[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
I don't feel making the cavalry powered up to the point where it can totally replace a foot army would be inclusive of balance either. While the elite core should be, the effect is to not only make BK very strong, but highly mobile and horsemen more cost effective than footmen in battle, mobility, pillaging AND patrolling, thus making anyone not on a horse useless.

re mobility

Exactly as it was most of the time - no problem with this. Have you played Pangaea using Centaur Warriors as your base troop type? CW are better than anything my BK mod gets and are highly mobile etc and backed up by Centaur Cataphracts for shock. TI think the BK mod is well short of Pangaea Cantaur abuse in terms of mobility and power.

I don't feel historical nations built and organized their armies in such a way so I don't see why it should be as well.

You should talk to my brother - he has about 8 ancients armies based the mounted mobility principle and they are all historically based with OB's inspired by real battles. Some time periods saw virtual complete foot dominiance others virtual complete mounted dominience - this is entirely realistic Zen and the present sate of affairs making BK mounted an adjunct to foot is very wrong in terms of history. Read Cecilia Holland "Until the Sun Falls" and her one on the Huns whose name I can't remember off hand. "Foot - pah who need the scum."

Even the Huns, Mongols and other horse rich historical figures were not totally on horseback, though it was their effective use of them that made them memorable.

Yes they were. I own Mongols and Hunnic armies myself and I have lots of support literature. You can't actually get any Hunnic or Mongol foot at all in their conquest periods.

You may be right in practice on fear though I do feel that its the pratical tests that answer this one not abstract reason. For know its out as its combo's to powerfully with the lance. I would add though that there is nothing game unbalencing about fear making people rout as weapons do that and everyone gets them.

During history a large proportion of armies were made up entirely or almost entirely of mounted and this includes the majority of LC based armies for fairly simple reason - foot slow them down to much. The whole point of the mod is to come closer to history by allowing cav based armies.

My entire complaint with BK is that it works when you don't use the mounted and doesn't work well when you do. Using foot should be completely optional for an army based on the Xiongnu. This is the entire point of the mod - to make BK play like a horse nomad army that has just recently taken over a more sophisticated region. These are peoples who held foot in contempt.

I think you are jumping the gun suggesting the mod will BK to strong. I'll need to do more tests to get a good idea but in the first test it played weaker than C'tis or Pangaea but stronger than Mictlan and the old TC BK theme ie somewhere in the middle. This is where I'm aiming. I am consciously not aiming at making BK equal to Pangaea Centaur races even though this is the other example of entirely mounted armies working well as Pangaea Centaur abuse is extremely strong and I'm aiming for the middle.

What is the point in having highly mobile troops if they spend all their time trapsing round with slow foot?

Cheers

Keir

[ January 16, 2004, 19:55: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]