cavalry charge in RTR

**artavazd** · 05-04-2005, 12:31

I like the mod which gives realism to the game and the AI is much much better then vanilla. One issue im confused with is the cavlary charge in the mod it seems very low to me. The highest ive seen is like12 and those are the elites such as the noble sarmatians and cataphracts. The more avrage cavlary units have like 5 or 7 and ive seen foot units with a higher charge rating then some cavlary. Doesnt this feature take out the role of cavlary? isnt the initial charge the highlight of cavlary? im just curiosue to know what the reasoning was to make the charge so low thanks.

**pyrrhus17** · 05-04-2005, 13:13

I think the reasoning here is the fact that the stirup did not exist yet , This gave cavalry the big bonus's you would see in MTW and not in RTW . This is just a guess but its pobably based on this as well as a few other factors. Patrick

**Conqueror** · 05-04-2005, 13:55

If you search this forum you'll find that the charge bonus stat has very little effect in the power of a unit's charge.

**Husar** · 05-04-2005, 14:31

What I learned reading these forums is that it was NOT the missing stirrups that made cavalry-charges in these times weaker than those of medieval knights/cavalry. It was more the missing saddle that made the charges weaker, but generally cavalry of this time-period was not trained for charges and used mainly for flanking or following routing enemies. Except for cataphracts and some other shock cavalry maybe.
Just what I remember having read here, have´t played RTR yet.

**Camp Freddie** · 05-04-2005, 14:53

2 reasons:

1a) Horses in the classical age were used to move troops quickly around the battlefield. They weren't trained for a medieval-style charge (horses really don't like running headlong into a large group of people waving pointy metal things at them in an unfriendly manner). There were exceptions, and cataphract charges were devastating, but the average horse wasn't trained for it and the riders didn't have lances.

1b) In contrast, soldiers were trained to charge at their enemies and use their momentum (and their shields) to bash the enemy to the ground and disrupt their formation.

2) A bug in the RTW code means that charge values have little or no effect in combat. It is not the way that people assume it is (i.e. you DON'T just add the charge value to base attack value for the first attacks following a charge). Strangely, the armour value seems to have a large effect on the extra kills caused by the charge (maybe the RTW code is just calling the wrong section from the data tables).

**Diadochoi** · 05-04-2005, 15:30

Originally Posted by Husar

What I learned reading these forums is that it was NOT the missing stirrups that made cavalry-charges in these times weaker than those of medieval knights/cavalry. It was more the missing saddle that made the charges weaker, but generally cavalry of this time-period was not trained for charges and used mainly for flanking or following routing enemies. Except for cataphracts and some other shock cavalry maybe.
Just what I remember having read here, have´t played RTR yet.

Roman calvary had saddles

**Husar** · 05-04-2005, 21:40

I don´t know about roman saddles, but I know that saddles of medieval knights were often very high to support their charge and prevent them from falling off the horse. So maybe they had saddles, but just the wrong ones for a good charge.