Charge through = better melees?

[Agent Smith]

I'm not sure if others have tried this, but it is a technique I remember from RTW.

I noticed, especially in city streets, that in melees very few units in the front actually engage while the others wait. If there are multiple units, the ones in the back rarely do anything. However, I tried a charge through after the melee was engaged and it seemed to work pretty well.

Basically, after the initial charge and when a melee is in full swing, select all of the combat units that are attacking and double click on a spot behind the enemy. The huge mass of troops will actually push through, attacking every now and then when they make contact, and it gets quite a nice push back effect.

Once there is a sufficient mixing in the middle, potentially with some soldeirs that have made it through to the other side, double click the enemy unit again. At this point, you will have a ton of troops within the enemy formation and get a good mixed melee from front to back that includes multiple units.

Has anyone else tried this tactic before with any great success?

[FactionHeir]

Yup, doing it all the time. Quite useful actually although you will lose quite a few units trying to push through and your units have slightly lower morale while doing so.
AI does it mainly with cavalry.

[phunkbot]

yeah i do that myself a lot as well, especially in city combat

[HoreTore]

Did it minutes ago, and lost a full unit of Granadine Jinetes because of it... Against a unit of town milita....

Actually, it wasn't to get the effect you described, it was so I could charge them from the back to make them rout. The method I usually use in sieges, is to select each unit individually, and attack individually. When you attack with several units selected, they seem to operate in a group of some sort, but you attack with each one, they tend to push more, and get more people in the fight instead of having 3 men in, and the rest of the unit standing about to take the place of the fallen.

[FactionHeir]

The pushing through really is only most effective in a siege environment, not so much in open field battles, and usually only for infantry.
If you want to use cav to push through, be prepared to lose almost the entire unit unless its very heavy cavalry. Cav is best pulled out and moved around the back in the field. In siege, you could push them through relatively easily though

[Doug-Thompson]

This tactic needs a unit with a good defense value — survivability, in other words — to work, preferably armor so the defense is all-round. Protection doesn't have to be extremely high. It's relative. It has to be high relative to the enemy unit's attack.

I prefer to drown the other guys with missiles, which is pretty much my standard answer to anything.