Military strategy - do I need cavalry ?

[Thomas69]

I'm playing on monarch level, and doing not to bad I think. But I'm not sure my strategy is good or if I'm missing something.
I usual try to go for a short war with maceman as main city attackers supported by trebuchets, pikeman and crossbowmen. After that, I beeline rifleman. All those earlier troops get upgraded, and I have strength 14 units with 3 levels of city attack, thats good for another war. Even if I'm behind the AI in tech and size at this point I can often catch up.
Just a few techs more, and its time for infantry - again a decisive advantage until teh AI catches up..
I rarely use horseman, chariots, knights or cavalry. I might build a chariot or two to defend against barbarians early on, but they usually don't last long.

Even if the AI is ahead with other techs, they usually don't focus on those units and with their high strength and lots of upgrades they are better then anything else. Is there something I'm missing, or are those two units really this important ?

 

[MrCynical]

The effectiveness of cavalry is at best dubious. In a normal attacking war most of the fighting will be attacks on a city square, where chariots, horse archers and knights are distinctly inferior to contemporary units. Even Cavalry tends to fare poorly compared to rifles and cannon.

The main role of mounted units seems to be in active defense - attacking stacks containing many siege engines while they're moving through your territory. Given how easily they are countered by spears and pikes, even there they don't really shine.

So basically these units have a minor support role, and in many cases can be ignored completely.

 

[Bhruic]

Once Knights come around, I usually make sure to have a few of them in my attack stacks. I don't primarily use them for city attack (although sometimes they'll fill that role), but instead use them as counter-attackers. Basically, if you've got an enemy unit/stack next to your attack stack, you want to be able to attack them and rejoin your stack - otherwise you'll end up vulnerable. A 2 move unit does that well (barring forest/hill squares).

The same is true for city defense - I have the typical passive defenders (longbows, etc), but the Knights are quite good as active defenders.

Bh

 

[Cytral]

horse troops make for an excellent rapid defence force.

 

[Mureke]

One instance in which knights can be excellent in an offensive war is if your enemy doesn't have iron and thus no pikemen. Knights are immune to first strikes, so longbowmen aren't a problem. Musketmen aren't much better if you can give your knights the pinch promotion, which is easy to get with stables if you're playing Warlords or BtS. You can get macemen a lot earlier than knights, but sometimes it may still be best to have knights as your primary city raiders.

 

[UncleJJ]

None of the mounted troops are essential but one thing that can be good, that others have not mentioned, is the barracks + stable giving 2 promotions. If you've been peacefully building up most of your troops will only have 3 exp, so a few chariots with 2 promotions make good ambulances. That 2 promotion advantage can be good for cuirassiers and cavalry too, as they can get combat + pinch and take on rifles in the open on equal terms although not in cities.

I normally use mounted troops as a part of a mixed stack, consisting of seige for bombarding, seige for collateral and solid footsloggers with a variety of attacking and defensive uses. The mounted troops are often used as second line attackers to follow up an attack that failed. Even weak mounted troops like horse archers can kill a riflemen already reduced to a sliver of health.

Mounted troops come into their own when fighting a technologically weak opponent. That is when you can race through his territory grabbing cities. One advantage to a lightning war is the reduced effect of WW. If you kill X enemy troops and take Y cities you'll accrue a set amount of WW that in unavoidable (until Police State, jails and Mt R). Obviously if the war is quick the WW has less effect on your economy and mounted troops can win the war in roughly half the time foot sloggers take. So there are good reasons to consider using a cavalry stack to take a distant city, particulary a weak one, that will delay wiping out or vassalising an enemy.

 

[Sjaramei]

Knights are my primary city attackers when i get guilds. (Especially vs protective civs) Promote them with lots of strength and shock for pikes (formation if the enemy got elephants). And in the open they crush everything. The important thing to understand here is "immune to first strikes", they take less damage from archery units and drill is wasted on them. Compared to a mace with CR promos they do the job just as well (if not better sometimes, STR 5 knights are awesome )

Yeah and they are mobile, quick reinforcements to the front. Whats not to like? Cavalry is a decent enough unit too, depends on the tech level of the opponent how much you want to use them. The key question here is if you play Aggressive AI or not? With that on the AI makes a lot more proper defenders (attackers if you like ) and less archers. Which makes your battles more flexible too, it's not just move stack to city and expect them to sit tight and wait (well they do that still but not as much , i would like AI to use a more aggressive defense like humans too)

 

[Tusk]

I usually use quite a large number of cavalry troops, for one reason alone - mobility. I can't even begin to count the number of times that an invading civ or barbarian horde has brought one of my city defences to its knees, only for my city to be saved in the nick of time by my cavalry/horse archer emergency defence force. It's great to be able to bolster your city with 5 or 6 mounted units when it's in trouble, with all your macemen/axemen still 3 turns away.

In attack I also like to include at least 2 mounted units with my stack. This is just to take advantage of opportunities that I don't want to weaken my main attack force with. Examples of such opportunities may be a poorly defended enemy settler or worker you can pick off, or maybe even a poorly defended or newly founded city. It's nice to be able to raid your opponent at the same time as conquering him. It's also nice to be able to rush some of your units back to your kingdom in case one of your allies stabs you in the back and 90% of your forces are away from home - the mounted units will get back first.

 

[Big Boss Man]

God I have say I love the Mounted Units most ! They have saved my Civ so many times ... Speed Kills and so do they . Try building them early on with as much exp points possible . The upgrade cost isn't to bad assume you will have the cash at some point . Keep a few near a rival's border so when you declair war the enemy has to come to you . Save up the promo points and the goal is to get a knight with blitz , as many as you can . Amphib is another good promo . With the blitz promo when your cats have just coll . damaged a cities defending stack and their all but just clingin on for dear life , Swoop on in like a tank baby and squish'um good . Now your unit should be racking up some serious exp points ... Yeah !

The amphib promo is handy on some near the coast resources the A.I. stuck a defender on ( if its only one unit ) - Smack'um with with your Mounted Marine Corps ... Pillage Reboard Repeat . Snag any workers that are stupid enough to come out . Whatever happened to selling workers anyways ? You could " bait " another unit to come out to capture it back i guess

 

[DaveMcW]

Your wars will last twice as long if you don't use cavalry.

 

[lilnev]

If you avoid HBR, then you can build chariots as cheap garrison troops for HR happiness practically forever! Yeah, so count me among those who consider mounted troops strictly optional. Useful in number of minor roles, but optional.

peace,
lilnev

 

[jason77024]

Your wars will last twice as long if you don't use cavalry.

Especially in BtS, where spies can knock down culture for you. (I realize the OP isn't playing BtS, however.) Otherwise, what UncleJJ said.

 

[MrCynical]

Your wars will last twice as long if you don't use cavalry.

Only if you're playing a high espionage strategy in BtS (and even then only if the AI does not build spears/pikes). Otherwise the war moves at the speed of your siege units.

 

[lauralaura]

Mounted units definitely have their uses. As has been said, they make excellent active defenders, and their speed makes them adept at both responding to emergencies and nabbing targets of opportunity (and pillaging, for that matter).

I also like them as main attackers in some circumstances – a stack of mounted troops with flanking promotions will be able to move very rapidly and will take relatively small losses. There’s nothing like it for quickly conquering a weaker opponent before one of your stronger opponents does it first. Not so great against an opponent who's at tech parity with you, and bloody awful against a superior foe.

 

[Gooblah]

Argh. Somehow, Spears and Pikes can debilitate whole stacks of Cavalry due to theri advantage! Its so painful massing dozens of Cavalry, only to see em die from metal wounds.
Cavalry are extremely powerful when couple with Rifles, Cannons, and Grenadiers. Combining these into stacks can dramatically reduce the time it takes to take a city.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Short answer: yes, with an if... long answer: no, with a but.

 

[MrFelony]

in my last game i found that swarms of mounted units>all. I took out the toughest nut to crack (Native americans). Within 10 turns, I have captured or destroyed 6 of his 9 cities of which only 2 were not on hills. (pre-fuedalism). the same goes for cavs. a cav rush is still very much in the picture and is something i do almost every game. All it requires is you research nationalism, build the taj, and use liberalism to get either Military tradition or Rifling depending on your opponents research rate. has anyone ever tried giving a few of their cavs shock (thats the 25% against melee right)? dont even remember if they can get it. but a shock HA is abotu 50/50 to survive vs a spearman, so i'd assume a shock cav would be much better against a pikeman. using purely cavs I conquered all of europe, africa and asia in the eartch 18 civ map.

Also, if you are only using a couple of cavs, advance them to high levels and save a promotion for blitz if you get artillery with high CR levels

 

[troytheface]

I have played many games- most in fact- without building calvary.
Rifle to infantry is a short leap. But i bet a good calvary player would mop me up.
Horse archers can really decimate a rival. Never use knights. Usually nuke afor choppers come around.

 

[gettingfat]

Concentrated stack of Flank II cavs + pinch cavs can still wreck havoc.

 

[CivCorpse]

a few cav in your stacks can deal with the AI's cannons.