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

[Denkt]

Well I have for a long time now suggested that cavalry should be able to attack back row artillery in some fashion. That would nerf artillery a bit as well as making cavalry a bit more useful.

 

[Will Steel]

As for historical arguments... cavalry were largely employed in smaller numbers by most nations, and many times the heavier use of them was based on the drafting/levy/whatever situation of a nation which necessarily involved having an "elite" pool of mounted units and their retainers rather than larger numbers of poorer equipped men. Since eu4 armies are all standing armies, the best analogy would be a nation that has money but not available men, and generally that IS what happens (until tech 13ish or a bit) when a nation with the cash but not the force limits will go harder on cavalry while a nation that has financial woes will keep only a flank force. Totally fine.

The idea that massed cavalry should stay relevant into the 1700s, even for a horde, is garbage. Just because the game restricts hordes heavily, prevents infantry troop type ugrades, etc, doesn't mean that's what actually happened. Central Asian nations could and did make excellent use of musket-armed infantry and were perfectly good (and arguably above the curve) at military innovation; this stereotypical 13th century all-mounted steppe cavalry was not what Russia spent the 17th-19th centuries expanding into.

Wrong. What you are saying here applies only to Europe, the fact is that massive cavalry warfare didn't stop in most of Asia until early 19th century.

Mughal Imperial army was almost always based on absolutely gigantic numbers of cavalry, and stayed majority cavalry all the way until disastrous reign of Emperor Rangila in 1740s, after which it virtually ceased to exist. It was their heavy cavalry military doctrine that allowed them to almost completely reunify India. They even wore full armour until 1803, because in India and bows and arrows and other pre-gunpowder weapons were in full use alongside modern weapons. Under Emperor Alamgir I, even central Asian horse-archers and cavalrymen were hired in massive numbers as auxiliaries and permanent mercenaries for his huge campaigns, and these cavalrymen became politically significant later on. The huge massed Mughal imperial cavalry charged in battles until collapse of the Empire and it's army.

Similarly, Maratha Empire's army was so successful solely because of their huge cavalry arm and it's speed. Opposite of the heavily armoured and rigorously drilled (and thus slow) Mughal imperial cavalry, Marathas depended on lightning fast blitzkreig raids by lightly armed and fast horsemen all over India, something which even Mughals failed to defeat. This particular cavalry type is called 'Bargis' or 'Bargir-dar'. They were as effective in hills as on plains (unlike most other cavalry in the world), and would conduct raids and disrupt the enemy supply so fast and effectively that almost half of Mughal army got bogged down and trapped in the hills of Deccan and starved, and were completely at mercy of Marathas. This massed cavalry warfare won them the control of almost all of India, and later on proved to be their defeat.

Both of these empires' cavalries were fully professional troops.

Persians had a large number of cavalry mercenaries and units. Ottomans had a huge cavalry arm deployed all over the eastern part of their empire. A major part of Qing armies was their huge numbers of Manchurian and Mongolian Banner cavalry alongside Chinese Green Standard infantry. And again this was fully professional.

(through the Zamindar system).

That is Mansabdari system. Zamindari system was a later invention that was mainly used by the British, after both Mughals and Marathas were dead. Zamindari was a political-economic thing with little real military involved, unlike Mansabdari system which was military first and anything else later.

Mansabdari was a professional army system which kept Mughal armies deployed all over India without chance of opposition. It existed as a kind of 'layer' above the actual provinces or 'Subas'. It gave them a huge pool of recruits, and it was a system which could be used to arbitrarily reward loyal men of the Emperor. Most Emperors themselves, under the reigns of their father or grandfather, would be created a Mansabdar Rank I and this allowed them military experience.

 

[zsImmortal]

That is Mansabdari system. Zamindari system was a later invention that was mainly used by the British, after both Mughals and Marathas were dead.

It was a professional army system which kept Mughal armies deployed all over India. It gave them a huge pool of recruits, and it was a system which could be used to arbitrarily reward loyal men of the Emperor. Most Emperors themselves, under the reigns of their father or grandfather, would be created a Mansabdar Rank I and this allowed them military experience.

No, the Mansabdari system is the 'merit system', and afaik, it went further than military positions, it went to all positions within the administration (I may be wrong though). It just meant rank.

The Zamindari were used by the Mughals and was kept by the Maratha and the British, all the way until the end of colonial rule. Zamindar held both military and civil service functions, as tax collectors and such.

Both existed at the same time (from Akbar's rule if I remember correctly, who implemented the Mansabdari) and were not mutually exclusive.

 

[markros50]

general thoughts about cavalry as it was (imo) and how it is portrayed

first: "guns/infantry" were never more powerful than "cav" in eu4 era/-s. it wasn't the 'power' that led to mostly infantry armies, its the mass of infantry and ease of, well, massing infantry that made them dominant on the battlefields. (by' dominant' i by no means mean 'victorious' in every condition), therefore being developed and exploited more and more in late eu4 and vicky era and becoming dominant till diesel engine giving them some mobility. also, saying 'guns' vs 'cav' isnt same as to say that cavalrymen only charged their opponents. they could shoot as well, and even (in certain point of view) being capable of carrying more firepower to the field : early guns had to be reloaded for a long time, infantryman had one or two guns/bows/crossbows/javelins, while a horse could carry couple to several spare, loaded guns (bows and arrows/ crossbows) that could be fired each, before having to retreat and reload, or - more often - yes, charge. that said: infantry were more numerous and could be 'packed' more tightly to deliver more 'firepower at one time' (a person takes up less space than a horse, obviously, and you get to save on horse price! yay!). another thing you could come up with is 'wagenburgs' that teutons developed (and czechs later), but, cavalry used them as well if the conditions were necessary.
one important cause of nations being able and willing to develop / or to switch / to infantry was economic developement, followed by population boom (three-field, new ploughs, iron and steel, plagues ffing off finally, etc, you know how it generally went), not followed by personal enrichment of those people. hence we had a lot of poor folks, unable to afford a horse but being given same coloured rag, and some cheap, avaible weapons, more and more standartised with military thought and tech developing. the price being the main factor, armies couldn't consist entirely of horsemen (for example, a set of armor, horses and arms of a winged hussar could cost as much as a village in 17th century, and since the crown didn't have 20 thouosand villages per army to afford that, most of the poor folk had to walk to battle with a club ie a sabre and a pistol ).
so in short: yeah, horses were better, but what of it, if you can't afford 150 thousand horse army?
second: im against this 'insufficient support' concept. it was not in eu2 or eu3 (release), it was brought in by CERTAIN MOD we shall not speak about in early to mid eu3 times...
maybe being biased by polish history lessons where, armies consisted of all-cav + "500 strong scottish regiments" (or german) were considered 'normal'. yes, eventually, that concept failed. but horse was not at fault. in fault was number difference. but nevermind eventual fail, many victories claimed were by all-cav armies, i can only speak of battles by commonwealth, but probably you would know of other examples?
i wish someone could enlighten me, why, if i am able to afford it, i couldnt use, with same efficiency, 20 thousand cav charge without having to bring in say, 30 thousand infantry.
cause 'tactics' (?) well, what if my tactics are all about using horsemen? why the picture of horsemen mindlessly charging, unable to hold the line? if you were defence you could always get off your horse and defend, either by fortifying encampments or entering garrisons (towns/fortresses) / at one point in 17th century a unit of around 600 hussars held off a tatar raid of 10-20 thousand by fortifying a village of (name i forgot) and behaving like heavy infantry (tatars left seeing their losses not being worth the gain).
i know, in sweden, you couldnt breed a lot of horses, so they had to train well in infantry warfare, but down south, there was more than enouogh space

one solution idea: how cool would it be to portray this by adding new resource like 'horses' next to 'manpower' ?
if you had enough 'horsepower' you could be able to recruit normal cost cav, but after depleting the number of avaible horses, having to pay for them as if they were mercs?
and ofcourse, remove the 'inefficient support' at same time.
even simplier way: introduce a cap on normal price cav, depending on amount of land and land quality (ie +some cav cap per grasslands province / +less per mountain province)

because i don't *think* the insufficient support is not native and imperative to eu. it came (like a plague). older-eu gamers remember all-cav armies, smaller (expensive), but just better.

if anyone wishes i am willing to provide referrences to facts stated above (ie, cavalry wagenburg, amount of guns carried by horsemen, all-cav armies crushing 10times their opponents, prices of hussar armor etc etc), but the opinions are only mine and you can disagree with those opinions at will
i realize i blabbed alot and didnt use capital letters, but im lefty and shifting's hard. sorry.

 

[Zakath]

Isn't that absurd though (plus the number 12 is merely personal make-believe)? It still is a far-fetched ratio and by that account having 10 stacks or arty in later game amounts to 1200 pieces??? Not even Napoleontic warfare at its height saw that number of cannons on one side.

Arty really needs a revision, like you say in the line of 'batteries'.

The number 12 is a guesstimate, yes, and it's probably in the high range. Looking at Waterloo Napoleon fielded some 50k infantry, 15k cavalry, 8000 artillery and engineers and 252 guns. Keep in mind that Napoleon was a wizard with artillery and had a much higher than usual gun ratio.

In eu4 terms, with a full back line, that makes for 65 artillery regiments each with about 3.5 guns.

 

[yerm]

That's only true for Western Europeans though. The Ottomans (at least for the early part of the game), for example, had much more cavalry than infantry (though their infantry was exceptional and required much more maintenance). The Arabic peninsula nations usually used mounted troops. IIRC the Qizilbash were mostly mounted troops. The Mughal army and its successor states (except for maybe the Maratha, not sure) usually had a huge portion of cavalry (through the Zamindar system). Some of them get discounts or cav combat efficiency (along with greater cav to inf ratio), but it still fails to portray their great reliance on mounted troops because of the prohibitive cost (and the generally poor areas they have to work with vs. Western Europe).

Then you get to the Hordes who should have great reliance on cavalry but have no real way to actually do it. Even after adapting to firearms, they still largely relied on cavalry but they're too poor to actually field any decent quantity (nowhere close to historical dependence).

By the mid to late game period, cavalry reliance was going away. In game, this happens at and after mil tech 13.

There's a few reasons for cavalry imbalance. Part of it is the recruitment system - the ottoman system for example was pulling cavalry akin to the former byzantine or something similar to medieval France. This system was reformed. The other issue which is positively glaring across the board for the early game, really for the entire period that cavalry are dominant at "on-time" mil tech, is the issue of standing armies. They by and large didn't exist, or rather, existed only in part. When a nation has a standing army and can pull up seasonal levies, the standing army doing most of the heavy lifting tends towards cavalry, and the bulk of an army during the major campaigns and offensive sieges when numbers get inflated slides heavily to the infantry count.

In game terms, I have to imagine that the forces you wield, which count against your limit, are representative of these season troops. This might be better modeled by the ability to mothball armies like you can ships, which would let you REALLY form a reserve, but that's another issue. In any case, when you start counting the historical levied masses as in-game standing armies, that all cavalry number flies away.

Now, there's a few things that can be done. The cavalry ratio could probably use some readjustment if not removal in many (most?) places. Cavalry upkeep could use being looked at. Force limits compared to income definitely is a bit off I think; 1.12 imo has really inflated starting force limits without the corresponding increase in base income, such that most everyone simply can't afford to field cavalry until they're a larger nation. Or, what I'd really really like, is if everyone's first 6 or so units (calculated as the 6 most expensive probably) were maintenance free. Something. As it stands, cavalry aren't being skipped so much because they're weak, they're being skipped because every army is a standing army and infantry are cheaper. What horde would build infantry if it could afford its FL in cav with advisor money to spare?

 

[solidprice]

It really would be nice to see calvary able to hit the back row.

It would be fine with a % chance.
perhaps a higher % from shock and/or maneuver pips?

When i played the total war series, it was easy as hell to send a few calvary to #retk some cannon crews and run away.

 

[Metz]

Are Estates going to be the French equivalent of the English Parliament? Different factions that influence the nation's progress.

 

[Denkt]

It really would be nice to see calvary able to hit the back row.

It would be fine with a % chance.
perhaps a higher % from shock and/or maneuver pips?

When i played the total war series, it was easy as hell to send a few calvary to #retk some cannon crews and run away.

My suggestion have been that cavalry have a % value called breakthrough. Each time cavalry makes an attack it will hit the front unit with 100% damage and the back row artillery with damage*breakthrough so with 20% breakthrough would mean that cavalry hit the artillery with 20% damage. One major factor on the breakthrough value would be generals manuver skill making manuver much more important in combat.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

cavalry would be more viable if it could damage the artillery row and if well having a third to half of your army as arty wasn't so powerful.

 

[Alerias]

Cavalry sure did get weaker over time. Back in EU2 all-cav armies would dominate the battlefield to the extent that it was totally OP both tactically and strategically.

 

[Tacticus101]

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.

I respectfully disagree. I have successfully used very Cavalry heavy armies as Eastern, Muslim and Horde nations in both multiplayer and single player for a very long time into the game, it is a perfectly viable strategy. Late game they fall off as much because the nature of fights changes as cavalry get weaker and you can still see reasonably large numbers on nations with good bonus'.

Cavalry out damage infantry. They have more damage pips, better shock (and total) modifiers and more access to combat ability. Where they lose out is in cost (they are less efficient than infantry), vulnerability to fire damage (which happens before the Shock phase) and the fact that the fire phase becomes more and more significant. The obstacle to using lots of cavalry in the early game is money, since if you are struggling to fill your force limit anyway then cavalry are just too expensive. Late game they don't get out scaled by infantry, but infantry are more efficient and much more suited to the larger battles that go on in the endgame.

I also don't think having a breakthrough would solve anything. It would be a needlessly complicated mechanic that would make little difference in some situations and lots in others (very unpredictable). A much better solution would be to make cavalry slightly cheaper (20 ducats) and/or Artillery slightly more expensive to make them less of a "autoadd" until mid-late game.

 

[Zelius]

Cavalry are good in the early game. They have better stats (pips x modifiers). It's also important to take note of not only how many pips but where those pips are allocated. An infantry unit's 1 fire pip while your fire modifier is puny is not worth much. Artillery is pretty useless here, and if you're fighting sub-combat width it might even be efficient to field inf + merc inf instead to allow flanking with cav.

The continue to be useful in mid-game when flanking range increases.

But towards the late game they suffer. Mainly because they will be decimated by infantry and artillery in the fire phase, greatly reducing their strength in the shock phase, and in subsequent combat phases this compounds.

 

[JasperClay]

So, the problem isn't that cavalry is bad - the problem is, cavalry employed as it was in the English Civil War would be suicidal. Running around with 5K inf/5K cav/2 artillery regiments is awful in game in 1640, but I'm pretty sure that would've been a fairly normal field composition.

Likewise, the problem isn't that 1000 men is a totally absurd number for an artillery regiment. That's something like crews for 80 guns, which is ~3 brigades of artillery in the American Civil War. The problem is that the entire Union Artillery in the American Civil War was ~1600 guns. That means if we concentrated the entire 20K in one theater, we'd still only have the 1/3 of the Army of the Potomac. Even as late as 1865, if more than 20% of the men in your combined army were artillerymen, you were probably on a battleship.

So, if you want to make cavalry/artillery more balanced, you have two choices.

1.) Introduce an insufficient support penalty for artillery. You can make it 30% in Europe, 25% in the East, if you want to make a point.

2.) Allow cavalry to attack from the back rank in the shock phase.

EDIT: Actually, the most accurate thing would be to have Cav add 1/2 defensive pips to the front row during the fire phase (so your Cossack skirmishers would actually skirmish effectively) and then attack from the back row during the shock phase. Then, you have artillery add 1/2 defensive pips in shock, and attack from back row during the fire phase. If you still allow Cav to flank, you might end up with 4/2/1 armies, in the west, and 5/3/1 in east.