Is Cavalry Overpowered?

[pcasey]

The Franco/Prussian War, Prussian/Austrian war, American Civil War, and Crimean war were all dominated by massed infantry attacks. All these wars were fought between combatants with rifled muskets.

Cavalry was never a war winning battle arm after the late middle ages.

[Bad Ax]

pcasey:

Just because the unit looks like a Sherman (on which point I'm not particularly convinced) doesn't mean that it will have the unusually high performance characteristics of a Sherman. The average WWI-WWII tank broke down all the time. Even if I buy your point, the logistics easily explain the reduced speed.

You're somewhat right on the subject of the wars, except for the fact that the Crimean War rather famously involved the use of Hussar troops in battles. However, in those wars many of the tactical decisions were dominated by the ability of cavalry to make quick, highly damaging hit-and-run attacks. The success of the Confederacy in the Civil War's early years was due in no small part to their superior cavalry. Cavalry did not make or break a war, to be sure, but the relative ineffectiveness of infantry charges in the face of massed fire (Longstreet famously estimated a need for 3:1 forces, with an expectation of 66% casualties, for victory in such a charge) meant that cavalry played a critical role for detecting foiling infantry advances until their army's own infantry could entrench. That cavalry battles don't stick out in your mind when you think of these conflicts (though they should) is more because the opposing armies neutralized each other's cavalry with cavalry of their own than because the cavalry troops were just ineffective. Additionally, these conflicts involved infantry in a primary role because they were cheaper and easier to equip.

Sidebar: a great weakness of the resource engine is that a single resource is always enough to power your entire empire. If I have only one iron deposit, I can build 15 swordsmen units as easily as 1 and a single oil deposit can fuel 30 cities worth of cars and tanks. I think the game should limit this such that a resource can produce only a limited number of associated units and buildings at a time. So, 1 horses resource means you can build up to 5 cav simultaneously, and if you get 2 horses then you can build ten. This would also make resource trading more meaningful.

Back to the point. Cavalry should be just fine if you knock down the defense (relative to rifleman offense) and increase the price. Or you could exercise a little bit of self-control and use realistic tactics without modding them.

[ranald]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
I agree with Vel. The whole Horseman/Knight/Cavalry line is overpowered, because they are the Undead. Mass them, and you can overrun an entire civ, nearly without loss. The retreat ability is so powerful it defeats the concept of combined arms.

Actually it's just the opposite.

The retreat ability is so powerful that it *requires* the other
side to counter it with combined arms. Your damaged, retreated
cavalry would be dead meat if the AI could properly use mobile
units for local counterattacks. Or if the AI were smart enough to
keep a fast unit in each city... well.

[pcasey]

I disagree, even a smart AI isn't going to fare well against a mobile cavalry strike force. Counterattacking is all well and good if I don't take the city and I leave my cavalry sitting out in grassland for him to attack.

I won't though. I'll bring enough troops to take the city in one turn, then I'll move in infantry/riflemen/musketmen to defend the city, and move the cavalry inside the city.

A well managed cavalry rush never, ever leaves cavalry exposed to be attacked.

Alternately, if you want to play a pure cavalry rush and not bother with infantry, you can just take the city, pillage all the approach routes, and park your cavalry inside the city. The counterstrike force will have to slog across unimproved terrain to get to your city, giving you a chance to chew them up as they approach.

If you're careful, you'll never have to defend at all.

As for the historical usefulness of cavalry, I'm actually going to resist the temptation to get involved in a pedagogic debate. Against my ordinary nature, I'll just say this.

It doesn't matter if it was or was not the war winning arm historically. All that matters is how it plays out in the game. From a game balance standpoint, I think its overpowered.

If we were going to insist on strict historical accuracy, there'd be no way a swordsman would have a 50/50 chance of defeating a cavalry unit, or for that matter, no way an entrenched bronze age spearman could have at least a gambling chance to do some damage to a tank.

Ultimately, the only thing that matters is how a unit plays out in the game. Its a game about history, not a simulation.

[Velociryx]

One final point before I head home....all of the above assumes a "standard" war with "standard" game objectives, but it should be pointed out that an all cav strike force makes the ultimate "slash and burn" army. Swoop in faster than your enemy can react, raze his border towns, and leave (since a wounded cav is just as fast as a healthy one). With road pillaging, he'll never catch you before you can get back to your borders (where you've got troops just waiting to pounce if he follows).

Rinse and repeat as needed...OUCH!

-=Vel=-

[Bad Ax]

pcasey:

I, on the contrary, think what this thread is showing is that it's not the unit that is overpowered, but rather the AI that is underpowered. I agree that tweaks to cav are needed, but I think that the effect of the retreat is only important in light of an enemy civ that seems incapable of combining fast-attack and slow-attack units. Granted, balancing attack styles in the cities won't defend you against an overwhelming rush of cavalry units, but there's no guarantee that removing retreat, or anything short of giving cav a ridiculously underpowered attack, would get rid of speed-unit rush tactics. Retreat or no retreat, if I bring 20 cavalry up against an enemy city with 2-3 entrenched defensive units, I'm going to win. It won't matter whether the defense rating of the appropriate countering defensive unit is comparable or not.

After all, the AI has a simple expedient to prevent the cavalry rush, which is to build cavalry. It could do what the real life armies did and counter the deep threat of cavalry with cavalry of its own. That the AI fails to do this does not demonstrate that the unit has problems so much as that the AI has them. After all, if you thought that the AI could counterattack with an equal cavalry force, you probably wouldn't be so keen on the force concentration you describe. Of course, if you've managed to get infantry while your enemy still defends his cities with musketmen, then you likely won't be as worried about the counterattack. In that case, however, I think the gameplay is working out fine. You've gained a technological advantage, which yields a strategic advantage. What's to complain about?

[ranald]

Originally posted by pcasey
I disagree, even a smart AI isn't going to fare well against a mobile cavalry strike force. Counterattacking is all well and good if I don't take the city and I leave my cavalry sitting out in grassland for him to attack.

I won't though. I'll bring enough troops to take the city in one turn, then I'll move in infantry/riflemen/musketmen to defend the city, and move the cavalry inside the city.

A well managed cavalry rush never, ever leaves cavalry exposed to be attacked.

In that case, you must have such numerical superiority to the AI
that it doesn't matter anyway. Because if the numbers were
anything like equal, and the AI knew how to fight, this would be
happening *to* you just as often.

As someone else said, what it really demonstrates is that the
AI doesn't fight very well.

Alternately, if you want to play a pure cavalry rush and not bother with infantry, you can just take the city, pillage all the approach routes, and park your cavalry inside the city. The counterstrike force will have to slog across unimproved terrain to get to your city, giving you a chance to chew them up as they approach.

Interesting, but with your now culture 0 city, you have no
territorial radius to prevent the computer from building roads
right up to you, and using them to counterattack in force. That's
what I'd do.

Again, you have found a case where the AI doesn't know how to
react to a certain situation, but that doesn't mean a human
couldn't. It's not the unit, it's the AI.

If you're careful, you'll never have to defend at all.

True, but that has nothing to do with the merits of any individual
unit type.

As for the historical usefulness of cavalry, I'm actually going to resist the temptation to get involved in a pedagogic debate. Against my ordinary nature, I'll just say this.

It doesn't matter if it was or was not the war winning arm historically. All that matters is how it plays out in the game. From a game balance standpoint, I think its overpowered.

If we were going to insist on strict historical accuracy, there'd be no way a swordsman would have a 50/50 chance of defeating a cavalry unit, or for that matter, no way an entrenched bronze age spearman could have at least a gambling chance to do some damage to a tank.

Ultimately, the only thing that matters is how a unit plays out in the game. Its a game about history, not a simulation.

I agree with almost all of this, and think it bears repeating. The
one thing I disagree with is that I think cavalry isn't too powerful,
it just looks that way because it lets you do things the AI can't
seem to either imitate or counter.

[David Weldon]

Cavalry are not the equivalent of Riflemen, because it's quite possible to rush for cavalry and have them at least 5-6 techs before an equal comptetitor could have Riflemen. If the competitor spends time on the optional techs, it could be 10 or more techs before they get Riflemen. They must be viewed as compared with Musketmen.

The only real issue is that there _seems_ to be a general status-quo throughout the game where the best defensive unit defends better than the best offensive unit attacks. Cavalry are pretty much the only glaring exception to this, and the question is: does that mean they're broken?

Since cavalry are clearly intended to be used as an offensive force to capture resources that you learn about in the Industrial age (rubber, coal, oil), I think the fact that they're available _long_ before then is probably the problem, not their particular stats.

I think that retreating is very powerful, but don't forget that bombardment will allow your slow units to survive forever as well. They can even make up some speed because an artillery/musketman army won't have to spend _any_ time healing.

All the quick-strike arguments are definitely arguments against the AI, not arguments against Cavalry.

Increasing the cost of Cavalry won't really change much because people that abuse them pop-rush them anyway, and therefore won't be worried about spending a few extra captured workers to make them. Since they never die (almost), their actual cost is almost irrelevant. I would suggest that they are delayed until they can, in fact, be the contemporary of Riflemen and Infantry.

[Sevorak]

I just want to put in a word about how fascinating this thread has been. It's already inspired me to alter my (as-yet-unreleased) mod, especially in terms of the cavalry/rifleman issue. Thanks all.

The substance of the change, if anyone's interested, is the massive inflation of Military Tradition's tech cost, such that the tradeoff of going for it is delaying entry into the Industrial Age by a few techs.

-Sev

[Velociryx]

Query: If we're all pretty much in agreement re: Riflemen/Cav being the appropriate matchup, how 'bout moving Cav to Nationalism??

-=Vel=-

[zeace]

Upgrades

I agree that a well timed cavalry rush can easily destroy any AI civ, but these cavalry become relatively useless in the modern era. The comparable defensive units (Musketeers/Riflemen) both upgrade to Infantry against which Cavalry is much less useful. So while your Cavalry horde will be great at knocking out a few civs, your army will become next to useless if one of your oppenents learns how to upgrade all his defenders...

Ze Ace

[Sevorak]

Vel,

Move Cav to Nationalism and Scientific civs light everybody up at the beginning of the Industrial age. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've NEVER gotten any tech other than Nationalism when advancing from the Middle Ages to the Industrial age. Letting Scientific civs pick up a good defensive unit right away is all right. Letting them pick up both Rifles and Cav, for free, as soon as they snap up the last middle age tech they need might just be a bit too much.

-Sev

[halley]

Shouldn't Pikeman get a bonus against fast units? Does Horseman/Knight/Cavalry count as fast units? Maybe the way to fix it is to give entrenched defenders in a city bonuses against Cavalry etc. I mean how silly it is, to attack cities with horses.

[Venger]

Cavalry - too powerful here, too weak there. A lack of HP differential means you can make the argument that they are too strong against tanks (almost a 50% chance to defeat a tank on attack - that's INSANE) and too weak against swordsmen (50% chance of losing). It's nice to compare them to riflemen, but keeping blinders on to how they relate to everything else in the game isn't helpful.

Cavalry movement should also be reduced to 2 (actually I think 2.1 would be good), or maybe 2 with treat all squares as road.

Keep in mind that I thought cavalry was too strong in Civ2 - I moved them from 8/3 to 6/3. They had the same attack as tanks (though only 2 HP instead of 3), and that led to cavalry rushes against tanks - gain, total drek.

Venger

[Nic]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Vs. Human opponents:
A little more uncertain, but for drawing first blood, it's no contest. If there ever IS MP, I promise you that you'll see "Mongol Hordes" when humans attack each other....mounted troops pouring en mass over your borders. Even if you have mounted troops in numbers yourself, the fact that they'll dominate MP games implies that they're superior in some way, and I think that retreat, and it's implications where capturing cities is concerned, is a major part of that.

Combined arms should dominate the game and probably will in MP unless something more like a killer-tactic can be found than pure mongol horde. Yes cavalry can over-run cities, especially if they significantly outnumber the defenders. On the other hand those cavalry are dead meat if they lose the battle against a human opponent because the counterattack will devastate 1hp units and the defender can use roads to rush all mounted troops within 5 tiles (8 if they have cavalry) in for the purpose.

Even where the cavalry have sufficient numbers to win against comparable defenders they are instant soft targets for counter-attack, a counter that will only face their rather weak defence of 3 and many units down to their last hp. A victorious combined force can use the newly captured roads to rush a few riflemen in, a pure cavalry horde is vulnerable even in victory.

Against the AI the cavalry horde is effective because the AI does not counterattack well and has clearly never heard of the exploitation phase of battle. Against a human opponent it will work gloriously sometimes and fail badly other times, it is a bold but desperate gamble.

One final point, the lifespan of cavalry swarms as a vaguely viable tactic lasts as long as your opponent does not develop railways. The counter-attacking power of railways is overwhelming against units so weak defensively.

--
Nic