Slitherine

Perhaps (one of) the most important task(s) for LI in the end game is to hunt down enemy routing units. My AI opponent(s) seems to have an uncanny ability to rally.

Kabill wrote:
Just following up on this, I've found this in my Palmyria vs. Rome tournament game. My light cavalry have been outstanding, turning an apparent defeat into a tight-fought contest through harassing flanks and routing fragmented units. But the light infantry have been less impressive, and at this end-stage of the battle they've literally nothing to contribute as all meaningful targets are non-light and engaged in melee. That's not to say that they haven't contributed - they were certainly helpful early on in support of my light cavalry - but the huge versatility of light cavalry seems to make them a much stronger pick, especially if you have limited light options, as I can see even one or two light cavalry units having a significant impact if used effectively.

Ya very true about the light cav being vital in late game. You have to appreciate the light infantry have much stronger ranged attacks than the light cav, especially archers which can cause heavy casualties from a fairly long distance. I love archers. Slingers and javelin are always quite good at wearing down enemies but they have to get close to be effective. Light cavalry barely cause any ranged damage with tiny, ineffective pinpricks, but they are absolutely deadly at assisting routing units in exiting the battlefield. From my experience, I reckon it is a good balance in advantages so we need both light cav and infantry. I learned in the beloved Total War games that light cavalry is absolutely vital for running down routers to avoid having to re-fight the enemy hoards again, so I think both this game and total war games model light cavalry very well.

Delbruck wrote:Perhaps (one of) the most important task(s) for LI in the end game is to hunt down enemy routing units. My AI opponent(s) seems to have an uncanny ability to rally.

Yeah, fair. I very rarely attack routing units as it seems a waste but given how limited light foot are towards the end of a battle that's a solid use for them.

GiveWarAchance wrote:You have to appreciate the light infantry have much stronger ranged attacks than the light cav, especially archers which can cause heavy casualties from a fairly long distance.

They are stronger in terms of damage but I'm undecided how valuable that is. It's probably because I've been playing against heavily armoured infantry a lot but missiles against infantry often feel like a waste, compared with either driving off enemy lights or targeting enemy cavalry (which has become my priority for light units generally). The extra damage missiles do against horse makes (e.g.) horse archers still very effective, and overall you tend to get more shots because enemy horse has an easy time chasing down light foot. As I say, I'm probably being overly influenced by my recent games, though.

Kabill, my perspective is a bit biased cause I only play campaign battles not PBEM, so your games (email games?) might have more cavalry swooping around unpredictably than in mine so it makes sense you want to cut down the horse troops. I didn't know ranged units get more kills against cavalry. I noticed in the Total War games that cavalry units are quite vulnerable to ranged fire like slingers and archers so I enjoy fighting Eastern armies that have a lot of horse archers so I can battle them with foot archers and slingers though I have to be careful about their lancer cavalry that charge my line.