12-12-2001 03:05									#1
	Is Cavalry Overpowered? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I'll admit right off that I believe it is, but I'd like to hear other people opinions on the matter.

In my recent games, I've been finding I play the same strategy over and over. Early game rush to kill my closest neighbor. Then farm/tech rush to cavalry, then rush everything on my continent with cavalry. This ultimately works so well because if you're the first one to cavalry and have 10 vetran cavalry units, you can mop the floor with any AI managed civilization.

The case for it being overpowered:

1) Its too fast. Cavalry is 6/3/3. You won't see another move 3 unit until modern armor comes into the game in the late modern age. IMHO it should be speed 2. I mean really, mech infantry and tanks move slower than cavalry?

2) It outmatches its comperable defensive unit. Musketeers defend at 4, cavalry attacks at 6. Cavalry can disengage. A pack of cavalry can take any city in the game if it outnumbers the defenders by about 1.5 to 1. Knights vs Pikemen was a 4/3 attack/defense. Cavalry/Musketeers is a 6/4.

3) The speed issue comes to the fore in assaults against conscript troops. Since cavalry withdraws, rather than fighting to the death, you can whittle down defensive units without taking losses on your own part. Additionally, since the defenders never actually kill anything, they don't get a chance to get upgraded in rank.

I'd make it a 5/3/2 if it were up to me, or alternately make it a 6/3/2 and make musketmen a 2,5,1.

Thoughts?

	12-12-2001 03:17									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Cavalry is supposed to be paired up with riflemen, IMO (6/3/3 cav and 3/6/1 Riflemen). Still, I'm of the opinion that ALL mounted units in the game are overpowered, and should be more expensive to reflect the power they give you to control the tempo, place, and time of any given battle.

For me, the reason that they're overpowered lies not so much with the move of three, but the fact that unless they're facing another fast unit (and let's face it, when you're assaulting cities, you rarely see a fast unit defending the town), the battle is not "resolved" even if the cav is chased off by the defender, meaning the defender gets no chance for a morale upgrade....meaning further that a massed cav strike WILL wear down a city and that the attacker will take zero losses (or sometimes one loss...if the cav "hangs in" the battle trying to nab the last hp from a defender). This gives cav users a higher percentage of elite troops, gives a correspondingly higher percent chance for great leaders (more elites fighting, more chances in general), and, adding the 3 moves and ZOC on top of all that makes them too powerful for their cost, IMO.

-=Vel=-

	12-12-2001 03:23									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I don't think they're overpowered. They match up w/ riflemen. And Cavalry can't touch infantry, which usually comes before tanks replace cavalry as main offensive weapon. You need several Cav to displace the dough boys.

e

	12-12-2001 03:31									#4
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I hear what you're saying. Mobile units are pretty powerful toys. The key problem, however, isn't their a/d/m stats or their ability to retreat, or ZOC. It's the AI's inability to use them (and other units, like bombard units) properly. Basically, the AI can't defend itself. It has no concept of occupying the high ground, using bombard units, or using mobile units. Unfortantely, we can't fix that part (maybe, just maybe firaxis can). But no matter what you change the stats to, or increase the cost by, the AI will still not know how to use the units as well as you can.

-Arrian

	12-12-2001 04:35									#5
	Suffering from ads?

Hmmm... Well, yes, 6v4 favours the attacker. BUT, defenders get City bonuses, and really, but this time every serious city is giving an automatic +50% defence, so you're at 6v6. Further, terrain gives bonuses, and so do fortications. So, let's imagine that you're defending on a low def square, 10%. So, that's an automatic +30% for the defence (more if the bonuses multiply), and you're up to 6v~8, defender's advantage.

Now, it is valid to say that the cavalry retreat, and that that is a major advantage. HOWEVER, if you have barracks in your city, (and you should), defenders are likely all veteran (as the attacker's cavalry probably are too), AND they heal fully every turn.

If you defend your border cities appropriately, like, 4 or so musketeers, then you shouldn't have THAT much difficulty holding off a fair number (say 6) of cavalry for at least one turn. If you don't reinforce immediately, then of course you're going to lose. His cavalry will immediately try to retreat into his own territory to heal. Knights are very good for mopping up cavalry that is trying to heal, especially since the cav can't retreat. Since you can take advantage of your roads in your territory, you should be able to catch the faster cavalry with your knights, and smack 'em down.

The reason the AI is so easy to kill is because they don't defend their border cities effectively, and they don't place enough emphasis on killing cavalry that are attempting to heal. Additionally, they seem to keep trying to build improvements when at war, whereas the human is highly likely to put every productive city into pumping out military.

Last edited by MadWombat on 12-12-2001 at 04:51

	12-12-2001 05:14									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Cavalry's speed seems a bit high but I wouldn't want them to be the same speed as knights and there is no easy way to give them 2.5 movement points (although it could be programmed into the game). Their offensive power of 6 seems about right. A fortified musketman in a city is a match for cavalry, except that cavalry can retreat. But when it retreats it becomes vulnerable to counterattack, and the cavalry defensive power is not remarkable. Riflemen will beat cavalry, and a small force of mobile units can finish them off. Or use stacked riflemen so that you can have serviceable units to counterattack.

Tanks are slower than cavalry, which means the cavalry does not become obsolete when tanks arrive. Tanks and cavalry work well together. The German panzer (3 movement points) does make cavalry obsolete, but you can still find uses for existing cavalry units until you build lots and lots of panzers. The AI often has obsolete units in the field, which cavalry is very good at eliminating. This allows more tanks/panzers to concentrate on the hard targets.

	12-12-2001 05:23									#7
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

MadWombat, I like your analysis. One thing that makes combat so interesting is the inability of the invaders to match the mobility of the defending forces.

	12-12-2001 05:59									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I agree with Vel. The whole Horseman/Knight/Cavalry line is overpowered, because they are the Undead. Mass them, and you can overrun an entire civ, nearly without loss. The retreat ability is so powerful it defeats the concept of combined arms.

	12-12-2001 06:03									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

And even worse: Combine Fast Units with Forced Labour, and you become unstoppable. If playing competitively (for points, or MP), Despotic/Communist Conquest is probably the only strategy that is viable.

	12-12-2001 06:45									#10
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Now, im just a civ newb (never played anything but civ3, but play civ3 religiously since the day it went on shelves)... but from what i observed, the computer isnt THAT incompetent with their units.
I had a war against the Russians, and their cosacks seemed to be doing their damage.

I never once saw a cossack purposefully being used for defence, and although i noticed that the computer only foccussed troops on one front at a time, i found that it was almost by luck that i was able to not take any serious losses, cuz the cossacks always knew what to attack first to hurt the most, and they eventually led to me getting my conquest of Russia completely denied, cuz my war effort wasn't completly devoted to pushing back their borders, but fighting for my own cities, that only a pesky cav/cossack unit coult take, and did.

As for cavalry being too quick... well, at a good speed gallop, i would like to argue that a horse should easily get ahead of a tank in many cases. Heck, if a person can ride a bike for any money, they would be able to keep pace with almost any tank (with the exception of the Panzer) before or during the early years of WW2.

so the speed of cavalry isnt THAT outrageous realistically, but for gameplay issues, i can see how it may seem out of place. I would tend to think that if a horse would be going full speed for even a year, never mind 5 (i dunno, the length of a turn?), that it would die of exaustion.

But actually, i see the speed of 3 as a disadvantage to the Cavalry. As i like to have my cannons/artilery at my front lines, i find it annoying that my cavalry get so far ahead, if they aren't slowing down to keep pace.

So, what if they intended the movement range of 3 just to be an "in case you need it" speed? What if they intended you to keep your cavalry going at the same pace as your artilery(slow) untill you really, REALLY needed to get him moving? So, they give you the OPTION to go fast if ya need it, but the handicap of slower bombardment units, so that ya dont use it all the time?

I dunno, im just thinking of excuses, don't shoot the... uhh, messanger? Village idiot?

On another point, i fail to see the value in taking out the whip. I spent a good deal of time in Communism just so i wouldnt have to pay for my millitary units, but i absolutely detested rushing at the cost of people. I find paying with cash a much better method. Generally, i like my people happy, and i like a lot of people. Something wrong with me?

I find i always have so much extra cash that its nothing to waste it on a couple of new cultural improvements. But with despot/communism, i find wasting a person, to make a person unhappy, to make a person happy... its not only pointless, but without point. Ok, i could PERHAPS see a point to it in the ancient era, but in the modern era, with so much intake of gold, why kill people? (also, i never rush military unless im VERY concerned about that city being attacked soon)

Your friendly noob/newb

Ninot

	12-12-2001 07:05									#11
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

the retreat ability is too powerful, plain and simple.

The chance to retreat should be restricted to 50%. This will make the game more than a horseman/knight/calvary rush.

	12-12-2001 07:14									#12
	Tired of ads?

Naw, retreat is fine. Possibly just downgrade Knights and Cavalry to 3/3/2 and 5/3/2 respectively. Really though, I don't feel it's necessary. If you're that worried, try upgrading your musketeers to 5 def, and riflemen to 7.

	12-12-2001 08:18									#13
	Increase Your PM Length

A couple comments :

1) I'm inclined to agree with the people who think the real problem is retreat rather than combat factors. I almost never lose cavalry, they just retreat and I can heal them up later. That means I save on production costs, and I get more elite units and a better shot at a still absurdly rare great leader. Perhaps equally importantly, it starves defending units of a chance at a morale upgrade.

2) Cavalry's 3 movement factor is strategic rather than tactic movement. They move across the map at that rate, year after year after year. Historically, horse cavalry units were limited to about 50 miles a day over good roads becaus the horses can't handle being ridden at anything faster than a walk for extended e.g. weeks at a time. In contrast, even primitive armored vehicles could do 10 miles an hour, 12 hours a day over lots of different terrain. There's really no excuse for cavalry being faster than tanks or mechanized infantry.

	12-12-2001 15:12									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Riders are even worse. Everyone can get cavalry
but only the chinese have a speed 3 unit for many turns.

	12-12-2001 16:13									#15
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by MadWombat Hmmm... Well, yes, 6v4 favours the attacker. BUT, defenders get City bonuses, and really, but this time every serious city is giving an automatic +50% defence, so you're at 6v6. Further, terrain gives bonuses, and so do fortications. So, let's imagine that you're defending on a low def square, 10%. So, that's an automatic +30% for the defence (more if the bonuses multiply), and you're up to 6v~8, defender's advantage.

I thought defense bonuses were calculated with the base number in all cases, cumulatively.

So 10% terrain bonus + 50% city bonus for a musketeer equals 4 * 1.6 = 6.4 defense, unfortified.

	12-12-2001 17:23									#16
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by pcasey A couple comments : 1) I'm inclined to agree with the people who think the real problem is retreat rather than combat factors. I almost never lose cavalry, they just retreat and I can heal them up later. That means I save on production costs, and I get more elite units and a better shot at a still absurdly rare great leader. Perhaps equally importantly, it starves defending units of a chance at a morale upgrade. 2) Cavalry's 3 movement factor is strategic rather than tactic movement. They move across the map at that rate, year after year after year. Historically, horse cavalry units were limited to about 50 miles a day over good roads becaus the horses can't handle being ridden at anything faster than a walk for extended e.g. weeks at a time. In contrast, even primitive armored vehicles could do 10 miles an hour, 12 hours a day over lots of different terrain. There's really no excuse for cavalry being faster than tanks or mechanized infantry.

On the other hand armoured vehicles require supply lines for fuel and spare parts. I'm guessing logistics and the need to repair would slow them down. All a horse really needs is a patch of grass every so often and some water

I guess we could rationalise and counter-rationalise forever though. In the end it's how it affects the game that matters.

Rich.

	12-12-2001 18:19									#17
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I don't really think that they are overpowered. By the time you and everyother civ has the tech for it, you should have managed a nice size army (not the army unit, i mean all of your military units), with at least 3 to 4 defenders in each city (wither they are pikemen, musketmen or even a couple of swoardsmen).

Granted, they are a powerful unit, and pretty cheap when it comes done to it, but I like them, even if I'm getting my butt kicked by some other civ.

	12-12-2001 18:44									#18
	Re: Is Cavalry Overpowered? Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by pcasey 2) It outmatches its comperable defensive unit. Musketeers defend at 4, cavalry attacks at 6. Cavalry can disengage. A pack of cavalry can take any city in the game if it outnumbers the defenders by about 1.5 to 1. Knights vs Pikemen was a 4/3 attack/defense. Cavalry/Musketeers is a 6/4.

Cavalry does not really match up against musketeers, it is more a companion to riflemen which creates a far more balanced 6/6 contest. If you have cavalry against musket then you have a genuine technical advantage and I would expect you to be able to expoit it. (The matching mounted unit for musket would probably be dragoon but its not in civ3, there are lots of cases where intermediate units have been omitted).

To a large extent the problem is that the AI does not handle combined arms well, it should have at least a knight of its own waiting in the town to counter-attack your exhausted cavalry - but usually it does not. Cavalry without supporting infantry should be easy meat for counter-attacks especially when down to 1 hp after attacking and I suspect this will happen should MP ever come along. In the meantime we just have to accept that the AI is not as smart as a human opponent.


--
Nic

	12-12-2001 20:52									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I think cavalry matches musketmen closer than riflemen. The defensive unit has bonuses but the offensive unit (cavalry) does not. When cavalry attacks riflemen in a city, cavalry loses. It also loses more often than not against musketmen in cities.

Anyhow, if you think cavalry is too strong, the solution is to lower the movement points to 2, and lower the offensive strength to 5. A lot of people won't like that, but doing it in the editor is fine. Most likely, only the human player will be hurt.

	12-12-2001 20:59									#20
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Retreat doesn't seem such an overwhelming advantage to me. My typical defensive complement for a city is 2-3 strong defenders and 2 mobile attackers, and when I go to war I usually pull off one mobile attacker for the effort (this reflects a limited war strategy which I employ permanently. If you use this system, the retreat option doesn't do the enemy any damn good b/c they withdraw w/1hp and you destroy them slowly. As long as you have barracks and they don't have battlefield medicine, you can stall defeat indefinitely at any hard defensive point b/c you heal in 1 turn while the vet cavalry need 3 OUTSIDE YOUR TERRITORY.

Where cavalry strikes me as overpowered is in the defense characteristic. Cavalry were always very poor at defending, just as riflemen were ineffective at offense (thanks to massed infantry fire). Defending cavalrymen had two weaknesses -- they had to dismount, which nullified their mobility advantage, and the limited amount of training time available meant that they had to learn mounted tactics before learning dismounted defense. That's why Buford's defenses at Thoroughfare Gap and Gettysburg are such striking works of soldiering.

As for strategic speed--I think you have to consider force volume when you talk about this. A horse squadron can move in a fairly tight group down any path or road in a region with reasonable efficiency. A tank squadron, however, takes up a lot more space, and as such will be unable to use roads and pathways as efficiently. A tank moving over a road might have a greater strategic speed than a cavalry squadron, but tanks, especially in the early days, constantly had to slog through mud and brush and other landscape features for which they were ill-suited 10 miles per hour is a significant overestimate of their speed. Remember also that the logistics play a role in strategic speed. The constant need for gasoline means that tanks need a large supply chain to be effective, while the cavalry "vehicle" can be fueled by local flora in most instances.

I suggest then, that you mod cavalry to 6/2/3. This makes cavalry vulnerable to counterattack in open terrain (which they were), and forces a more realistic strategy of keeping a main infantry body at the forefront of an advancing force (thus to defend the cavalry while encamped), while using cavalry to clear the flanks, guard the supply chain, scout, and mount major offensives. Note that this also decreases the problem of making sure that cannon keep up with your offensive. I also suggest you mod the price of cavalry up by ~40%, as cavalry troops were significantly more expensive to equip and maintain than musketmen or riflemen.

	12-12-2001 21:24									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

More on Cavalry & why I think the retreat option is overpowering at current unit costs:

Consider a battle against the AI (who, as I have observed in my games, is much more adept at attacking than at defending his own territory).

I mass my cav in 3-4 strategic locations....sufficient for overwhelming the defenses at those 3-4 cities all at once.

DoW and attack.

Despite borders creating some barrier between me and the cities (a barrier that would delay by 1-2 turns, an infantry based attack), I can launch my attack immediately.

The AI has no mobile defenders in his cities, so all my cavs get to retreat when damaged.

All the target cities are overwhelmed. No losses on my side.

I call the AI up and wrangle a surrender. If he won't surrender, I use any spare units to sever roads to buy my troops time to heal, buy my infantry time to move up for defense and wait him out.

Repeat as necessary.

Game.

Vs. Human opponents:
A little more uncertain, but for drawing first blood, it's no contest. If there ever IS MP, I promise you that you'll see "Mongol Hordes" when humans attack each other....mounted troops pouring en mass over your borders. Even if you have mounted troops in numbers yourself, the fact that they'll dominate MP games implies that they're superior in some way, and I think that retreat, and it's implications where capturing cities is concerned, is a major part of that.

Or....no?



-=Vel=-

	12-12-2001 21:24									#22
	Sun Tzu + Cavalry = Dead AI Got spare money?

I always race to Sun Tzu in Civ3, and cavalry provide the best example of why it's so important.

I was able to take 3 cities from an AI civ in one turn, using 15 cavalry (3 cavalry against a tiny city, 6 against each of two larger cities).

The next round, the cavalry were moved into the cities, where a new barracks awaited them.

The next round, each cavalry completely healed itself, safe within the confines of a city with a fortified defensive unit.

Lather, rinse, repeat... end of AI civ.

IMO, cavalry are overpowered. 3 movement is too many... run two squares within your cultural envelope, cross two enemy culture squares, and you're right at the enemy's gates, with 1/3 movement point left to conduct the attack. I support reducing the 3 movement to 2.

	12-12-2001 23:15									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

...what if 1/3 or 2/3 a movement point remaining was multiplied by your attack factor? Like SMAC? It doesn't do that in Civ3, right? Should it?

	12-12-2001 23:33									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I can't keep from thinking that if Cavalry wasn't in the game, or had different stats, that we'd be debating whether or not Longbowmen were overpowered or something. I think the unit balance is pretty solid, and the problems that have shown up (easy mid-late game conquests) have to do with the human player understanding how to use the units while the AI does not.

Changing the stats on a given unit may slow down the human player, but it won't change the stategic and tactical advantage of having a brain. It's not really the retreat thing that gives us an advantage. The AI will in fact track down and kill a beat up mobile unit you stupidly leave out in the open. That's not the problem. The problem is that when I move a stack of infantry, artillery and cavalry into his territory, the AI cannot deal with it. In fact, it doesn't even try to hurt the stack. It tries to sneak past it to capture workers. A human player would bombard the stack, then attack with mobile units and whittle it down. A human player would understand the power of concentrated firepower, and would muster all of his/her artillery in the target city to deal with the incoming stack. The AI does not do this. So, even if you invaded the AI with weakened Cavalry, or some other unit in place of Cavalry, you're still going to win.

The AI can beat you early with sheer numbers, but once combined arms comes into play, it suffers.

-Arrian

	13-12-2001 00:57									#25
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I actually think horseman are overpowered for the same reason. Sure they only have a 2 attack, but they can retreat. A horseman rush is just as effective as a calvary rush.

solution? 50% chance the retreat fails.

	13-12-2001 01:15									#26
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Cavalry's 3 movement factor is strategic rather than tactic movement. They move across the map at that rate, year after year after year. Historically, horse cavalry units were limited to about 50 miles a day over good roads becaus the horses can't handle being ridden at anything faster than a walk for extended e.g. weeks at a time. In contrast, even primitive armored vehicles could do 10 miles an hour, 12 hours a day over lots of different terrain. There's really no excuse for cavalry being faster than tanks or mechanized infantry.

This is actually not true, since the primitive armoured vehicles (say, WW1 or even WW2 tanks) break down very often. You definitely can't run them for 12 hours straight, or even 2 hours straight in some cases.

	13-12-2001 01:20									#27
	Inflate your Upload Space

The graphic for the tank though shows a WW II type tank which looks suspsiciously like a US Sherman, a tank whose sole virtue was mechanical reliability.

	13-12-2001 01:57									#28
	A solution? Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I know it's not reallistic but I've been thinking that it would be a good idea to limit the total number of units you can make of each type, the limit may depend on the number of strategic resources you have, the size of your empire, particular characteristics of the empire, technologies, city improvements (this city cannot build another tank without a power plant sir....) the unit itself etc....
This will force the player to a balanced strategy for combat, combining several kind of units in a battle discouraging the tedious "all horsemen, all cavalry" way of handling militar units.

I think this can greatly balance the power of units, if you have the "supermastertank" but you can only build 5 of them then you must use other units to empower your armies. Adding aditional units will also be easier without risking unbalancing the combat system.

It's just an idea I had after crushing the world with horsemen, hundreads of horsemen. In MP it will be very boring to see battles between 34 cavalry vrs 35 cavalry and so....

	13-12-2001 02:11									#29
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

An overpowerd unit is the mounted warrior.
IMHO cavalry should have 2 move BTW

	13-12-2001 02:13									#30
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I think the designers purposely made cavalry a bit overmatched, just as soon thereafter infantry are overmatched defensive units. It's "realistic": before WWI, the cavalry were the backbone of any serious army, and gave the advantage to the attacker. Well, then the machine gun came along and gave the advantage to the defender, until the tank came along. All in all, well thought out.

If there is a problem, it's that the AI is bad at using cavalry as counterattack units. With 3 a unit move of 3 and the "home turf" advantage of roads (making them a 9 move unit), cavalry illustrate that "the best defense is a good offense." I have seen the AI direct massive counterattacks, but not always.