Empire Earth 2 – Heavy Cavalry Analysis

by TheGoodEvil

May 1, 2005

Unique Units Heavy Cavalry in Empire Earth 2:
A Comprehensive Analysis of Abilities and Effectiveness

Firstly, I’d like to say that the only things that can kill Epoch 1 heavy cav to any “effective” degree is light siege, though they are inaccurate against the fast moving cav not to mention cost and build time. Without an effective infantry counter to Heavy Cav there is a real problem for Epoch 1 civs.

Now we compare Epoch 1 Cav.

Spahi

Spahi, very strong, the strongest Cav in early Epochs and almost as strong as the known powerful Teutonic
knights! BUUUUT unlike the TKs (Teutonic knights) Spahi’s are uber expensive, one of the most expensive
units in the whole game. They also build faster than other Epoch 1 cav which isn’t surprising because of
the cost being so high, there had to be a balance. Since Spahi cost like 60food, 50gold, and 40tin,
there is little problem in out producing the Spahi to make up for their power.

Detailed analysis:

Spahi’s have 145 HP, 11 Att, and 34 Speed and cost an impressive 60 food, 50 gold, and 40 tin, with a build time of about 50 seconds. It has a damEpoch modifier against Light infantry and Heavy Siege (heavy siege really doesn’t matter at first but will soon). The Middle Eastern power of “Supreme Effort” gives the Turk cav unit a 6 second head start (if you use 5 citizens to build the barracks) as it takes 12 second to for every other region to build a barracks. Then you have 50 second training time, the nearest competitor to that time is Egypt with the same regional power and a unit training time of 55 seconds. You have a 5 second head start on building the most powerful unit in Epoch 1. What doesn’t happen with Spahis is the ability to keep constant unit production and still manEpoch your economy in case your rush/raid fails. Turks at a maximum can have 4 Spahis out in about 5 minutes, then the burden of the unit cost starts to take effect and you have to worry about the future. Since you can’t have many citizens collecting wood for the first 5 minutes of the game you really put yourself in a rough spot, if you can’t hurt the enemy enough with that initial Spahi push you will lose the game.

You can however take a more boom style approach to Spahis that could cost you the game or at least valuable seconds. You can build a warehouse near food (you will need more food than anything) and hope it’s near another vital starting resource, the seconds it takes to walk from a food patch to your home city could potentially cost you the game, if you take the walking element out of the game then you will have a notable increase in early food. It will also allow you to collect wood instead of adding your wood gatherers to Tin or Gold. You will have a larger force of Spahis and a better economy but a loan enemy Elephant could literally kill you before you build your first barracks. It’s a gamble but for the most powerful in mass is it worth it?

Elephants

Elephants, not very strong, the weakest unique Cav unit in the game. It has low HP and low attack buuuuuut it’s attack is ranged. the ranged attack gives the elephant a substantial advantEpoch over other early Heavy cav but it’s slower and has less attack and HP as other early Cav. at a cost of 48food, 54gold, and 29Tin it is cheaper than the spahi but still a bit costly and slow to build when compared to Spahis. What Turks and Egyptians share is the common regional power that enables faster construction which means they can get a barracks up faster to make up for the second extra of unit training time.

Detailed analysis:

Elephants have 131 HP, 9 Att, and 29 Speed with a ranged attack distance of 4 tiles and cost a decent 48 Food, 54 Gold, and 29 Tin with a build time of about 55 seconds. It has a modifier against Light Infantry and Heavy Siege. Also being from the Middle East region Egypt enjoys the same luxury as the Turks with the Supreme Effort power which give the same 6 second head start but because of the extra 5 second build time for the elephants you aren’t blessed with the same advantEpoch as the Spahi. Since the Elephant are reasonably cheaper than the Spahis it’s much easier to keep them in steady production without the tremendous blow that the additional 12 food and 11 tin that the Spahi take though you are hit by the additional 4 gold it is no where near the scale of the additional 23 resources you need to produce one unit. Elephants have the ranged attack which gives it a better advantEpoch over both Spahi and Hwarang but is it enough? No, Elephants ranged attack does not make up for the increased HP and Att of both the Spahi and Hwarang.

Elephants can be massed with ease but not enough to fight off the hordes of Hwarang and titanic Spahi that will soon be at your borders.

Hwarang

Hwarang, The middle man, Hwarang are cheap and pretty strong, the Korean bonus of more powerful attack for Heavy Cav really boost the Hwarang to a higher league than elephant’s attacks. It’s almost as strong as the spahi fewer HP and less attack make the hwarang seem weak but in actuality the Hwarang are the cheapest Heavy Cav UU! They balanced it out by making it very long to build (takes longer than any other Cav unit) but that only helps you out more. It gives you more food and time to boom which allows you to actually build more barracks and MORE HWARANGS!!!

Hwarangs are very powerful when massed and since you can mass hwarangs more cheaply than any other Unique cav it becomes a simple task to boom and train the mighty Korean underdog, the problem is if you are going against a Turk and they pull a fast Spahi rush it might have a real bad effect on the slower to train Hwarangs.

Detailed analysis:

Hwarangs Have 120 HP, 10 Att, and 34 Speed, they cost 50 Food, 45 Gold, and 20 Tin, they have about a 56 second training time with a damEpoch modifier against light infantry and Heavy Siege. Korea gets the short end of the power stick along with China and Japan. Their regional power only effects things that you can’t build soon enough to make a difference, in other words their power can in no way speed a defense or offensive build. What Korea DOES have is a very cheap and reasonably powerful Cav unit. They are a stone’s throw away from having the same attack as Spahis but fall way short on HP being out gunned by 25 HP which is HUGE but against Elephants there is in more moderation in terms of stat distribution. Elephants have only 11 more HP than Hwarangs and a smaller Att 9 for elephants vs. 10 for hwarangs, the largest differences in Elephants and Hwarangs are cost and speed. Elephants cost 2 less Food than Hwarang but 9 more Gold and 9 more Tin. This equates to having to depend on 2 less citizens than Hwarangs (when rounded to 15 which is how many resources a citizen can carry) that helps increase your boom time and also helps to gain a notable lead on upgrading Hwarangs. All other Cav depend on so much gold and food that it adds on many seconds and in some case minutes to upgrading them to veteran status, but because the Hwarangs are very cheap you can upgrade them very quickly (within about 5-7 minutes respectively) giving them a higher attack (12) than Spahis and 1 less HP than Spahis totaling the Hwarang to a bad ass unique unit.

Final thoughts

Between Spahis and Hwarangs the game boils down to skill in booming and effective micromanEpochment which is what everything should boil down to in EE2. Elephants prove themselves great raiders but low attack and relatively expensive cost leaves it out of the running in the “I’m the baddest ass unique Cav in the early Epochs race”. Hwarangs provide the best case scenario in case something backs fires because they allow you to boom very easily while still producing powerful units. Spahis Amount to ancient Epoch tanks and provide huge knock down power in rushing and raiding but it’s very hard to keep the economy stable without leaving yourself open to a devastating early raid/rush.

In the end it’s a toss up for the first 5 minutes of the game but after that Korea is the topper.