A Strategic Analysis of the Special Units (LONG)

[King of Rasslin]

Player1, I see too many people that look like they are joking that really mean it. Oh well. I guess it is better to correct someone joking than someone that doesn't have a clue.

As for samurai and riders, which is better? I think 4 defence on a unit with 2 movement is uber in the middle ages, but 3 movement knights are great too. I think China has the better UU but weaker traits than Japan.

[King of Rasslin]

And didn't the instruction book say riders didn't require iron? I KNOW I heard that somewhere! Thanks for telling me otherwise, I almost always have all the needed resources anyway.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
As for samurai and riders, which is better? I think 4 defence on a unit with 2 movement is uber in the middle ages, but 3 movement knights are great too. I think China has the better UU but weaker traits than Japan.

I agree with you. IMO, the Rider is the superior unit, because of its 3 moves. I've played with both civs, and prefer Japan for the attributes. Samurai are very good units - very durable, but a strong force of Riders can sweep through an empire so quickly it's scary. I had a 3-rider army in my chinese game, and it was a beautiful thing. Offense is generally worth more than defense in CivIII, which is why I prefer Immortals to Legionaries (for instance).

Then again, there is something to be said for a combination of elite samurai and veteran cavalry for an invasion. Your Cav do the hitting, your Sams cover them. It's great.

-Arrian

[Austin]

Originally posted by dawidge
Mounted warfare has died and been reborn so many times that the phoenix is green from envy. You seem to have interpreted "cavalry" to mean "mounted troops". This is far from the truth. Capital-C-Cavalry is a family of tactics which rely on mobility. Invented during the American War of Independance by Casimir Pulaski, it didn't even come along until long after gunpowder had been established as the dominant battlefield armament. CP used mounted "regular" musketmen to harass "veteran" and "elite" British musketmen using hit-and-fade methods on terrain of his choosing.

Yes. Hit and fade raids. Not straight up battle.

Cavalry really came into its own with repeating firearms during the American Civil War (and some really amazing mobile artillery work (by Phil Sheridan?)).

This is absolutely nuts. Cavalry was out as a shock battlefield unit much earlier than that, and it never came back, period.

During the Napolenic period the ONLY time cavalry was effective was if the opposing infantry broke, and/or during the pursuit of a beaten enemy, or for scouting work. It was not a decisive battle winning arm on it's own.

As long as the infantry held it's ground, the cavalry was useless. Hell you could see this effect BEFORE gunpowder at battles like Augincourt, or anywhere that Swiss pikes were employed.

Hell Gustavus Adolfus died because his cavalry was totally ineffective at dispersing opposing infantry.

Pompey the Great relied on Cavalry as his trump card at Pharsalus, and paid the price.

Darius the Great's goose was cooked when the Macedonian taxile held it's ground.

Cavalry-as-represented-by-riflemen-on-horseback died in the opening days of WW2 under the hobnailed boots of Guderian's cavalry-in-armor-with-a-really-really-big-gun (and even then the Poles took out an awful lot of tanks thanks to the maneuverability of horse-cavalry).

This is utterly ludicrous. Cavalry died well before then. It died when von Bredow's Uhlans charged French riflemen in 1870 and got mowed down with ease. It died during the Civil War when the Union started adopting the policy of "here come those damn fools with their sabres again, let em have it". It died at Augincourt when the French cavalry charge did more damage to it's own side than it did the English. It sat out virtually the entire First World War, since even Haig wasn't dumb enough to send horses into no man's land.

It has since died and been reborn as modern armor, airmobile infantry, and helicopter gunships.

"Reborn" my ass. Armies recognized that the horse was not a very survivable fighting platform, and moved onto other ones. Where the Roman Legions "reborn" when Italy formed a national army in the 1880's?

Cavalry as a tactic will live forever, but it may not necessarily be recognized as having evolved from sabres and muskets on horseback. If you want to get down to it, gunpowder didn't kill any existing form of mounted troop when it burst (heh) on the scene. The armored knight/cavalier was taken down by the crossbow at a time when "handgunners" were so horribly inaccurate that they were only useful in massed formations against massed formations. The musket spelled the death of all preexisting armaments not from its inherent superiority, but by the virtue that anybody could be trained to use it in a very short timeframe and it was easy to manufacture. A crossbow had longer range, greater accuracy, and faster reload time, but required more careful craftsmanship in construction and skill in use. The age-old sword rush was the prime victim of gunpowder.

This is so wrong I don't even know where to start

(1) As long as infantry held it's ground, it was safe from cavalry. This held true as far back as Alexander the Great

(2) Firearms rapidly surpassed crossbows in performance in ALL parameters. This is so self evident I don't even know WHY I have to point this out. And the early muskets were HARDER to use than crossbows.

(3) What firearms did was give the infantry a distance weapon with which it could not only be safe from, but could actively destroy cavalry.

Napolean's "fast-moving" armies were only fast when going through France. They didn't do well at all in Russia and they didn't save him at Waterloo.

Unbelievable. Do you know any history at all? Why do you think Austerlitz (in Austria, not France) or Wagram, or Bagration, or any of those other Napoleonic battles occurred the way they did?

French Armies during the Napoleonic period greatly outmarched and moved much quicker than the opposing armies, this is a fact. Deal with it.

The French "Musketeer " were highly skilled musketmen and fencers, accurately represented in the game, and disappeared along with the Royalists when Napolean came to power.

What exactly did Napoleon use between 1792 and 1815 then? Grocers? Baguette delivery boys? They certainly were'nt riflemen.

Since before recorded time, the most effective offensive unit, is a very fast form of the most effective ground unit. They sacrifice a little defense for mobility and gain a stronger attack. If anything "killed" cavalry, it was the industrial revolution, but it didn't kill it, it transformed it. From 1800 until 1930, Cavalry represented the sharp end of the stick for the world's premier armies.

Cavalry went out except as a scouting and supplimentary force long before then. A tank isn't a cavalry man with a mechanized horse, the tactics when using AFV are totally different than using horsed cavalry.

Austin

[King of Rasslin]

I heard it took 20 seconds for a Civil War rifleman to load the rifle. It might take 3 seconds for a longbowman to shoot his bow.

Seriously, those muskets are only useful when 2 sides agree to line up and shoot at each other, taking turns. I think a bow would be more useful than a musket. In Civ 3, the longbow is equal to the musket when comparing defence and attack. I think I would use a bow because it doesn't take 20 seconds to load it up and you don't have to line up against the enemy to hurt them.

[player1]

There is one historical "trick" about longbowmen.

To make them to shot bown so fast needed a lot of years of training.

Much more than training someone to use musket or x-bow.

And of course, later muskets had much better range then bows.

[King of Rasslin]

Hmm. I guess the muskets did have a bit more range. But they were very, very inaccurate. Bows would be more accurate at longer ranges. Muskets tended to misfire until they were improved. Accuracy wasn't that great until rifles were made. Before then you had to line up next to each other to guarantee a good hit.

Longbows could shoot farther than crossbows, I think. I do believe it would take a lot of training to use them, though.

[Pythagoras]

I think the distinction is more that longbows, when bowman were trained well, could use their weapons as long range artillery and close range marksmanship whereas a x-bow or musket the long range/close range shooting is more or less the same.

[dawidge]

Pre-American Revolution, there were two main tactics for mounted units: charge and break the line, and skirmish sweeps. These are the knight/cavalier tactics. It only worked if you could demoralize your opponent or if you could afford to suffer the losses in creating a breach.

Post-American Revolution, cavalry tactics changed and continued evolving until the horse became obsolete and was replaced by mechanical transport. The way to employ modern cavalry is to skirmish, harass, and encircle the enemy or simply go around your strongpoint and wreak havok where your forces aren't. I guarantee that the infantrymen trying to hold the line aren't going to be too happy about knowing that the enemy cavalry is already a few miles behind them raping the livestock and killing the women... or something like that

When US Civil War cavalry commanders were allowed to select their strategies, as opposed to having a non-cavalry officer tell them what to do (I want you to ride across the enemy line here and draw their fire. Then, while they're reloading, my infantry will storm their line) they did quite well. The same situation applied to von Bredow just as it did to 11th Hussars/13th Light Dragoons at Balaklava: A superior officer with absolutely no idea how to employ mounted troops ordered them to do something suicidal and they did it. The proper way to have employed them was to have them encircle and strike at the enemy's rear, not charge a musket line or cannon battery.

As to musketeers, they were an elite class of musketmen which sided with the royalists and were disbanded when Napolean came to power. His musket-armed troops were simeple musketmen in Civ3 terms. Napolean's armies were able to outmarch his enemies only when his logistics train was short.

Firearms replaced the bow and crossbow long before their performance surpassed that of the bows because they were easier to make and it was easier to train people to use them as well as they could be used. It gave armies an effective weapon against cavalry that was cheaper and easier than crossbows, which meant you could have more of them. It was a long, long time before firearms achieved the accuracy, range, and penetrating power of the crossbow.

[dawidge]

As something further to consider, I did some boning up on Waterloo, to see what effect Napolean's "mobile" forces had against Wellington. I was struck at how large a portion of the forces on both sides consisted of mounted units (cavalry, hussars, and dragoons). I was also struck at how large a proportion of the action was conducted by cavalry. Nearly half of the forces on either side were mounted and nearly all of the assaults were conducted by "cavalry rush". For an obsolete unit, they were certainly highly regarded by both Wellington and Bonaparte. Also interesting to note is that the infantry never performed an assult on its own, only as a combined forces assault with cavalry. On those occasions when infantry tried the assault on their own, they were overrun by cavalry. When a French combined forces assault took the center of the British Line at La Haie Sainte, it was cavalry that drove them back. When infantry needed to be repositioned to defend the flanks against encirclement, they mounted double and triple with the cavalry to reach their killing zones.

As for Austerlitz, what little cavalry was involved was pitted against each other in similar numbers. Wagram, on the other hand, is regarded by Napoleonic historians as "the last battle where cavalry shock action had decisive importance"; although they also played an important role at Borodino.

Tell me again about how the musket spelled the death of cavalry.

[Austin]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
I heard it took 20 seconds for a Civil War rifleman to load the rifle. It might take 3 seconds for a longbowman to shoot his bow.

Seriously, those muskets are only useful when 2 sides agree to line up and shoot at each other, taking turns. I think a bow would be more useful than a musket. In Civ 3, the longbow is equal to the musket when comparing defence and attack. I think I would use a bow because it doesn't take 20 seconds to load it up and you don't have to line up against the enemy to hurt them.

This means one of two things:

(1) since the invention of gunpowder military men are uniformly idiots who "agree to line up and shoot each other" because they are just too dumb to see that the bow is better

(2) You are wrong.

Austin

[Austin]

Originally posted by dawidge
Pre-American Revolution, there were two main tactics for mounted units: charge and break the line, and skirmish sweeps. These are the knight/cavalier tactics. It only worked if you could demoralize your opponent or if you could afford to suffer the losses in creating a breach.

In other words, pre-gunpowder use of cavalry as a shock unit only worked if the infantry broke and ran, like I said earlier.

Post-American Revolution, cavalry tactics changed and continued evolving until the horse became obsolete and was replaced by mechanical transport. The way to employ modern cavalry is to skirmish, harass, and encircle the enemy or simply go around your strongpoint and wreak havok where your forces aren't.

In other words, you can't direct assault, so you are limited to trying to run around the backfield and pillaging empty squares. Like I said earlier.

I guarantee that the infantrymen trying to hold the line aren't going to be too happy about knowing that the enemy cavalry is already a few miles behind them raping the livestock and killing the women... or something like that

Irrelevant to the point under discussion, which is that cavalry is not very usefull for direct assault tactics, although your statement is a tacit admission of this fact.

When US Civil War cavalry commanders were allowed to select their strategies, as opposed to having a non-cavalry officer tell them what to do (I want you to ride across the enemy line here and draw their fire. Then, while they're reloading, my infantry will storm their line) they did quite well. The same situation applied to von Bredow just as it did to 11th Hussars/13th Light Dragoons at Balaklava: A superior officer with absolutely no idea how to employ mounted troops ordered them to do something suicidal and they did it. The proper way to have employed them was to have them encircle and strike at the enemy's rear, not charge a musket line or cannon battery.

In other words, the proper use of cavalry is NOT in direct assault, but in raiding, peripheral skirmishing, and pursuit of a beaten foe, like I said earlier. And intelligence gathering/scouting in which role is was invaluable in situations where you had a low force to space ratio.

Austin

[Austin]

Originally posted by dawidge
As something further to consider, I did some boning up on Waterloo, to see what effect Napolean's "mobile" forces had against Wellington. I was struck at how large a portion of the forces on both sides consisted of mounted units (cavalry, hussars, and dragoons). I was also struck at how large a proportion of the action was conducted by cavalry.

Cavalry is essential for flank protection and intelligence gathering. It is also the means by which you convert an ordinary battlefield victory into a crushing defeat via pursuit of a routed opponent. It's useless as a direct assault force, which is how CivIII portrays it.

Nearly half of the forces on either side were mounted and nearly all of the assaults were conducted by "cavalry rush".

Which invariably failed unless the infantry broke and ran, usually as a result of other factors. Keegan makes the point very well in Face of Battle that the cavalry was totally useless against infantry that simply held it's line.

Tell me again about how the musket spelled the death of cavalry.

You are doing quite a good enough job on your own. That line about cavalry being a paramount arm up till WWII was particularly sidesplitting, as I somehow missed all of the cavalry's exploits on the western front 1915~1918.

Botton line, a formed line of infantry is impervious to cavalry. Any examination of just about any battle from the gunpowder era bears this out. You need some external outside force or special circumstance for cavalry to be effective as a direct assaulting force of it's own.

Austin

[dawidge]

Originally posted by Austin
In other words, the proper use of cavalry is NOT in direct assault, but in raiding, peripheral skirmishing, and pursuit of a beaten foe, like I said earlier. And intelligence gathering/scouting in which role is was invaluable in situations where you had a low force to space ratio.
Austin

Not counting the "away from the immediate battlefield" applications for mobile troops (however their mobility is achieved)...

Before widespread adoption of the musket, the greatest effect from your mounted troops (Knights) came from shocking the line and creating a breach for the rest of your forces to pour through. The location of the shock strike was typically dictated by where your forces were available to exploit the breach, which, in turn, was likely to be where the enemy line was strongest.

Post adoption of the musket, you worked your Cavalry to strike the lesser defended rear and flank positions. They would find a weak portion of the enemy's defenses, break through and create havok behind the lines before escaping back to a safe position, which your infantry should have secured at the point where your initial breakthrough occurred, but you can always just vault the line and race back to your starting position. The cavalry have the advantage because they can shoot in almost any direction without fear of striking their own comrades, while the defender is much more likely to hit another defender than he is to hit one of the charging cavalry (unless they keep their discipline and mass their fire and carefully direct it - which was not very common amongst conscripted musketmen). At Austerlitz, Napolean's cavalry attempted a flank sweep, but was met by the Austrian cavalry before they could engage the infantry.

The early stages of "Cavalry" armed themselves with multiple weapons (several pistols and a sabre). When repeating arms became available, Cavalry were the first to get them, giving them a distinct advantage over their musket-armed enemies.

They were still used in direct opposition to infantry, but they were used differently. You no longer shock the line, but you shock the flanks, with greater impact. When the infantry attempts to rush your line, your cavalry meets them before they can make contact.

Cavalry tactics, sans horses, created the first breakout of the Pusan perimeter during the Korean War. Punch a hole in the weak point, shoot everything in sight, don't stop for nothing. It is now a table exercise at Norwich, West Point, and C&GS (among others) as a textbook example of the successful application of cavalry tactics. Cavalry generates a rout. The PRK didn't stop running until they crossed the Yalu.

[ShredZ]

Whoa, good post, but theres no way I can read thru all the replies. I just wanted to mention 2 things:

1) Chariots cant move thru jungles/mountains with out roads.

2) Would it be cheaper resourse-wise to counter attack with 2 Musketman than 1 Calvalry ?