How to deal with cavalry (both for & against)

[SuitedQueens]

Ok, what I would recommend you to do is to change the entire mindset around cavalry. First figure out the role in the army they are intend to fill in.

1) Striking force in the force concetration point - requires support of the ranged units and throwaway units used for Zoning and Blocking Fallbacks. Furthermore need to have a nice targets like Mediums without Terrain or Average Quality or below Heavies with bad Impact protection against your Superior Cavalry. Dont dream about some wide flanking maneuveres since those are very easily prevented or ignored since take tons of time to execute. Prophylaxis means not reacting to opponent non-existing threat and then spend minimal resources to counter it swiftly.

2) Pinning unit in the delay concetration point - requires same type of support as number 1, but light horses even more important. As Zoners use throwaway units like cheap Medium Infantry. Skirmishers mainly to provoce charges and temporarily block cav fallbacks. They shoot only at the opponent cavalry and try to tie up opponent skirmishers. The idea is to win time for your striking force in the other place. With the modern ZoC rules cavalry can charge past Red ZoC to hit target opponent if you within his 45 degree facing arc, so this fact enables more options for delaying.

3) Kiting unit in the 2nd weakness concetration point. The main idea behind creating 2nd threat in another part of the opponent line is to pin him indirectly. He won't be able to move freely with constant flanking threats hanging. This usually achieved by splitting your army in 2 or more groups. As with accordance with 1) your cavalry exclusive subgroup wont pose much threat since can be essily delayed or zoned out, so have to support it at the very least via skirmishers and 1 light horse. If opponent pushes into you can always retreat + he likely cant due to his line being already overstreched.

4) Reserve concetrated in local or global points. Due to high cav mobility you can always threaten to throw them in any place along the line if they are not commited already i.e. still in the reserve. They are not the best units to gang up 2 v 1 on pushed back or pushed into your line troops. They certainly become superb 2 v 1 once such unit is Disrupted or Medium foot type that receives -1 CT on lost vs cavalry. Excel at presenting Enveloping threats when commited to one of the wings, but only if opponent doesnt have local reserves of his own. Not the best unit to fill out the gaps for extending your line since its the waste of points to keep them away from action without threatening something immidiate.

5) Best units beside Light Horses to take away ZOCs temporarily in order for your forces to advance into opponent flanking positions or in the rear or change his facing tactically. Always threaten charge throughs on Fragmented units to end up in their rear. Therefore they best used in combined forces with various skirmishers to beat opponent skirmishers and break defensive formation on the hills. Skirmishers + Cav + at least 1 light horse is the minimal threatening force that can't be ignored. Add Zoning units like cheaper Med or Heavy infantry to eliminate all their weaknesses.

Having more cavalry in the army = more flexibility for tactics and strategy. One of the major tactics that becomes available is splitting your army and hit&runs. Invaluable in taking on hill campers and decisevely beating opponent skirmishers. Without Cavalry your skirmishers will be bogged down against opponent skirmishers or can't even win decisevely, which gonna lead to trading too much ammo and time, and reduced damage due to battered Effective Unit sizes used for calculating damage.

[jogibbs12]

Those are all good points, suited. I don't think about strategy at that level of granularity yet. Although I've figured out a style that works for horse archers, I've gotten worse at infantry / mixed infantry-cav armies.

I'm now banging my head against the Arab Conquest campaigns, which seems surprisingly hard. I'm outnumbered all the time, my cav sucks, and my infantry is good but expensive (so outnumbered there too). I lack archery (skirmisher or horse) so delay is not to my advantage. While charging isn't either, because my opponents holds back their infantry (my advantage point), so charging just gets me over-extended.

I don't know how to split my army yet, like you say, since I don't know what's the minimum number of units I need to beat a small squad of opponents. If I split my army, I usually lose in multiple spots. My previous strategy is just to pile on in one spot and overwhelm them with numbers there, while trying to delay everywhere else, which often works but seems hard to pull off in the Arab Conquest campaign. I'm not sure yet if it's because I'm regressing or because it presents a different type of challenge.

[SuitedQueens]

I'm now banging my head against the Arab Conquest campaigns, which seems surprisingly hard. I'm outnumbered all the time, my cav sucks, and my infantry is good but expensive (so outnumbered there too). I lack archery (skirmisher or horse) so delay is not to my advantage. While charging isn't either, because my opponents holds back their infantry (my advantage point), so charging just gets me over-extended.

I don't know how to split my army yet, like you say, since I don't know what's the minimum number of units I need to beat a small squad of opponents. If I split my army, I usually lose in multiple spots. My previous strategy is just to pile on in one spot and overwhelm them with numbers there, while trying to delay everywhere else, which often works but seems hard to pull off in the Arab Conquest campaign. I'm not sure yet if it's because I'm regressing or because it presents a different type of challenge.

So, the strategies I described work for the mostly equal forces found in the Multiplayer games. For the AI and specific scenarios you have to adjust. When you play against superior numbers (higher difficulties) and/or superior Quality (Deity or some match ups) you can't fight in the open. Usually weak squares that cause you to lose fights are 45 degree 2-for-1 squares and 90 degree flanking squares. In the above situation the squares directly in front of you is weak as well i.e. you can't fight 1v1 on the equal terms.

The idea to beat those armies is to exploit the AI strategical weakness. But before that we have to figure out how to cover tactical ones first. You HAVE to cover weak squares via terrain or sit in the terrain. If you can't afford spare sacrificial units for delaying which is likely your case you simply turn around and retreat. If there is no terrain (Steppes maybe) you have to grab the map edge to cover thise squares in cheezy way like that. Not that you should you use the best Quality and esp. limited armoured units for spots where you will have 2 weak squares (front and 1 45 degree square).

Most of the time extreme strategical delaying achieved by splitting your army in many small groups and occuppying forests and rough terrain on the top of the hills. AI wont be able to counter you by splitting his armies and will likely pile up on one of the groups with reduced frontage which in turn creates traffic jams. Your mobile (cav + skirmishers) and other split groups will create huge numerical advantage and encelopment threats.