Yeah but you can't just add arbitrary negatives or you lose believability. It needs to make sense... the negative side of mounted units should be increased time and cost to train and increased maintenance cost. And of course, their inability to take on spearmen and pikemen effectively.

I agree

No offense but if you want Calvary to have a realistic role in unit design, the very first thing they have to be is NOT rare. You have to actually be able to make them when you need to, otherwise you might as well throw them into the same category as elementium equipments. There's just no way you can make them meaningful if they aren't readily available.

This is not to mention their extremely easy acquirement for heroes the moment the tech is research. Every hero should be riding one. What's the point of walking heroes? None.

Believability is nice and all, but so is ease of implementation. The whole system I suggested can be done right now with a few values in xml, without any further coding. The main work is balancing. Besides, negatives on mounts can be extremely easy to explain, say the horses/wrags in this world are very fast but difficult to control (wild mounts). A rider who needs to keep their attention on controlling their mount can't fight as effectively. Makes enough sense to me. You can go even further and add things like trained mounts with less negative, but a gold cost and training time added to represent difficulty to train and higher maintenance cost. It's a pretty flexible system.

The reason those never existed is because armor slowed the horse down, and the really good bows (longbows and the really powerful versions of crossbows) could not be used on horse back. And it is hard to aim from the back of the horse, but that might be hard to add in.

Mounted archers were effective, unless then enemy had archers that could out range them. And mounted archers were never heavily armored because the idea tactics for them were to hit and run, as they (like all archers) get decimated if then enemy melee troops get to them.

I really think that with a rule for arrow (and magic?) distance and a rule for armor to slow down as I mentioned in my previous post you would have a pretty good starting point for an effective  system.

The problem is really just with bows and armor... Heavy armor should have a larger penalty when using ranged weapons.   I don't see why it would give a penalty when on a mount since IRL knights had heavy armor even on horses.  Either that or make it so that ranged weapons forbid you to use any armor heavier than chain mail.  I don't see how anyone IRL would be able to pull back a bow and fire it in an effective way in a full suit of armor.

The Mongols had composite bows and stirrups which are essential for effective horse archers, so it's a technology thing. You could have really high end warfare techs that make mounted archers more effective.

I think archers really need a skill stat though, that controls their chance to hit. The reason archers are so powerful now is that their ranged attack is the same as a melee attack that suffers no counterattack. The chance that an archer hits even an unarmoured unit should be low to begin with and increase as they level up. This would force a player to use plenty of archers if they want ranged attacks to be effective, taking away army slots for melee units.

I think that a combination of all the suggested systems would probably work best.

The formation cohesion system I outlined above would probably be most applicable for cavalry, which relies on the heavy impact of the charge.
The CC system reflects that by making the bonus/penalty situational so the cavalry can't charge every turn.
(Note: a charge attack should have a greater impact on infantry morale than a normal attack)

If cavalry were to casually saunter up to the enemy and engage slowly, they'd give up their mass/impact advantage.
Since cavalry has those bulky horses, they do not have as many swords per square meter.  When fighting stationary, they are at a disadvantage to equally well equipped foot soldiers.
So they'd get a penalty for staying around to fight after the initial charge.
Cavalry is supposed to use their superior mobility to disengage and line up for another charge.

A flat bonus / penalty based on equipment or horse cannot model this situational penalty. The CC system can.

Cavalry should not be able to use very large shields or longbows / crossbows.
And no 2-handed melee weapons... like pikes or 2H swords. A spear or lance is one-handed.

For distinguishing infantry, flat item bonuses seem more apropriate than the CC system.
Infantry ranged units can use pavises. Medieval archers and crossbowmen had the problem of being vulnerable and not having a free hand for a shield.
So the pavise was invented. A bloody huge shield with a spike that you could set up to hide behind, having both hands free to fire / reload.
This would be a major defense bonus against ranged attacks only. It was pretty useless against melee attacks. Too bulky to use in a melee.

Pikes were a classic infantry weapon. Too unwieldy for cavalry, it gave infantry the "first strike" ability.
In game terms, the unit would execute it's counterattack first. It would lose that bonus on consecutive attacks vs a stationary unit.
Pikes were not the only weapon of the unit because it would get nasty if enemies got through the wall of pikes and into the formation.
Maybe the unit's damage would be assigned by it's normal melee weapon, like a mace.
The pike would be a "bonus item" only giving the first strike perk but not being a real, equipped weapon.
No idea if that makes sense...
This bonus item system would allow more freedom for equipping the infantry.

Hmm. Idea.
What if pikes were offhand items like shields?  (but still not allowed for cavalry)
That would solve several issues.  They would prevent the use of shields (which would look silly), making pikemen with their first strike ability vulnerable to archers.
With pikes adding no to little damage, they would more or less be "just" for the ability.

2-handed swords were a classic weapon against pikes and somewhat against mounted troops. They were used to chop off the lance heads and reach up to the riders.
These "double soldiers" (double wages were paid for this very dangerous job) did not make up whole units so it doesn't work too well with the WOM unit system.
But maybe someone finds a way...

So infantry with 2H swords would eliminate the pike bonus and have more ATK but have considerably less defense. No shield...
Infantry with sword&board would have better defense and a shield. Shields are great vs arrows...
 
With pikes being offhand items, you couldn't have the perfect infantry unit.  Either have 2H swords to be good against pikes but not so much against cavalry but lose the shield. Or use weapon and pike for the cool first strike bonus. Or sword & shield for straight melee and good defense.... finally some hard choices! =P

Oh, and please put the shield's dodge bonus on the list of "things to evaluate".
The current bonus has obviously been assigned under the assumption that "100 dodge" would mean 100 percent dodge.
But it's not.  A shield with "15 dodge" only gives a 1.5 % dodge chance, which is pretty ridiculous.
Shields should also get some extra bonus (however small) against ranged attacks.

Also, shields should make up a much bigger share of the unit's current defense value.
Using a shield should give a serious benefit for giving up the more powerful attack of a 2H weapon - or giving up the first strike bonus from an offhand pike.
Right now shields are about on par with one generic armor piece.  That's wrong because it doesn't create much of a choice.

I'd like all military tech trees to be extended to bonus ability techs like those above.     This thread has some probable items for ranged tech.

Right now, you research one tech and you know everything you'd ever want to know about archery.
That's not right.  It creates no choices when everyone has the exact same military options.

The military tech tree needs to have multiple branches for many small boni.  You should not be able to simply research everything in every branch.
There should be incentive to specialise maybe in bows, neglecting the sword and crossbow trees.

You would get strong archers and be able to equip them with pavises but would have to adjust your tactics to avoid melee combat if at all possible.

The swords alone should not be the end of research. It's not the size of the tool. It's how you use it. =P

Spears wouldn't help that much.  Pikes, however, would achieve that by letting the infantry attack or counterattack first.
The cavalry should be weakened by that so that's a form of defense right there.
Pikes did not really help defending the unit They scared off / harmed / killed the enemy first so there would be less enemy left to defend against.

Well, Gwenio is right about Longbows and heavy crossbows. The size of the weapon prevent you to use it effectively from the back of the horse.

Basically, It is hard to aim from the back of the horse, but still possible for some veteran warriors to master it. the problem is that it require a lot of time to practice. The reason of the Mongol excel in horse archery is because they live with the horses since their early life, and horse archery is the most basic requirement for a steppe hunter to kill their prey. But of course, the reason of they were lightly armored was because of the economic reason.

the Manchuria, the more modern Nomads from the northern China had Heavy Cavalry. They were excel in using bow on the back of a horse while using the heavy armor suit. the Japanese Samurai were also excel in using the bow on the back of a horse, even with heavily armored suit. the problem is that they need lifetime training method. Every Samurai started their horseback archery training from his earliest day.

the problem of the ancient warfare method is that because everything of it based on the state tradition & live Style. The Mongol could produce a lot of horse archers because there are abundant horses on their region. Their lifestyle force the people to practice Horse Archery from their earliest day. While their opponent, the Song Dinasty of China were lack of Horses, and the people were only peaceful Peasant who know only how to plow the farm. That's why they had more Infantry than cavalry, and the government always look for the most easiest weapon and armor for the untrained peasant to handle; the Crossbow.

Maybe you could add "Culture" tech to the future Elemental, where you can research the life style and tradition for your young civilization. That way, the player can choose their own lifestyle, such as Feodalism, where the society is ruled by nobles, or aristocracy (like the ancient China Dinasty) where even the poorest peasant can become an officer, or life like Nomads, or anything. Every lifestyle has their own strength and weakness, but once you have choose your lifestyle, you won't be able to turn back and change. Tradition and lifestyle is not something that can be changed easily.

Did this happen with the v1.09 release?