Probably even a bigger question would be should the mount(bear; etc;) continue fighting once the rider has died and vise versa??

The vast majority of games have the rider and mounted unit as one single unit, instead of two units being used together.

another question that needs an answer

How about Dragoons ? Not strictly a type of cavalry. Actually infantry that used horses for deployment and fought on foot, and had infantry ranks. They were especially popular in XVII, XVIII centuries (they used firearms - but pre-gunpowder Elemental dragoons could use crossbows)  in Europe, used for quick reaction, cracking down on smugglers, brigands, civil unrest etc. They were cheaper to recruit than cavalry, but were at a disadvantage against true cavalry when fighting on horseback. Dragoons were more like infantry with super mobility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoons#History_and_role

Initially I wouldn't want the main game to be to complex (though I think bears should floor most other 'natural' mounts).

I would have to agree with NTjedi's example of having the mount and rider act as one unit.  Whether being on a horse does additional because it tramples its target or because it creates added momentum for the rider's lance is being overly too complex.  It should just add a bonus to 'attack' of the unit.  If this was a more single-person battle system (like you were dealing on a scale of 1 person vs. 1 person combat rather entire armies) I'd vote that mounts might be counted as seperate.

I can see in one of the many mods that will come of this game one where terrain types play a major role, and the difference between a brown bear and Polar bear might be that the polar bear gets bonus (or not penalty) in snow.  I don't really this kind of complexity is needed at the start

the ladie at the berlin zoo also had the bad idea of riding a bear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n61G3UA67XM

i gamble my giraffe against your bear anytime

oh, don't let luckmann hear you say that.   

that being said,  I raise NunoVieira's bear attack with this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wGbCNDw-m0

If anyone has ever played the tabletop LOTR game, then they will know that the mount and rider are treated separatly. In most cases, riders will continue to fight on if their mount goes down, while in the case of horsemen, horses thst lose riders flee.

Wargs (giant wolves) on the otherhand fight on if their rider is downed

I think we should have the modding option to allow the mount and/or rider to fight seperately, thus with time the developers can provide a stable and effective combination within an expansion.

I see landisaurus' bear attack and give you this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG02fwZBflw

I personally would show this by giving the rider extra HP (maybe making it so the rider only has half the attack strength after a certain amount of health).   After the battle you take the dude's armor and sword from being strapped to the back of the beast and stick it on another guy ready to fight.  (training him to not-die when mounting the warg would be be the 'healing' time)

** @ above post :   I am very amused by this fight.  Though this bear is obviously not a well trained war bear.  All those wear loin protection as part of standard bear cav gear.  Which is why everybody else is F***ed, not the bears (who are protected from penetration)

well a rather basic maneuver in warfare, but one that ends the discussion. The horse regains it´s place amidst all this bear nonsense. Checkmate he would say. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfF-nmFcoQk&feature=related

"Fierce mount fights after his master's death" is a solution that can work, but it's a bit cliched.

Being able to issue a specific 'dismount' order is dependent on how abstract Elemental wants to be. On lower levels of abstraction, you can have a lot of specific orders (and micromanagement) and 'dismount' fits fine. On higher level of abstraction, there may be no specific order but the rules could still show a difference between heavy cavalry and dragoons. In that case dragoons could just count as a kind of light cavalry. Like in Fantasy General - light cavalry is pretty good in all terrain, and works well as long as it's faster than the opponent. So it's quite good against infantry. But it gets kicked pretty bad by heavy cavalry. Heavy cavalry, on the other hand, is at a disadvantage in rough terrain like forest. I like Fantasy General because it has a unique blend of fantasy with quite realistic battle mechanics (unit type interactions, terrain affects combat and mobility, morale...)

This light vs. heavy cavlary talk just reminds me of all the good open questions we've had in a couple-few other threads about weather, whether units will move in a 3D environment, etc. Plus I recently caught a 'History' Channel scrap on how important mud was to Henry V's win at Agincourt. Maybe things would have been quite different if he'd had dragoons instead of heavy cav.

To my surprise, I'm more interested in seeing 'real wargame' mechanics in this area than in seeing more and prettier mounts. Any form of complexity costs dev time, so I'd rather have them working on terrain modifiers than on how armor might move on a running, mounted warg.

Fun Facts for the Day: Pre-1066, English knights fought in the dragoon style, though of course it wasn't called that at the time.  They rode to battle, but dismounted for battle.  Horses were an operational, rather than tactical, resource.  In general, most Western European knights were willing to fight on foot when need drove them.  The Knights Templar fought as a shield wall at Liegnitz in 1241, though they rode to the battle itself.  Interestingly, the Mongols actually had trouble with this tactic and finally had to charge the knights, which resulted in much heavier-than-usual casualties.