Quote Originally Posted by Russ Mitchell
If half of what I'm hearing is true, then I can only say...

GOOD!

I know that scissor/paper/rock is a nice principle, but spearmen were VASTLY overpowered in MTW compared to their real-life counterparts, and when hit at the flank or rear, they should indeed rout almost instantly. That's why generals spent so much time trying to secure their own flanks while trying to flank their opponents.

It's what happened in real life, time and time again. Doesn't mean that cavalry can't be countered, but hearing this is a heartening note of realism across my humble desktop...
No it is not what happened in real life. Real life battles usually took some time in melee, minutes or hours even. Things collapsed in minutes when flanked, not in less than 10 seconds. It takes time for panic to set in and for the men to run. I doubt you will find it realistic. Heavy infantry is peasant level in RTW with respect to morale. And no, a unit of cav didn't kill every man 5 seconds after they routed. These units rout so fast that the forward guys wouldn't even KNOW they had been flanked yet. They wouldn't panic, because they wouldn't even be aware of what was happening. That is how fast it happens in RTW.

Relatively few men were killed until armies actually routed. That is one reason that in *hard fought* battles the victor might lose a few hundred or thousand men out of tens of thousands, while the loser lost 2/3 of his force.

If you think it is realistic that I can crash 6 or 8 light cav units into a mixed infantry wall frontally, and watch it collapse in seconds, then you are sorely mistaken. While I usually flank as well, I just rush straight in if I'm not facing much in the way of spears and want to get it over with. Target 2 or 3 cav on a single infantry unit, and it crumples at the charge. Then hit the adjacent flank units and they rout before they can react.

In MTW, I found that units routed relatively soon if you flanked them unless they were high valour. I always thought that flanking effects were under represented to some degree in MTW (especially in the HTW mod, where surrounding a phalanx had no effect). In RTW you get an increased flanking effect or morale hit, plus a very high movement speed that increases the number of flank attacks disproportinately, along with a rapid kill speed. Does three wrongs make a right?