Upgrade Cavalry?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


FNBrown: Have you ever heard about different time zones and that some people sleep in their nights and don't hang out in Apolyton?

What, people actually sleep???

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Willem
What, people actually sleep???

Well, or do something more amusing, assumed they have a g/f

[FNBrown]

Well, it's 3:45 a.m. in my time zone...

Guess that answers the girlfriend question....

[Manstein3]

Tank units are of the same tactical use as the former cavalry. In ancient and early indurstrial times, there were heavy riders and light ones, called hussars, dragoner (the heavy ones, I think), and so on.
Light cavalry had reconnaissance or avantgarde function, I mean, to investigate the battlerfield and get informations of the enemy's strength, and to make surprising attacks. The same do the modern light tank units.
From a strategical point of view though, modern tank units are the core of at least an offensive army. Cavalry has never been that important on the battlefields.

And it is true, many tank units got 'upgraded' from cavalry units.
It is silly to argue in a superficial way that a horse cannot be transformed into a tank. It is the fighter who makes the cavalry attack. And the tank attack needs the same spontaneity and mind-quickness, and really the same tactical theory a cavalry man needed.

[Spiffor]

Yes
I don't like having useless units in my queue, and I like having the computer build up-to-date units. And the only mobile land unit following cavalry is the Tank.

[Combat Ingrid]

I guess this is mainly a balance question. You can easily upgrade your defensive troops, but if you want to upgrade your offense you need to build them from scratch.

As someone said, if you have Leo's and are first to get tanks, you could easily swarm the map with them immediately, which would give you a too big adventage over the other civs.

IMO, the way it works now gives the defender more time to respond to new threats, making blitzkriegs more interesting as an attacker (you need to build all these tanks quickly while you still have the tech advantage)

[Swissy]

I believe that the first armor units in the American, English and French armies were converted cavalry units. I am uncertain as to the Germans. I do remember that Rommel was an infantry officer in WW I. So the German may have just assigned their best men to the panzer units. The Communists "reformed" the armed forces of Russia and China. That means the calvary which was mostly noblemen and cossacks and other untrustworthy elements (to loyal to previous government) were disbanded. So for the most part it does seem sensible to allow upgraging, at the appropriate costs.

[Akka]

The most obvious answer that comes to my mind when I read this question, is that YES, the cavalry should upgrade, BUT the attack jump is damn too high (6=>16). What it lacks is an intermediate unit between cavalry and tanks. I don't know, perhaps an attack-enhanced infantry, or changing cavalry to dragon, and put cavalry in the industrial era making it 10-5-3 ?.

[Delta-V]

A short history of cavalry

Originally posted by Manstein3
Tank units are of the same tactical use as the former cavalry. In ancient and early indurstrial times, there were heavy riders and light ones, called hussars, dragoner (the heavy ones, I think), and so on.

Dragoons, actually. It wasn't until WWII that tanks were generally used as Cavalry. Even in the early part of WWII, tanks were still mainly used to support infantry. Of course, Guderian's panzers changed that pretty quick.

Light cavalry had reconnaissance or avantgarde function, I mean, to investigate the battlerfield and get informations of the enemy's strength, and to make surprising attacks. The same do the modern light tank units.

The US pretty much did away with the light tank concept. A modern US Armored Cavalry unit actually has more firepower than a similiar sized tank or mech infantry unit. Most of the european armies still use light tanks or armored cars for reconaissance.

From a strategical point of view though, modern tank units are the core of at least an offensive army. Cavalry has never been that important on the battlefields.

On the contrary, Cavalry has always been the decisive combat arm, at least until the invention of the rifle. Early infantry formations (phalanx, mostly) were extremely vunerable to flanking attacks. Typically, the 2 cavalry forces would face off until one fled the battlefield, then the victorious cavalry could ride around behind the enemy infantry. It wasn't until the Roman maniple and the well-trained Roman army that an infantry force was flexible enough to effectively turn and face a cavalry charge from the flank or rear, and then it was still devistating to the morale of the troops.

Even through the Middle Ages, cavalry remained a decisive factor. Heavily armored knights could easily ride down infantry formations. Cavalry could finally, for a short time, make frontal assaults. Pikemen, with 18-foot long pikes, put an end to that, but still couldn't turn and fight quickly to combat a flanking cavalry charge. Massed longbowmen put the final end to massed heavy cavalry, but lighter, faster cavalry could still surprise the longbowmen.

With the invention of the rifle, infantry had the range and firepower to shoot down the cavalry before the charge reached their line. Cavalry switched to a more supporting role, reconnaissance and pursuit. Finding themselves rather vunerable on horseback, Cavalry would often fight dismounted. This proved effective, esp in providing a mobile defense. Buford's dismounted cavalry at Gettysburg, for instance.

This lead to the formation of horse-born infantry that were not equipped to fight mounted, such as the British Mounted Infantry of the Boer War, and the Australian Lighthorse that fought in WWI.

So, while Infantry remained the mainstay of armies throughout history, cavalry has almost always been the decisive arm of the army.

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by Akka le Vil
The most obvious answer that comes to my mind when I read this question, is that YES, the cavalry should upgrade, BUT the attack jump is damn too high (6=>16). What it lacks is an intermediate unit between cavalry and tanks. I don't know, perhaps an attack-enhanced infantry, or changing cavalry to dragon, and put cavalry in the industrial era making it 10-5-3 ?.

This is *exactly* what I intend to do in my game. I am going to make the Russian Cossack the industrial age Cavalry for everyone. I will rename Cavalry to Dragoons and name the industrial age cavalry 'Cavalry'. I will then have Cavalry upgradeable to tanks, albeit at quite a high cost.

The Russians will still have the Cossack, but it will be very cheap, or I was thinking the Russian UU could be very cheap artillery. Either way, they get swarms of something, which is indicative of Russian military philosophy.

. . . I think . . .

[Colonel Kraken]

There is something I've found out while modifying unit stats with the editor. I haven't thoroughly put it to the test yet, but . . .

I basically increased all unit's movement ratings by one (more or less). Thus, typically, foot soldiers have a movement of 2 and horse units have a move of 3.

I have found that my cavalry no longer retreats from foot soldiers. I know this happened before when elite units attacked --they'd go for the gusto and fight to the death, but veterans and lower would always retreat unless they had started with only one hit point.

Now it seems that the units never retreat. It seems that, unfortunately, Firaxis made the code something like "movement 2 units are able to retreat from movement 1 units" instead of "units with a higher movement rating can retreat from units with a lower movement rating." The second one would make much more sense to me. (Another example of ill thought out coding?)

Like I said, I haven't fully/scientifically tested this yet. If it's true, this is the solution to those of you who believe the retreat option is simply too powerful. (I would tend to agree; however, I do enjoy the retreat option).

Just thought all of you would like to know.

[Zealot]

Yes. Anything else would be against the "Theory of Evolution".

Who's Alyssa Milano anyway?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Zealot

Who's Alyssa Milano anyway?

A television celebrity in North America, a real babe. She stars in a show called Charmed I believe.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
There is something I've found out while modifying unit stats with the editor. I haven't thoroughly put it to the test yet, but . . .

I basically increased all unit's movement ratings by one (more or less). Thus, typically, foot soldiers have a movement of 2 and horse units have a move of 3.

I have found that my cavalry no longer retreats from foot soldiers. I know this happened before when elite units attacked --they'd go for the gusto and fight to the death, but veterans and lower would always retreat unless they had started with only one hit point.

Now it seems that the units never retreat. It seems that, unfortunately, Firaxis made the code something like "movement 2 units are able to retreat from movement 1 units" instead of "units with a higher movement rating can retreat from units with a lower movement rating." The second one would make much more sense to me. (Another example of ill thought out coding?)

Like I said, I haven't fully/scientifically tested this yet. If it's true, this is the solution to those of you who believe the retreat option is simply too powerful. (I would tend to agree; however, I do enjoy the retreat option).

Just thought all of you would like to know.

Well it makes sense. The foot soldiers are now considered "Fast", and someone on a horse can't retreat from a fast unit, if I'm not mistaken.

[Trifna]

When in history did ya ever saw the people on horses beeing upgraded to horses?!

It's not like upgrading men, which you only upgrade their weapon and the men is already formed, it's from equitation to tank driving!