Horses and war: is it possible?

[Four u]

CAVALRY

Does any one use horses?
I use recon, warior, magicusers, priest.
Never ever horses...
I havent read of any use for them.
Are they only good to feed cage animals?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Feed cage animals? what are you talking about?


Mounted units can be quite useful, since they are much faster in FfH. Mobility is very important. If you have the raiders trait (which give commando for free), then you can easily attack and then get out of rage before your enemy can fight back. You can even capture a whole empire in one turn sometimes. Blitz helps with that a lot, but unfortunately it is harder to get now that it requires drill instead of combat. Orthus's Axe works quite well though.

The Council of Esus mounted UU (Shadowrider) ignores defensive bonuses.

Very little can compete with the Hippus cavalry. They start with the Horselord promotion (from their stable UB), which boosts their movement by 1 and their withdrawel rate by 10%. Their mercenaries are also mounted units (movement 3 instead of 1), but still get defensive bonuses.

This is especially useful if combined with the Nightmare promotions (granted to free to all mounted units built by civs that have a source of Nightmares, the Hell version of Horses), which grants +1 strength and allows the unit to get the fear promotion (enemies will be too afraid to attack)

 

[Four u]

You mean you dont feed your cage animals?

Cavalry only use is then raid?!?
Not enough considering all the recherche, building and micro management involved.
Maybe they should be beafed a little.
A firehorseman? A flying horse? A swiming horse?

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

I've long been of the opinion that all cavalry should access weapon promotions like infantry.

 

[Humakty]

I use cavalry (chariots) mostly as a mobile reaction force, which avoids having to leave big stacks in cities.
If you want cavalry with weapon promo, you can use chariots, I never use basic cavalry nor mounted archers.

 

[Vehem]

You mean you dont feed your cage animals?

Cavalry only use is then raid?!?
Not enough considering all the recherche, building and micro management involved.
Maybe they should be beafed a little.
A firehorseman? A flying horse? A swiming horse?

Cavalry is certainly a viable attacking option, especially the Hippus cavalry with Tasunke. Once they build up a decent withdrawl rate, you don't even need catapults to soften the enemy cities - just hit-and-run with the withdrawing cavalry and then finish them with some high-combat units (especially blitzing ones).

If a city turns out to be too tough to attack straight away, you can run 8-squares in a turn with along the enemy's roads to find an easier target (again, with Tasunke).

In fact, I stopped playing as Hippus a while back as I found it rather too easy to war-monger into a game-winning position within the first 200-250 turns. Good fun - but short.

 

[it-ogo]

Mounted units have bonus against archers so war chariots often are very powerful city attackers. Few times i had a knight with an orthus axe and finally he was much more experienced then my heroes. If you are able to get Ride of the Nine Kings your mounted units start strongly promoted.

Pity that there is no common magic way of empowering mounted units (warcry and nightmares are too specific).

As for raiders... Just make a game with Tasunke on the same continent with you and have war with him in mid or late game. Unforgettable experience.

 

[xienwolf]

Summon: Phantasmal Horse could be an interesting Rank 2 Summon spell for Body. Permanent buff for a Mounted unit that cna only be cast on 1 unit per caster who has the spell. Maybe enhances withdraw rate, immunity to fear and ignores building defenses? I suppose a rank 3 version could even add some strength, or just be unlimited targets.

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

I use cavalry (chariots) mostly as a mobile reaction force, which avoids having to leave big stacks in cities.
If you want cavalry with weapon promo, you can use chariots, I never use basic cavalry nor mounted archers.

I know, I know, but this opens up two problems. One, you need a siege workshop to get the chariots, meaning that there is rarely, if ever a reason to build a stable. (War chariots and knights need a hippodrome, not a stable) Furthermore, it just offends my sense of history if you make chariots vastly more powerful than cavalry, when in reality almost everyone other than the Egyptians switched from chariots to cavalry (and got better results doing so) once they had more advanced means of controlling their mounts.

I.E. various cavalry should be > than chariots!!!!! (Btw, scythed chariots were more of a terror weapon than anything else historically. It was very rare that a bladed wheel would be able to cleanly cut through an enemy, and more often than not his remains would get stuck on the blade, and then unbalance and topple the chariot.)

 

[Basil II]

I've had some good results with the Sidar using basic horse. Horse will level up quite quickly as they can be used offensively and you can take some chances with them since they can withdraw from battle. If you have a good source of barbarians around you can quickly add a few Great Specialists...

 

[Four u]

OK then:
only really need for horses is if you play Hippos.

Something need to be done for those poor bas..., i mean mules!!

What do we know about horses?:?:
- Horses special is movement.
- They move faster on plain.
- Nightmares are scarry.
- Some legendary horses could fly! Pegasus was their name.
- They have no defenses, but a lot of attack (charge) in real world.
- They look pretty.
- They are so fast, that they can catch you before you see them (surprise)

More?

 

[xienwolf]

Do you mean real horses, or in game mechanics? Because a horse is only fast after it has had time to get up to speed, and in that case you will hear it quite well before you ever see it (no surprise). A man can outrun a horse for very short distances.

 

[Humakty]

I.E. various cavalry should be > than chariots!!!!! (Btw, scythed chariots were more of a terror weapon than anything else historically. It was very rare that a bladed wheel would be able to cleanly cut through an enemy, and more often than not his remains would get stuck on the blade, and then unbalance and topple the chariot.)

I agree wholeheartidly to your point, you could swich horsemen and chariots abilities and techs, so as to have a little more historic result.

Still, it was a rare occurence when a cavalry unit was able to crush an infantry unit, because horsemen had to win the engagement with the initial charge, if the melee lasts for too long they are doomed.

In fact, the combat system in civ doesn't allow for interesting fights, their are no synergies between units. (I recommend the total realism mod if you want more interesting fights, would be schweet if they adapted the bonus system to FFH2) (bonus system : if a warrior is in a stack with 2 archers, he gets some bonus when he attacks/defends)

 

[Slvynn]

Horses have great use in-game - 1st of all hippus (you cant play hippus good w/o horses, all their powers is horse)..
The key is additional move and no penalties for city attack, aviability of weapon upgrades (compared to recon units)
They are really usefull, espesially with raider trait.

sidar, Elves, Dark Elves, Lanun are great races to use mounted units with.
The key is farming.

Lets say you have too much cities already captured and you wont anymore.
Then you can just farm some small neightbours.
Give them build towns, declare war and pillage.
With horse units you will be pilage 1-2 tiles more, that mean great income that can be critical for your game victory. (i managed to get pillaging income of 1000gp per turn )

also strategically, and tactically (bring reinforcements fast).

Also withdrawal chance, which is also very good ability.

Ratha.
Empyrean is best race to rely on horse units building and horse army , cause it allow you having same move Rathas (+ same tech tree) , that can just blind enemy, so you can pillage and move where you want UNPUNISHED and not countered, just by using mobility 2 rathas that will blind all enemy units around, i mean ALL , so enemy cant bring reinforcements, move, attack your weak units, and do nothing., the key that if you have army of only horse units all with 5 moves, that mean you can pass 15!!!!! tiles obn enemy lands with engeneering (10 without). You can attack and pillage multiple targets and still at end of turn you can gather all your army on same tile , in one, gathered strong stack.

Such armies can kill strong mage stacks and flee unpunished ( 15 moves, starting point have casters with all possible enchantments (haste, bless , etc ), and hit-and-run strategies.

at some point, when i found this strat i had though that hi-XP horse-only armies and raider trait is bit overpowered, but it is ok, and is good counter for mages/ strong slowmoving units.

Sidar.
My addition is Valor spell and ability of your army to gather in some starting point with casters (city, forest+ hill, ancient forest, castle) , so you can attack and then move your army for regeneration, valor recasting.

Sumarry.
If done well such armies can wipe any others + ruin enemy economy COMPLETELY within few turns.
Seems author just didnt tried to play Hippus or Raider Empyrean Horse armies, so i advice him to do so - it IS great fun.

 

[it-ogo]

I just imagine combination of ratha with Tasunke. Really impressive! Commando rathas are able to paralize military forces all over the country.

Furthermore, it just offends my sense of history if you make chariots vastly more powerful than cavalry, when in reality almost everyone other than the Egyptians switched from chariots to cavalry (and got better results doing so) once they had more advanced means of controlling their mounts.

I.E. various cavalry should be > than chariots!!!!!

Hmmm... You know during russian civil war at early XX century chariots were very effective. Though they used a heavy machine gun attached instead of blades on wheels...

 

[Four u]

Horses in FtH are fun and usable with Hippos.
But they dont do anything than an other unit cant do cheapper.
The problem is that you have to develop a hole new research branche to have them.
They are not bad. They are just not good enough.
With cost benefit analyse they just dont cut it.
If it was Sim City everybody will love to have them around.
But it is Civilization with barbarian, neighbors and hostile pupeters traying to distroy you.
Horses are luxuries very few civilization can afford!

 

[Four u]

To Xienwolf:

Horses are not stealth.
But they can approch reasonably close for a surprise charge.
You hear them charge but it is then to late to establich a meningful defense.

 

[Slvynn]

^^ this, and also withdrawal chance + ability to attack and end turn on same tile is more than worth that additional hammer cost

 

[nealhunt]

Cav units work great. There's nothing wrong with them.

A horse rush is entirely viable if they are handy. A stack of horsemen with Flanking promotions can wear down a serious stack of defenders even in a city with a decent defensive bonus.

As far as tech, you have to have that tech branch eventually anyway. Trade is a nice boost to your economy and can keep a horseman rush going a while longer. If alignments are favorable, you can also tech broker for a commanding tech lead. There is plenty of overlap if you're headed to Empyrean (which also provides Ratha as a nice supplement to cav forces).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

There is one niche but extremely important use for cavalry, especially Hippus cavalry: charging long-ranged spellcasters and/or summoners that can attack you from many tiles away with the summoner trait.

Pillaging is fun, but advanced. It's best if you wish to gain mutual military struggle modifiers but you also wish to gain something out of the war and pissing off a neighbour, BUT yet you don't wish to commit a full stack for city-attacking.