how to use advance and fire?

[nafod]

To charge . . . battles of this period were decided by the bayonett (and this is reflected in the game . . . charges will decide the issue quicker than fire combat, generally).

Ideal use is to halt somewhere inside of musket range, use fire and advance to work to optimum charge range, then charge home.

Uh....no they weren't. A bayonet charge was a useful tool to use in specific circumstances, not the battlefield endgame. Wellington himself used the word 'contemptible' to describe French forces attempting to attack his men in column formations. While the shock value of the bayonet charge was very effective, it was a deciding move only in that the attacker realistically had to have already defeated the enemy by placing him in a position disadvantageous enough for it to work. Without such conditions you get shot to hell coming in and bounce off a well ordered, disciplined formation.

The mythos of the bayonet is a romanticism even the people of the day bought into, when in reality it was overused by the French to the point of self destruction when they suddenly came up against well trained, stubbornly tenacious British forces, or couldn't find the massive local numerical superiority needed to shove enemies off the objective with sheer mass without breaking them down first. The effectiveness of bayonets in Empire: Total War is...well....largely broken when compared to reality simply because it's a game using a stats system and rules so different from real life that to find similarities you have to get down to the point of "they walk on two legs, like real people!".

Wellington was born in 1769. Waterloo was fought in 1815. Age of Empires takes place from 1700-1799.

Might want to think about that.