Since what's happening now is basically connected (same campaign, just from the Takeda side), I'm using the same thread.
After pulling off a total miracle at Gifu I was still pushed back so it's an unchanged situation with me having won 2, captured 1 territory and still at slight disadvantage. The Oda are actually much stronger than the Takeda, it's a historical fact, so there's no call about re-balancing and this campaign is perfect as it is: you make ONE mistake with the Takeda and you'll most likely lose the battle.
Still, while being outnumbered I pulled my swordsmen in the woods, they are less disordered by the woods than the enemy yari so with one swordsman unit I pinned TWO enemy units (one yari, one not yari) and when a second unit entered the woods I engaged with a second swordsman unit. During the ensueing melee, my cavalry, which took TWO TURNS TO CHARGE despite being basically at handreach, sidecharged this RONIN unit and disrupted it. 2 of mine vs 1 of them disrupted and they fought the WHOLE battle (the ronin nonchalantly rallied but in the end they did rout). So you see, having units that can face one another like... forever is not a good idea. Works the same with fortifications and it's an easy exploit to do for a player. Without this exploit (plus the other swordsman + cavalry) I would have lost the flank, totally overrun... which means, lost the battle... that's why at some point in time, units that touch one another should auto-engage. There has to be a way... an auto melee starting without a charge, just the eventual wheeling required. I'm saying I had an archer unit shoot on my immobile swordsman for the whole battle. So yes, now that I think of it, I actually pinned THREE enemy units with that trick, waiting for me just outside the woods (yeah, right, not for 1 million dollars!) for the entire battle. My cavalry in the woods actually routed those two units coming out from the other side of those woods.
My reinforcements came in 2 sets and it took them 4 turns to get to battle. The cavalry which is supposedly much faster than the light infantry, just arrived one turn sooner... and I was still lucky I hadn't pushed to the middle of the battlefield but was rather close to my side, something like 8 squares ahead of my honjin (left as is, in deployment phase).
So that's the problem, cavalry is basically using the same movement rules as everyone else, it's just got more movement points but seemingly too few. The black arrows indicate the maximum distance the 2 reinforcements could reach in one turn. Terrain being the same for the two, the ashigaru have the same speed as the Cav who are handicapped. In open terrain if I am not mistaken the cav are slightly faster but only just.
When you factor such a little advantage against their low maneuverability, the cavs will always have extreme difficulties at doing flanking manouvers.
If something goes wrong, the best they can do to avoid the enemy is fall back (1 square) while the about face (180° wheel) basically ends their movement. This is not the manouverability of a cav unit, it's exactly the same of an inf unit but at least we see the cav is a lot stronger in melee than it should be. Especially against spears in the front.
The speed advantage of the hoof is laughable if the teppo can avoid it so easy. What you can really see is that the starting distance of the cav from the teppo is almost identical in most circumstances to the ending distance of the cav from the teppo AFTER the evade manouver. In other words, they move at the same speed. Again Cav doesn't have the advantage.
Just minor details since the balance is there but worth mentioning. It looks like every battle is a great battle... every battle beats the record of the previous greatest battle... but it's exactly how it is: 54%-52% for me. Big battle, big battle as usual and I can already tell the next will be even better.
