Make cavalry more special

[Uskayaw]

Currently cavalry is expensive unit which has slightly more pips, but costs 2.5 more than infantry. This doesn't reflect the important role of cavalry in history. I suggest making cavalry a special unit which affects performance of entire army it is attached to. These could increase linearly until reaching maximum cavalry-to-infantry ratio. Some possible buffs could be:
- Movement speed of army. For example, up to 30%. This represents the fact that cavalry was often running ahead of armies, scouting.
- Multiplier for tactics
- Extra combat width (per cav, capped at cav maneuver)
- On 9 roll: cavalry units ignore maneuver limit and attack back row, if it's present. This represents flanking.
- Siege ability

To make cavalry more scarce I also suggest national limit to hireable cavalry. Each nation might start with 1 and get more by:
- each 5 production dev in cattle provinces
- each 10 development in capital
- stables building, which increases cavalry limit by 1, or by 2 in cattle/grain provinces
- 1 per each ducat in cattle trade

This will give cavalry a unique role in the game and give an edge to countries that can field a lot of it over those which don't.

 

[macky527]

I would make it so that instead of just rolling 9 to attack the back row, instead, make it so that they attack the back row if the cav are further from the center than the enemy frontline.

This makes them less rng-dependant but also means that cav flanking would be more rewarding, rather than just sitting after battering the enemy frontline, then they go wreak havoc on the backline. If cav get their own special combat width where only cav can go, make it so that some infantry can stay in the back row (if theres free combat width there) to defend against flanking.

Also, while we are talking about cavalry, is it only me who finds it odd that hordes get SHOCK DAMAGE rather than Cav Combat Ability on flat terrain? it's odd because
1) also applies to Infantry shock
2) Steppe nomads were historically mounted archers (ie. "fire" dmg)
tbh i would generally love having mounted archers be in the game as cavalry regiments which focus on Fire instead of Shock for some tech groups like nomadic.

 

[macky527]

And I assume this new "cav capacity" modifier would replace Cav to Infantry ratio modifier?

 

[Blk82]

I don't think horse availability was the limiting factor. Rather, an army needs all three branches, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, to function. Without an infantry core, it becomes very difficult to hold specific locations, leaving the artillery and supply wagons exposed. The steppe hordes had no problem fielding cavalry-only armies, but those armies preformed worse in the gunpower era.