opposing army? After the battle is over, it can be reported in after-turn notes that an army received certain number of hits or is even destroyed while routing. My question is whether the number of cavalry in the victorious army influences this damage.

[yellow ribbon]

from my experience, already the one single cav. element of a legion is sometimes enough to get this pursued-and-destroyed effect.

i think it has to be differed from the taking of hits if the enemy is rooting/retreating from the battle, where the more cavalry units really can lead to more hits if i remember it right.
(your enemy successfully retreated from the battle and took xxx hits-message)

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

Most cavalry have 5 hits instead of 10 like infantry. Pontic Chariots only have 4 hits. They die on contact almost.

[yellow ribbon]

Most cavalry have 5 hits instead of 10 like infantry. Pontic Chariots only have 4 hits. They die on contact almost.

yes sure, but nearly all units work with 10 and 5/6. if they are hit the element is gone, of course, but the impact comes from the question of probability if they participate in battle before been wiped out.

deviation from the 5/10 rule (which is based on the legions assault damage i think)

supply wagon and siege equipment

transport/merchant ships, maybe some small sized warships

few light troops which sometimes are only a part of the formations

etc

so its not a question of hit points, but how frequent it happens. as said, the roman cav. dies like as frequent as barbarians. its a relative impression you get.

[wodin]

Roman cavalry of the Republic has no business attacking opposing heavy or even medium infantry unless in flank, rear, or when they are in disorder.

Right..so I presume the game doesn't follow this advice then and just charges in with cavalry?? In that case the battle AI needs work. Surely the battle AI should be doing roughly what a Roman General would do and if that means holding back Cavalry for a pursuit then the game should model it. As we have no control of who goes into battle and how to use the forces then the battle AI should be programmed to at least follow general battle doctrine of the time.

You see no one really answered my post. I want to know historically did cavalry get wiped out constantly like it does in the game? If not then something needs to be changed surely? Like I said above if Roam Cavalry where only used for pursuit or a quick flank attack then thats what the battle AI should use them for. Use them the sameway they have been used RL. Or maybe Cavalry was the worse job in Ancient times and a guaranteed death sentence, if so the game has it spot on.

[caranorn]

Right..so I presume the game doesn't follow this advice then and just charges in with cavalry?? In that case the battle AI needs work. Surely the battle AI should be doing roughly what a Roman General would do and if that means holding back Cavalry for a pursuit then the game should model it. As we have no control of who goes into battle and how to use the forces then the battle AI should be programmed to at least follow general battle doctrine of the time.

You see no one really answered my post. I want to know historically did cavalry get wiped out constantly like it does in the game? If not then something needs to be changed surely? Like I said above if Roam Cavalry where only used for pursuit or a quick flank attack then thats what the battle AI should use them for. Use them the sameway they have been used RL. Or maybe Cavalry was the worse job in Ancient times and a guaranteed death sentence, if so the game has it spot on.

Well cavalry could get badly battered in Antique battles in general, often defeat meant loss of almost all cavalry engaged (though some probably by dispersal). Roman cavalry seems to have been particularly vulnerable (it's astonishing how good roman cavalry is in AJE, there was a reason for recruiting auxiliary cavalry), but maybe that's just for certain periods of time (I mostly read about the Punic and Gallic Wars, barely anything later)...

[yellow ribbon]

You see no one really answered my post. I want to know historically did cavalry get wiped out constantly like it does in the game? If not then something needs to be changed surely? Like I said above if Roam Cavalry where only used for pursuit or a quick flank attack then thats what the battle AI should use them for. Use them the sameway they have been used RL. Or maybe Cavalry was the worse job in Ancient times and a guaranteed death sentence, if so the game has it spot on.

between the time Alexander the Great and the Marian Reforms cav. was used predominantly in a flank/at the flank or somewhat behind the first line in the rear flank.
the light troops and the cavalry were supposed to attack while the infantry hold the line. thats how Alexander the Great used Hetairen, thats how Cannae worked out (while there one flank was the African light infantry)

As it was writte, most times the Romans lost badly, the cavalry was destroyed even by light barbarian forces, talking about running away, not being killed. the infantry could be double enveloped. In other fights like inthe Punic war in Spain, you find battles where the Roman cav. fled, the Roman infantry destroyed the enemies center.

then the Roman cav. developed into support services, sometimes not even 200 for a legion. NO match against chariot fighters fighting aside of the chariot, not from it. no match against northern tribes neither.
It was Caesar in Gaul, who used a frontal cavalry attack in Alesia, changing the tactical use of Cav. after 7 years of battle and in the civil war he relied on allied cav. for similar situations. so both is possible, cav. elements doing a very poor job, while cav. not in use against heavy infantry can still hit hard.

the problem is, yes you dont have control which element is now in the battle row, you cant hold anyone back. as soon the legions is shattered the legions cav. element will be hit hard. you want to do so, hold back the AUX cav. in a additional stack in blue.red order it will only fight if the infantry is wiped out and you can hunt down the enemies in a second battle next turn
once you try to fight line troops with a huge stack of AUX, you will see that you loose nearly all you men, as you would have in history in many battles.

therefor its much more convenient to rely on automated additional hits caused by the cav. in your stack when the enemy is rooting.

[NY Rangers]

So, at the moment, would it be possible to utterly defeat 35k legionares, and 8k cavalry with 10k cavalry only? (Battle of Carrhae)

[yellow ribbon]

So, at the moment, would it be possible to utterly defeat 35k legionares, and 8k cavalry with 10k cavalry only? (Battle of Carrhae)

yes and no, AUX/Roman will never be able to hold against a stack of legions, you might also not even be able to win with AUX against barbarian tribes in some cases.
however, for your example, the ORIENS as far it is on the map, offers a lot of possible tweaking and has already some possible milestones to be used to simulate such a battle (to the end that legions have to pull out)
more i cannot say than that, from what i saw, it is possible to create favors to the oriental cav./asian mounted troops etc.

[Erik Springelkamp]

yes and no, AUX/Roman will never be able to hold against a stack of legions, you might also not even be able to win with AUX against barbarian tribes in some cases.
however, for your example, the ORIENS as far it is on the map, offers a lot of possible tweaking and has already some possible milestones to be used to simulate such a battle (to the end that legions have to pull out)
more i cannot say than that, from what i saw, it is possible to create favors to the oriental cav./asian mounted troops etc.

I would expect that an oriental cavalry army on open ground would be able to prevent infantry only forces to get into melee range.
So a battle would be round after round of fire combat without melee.

[yellow ribbon]

I would expect that an oriental cavalry army on open ground would be able to prevent infantry only forces to get into melee range.
So a battle would be round after round of fire combat without melee.

you mean simply giving that horsemen a range higher all romans...? the Orient. would attack for range two, roman archers either, roman legions could already attack in range 1 and then hit hard if the horsemen wouldnt run.
cohesion on one side would break, but not elements power

unfortunately they had historically many heavy cav. troops. arrows prevented the use of large formations, lack of cav. to hunt down horsemen, but the Romans on retreat were split up, enveloped in small groups and heavy cav. gave them the rest.
similar happened 300 years later.
with 4000 horses, the 6 Roman legions had quite many cav. compare to other situations. more than Caesar in whole Gaul with 10 legions

[Narwhal]

That's under debate on the Beta forum, I believe the developper are going to bring significant changes to it ; but I do not know which.

Personally, here is what I would favor. It would need testing of course.
- I would double the cohesion damage dealt by cavalry and lower the cohesion damage dealt by non-archer infantry so in a given battle, if the army is 1/3 cavalry, this 1/3 cavalry inflicts roughly 2/3 of total melee cohesion damage (but less than 1/3 of damage battle). Currently, it would inflict less than 1/3 of the total melee cohesion damage.
- If possible, find a way to have cavalry prioritize other cavalry as targets, and a bonus against non-cavalry (which means once you defeat the cavalry, it is going to be easy). If not possible, too bad
- Increase the damage dealt in retreat when a side has cavalry. After all, most damage in this era is done during retreat.

Blue Ribbon does not favor this, though

As for Nomadic Archers, I have no idea how they are going to do - but you have to know that unit with weak discipline can retreat BEFORE melee ; they may play on this.

[yellow ribbon]

Blue Ribbon does not favor this, though

did you just "cordon bleu" me?

[NY Rangers]

Btw, Romans didn't prevail because they had the best infantry (far from it) but because they could sustain armies on the field much longer than others.