A new mod enters the ring - Introducing "Close to Home"

[Miguelito]

Has anyone gone on an appropriate neckbeard rant about the hoplite thing, by the way? Phalanx formations were hell against infantry specifically, but horribly unwieldy when confronted with mobile cavalry. Horse archers are exactly what I'd want against classical Greek heavy infantry.

You have, for some time already . And actually educated me, so thanks. How do you counter horse archers in real life though? Longbows? Fire? Machine guns?

I've always been annoyed by the Keshik being a horse archer replacement fwiw. 1) they were medieval and 2) they should dominate knights (they were knights in civ 3, right, also iirc not all too awesome?). Should be a knight replacement with free formation and shock and ignoring cultural defense, does that sound about right?

[Commodore]

Has anyone gone on an appropriate neckbeard rant about the hoplite thing, by the way? Phalanx formations were hell against infantry specifically, but horribly unwieldy when confronted with mobile cavalry. Horse archers are exactly what I'd want against classical Greek heavy infantry.

You have, for some time already . And actually educated me, so thanks. How do you counter horse archers in real life though? Longbows? Fire? Machine guns?

Terrain, better cavalry, walls? Honestly the only way to utterly defeat horse archers pre-gunpowder seems to be "lose, let them take over, and then use civilization to rot the cultural folkways that allow horse archery to be A Thing".

Maintaining good cavalry in general is an incredibly difficult task that most civilizations fail at.

[Mjmd]

I know the Chinese early in one of their dynasties started an extensive horse breeding program of their own and they were valued at 3 recruits from villages (if memory serves). Basically over about a 100 years they slowly wore away at the Mongols.

One of the things that eventually made the Mongols such the conquering phenomena they were is that they used and learned from Chinese siege engineers to be able to take walled cities.

But yes its amazing how much infighting there is in history and how much it has shaped empires (taring one apart and allowing others to rise)

[Commodore]

I know the Chinese early in one of their dynasties started an extensive horse breeding program of their own and they were valued at 3 recruits from villages (if memory serves). Basically over about a 100 years they slowly wore away at the Mongols.

One of the things that eventually made the Mongols such the conquering phenomena they were is that they used and learned from Chinese siege engineers to be able to take walled cities.

But yes its amazing how much infighting there is in history and how much it has shaped empires (taring one apart and allowing others to rise)

China's problem is selenium; soil doesn't have a lot of it, and horses need it, so China almost always had to import their supply early on. But mobile horse archery is a whole other level of "complex", you have to basically put a bow in your babies' hands and a horse under their butts by 2 (sheep-riding in Mongolia) to make a high-mobility classic horse archer. Byzantine cataphracts were a very rare case of a professional regular force *trained* to be archers (as well as lancers), and the huge cost of them meant they weren't long for the empire. 

Charriu, adding selenium resource when?

[Charriu]

You just need to let your workers dig deeper and eventually they will find never before seen resources.

[Mjmd]

Yes very culture specific. Important to note Mongols also used infantry and heavy cavalry. They were also famous for leaving holes for their enemy to run away so they could then chase down. They would also feign retreat even dropping loot along the way and then turn on their disorganized foes who were chasing them. Holding or taking positions isn't something pure HA can really do which is why both of these tactics were important. Also, coordinated infantry archer formations were an issue. Obviously Mongols were A) specialized warriors but they also often went against B) Not as well trained or disciplined troops.

A big part of Roman success was that the legions were well trained and disciplined and didn't break.

[chumchu]

Donning my neckbeard:

To not lose a battle against horse archers you needed high discipline troops who do not break and smart commanders who do not try to chase them. This is harder than you think judging my the Mongols successes.

To actually win a battle you needed:
- better firepower. Crossbows was developed in china for a reason. The development of good muskets and drill eventually ended the horse archer era. The last big nomad conquest was the Manchu of China around 1650.
- better/more cavalry. Very hard to do in practice even if your empire was much more populous. The Romans and Byzantines tried to counter persians and other with some success by using auxillary cavalry. When that did not work, bribes often did for the Byzantines. China often faced larger nomad armies. It also developed good cavalry but it did never have enough horses to compete. So it often tried to divide the nomads against each other and/or bribe them like the Byzantines but on a larger scale.
- defensive terrain. The nomads needed open terrain to maneuver and pasture for their horses. If you can deny them that they are much less of a threat. The chinese built massive fortifications using rivers, mountains and forest to the maximum. However it is very hard to defend fixed points against a mobile nomad army. If they break through at one point they can ravage half the country before you can reposition. In a longer strategic sense, a gradual strategy of fortifiying a frontier can be used to slowly claw territory from nomad armies.

I'm of the opinion that the eras known as late antiquity and medieval in the west would be better conceptualised as the cavalry or horse archer era. In eurasia horse archers dominated military from around 0 to around 1600. As stated previously not everyone could get them. However, when they were massed by a charismatic leader like Attila, Omar, Genghis Khan, Timur Lenk or Akbar they carved a bloody path through the settled lands and reshaped political history.

A good video overview of chinese tactics against nomad armies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAGKRwirIjU

How the mongols cracked that nut eventually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iU66wzMy3Y

[civac2]

IIrc, Persia under the Sassanids(?) was pretty successful against them using heavy cavalry organized in the feudal way.

[Commodore]

IIrc, Persia under the Sassanids(?) was pretty successful against them using heavy cavalry organized in the feudal way.

In general heavy cavalry did well. Crusader knights (particularly Normans) have a very solid win/loss against Turkic horse archers too. A basic reason for that is the fact that heavy horses can't survive on grass. The immense chargers used by heavily armored men, that can bear that weight plus heavy barding, are highly specialized GMOs requiring grain-feeding, so they must have a settled agrarian society backing them.

[Charriu]

I do love this discussion. But unless this is an elaborate argument for any changes I would like to direct you to the offtopic section