How to get a good Charge, V2.0.

[Beefeater]

This is an excellent post, and much deserving of a sticky.

That said, there are still three problems to which we as a community have not yet come up with a solution:

1. Cavalry, when charging, dropping lances in favour of swords for no obvious reason. I see this most often when the cavalry are charging a moving target such as skirmishing archers or crossbowmen, but it also occurs sometimes when they are charging a unit engaged in combat.

2. Lances not renewing after an attempted charge - some or all of one's cavalry just sit there with their swords. Have they broken their lances? If so this should be made explicit. Uncertainty does no-one any good.

3. Charges are supposed to put on speed at a certain point. This does not always happen, with the result that cavalry simply walk into a fight. I see this happen most frequently in cities but, on occasion, also see this behaviour in the open.

We need more transparency about charge mechanics, or at least some kind of official word on what is bugged, what is working as planned, and what steps we can take to get a coconut every time with our charges.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

Charges are just plain broken/badly bugged, sorry but that *is* the bottom line.

Yes, I know, there is merit in "how they probably should work" but the bottom line is that the mechanics is far too imperfect for it to realistically be WAD; and that even when following the "perfect methodology" units still, mysteriously, either stroll into combat, drop lances or send in 2 guys whilst the rest have a brew-up and some crumpets behind the lines.

It's a very useful post, but charging is still badly broken in the terms as out laid above.

i've lined up a full unit of feudal knights 100yards behind the back of a spearmen unit, let them fidget into perfect formation (for half a day) and then single-clicked: do they charge? Pfft , do they balll-cocks: 3 of them walk forward and the rest just stand there, then, after the first three are cut down by the (totally outflanked and already engaged-in-battle spearmen), the rest decide to get involved and promptly get hacked to pieces.

Meanwhile my hastily assembled half-depleted entirely out-of-formation hobilars, hastily rushed around the side to help out, do a perfect charge from 10 yards.

[Jagger]

Charges are just plain broken/badly bugged, sorry but that *is* the bottom line.

Yes, I know, there is merit in "how they probably should work" but the bottom line is that the mechanics is far too imperfect for it to realistically be WAD; and that even when following the "perfect methodology" units still, mysteriously, either stroll into combat, drop lances or send in 2 guys whilst the rest have a brew-up and some crumpets behind the lines.

It's a very useful post, but charging is still badly broken in the terms as out laid above.

i've lined up a full unit of feudal knights 100yards behind the back of a spearmen unit, let them fidget into perfect formation (for half a day) and then single-clicked: do they charge? Pfft , do they balll-cocks: 3 of them walk forward and the rest just stand there, then, after the first three are cut down by the (totally outflanked and already engaged-in-battle spearmen), the rest decide to get involved and promptly get hacked to pieces.

Meanwhile my hastily assembled half-depleted entirely out-of-formation hobilars, hastily rushed around the side to help out, do a perfect charge from 10 yards.

Watch the terrain very closely. I strongly suspect terrain is playing more of a role in successful charges then we know. There is actually very little terrain that is the flat open ground that is ideal for a cavalry charges.

[Censor]

Charges are just plain broken/badly bugged, sorry but that *is* the bottom line.

Yes, I know, there is merit in "how they probably should work" but the bottom line is that the mechanics is far too imperfect for it to realistically be WAD; and that even when following the "perfect methodology" units still, mysteriously, either stroll into combat, drop lances or send in 2 guys whilst the rest have a brew-up and some crumpets behind the lines.

It's a very useful post, but charging is still badly broken in the terms as out laid above.

i've lined up a full unit of feudal knights 100yards behind the back of a spearmen unit, let them fidget into perfect formation (for half a day) and then single-clicked: do they charge? Pfft , do they balll-cocks: 3 of them walk forward and the rest just stand there, then, after the first three are cut down by the (totally outflanked and already engaged-in-battle spearmen), the rest decide to get involved and promptly get hacked to pieces.

Meanwhile my hastily assembled half-depleted entirely out-of-formation hobilars, hastily rushed around the side to help out, do a perfect charge from 10 yards.

I agree wholeheartedly. Unit cohesion is the matter here, not "realism". The best method so far is "resetting" the formation by clicking the tight/loose formation button a few times.

[Nakraal]

Lances will go down if the knights walk/run against the enemy without changing direction at any point of their movement. No one-click or double click rule...BUT

1. When they are alredy in movement and the player click the to attack a new enemy they are bound to strafe because the possibilities of the new enemy to be exactly in front of them is small.

2. Knights will use lances even if they reach their enemy walking as long as they did so in straigt line. Of cource the damage will be almost nothing.

3. Knights can charge the whoe battlefioeld with lances if they don't alter direction in the meantime. Again damage will not be as big as it would be if they accelarated about 30-50 meters before the target.

4. Trees or even big bushes intervening in their movement can cause the unit to drag swords.

5. The easiest target for charge is either a stationary unit or one which attacks against the knights.

[Von Nanega]

Probably just a bit of tweaking is required. I find that my charges work fine if single click is used. The real thought is to remember to disengage and charge again. As was noted early in this thread, one cant just charge once, like in RTW. But I think a patch can fix it.