Cavalry or cav+cannon/arty??

[tinyp3nis]

What is better for conquering, just plain cavalry or cavalry+ cannon (later artillery support). I'm at the beginning on of the industrial age, so it's long way to tanks. The enemy has nationalism, so they have riflemen in their cities and that is bad for my cavalry. I have never used cannons before, and I'm a bit skeptical about them since artillery is only bearly useful and only before tanks arrive, and cannons are even weaker. What way is the best to get the most cities in shortest time?
So, what would you do?

Damn typos.

[Harovan]

You should use a combined approach. Bring a main force of Infantries and Artilleries and some Cavalry stacks. Use the Infantries to gain space, steadily moving them in the enemy's territory. Attack in the following order:

- Bomb the hell out of the enemy. At least 10 arty hits per turn, better more.
- Attack with Cavalries. They may retreat if they lose.
- Mop up with Infantries.
- Rinse, repeat.

Don't forget to bring reinforcements for Infantry and Cavalry.

[DaveMcW]

Pure cavalry is the fastest way to take cities in the late middle ages/early industrial age. You'll need a minimum of 30 cavalry to invade riflemen, but the wounded ones retreat so your losses are small. The bigger your army the faster you can grab cities. A typical strategy is to upgrade a bunch of knights when you get military tradition so you don't waste time building cavalry.

Artillery support is not as simple as pure cavalry, since you need to balance cavalry, infantry, and artillery in your offensive (forget cannons, they are way too slow). You also need workers laying railroad to get your artillery into position. But a good arty stack allows cavalry to take out infantry or even mech infantry. If you lack the numbers for a pure cavalry assault, waiting for replaceable parts might be a good idea.

P.S. If you use Moonsinger's settler trick your combined arms can invade at the speed of pure cavalry.

[Arrian]

It kinda depends on several factors:

1) How many Cavalry do you have now?
2) How long until you will have replaceable parts?
3) How long until the enemy will have replaceable parts?

If you have a lot of Cavalry, or can quickly produce a lot of Cavalry, but you lack replaceable parts, I'd say go pure Cav, and just accept heavy casualties.

If you have replaceable parts, and they won't have it for a while, take your time and protect your Cav with Infantry and Artillery support.

If you face the prospect of the enemy having replaceable parts in the near future, go pure Cavalry - speed is everything. Because once they have infantry, OUCH.

-Arrian

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Arrian
It kinda depends on several factors:

1) How many Cavalry do you have now?
2) How long until you will have replaceable parts?
3) How long until the enemy will have replaceable parts?

If you have a lot of Cavalry, or can quickly produce a lot of Cavalry, but you lack replaceable parts, I'd say go pure Cav, and just accept heavy casualties.

If you have replaceable parts, and they won't have it for a while, take your time and protect your Cav with Infantry and Artillery support.

If you face the prospect of the enemy having replaceable parts in the near future, go pure Cavalry - speed is everything. Because once they have infantry, OUCH.

-Arrian

I wrote long reply, of course the internet starts to **** itself when I try to send it.
To make things short, I played and noticed:
cannons suck, arty is a waste too unless they have inf which they don't. Thanks for the replies and thank god apolyton is on such a fast servers
Not like the original reply I wrote was important or anything but it took lot of my time

editing stupid typos again

[nbarclay]

Good points, Arrian. Spoken like a true warmonger.

One other consideration: If you're in Republic or Democracy, there's a lot of advantage to keeping wars short. That could argue in favor of a pure cavalry approach if you can afford the losses even after getting Replaceable Parts. On the other hand, if you can't afford the losses, having to wait to replace dead units could really bog down an offensive too.

Nathan

[jshelr]

I almost always agree with SR, but maybe not this time. Just thinking back, I've hardly ever used cavs with a combined arms approach, at least not in the period right after military tradition is first discovered. In that period, cavs are for blitzing and Arrian's point about getting the job done before infantry is really the bottom line most of the time. Size 13 cities are about to appear as well. Upgrade those knights and rock while the time is ripe.

That's not to say cavs have a short shelf life. Far from it. Their 3-move 6-attack is handy all the way to MA. But they are not going to work as the front wave of an attack nearly as well after infantry show up.

[jshelr]

BTW.I was trying to push the settler trick the other day on another thread and people didn't seem to get it. It's a very powerful tool for the cav blitzer's strategy kit.

[Arrian]

I got into a war yesterday night with Cavalry and Muskets as the best units on both sides. Well, I should say that the opposition also had Samurai, and that made it hurt just a bit more. I did, however, have railroads, and was researching nationalism. I also had 3 cannon.

This is one thing I should have mentioned. Small numbers of bombard units are nice things to have around, for pounding attempted counterattacks.

I would capture a city, connect up the RR, move a settler into position (in city or one tile past), abandon the city, and rebuilt with my settler. Is that the "settler trick" you guys are discussing? If so, yeah, it works like a charm.

My forces would then either: 1) hole up in the new city, with the cannon and as many muskets (and later on, rifles) as I could muster; or 2) charge on to the next city. I went with option #1 in the beginning, #2 later on.

My Cavalry chewed up the opposition just fine, but it was the counterattack thing I was worried about. Not losing cities, mind you - losing my exposed Cavalry. So I had to make sure that I could capture a city and get my units inside it at the end of the turn.

Luckily, I had a 3xKnight army for escort duty. That definitely helped, because the AI is still scared of armies. Me, I would have hit that thing with a Cav at first opportunity. But I digress.

Tinymember - I hope things went well. Like I said, bombard support can be handy on defense, and artillery do a good job of beating up riflemen in cities (so long as you have a decent number of artillery... 10). The limitation is speed. If you're gonna use bombard support, you will have to take your time.

The war I fought directly after my showdown with Japan was vs. the Zulu. I had infantry & arty, they had rifles. So I marched in with a line of infantry, with 10 or 15 arty, and my Cav. Anything that came near them died horribly. I mashed up 1/2 their empire with almost no losses. It took time, however, and I eventually made peace because of WW and the fact that I didn't really want their empire.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

"Is that the "settler trick" you guys are discussing? If so, yeah, it works like a charm."

The settler trick goes like this:

During your blitz you take a city and it collapses to a 9-squre block.

You look around and there are no more cities within the 3 square striking range of your cavs.

But!!!!! You move your settler to the outside edge of the 9-square block you just captured, in other words, one square beyond the old city site. Then, you abandon city and rebuild with the settler closer to the enemy. Now you can continue your blitz.

Stretching the point further: Suppose you still can't get to another city. Then you can often push one square further by moving another settler into position and abandoning your just-created city. Theoretically, you could march across another civ without fighting, I suppose.

I've said it badly. Though I've used this technique for quite a while, I was impressed with the thread that is linked above.

[vmxa1]

inyp3nis, when I post and it fails here due to the server, I copy the post in the browser or even to notepad, so I can paste it back if things get ugly.

[vmxa1]

I have had very little success with bombarment units, so many misses and so slow. I do like them for defenders, I drop a few in the new city and punish counter attacks. I send some with invading rifles or what ever one move units I am sending, as they can be useful for hitting attackers and do some damage if they get to a city. The AI will often leave those stacks alone.

[tinyp3nis]

Tinymember - I hope things went well. Like I said, bombard support can be handy on defense, and artillery do a good job of beating up riflemen in cities (so long as you have a decent number of artillery... 10). The limitation is speed. If you're gonna use bombard support, you will have to take your time.

It went well, the impression what I had about cavalry sucking vs rifles was false, it was result of my experiment with cavalry attack on unlucky turn (I got really bad random seed). I guess I won't be making bombart units

inyp3nis, when I post and it fails here due to the server, I copy the post in the browser or even to notepad, so I can paste it back if things get ugly.

I keep that in mind.

[alva]

If you have a lot of Cavalry, or can quickly produce a lot of Cavalry, but you lack replaceable parts, I'd say go pure Cav, and just accept heavy casualties.

Alltough I do more or less the same thing, remember that heavy casualties increase War weariness!!
So the canon fodder thing is not really the best tactic in Republic or Democracy!!
But indeed, sometimes speed is all that counts

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by alva848


Alltough I do more or less the same thing, remember that heavy casualties increase War weariness!!
So the canon fodder thing is not really the best tactic in Republic or Democracy!!
But indeed, sometimes speed is all that counts

Hmmm ? I didn't know that. Allways figured attacking inside enemy borders is one of the only factors that matter after the war has begun.