According to posts by LongJohn2 CA's battle engine programmer and from the strategy guide of MTW, charge involved momentum the unit has accumulated by running towards the enemy that gave a pushback effect against the charged unit and allowed every charging man to make immediate strikes at any enemy man he contacted until the momentum was lost, and in the case of cavalry versus infantry also gave a significant morale penalty.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t-System-Works
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Charge (from the Strategy Guide):
Clicking on an enemy unit causes your unit to go to charge speed once it gets close to the enemy unit. It takes 2 or 3 seconds to reach maximum charge speed (presumably from walking speed). A charging soldier makes immediate strikes against all opponents he contacts. Each time he fights a little momentum is lost. When sufficient momentum is lost, the charge ends and the soldier looses the charge bonus. (Note: we know now that running speed is above the momentum threshold for charge bonus. So, men moving at full running speed get the charge bonus if they contact enemy men.)
Pushback:
In an attack, the striker has a chance of pushing back his opponent which gives him a strong combat bonus on the next strike. Factors affecting the chance of pushback are: kill chance, advantage in supporting ranks, mounted vs foot. Charging cavalry always pushes back any foot soldier who is not facing him with a spear, pike or polearm. (Note: v1.1 patch altered spear, pike and polearm pushback so that charging cavalry has a chance to pushback these men even when they are facing the charging cavalryman.)
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...erology?page=1
Cavalry vs infantry
longjohn2 - Programmer
UK Posted: Oct. 02 2002,19:28
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One point that none of you mention is that Medieval knights routinely got off their horses to fight on foot. Surely a foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled over as easily as some of you suggest.
I've modelled the game on the assumption that cavalry cannot break into a close packed infantry force, provided that the infantry keep their nerve. Therefore when cavalry first hit infantry, the infantry recieves a big morale minus, and will often break immediately. If this doesn't happen then it depends on the relative quality of the cavalry and infantry, whether or not the cavalry can force their way into the formation. If they do, it's likely they'll win as the infantry unit will continue to get large morale penalties for losing to cavalry.
If they don't break in, the cavalry and break off, and have another go.
The game depicts spear pikes and polearms as being extra effective against cavalry, but this is largely a game simplification for the wider market. In reality I don't think it mattered that much what the infantry were armed with. Greek hoplites, Roman Legionaries, and Saxon huscarles could all defeat cavalry charges.
In terms of momentum, cavalry will always force back non spear infantry, unless the infantry are able to make a succesful strike on the cavalry. Thus it's the quality of the infantry that's the deciding factor. You could rationalise this saying that it's the bold stance ( or lack of ) of the infantry that determines how much the cavalryman really goes for the charge, and how much he pulls up at the last moment.
This info was given for the MTW/VI engine, but its basically the same engine and i think the same programmer, and so presumably the mechanic was intended to work this way or thereabouts in STW as well.
I am not certain which of the described/intended mechanics did not work properly in the original STW (v1.0 to 1.12), but it was possible to tell by the casualty rates on impact and the charged unit behaviour upon impact. It seemed as the "momentum" of the unit performing the charge was not unloaded on the receiving unit hence maybe the additional charged combat cycles per man were not given, but don't take my word for it :)
I think that in MI there was an effort to make cavalry faster and more effective, but i don't think the charge mehanic was fixed to work fully as intended till MTW.
The point has been mentioned by players. One of them was Puzz3D, who was i believe part of CA testing teams during the time. You can find a reference to this here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...old-unit-stats
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Originally posted by Puzz3D
You could give HC a bit more offensive punch by shifting a combat point from defense to melee making it a 3/5 (melee/defend) instead of the original 2/6. HC were supposed to defeat warrior monks decisively in STW v1.12, but they didn't because the charge bonus didn't work properly. Moving one combat point from defend to attack should help them.
I recall that it was explained more in detail in a few other discussions, but i unfortunately don't remember the exact posts.
