Alernative Weapons.

[Kourutsu]

How do you switch Units to their alternative weapons. ANd I'm not just talking about skrimishers.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Hit alt and then click the target. For spear cavalry you must wait until after the charge, because for example the Cataphracts spear has a higher attack than its mace, but its mace is better at close quarters.

[pezhetairoi]

hold alt and right click. even though the weapon doesn't change you'll see they use different weapons. For phalanxes, just take them out of phalanx mode.

[Kourutsu]

The Unit master says that most alternative weapons are weaker then the original. Why is the sword better in close corners?

[pezhetairoi]

...because logic says so. It's kinda hard to poke that oar you call a spear in close quarters. And besides, t'hell with the unit master. Some of the things he says make realistic military sense but no sense whatsoever in RTW. Yes, alternative weapons are weaker than the original, but that's not entirely true.

e.g. Cataphracts-armour piercing mace has lower attack (9) than spear (12), but has the advantage of armour piercing which will in reality give it an advantage over armoured foes but disadvantage against unarmoured ones.

e.g. Royal Pikemen-their spear attack in phalanx is 10 but sword attack is 12, as befitting their historical role as flexible flank guards.

e.g. Spartan Hoplitai-spear 16, sword also 16. Really uber.

Yeah. But otherwise most alternative weapons are weaker, especially for normal phalanxes since their primary function is to fight in phalanx. Most others don't have secondary weapons, unless you count the Roman gladius standard attack as a secondary weapon, considering they fire their armour-piercing pila first. Alternative weapons are what they are--'alternative'. I.e. not to be the main or most important weapon. So what Marcus says is true, but not always.

[Slug For A Butt]

Because some units, like lance armed cavalry or phalanxes, are better in close combat without their primary means of attack. Lances and spears aren't much use once you have closed with the enemy and your formation is broken.

[Slug For A Butt]

**Grrr... no edit button

Beaten to it by someone who expains it much better than me, and with better examples as well.

[Kourutsu]

lol, it happens all the time. And thanks pezhetairoi. THANKS.

[pezhetairoi]

A pleasure :) Slug, don't worry, as your typing speed increases you'll catch up :)

[Ciaran]

Hit alt and then click the target. For spear cavalry you must wait until after the charge, because for example the Cataphracts spear has a higher attack than its mace, but its mace is better at close quarters.

No, you need not, at least not with the Roman heavy cavalry. They´ll use their spears/lances in the charge and switch to swords once the melee is on the way. So, with cavalry that has a secondary weapon ALT-click is always the way to go, unless you want to withdraw immediately after the charge. As far as I know, the ingame stat sheet doesn´t tell which unit has a secondary weapon, at least not in the stat part, it´s only mentioned in the unit description text. I´m not sure which file contains the unit stats, but it takes a bit of searching to find out which units have secondary weapons and what those are.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Ciaran are you using a mod? I have never seen Roman Heavy Cavalry. Do you mean Praetorians?

In vanilla RTW and in RTR 5.4.1 you have to wait until after the charge when the unit is fully engaged in combat, otherwise cavalry will not switch weapons. For example Cataphracts will not switch to maces until after they charge, or when they are already fully engaged.