to upgrade cav or not to upgrade cav

[Selous]

i have been reading quite a few post regarding whether to have cavalry to be able to tanks

well i would like to put my argument in that u should be able to upgrade to tanks because that is what the modern armies around the world have done ... the horse in the cavalry was always to make the infinteer more mobile ... so then the americans put there cav into helicopters .... but after vietnam they put em into tanks


personally i really dont care that much ... doesnt make that big a difference in gameplay ... and in my games that i play they can upgrade .... but when multi comes out ... we are going to have to play the same game .... and then i own all your baces!!

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I think it's a logical upgrade path. Should cavalry be able to be upgraded to tanks? Yes, but at a reasonably high price. Remember, armies still had cavalry units in WWII when tanks were massively available. Even so, if a civ has the resources, its cavalry units should be able to move towards armored units. This is basically the limitation that was inherent in WWII armies. No money/resources = cavalry; money and resources = tanks.

 

[Pggar]

This is not an upgrade. This is a complete substitution case. You have to build new units and train new people.

A valid upgrade path is Horseman -> Knight -> Cavalry.
In this path you're training the same people and upgrading their armors and weapons for a price.

money and resources = tanks.

actually it should be
money and resources = building of tanks

Those are the reasons not to create this upgrade mess. It's just weird!

Edit: added the quote.

 

[slothman]

Cavalry have an advantage that tanks don't have, they can move 3 squares in enemy terrain per turn instead of just 2. If anything they should upgrade to modern armor to keep the movement rate.

 

[simwiz2]

"Cavalry have an advantage that tanks don't have, they can move 3 squares in enemy terrain per turn instead of just 2. If anything they should upgrade to modern armor to keep the movement rate."

I agree. Units should not be upgradable and made obsolete unless EVERY A/D/M stat is improved or the same. If cav upgraded to tanks, there might be a reason to AVOID researching motorized transport (right tech?), which is counterintuitive and not so good for gameplay either. If they were made to upgrade to modern armor, it should be at a very high cost however (>$200 each)

There is only one instance in civ3 of a unit having an advantage over a unit that it upgrades to (that i know of), and that is infantry and mech inf, and how mech inf cannot be carried by helicopters while infantry can. and that was a bad idea too, IMO, since in certain instances this could cause researching computers to disadvantage you (0% science rate anyone?)

 

[History_Buff]

I think you should, because i represeents the general progression of technology throught the ages. But now that I think of it, you shoudn't. The horseman have no experience, I think you should be able to build both for a while.

 

[Furry Spatula]

it makes sense for them to not be upgradeable. Ok lets see, a horse and a tank. Well i wont even go into the differences there. And a tank. 4-8 ppl roughly commanding one. And lets see. Riding a horse, driving a tank or firing an turret. huh a little bit different i'd say . Well i think it just makes sense b/c the difference between the two is quite large.

 

[Psychlone]

Wow, I built a helicopter once, Simwiz. I sure wouldn't avoid researching computers for that.

The choices on the poll both sure looked to me like they meant the same thing.

No, I think cavalry are just fine as-is. Not having this upgrade makes perfect sense for game balance purposes. Tanks are a weapon that can turn the tide and drastically tilt the balance of power. If you've been swarmed with cavalry and are pinned back, managing to create a few tanks suddenly will let you hold your own and maybe counterattack soon. If the civ who is beating you down pulls back for a couple of turns, and converts all their cavalry into tanks, face it, you're toast.

It really comes down to a matter of infrastructure and the massive industrial building program required to field a massive tank army. This was something new in warfare, and it didn't happen overnight, initially tanks were quite weak.

Sure, some early tank crewmen came from the cavalry services, but many also came from infantry and artillery, too. Let's not forget about the airplane, which came into being not so long before the tank. Airplane pilots were recruited from among all branches of the military, even civilian race-car drivers. But I hear no one saying they think infantry units should upgrade into fighter planes.

In fact, I'm more surprised that tanks debut in Civ3 as such a potent unit already. Early tanks (or "landships" as they were often called at the time) were slow, plodding machines that were mostly only moving walls of steel to protect infantry from machinegun fire as they crossed trench lines, carrying a few support weapons as they went. I myself, if I were to create such a unit, would give it stats something like 6/10/1, perhaps with a weak bombard rating. Now, how would you like to see your cav "upgrade" to that?

 

[Furry Spatula]

the fact is those tanks were so slow that troops were walking faster than them. They realy weren't a factor in many of the battles in ww1

 

[Selous]

A valid upgrade path is Horseman -> Knight -> Cavalry.
In this path you're training the same people and upgrading their armors and weapons for a price

and so pikemen to musketeers is a bad one also?

i can see both points and they are quite valid!! but u are never forced to upgrade ... and becides ... i thought the tanks in civ3 were ww2 tanks not ww1 tanks (i figgured ww1 tanks were not included becase they were ineffective and not a major player on the front) ... but i do agree that the upgrade should be quite expencive .... i just dont like to have to disband my forces to make em tougher ..... and that is only if i can afford it in the first place!!

and i think that mech infintrys defencive value 16? is such a total improvement over helicopters that it dont matter ..... on a side note .... infantry dont have enough impact in the game ... im changing my paratroopers and marines to light and heavy infantry ... the light infantry can paradrop and make marine attacks .. move through terrain as it were roads ... ie VERY flexable!! .... and the heavy infantry is much tougher and has its own artillery firepower ..... something u can use broudly and well into the modern era ... where modern tanks dominate

 

[Graeme the mad]

I've voted yes because ubgrading stops you having lots of obsolete units lying around which is unrealistic - there are no mod cavalry and it is also difficult to get large numbers of tanks otherwise. Remember in civ a unit represents a unit whihc is being continually replenished with new men and retrained. Tanks did replace cavalry - remember everyone the tanks in civ3 are not the WW1 tanks.

HOWEVER only do this if you have as I have changed tank moves to 3 - then it makes sense. And whatever you people say tanks do move faster than cavalry (ive changed mod armour to4 if u were wondrring)

 

[Quokka]

I voted No on the upgrade.
The fact is Cavalry did become obselete. They were not made into tank divisions. There is just no way to turn horse and rifle into a 20 ton tank and 75mm cannon. Makes no sense. There is a quantum leap in technology and training involved there, not an upgrade. The argument that cavalry were still around in WWII when tanks were also available makes no sense, most of the worlds armies were without tanks before WWII. Just the same as some countries still have Vietnam Era planes in their Air Force they can't upgrade them to Stealth Planes even though they are available. Think of the difficulty that someone who does not know how to drive has in operating a car, and a car is simple compared to a tank. An 18yo straight off the couch has just as much tank training potential as 48yo with 30 years of horseriding under their belt. Its not transferable experience.

 

[Ironstone]

Originally posted by Quokka
I . They were not made into tank divisions.

I hate to disagree with a fellow Aussie (you gotta be West Australian with a name like Quokka - no?) but although I agree with a lot of what you have said I think that many cavalry regiments actually did survive - at least in name - as modern armoured regiments. I think that they actually did retrain some of the British cavalrymen to tank use, and weren't some of the American units in Vietnam still named cavalry?

I'm not much on military history, so maybe someone can correct me there.

Mind you, I've no problem with what the game does on this issue. I wouldn't really mind either way.

 

[Exocet]

Don't the Northern Alliance use cavalry? (and US Special Forces for that matter)

 

[PaulNAdhe]

All this talk about Cavalry not being the precursors to Armor is just so much blather.

The key is in the use of the unit. Calvary was a quick strike force to get in the enemies rear, so is Armor. The fact that Armor has so much more power is irrelevant. So is the fact that both Calvary and Armor were used in WWII. Poland had an accomplished Calvary, it didn't do much good against the Wehrmacht. In fact, except for the very beginning of WWII, horses were used exclusively for transport, not combat.

Not only that, but there is precedent. George S. Patton, one of the greatest Armor generals in history began his army career in the Cavalry! Along with the greatest Armor general of all time, Rommel.

 

[Ironstone]

I just had a bit of a trawl through my ancient copy of Encyclopedia Britannica (remember when they were books not CDs?) and they seem pretty keen on the notion that horse cavalry did indeed morph into armoured units. They are a bit vague about the specifics for particular regiments though.

But they did quote some interesting facts. E.g. Tanks got that name because part of an early secret prototype was officially described as a “water carrier” at the workshop where it was built. This was converted to “that tank thing”, a term that stuck. Also tanks have many naval terms, even today, such as hull, turret, deck, etc because much of the initial development was carried out (in early World War I, against general war office support) under the umbrella of the British Navy. Their first Lord of the Admiralty at the time, who saw their potential, was Winston Churchill (more famous of course in the next war).

As far as horse mounted cavalry was concerned, it seems that there were still several hundred thousand of them of them around in World War 1 (rifle equipped), despite their big weakness being their vulnerability to the horses being killed or wounded. The Russians are quoted as having 24 divisions (200,000 horsemen) which they later increased to 54 divisions. According to E.B., this huge force didn’t achieve much except clogging up their transport system with the movement of horse food! Understandably, horse cavalry were described as being little used in World War 1, despite their availability, but some successful examples of their use were related.

Even in the days of archers horse were said to have been hard to armour effectively. Dismayed by having their horses slaughtered by English archers at Crecy in 1346, the French knights apparently dismounted and fought on foot at the battle of Poitiers some years later.

Astonishingly, Russia still had 39 horse mounted divisions in World War 2, which they kept for use in particularly difficult terrain. Even the USA is said to have used one mounted regiment in the early stages of World War 2 as part of an unsuccessful defence of the Philippines.

The tactics of cavalry did not die completely however, and were credited as having parallels in the many speedy uses of armoured vehicles. One mentioned was the German Blitzkrieg tactics of World War 2 in which speed and mobility were key factors. As Exocet mentions, even Osama Bin Laden and some of the troops there were recently reported as favouring horses to nip round Afghanistan, so use of the horse in warfare lingered for quite a while, and did continue parallel to the development of tanks for a lot longer than one might have thought.

Happy tanking/horsing whichever viewpoint you favour.

 

[Selous]

GREAT reaserch there ironstone!!! ... actually the term tank came from when the poms were transporting them from england to france ... they called them water tanks to hide them on all the inventory list ans what not .... to protect the knowledge of them from the germans .. and then the term tank stuck .. and yea ... the 10th light horse based in western australia is a light armour unit and is still called the 10th light horse and has all its battle honours from ww1 and 2 ... the americans have a 10th cavlary that was a helicopter mobile in vietnam and became an armour unit later on .....

and yea .. cav tactics are very similar to armour tactics ... so the tactical training for the men is all teh same ... all they have to relearn is the technical information required to use there new war platform

great research ironstone!! good reading

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

NO UNGRADE FOR CAV!!!!! EVER!!!!

"Why?" you ask?

Imagine a world dominated by the first Civ to massbuild swordsmen. it will also build hords of Knights, upgrade them to Cavalery. Add a few Pikemen/Riflemen and the game is over... or.... wait a minute! He can`t upgrade alll that stuff!

Hail to the tank!


It simply means that you can`t carry over numerical dominance into yet another military era - good!

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

ironstone: thanx for the research!

An interesting sidenote: it was the english longbowmen - underestimated by everyone and given to little defnce strenght in CivIII - that slaughtered the French Knights. At Crecy AND Poitiers. An effectively armoured horse/Knight had to carry so much plate armour that movement became clumsy - bad idea. And then these English developed bows and arrows that smote through the plates.........

 

[Zachriel]

I originally thought, "Of course not. Cavalry were completely and suddenly outdated. Weren't they?

Not quite. Their institutional memory in the U.S. transcends the transition from horse to motor, though there were severe growing pains.

"An impatient 1st Cavalry Division was dismounted in 1943 and processed for overseas movement to the Southwest Pacific as foot soldiers."
http://www.hood.army.mil/1stcavdiv/history/earlycav.htm
(Check out the link from army.mil)

Nevertheless, the Cavalry didn't actually evolve into armor, rather it adopted new techniques from independently created motorized divisions.

So after all, still no. They should not upgrade into armor.