To wedge or not to wedge?

[Timsup2nothin]

The wedge has a couple good uses.

In a frontal assault it will be 'aimed' straight at the center of the target, which will put your unit's best guy directly on the target unit's top guy. Killing their leader will immediately reduce the unit's capabilities (note, be sure your top guy will indeed be able to kill their top guy). If you can get a clear shot at their general's unit this is very efficient for taking him out.

The other main use I have for the wedge is cleaning up routers. The wedge formation seems like it will 'steer' without stopping to reform much better than other formations and I can run down a lot more victims.

[Quirinus]

Units are arranged according to ability? I had some inkling that not everyone in a unit might have the same experience, seeing as how you can lose or gain veterancy by losing some men, but I had no idea it was arranged according to ability, or that the veterans are arranged in the middle.

[Timsup2nothin]

Units are arranged according to ability? I had some inkling that not everyone in a unit might have the same experience, seeing as how you can lose or gain veterancy by losing some men, but I had no idea it was arranged according to ability, or that the veterans are arranged in the middle.

I don't know about all the veterans, but the unit leader is at the unit flag, front and center, and dead on the bullseye for a wedge charge. Of course your unit leader is the front guy in the wedge, which also makes the wedge a very effective tool for removing a defective general/heir...put him under the command of a higher ranking general, put his unit in a wedge, and fire him off against a tough target.

[RLucid]

Yep, the central frontal assault charge does seem like a fairly reliable way to get rid of unwanted cavalrymen, particularly against spear infantry factions.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

I dont particularlly like the wedge either. But based on very few observations:

- if I have got my cavalry around completely behind the enemy then I charge the enemy in the back in a a line.

- if time is short, or going around would be dangerous, I charge into a flank using wedge. As the enemy infantry is usually no more than six deep, there are only six men facing me as it were so chargin in a line seems silly. the wedge seems to break up the enemy unit more and then my infantry that was spinning them can break through.

- Alexander style: never tried it. I always deploy cav on the flanks except the general. If my own men are wavering I charge with the general and if the enemy rout then there is ofcourse a hole which I rush in to exploit. Other wise cav is for dealing with enemy cav and flanking.

Regarding flaming arrows,
- On the attack I would use flaming arrows as I want to close as quickly as possible minimizing the time I am under fire from their missiles. The morale damage seems more useful than however few extra casualties normal arrows would give.

- On the defence, when my archers are in front I would use fire again for the morale damage. When the enemy closes in and my archers withdraw behind my infantry, I switch to normal arrows as I dont want the more erratic friendly fire hitting my inf or cav my and I want to kill as many of the enemy as possible.

[batemonkey]

I'm definatley gonna try using the wedge to push apart enemy fomations.

As for flaming arrows i've noticed that they work well against well armoured targets and normal arrows work well against poorly armoured troops.