Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-32352572-20180502233538

Hey Guys! So a while back after recording, One of my mounted Swan Knights on a bridge at full health. accompanied by 2 other knights, died to an unarmored, unsaddled warg. I promptly killed the warg. But after that I began a full on investigation into the abilities of Cavalry vs Unmounted soldiers of the same type. Cavalry Testing all of my data is there. So I have come to the conclusion that Cavalry is completely ineffective.

How So?: Well if you don't wanna read my 2 pages of data, then here it is in short: I tested Swan Knights, Rohirrim Warriors, Golden Easterlings, and Half Trolls. Mounted and unmounted in same situations. And in my reasearch there's no real difference between cavalry and regular soldiers. And in one case, A golden Easterling killed almost all of a gang of 3 Dalish Levymen whereas a mounted Golden Easterling killed only 1 of 3. And one thing I noticed while testing Rohirrim was that one of the only reasons Cavalry sometimes did slightly better than regulars is that the enemy attacks the mounted rider but because of the horse he doesn't take knockback.

So What Do I Have Planned?: Well In short make Cavalry not suck. Now don't misunderstand it can be useful for chasing a retreating army or such but overall they really just cost a lot more. How to do this? Well first of all.

 Cavalry Daggers???: While spawning troops to test, I noticed that many of the cavalry had daggers. Than to me makes no              sense. Why would a mounted rider need daggers!? He probably couldn't even reach the person he's attacking.

Back on topic. Cavalry act like regular troops and this is plain wrong. While testing, I found that they followed the same attack pattern as foot soldiers. This however makes no sense. Cavalry should should do the initial charge and then keep using the huge advantage of speed to confuse the hell out of the opponent. I imagine a rider charging at the enemy, barreling past him and looping back around to rinse and repeat. And that leads me nicely into...

Realistic Damage: Imagine a foot soldier hit a well armored opponent with his sword, that wouldn't be very effective. Now           imagine a horse and rider barreling towards that same opponent and hitting him. That opponent would be, if not dead, injured       and likely fallen down. I suggest a new charge statistic when on a horse. When an NPC charges, the longer they charge (for         a certain period of time) the stronger their hit is. For a player this would be charged up by holding  This would       have a chance to kill the enemy depending who it is bu that's unlikely. However it would do massive damage. At least half             damage. And while I won't even mention formation, a line of horses could do additional damage because the line they're                attacking would be fearful. Another thing (which I've seen suggested before) is that the horse itself would do damage. For a          weak enemy like a Levyman or orc, that enemy would have reduced defence (light weakness effect) and the horse itself              would hit the enemy. When it reared up, when it comes down it kicks the enemy. Stuff like that. So nothing major. But                    enough for there to be a noticeable difference.

So why doesn't the enemy just attack the horse? I suggest that the enemy would try to target the horse. After all that makes the job of defeating the actual enemy easier. And Speaking of ways to defeat cavalry.. (wow I'm on a roll with these transitions today)

How to Take out Cavalry: So If this suggestion is endorsed and added to the mod then horses would be ridiculously                   overpowered right? Well yes but here's how to beat them. So something you'd be able to do with pikes is lower them so that         if an enemy runs at you, they get implaed on the pike and die. This position is achievable by crouching but does no damage. I      think right clicking would be used to achieve this stance. So an extended pike would be the deadliest way to deal with cavalry       head on. Another way would be a volley of arrows for an army or just an arrow in an important part of the horse. This is a             whole other suggestion (which I plan to make) but still. Another way to take out a rider would be to knock the rider off his               horse with say a hammer or polearm. And now something that makes more sense for bull fighting but I gotta think of                     something. In mano y mano combat or just not army conflict, you could sidestep the charging horse. The higher the charge           level, the harder it is fir the rider to swivel around to get you and the easier it is to sidestep. Additionally, sidestepping as soon       as the rider begins to charge wouldn't work as the rider would have time to adjust his course. If you do manage to sidestep           him you'd have an opportunity to shoot the horse, killing it, or knock the rider off his horse as he tries to wheel around.

Additional Notes: Sidestepping is done by literally clicking A or D to step to the side and charging down a hill increases speed and damage.

So yeah that's pretty much it. Some guy is going to scream at me in the comments about how this will be hard to code and implement et cetera et cetera. I am aware of this but did I say that it'd be easy? No. Did I say this needs to be implemented now? No. So please don't rage about that.

As always Constructive Criticism is welcome!

Signing Off Now - ArcenGamer  (My Page) 