How to get a good charge
It's actually pretty easy to do once you know how and have had some practice with it. I'd also like to say this at the beginning, charging is very touchy if not buggy and still needs some hammering out by CA. Now I'll explain some game mechanics on how charging works (both with infantry and cavlery).
First off, practice! Set a lot of custom battles and just charge cavlery into infantry to start getting the feel on how to charge and when your units will charge.
There is a difference between single clicks and double clicks in M2:TW. A big one. In all other total war games (to my knowledge and experience), the difference between single and double click only differed with the units movement speed. Single click was a slow march, used to get into position with out tiring your troop. Double click was "Charge those infidels!" command telling your units to charge into combat.
In M2:TW this has changed a little. Single click is for "engage that enemy" and double click has become get "here" as fast as possible. In light of this, some of the way Calvary behaves is a little less buggy, a lot more realistic and a lot more user error (again, it's touchy at best and still needs some work by CA). I'll explain this a little more and talk of some of my battle experiences.
I'll talk about the realism side of how charging works. This is to give you some understanding of how to use this in campaign battles and not just canned custom battles. If you want to make a good battle simulation you have to bridge to gap between real people and the 3D models being hammered out by your video card. The most realistic way to do this is to factor in morale, fatigue, and an overall sense of self preservation at a troop level. This way the troops will act more like a real person and not some automaton that blindly throws himself at death just because he was ordered to do so.
Now imagine yourself at your local football field. At each end zone there is a 100 man formation of spear troops. At 100 meters apart they are well within missile range of each other and in most TW games you'd "double-click" at this point. But pretend you’re in one of the formations and are ordered to engage the other enemy. You could run 100 meters as fast as you can with 50+lbs of armor and weapons. When you got there though, your formation would be totally messed up and you would have no energy left for slamming into and then killing the spearmen that did nothing but brace for your charge. That’s a BAD tactic and unrealistic (unrealistic because doing this would cause a lot of casualties and you wouldn't do it based on self preservation), so how would you realistically charge? You would march, slowing and information until you were probably about 15-20 meters away, stop for a moment to close your formation and THEN charge. So how does this translate into game mechanics?
Well in M2:TW, Single-clicking tells your unit to "engage" another unit. That is, they will walk/trot in formation to a point 15-25 meters away, close ranks, rally and then charge.
Double-clicking tells your units to get "here" as fast as possible. Thus, your units don't "charge" because they are trying to get to that point/enemy as fast as possible and don't have the time to set up for a proper charge. This has become a command for flanking maneuvers only!
Case in point (try it in custom battle): JHI vs. DGK - if you double click on the knights, the JHI start to charge. Their halberds flailing wildly about and they slam into the infantry unit and begin fighting. But if you single click them they walk calmly and in formation to a moderate distance. They then stop, rally, and then LOWER their halberds to form a spear wall of sorts and then charge! So single clicking made them engage with and actual charge, using their halberds to lead the way instead of their bodies.
Another case in point: GK vs. Armored sergeants. Ok so now it's Calvary vs. spears. Double clicking makes the gothic knights charge the spearmen. Most of the time they take up their lances at the last minute and charge in with their swords. I believe that Calvary can still charge with the double click (as I've seen it happen) but only and if only they are still in tight formation, which is next to impossible if they have been double click moving for more then 10 meters. Now single click will again, make them trot to about 25 meters away, drop lances and charge! The results are truly amazing! Even against spearmen I've killed the whole unit in one charge in my tests! The only units that can take this charge are the unit's with long spears/pole arms that can specifically brace for the impact with the tips of their weapons.
So to get good with charging: practice with custom battles, and SINGLE-CLICK your unit if you want them to charge! Double-clicking should only be used for flanking maneuvers where the moral damage is more important then shear impact (i.e. your infantry is already engaged and you want your light Calvary to hit their flanks).
Tips and tricks: once you understand the mechanics, getting good charges isn't hard, they just take more time to setup then in other TW games.
Tip 1: Charge radius. Basically, every unit has a distance between it and the unit it's engaging before it will charge (longer for Calvary, shorter for infantry). Thus if you want to run (double-click) your unit to get them in place fast and still charge, double-click move them into just inside/outside their charge radius (this is where the practice comes in :D). Once just inside/outside that radius, single-click and your units will charge.
Tip 2: Using Calvary as an opening punch. I've read more then a few posts about not being able to get Calvary out after the charge. You have to time it well and as soon and the first part of the charge stops, double click on a point behind them and they should be more then able to get out clean, with little or no casualties. But you have to order the retreat almost as soon as the front line of the charge reaches its target, that way they will pull out immediately after their charge and not get hung up fighting.
Tip 3: how to get Calvary to charge again. Basically you have to retreat the Calvary as in #2 above and set them up facing the enemy again, and start the single-click process all over again. Sometime they don't even have to be facing the enemy unit, if you just withdraw them to the edge of the charge radius and single-click, they'll turn and you can get a good charge.
The reason your Calvary has to be well formed before it will charge has again to do with trying to be more realistic (on CA's part) in terms of self preservation. An ill-formed band of knights charging headlong into a mass of spearmen equals death for the knights. On the other hand, a tight group charging in unison equals death for the spearmen. I think a lot of the "buggy" AI comes from the fact that people are giving their troops orders that the AI feels is suicidal when it looks at the quality and facing of its formations. Try actually maneuvering them into formation before giving them orders to attack, the AI seems to agree with this a lot more.
In conclusion, I'm surprised you’re still readingHope this helps. I think the biggest problem with M2:TW is the fact that CA changed a lot on how battle mechanics and campaign map interactions work and they didn't bother to tell what or why. So were pretty much left to feel that what expect to be there that isn't is a bug. Without ever knowing what (if any) intelligent design was behind the change.
Beware of Were-Crocs!
Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars
Many thanks for clearing that up - it'll certainly come in very handy tonight when I kill some dirty Frenchies 
This was especially annoying yesterday when I had a sinlge unit of armoured sergeants to deal with (rebels) and I had 3 units of upgraded Spear Militia and my faction heir. Easy, you'd think. I set one unit of spears directly in front of the sergeants and the other two directly to the left and right, facing inwards (of course, I had plenty of time to do this thankis to the passive AI bug) and single-clicked the front unit to charge, which they did, and a second or two later, selected the flanking units together and single-clicked engage also. Each of the two flanking units charged about 8-10 men each into the side of the armoured sergeants and the other 100 or so men in each unit watched as their friends died a rather unheroic and piontless death. Had I not run my faction heir round the back and charged from the rear, I would have lost that battle, whereas if the game mechanics weren't so stupid, as many men as possible would have engaged; surrounding the AS and wiping them out.
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