Achieving Class Balance in Fire Emblem

[rdrouyn]

1 hour ago, Skyteppelin said:

One thing I find interesting in these kind of conversations is the focus on armor knights as a player unit. I agree that it would be nice to make better for the players sake, and think that engage made some interesting headway in this regard. Sharing the move stat of other foot units and generally just the move difference being not as big. As well as making them immune to breaks from triangle disadvantage. Another thing that could be interesting is also make them not take damage from pair up attacks and make the exclusive to them cause that would give them a unique aspect to there tanking that other none armor night tanky units don't have. But all this being said like I said before armor knights feel they are designed as much more of a enemy focused unit.

They are often early game bosses or early game chock point blockers that basically force the deployment of mages to varying degrees depending on the game. Or the need to bring someone with armor killer wep to break through them. And they basically keep this role through out the whole game unless outside of like really absurd damage units. They feel like they are in the games to be enemy's cause players are often the ones who have to push forward and break through them so there weakness of having low move don't really matter and are also something the player can play around when pushing forward. This is also why in some ways buffing them for the players is harder cause you are going to make the enemy ones even more dangerous. 

Although in modern FE especially we can use personal skills to kind of get aorund this among other things.   

Yeah, I agree. That's why I'm kind of iffy on giving Armor Knights the Benny treatment. It would make them really obnoxious enemies. Having them have a really obvious weakness to magic is a fallback option for the player if they run out of slayer weapons. 

[Shadow Mir]

On 2/28/2023 at 4:32 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Edward can boost his Avoid by supporting with Nolan, basically from the moment supports unlock. They can very realistically be at A-rank by the time III-6 rolls around. Caladbolg's Luck bonus boosts his Avoid further.

Mind you, Zihark's higher starting Speed and innate Earth affinity make him more gifted on this front. But Edward is no sluch, either. He's arguably more survivable than Aran, who gets doubled by Cats (and sometimes Tigers).

I'ma be honest, I find Edward unrewarding to work with, only frustrating. He starts struggling rather quickly, and he can't even dominate the enemies he's supposed to have a good matchup against. It's gotten to the point where I can't help but think swordmasters' reputation in Radiant Dawn is more riding on the coattails of Mia and Zihark being great than them being a legitimately good class in that game.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[rdrouyn]

22 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'ma be honest, I find Edward unrewarding to work with, only frustrating. He starts struggling rather quickly, and he can't even dominate the enemies he's supposed to have a good matchup against. It's gotten to the point where I can't help but think swordmasters' reputation in Radiant Dawn is more riding on the coattails of Mia and Zihark being great than them being a legitimately good class in that game.

I'm really surprised that you feel that way. Looking objectively at him as a unit, he is pretty good. 60 strength, speed, and skill growth is nice. His bases are good too. His only weak point is his low defense and res, and the fact that Zihark joins as a pre-promote five chapters after his join. But if you use him regularly, he'll be fine. About the time he starts falling off, the game gives him a personal weapon. There's not that many Dawn Brigaders worth leveling up, so you might as well use him.  

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, rdrouyn said:

I'm really surprised that you feel that way. Looking objectively at him as a unit, he is pretty good. 60 strength, speed, and skill growth is nice. His bases are good too. His only weak point is his low defense and res, and the fact that Zihark joins as a pre-promote five chapters after his join. But if you use him regularly, he'll be fine. About the time he starts falling off, the game gives him a personal weapon. There's not that many Dawn Brigaders worth leveling up, so you might as well use him.  

At the same time, this is the same game where literally anyone is a defeat condition in the first few chapters. With that in mind, guess who I have to worry about most? Edward, aka the evasively challenged myrmidon (ffs, he struggles to dodge axe users consistently. That's no good when you're always eating counters!). At least Leonardo doesn't need to put himself on the chopping block to get damage on enemy units (sure, wind edges exist, but they're not very accurate). And honestly, it gets worse for Edward before it gets better. Then part 3 comes along, and Edward is likely to dig his own grave. Funny thing is, the localization tried to make him better, and they failed miserably.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[rdrouyn]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

At the same time, this is the same game where literally anyone is a defeat condition in the first few chapters. With that in mind, guess who I have to worry about most? Edward, aka the evasively challenged myrmidon (ffs, he struggles to dodge axe users consistently. That's no good when you're always eating counters!). At least Leonardo doesn't need to put himself on the chopping block to get damage on enemy units (sure, wind edges exist, but they're not very accurate). And honestly, it gets worse for Edward before it gets better. Then part 3 comes along, and Edward is likely to dig his own grave. Funny thing is, the localization tried to make him better, and they STILL fucked it up.

Yeah, Myrmidons in general aren't for the faint of heart in Radiant Dawn. I'll agree with you there. Enemies are way too plentiful to be counting on dodge tanking. 

[samthedigital]

On 2/26/2023 at 4:30 PM, rdrouyn said:

Class Balance in Fire Emblem - Is it achievable? Is it a worthy goal?

I would say yes to both, but it would depend on the implementation. You mentioned that movement was the biggest reason that there is a disparity between classes, and that's what makes it difficult to balance while still giving the player a lot of options to tackle any given situation. To make a general worth using they need to be able to get to a specified location, and to make it fun (at least subjectively speaking) it can't be painful to get them there Then there's the fact that the player might not have a general left in their army because of permadeath, and that adds another layer of complexity to the problem if we wanted to create maps that are intricate enough to require specific unit types.

I find that Thracia and to some extent FE6 did a good job with class balance. Thracia has the mount/dismount mechanic, warp, actual defend maps, etc that shifts the balance at least a little. I'm not going to pretend that FE6 is balanced, but it does give the player some incentive to use a variety of weapon types and to find ways of bringing unmounted units to the front lines.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, rdrouyn said:

Yeah, Myrmidons in general aren't for the faint of heart in Radiant Dawn. I'll agree with you there. Enemies are way too plentiful to be counting on dodge tanking. 

I'd say it's more Edward himself than myrmidons in general. I don't have any issues with Mia or Zihark being as much of a pain to work with...

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/3/2023 at 6:56 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I'ma be honest, I find Edward unrewarding to work with, only frustrating. He starts struggling rather quickly, and he can't even dominate the enemies he's supposed to have a good matchup against. It's gotten to the point where I can't help but think swordmasters' reputation in Radiant Dawn is more riding on the coattails of Mia and Zihark being great than them being a legitimately good class in that game.

Well then, we should also consider enemy Swordmasters. I'd say they're tricky to deal with. Almost none of your units can double them, and there are no "effective weaponry" options to use against them. Plus, if you try to fight them up close, you're putting yourself at serious risk of being crit. So, I'd say they're among the more difficult enemy types to deal with.

6 hours ago, rdrouyn said:

I'm really surprised that you feel that way. Looking objectively at him as a unit, he is pretty good. 60 strength, speed, and skill growth is nice. His bases are good too. His only weak point is his low defense and res, and the fact that Zihark joins as a pre-promote five chapters after his join. But if you use him regularly, he'll be fine. About the time he starts falling off, the game gives him a personal weapon. There's not that many Dawn Brigaders worth leveling up, so you might as well use him.  

This is generally the case on Normal Mode. On Hard Mode, though, EXP gain is kneecapped - as is the amount of BEXP you get. Radiant Dawn Is probably the toughest game in the series for "growth units", especially on its highest difficulty. Even in that context, I think Edward can be made to work. But in terms of "warrants investment", he's definitely behind Nolan and Jill. And he'll never surpass Zihark, although it's not as though you can't use them both for some length of time.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I feel class character balance doesn't need to be perfect, but it's nice when some classes don't just feel straight-up bad. Fliers are probably always going to be good because they're balanced around bad players not paying attention to enemy archers, but in the hands of experienced players enemy archers are not difficult to plan around (and fliers can in fact often counter them, used correctly... thinking of how often they're my answer to ballista users in particular).

Engage seemed like it fixed armours but it only lasted until everyone started promoting (which unfortunately is earlier, relatively, in Engage than almost any other FE). They at first felt like a very valid option: no chain attacks that Backups had, but they're tanky and at least they have no less move. Then promotion comes along and everyone else gets move and they... don't. And Great Knight comes along with comparable stats but +2 move? C'mon.

Archers have been historically problematic but have had a decent run in recent games, so I feel like the problem is mostly fixed these days.

 

EDIT: Also since it's still being discussed in 2023: Edward is bad. Two-hit killed by almost everything as a frontliner. DB maps reward tanky units and ranged attackers, Edward is neither.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[rdrouyn]

36 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I feel class character balance doesn't need to be perfect, but it's nice when some classes don't just feel straight-up bad. Fliers are probably always going to be good because they're balanced around bad players not paying attention to enemy archers, but in the hands of experienced players enemy archers are not difficult to plan around (and fliers can in fact often counter them, used correctly... thinking of how often they're my answer to ballista users in particular).

Engage seemed like it fixed armours but it only lasted until everyone started promoting (which unfortunately is earlier, relatively, in Engage than almost any other FE). They were from feeling like a valid option: no chain attacks that Backups had, but they're tanky and at least they have no less move. Then promotion comes along and everyone else gets move and they... don't. And Great Knight comes along with comparable stats but +2 move? C'mon.

Archers have been historically problematic but have had a decent run in recent games, so I feel like the problem is mostly fixed these days.

 

EDIT: Also since it's still being discussed in 2023: Edward is bad. Two-hit killed by almost everything as a frontliner. DB maps reward tanky units and ranged attackers, Edward is neither.

 

I mean there's Leonardo/Meg bad, and there's Edward bad. Different levels of badness. Not everyone cares about LTCing games. And I only advocate using him if he has good level ups. And I'm not advocating using him in the Tower or anything like that. He's fine as a filler unit. 

That's about 5 caveats for him, so yeah he isn't too great. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by rdrouyn

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Engage seemed like it fixed armours but it only lasted until everyone started promoting (which unfortunately is earlier, relatively, in Engage than almost any other FE). They at first felt like a very valid option: no chain attacks that Backups had, but they're tanky and at least they have no less move. Then promotion comes along and everyone else gets move and they... don't. And Great Knight comes along with comparable stats but +2 move? C'mon.

iono; I'd probably consider the ability to not be broken in combat more meaningful. Or at least something that makes it not as one-sided as it was in the past.

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

EDIT: Also since it's still being discussed in 2023: Edward is bad. Two-hit killed by almost everything as a frontliner. DB maps reward tanky units and ranged attackers, Edward is neither.

Edward was even worse in the Japanese version, as Caladbolg didn't exist, and he had a lower base level. Which means that the localization tried (and sadly, failed) to make him better.

[Dark Holy Elf]

12 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

iono; I'd probably consider the ability to not be broken in combat more meaningful. Or at least something that makes it not as one-sided as it was in the past.

I personally did not find "can't be broken" to be very important especially after promotion when most physical units could wield two weapon types (sometimes even more via Engage) and thus choose one to avoid break in most circumstances. Even in rare cases where I was getting broken, it's not the end of the world, you just miss out on counterattacks. In fact, I occasionally let it happen on purpose because the AI seemed to sometimes prioritize getting a break over attacking someone they could deal more damage to; exploiting this has applications of protecting squishy units, though obviously I used it as a bit of a last resort because I don't like trusting the AI.

Don't get me wrong, break immunity is better than nothing, but it's absolutely not worth being stuck at 4 move when everyone else has 5-6. It's also not worth the loss of Backup, for instance. So the comparison between General and other promoted classes is pretty dismal, IMO. Maybe it's less one-sided than some past games but it's still pretty bad.

[Alastor15243]

Personally I think Sigurd really saves armor knights in Engage, even if eventually even that makes them better served promoting to great knight. Sigurd really benefits from being given to someone with a lot of attack power and who doesn't particularly pay much heed to the consequences of moving drastically ahead of the pack, and Louis fits that bill perfectly. Eventually though, immunity to breaking just frankly isn't that impressive in a game where daggers are as broken as they are and anyone can be made into a terrifying tank if you give them Ike. My wolf knight Kagetsu has enemy phase performance that frankly makes Louis blush, but honestly Louis is still a valued and badass member of my team thanks to just how much he synergizes with Sigurd, especially as a great knight. Though I suppose that last bit is a point against armor knights, not for them.

I'm still playing through Maddening though, so I don't know if that'll make my impression of armor knights better or worse.

My personal opinion on how to balance armor knights has generally evolved over the years to "more rear reinforcements, and don't give armors any weaknesses that cause other classes to radically outperform them in combat". Have armor knights, hands down, be the guys you pick not to go to the enemy, but to fight the enemies that come to you. The keystone of your rear lines.

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/5/2023 at 8:39 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I personally did not find "can't be broken" to be very important especially after promotion when most physical units could wield two weapon types (sometimes even more via Engage) and thus choose one to avoid break in most circumstances. Even in rare cases where I was getting broken, it's not the end of the world, you just miss out on counterattacks. In fact, I occasionally let it happen on purpose because the AI seemed to sometimes prioritize getting a break over attacking someone they could deal more damage to; exploiting this has applications of protecting squishy units, though obviously I used it as a bit of a last resort because I don't like trusting the AI.

Don't get me wrong, break immunity is better than nothing, but it's absolutely not worth being stuck at 4 move when everyone else has 5-6. It's also not worth the loss of Backup, for instance. So the comparison between General and other promoted classes is pretty dismal, IMO. Maybe it's less one-sided than some past games but it's still pretty bad.

Being broken sucks - when I generally want to damage whatever I lure in on Enemy Phase, having the enemy get free damage not just in that combat (unless the attacker happened to be using a smash weapon, which forces them to attack last if they initiate) but for the next attacker to attack that unit is no bueno. Anyways, I haven't the foggiest how the AI works - they don't seem to prioritize breaks, given that on chapter 8, a lance flier had a choice between breaking Alear and attacking Amber, who would do over half their LP in damage on the counter... and did NOT choose the former.

On 3/4/2023 at 9:24 PM, samthedigital said:

I find that Thracia and to some extent FE6 did a good job with class balance. Thracia has the mount/dismount mechanic, warp, actual defend maps, etc that shifts the balance at least a little. I'm not going to pretend that FE6 is balanced, but it does give the player some incentive to use a variety of weapon types and to find ways of bringing unmounted units to the front lines.

I would disagree on Binding Blade - knights and foot axes are at a really big low, whereas mounts are great because the maps are big. Long story short, despite having some great foot units, it's the biggest Horse Emblem title short of Holy War.

[samthedigital]

40 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would disagree on Binding Blade - knights and foot axes are at a really big low, whereas mounts are great because the maps are big. Long story short, despite having some great foot units, it's the biggest Horse Emblem title short of Holy War.

I've made the comparison before, but the short of it is that the four games that follow it have more of a focus on mounted units and 1-2 range weapons; bringing an unmounted unit along to kill a boss and using a bow or sword is of far greater importance in FE6. You've mentioned Genealogy, so I don't need to get into that one. There's a bit of a shift when the games became more player phase focused in terms of weaponry, but mounted units haven't really gotten any worse as time has gone on either. Being mounted is just as strong in 3H or Engage as it has ever been.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I've made the comparison before, but the short of it is that the four games that follow it have more of a focus on mounted units and 1-2 range weapons; bringing an unmounted unit along to kill a boss and using a bow or sword is of far greater importance in FE6. You've mentioned Genealogy, so I don't need to get into that one. There's a bit of a shift when the games became more player phase focused in terms of weaponry, but mounted units haven't really gotten any worse as time has gone on either. Being mounted is just as strong in 3H or Engage as it has ever been.

And yet the best bow unit in Binding Blade is a mounted unit. Also, you said in your earlier comment about finding ways to bring unmounted units to the frontlines. Do I really need to spell out that that just puts even more importance on mounted units???

On Engage and mounted units: It's hard to say for sure since the game is so new, but most of the better classes I see mentioned in Engage are foot classes, with the only mounted contender being Wyvern Knight.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

And yet the best bow unit in Binding Blade is a mounted unit.

Igrene, Klein, and Bartre all have bow utility that is worthwhile. Besides Rath (who is decidedly less useful than what FE6 has to offer) you won't find much in the way of bow utility in GBA FE or FE9.

Quote

Also, you said in your earlier comment about finding ways to bring unmounted units to the frontlines. Do I really need to spell out that that just puts even more importance on mounted units???

Mounted units would objectively be even more important if they also filled all of the combat roles. That's the case in FE9, and it's still mostly true in the other GBA titles.

Quote

On Engage and mounted units: It's hard to say for sure since the game is so new, but most of the better classes I see mentioned in Engage are foot classes, with the only mounted contender being Wyvern Knight.

What foot locked classes are you referring to specifically? Warrior is pretty good because of bow access and the strength, but besides that a lot of the best classes are on wings. Wyvern as mentioned, Hortensia and Ivy's personal classes are great (Hortensia will remain as good as advertised as the game progresses unless DLC gives us something new; there is no better warper in a game that has 5 unit warps), Mage Knight, and Griffin Knight are all great classes for various reasons. There are some decent foot-locked classes that I did not mention to be sure, but unless there's a specific ability or weapon that someone needs they generally prefer to be on wings.

Edited March 7, 2023 by samthedigital

[Dark Holy Elf]

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Being broken sucks - when I generally want to damage whatever I lure in on Enemy Phase, having the enemy get free damage not just in that combat (unless the attacker happened to be using a smash weapon, which forces them to attack last if they initiate) but for the next attacker to attack that unit is no bueno.

If your goal is to counter, then choose a weapon which won't get you broken. Knives and tomes almost never get broken (I can count on one hand the number of times I got broken by an enemy fist-user in Maddening, since most enemies equipped with fists are staff-users first and foremost), and most promoted classes have two weapons to avoid break (the main exceptions are largely not popular classes, except halberdier, which is not an enemy phase class).

Again, to be clear, I think armour knight (the unpromoted class) is solid. In the earlygame most classes only have one weapon, and there's only one knife user until the very tail end of part 1, so being broken is more of a concern. Once you're fielding a promoted team, though, General's niche of unbreakability just falls off hard, because there are lots of other ways to avoid being broken and everyone has +1 move on General.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

On Engage and mounted units: It's hard to say for sure since the game is so new, but most of the better classes I see mentioned in Engage are foot classes, with the only mounted contender being Wyvern Knight.

Wyvern Knight, Griffin Knight, Wolf Knight, Mage Knight, and the personal classes of Ivy/Hortensia are all getting plenty of positive attention. I've definitely seen some fans of Great Knight, too.

I do agree that Engage does a better job of balancing infantry classes against their mounted competition than previous games, though, since there are certainly several good infantry classes too.

[Skyteppelin]

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Being broken sucks - when I generally want to damage whatever I lure in on Enemy Phase, having the enemy get free damage not just in that combat (unless the attacker happened to be using a smash weapon, which forces them to attack last if they initiate) but for the next attacker to attack that unit is no bueno. Anyways, I haven't the foggiest how the AI works - they don't seem to prioritize breaks, given that on chapter 8, a lance flier had a choice between breaking Alear and attacking Amber, who would do over half their LP in damage on the counter... and did NOT choose the former.

I would disagree on Binding Blade - knights and foot axes are at a really big low, whereas mounts are great because the maps are big. Long story short, despite having some great foot units, it's the biggest Horse Emblem title short of Holy War.

For horse emblem I think your forgetting 8 hah that's def more horse emblem then 6 is same with 7 really. Although really the games where foot units can keep up generally tends to be the Player phase focused games cause that often requires you to be using all your units and when you have foot unit that really stands out like say Rutger or Ogma in FE3 book 1 then there viability suddenly feels like it shots through the roof. (id also say units like Lapis and Kagetsu but id get shot for that cause swordmaster bad for some reason.)  

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Skyteppelin said:

For horse emblem I think your forgetting 8 hah that's def more horse emblem then 6 is same with 7 really. Although really the games where foot units can keep up generally tends to be the Player phase focused games cause that often requires you to be using all your units and when you have foot unit that really stands out like say Rutger or Ogma in FE3 book 1 then there viability suddenly feels like it shots through the roof. (id also say units like Lapis and Kagetsu but id get shot for that cause swordmaster bad for some reason.)  

I'd say Binding Blade is more favorable to mounts than either Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones all because it has bigger maps than the other two. Big maps are inherently favorable to mounted units. Mystery had dismounting, meaning paladins and fliers took a sizable hit on indoor maps, which were most of the endgame of book 2 in particular.

[Skyteppelin]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd say Binding Blade is more favorable to mounts than either Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones all because it has bigger maps than the other two. Big maps are inherently favorable to mounted units. Mystery had dismounting, meaning paladins and fliers took a sizable hit on indoor maps, which were most of the endgame of book 2 in particular.

Sure but enemy Strength in BB hurt them cause they couldn't just storm ahead of everyone as easily so they get rained in a bit. While something Like blazing blade also had big maps but mounts could storm ahead. Also yea I wasn't saying mystery was more horse favored just that it had good foot units.

[Shadow Mir]

58 minutes ago, Skyteppelin said:

Sure but enemy Strength in BB hurt them cause they couldn't just storm ahead of everyone as easily so they get rained in a bit. While something Like blazing blade also had big maps but mounts could storm ahead. Also yea I wasn't saying mystery was more horse favored just that it had good foot units.

Does it now? Because weapon accuracy is lower overall in Binding Blade compared to other games. It still sounds more favorable for cavalry compared to something like Radiant Dawn, where enemies are actually threatening. Also, Mystery does have good foot units, yes, but that game as a whole is not as favorable to mounts because they're forced to dismount on indoors maps (and those that mostly take place indoors as well). You couldn't get away with sticking a javelin user in the middle of a bunch of enemies and expect them to kill everything there, either, because javelins have 20 weight, which means they can't double ever. Gradivus isn't a solution to that either, because of  dismounting forcing the main classes that use lances to use swords (which leaves knights and generals as the only classes that can use it then). And that's ignoring the fact that you don't even get it until late in both books... and most of the few maps you get to use it for are indoors.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/6/2023 at 1:55 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I would disagree on Binding Blade - knights and foot axes are at a really big low, whereas mounts are great because the maps are big. Long story short, despite having some great foot units, it's the biggest Horse Emblem title short of Holy War.

Really curious - what infantry units in FEs 7, 8, or 9 give a comparable performance to FE6HM Rutger? And why wouldn't a game with super-Canto, such as FE9, be considered more of a "Horse Emblem"?

[Skyteppelin]

24 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Does it now? Because weapon accuracy is lower overall in Binding Blade compared to other games. It still sounds more favorable for cavalry compared to something like Radiant Dawn, where enemies are actually threatening. Also, Mystery does have good foot units, yes, but that game as a whole is not as favorable to mounts because they're forced to dismount on indoors maps (and those that mostly take place indoors as well). You couldn't get away with sticking a javelin user in the middle of a bunch of enemies and expect them to kill everything there, either, because javelins have 20 weight, which means they can't double ever. Gradivus isn't a solution to that either, because of  dismounting forcing the main classes that use lances to use swords (which leaves knights and generals as the only classes that can use it then). And that's ignoring the fact that you don't even get it until late in both books... and most of the few maps you get to use it for are indoors.

Binding blade enemies are pretty scary if your name isn't milday rutger or percs, so like strong foot units like fir, dieck, whoever a person feels like using are very helpful to have. 

Yea like I said I don't think Mystery is a game that favors mounts just that it has good foot units. Id rather not focus on that haha.

[Dark Holy Elf]

12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd say Binding Blade is more favorable to mounts than either Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones all because it has bigger maps than the other two. Big maps are inherently favorable to mounted units.

I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. Heroes has the smallest maps in the series, obviously, and also obviously the relative balance of the classes has changed with various updates, but there was certainly a point where cavalry were incredibly dominant, to the point where new terrain (trenches) was introduced to nerf them. +1 move on small maps can be incredibly decisive.

Also strongly agree with @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate. Path of Radiance is far more Mount Emblem than Binding Blade is. Several factors contribute:

• Combat canter is incredibly good, and the games where mounted units have that innately will naturally favour mounted units more than games that don't
• Pretty much every mounted unit in PoR has very good stats, typically outclassing an infantry unit with a similar role even before mobility is considered.
• The Knight Ward means every cavalry unit has effectively unscrewable speed. (And while we're mostly discussing cavalry, it's worth mentioning that weakness-hitting being only 2x mt in that game mean fliers are relatively unconcerned with their weakness compared to most.)
• Every mounted unit in PoR can use 1-2 range after promotion. In a game where 1-2 combat is very good. The better ones can use it immediately.
• Broadly speaking, PoR has relatively weak mages, swordmasters, armours, and (especially) snipers compared to other games in the series. In other words, aside from Boyd, the quality of infantry units is very thin in that game. There's nobody as good as Rutger.

I'd honestly put PoR even above Holy War as far as Horse Emblem goes, but that one's debatable. Binding can't compare.