How to switch to secondary weapons?

[Whacker]

Anyone have any ideas? Maybe something I can mod to make it work properly?

What the heck are you doing charging archers headlong into knights anyway??

I'd suggest waiting for the patch and seeing if this type of behavior you noticed changes for you. In the mean time keep trying different tactics in custom battles and see if you can't get the hang of it. There were some... er... "changes" to the tactical battle controls in M2TW that it took me awhile to get used to as well. Good luck!

[Foz]

Have you tried alt-double-clicking? I've noticed that a great many units will typically halt to gather themselves up for the charge when you issue a single-click attack command. When you issue a double-click attack command, though, they simply continue running and move weapons to charge position, without the long stop in the middle to regroup. The AI even seems to issue explicit run commands to troops at some distance farther away than charge distance, seemingly to avoid this exact thing. I would speculate, then, that if you alt-double-click with your archers (or start them running when they get somewhat close), they will switch weapons while running and not incur the long pause to switch weapons that you have described. More than likely they'll just draw secondary weapon and immediately brandish it for the charge when at the correct distance, continuing to run the whole time.

So while this method applies generally to melee foot troops, I suspect it will also include archers sent into melee combat.

[Whacker]

suggestion

Don't forget the loss of some of the charge bonus when you do this. I don't remember the values but CA posted something on their blog to this effect some time ago, double-click running all the way to the target and charging while running doesn't get nearly as much bonus as single click attacking, where the units will "auto-charge" when they are close enough. Whatever the case may be, I still think this is an area that CA should improve upon in the upcoming or future patches.

[Foz]

Don't forget the loss of some of the charge bonus when you do this. I don't remember the values but CA posted something on their blog to this effect some time ago, double-click running all the way to the target and charging while running doesn't get nearly as much bonus as single click attacking, where the units will "auto-charge" when they are close enough. Whatever the case may be, I still think this is an area that CA should improve upon in the upcoming or future patches.

Really? Did not know that. If it's not too difficult, could you quote exactly what they said?

I agree it's definitely something that could use looking at for future patches, in any case. For the moment though, provided it works like I expect (can't test ATM), then it's probably better to have secondary-weapon-wielding archers with nerfed charge bonuses running at the enemy, than it is to have desperately-trying-to-draw-secondary-weapon archers standing still when the enemy smashes into them...

[Whacker]

I can't directly link to the article, but it's at http://www.totalwarblog.com/

Click the December 2006 archive, and scroll way down towards the bottom. Search for the text "Regarding the new charge mechanic, there are two charges available to a cavalry unit". That should take you directly to the start of that section. The gist of it is, double-click charging will stop after 10% impact. Single-click charging (formed charge, they call it), will keep it's momentum much longer.

Personally, I absolutely hate this mechanic, I thought the RTW method was great, single or double click and you're good to go. I guess there were enough people complaining about how "overpowered" cav were in the game so they got nerfed. I guess I can understand that, but heavy cav charges really were utterly devastating against all but braced heavy spears/pikes, and as such they should kill as many on impact. This isn't even going into the unit cohesion problem the game still has, albiet fixed somewhat in the 1.1 patch, somewhat being the key word. /shrug My $0.02.

[Foz]

Oh okay, you meant the cavalry charge mechanics. Yeah that I had heard about. While the cavalry seem to stop a little bit when you single-click charge them at something, they seem to do so for less time, and have a greater charge distance too, which more or less means the pause doesn't matter. I was primarily suggesting a double-click charge for foot troops, where the charge distance is considerably shorter and the pause often longer too, making it a frequent problem - I've experienced my troops being hit before they begin to run with many kinds of troops, not just the archers mentioned here by the OP. Especially problematic against enemy cavalry. Considering that the article only applies the dual charge mechanic notion to cavalry, and that there'd be no reason for them to have used it on regular infantry (they don't trample each other like cav do when charging), it seems rather unlikely that the foot soldiers (melee or archer) I intended the strategy to apply to will be adversely affected by alt-double-click charging.

[Whacker]

Damn, you made me go back and re-read when I was all sure of what was in that article. I could have sworn that this charge mechanic applies to all units, not just cavalry, but obviously cav was the main focus back when the game was out. I certainly can't prove this, it's just what I recall.

You're right on though with the foot troops. It almost seems to me to be a rock-paper-scissors game. If you single click charge with foot units, you'll get that delay, and if the opposing unit double-click charges they'll just keep plowing on and you'll lose all momentum and get hammered. If you double click then you'll (theoretically I guess, I'm still assuming the same mechanic applies) get the full charge bonus. Wonder if anyone else can jump in with the official word, now that Foz mentioned it I'd really like to know if that's the case or not.