Camels

[garymann]

Had a bit of fun fighting with Arabs and camels recently. I'm sure many others in the recent Assyrian tournament will also have had exposure of them as well.

However, I was wondering as, the "ships of the Desert" ,if any thought had been given to camels in Rough terrain. As a "steady platform" could they not count Rough terrain hexes as a "non open" terrain hex, rather than Rough. It wouldn't disadvantage any of their opponents in the rough terrain hex (eg light troops as far as I know or the mounted troops in open terrain, as its not open, etc?), but the camels would not be disordered in Rough.

I know in previous rules (no names!) that Mr RBS was involved in, that camels did count RGO as good going.

Small beer I know, so just a thought?

[Seamus]

No experience with camels in this game myself; are they any more maneuverable than "cavalry?"

I was going to start a thread called "Cavalry" and basically just to ask one question: "So, uh . . . how do you guys USE cavalry in this game?" But since Camels are a cavalry animal I guess I'll jump in here on your thread and save some bytes.

The light cavalry are nice and mobile, and seem about appropriately squishy and pointy. The "Cavalry" (my experience so far is limited to early game Roman "Cavalry . . . I should note, I've only played FOG2 through FOGE battle exports . . .) seems slow, cumbersome and ineffective. Even flank charges seem pretty ineffective, not to mention that getting one lined up is a real trick.

Over the years, computer opponent (C.O.) algorithms (so-called "a.i.") have generally been pretty bad at using and responding to cavalry, with some exceptions (the Forge of Freedom tactical battles cavalry were pretty well-handled by the computer if I recall), and correspondingly 'exploitable' by human players against C.O. Nerfing cavalry would seem to be a fairly obvious reaction on the part of a designer, though I'm not sure if that is what was done in this case.

[SnuggleBunnies]

Cavalry is very effective in game, just no in head on charges, especially in the Classical era. Flank charges are devastating, but you have to START YOUR TURN in a flanking position, and the enemy unit has to already be engaged or have evaded for it to cause automatic cohesion drop.

Republican Roman cavalry is not great; it exists to chase off skirmishers and keep the enemy's cavalry from flanking your legions, while they grind forward and stab everything to death. Only against foes lacking in cavalry can they be used to offensively outflank the enemy.

[MVP7]

The cavalry in FoG2 battles works pretty accurately when compared to historical accounts of battles.The cavalry of both armies would often fight next to the infantry battle and the winning cavalry sometimes regrouped in time to attack the flank or rear of the enemy with great effect. A larger cavalry force works great on flanks of the enemy formation when used together with ranged units. Cavalry physically ramming into the enemy formation like it does in Total Wars is complete nonsense and cavalry (especially before medieval times) has generally not fared well against organized heavy/medium foot in frontal melee (or any melee where the opponent doesn't start breaking from the charge).

Melee cavalry is a bit cumbersome to maneuver but turning a wide formation of cavalry to face the enemy is no trivial task. The only cavalry I think is somewhat underperforming are the massed cavalry archer units that are basically just larger masses of the light cavalry but are limited by the same movement rules as chock cavalry. Historically the horse archers could often do as much damage retreating as they did advancing and could easily turn a feigned retreat into attack. 180 rotation taking a full turn really limits what the massed horse archers can do.

As for the camelry, even if the camels are a bit more durable and sure footed than horse it doesn't mean that the rough terrain wouldn't significantly hinder the formation in combat compared to more open ground. I can't think of any historical examples of camels fighting in bad terrain with great efficiency compared to horse or infantry.