Crazy talk from a cav lobbyist.
Riders won many battles in the open field; when one team had a serious cav advantage, they could totally dominate the other team's spawn. Pikes and archers can't do shit when there's a lance tip headed their way the second they pop up on the map.
Except for the fact that they didn't. Be honest, how many times can you recall cavalry charges actually not teamkilling half of their own guys (cav killing cav), not charging onto pikes, or not running into the invisible walls on the edge of the map?
I've seen so many failed charges. Yes, cavalry was good for shock tactics, but only if you used them extremely well and only if your enemy was bad at organization.
Although I have seen one cavalry charge with the Shogunate army attacking some other random force with cataphract geared horse archers.
The horror!
Actually I was taking greater note of the Northern Empire scrimmage which showed more footage of the actual fight. But you have to remember in Strategus 1.0 half the archers could 1 hit kill you or your horse and shoot again 1/2 second later and be able to shoot at long ranges without the arrow skewing left/right of where you aimed. To equate that to cavalry being useless now that archers have been seriously nerfed 4 times since then is misleading. Pre-January I would rather have 10 archers than any other class, now after the most recent patch I absolutely would rather have 10 cavalry in any non-siege fight than any other class, preferably lancers with shields. And if I can afford it, equip all of them with coursers or arabian warhorses and not armored horses.
I remember outfitting my clan's armies a few times pre-January and the hardest decision was how to make sure we had enough of the most expensive bows/xbows even if it meant slightly worse armor and fewer/cheaper horses. Now the key decision is how to afford enough of the mid-tier horses (no reason to waste money on the uber-expensive armored horses that are not as good as coursers and arabian warhorses) even if we need to scrimp on armor and use the cheapest arrows.
I did mention old strategus however. But you're right, archers did rule 1.0. I hope to see more cavalry (actually being useful!) and less ranged camp. Hopefully running about as a group in squads delivering multiple blows to the enemy from different sides might actually prove useful this time around.
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Also, I've actually modeled my build to be cav/inf hybrid BECAUSE of Strategus and the fact that I could never use horses (Either due to commanders saying not to until a specific time or the commander didn't buy them.).