cavalry re-charging

[NewJeffCT]

OK, this may make me seem like a noobie, but I have played a lot of campaigns over the past 10 months and I have seen the AI do this in battle with me over and over, but I have yet to figure out how to be able to do it myself against the AI in game.

But, I will have an infantry unit engaged with the AI's cavalry unit. After the initial charge, the AI's cavalry will then disengage and step back a bit and then re-charge. Whenever I try to do something similar with my cavalry against the AI, the cavalry either refuses to disengage (despite repeated clicks to move&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif or disengages so far as to be a good distance from the unit.

Am I missing something simple, or is it just that the AI can maneuver that much quicker than me and my almost 37 year old reflexes? Is there a command I missed to disengage and re-charge? My cavalry always seems to have gone through an abattoir at the end of most large battles, so I must be doing something wrong?

[Nowake]

Yes, you're not clicking corectly http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Seriously, I don't know, I can disengage them from any reasonable situation.

[brent_james]

When I try to disengage mine, half of them get killed.

[Zone]

I find that often a unit will be pulled off course if it runs into the enemy or vice versa. e.g. if you're trying to run round the back with some cavalry and the horse on the end of your line gets attacked, the rest will wheel round and help out. If the enemy is occupied with someone else though you will always be able to disengage. You can use foot soldiers or another cavalry unit but if you attack the enemy with two units, you can disengage the cavalry because the AI is too busy fighting to give chase. I hope that works for you. It won't work every time, it depends a bit on what type of units are fighting but it should increase your success rate somewhat and hopefully lower the death of your troops.

[Quokka]

I can usually disengage Cav unless they are Impetuous. Damn Impetuous Knights won't do anything I tell them unless its charge. I have much more success with light Cav and the Disciplined Muslim units obey well.
If I notice that some Knights have become Impetuous, easy as they advance through my spears to attack the hordes beyond by themselves, then I don't even try and disengage them until I can hit the unit they are fighting with another from a different direction, otherwise even if they do listen to reason, half will die breaking off.
Spears are much harder to get away from in any event.

[desdichado]

Try clicking backspace first - this will cancel their current orders and makes it easier to disengage I think. Also, it is harder to get your cav to disengage when attacking front of a formation instead of flank or rear. I sometimes have problems with my cav not pulling back - I just think their eager for the slaughter.

Obviously also harder to disengage from other cav Also try clicking further away - this sometimes seems to help

[Brutal DLX]

Well, just click correctly and repeatedly. All the other aforementioned hints do help, but if you need to disengage rather quickly, do what most MP players do in that situation.. issue the withdraw command (Ctrl-w I believe it is), this usually makes your cav run away from the enemy real quickly, but you have to stop them with backspace or another move command and also keep attention that they don't run into another enemy that is lining up behind their backs.

[The_Emperor]

Good post Brutal DLX

You know I must admit it is strange that your troops respond to Withdraw commands more effectively than movement ones... And I did get tired of that constant double clicking

Lets hope Cavalry move around a lot more smoothly in RTW.

[Funky Phantom]

Persistant clicking usually does the trick for me, i use a lot of light cav in my sp armies so its very important to be able to back off quickly after attacking a bunch of archers when a spear unit comes rushing in :/

[The Wizard]

I don't like the constant clicking just to get my knights away from the enemy - come to think of it it might be a discipline prob...

Anyhoo, I usually use the withdraw command. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Orda Khan]

How about using cav on correct units so no need to disengage

....Orda

[bighairyman]

once, my cavalry charge and goes into h2h with the enemy, it either gets killed or kill the enemy. usually i had massive infantry charges after the cavalry, so even if i can't get them out, even if i want to. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Lord Rom]

Yes Brutal is right on with the contol-w. It works much better than double clicking. It's almost a route command so make sure you click somewhere or they will run all the way off the map Also the longer they are engaged the harder it can be to disengage from the melee, so I usually try to time it so I get the full charge bonus then control w away. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Oaty]

If the unit being attacked by cavalry is in hold formation, the cavalry can usually disengage easily but if the targeted unit is at engage at will it is much harder because both units get entangled in each other. What I have used with much greater success is charging cavalry into 1 unit and then double click on another unit about 5 times, 1 of 2 things usually happens. What usually happens is about half the cavalry split up so they are hitting 2 units at once. This works really great if you are able to sneak your cavalry between 2 units that are already engaged wich enables you to flank 2 units with only 1. What occasionally happens is you get an immediate pullof except maybe 1 or 2 get stuck behind and they get a nice full charge into the new unit.

I think what is happening for you is that there cavalry is hitting 1 of your units and it hasnt been given any orders when it is hit wich makes it easier for the A.I. Unfortanetely for the human player when smashing cavalry into there units they automatically give them orders so your cavalry usually gets charged by the units you are charging into entangling those 2 units in a big fight so peeling the cavalry out is near impossible.

This just happens to be the comps 1 really good advantage of being able to give orders to units every second

[Scipio]

by the way i interpret your question it is in your manuel pg53 second paragraph you left click a unit then cilck (ctrl+w)withdraw command and then when your cav has backed up to as far as you want press halt and attack again and there you go