Counter Intuitive Mechanics - bulding Light Cavalry will make you lose fights

[Avisian]

The information provided beloe is based solely on my personal observations withing the game and is backed up by some code checking. People that feel I am wrong are welcomed to show me how and why.

So in short... Light Cavalry is a trap. You ask why?

Combat Tactics during battle are based on the number of different troops in your flank. Different combat tactics benefit different troop types. For example during the skirmish type you could land with a Swarm tactic, which gives the following bonuses to your army
light_cavalry_offensive = 3
horse_archers_offensive = -1.5
archers_offensive = -1.5

Or you could land with swarm volley tactic, which gives you the following

light_cavalry_offensive = -1.8
horse_archers_offensive = 0.6
archers_offensive = 2.4

Combat tactics vary between the 2 phases but they almost always empower certain troops and reduce the effectiveness of other troops at the same time. Tactics are picked at random, but having more troops from a certain type will ensure greater chance of landing a tactic that helps that type.

Now where is the catch?

Light Cavalry has very weak combat statistics. Basic Light Cavalry has 1/3/10 attack and 4/3/8 defense. This means that Light Cav is somewhat resilient, but severely lacking in offensive power during both skirmish and melee. Landing a Light Cavalry based tactic will have negative impact on your combat strength. Light Cavalry is totally devastating in persue, but that is not terribly useful. If youve reached the persue phase this means youve already won. With or without light cav its unlikely the enemy will be able to regroup and win the next fight.

On the other hand every light cav man during Skirmish and Melee means greater chance of getting a Light Cavalry based tactic. Lets imagine yo have 400 archers and 100 light cav for example. Archers ahve 5/1/2 attack. If you get the swarm tactic your army will inflict 100*1*3+400*5/1.5 or 1633 damage/day total. On the other hand if you get the Swam Volley tactic you will inflict 100*1/1.8+400*5*2.4 or 4870 damage/day. See the difference?

But you have 4 times as much archers as you have cavalry you say.

Lets assume you did a big mistake and focused on cavalry. You actually have just 100 archers and 400 light cavalry (which will cost you a lot more). With tactic benefiting light cav you get 400*1*3+100*5/1.5 or 1533 damage. With tactic benefitting archers you get 400*1/1.8+100*5*2.4 1866 damage. Funny, isnt it?

Adding insult to injury Light Cavalry actually has decent defense and morale. This means that as the combat progresses you will take less losses in Light Cav, which means greater number of them compared to useful troop types, which means getting greater chance of getting a Light Cav tactic, which in the end loses you the fight.

Every time you buy light cavalry you increase the chance of getting a light cavalry tactic which doesnt help your army at all or outright hinders it and at the same time decreases the chance of getting a useful tactic that would make your Heavy infantry/archers/whatever shine. Light cavalry offensive abilities are poor - an army based on light cavalry would totally decimate the enemy if it ever get to persue phase, but since light cav is weak in melee and skirmish this can only happen if you have huge advantage over the enemy.

This of course means that nations based around light cavalry get hosed, as does anyone who upgrades his stable.

Conclusion: Don't buy Light Cavalry rentues and avoid cultures that have Light Cavalry bonuses. Do not upgrade your stables. You will get increased ping-pong effect after fights, but you will be also much more likely to win these fights in the first place.

 

[nyah]

On the other hand every light cav man during Skirmish and Melee means greater chance of getting a Light Cavalry based tactic.

You don't say by how much the chance increases.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

It's nevertheless a valid point, and it's the main reason why I've not got any of the LC cultural retinues in my game as Leon at the moment. I couldn't give you exact numbers but an LC retinue does increase the odds by rather a lot.

 

[icedt729]

Do you think this problem could be addressed by giving Light Cavalry better tactics, or at least changing the cultural retinues to give +attack instead of +defense? Besides the issues listed here I always thought it was pointless to up the defense of a unit that's really only useful in pursuit.

 

[Grubnessul]

On the other hand, the only way to get heavy cavalry (except for the Byzantines) is to get light cavalry as well.

 

[icon41gimp]

Offensive tactics for LCav should probably just be removed in phases where the unit doesn't perform. Let Swarm trigger in pursuit, but not in skirmish/melee.

 

[Worldcrusher]

Wow, this is handy...thank you for doing the math!

 

[Avisian]

Actually I believe that defensive Light Cavalry bonuses are more useful. Light Cavalry performs best during Persue, with Attack Value of 10. That is more then the attack value of Heavy Cavalry during Melee, therefore if you actually manage to win the melee phase you want to have as much Light Cavalry alive as possible. I don't know how the algorithms split the damage, if its proportional to the number of units you have alive then the added toughness means that light cavalry is better of soaking damage.

The spanish light cavalry is the most offensive one at 60% increase, which nets you 1.6 attack in Skirmish (compared to 5 for archers) or 4.8 attack in melee, which is almost compatible to the heavy infantry. If you are playing Leon I recommend mixing light infantry with Cavalry, because they use similar tactics. You'll still probably lose to someone who doesn't but light cavalry at all though. You'll be aiming at the Raid tactic:

raid_tactic = {
	days = 6
	sprite = 1
	group = defensive
	
	trigger = {
		phase = melee
		light_cavalry = 0.2
	}

	mean_time_to_happen = {
		days = 3
		modifier = {
			factor = 3
			flank_has_leader = yes
			leader = {
				martial = 12
			}
			troops = {
				who = light_cavalry
				value = 0.3
			}
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 3
			flank_has_leader = yes
			leader = {
				martial = 12
			}
			troops = {
				who = light_infantry
				value = 0.3
			}
		}
	}
	
	light_cavalry_offensive = 2.4
	light_infantry_offensive = 2.4
}

2.4 multiplier for both light infantry and light cavalry.

Not that I am unaware if tactic bonuses are added multiplicative or addictive over tech/national bonuses. If they are added addictive then light cavalry is even worse

 

[Avisian]

As for people saying that you need to upgrade stables for heavy cavalry - again this is a trap. You get 5 Heavy Cavalry and 155 Light Cavalry on upgrade 3. This means raw offensive power of 155/475/1550 + 5/50/40 or total of 160/525/1590

It costed you 100+120+200. For the same money you could grab barrack level 3. It would give you 115 heavy infantry and 50 pikeman, which combines offensive 62/690/230 + 10/250/10 = total of 72/940/240

As you can see, you trade a trivial amount of Skirmish advantage and big amount of Persue advantage for substantial advantage in the decisive melee phase. Also infantry defensive scores are better. That 9s why picking the right tactic is so important. If the above army got the right tactic raid it would do about 1300 damage. The infantry tactic would do around 2300.

Also considering Light Cavalry with offensive rentue - I think it would be better if you just stick to Light Cavalry if you have any racial bonuses for it. The rentue bonus makes Light Cavalry not that bad until you realize the enemy probably got his bonus on heavy infantry and will probably stomp your face pretty quickly anyway, The alternative is fighting him with infantry that does not have the bonus to similar results. If i were playing a spanish country Id try sticking to light infantry, archers and cavalry. Luckily the arabs are hosed with Light Cavalry as well

 

[Gingerninja]

This reminds me of my game as Norway during the early parts. I had absolutely NO cav, which meant I had to chase a tiny seemingly unimportant army back and forth for months before it was completely depleted. We need cav to some extent, but I see your point. Viking fury is the best.

 

[Talq]

Do you think this problem could be addressed by giving Light Cavalry better tactics, or at least changing the cultural retinues to give +attack instead of +defense? Besides the issues listed here I always thought it was pointless to up the defense of a unit that's really only useful in pursuit.

Giving LC better tactics, or making LC better in skirmish.

Paradox does also need to get a grip of the cognative dissonance that gives Western Europe hordes of light cavalry (as per the stables upgrade line) but near zip heavy cavalry, but envisaging their role as solely to harry, which is a rather creative interpretation of western medieval warfare. (Or more simply, if you want light cavalry to be early knights, then stat them as early knights, if you envisage them as skirmish cav, then your western european numbers are hopelessly wrong. The end.)

 

[Talq]

You don't say by how much the chance increases.

Its not obvious from the game files. The leader's military rating also feeds in. There is also a bias towards using the LC heavy tactic that isn't obvious from the numbers (probably LC valuation higher than archer valuation per man)

But yeah, looking at your mainly heavy inf/archery retinue with one lot of cav using swarm makes one feel rather ill.

 

[EmperorBobman]

Paradox does also need to get a grip of the cognative dissonance that gives Western Europe hordes of light cavalry (as per the stables upgrade line) but near zip heavy cavalry, but envisaging their role as solely to harry, which is a rather creative interpretation of western medieval warfare. (Or more simply, if you want light cavalry to be early knights, then stat them as early knights, if you envisage them as skirmish cav, then your western european numbers are hopelessly wrong. The end.)

Especially since that doesn't really become light cavalry's role until after the medieval era. The 'raiding' that most light cavalry would have done in this time isn't at all analogous to the way they function in game.

 

[nyah]

Its not obvious from the game files. The leader's military rating also feeds in. There is also a bias towards using the LC heavy tactic that isn't obvious from the numbers (probably LC valuation higher than archer valuation per man)

But yeah, looking at your mainly heavy inf/archery retinue with one lot of cav using swarm makes one feel rather ill.

I'm not wanting to be argumentative here but it seems to me that without knowing the chance of landing the swarm rather than the swarm volley the rest of the statistics are useless. Does having double the number of LC increase the chance of the tactic by 200%, 50%, 5%, or 0.5%, or something else? It's a fairly significant factor in a judgement about how effective they are.

 

[Gunnarr]

You made this post right in time! I've been going bonkers over light cavalry in my game!

I am playing as muslims in spain and their cultural unit is camel riders (light infantry with defense bonus)

OP, do you think it is even worth it to get these cultural units? If not, which ones should I get?
I find every time i get in battle against the european armies who have many heavy cavalry, I cannot compete because their tactics and units do so much more damage than my light cav and its tactics.

 

[Avisian]

I have no idea how racial bonuses are added to tactic bonuses. For example if you get +60% offence and tactic gives you 240% on a base melee attack of 3, is that 11.52 or 9 attack.

If it is addictive bonus with 9 (of which i suspect is the case) then light cavalry is truly worthless. My personal advice would be to stick to stacking heavy infantry with archers. Avoid the stables upgrade and build only the racial building so you have at least some pursue power.

Heavy Cavalry is overrated for most nations. If your special rentue and building don't give you heavy cavalry don't bother. The amount you get from upgrading stables is not worth the money.

 

[Zireael]

I hope light cavalry gets some power in the future... Are there any mods which change it?

 

[Avisian]

I'm not wanting to be argumentative here but it seems to me that without knowing the chance of landing the swarm rather than the swarm volley the rest of the statistics are useless. Does having double the number of LC increase the chance of the tactic by 200%, 50%, 5%, or 0.5%, or something else? It's a fairly significant factor in a judgement about how effective they are.

I am unaware of how this certain part of the code works, but looking at the above mentioned tactics the chance of getting either one is exactly the same. This means that archers and light cavalry have equal weight when selecting a tactic, its just that archers are 5 times more effective then light cavalry

I should summarize that according to my theory crafting:

For nations without racial light cavalry building:
Get the first stable update to have some Persue power with minimal risk of getting hosed by Light Cavalry tactics

For nations with racial light cavalry building:
Update as high as possible due to increased statistics, but only after creating the infantry baack bone of your army to minimize getting hosed by light cavalry tactics.

PS: It should be noted that countries which rely on hose archers should stick to light cavalry, as most tactics that benefit light cavalry also benefit horse archers. Sadly this is mostly the pagans of the east which are unplayable.

 

[Eldorian]

Giving LC better tactics, or making LC better in skirmish.

Paradox does also need to get a grip of the cognative dissonance that gives Western Europe hordes of light cavalry (as per the stables upgrade line) but near zip heavy cavalry, but envisaging their role as solely to harry, which is a rather creative interpretation of western medieval warfare. (Or more simply, if you want light cavalry to be early knights, then stat them as early knights, if you envisage them as skirmish cav, then your western european numbers are hopelessly wrong. The end.)

Light Cav in the game seem to be based on something like Spanish Jinetes, which had a javelin, sword, and shield. Also used by the Berbers of North Africa, where the name comes from. The real advantage of light cavalry was their ability to disengage from melee and to attack flanks and the rear by circling around the enemy. I think they should probably get changed up a bit in the game, for sure. Currently they seem to be the weakest cultural retinues.

 

[Octavio]

I agree with Eldorian and the OP. Light Cavalry needs some love, the sooner the better. I´ve never upgraded cavalry buildings playing in Iberia as their performance is so bad...

Great thread indeed and thanks for doing the math, Avisian!