Cavalry Should Be More Specialized

[SacremPyrobolum]

More than the other two types of units in the game, cavalry is a specialized unit that is not defined by its ability to attack or defend but rather by how its abilities augments the rest of the force. This should make the choice between the three (or four) types of cav the game starts you out with an opportunity to really define what you want said force to do.

Unfortunately, there is little incentive to use anything but the best cav you currently have unlocked; their power scales linearly like infantry and artillery but unlike those units you don't really have to think twice about spending the extra resources to maintain them since its so little. So even if you want your cav to act as a fast scouting force to support the main force (Hussars) or a fast-response frontier force (dragoons) the answer is always to use Lancers. It seems such a waste for it to be a no-brainer decision considering you usually get more than half of the options unlocked from the start.

Here's what I'd do to make cavalry more interesting:

I'd make Hussars, Dragoons, Cuirassiers and Lancers all unlock at the same time, either at Line Infantry or Napoleonic Warfare. Tier 1 Cavalry would be replaced with Horsemen.

Then I'd give distinct roles to each of those cav types so that choose between them is not so clear cut and that every type could find a home in an army depending on what that army is meant to do.

Hussars are meant to support larger armies. They would have the weakest stats, even weaker than Horsemen, but give the most bonuses to its parent army in the form of battle occupation and movement speed

Dragoons are designed to operate independently. They would have attack on-par with skirmish infantry and slightly reduced defense along with good speed and battle occupation.

Lancers are meant for killing. They would be for when you need high attack and kill rate at the cost of low defense and high moral loss. There battle occupation would be inferior to Dragoons and Hussars but superior to Cuirassiers. They're delicate but deadly.

Cuirassiers are for tanking and prestige. They would have high defense and very low moral loss along with offense the same offense as Lancers but without the kill rate increase and lower battle occupation. While not as killy as Lancers, they have actual survivability.

This would make the choice of cavalry far more interesting.

 

[Krautkopf]

Excellent ideas.
At the moment, Cavalry feels really pointless. I support your post!

 

[TitaniumMan91]

It would be cool if there was ever a reason to not have the most advanced cav you have available, but they also just don't do enough compared to artillery to be useful in the main army and their most useful contribution to armies where they are used is the "rapid advance" order the general gets when commanding an army that's 33% cav or whatever the ratio is.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

It would be cool if there was ever a reason to not have the most advanced cav you have available, but they also just don't do enough compared to artillery to be useful in the main army and their most useful contribution to armies where they are used is the "rapid advance" order the general gets when commanding an army that's 33% cav or whatever the ratio is.

That's exactly why cav should be more specialized. So you still have a reason to include units like Hussars in armies that can provide the whole formation with 'recon' abilities which translates into speed and battle occupation benefits.

And Dragoons would always be useful until the late game to bully low-tech uncivs and quickly put down revolts.

Cuirassiers and Lancers would be more combat specialized and might be less useful past the early game, but that feels correct IMO and even then they'd still give a bonus to battle occupation meaning they're worth taking in some small number. I'd imagine they'd be useful on large, grinding fronts like between Germany and France where territorial gains aren't going to be great anyways and its more important to bleed the enemy while preserving your own troops.

 

[Will Steel]

This is the problem with the game's design of having only 3 units types at a time.

I kinda find it ridiculous that the only reason to not have the latest tech unit at all times is just because it might cost too much. Its the same thing in EU4 - and hardly anyone uses it. I don't know why we can even turn WW1 trench gunners infantry into Napoleonic musketeer line units.

A big reason behind this entire issue, in my opinion, is because the severe oversimplification of battles (not war system, I mean individual battles) in V3. It actively takes away from the need to have multiple unit types of the same kind, and instead gives you three clearly superior units.

In previous games, battlefields were actually represented in some way. be that actual combat grids with multiple lines of units as well as flanks (Imperator), or mostly modern warfare with just stats (HoI4). So different units actually do need to exist to play different roles.

• Take Imperator for example. Horse archers when put on flanks can wreck enemy infantry like cake. Normal foot archers, when put in the rear line can mow down light infantry or elephants (who themselves easily stomp out chariots and infantry), but get trashed by heavy/light cavalry in turn. You still need multiple unit types, terrain might make it tighter. You can put Roman legionaries in a choke-point area and they'll instantly destroy everyone without even stopping to think, but you put them against Persians in open terrain (with their cavalry) and they'll easily get wrecked, until they begin to hire their own cavalry.

• HoI4 divisions have different unit types within themselves, which add or subtract from different stats. This then plays into the overall ongoing battle when they engage. Divisions with tanks enable breakthrough tactics for example, and unless you have AT or planes in the air for the bonus. You need multiple unit types working in tandem, with some specialist units spread around the frontline.

V3 meanwhile has oversimplified battles where stats either don't matter, don't exist, or are hidden from the player. Plus, the game artificially forces you to add more infantry whenever your army has any cavalry/artillery. And the game sinks them down to 3 unit types.

• Hussars, lancers, dragoons, cuirassiers etc. should work together, but instead lancers are the only cavalry the game allows. Line infantry and skirmishers should be separate units that work together (at least until 1848), but the game allows only one. Multiple artillery types should be there for variety, but there is only one. You can't have a colonial cavalry-only stack committing genocide on the natives as the Europeans and Americans liked to do.

At that point I start wondering why they exist at all. The previous system in V3 release version of infantry being the only unit type, with cavalry/artillery as barracks modifiers, resulted in the same exact thing.

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Same problem exists in frankly primitive and unnecessarily oversimplified naval battle system of the game (which is borked in more ways than one). Just 3 ship types, each better than the last, the same artificial unit ratio nonsense (you can't have a fleet of just cruisers or just submarines in late game, despite that being a thing IRL). And the battles (when they happen) are the same oversimplified thing as land battles.

Hell, V2's battle system (not war system, the individual naval battle) is far more superior to V3, and it is 12 years old now. Different ship types act differently, approach the battle grid at different speeds, have a proper targeting system where different ships can target/be targeted by different number of targets, and a proper disengaging system for ships to steam away from harm's way. You NEED different types of ships working at the same time for a large battle in all 4 naval eras of that game, but you can also have individual small ships go commerce raiding.

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The solution I wish they'd consider would be to increase the number of units from 3 to 5 or 7 at least (or triple it to 9, with multiple unit types working together in an army at once). Do the same for ships. There are roughly 5 'eras' of military tech in the game, representing roughly 20-25 years each, just get one new unit for each type every era, and you have a full roster. I don't know how it would be balanced or work yet, but it would at least make more historical sense and make armies a bit more interesting.