Value of uptier Vale cavalry

[Seppyno]

Trained an army of about 200 Vale riders and these guys are bad-ass, able to flatten most armies within seconds of contact. They take some casualties, but they're relatively cheap to replace, being just 4 tiers in.

Running into an issue when transitioning them to Vale Knights though, which makes me hesitate to going for the Knights of the Gate. The uptiered knightly cavalry seem to perform considerably worse than the Vale Riders themselves. Despite having better equipment (apart from 2 less body armor) and considerably better stats.

They just get swamped in melee by reinforcements. Uselessly trying to shove away infantry within make-out distance of their ankles with 9 foot long broom-handles. They've got perfectly good swords, why not use them? I've seen dismounted knights still using their 16 blunt lances rather than swapping to sword and board.

I'd be down to field an army of Gate knights if they perform significantly better than the riders, not necessarily AS efficiently considering they're a luxury item, but definitely not less efficiently. Considering the Vale Knight actually underperforms compared to the riders, I have my doubts

For comparisons sake (ball-parking here), assuming you train from peasant, a single vale rider costs ~570 (11400 for my army), a vale knight ~2442 (488400), and a knight of the gate ~4642 (928400).

I've tried cycle charging, that still yields worse casualty ratios than just using the riders to smash the front line then mosh-pit the faces off anyone that gets close. Can I tell cav to put away the pointy sticks and use their butter-knives after the initial charge? Is it possible to make it so that lances have literally no durability, breaking either after the first couched attack or swing in melee. Or should I just give up the Knights of the Gate dream as wholly inefficient as it'd just lead to worse casualty ratios?

[Indo95]

You should make the vale knights into a different group and tell them to use sidearms after their initial charge, however I usually see them change weapons on their own. Maybe you should make combat ai smarter. I find Vale knights to be worth the upgrade.

[Montblanc]

Hmm, tried using the weapons commands like Indo suggests? I would try his suggestions first and then decide if you are better off with the initial setup of riders or if you should simply adjust your tactics to the new tier troops.

[Seppyno]

Yeah, I've tried using the Z key to make the knights switch to sidearms after finding out about it. But it doesn't seem to do anything, either in melee or out of it. Use blunt weapons works, I've seen riders put away their swords and swap to fists, doff shields works. But telling my troops to use sidearms doesn't.

It's frustrating, I want these higher tier troops to be useful, because they clearly can be, their lances are effective in initial charge; however once they're in melee they feel terrible to use because they die in droves, desperately clinging to lances when they should be using swords.

[Montblanc]

You can also use weapons orders by dispatching orders before fights. But if the mod is bugged on the core of weapons related orders then idk. Maybe try adapting how you deploy them, Cavalry with lance weapons imo usually does better than swords using ones, but that also depends on what kind of units you're up against.

[Riven]

Yeah, I've tried using the Z key to make the knights switch to sidearms after finding out about it. But it doesn't seem to do anything, either in melee or out of it. Use blunt weapons works, I've seen riders put away their swords and swap to fists, doff shields works. But telling my troops to use sidearms doesn't.

It's frustrating, I want these higher tier troops to be useful, because they clearly can be, their lances are effective in initial charge; however once they're in melee they feel terrible to use because they die in droves, desperately clinging to lances when they should be using swords.

The last iteration of the vales knights, knights of the gate, uses swords again, the only problem is that they need a lot of experience. My word is, try to keep a good balance between riders and knights, having them in 2 different groups, one for initial battle and riders for melee time, and every time a knight upgrades to knight of the gate, upgrade one rider to knight.

[Lores]

I've reached the point, where I have about a dozen Vale Knights now and the issue is still there and even on highest ai...

I tested it by separating them into an own group and having them charge infantry and they really stick to their lances... once they're unhorsed they use the sword... I tried to look through the files and also tried savegameeditor... if I knew, where this weird AI-bug is found in the files... I am assuming that it is the absurd length of the custom lances (haven't seen any other unit with comparable pokers and the banners are a bit tricky anyway (player can't couch them, can't poke from horse but on foot...poke does bashing dmg, even though there's a pointed steel-tip, etc)) combined with the AI-prompt I found in the module.ini: "Use weapon length for decision = 1" (can't remember the exact phrasing) and I think, the lance is so absurdly long, that the VK are tricked into believing it is better?... or they just have a buggy AI... but anyway, plz someone point me in the direction where to look for it, because like that it's really frustrating....

[Arya]

Trained an army of about 200 Vale riders and these guys are bad-ass, able to flatten most armies within seconds of contact. They take some casualties, but they're relatively cheap to replace, being just 4 tiers in.

Running into an issue when transitioning them to Vale Knights though, which makes me hesitate to going for the Knights of the Gate. The uptiered knightly cavalry seem to perform considerably worse than the Vale Riders themselves. Despite having better equipment (apart from 2 less body armor) and considerably better stats.

They just get swamped in melee by reinforcements. Uselessly trying to shove away infantry within make-out distance of their ankles with 9 foot long broom-handles. They've got perfectly good swords, why not use them? I've seen dismounted knights still using their 16 blunt lances rather than swapping to sword and board.

I'd be down to field an army of Gate knights if they perform significantly better than the riders, not necessarily AS efficiently considering they're a luxury item, but definitely not less efficiently. Considering the Vale Knight actually underperforms compared to the riders, I have my doubts

For comparisons sake (ball-parking here), assuming you train from peasant, a single vale rider costs ~570 (11400 for my army), a vale knight ~2442 (488400), and a knight of the gate ~4642 (928400).

I've tried cycle charging, that still yields worse casualty ratios than just using the riders to smash the front line then mosh-pit the faces off anyone that gets close. Can I tell cav to put away the pointy sticks and use their butter-knives after the initial charge? Is it possible to make it so that lances have literally no durability, breaking either after the first couched attack or swing in melee. Or should I just give up the Knights of the Gate dream as wholly inefficient as it'd just lead to worse casualty ratios?

I guess That's how am gonna cut down cost, I am gonna switch to infantry and spearmen

[Arya]

You should make the vale knights into a different group and tell them to use sidearms after their initial charge, however I usually see them change weapons on their own. Maybe you should make combat ai smarter. I find Vale knights to be worth the upgrade.

Are you using V4.1?
I have noticed weird thing with knights of different factions.
Stormland Knight use maces but those who use maces have them since the army is in field and they don't switch to Lances and vice versa for those who have lances/ Banners of House Baratheon.
Red Clock knights, I haven't seen them ever using sword in field battle !
Reach knights, Sometimes they switch, Few times I saw a knight horse slayee and as he was falling down, He switched to sword.
Vale knights also don't switch to swords.
Didn't check dragonstone or Riverland knight yet.

[King J]

You should make the vale knights into a different group and tell them to use sidearms after their initial charge, however I usually see them change weapons on their own. Maybe you should make combat ai smarter. I find Vale knights to be worth the upgrade.

Are you using V4.1?
I have noticed weird thing with knights of different factions.
Stormland Knight use maces but those who use maces have them since the army is in field and they don't switch to Lances and vice versa for those who have lances/ Banners of House Baratheon.
Red Clock knights, I haven't seen them ever using sword in field battle !
Reach knights, Sometimes they switch, Few times I saw a knight horse slayee and as he was falling down, He switched to sword.
Vale knights also don't switch to swords.
Didn't check dragonstone or Riverland knight yet.

Of course he is not using 4.1 since his post is from May 01, 2018

[Arya]

You should make the vale knights into a different group and tell them to use sidearms after their initial charge, however I usually see them change weapons on their own. Maybe you should make combat ai smarter. I find Vale knights to be worth the upgrade.

Are you using V4.1?
I have noticed weird thing with knights of different factions.
Stormland Knight use maces but those who use maces have them since the army is in field and they don't switch to Lances and vice versa for those who have lances/ Banners of House Baratheon.
Red Clock knights, I haven't seen them ever using sword in field battle !
Reach knights, Sometimes they switch, Few times I saw a knight horse slayed and as he was falling down, He switched to sword.
Vale knights also don't switch to swords.
Didn't check dragonstone or Riverland knight yet.

Of course he is not using 4.1 since his post is from May 01, 2018

Sorry, I never see date XD
but There is a strange thing in 4.1
Yesterday in a field battle I had plenty of Stormland Knights and Reach Mounted Serggents while 3-4 Reach Knights,, I issued command of Switch to Sidearm and Stormland Knights switched tho Reach Knights did not. My troops were in two types, Knights and Cavalry .