About the cavalry -
-record scratch-
- Mate?
- Yeah?
- ffs - don't 'yeah' me, what are you doing?
- Posting a comment.
<both filcats exchange stern looks at each other>
- Sigh. So we are lifting the self-imposed embargo on gameplays?
- Sigh. Yeah. Let's get over with it.
- Hmpfh.
- Hmph!
- Whatever mate.
- All right then.
So about the cavalry;
I go with the former and start removing all cavalry from our armies.
Reducing the investment on the cavalry in the late phase is a common practice, but
the efficiency of the cavalry is still an important item in the list of inconclusive discussions (and the others being
where to send the merchants to do what -yawn- and
hey look the code bypassed the fort-zoc again -no it did not-).
Cavalry does never lose its efficiency; rather, artillery gains more importance, particularly in the mid to late phase, and that is because the tags become richer and can afford-maintain more, on top of the improved firepower. Composing the army only by infantry and artillery has become the norm, as cavalry is more expensive to maintain than an infantry; this is the only reason.
And it is only a weak reason, yet popular. In the beginning phase, whether before else after the artillery tech, the cavalry is almost mandatory to stackwipe; higher discipline, morale, general pips do not make as much effect as the cavalry - because of the shock phase of combats and flanking. Once the artillery arrives, then the stackwiping becomes easier - because of fire behind the line, but in the beginning phase, most tags cannot afford more than a couple of them; the cavalry (~0,5 ducats) is affordable compared to the artillery (~1 ducat) in maintenance, therefore 16-8 inf-cav army composition is good enough for most tags in the early to mid phases, for increasing the stackwipe-chances.
Starting with the mid phase, if the tag is struggling to afford the army maintenance, that means army composition is not but the run itself has other serious problems; disbanding the cavalry will not save much. If the tag has a comfortable to wealthy economy by that phase, then there is no significant gain by reducing the cavalry regiments, on the contrary it is advantageous to keep them, and even increase their numbers in the army unit - again, it helps for stackwiping.
The late phase - does not matter whatever is used.
Once again, it is an inconclusive discussion, yet leaving a demonstration here, in the form of a standard
mongolia run.
Yeah maybe not exactly a standard run due to cav-only, but almost.