Camels are smarter, tougher and meaner. If they weren't flatfooted they'd be the mount of choice instead of horses, smelly or not. That massive advantage in the desert is bloody worthless everywhere else.
It really depends. In all warm/arid areas, the camels are by far superior. The reason we so clearly favour the horse is that they are clearly superior in these temperate zones.
You're self limited, it doesn't have to be the case. If you have more resources than you can harvest, your limitation is in utilizing them, not having access to them. You don't have to be able to use all your animals, they probably shouldn't even function the same way. If I were designing it, inherently undomesticated animals would be captured in the wild, gathered for their use. Horses, an easily domesticated animal, would also be captured in the wild, but for the purpose of raising herds, not training for mounts themselves. You could take your horses produced from that resource, and instead of using them for mounts, found another herd. They could even have magic pertaining to the domestication of those animals not feasible to domesticate naturally, making the original resource access academic in the long run.
But at some point, the very mechanic to limit the access to a given resource becomes useless, if you have a continous surplus. If we don't limit the supply, we might aswell take the Civ-approach.
When resources have to be worked, they don't need to be so scarce that you're utilizing every resource you have. An oddball resource conversion isn't necessary.
As I said, a continous, dependable surplus of whatever resource you desire at any one time defeats the purpose of limiting resources in the first place.
I didn't use the word relatively.
Compare a horse to a cow and the answer is immediately clear. Horses will open latches to get out of gates, they socialize in a friendly manner outside of mating, they're loyal to their owners when taken care of. Cows eat, shit, and sleep. That's about it.
The cow is indifferent. They munch their grass, eat, shit, and sleep. That's about it. Unless you chase them, they just don't care. Indifference isn't stupidity, that'd be like calling cats the dumbest animals of earth (they're just the most evil).
Horses have outstanding range, you can raise and utilize them almost anywhere, from sub arctic conditions to the Sahara. Their stupidity traits, like jumping into burning stables, are common among the herd animals similar to them as well. When something tries to eat them, they run. Panic in the face of danger is a safety measure for food. They're not predators.
None of this has to do with what I argued. I even conceded that all animals are slaves to their instincts, but horses are the ones I can truly pen down as actively dumb.
Sticking with men of average size and real animals. All cattle, some like the water buffalo are badasses, various similarly built animals from gazelles to zebra's, various deer. Remember, the wild horse wasn't the mount it is today from the start. They started out smaller, stockier, and slower. The gazelle lacks the bone mass to carry a full size man any useful distance, but they're about the same size as the wild horse were, with careful breeding they could make fantastic mounts with superior speed, acceptable endurance, and stupendous maneuverability. Cats would work too if you could keep them from rolling when they fought.
No deer, or water buffalo, or gazelle, would ever be functional as a mount. The same goes for the Zebra, and most laughably, you bring up
cats. Cats of any kind would never accept being mounted. None of the animals you mentioned can become anywhere near viable mounts - none of them can be truly domesticated. Just like (regrettably) the bear.
If you could tame one, a rhino would be sublime for war. Hide thicker and tougher than an elephant with raw power far in excess of what traditional mounts are capable of. Eight thousand pounds of 2 inch thick skin moving thirty miles an hour would put the fear of God into anyone, and it's got horns to top it off. Full plate armor for rider and animal would be a negligible weight addition too.
Key word here is
"if you could take one". You can't. It's just not a realistic mount, by a far shot.
If you toss size out the window and we have three foot tall midgit armies, everything from wolves to pigs get thrown in the mix. Dwarves riding russian boars would be mean. Plenty of hunters have been killed by those suckers.
Alright, now you're on about halflings and dwarves, and.. I just don't know what to say. I doubt you can realisticly field an army of midgets, even if you could domesticate the animal of choice - and boars. BOARS? Boars are IMPOSSIBLE to domesticate or tame. They're the very reason we have pigs.
As far as riding cows go, they were ridden before horses were. They drew wagons before horses as well. They lack sustained speed, so aren't useful as traditional cavalry. You can however run over people on foot just fine with them, even a few of the domesticated breeds get pissed and try to run you down when you're working them. They might have made it into military applications if they weren't vastly superior as food.
While OXES were used before horses, they were never used as mounts. They dragged carts, yes, but you're as hard pressed to direct them without considerable effort as the aformentioned.. well.. giraffes.
Not sure if i like the idea of replacing the animal resource of one of your tiles. But as long it would require them to have a similar enviroment before being able to switch, i suppose it would be fine.
As a side note, i wanted to mention that if Luckmann finally gets his Bear Cavalry in the game, i should get my tiger cavalry too.
I'm completely up for that. XXXL-size Cats would also make for kickass non-magic mounts, perhaps with an inferior sustained speed, but with the possibility for stealth applications and pounce.
