Improving tactics - help needed please

Hi

in a recent thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=78515 post #11) it was said:

bad chasing of routing units = player fault 99%
bad cavalry charges = player fault 100%


I understand how bad charges are down to players mistakes (cavalry not lined up, incorrect facing,, etc), but what can be incorrect about selecting a cavalry unit and double-clicking a routig unit a few meters away? They charge into the routing unit well enough, they masacre 70% of the unit well enough, but what am doing wrong to make them then keep pace with 5-6 remaining routers right until the time they exit the battle field?

Is there something I can do, or was the above comment a little dismissive of the problem?

It was dismissive, theirs very littile you can do about the problem.

The only thing to try is to double click well beyond the unit your chasing and then when they get in amongst the unit (as they will), to right click on the unit. repeat until the enemy is dead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zarker

[..]what am doing wrong [..]
Is there something I can do, or was the above comment a little dismissive of the problem?

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You don't do anything wrong. The guy you quoted doesn't know what he's talking about and he didn't give an explanation, so I'd ignore that.
It's common consens that the "chase router" function isn't working properly.
Iirc, the game tries to get the center of your unit onto the center of the routing unit and only then the routers get captured.
When the routing unit is dispersed over a large area it gets difficult to impossible to match the units' centers.

R'as

Quote:

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

You don't do anything wrong. The guy you quoted doesn't know what he's talking about and he didn't give an explanation, so I'd ignore that.
It's common consens that the "chase router" function isn't working properly.
Iirc, the game tries to get the center of your unit onto the center of the routing unit and only then the routers get captured.
When the routing unit is dispersed over a large area it gets difficult to impossible to match the units' centers.

R'as

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Yep. this 'capture' thing is new to me (never having played MTW1). Maybe the 'escorting off the field' phenomenon is a Feature rather than a bug? Units are escorted off the field and into confinement?

If this is the case, then i really hate the capture feature as it ties up units which would be better employed to wipe them all out.

One thing I keep wondering after a battle is "how have i captured these units when they all ran off the field and into the wide blue yonder?"

Is there any point to continuing a battle after all the units rout, if they are all going to end up as hostages?

i know the chase router ai is broken but i think what the ai is trying to do because i watched it work one time.

it appears that the cav unit will spread out and run ahead of and too the sides of a routing unit to coerce it into going back towards the middle of the map. sometimes when it spreads out and gets set like this it then collapses on the unit finishing it off.

but as i said its broken. mtw/vi had the best chase rout ai

What Carl said is a good way to get the routers. Also, you could try switching between close and tight formation - sometimes I find it easier to catch more routers with my unit being in a loose formation all the time. The best way I have found so far is to have two units chase the same routing unit, with one unit just running through the routers while the other one is given orders to attack them. This results in a 'herding' effect, in that the routers can get pushed into the attacking pursuers by the run-through unit or momentarily stopped and then caught. Of course, the fact that you need to have two units available to do this is another matter...

I really hope something will be done about the unit cohesion in general.

If you spend some time micromanaging, you can easily nuliffy the problem of the router chase bug, but the thing is you need too much time to do it. If you were fighting a big battle and just sent one badly depleated cavalry unit to make sure your enemy routers will stay out of the battle, you cant pause every few seconds to shift focus and tell it what to do. Also, it becomes extremely tedious with any significant numbers of units

I spread my chasing unit (usually a light horse) into 2 rows, set on loose formation before ordering them to chase the routing unit. It seems to help a bit, at least the chasing unit changes directions smoother (less of that colliding with it's neighbour and coming to a dead stop problem)

What really gets on my nerves is when the chasing unit comes to a dead stop just before it comes into contact with the routing unit. I've had it happen a few times particularly with General's Bodyguards. :furious3: