Cavalry screening...

[ajarnlance]

Can anyone help me to get my head around how cavalry works for screening? What is the best way to use a screening force? For example, should my cavalry be one province in front of my main force? Or is it better to include the cavalry in my army stack? Will this increase the hide value of the stack? How much cavalry is needed to increase the hide value? Is it a percentage of the total stack strength?

[Pocus]

If you have a large force (meaning a force using more CP than what a standard 3* produces), you get a penalty of 1 to hide value, except if you have 4 cavalry elements or more.

Cavalry also provides recon by having a high detection value.

Some cavalry have the screener attribute, meaning they reduce losses in retreat.

Some decisions allow to spot or hide better if you play them nearby cavalry.

[Captain_Orso]

OMG!!! Deep insight into the working of the game!!

If you have a large force (meaning a force using more CP than what a standard 3* produces),

Do you mean a 3* without an army command--outside the chain of command--? -which would be 8CP's

you get a penalty of 1 to hide value, except if you have 4 cavalry elements or more.

Cavalry also provides recon by having a high detection value.

Some cavalry have the screener attribute, meaning they reduce losses in retreat.

Some decisions allow to spot or hide better if you play them nearby cavalry.

This would mean that to screen 2 divisions under the command of a single Lt.Gen. 3*, the 2 divisions must have at least 4 cav between them--not in addition to them, because that would add more CP's to the equation.

Is the 1 cavalry per 2 CP ratio the rule for not losing 1 from the hide value?

[pgr]

Can anyone help me to get my head around how cavalry works for screening? What is the best way to use a screening force? For example, should my cavalry be one province in front of my main force? Or is it better to include the cavalry in my army stack? Will this increase the hide value of the stack? How much cavalry is needed to increase the hide value? Is it a percentage of the total stack strength?

I'll leave the technical discussion to Pocus and Cpt_O, and focus on use.

Screening as you are probably thinking, a cav force in front of the main body to prevent the enemy from detecting the main body and its intentions, is too tactical for what the game models. If you want to screen in the way you are thinking, then yes you would want to place the cav 1 region in front of your main body....but when you consider loyalty values in regions (which if you have over 50%, you get some detection) the other side could see you. If you are thinking in terms of a Stewart who screens the NVA as races up the valley in the Gettysburg campaign, having the cav in a separate stack moving one region ahead of the main body won't mask the main body from some level of detection.

So basically, if you want the benefits of cav for detect, hide, and retreat issues, you need to have them in the stack. Detached cav is quite useful for scouting/raiding ahead, but you want to keep those fellas moving, because cav elements by themselves can be quite venerable. If you want to use cav as a screening/blocking force then you will want to bring enough firepower so that you won't get mauled.

The last thought is for if you want to try to be fancy...cav units to let you use the cav screen card, which helps hide stacks from the enemy in the selected region. So I suppose if you detached a few cav elements along the axis of advance you want to use, slap down some screen cards, and route your main body through the screen card lane, you could pull off a neat little screened maneuver...

[ajarnlance]

Thanks to everyone for their contributions. 4 elements of cavalry appears to be optimum for bigger stacks then. I have found that putting horse artillery with cavalry makes them less vulnerable. In the end it depends on whether they are for scouting/ screening or for raiding I suppose.

[Pocus]

No that's 16 CP +1, so starting with 17 CP you get a penalty. 4 elements, always 4 elements.

[Captain_Orso]

*doh* I think I had something confused

So the CP being >16 is what triggers the -1 hide-value modifier.

This is negated by having =>4 cavalry regiments in the stack.

Does this scale in both directions?

In other words, does a stack requiring >8 and <13 CP suffer the -1 hide-value modifier unless the stack contains 3 cav?

A division alone costs 4 CP. If it is stacked with a single artillery battery, it will suffer -1 hide-value modifier, unless the stack also contains at least 1 cav?

Or is this just my misunderstanding at all, and there is no penalty at all until that stack requires >16 CP's

With Divisions and Corps formations possible, 16 CP are a lot. That's 4 division in a corps without additional artillery--support units require no CP, to no influence, I assume. So if I always have at least 1 cav per division (4 CP each), even if I have those 4 divisions plus some corps artillery, or even 5 divisions, because I have 4 cavalry in the first case, and 5 in the second, the -1 hide-value modifier does not take affect.

[Pocus]

No there is no scaling in either direction, the rule is quite simple, crude even, but you can't always type pages upon pages of code for everything!

Totally unrelated, but I don't find the relevant thread: the annoying console problem is fixed for next patch...

[Captain_Orso]

No there is no scaling in either direction, the rule is quite simple, crude even, but you can't always type pages upon pages of code for everything!

That's what I was beginning to suspect. Many thanks for the clarification

Totally unrelated, but I don't find the relevant thread: the annoying console problem is fixed for next patch...

AWESOME!! You da man Pocus!!

BTW, the thread is pretty much at the top of the CW2: Beta Testing forum: Console Window