Can you explain - Pushback better than melee

[past caring]

I noticed fairly early on the problem of only a few of the front rank of a unit engaging and did the old "click behind" thing to bring more of a unit into combat - seems like a fair few of us have come up with this independently (or remembered it from cavalry charges in Shogun or was is MTW?).

Anyway, it's now my standard tactic if on the attack. Form spear units into a line, group them, hold the alt button to keep formation and then click behind the enemy formation. I then just let them get on with it and can concentrate on managing my archers, cavalry and other flanking units. Works a treat.

[Quillan]

I do it regularly when I'm facing a unit with the "very long spears" tag. If I don't, they tend to kill off all my men who can reach them, and from that point they don't take any casualties. Forcing them to close and then reengaging puts another batch of troops in close combat with the halberdiers (the usual unit I have to use this trick against).

[Whacker]

My findings and experience are exactly in-line with Mr. TinCow's descriptions, and when to use/when not to use.

I will add this bit out of my own experience. It usually pays off much better to do this when you have a superior unit. It doesn't necessarily seem to break morale directly, that happens normally through attrition. The best point of this is to, as others have stated, create a much bigger zone of engagement and more men fighting. The fact that two lines just draw up on your average meeting engagement, with little to no intermingling, seems... I dunno, kinda boring to me, and also doesn't feel that accurate, though I have no support for that last statement. As such, I'll usually use this tactic to create a larger area of engagement, usually when I have superior units, that will hopefully result in faster casualties, and as a consequence quicker morale drop and faster routes.

Cheers!

[rios]

In the older totalwar games pushback usually (if not only) happened on charges. It forces the defending unit to move back, which gives them a combat penalty. IIRC the deeper the charging units are, better the chance for a pushback.

What this post described sounded more like a swipe...

[CBR]

Same "tactic" worked fine against pikes in RTW.


CBR

[afrit]

Thanks for the tip. The only situation I was using this is in was double clicking beyond routers to collect prisoners (old trick from MTW1)

Now I'll use more often in city battles