Debuffing Cavalry

[j51]

Just wanted to start a discussion of the easiest and/or best way to do this. I might make a mod of it if it’s doable.

My initial thought is just make cavalry the same strength as infantry but faster and only slightly more expensive, but that’s kinda boring.

I’ve heard people, mostly Boris, suggest that taking away cavalry’s ability to fortify would help too and I can see that.

Another thing could be that cavalry is slightly weaker than infantry, but has the Hussar ability of extra combat from unspent movement. What would the hussar’s ability be then though?

 

[Krikkit1]

I think Cavalry gets
1. Can't fortify
2. -5 Attacking Fortified tiles/units (so same strength as Infantry).. but still more expensive

 

[stealth_nsk]

In Civ7 "can't fortify" could mean either "can't build fortifications" or "can't benefit from fortifications", since fortifications are for tiles, not units. I guess it needs having both.

For the rest, I'm not sure, I guess not using fortifications could be enough for the start as it would already make infantry much more useful.

 

[Berrern]

I'd love to see the return of an anti-cavalry unit, similar to the ol' Pikeman from previous Civs.
I can't remember the exact strength and weaknesses, but they definitely had a good boost when fighting Cavalry units!

It's not an easy solution, though...
While I do like the anti-fortification suggestions put forward above, I can't recall coming across too many Cavalry units defending a district or fortifying out in the open..? They're typically used more for attacking purposes already.

 

[Krikkit1]

I'd love to see the return of an anti-cavalry unit, similar to the ol' Pikeman from previous Civs.
I can't remember the exact strength and weaknesses, but they definitely had a good boost when fighting Cavalry units!

It's not an easy solution, though...
While I do like the anti-fortification suggestions put forward above, I can't recall coming across too many Cavalry units defending a district or fortifying out in the open..? They're typically used more for attacking purposes already.

That's why I think they need the -5 when attacking a fortified tile (either walls or unit built fort)

 

[UWHabs]

That's why I think they need the -5 when attacking a fortified tile (either walls or unit built fort)

I'd be potentially inclined to give them an even bigger penalty. I really wouldn't mind them being a unit which absolutely destroys stray units in the open, but really struggle against fortifications. It would also give a much bigger reason to go through with fortifications, or to go down that line on a general, if you're facing a cavalry-heavy opponent.

 

[uppi]

How about a reduced base combat strength compared to infantry, but a massive bonus to flanking attacks? So for head on attacks you would want to use infantry, but then you would follow up with flanking calvary?

Maybe also a resilience to enemy flanking bonus when they defend, so they would be a bit better at guarding the flanks

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Just finished reading David Chaffetz's Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and fhe Rise of Empires, which has a lot of commentary on exactly this point: the importance, effectiveness, and difficulties of horse-based forces in history.

A few of his points (some of which I've already mentioned in previous posts) that are applicable here:

Pastoral horse-based societies mostly pastured their horses in the open steppe. This made their cavalry dirt cheap to maintain, but largely left their horses smaller and less able to carry the heavy armored men and heavy equipment of 'civilized' cavalry.

Most 'sedentary' (agriculture-based - the Civ norm) states kept their horses in corrals and stables and fed them food grown especially for them: oats, hay, alfalfa. This was hugely expensive both in maintenance costs for infrastructure and manpower (trainers, grooms, stablehands, etc) and also expensive in land area: growing food for 100 horses took an average of 2 or more square miles of cultivated fields (even today, the amount of land devoted to Food For Animals, although no longer largely horses, is twice the amount of land reserved to grow Food For People). The Up Side was that such horses could grow much bigger and stronger than the steppe 'ponies' and carry much heavier loads - like a 90 kg man and another 60 kg of armor, weapons, and tack.

This distinction between the fast, hardy and more enduring steppe ponies and the stabled and fed 'civilized' horses is the origin of the distinction between War Horses (the latter) and Riding Horses (the former). War Horses were required for heavy armored cavalry, and they added enormously to the expense of providing that kind of cavalry. The space and gold requirements for them also limited the amount of 'heavy' cavalry anybody could field. As I've also posted before, Napoleon I, with the resources of over half of Europe at his disposal, could only field 14 regiments of armored cavalry (Cuirassiers), or about 12,000 men and Big Horses, in an army with over 100 cavalry regiments of lighter horses.

So since Civ VII so far only models Heavy Cavalry as regular units (Hostile/militaristic IPs should probably be the origin of the 'steppe' cavalry, but that isn't modeled at all in the game - yet) the expense of those units should be the basis for 'balancing' the mounted units (and by the way, Chariot Horses hauling the heavy Hittite, Assyrian or Chinese-type chariots also needed to be stabled and fed to get big enough to move the heavy vehicles).

While it would be really nice to have an Infrastructure to show the expense of horse-maintenance (some like an Improvement on grassland or plain tiles required for a settlement to build Cavalry Units with a hefty maintenance cost), the same effect can be had by jacking up the maintenance costs of all Cavalry units (except possibly some Unique Cavalry, like the Numidians of Carthage) by about 3 - 4 times the current level.

Then remove the ability of Cavalry units to build or use any field fortifications or fixed fortifications. The cavalry would still have a basic combat advantage in field battles, and better mobility, but they would be hard put to hold ground or dodge ranged fire and difficult terrain would negate their mobility advantages without giving them any defensive benefit - you would actually have to pay attention to how and where you used your expensive cavalry for a change.

Making it difficult or impossible for cavalry to attack fortifications is another matter. On paper it looks good, even obvious, but there are plenty of examples of the opposite from history. After all, men can get off their horses, and if they are already professional warriors with good armor and the best weapons (because most cavalry historically were from the Upper Classes originally) they are still. pretty good on foot. Alexander the Great on several occasions dismounted his Companion Cavalry and had them lead storming parties taking walled towns or cities, because they were better armored than his pezhetairoi infantry.
So, Difficult: Yes, Impossible: No.

Summary.

Cavalry Units should have increased maintenance costs (and possibly Building costs in Gold and Production, but that would have less effect: you can always find enough of either to build a unit you want)

Cavalry units should not be able to fortify or use fortifications.

Cavalry units should have a malus in attacking fixed fortifications (Not field fortifications, which they regularly attacked. In fact, the Russian Grand Redoubt field fortification at Borodino in 1812, which had stopped French infantry all day, was finally taken by a charge of Cuirassiers)

Looking beyond strictly cavalry, I think the object should be to bring more Tactics back to the Civ VII battlefield.

Right now, infantry, ranged, cavalry, siege are not, IMHO, distinct enough. Each should have very different features hat make them work better together and not work at all well in some circumstances
Ranged, for most of history, was very fragile if contacted at close-quarters. If anything, Antiquity and most Exploration Ranged Units should have their basic combat power reduced slightly to show that.
Infantry (melee type) should be the closest to a Jack Of All Trades - good on both attack and defense, especially when able to build field fortifications, and able to see off cavalry in most cases (specifically, 'Anti-Cav' weapons, if we want to bring them back, would be Spearmen, Pikemen, Phalanx, Tier III Tercios and Tier II and III Hoplites for starters)
Siege is actually almost right already: dreadfully slow, good against forts, possibly could be reduced slightly against Unfortified Units, since or most of the time (up to After Bombards, or the Modern Age) they fired too slowly to hit anything faster than a Decorative Rock.

Cavalry should be the fastest, most tactically mobile (Outflanking) hardest-hitting, but only on the right terrain and balanced by being much more expensive to keep around. Nobody ever formed an all-cavalry army unless they started as a Steppe Empire and stayed pastoral-based, which brought its own major problems with it.

 

[Suicidekills]

Well to answer this let's see what the actual problem is......

I'll use the Tier 2 antiquity units as the base since cavalry doesn't begin until Tier 2:

	Tier 2
	Infantry	Cavalry
Production	60	80
Gold	240	280
Movement	2	3
Combat Strength	25	30
Sight	2	2
Gold Maintenance	1	2

*Note: Cavalry also has the ability to ignore enemy zone of control

So based on this, we can gather that the cavalry unit is stronger, faster, more expensive, requires more gold maintenance, and can ignore zone of control. It seems the idea was to make the cavalry unit better but more expensive; however, how the game currently plays, the cavalry unit is not expensive enough to choose infantry over cavalry. The obvious and simplest solution to this is to make the cavalry units even more expensive.

We should also keep in mind there are other aspects in the game to consider that affect these stats. One example is the economic leader attribute that reduces gold maintenance on units. Another example is the Iron and Horse Resources. Maybe you have 6 Iron with no horse resources. At that point, you'd have about the same strength as cavalry, so you might just want to stick with infantry.

The main problem is there's no strategic distinction between the two units as compared to their counterparts ranged and siege units. There's not a good enough reason for me to choose infantry over cavalry. Right now Ranged and Siege units each have their own situational purposes. The infantry unit also does at first, but once cavalry units are unlocked, the infantry unit almost becomes obsolete.

As some have mentioned, - 5 combat strength to fortified districts and units could be a good start. I also like this for the reason that it could make taking a settlement more difficult without siege units, increasing the need for them as well, but also at the same time, makes the cavalry units as strong as the infantry units when fighting fortifications. Not sure about not letting them fortify though. Not sure how well that would work with the current fortification mechanics, and as Berrern has mentioned, they're usually used on the offensive end, but on that same note, I wouldn't mind them doing a little worse while defending (Maybe -5 combat strength). I also like the idea of using flanking although I'm not really sure how that works. I assume you would lower the combat strength of cavalry, but then reward them with combat strength when flanking. There also might be an opportunity within the Army Commander promotion tree or maybe even Militaristic leader attribute tree to make the necessary corrections.

In conclusion, the main problem is the infantry unit is lacking a role currently in the game. There's a reason to have ranged, siege, cavalry, naval, and air units, but strategically, there's no great reason for you to choose an infantry unit over any of those. The only exceptions are Unique Infantry Units and having a lot of Iron Resource and/or the CS bonus providing combat strength to infantry (and this one is a stretch). So I don't think the question is necessarily how to debuff the cavalry units but more along the lines of how do we make the infantry units relevant again.

 

[Krikkit1]

Well to answer this let's see what the actual problem is......

I'll use the Tier 2 antiquity units as the base since cavalry doesn't begin until Tier 2:

	Tier 2
	Infantry	Cavalry
Production	60	80
Gold	240	280
Movement	2	3
Combat Strength	25	30
Sight	2	2
Gold Maintenance	1	2

*Note: Cavalry also has the ability to ignore enemy zone of control

So based on this, we can gather that the cavalry unit is stronger, faster, more expensive, requires more gold maintenance, and can ignore zone of control. It seems the idea was to make the cavalry unit better but more expensive; however, how the game currently plays, the cavalry unit is not expensive enough to choose infantry over cavalry. The obvious and simplest solution to this is to make the cavalry units even more expensive.

We should also keep in mind there are other aspects in the game to consider that affect these stats. One example is the economic leader attribute that reduces gold maintenance on units. Another example is the Iron and Horse Resources. Maybe you have 6 Iron with no horse resources. At that point, you'd have about the same strength as cavalry, so you might just want to stick with infantry.

The main problem is there's no strategic distinction between the two units as compared to their counterparts ranged and siege units. There's not a good enough reason for me to choose infantry over cavalry. Right now Ranged and Siege units each have their own situational purposes. The infantry unit also does at first, but once cavalry units are unlocked, the infantry unit almost becomes obsolete.

As some have mentioned, - 5 combat strength to fortified districts and units could be a good start. I also like this for the reason that it could make taking a settlement more difficult without siege units, increasing the need for them as well, but also at the same time, makes the cavalry units as strong as the infantry units when fighting fortifications. Not sure about not letting them fortify though. Not sure how well that would work with the current fortification mechanics, and as Berrern has mentioned, they're usually used on the offensive end, but on that same note, I wouldn't mind them doing a little worse while defending (Maybe -5 combat strength). I also like the idea of using flanking although I'm not really sure how that works. I assume you would lower the combat strength of cavalry, but then reward them with combat strength when flanking. There also might be an opportunity within the Army Commander promotion tree or maybe even Militaristic leader attribute tree to make the necessary corrections.

In conclusion, the main problem is the infantry unit is lacking a role currently in the game. There's a reason to have ranged, siege, cavalry, naval, and air units, but strategically, there's no great reason for you to choose an infantry unit over any of those. The only exceptions are Unique Infantry Units and having a lot of Iron Resource and/or the CS bonus providing combat strength to infantry (and this one is a stretch). So I don't think the question is necessarily how to debuff the cavalry units but more along the lines of how do we make the infantry units relevant again.

I think making Infantry:Cavalry like Siege:Range would work
Siege you use for fortification (and coastal defense): Range for field (and land defense)
Infantry you use to defend spots or take out defense: Cavalry in Open Terrain

Cav needs a penalty on attacking or defending a fortified tile.. -5 makes it equal strength... the remainder is either making them more expensive or giving them a bigger penalty

So I'd go with Cavalry get -5 CS (to be the same as infantry).. but a special bonus of +5 on attacking non-fortified tiles and no defense benefit from terrain/fortification.. so a Cav defending a fortified tile would actually be weaker than an Infantry doing the same thing... but it would be equal strength to the Infantry attacking.

 

[cbum]

I think the object should be to bring more Tactics back to the Civ VII battlefield.

You make excellent historical points, but remember the difficulty trying to get the AI to do anything intelligently.
The more complex the possibilities (and interesting from a player's point of view), the more hopeless it will be to expect a competitive AI ...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

You make excellent historical points, but remember the difficulty trying to get the AI to do anything intelligently.
The more complex the possibilities (and interesting from a player's point of view), the more hopeless it will be to expect a competitive AI ...

A good point, but the alternative (which we have now) is that the AI builds almost nothing but Cavalry units once they are available.

As soon as the Exploration Age starts, I find myself starting to face AI armies of All Cavalry: no infantry, no ranged, not even Siege units where they would be appropriate. The same happens in Modern Age, where it is All Cuirassiers, All Landships, All Tanks and nothing else.

As a military historian, I wonder if the design team channeled J.F.C. Fuller for their unit designs, but that's a bit of a 20th century military history 'in joke' . . .

The fact is the AI appears to already ignore any tactical considerations other than Unit Combat Strength and Movement.

Given how poorly the AI has handled most game mechanics in Civ and most other games (so far: I suspect we might be on he verge of an AI revolution in games in the next few years) I just don't think "The AI cannot handle it" is a valid argument: it leads inevitably to very simplified, very dull games from the human gamer's viewpoint.

-Which doesn't mean we have to try to program every military science text from Sun Tzu to the cirriculum from von Moltke's Kriegsakademie into the game. Some basic interactions among units would be enough:

Cavalry: fastest, hard hitting in the right terrain, cannot defend well, expensive
Ranged: can strike from a distance, very weak close-up
Siege: slow, good against Forts, bad against everything else, very expensive
Infantry: can defend or attack in all terrain, cheapest

 

[Leucarum]

I definitely like the lower CS but increased flanking bonus idea. Civ7 has done a good job of encouraging combined arms and this would further enhance it. I guess it wouldn't satisfy you if your priority is historicity, but this seems like it would be fun mechanically...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I definitely like the lower CS but increased flanking bonus idea. Civ7 has done a good job of encouraging combined arms and this would further enhance it. I guess it wouldn't satisfy you if your priority is historicity, but this seems like it would be fun mechanically...

Depends on how detailed we want to get.

Most Antiquity cavalry had good mobility but lousy combat factors: many rode on mediocre or no saddles, had no stirrups, and their heaviest weapon was a thrusting spear - the couched lance seems to have appeared no earlier than mid-Roman Empire, and that evidence is from a wall painting that may be showing a thrusting spear rather than a 'real' lance. That means the 'cavalry charge' relied entirely on the impact of a man and horse -and that if the man could get the horse to run into an apparent wall of men on foot with sharp pointy things all pointed at the horse, which was not easily done.

At the least, then, Antiquity cavalry could be given CF slightly lower than the related melee infantry, while keeping the flanking bonus and mobility.
Exploration and Modern cavalry, with advanced tack, armor, lances and some fairly sophisticated tactics to strike with a concentrated mass of men and horses, could be given higher CF compared to the infantry, but be balanced with much higher build and maintenance costs.
- And save Cavalry Field Fortifications for the Unique American Cavalry* of the 19th century, the only ones who regularly dismounted to use their firepower, and also regularly 'dug in' to hold ground.

* - not in the game yet, so don't bother looking for them: they should replace the Completely Mythical American Cuirassiers