So with the expansion reworking the Hordes, can we do something with Cavalry?

[hashinshin]

Right now cavalry are just... bad. Nobody builds more than 2 for their armies early game, and no more than 4 for their armies late game. Especially late game with infantry actually out scaling cavalry and fighting better than them.

Not even Hordes with their ultra amazing cavalry build more than 2.

I think that, if nothing else, the most basic change you can make to make cavalry focused nations/strategies more viable is to reduce their cost to 20 from 25. Right now it's infantry at 10, cavalry at 25, and artillery at 30. Not only is that sort of nonsense from a historical perspective seeing as how expansive cannons were, but it also chokes any gameplay for cavalry being effective.

Since gold can be used on so many different tasks, and at worst can be used on advisors, even nations like Poland don't build more than the minimum cavalry. Even Hordes, Manchu, Lithuania, Hungary, Ottomans, etc. who have above average cavalry combat don't build more than the minimum.

I think if their cost was 20 that it wouldn't change things much, but we might see for example Poland or Hungary trying out new strategies to achieve stronger cavalry and build more than the minimum.

 

[Sousuke123]

What? If you don't use cavalry more than 2 then you're doing wrong. When I play as horde i strive to have only cavalry to do devastating damage since infantry even at the beginning evaporate pretty fast during battles. PLC should have as many as possible cavalry and they already got cavalry cost discount so they build them a lot. Reason why AI or player don't build many is because most of the time during early game they're broke and not the cost but upkeep costing a lot especially minors so you can see them sometimes out of total 10 regiments owning only 1 cavalry. But overall I agree they need to do something with cavalry so countries historically heavily focused on cavalry would take interest in it.

 

[TheDecider]

I usually only build 4 per battlestack, although to be honest I actually went for 6 as the Ottomans in my current 'Over a thousand' achieve-run before I unlocked artillery, had so much money and also for a little bit of RP - onwards horsemen!

Played a little bit of nomads and with the home advantage they're of course very powerful.

But should there be an incentive for every player having more cav in a 20/4/10 stack ? Is there even a use for having more (I guess they could die of little bit), I recall reading somewhere in ancient times 4 was enough because more couldn't attack... or something.

 

[tngen toppa]

cavarlry isnt so useless as you depict it,thats only the case for western nations.
for hordes,or PLC and other states with cab ideas,they can be pretty devastating.
and historically its only right for cavalry to become less and less important

 

[Zakath]

2 cavalry is something I use in my basic stacks as western tech, but those basic stacks usually get combined for battles. 10/2/10 is a pretty decent all rounder, but that's only because of cost and support limits. Given eastern / anatolian I always go 10/4/10 (or 8/4/10) and for Hordes having a 0/8/0 stack or two is great, then have a couple of stacks of infantry for sieges.

I pretty much think the cavalry cost is fine where it is, it's expensive enough that infantry is preferable even though cavalry is far better for most of the game.

 

[Will Steel]

My early game armies all consist of at least 1/4 cavalry in case of small powers and 1/3 cavalry in case of large, rich empires. As cannons become popular and advanced, I reduce a few horse units, and by the end of the game I now rarely keep more than 4 cavalry per army. My late-game army composition is 4 cavalry, 6 artillery and 20 infantry (don't know the optimal for this game).

With this expansion I would love to be able to play as 100% cavalry armies for hordes, without any penalties.

 

[fabius]

I would like to see Cav being given a abstracted chance to manoeuvre to have more flank attacks and even attack the rear rank. This could be partially based on Command manoeuvre pips.

The abstracted chance could diminish over the centuries.

I think this would realism the Cav more and be good for 'fun' battles; and give more strategic choice in how many Cav to take instead of the no brain ratios.

 

[Groogy]

With this expansion I would love to be able to play as 100% cavalry armies for hordes, without any penalties.

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Technology#Groups
You already can (if you were talking about the mil tactics penalty)

 

[Will Steel]

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Technology#Groups
You already can (if you were talking about the mil tactics penalty)

Yes, this is the thing I was mentioning. I didn't know about nomads already being allowed 100% cavalry. Many thanks.

All that is needed now is a big buff to nomadic cavalry so that they'll be equal or superior to infantry at least until beginning of 17th century, after which guns become too powerful for nomads and most of them either perished or became organized. Nomads raiding Ming and winning against them through sheer horse power should be possible.

 

[Shaaaq]

All that is needed now is a big buff to nomadic cavalry so that they'll be equal or superior to infantry at least until beginning of 17th century

Have you seen what a force of 30k cavalry (0 inf) can do with the right ideas?

 

[JagLover]

In a recent Oirat campaign I was having over half my armies as cavalry at least until tech level 15 or so.

Entice Ming onto your steppe and stack wipe them.

The extra cost more than outweighed by the damage they can do.

 

[zsImmortal]

Cavalry is great. Not sure what you're talking about. People don't build that much because they're pricy at the start of the game and eventually, artillery becomes the pillar of your armies. If Paradox fixes artillery so that you can't have as much artillery as any other unit and be perfectly fine, cavalry will be a lot more popular later in the game.

 

[JagLover]

But should there be an incentive for every player having more cav in a 20/4/10 stack ? Is there even a use for having more (I guess they could die of little bit), I recall reading somewhere in ancient times 4 was enough because more couldn't attack... or something.

Well if we are talking about the start of the EU IV period, in Europe at any rate, it tended to be pike formations that dominated the battlefield. They would need other troops in support to guard the flanks and were of course highly vulnerable to missile fire, but cavalry had no chance going head to head.

In terms of cost if you factor in both the longer training time and the cost of the horses themselves you could even argue that the cost differential is too low at present from Pike (who would often be militias) to mounted men at arms.

 

[Grand Historian]

Cavalry is great. Not sure what you're talking about. People don't build that much because they're pricy at the start of the game and eventually, artillery becomes the pillar of your armies. If Paradox fixes artillery so that you can't have as much artillery as any other unit and be perfectly fine, cavalry will be a lot more popular later in the game.

This. It's ridiculous that you can have more than half of your army be artillery and not incur any tactical penalties but have Cavalry suffer for the very same reason.

 

[JagLover]

This. It's ridiculous that you can have more than half of your army be artillery and not incur any tactical penalties but have Cavalry suffer for the very same reason.

Well you do suffer the penalty that the artillery is more likely to be in the front rank...

 

[Grand Historian]

Well you do suffer the penalty that the artillery is more likely to be in the front rank...

Sure, there's an implied penalty, but there's no outright one like there is for cavalry. Most Napoleonic armies historically, arguably the period where artillery reach the height of its usefulness, didn't have an artillery component make up more than 10% of their overall forces because it would have been completely impractical. Likewise, the advantages of stacking artillery far outweigh the disadvantages. I've seen many battles where all an army's cavalry got wiped out and it's infantry was reduced to a fraction of what it was, but the artillery remains unscathed.

 

[fred.erick]

Sure, there's an implied penalty, but there's no outright one like there is for cavalry. Most Napoleonic armies historical, arguably the period where artillery reach the height of its usefulness, didn't have an artillery component make up more than 10% of their overall forces because it would have been completely impractical.

Completely agree.

I think cavalry should have an ability to outflank and hit artillery regiments in the back row, for this very reason. The mere notion of 50% of your troops sitting comfortably, firing their cannons at will, without any risk to themselves, doesn't sit well with me.
An army composed of so much artillery personnel, without adequate protection, should be swept off the field by cavalry.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Back to the claim that INF is better than CAV, if you look at the values and modifiers in total, CAV is stronger than INF through the majority of the game. Its weaknesses are its cost and the over limit penalty (anything outside of nomad starts has a penalty when CAV is over limit).

Early game, 2 CAV is most cost efficient in ducats (not for manpower though), but if you want the strongest fighting force and money is no object, CAV up to your specific ratio penalty will kill the most enemies in the fastest time (40%, 60%, or 100% CAV). If you want to optimize manpower for instance, then you use mercenaries for all INF units, while selectively building CAV units from your manpower, using them only when they can safely flank... Whichever combination you pick basically depends on where your resources are most constrained.
-Unlimited manpower but poor? 2 CAV all day long. Use your army to conquer some gold mines or something.
-Unlimited cash but manpower constrained? Mercs, mercs, and more mercs.

Later game, you pick modifiers that change the strength of the units, and tech strengthens the fire phase, which boosts INF to near parity with CAV. Depending which modifiers you choose, you can make either INF or CAV your strongest front line units... and of course, since INF is half the price of CAV, you will see most players go INF/ART in the late game.

edited for spelling and clarity...

 

[gothos]

Inflicting 1.6k casualties per day in 1450 marks your complaint as void.

 

[Grand Historian]

Completely agree.

I think cavalry should have an ability to outflank and hit artillery regiments in the back row, for this very reason. The mere notion of 50% of your troops sitting comfortably, firing their cannons at will, without any risk to themselves, doesn't sit well with me.
An army composed of so much artillery personnel, without adequate protection, should be swept off the field by cavalry.

This would make cavalry very viable late game, for the exact historical reason it was, and balance things out quite nicely. Well done!

Early game, 2 CAV is most cost efficient in ducats (not for manpower though), but if you want the strongest fighting force and money is no object, CAV up to your specific ratio penalty will kill the most enemies in the fastest time (40%, 60%, or 100% CAV). If you want to optimize manpower for instance, than you use mercenaries for all INF units, while selectively building CAV units from your manpower, using them only when they can safely flank...

This actually use to be the main Burgundy Strategy when they had +5% Cavalry Combat Ability in their traditions.