Do you prefer Infantry or Cavalry based Armies?

[Goatbuster3000]

I like using mostly cavalry because of its mobility. They lack the cohesion of infantry, but I'm able to use hit and run attacks to wear down enemy armies before finishing off with one concentrated charge.

[CAWX]

I do this with pretty much all factions, I don't like to use horse archers, too weak and slightly annoying to control IMO.

How do you find such horse archers as sipahis or mameluk horse archers weak? Offcourse, if you charge the enemy with them in the beggining in the battle, they won't look well, but when 50 % of enemy is destroyed by their arrows, they woukld always easily finnish them off.
Also, the control of horse arches, is not annoyng at all. What you have to do is not to forget fire at will and skirmish buttons. Perssonally for me, horse archers is the perfect class of units, I just cant play as most of western factions, because they don't have strong missle cavalry. ALACH ACHBAR!

[Trajan]

Being a lover of ancient Roman military history, I'm a heavy infantry man myself. Ever since RTW, I always had only 3 cavalry units and 14-10 infantry units. After experiencing middle eastern warfare during the Crusades, I cut down my 14 heavy infantry units to only 10 to include more archers and one extra calvary unit.

[Necromancer]

I'm DEFINITELY an infantry guy. England is MY faction, hard-hitting, armored infantry with superb archers along with supporting cavalry.

Here's the general setup of my armies:

5 units of Longbowmen (Yeomen & Retinues)
5 units of Billmen (usually Heavy Billmen)
2 units of Dismounted English Knights
3 units of Armoured Swordsman
2 units of English Knights
2 units of artillery (usually a Trebuchet and a gun of some sort, usually a culverin or mortar)

And last, but CERTAINLY not least my General.

My Basic Battle Plan: (Give it a try! It's pretty basic and straight-foward, but it's DEADLY effective )

When I'm engaging the enemy I generally try to find a hill to station my army on. My archers plant their stakes and are positioned on the front lines so they have a clear shot. Once the enemy's within range of my artillery AND my archers, I SLOWLY have my infantry advance down the hill in good order. Because the enemy is under constant fire from my archers and artillery, their formations become disorganized and their advance is made all the more difficult. Once my infantry line is a few hundred feet from the enemy, I have my archers ignite their arrows to sap the enemy's morale. After a few rounds I have my archers and artillery cease their firing and have my archers douse their flames. I then have my infantry charge the enemy and his now shaken ranks. Within 3 minutes the enemy is on the verge of routing. To ensure that this event occurs, I order my cavalry to charge the enemy's flanks (1 unit of English Knights per flank). My cavalry charge, BAM!!! within 20 seconds the enemy's entire infantry line is in shambles and is fleeing. I order my infantry back up the hill and have my longbowmen commence firing to pick-off groups of enemy routers and have my knights pursue the fleeing enemy.

Well, this approach hasn't failed me yet, even when their isn't a hill. Of course this is used against Western-European armies. Used against cavalry-archer armies I'm certain it would be a disaster.

I remember when I was playing RTW, I found Parthia to be a VERY FUN faction. I don't know why, but I enjoyed having large cavalry-based armies, especially when fighting out in the middle of the desert dunes. It was fun, but after a while it just became TOO much. I personally think that to be a cavalry-commander, it requires VERY fast thinking and wits of steel. To be able to command a cavalry-army effectively is something that not a lot of people can do. If you can do it, give yourself a pat on the back because you're something special.

[Lopus]

It would depend on what faction I'm playing.

Byzantium, French, Turks, Moors, Fatamids - cavalry heavy armies.
England, Denmark, Novgorod, Venice, Milan - infantry heavy armies.
Sicily, Spain, Portugal - mixed arms.
Poland, Hungary - initially infantry heavy, then cavalry heavy, then mixed.

[skullman86]

A standard army in this game (for me) is usually something like 1/2 standard infantry, 1/4 ranged infantry or siege weapons, 1/4 Cavalry.If I am in the middle east or parts of eastern Europe then I usually have a little more cavalry and (or) swap some of my ranged inf. for ranged cav. just so I am evenly matched with the AI since that's all it uses .I find infantry more useful and cavalry is still bugged, those are my main reasons for using infatry.

[Cataclysm]

I love infantry battles, but as I played Russia I came to love the cavalry charge. Heck, Russian cav isn't even all that good and I get more Heroic Victories in 10 turns than my entire 200+ tuns Spanish campaign. So I use mostly infantry with a core of 4-6 uber elite heavy cavalry units to soften up the enemy's archers and heavy cav.

[Morgomir]

i think cav armies are better than infantry: they are much faster on campaign/ battle map.horse archers can decimate infantry based armies easily and then charge with the heavy cavalry. With the right deployment, ambush position and timing of cav charge, nothing can stand in your way.
the drawback of cav armies is that you cannot assault fortified cities. they are practically useless in urban combat. cavs are also expensive to raise and maintain.

[N3rull]

A tiny comment on brilliant ideas like "be on higher ground", "use your archers", "use your cavalry", "use your infantry". Oh and the authors typically don't mention anything about the enemy's moves or strength.
My answer is: Everybody knows archers are to shoot, heavy infantry is for heavy fighting, cavalry is for charging and pikes are for stopping cavalry.
There is NOTHING even close to 'discovery' in that.
Using a single unit of Spearmen to rush straight into the enemy battle line from a distance to make them halt for half a minute, sacrificing Spearmen but letting your archers fire a few more deadly volleys - THIS is tactics.

I think a habit has developed from Rome Total war. What I mean is in Rome I would recruit a barracks first and foremost, secondly I would build stables and archery buildings. In Rome you had to do this really because you couldnt just have an army consisting of equites or later on Roman cavalry.

Bullshlt, I've won my first VH/VH/Huge RomeTW Campaign with purely equites/roman/legionary cavalry Brutii armies, rolling over Greeks, Macedon and the rest of the eastern phalanxes. Just run around them until you see an opening - then exploit it. The maps are big and even huge armies are small compared to the battlefield, so you have a lot of space to maneuver.
Of course, river battles and sieges were not a cake walk, but open battles - no prob.


-- As for the main thread, I'd love to use English historical-style armies: some heavy cavy, a number of heavy infantry plus lots of Archers. However, such an army isn't working as it should. Against a huge army of heavy infantry, you have no defense and the archers aren't doing half of what they should. The hastings historical battle is winnable only because french come in waves.
Worst of all, giving reinforcements of similiar construction to the AI will result in a sure massacre, especially when that AI's enemy has cavalry.

[pwijnands]

Even though I rely mostly on cavalry in my actual battles, my preference would go to infantry. The problem is that infantry really sucks for some reason when I do battles, it takes them forever to make some casualties whereas cavalry can be real chopping machines (in melee).
It recently took a unit of Zweihanders and one unit of Dismounted Gothic Knights over five minutes to rout two units of peasant crossbowmen while fighting on the walls (aided by my own crossbowmen). Peasant crossbowmen should rout pretty much instantly when forced into a melee against such quality infantry (especially when sandwiched between them), instead they fight on until they suffered 80+% casualties.
In field battles they are great provided the terrain isn't completely retarded and the enemy doesn't decide to change their main battle line just before clashing.

[Razbojnik]

As they said above:cavalry are real chopping machines and my vote goes for cavalry(especially byzantine)

[Sher Khan]

I actually prefer to field infantry heavy armies when playing the Islamic factions. It's just my personal style of play as I find infantry management much more suitable to my tastes and pacing than large cavalry armies.

The Islamic factions, while having very powerful horse units, are surprisingly able foot soldier factions by at least the late game.

[Problem Sleuth]

Cavalry is probably better in the long run, but infantry is far more fun.

[Cmdr_Sdxo]

I prefer infantry... Although use cavalry a lot more than I did in Mtw1. I can no longer imagine an army without at least some cavalry(except a garrison force, ofc) to support it.. But I still prefer that my army has more infantry than cavalry..(Unless it's for a specific purpose, such as hunting down enemy family members accompanied only by tiny armies).

[Cyrus Spitama]

I usually approach infantry as place holders while the archers in the back whittle down the approaching enemy or my cavalry goes round and charges the enemy from the back after dealing with generals, enemy cav or missile units. I don't expect them to win the battle for me, that's what cavalry is there for, so that's why good old standard spear militas to hold the line will do the trick for me most of the times. Of course I'd rather have heavy infantry to do this than spear militia, but if you're going to buy high end cavalry units that are mostly available from castles right from the start of the campaign, I end up prioritising and going for second best when it comes to infantry.

[Robo1992]

I love heavy infantry! but what i do in my eastern faction campaigns I have armies of full infantry and archers (with 2 units of cavalry if I run into annoying enemy armies with just archers) and have full cavalry armies. 1 General 9 heavy cavalry and 10 ranged cavalry and i use them as field armies (i don't attack cities and castles unless its in support of a heavy infantry army). My heavy infantry armies meanwhile attack cities and castles which is where i think they preform their best.

[loquar]

I despise infantry. Slow, boring, high casualty takers. In the field non-missile infantry are a joke and i never take casualties from them unless I get bored and choose to charge. Just stay away and shoot while running circles around them. The only place I can see that infantry are of any use at all is in sieges or defending water crossings.

For me the mass armies of horse archers are the best (or even better mounted crossbows) with possibly a few units of heavy cav mixed in to smash archers/siege crews.

As N3rull said the maps are big, an infantry army will rarely manage to pin down any horse archer units at all in an open battle.

Whatever game Ive played I always work on losing as few troops as possible, I just dont like the waste of life. To this end I always prefer mass shooting armies of one type or another and disdain melee except where unfortunately necessary for expedience.

It has been said that cavalry are useless in sieges but again ive found this to be wrong. Use a couple of siege weapons to make 3-4 breaches in the walls and sweep in, takes a lot of micromanagement but Ive found nothing to stop them in the streets. encirclement is easy with their speed. Occasionally I will use a unit or 2 of heavy inf to hold someone in place while I encircle but not always.