Infantry charges don't seem to work

[Azathoth]

Yeah, I don't think infantry charges were that deadly in real life either. You are running with pretty slow speed because of all the armor you are wearing, and a big shield is getting in your way of big swing. Also your one handed sword swung at its full speed with my body's momentum added may bounce off of enemy shield, armor, helmet, etc, and hurt my wrist more than enemy's body.

Hollywood makes chopping off someone's body so easy, but if properly armored, it should be harder than cutting a bamboo tree. And if you have tried to cut off a bamboo tree (or any wood with thickness of a person's arm) with your sword, you'll understand how one-handed weapon won't do much. I can see infantry charge working if the soldiers were swinging two-handed sword or a heavy mace or an axe.

Actually, a strike from a weapon during a charge has a better chance of penetrating armor than during static combat. A spear could even skewer a hoplite with a bronze breastplate. A warrior would be running at full speed during a charge, and unless you are covered with armor you could maintain this sprint for several hundred meters. I'm not sure what you mean by chopping off someone's body - you mean cutting them in half? That is possible with a longsword or falx, but you don't have to chop someone in half, just kill or seriously wound them to remove them from a battle.

[Vilkku92]

But still the main point of infantry gharge seems to have been getting enough momentum to knock the enemy off balance, break their formation and push them aside instead of getting more power behind your strikes.

[seienchin]

Cinetic energy= m/2 x v^2.
Speed is the most important factor in determing the power of an atack. It is questionable if people had the courage to storm into an enemy, but we know that for example the head on assaults of the dacian falxmen were really feared.

[antisocialmunky]

Yes, speed is important purely for the fact that you can change it easier than your mass.

[Watchman]

Not a dreadfully relevant thing for infantry weapons though, at least, in the sense of the man's charge meaningfully adding to the equation. Swung weapons get the most power from heavy overhand blows, and insofar as I understand anything of the vectors involved the speed at which the wielder's body is moving counts little for those. Thrusting weapons - mainly spears - probably actually *do* deliver some benefit, on account of the movement and attack vectors being essentially the same, but we're not exactly talking about couched cavalry lances here...

Also, healthy reality-check reminder here - whenever people have wanted a lot of raw damage output, they have pretty much invariably (all other things being equal) gone for heavier weapons, projectiles etc. Reason being, while it's obviously easier to give a lighter object a lot of speed, the lighter object also slows down and stops rather more readily nevermind now being that much more likely to be flatly deflected from an inconvenient obstacle.
Or to put it in practical terms, if you want to cleave someone from the shoulder to the hip - nevermind now through armour - you do *not* get a really light weapon that can be swung really really fast for the job; instead, you go for something big and nasty with lots of mass and momentum and leverage, usually a honkin' big cut-optimised sword, a battleaxe or some kind of choppy polearm.

[Nergalsmom]

It is with great frustration that I have read the contents of this thread. So much so that I felt it necessary to create an account simply to reply.

Let it be known to all that Europa Barbarum is the best game I ever played, and to me it doesn't really matter how charges are portrayed. However...

A lot of people in this thread seem to have a strangely misguided idea about the "ineffectiveness" of infantry charges. I know better than anyone the futility of internet discussion, so I don't seek to preach or convert, only to provide an alternate perspective.

Firstly, people who suggest doing something else than double-right clicking on the enemy to "simulate" the effects of a charge: Nifty trick, and I commend you for your ingenuety, but I think we can all agree that it would be better if we could just charge the way it's supposed to be done

And now, the main point: People who's opinion is that wearing a lot of armor, having a shield, or wielding a light weapon makes the benefits of charging near redundant. You're right about one thing: Having a heavy or two-handed weapon does increase the benefits of charging. Just grab a broom or the business end of a vaccum cleaner and charge towards the furthest wall in your hose to see what I mean. The increased reach and weight means that your running multiplies the power of the first swing. Barbarian infantry relies upon this simple fact. That's why they're armed with heavy weapons in the first place! Read the loading screen whith the description of how a celtic longsword was used for further reference.

Having a lighter weapon such as a one-handed spear or a gladius... In this case the power of your charge is highly dependent on wether you have a shield or not... and the shield is not in the way. You may have noticed that two units of similar quality (let us say, Caucausian Archers and Caucausian Spearmen) the one with shields has a higher charge bonus. This is naturally partly becase the latter is trained for close combat, and partly because they have spears instead of long daggers, but also because they have a shield. When charging with a shield and a light weapon, your goal is to barge in shield first, hopefully causing the enemy to stumble and expose himself, giving your first attack a higher chance of killing him. This is just common sense and represented in the game by a charge bonus to the first attack made. Grab a small desk and a kitchen knife, pretend you're a roman legionaire and just feel for yourself witch charge tactic seems most effective. Do this now.

About armor slowing you down... The reason you're charging in the first place is becase it's more difficult to predict the attack of an enemy running towards you than an enemy walking leisurly in your direction. Speed is not important, momentum is. Wearing armor increases your momentum, and allows you to put more power into your first swing as you do not have to be as afraid of exposing yourself to a counter-attack. These are some of the reasons why cataphracts have a high charge bonus, and I can assure you that the same principles apply to infantry.

Wethter frontal infantry charges were effective or not depended on the nature of the units in question. For example, a unit in loose formation armed with shields and axes charging a band of hoplites is pretty much doomed to fail. The benefit of their momentum is cancelled by the tight formation of the hoplites and the reach of their spears. Roman infantry can perform well both when charging and recieving charges, and units such as falxmen really must charge or counter-charge to be most effective, since they have no shields.

All of these points are very well illustrated in vanillia RTW, but for some reason don't work as well in EB. As already stated, it doesn't matter much to me as EB is such a great game anyway, but the fact remains that charges in EB are a little buggy and not always entirely realistic in effect or performance.

[Watchman]

PROTIP: the Celtic longsword on the average was actually about the same weight as the gladius hispanicus, if not slightly *lighter*. The difference in cutting power between the two comes from a little something called "leverage"...