How does the cavalry system work?

[sifis172]

i'm bringing a dead post to life. :whistle:
i'm having some trouble commanding the cavalry.
basically i think that they need some balancing.

i'll give an example. the prussians are attacking and have wiped out most of the guard at plancenoit.
i'm waiting for their infantry and cavalry to advance further
in the french rear, so as they advance their artillery is left behind on the hill
north of the church. they have about 40 cannons, and 2 or 3 squadrons
of light prussian hussars.

now.. i have kept out of the battle all of milhaud and kellermans
cuirassiers. they haven't been engaged anywhere and are still
fresh. that's about 6000 heavy elite horsemen.

i charge (the truth is that my charge wasn't very well coordinated),
and the disaster follows. i loose most of the cavalry, routed and
captured. and the only thing that i gain are about five prussian cannons
destroyed and some ennemy cavalry destroyed. the heavy french horsemen are
completelly embarrased and surrender en masse to the 3 squadrons of prussian
light horsemen, and their artillery manages to flee (in all directions that is ).

my point is: are the horsemen a little underpowered?

another thing i have noticed is that when cavalry pursues the
ennemy, they do very little damage. in the best scenario they
will kill about 50 men of the routing battallion. unless the infantry
surrenders.

i'm not for overpowered cavalry. but
1: are the french heavy cavalry massivelly underpowered?
(i have noticed that in cases in witch they engaged netherland's
cavalry, but also scot's grey's). they were considered to be quite a
force of cavalry, even if not in the guard.
2: should the cavalry versus infantry caught in a non square
formation inflict higher casualties?
the infantry suffers so much more fewer casualties if they rout,
than if they stand and fight. that was ill-advised at the time,
routed units were sometimes completelly wiped out if they routed.
than if they stoo and fought even if not in a square formation.

sorry for the long post, just a suggestion on cavalry.

edit: strange thing i forgot to mention, is that i managed to capture la haye sainte without
a fight. seems that all the troops in the beginning of the army vs army
scenario of waterloo were occupying the small forest south of it.
so it was left abandoned. i managed to realize that after a 5 minute blindness. :silly:

[mitra76]

Thanks every suggestion is good, i'm taking note of all of them. Cavalry combat was the more difficult to implement and took a lot of work (and I suspect also more in the future ) because changed the most from Gettysburg and the process of combat had to switch from a well separated "carabine-short distance charge-short pursuit" to a more fluid and aggressive saber attacks and long distance pursuit

Cuirassiers have good-excellent statistics individually but at Waterloo their squadrons in good part have reduced strenght and this has a impact during the melee result calculation especially if tired

[RebBugler]

Personally I find the cavalry overpowered if anything, but I have been convinced by the cavalry grogs on our team that this is the accurate historic depiction. I must admit, they are fun, being the equivalent of Sherman Tanks on a musket wars battlefield.

I believe folks that find cavalry underpowered are just not using them right yet. It took me weeks to learn to take advantage of their strengths, and now I find that I can almost always kick butt with them, regardless of the strength of the enemy.

For example, WL13, Attack and Pursue, that's exactly what you do. Initially I struggled to get 500 points in 45 minutes. Now I can generally achieve 1000 points in 15 minutes, depending on how much energy I exert in maintaining numerous charge, pursuit sequences across the battlefield. With good choices on how soon to charge, how long to pursue, and when to retreat, an experienced squadron can easily rack up 300 points before fatigue sets in.

In addition, NEVER attack a square. Avoid them at all costs, make a wide birth when maneuvering to a line or other infantry formation that hasn't spotted cavalry and squared yet. If you see one of your squadrons attacking a square, select it and retreat immediately, or toast it will be, guaranteed!

[Gunfreak]

i'm bringing a dead post to life. :whistle:
i'm having some trouble commanding the cavalry.
basically i think that they need some balancing.

i'll give an example. the prussians are attacking and have wiped out most of the guard at plancenoit.
i'm waiting for their infantry and cavalry to advance further
in the french rear, so as they advance their artillery is left behind on the hill
north of the church. they have about 40 cannons, and 2 or 3 squadrons
of light prussian hussars.

now.. i have kept out of the battle all of milhaud and kellermans
cuirassiers. they haven't been engaged anywhere and are still
fresh. that's about 6000 heavy elite horsemen.

i charge (the truth is that my charge wasn't very well coordinated),
and the disaster follows. i loose most of the cavalry, routed and
captured. and the only thing that i gain are about five prussian cannons
destroyed and some ennemy cavalry destroyed. the heavy french horsemen are
completelly embarrased and surrender en masse to the 3 squadrons of prussian
light horsemen, and their artillery manages to flee (in all directions that is ).

my point is: are the horsemen a little underpowered?

another thing i have noticed is that when cavalry pursues the
ennemy, they do very little damage. in the best scenario they
will kill about 50 men of the routing battallion. unless the infantry
surrenders.

i'm not for overpowered cavalry. but
1: are the french heavy cavalry massivelly underpowered?
(i have noticed that in cases in witch they engaged netherland's
cavalry, but also scot's grey's). they were considered to be quite a
force of cavalry, even if not in the guard.
2: should the cavalry versus infantry caught in a non square
formation inflict higher casualties?
the infantry suffers so much more fewer casualties if they rout,
than if they stand and fight. that was ill-advised at the time,
routed units were sometimes completelly wiped out if they routed.
than if they stoo and fought even if not in a square formation.

sorry for the long post, just a suggestion on cavalry.

edit: strange thing i forgot to mention, is that i managed to capture la haye sainte without
a fight. seems that all the troops in the beginning of the army vs army
scenario of waterloo were occupying the small forest south of it.
so it was left abandoned. i managed to realize that after a 5 minute blindness. :silly:

So far my only complaint is how little damage cav does to fleeing infantry.

In my army vs army battle as napoleon, my chasseurs made repeated contact with british infantry, they did very little damage to them, infact the infantry just runs 60 yards back and reforms and start shooting at my cav.

Honestly i feel if cav makes contact with infantry not in square, that infantry should more or less be out for the rest of the battle with lots of casualties.

[Jim]

Veteran infantry learned that if they lay down, then the cavalry troopers could not reach them with their swords. As horses are quite reluctant to step on people given a choice, the infantry were relatively safe lying down. It is only the ones who ran from the cavalry who were in deep (fertilizer).

-Jim

[RebBugler]

Agreed, on the initial pursuit, few additional kills are picked up. But not an issue if you follow through.

SPOILER: SHOW

Once your squadron pulls up, or ceases pursuit, set your destination ahead of the way they are still retreating. Quickly queue up attackmarch, column, run, then execute. The second they stop retreating hit charge, your kills will probably double, usually more. Continue this sequence as fatigue permits and with the right timings and your fatigue holds up, you'll get the ultimate BONUS...CAPTURE!

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Cavalry works much better in this game than the last. Much of the time they act appropriately. They seem to give priority to enemy cavalry which is just what they should do. They also work in concert with infantry and artillery against enemy infantry. It forces them into square and permits the ground pounders and guns do the wet work. It's really painful to be on the receiving end of this treatment.

With a few tweaks they will be able to inflict more casualties against fleeing targets. A battalion broken by a cavalry charge probably could not rejoin the fight except after a long rallying time.

Not the sort of thing to be on the receiving end of.

[sifis172]

i read about waterloo, that a unit of infantry
was cought, in it's way to reinforce the defence inla haye farm, was cought
off-guard by cuirasiers. the cavalry was sent to support d'erlon's
attack. the unit was destroyed. that happened
right before they* were caught off-guard by the british
heavy cavalry division.
another infantry battalion was cought off-guard by the chasseur
of the guard north of hougoumont, their casualties were up to 90%.

what i'm thinking is that the longer the pursuit, the
percentage of casualties should rise. if it pursuis
only for (let's say) 50 meters, the casualties shouldn't be
devastating.

honestly the a.i is reacting very impressivelly against ennemy
cavalry presence B) . it just feels though like the heavy cavalry is very
fragile, like sending light horsemen to do heavy damage
instead of scouting.

[Jim]

Part of the reason for the loss near La Haye was that visibility was very low at that point, probably less than 100 yards so the cavalry was on the infantry much too fast for any organized defense.

-Jim