What’s the deal with charging infantry?

[(:Baktra:)]

This is an EB1 and an EB2 Question. In EB1 the charging infantry would do 1 of 2 things:

1. The infantry would stop right before they got to the enemy units and attack the air in front of themselves causing no damage.
2. Or they would actually make it to the enemy units and attack, but still no damage is done.

This always happens no matter if the infantry has a charge strength of 1 or a charge strength of 8. I hope that I’m not the only one who has experienced this, but if anyone knows why this happens I would be very interested in hearing an explanation.

My other question is “In EB2 will infantry charge similarly to EB1, like I explained, or will it be different?”

Thank you for any feedback.

[fightermedic]

different!
in med2 -> 5 people out of 60 will charge and fight properly, while the rest of the unit will wait like 30 meters behind those charging ones and after a time will sloooooooooooowly start to walk towards the enemy.. sad but true

[Ca Putt]

When guard mode is turned off I regulary have decent results with most infantry charging in the back of something. They might not kill half the enemy unit but when they are generally able to kill them (so not Toxotai vs TABs) they normally kill a few on impact. This may not be as cool as a Grivpanvar charge but still can be of battle winning imporance.

[Leon the Batavian]

How about this. Playing campaign VH/VH. Outnumbering your foe 3 to 1. Normally they will flee and back off. But some times they stay and fight. You on the other hand do not auto-resolve the battle because you smell a rat (super units) and an instant defeat on your part. So they stay and fight you move onto the battlefield to make sure you win and encircle them with your 3 to 1 advantage. Then when the battle start they start fleeing and you didn't even hit them let alone encircle them. In other words everyone wasted his time this round. ????

[bobbin]

That will be the famous TW split AI that they got rid of with ETW. The campaign AI thinks the battle is worth fighting but the battle AI doesn't and instantly bugs out.

[Blxz]

That would be the "INfamous" Ai split. Really very terrible.

[Leon the Batavian]

Aye.

Three other strange and annoying things:

We all know about the general and their bodyguard to throw away their lives in a foolish heroic suicidal charge.

Then you have these situations where you and your ally are the ones being attacked. The 1 vs 2 or 2 vs 2 or ..... situations. Your ally or re-enforcements will always go on the offensive. They always do this in a most disorderly manner instead of forming a nice steady battle line. In most cases this is isn't a bad thing because they can be the perfect anvil and your troops can be the perfect hammer. But this offensive thing can be rather annoying while defending a bridge and your allied slingers and archers start to walk up to that bridge and instead of throwing or shooting they start a nice hand to hand fight with the elite units of your enemy. Not so smart, but at least they are doing something.

But The most annoying thing would be the following. Your battle line is the first to hit your enemy and the fighting is all over the place. Your men are locked into a fierce hand to hand and can't go anywhere. One or some of your units are about to break or barely holding. Then there is your ally with a unit or more and they are in the rear of your enemy looking at you dieing and wavering. Well a person or a good AI would help that unit by attacking from the rear and save the day. But not this one they will just stand there move about, wandering off or be the next victim in line. Especially allied cavalry who are most of the time at a great spot to help out your hard pressed troops with an attack from the rear just do site seeing or dieing heroic deaths during a frontal attack at phalanxes and other pointy things.

In other words a great game :) now back to my campaign!

[Ca Putt]

haha, yeah sometimes I think I'd get better results if I just initially select all of them and task them on the centre of the battlefield.

[antisocialmunky]

Meh, just make a blob and run into the enemy.

[-Praetor-]

But there´s a solution for the dispersion of the charging infantry. Simply shorten the charge distance, so that the units arrive as a cohesive force into contact with the enemy

I don´t know whether there´s another solution for this issue. Is there?

[Montmorency]

But wouldn't infantry have naturally dispersed during a charge anyway? Or am I misunderstanding the issue?

[-Praetor-]

Depends, some charges were disorganized while others weren´t. For example, hoplites charged en masse and without dispersing at the enemy.

[Bucefalo]

I don´t know if this the exact same problem people are describing, but in M2TW vanilla there is a common problem when a unit of infantry charges, and only the first rank reaches the target while the rest lag behind. From what i understand, like Praetor said this can be fixed by making the charge distances smaller.

I also remember reading on the TATW forum (this was way back, in the Real Recruitment/Real Combat submod) that some animations were tweaked, like for example in vanilla M2TW infantry soldiers in melee seemed to take steps back, instead of forward, effectively making them stay away from the fight. This was replaced with an animation that made them step forward, so you can easily see in TATW how all soldiers in a melee fight, tend to step towars the enemy, and unlike vanilla, the fight is much more realistic and look less like only the first rank is fighting, instead the push of the back ranks forward is more noticeable.

About some formations being more cohesive than others, i think the M2TW engine represents it well, as you can give "untrained" status or "highly_disciplined" depending on how tidy you want the formation. Another thing which is used in TATW is decreasing unit density to force the soldiers to stand even closer to each other, IIRC this was already present in RTW and i think EB already made use of it.

[TheLastDays]

Depends, some charges were disorganized while others weren´t. For example, hoplites charged en masse and without dispersing at the enemy.

It's so long since I've played M2TW. Is it possible to charge in shield wall?

[Montmorency]

Depends, some charges were disorganized while others weren´t. For example, hoplites charged en masse and without dispersing at the enemy.

Hmm...

Well, it seems likely that they would have, if we're talking about Classical hoplites to the 4th century specifically. Once we factor in these:

1. The Corinthian helmet severely restricted vision and hearing. Once a commander ordered a charge, for a few seconds only the men in his immediate vicinity would hear his command and see him move forward. The rest could not have perceived this at first.
2. The phalanx was filled with men in their teens to men in their 60s and 70s. They could not all run at the same speed.
3. Hoplites had a tendency to move somewhat diagonally toward the right.

That's not to say that hoplites ended up spread all over the place, but that the line of collision would have been highly irregular; not necessarily ||| ||| > ||||||, but:

]? < \(S
|L \ <\ {
|) | > / { |

[Arjos]

1. True, but usually classical ones, waited 'til the very start of the battle to put on the helm and grab the aspis; officers ordered that and after was simply move forward, no need for further communication...

2. Agreed, still they didn't have to break an 100 meter dash in under 10 secs, just a faster pace to gain momentum...

3. That happened as melee ensued, due to the concern for the unguarded side...

Anyhow yes, it wasn't perfect, but not as disordered as the M2TW animation is...

[Montmorency]

1. True, but usually classical ones, waited 'til the very start of the battle to put on the helm and grab the aspis; officers ordered that and after was simply move forward, no need for further communication...

2. Agreed, still they didn't have to break an 100 meter dash in under 10 secs, just a faster pace to gain momentum...

3. That happened as melee ensued, due to the concern for the unguarded side...

Anyhow yes, it wasn't perfect, but not as disordered as the M2TW animation is...

1. Yes, they did that as they began to advance toward the enemy, but they probably didn't begin the charge immediately.

2. I thought it was only the Spartans who tried to power walk into battle. The rest seem to have charged at a run.

3. It was a phenomenon that occured during movement as well.

4. Heh, I've not played M2TW.

[Arjos]

1. ofc, take Xenophon's account of Cunaxa, flutes gave the rhythm, and the "awareness" of nearby companions made everyone try to stick together...

2. run as fast as people with 30ish kg of gear on, who had to fight after the "run"; the Spartans went for an "advancing shieldwall", most likely they walked: their intent was to keep formation "intact"...

3. no, sometimes it was a tactical move by the commander to flank the opponent, if we take again Cunaxa placing hoplites to the left of a river would be suicidal, as they would jump into it :P

[Leon the Batavian]

Something else. Anyone around who knows how fast a phalanx unit could turn and swing their long spears around to withstand an attack from the rear? If you surround a unit in game they are amazingly though to break still. If this was real the Romans would never ever win a battle against them. I know this has been discussed over and over again but how is this going to work in M2TW EB II style.

[Montmorency]

1. ofc, take Xenophon's account of Cunaxa, flutes gave the rhythm, and the "awareness" of nearby companions made everyone try to stick together...

2. run as fast as people with 30ish kg of gear on, who had to fight after the "run"; the Spartans went for an "advancing shieldwall", most likely they walked: their intent was to keep formation "intact"...

3. no, sometimes it was a tactical move by the commander to flank the opponent, if we take again Cunaxa placing hoplites to the left of a river would be suicidal, as they would jump into it :P

I don't know if we could take these post P-War mercenaries' tactics to be representative of Greek warfare in the 6th and 5th centuries.

AFAIK only the Spartans tried to use it as a flanking tactic.

[TheLastDays]

I don't know if we could take these post P-War mercenaries' tactics to be representative of Greek warfare in the 6th and 5th centuries.

AFAIK only the Spartans tried to use it as a flanking tactic.

You do realize that the EB timeframe is way past the 6th and 5th centuries BC, right?

[Montmorency]

Sure. I'm just being needlessly pedantic because I'm a silly ***.

[TheLastDays]

Yeah, the problem is, the thread was about problems with charging infantry in EB and if those will carry over into EB II, so it was never about hoplites in the archaic era

[Arjos]

Anyone around who knows how fast a phalanx unit could turn and swing their long spears around to withstand an attack from the rear?

Afaik it wasn't possible and never happened...

If you surround a unit in game they are amazingly though to break still. If this was real the Romans would never ever win a battle against them.

Noted that actual melee between Romans and phalangitai took place only twice, blame the terrain or whatever else, but the Romani won both cases: from the front and flanking the phalanx...

[Leon the Batavian]

Yes just as I thought Arjos. But EB I or rather the RTW engine if i am not mistaken makes it possible for the phalangitai to turn their spears around which of course is BS in reality. So how do they deal with this in EB II ?

Btw this isnt to Hijack the topic from its original thread. But its just about the many strange things happening in RTW next to the charging Infantry.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Noted that actual melee between Romans and phalangitai took place only twice, blame the terrain or whatever else, but the Romani won both cases: from the front and flanking the phalanx...

This is misleading. The Romans engaged Pyrhus's phalangites several times in melee with mixed results. They were not universally successful.

[Arjos]

I stand corrected, forgot about the Eagle :P
Then it's 5 encounters 3 to the Romani, 1 to the phalanx and a draw?
Even though the one to the phalangitai was due to the elephants, which adds more to the fact that the phalanx needs cavalry...
The macedonian wars still give a better image imo, as it only has the two forces playing part, with Pyrrhus all the italic and greek troops bring more variables...

[Leon the Batavian]

No Text