Skirmish vs melee focused armies

[majdavlk]

Which army type do you prefer?

If i have an army that is made of 9 light infantry and 21 light cavalry, will it be able to consistently beat army of 10 heavy cavalry which happens to find narrow flank?

 

[WomboCombo]

Light Cavalry aren't really that good at skirmish (on par with archers). I feel like the high morale of the Heavy Cavalry would win out and spank them.

EDIT: Especially if the Heavy Cavalry were on defense.

 

[majdavlk]

Light Cavalry aren't really that good at skirmish (on par with archers). I feel like the high morale of the Heavy Cavalry would win out and spank them.

EDIT: Especially if the Heavy Cavalry were on defense.

I am building my army around my dynamic mercenary band and that can be reinforced only with LI,LC,HI,pikemen,HC. And ive been trying to find out the best compositions for each situation, especialy against my multiplayer frends. When i did a test, i threw these 2 armies against eachother without commanders influencing the battle [i used commanders with martial of 12 for both sides on all flanks without any traits that influence something else like brave or cavalry commander etc...], the skirmish army seemed to win most of the time but i am not sure how narrow flanks are calculated exacly and i dont have time to do 1000 simulations to find out. I am also searching for the best traits to teach my commanders, and if i would use narrow flank trait that would leave me with 1 less combat trait.

I would like to calculate without defensive terrain in question because i dont exactly know if i will be able to outmanuever my frends or if they will autmanuever me. Our strategy skills seems to be somewhat similiar.

 

[majdavlk]

I did some tests and it seems like the skirmish army wins in majority of the battles with less casualties then the melee army

for the melee army to win it requires to get narow flank on all 3 of its flanks and then its about 50/50 who wins

 

[jwalche]

Skirmish oriented army will almost always win if they start a fight with comparable strength. Because, when they enter melee stage, the Skirmish army will already far out number (or out moral) the Melee army. The melee army will never have a chance to show its strength. Low moral means nothing until you loose it.

The army you described, with a decent commander, will fire Harass tactic 84%, making the 21 units of LC to have attack rating increased from 3 to 12. It is likely to beat an army of even "30" HC.

HC has decent defense but not good enough to win 3x larger army. It will probably beat 10 units of HC easily even when Harass tactic doesn't fire. The battle will be decided during skirmish phase.

 

[majdavlk]

The army you described, with a decent commander, will fire Harass tactic 84%,

This chance depends on the tech level, not sure it its the tech level of my capital, or the capital of my commanders. think i had a chance of 92.8% when i did my tests with max technology