Make Cavalry Great Again

[Geffalrus]

In the context of FoGE battle imports the AI isn't designed to deal with the army comps from FoGE because the AI builds armies with the FoGE system in mind. So you build with skirmisher superiority in mind. The AI will often end up with 0-2 skirmishers of some kind while have like 20 medium infantry units and 1-4 heavy infantry. It will then literally sit still and do nothing for 24 turns or until you win by rout by focus firing its line infantry with your skirmish troops. Its mostly a symptom of the optimized army comps in FoGE being radically different from FoG2.

?????

An AI army with only a few skirmishers would get wrecked pretty easily in FoGE. You don't even need to go to FoG2 to manage that. I've seen plenty of AI armies with a heavy skirmish component. I imagine some factions have less selection to choose from, so that could be what you're seeing.

The AI in FoG2 is general decent and capable of punishing you for stupid mistakes, but it's not creative and can't handle unorthodox strategies. Such is life in video games. It's still substantially better than the AI found in Total War games. And if you want some real FoG2 challenge, I highly recommend the multiplayer Digital League.

[jimwinsor]

FWIW, I have my own handicap “meeting engagement” house rule that I use when exporting a battle to FoG2, and that is that I disallow myself a deployment phase before the battle. In other words, all my troops will start the battle in the squares they were allocated. The only thing I allow myself to do is to place new and move existing generals, and tweak the command structure accordingly.

Not only does this prevent 90% of the shenanigans mentioned above (ie, a heavily unbalanced line the AI cannot react to) but it can create some “interesting” situations. A recent battle involved bringing a phalanx army into Hill region (which would have been a non issue in a FoG-E battle) and at battle start found the middle of the map dominated by a massive, steep-sloped, all rough ground hill. Which all my phalanges were deployed upon. Against an enemy largely made up of Spanish Scutari medium infantry. The subsequent battle was interesting indeed, and I cursed the entire time I opted for this “easy” method of combat resolution.

As far as how the FoG2 AI reacts to skirmishers, my experience has been different. Their main line will tolerate a bit of missile fire for a couple of turns or so, but after a while they will stir themselves and advance, trying to melee their harassers. And in doing so will end up reaching my own battle line, deployed in (hopefully) ideal terrain. I’ve never seen the AI just sit there and get shot at until they rout. But skirmishing is fantastic for coaxing the AI to switch from a passive to an aggressive strategy, into the meat grinder you’ve prepared for them.

Someone mentioned the difficulty settings in FoG2 ... I hadn’t even thought of that. What will a higher difficulty setting do to a FoG-E imported battle? Does anyone know, exactly?

[MoLAoS]

In the context of FoGE battle imports the AI isn't designed to deal with the army comps from FoGE because the AI builds armies with the FoGE system in mind. So you build with skirmisher superiority in mind. The AI will often end up with 0-2 skirmishers of some kind while have like 20 medium infantry units and 1-4 heavy infantry. It will then literally sit still and do nothing for 24 turns or until you win by rout by focus firing its line infantry with your skirmish troops. Its mostly a symptom of the optimized army comps in FoGE being radically different from FoG2.

?????

An AI army with only a few skirmishers would get wrecked pretty easily in FoGE. You don't even need to go to FoG2 to manage that. I've seen plenty of AI armies with a heavy skirmish component. I imagine some factions have less selection to choose from, so that could be what you're seeing.

The AI in FoG2 is general decent and capable of punishing you for stupid mistakes, but it's not creative and can't handle unorthodox strategies. Such is life in video games. It's still substantially better than the AI found in Total War games. And if you want some real FoG2 challenge, I highly recommend the multiplayer Digital League.

FoGE requires way more line troops than FoG2 and better ones as well. If you had 2 legions and then a bunch of skirmishers you'd get crushed. But in FoG2 that's a winning combination.

[Geffalrus]

FoGE requires way more line troops than FoG2 and better ones as well. If you had 2 legions and then a bunch of skirmishers you'd get crushed. But in FoG2 that's a winning combination.

Depends on the enemy army composition. Regular Infantry are not that massively better than skirmishers that some good terrain bonuses and a solid general can't lead them to victory.

[MoLAoS]

FoGE requires way more line troops than FoG2 and better ones as well. If you had 2 legions and then a bunch of skirmishers you'd get crushed. But in FoG2 that's a winning combination.

Depends on the enemy army composition. Regular Infantry are not that massively better than skirmishers that some good terrain bonuses and a solid general can't lead them to victory.

That requires good generals, though. Using FoG2 resolution I can ignore generals for the most party, never lose a single unit, and run armies with 1 or 2 Legions and maybe some Alae or Italian Foot support, but mostly spam tons of skirmishers which don't have cost scaling problems. These armies can then consistently beat any army I fight with no losses, allowing me to swiftly conquer more lands, go to out of the way places like Sardinia, etc. It's a significant boost to your expansion and also often lets you patrol your borders with half strength armies so you can ignore annoying tribal war decs without losing regions and without having to conquer undesirable land in order to remove the tribal threat. You swiftly conquer key lands either for trade, culture, or valuable provincial units, keep the tribes from significantly impacting your decadence due to the currently unfortunate way you can't put down an enemy without taking their stuff, etc.

Sure if you have a large leader pool or just good luck on leader rolls you can run an extra army or two by skimping on costly line troops, but its just not comparable to the power and flexibility of optimizing your army compositions to take advantage of FoG2 battles.

[Pocus]

You realize, taking light cavalry vs skirmishers, that the LC has -1 on attack and defense, but in exchange of that move faster on the main map, skirmish much better, can evade damages in battles (because superior speed), can flank better and will do more damages if there is a pursuit? Oh, and they also are ranged attackers, like skirmishers.

So I don't see how obvious it is that LC are inferiors to Skirmishers.

[Geffalrus]

You realize, taking light cavalry vs skirmishers, that the LC has -1 on attack and defense, but in exchange of that move faster on the main map, skirmish much better, can evade damages in battles (because superior speed), can flank better and will do more damages if there is a pursuit? Oh, and they also are ranged attackers, like skirmishers.

So I don't see how obvious it is that LC are inferiors to Skirmishers.

Is anyone complaining about light horse? Pretty sure our concerns are all about Medium Cavalry, the units that lack the extreme speed and ranged abilities of light horse, but aren't as sturdy as Regular Infantry in most cases. And they're especially frustrating when they preempt better heavy cavalry in the battle line.

[PDiFolco]

You realize, taking light cavalry vs skirmishers, that the LC has -1 on attack and defense, but in exchange of that move faster on the main map, skirmish much better, can evade damages in battles (because superior speed), can flank better and will do more damages if there is a pursuit? Oh, and they also are ranged attackers, like skirmishers.

So I don't see how obvious it is that LC are inferiors to Skirmishers.

Is anyone complaining about light horse? Pretty sure our concerns are all about Medium Cavalry, the units that lack the extreme speed and ranged abilities of light horse, but aren't as sturdy as Regular Infantry in most cases. And they're especially frustrating when they preempt better heavy cavalry in the battle line.

That, and HC isn't that great neither, they don't fight as well as HI and don't have any shock effect (eg they could have a +2 charge bonus in open or hills maybe?)

[Geffalrus]

That, and HC isn't that great neither, they don't fight as well as HI and don't have any shock effect (eg they could have a +2 charge bonus in open or hills maybe?)

Hmmm, I haven't played with all the HC types yet. My experience is primarily with Companion Cavalry for the Diadochi, which is an amazing unit on paper. 5/4 combat stats equivalent to HI. 3 HP and 3 Stamina. Depending on your government (and ruler?) they can spawn with 3 XP stars. And then add on their higher movement rate, ability to evade, and bonus to flanking. But perhaps most importantly/confusingly........they have no terrain penalties. So in Forested and Mountain, they do better than many/most HI. Same when comparing them to Pikes in Assaults. Sure, they cost a lot (though not as much as Silver Shields), but they're worth it when you consider their stats.

However, as I mention about once a day.... ......their frontage score results in them being relegated to the reserve rank kind of a lot in my experience. Unless I have perfectly matched the army size to the frontage of the terrain in question, the Companions end up being really expensive paper weights. So, in practice, the thing that nerfs them is something you can't even see, because the frontage score is a hidden value. I'd much prefer some ability to make sure they take their proper place in the front line.

The fact that they're so good in Assaults, Forests, and Mountains is a little weird. I'd rather see them with better stats for Plains and Hills, but a substantial penalty when in Assaults, Forests, or Mountains.

[pnoff]

You realize, taking light cavalry vs skirmishers, that the LC has -1 on attack and defense, but in exchange of that move faster on the main map, skirmish much better, can evade damages in battles (because superior speed), can flank better and will do more damages if there is a pursuit? Oh, and they also are ranged attackers, like skirmishers.

So I don't see how obvious it is that LC are inferiors to Skirmishers.

Sorry for my lack of precision. By cavalry I meant normal fighting cavalry, not support/ranged one (can't remember if there is support unit without ranged attack, tbh).

I can't remember a historic battle on open terrain without cavalry fight on flanks, which was sometimes decisive for the whole battle. You can stretch the infantry line as long as your enemy before combat, but you can't react effectively to cavalry riding in your rear after the lines closed.

I understand that this is more of a "new DLC" level of feature and you have other priorities now

Thanks for your attention, Pocus. Big fan of your game!

[MoLAoS]

That, and HC isn't that great neither, they don't fight as well as HI and don't have any shock effect (eg they could have a +2 charge bonus in open or hills maybe?)

Hmmm, I haven't played with all the HC types yet. My experience is primarily with Companion Cavalry for the Diadochi, which is an amazing unit on paper. 5/4 combat stats equivalent to HI. 3 HP and 3 Stamina. Depending on your government (and ruler?) they can spawn with 3 XP stars. And then add on their higher movement rate, ability to evade, and bonus to flanking. But perhaps most importantly/confusingly........they have no terrain penalties. So in Forested and Mountain, they do better than many/most HI. Same when comparing them to Pikes in Assaults. Sure, they cost a lot (though not as much as Silver Shields), but they're worth it when you consider their stats.

However, as I mention about once a day.... ......their frontage score results in them being relegated to the reserve rank kind of a lot in my experience. Unless I have perfectly matched the army size to the frontage of the terrain in question, the Companions end up being really expensive paper weights. So, in practice, the thing that nerfs them is something you can't even see, because the frontage score is a hidden value. I'd much prefer some ability to make sure they take their proper place in the front line.

The fact that they're so good in Assaults, Forests, and Mountains is a little weird. I'd rather see them with better stats for Plains and Hills, but a substantial penalty when in Assaults, Forests, or Mountains.

Regular heavy cav is not like that as far as I know. Cataphracts I think get the same penalties as heavy infantry for terrain.

[Geffalrus]

Regular heavy cav is not like that as far as I know. Cataphracts I think get the same penalties as heavy infantry for terrain.

I haven't seen late game heavy cavalry. So far all I've seen are Companions, Cataphracts, Dacian Heavy Cavalry, and the Steppe Noble Cavalry.

Cataphracts are 6/4, but only have 2 HP. They do have a ranged attack and better ranged defense, but less XP at start. They cost less gold but more equipment and iron. Their main weakness is the clumsy trait that makes them only slightly better than early game HI in Forest and Mountains.

I don't have the full stats for Steppe Nobles at the moment, but they start at 4/4 with 2 HP and 2 Stamina. However, they have the Steppeman trait giving them more movement, and +1/+2 in open terrain. So they lack Clumsy, which makes them competitive with Heavy units in Forest and Mountain.

Dacian Heavy Cavalry are 4/3 attack/defend, but 3 HP and 3 Stamina. They also have the Steppeman trait for Open terrain.

So all of them seem to be expensive, but varying degrees of superior to basic infantry/cavalry units.

[Hendricus]

If you nerf and boost troops at the outer positions of battlelines for being in a position they can be outflanked in open 3, hills 2 , forest 1.
Troops without flanking skill are nerfed if opposed with an enemy, with the outer position modifier.
Troops with flanking skill if opposed with an enemy can use their flanking power as boost but never more as the outer position modifier.

So a Phalanx gets -3 and a Cavalry gets +3 at the outer ends of the battleline in the open.

So open for cavalry, hills for light cavalry, and in forest skirmishers can earn their maximum boost.