Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Byzantine Productions Pike and Shot is a deep strategy game set during the bloody conflict of the Thirty Years War.

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Fodderland
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Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Fodderland »

Consider, if you will..the case of a newbie who's failed to purchase sufficient light horse and is confronted in an open area by a large force of missile-light-horse.
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Being a glutton for punishment, I kept a game-save and tried a few different things, so far without success. My horse could tear them up in close-combat, but they just evade forever; eventually scattering my pursuers, isolating and killing them; there's too many (so far) to send a force around their back to "catch" the evaders and hammer them; and if I stay back in line, they peck away and do "death by 1K cuts". Is there an effective way to deal with this situation, or is it just "don't get yourself in this situation"? (for all the posts of "what good are light/missile horse, here it is)
Fodderland
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Fodderland »

Worth adding - above the top/right zone, he's got 8 gendarmes waiting to join the fray.
AlexDetrojan
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by AlexDetrojan »

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Last edited by AlexDetrojan on Fri May 07, 2021 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SnuggleBunnies
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by SnuggleBunnies »

You're probably screwed. However, given that the light horse are bunched together, you might be able to charge, pursuit-charge, and then catch previous evaders. However, in general the solution to a situation like this is to not get in a situation like this. You'd want either a small number of your own light cavalry in support to threaten catches, or 3-5 infantry units replacing some of your cavalry to just shoot them down. Late Pike and Shot would do very well. Light Foot/Dragoons might get caught out. Massed Musketeers do suffer -100 Impact POA vs cavalry in the Open due to being Unprotected Foot, though with so much of your cavalry around I suppose you could just tank a charge and then counter charge with your heavies.
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Athos1660
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Athos1660 »

Speaking of the situation, the pic in OP shows you were playing a Defend scenario. I guess you are aware that, in such a scenario, the defender behind field fortifications is disadvantaged in strength of forces which makes it tougher. You certainly also know that you can modify Force points for both teams in the Advanced Options of the Skirmish panel to increase or decrease your opponent's point advantage, so it/he'll able to 'buy' more or fewer Light Horses. This is a way to fine-tune the difficulty level of such a situation depending on your skills, the army lists...
Fodderland
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Fodderland »

This was a defend battle, within a Campaign; I was outnumbered 28K to 10K - I had light fortifications to dig my pike/shots and muskets behind. They had something like 1.5x as many Keils, as I had P/Ss, in the Center. You've seen the right flank; the left flank had forest and 5-6 of their crossbows vs 3 of my dragoons and 2 horse.

I tried pulling a P/S off the Center and putting him high on the Right; that seemed like a good idea, but I think I had some really bad diceroll/luck, he got Disrupted in 2 turns, just based on swarms of "missile" shots and Frag'd and routed after 3. The Left, his crossbows outdid my dragoons, and my 2 horse were mostly wasted there. The Center held for a while, but eventually collapsed under so many Keils.

Tried the P/S on the Right one more time, didn't have much better luck, so then tried bringing the 3 dragoons over from the Left and just ceding the Left to his crossbows; and that turned out to be something the AI "broke rank" over - instead of sitting back and missile-ing me to death, he charged the dragoons on the Line; the first two times the dragoons retreated and when I tried to counterattack his LightHorses who charged, they just retreated and stretched me out. But the third time, my dragoon held its ground and didn't retreat; then on my turn I was able to counter-melee and frag/break that one LH; which in turn led to an awesomely lucky charge/frag cascade and in a few turns I was able to trash most of his LH's, and even the gendarmes that tried to come help.

Sadly, my center still collapsed under all the Keils and I lost the battle, but, I did bleed him a lot more than I thought I might.
Athos1660
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Athos1660 »

In this battle, from OP's text and pic, there seemed to be:
- French gendarmes, Keils, LH, crossbowmen
- Dutch determined horses, Dragoons, Late P&S, Massed Musketeers

May I ask which these Armies are ? Dutch from Le roi Soleil vs French from the Italian Wars ?
Fodderland
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Fodderland »

Sure :) I was the Dutch, playing a Campaign with army-filter OFF, auto-army-select OFF, vs the French. I'm still learning the game, and so far my favorite army to play has been Poland; where I found I had great success with their Winged Hussars and other cav units, vs any opponent's "horse" units they came across - so this game I was picking someone who had just the "horse" based cav force - and went with the Dutch. My Poles had well-handled Ottoman cav - so I hadn't really thought about "light horse" - boy was I missing it. My Dutch select-list had plenty of "horse", and dragoons, but no actual light-horse. So I had a great horse force, and they did well at first against the French gendarmes and various inf units - but then the French force added a bunch of light horse, and thus this post. Fun stuff - and very educational.
Athos1660
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Athos1660 »

When first playing the Italian Wars, I for one was surprised by how much those armies (especially the French) relied so much on Lights and by the relative weakness of their Gendarmes (vs infantry). Surprised and a bit disappointed I must admit. That's the fault of the 'legend' of chevalier Bayard I was taught in primary school, I guess :D
Fodderland
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Fodderland »

You might get a chuckle out of this - currently playing a Campaign, Spain vs France - and sure enough, it's late in the Campaign and France has been amassing those lights again - my 4 gendarmes are looking mighty lonely out there...like a kid who just sat in a red (blue?) ant hill.
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Fodderland
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Re: Of mice and men. Or LightHorse vs Horse

Post by Fodderland »

Tempted to rename that top-right Gendarme (Gen-dis-armed?) "George Armstrong":
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