Unit Combat and Charging; Intuition vs. Testing vs. Animation

[Ulstan]

Conceptually, I have no problem with the idea that knights who walk slowly at a unit of pikes in a wider formation and chip away slowly at the flanks and where opportunities present itself fare much better than a tight mass of knights who rush pell mell head into the waiting mass of spear tips.

Now, if you're not at risk of being impaled, (say, vs sword infantry or archers)the tight charging formation should do more damage than the loose 'walk slowly up to the enemy' formation.

[RomoR]

In my post in the battlemap sticky the horse charges where against spears and not pikes, pikes seem to have hidden bonuses that counter a charge with heavy damage, did you make the same tests with spears or any other melee unit, in any case my tests were more focused on the receiving bit of charges as the player with a melee unit but if I recall correctly I ran a series of 5 tests of mailed knights charging in a loose formation against spears and they did not do better than a tight charge.